Can You Still Call Yourself the Owner of Your Blog?
Categories: Blogging
Written By: 
Kevin
Recently (and ever since paid or otherwise guest posting began, I have seen an increase in the number of bloggers that rely on guest posters or paid posters to fulfill their monthly posting/revenue requirements.
My personal stance on paid and guest posting is that these posts, whether or not you disclose whether they are not your own thoughts or you are getting paid from, should complement your regular posting, and not outweigh your own posts. After all, if you associate your name with your blog, it is your own blog and no one else’s.
Instead of focusing on recruiting and reviewing other guest posters to perform your daily task of providing quality content, question whether you should put more time into writing posts that are informative, innovating, and inspiring for readers. These three concepts distinguish a great blog form a “so-so” blog.
The problem is more rampant among “A-Lister” bloggers who utilize guest posters to a greater extent. When their main purpose (despite other hidden, somewhat obvious schemes) was to inform readers about a particular subject, inviting guest posters distract and hinder their ability to outperform them. Posts by guest posters then receive more comments, and the original blog owners’ posts become somewhat less frequent and shorter.
Combat this Problem
Possibly the best way to provide higher quality content than your guest posters (often part of your competition) is to generate higher quality copy or services than them. There’s nothing wrong with inviting guest posting, it helps you have new content on a daily basis when you are facing writers’ block, but the guest posters shouldn’t outweigh your posts.
Secondly, create longer, more series-like posts, which will greatly affect the visitors’ comment rates. Write your posts ahead of time, whether your blog software/system allows this, or use the traditional method of writing them in a text document.
Finally, you can perform a blog overhaul and set up a multi-author blog, which will allow all your posters (and yourself) an equal say.
Conclusion
So, what are your thoughts on guest posters’ content counterpoising the quality/ideas that you have to present?
| 2.5 |
May 13th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I agree with you - I’ve seen several sites where the guest posts are far too frequent.
So far, I’ve only had two guest posts on my site, and I have another one coming up soon - but they are the exception rather than the rule. This means that virtually all of my site content comes from me.
I think you can get away with publishing excellent guest posts - either on a par with your own posts, maybe even slightly better. I see your point about not putting other people’s posts on your site if they are better than your own, but on the other hand, I’d like the guest posts to be great, too. With this in mind I made sure that the guest writers for my site would be writing about things where they knew more than I did on those topics. I think it’s better to do that than publish a bad post because you don’t know the topic.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Ben - I have absolutely no problem with guest posting, as in your case. It’s when bloggers’ blogs, who credit themselves with being the authority in their niche don’t supplement guest posts with quality content from themselves.
On particular blogs, I found the guest posts more enjoyable to read and helpful, even if they weren’t tailored to the blog - experiences blogging, in-depth reviews/tutorials of services, and the like - in some cases, with more experience than the blog owner.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Specially blogspot blogs> My owner lives in India, somewhere: as is shown by alexa.