I know many are doing guest posting these days. Guest posting has become one of the most welcomed methods to generate backlinks, traffic, making new friends, branding blogs and so on. There are many cool benefits of guest posting. It is very good for every blogger when he/she chooses to guest post; it also makes you a better writer.
But it is equally alarming that these days many bloggers make up wrong notions about guest posting. I have encountered many fellow bloggers who choose to guest blog with a wrong notion and ultimately stop guest posting.
So I wanted to bring up this issue for all those who are guest blogging out there. Here are some of the major wrong expectations of guest bloggers.
Set Up and Forget
No it never works that way. Guest posting is not a scheme or a strategy which you set up first so that you can stay in peace without doing anything for the rest of your life. I say this because many people think that after getting one post published in a A-Lister blog, they are set for life and expect constant gush of traffic to flow to their site for the rest of their life time.
I tell you from my personal experience. You will indeed get a sure spike immediately after your post goes live on a popular blog. You may even get a very good number of visitors and subscribers (far more than you would normally get) for the next couple of days.
And then? The trend comes back to normal. You would only get your regular visitors with a possible slight increase in the number of visitors and subscribers. There comes a plateau.
Never expect the spike to stay forever. Although I can assure you that the more guest posts you write the more number of visitors you will get. But you have to accept the fact that one guest post will give a spike immediately after getting published and then the number will decay (usually dramatically) as time goes on.
Once Established, You can post Crap
No. You can’t. This attitude comes because of two reasons:
(i) When your post gets published in A-List blogs you come to a mindset that you have established a voice or authority and hence you can write lower quality posts and people will still read them (or)
(ii) You will tend to write high quality posts only for blogs having greater than 6 and you think that you can write low quality posts for other blogs.
I can tell you that this attitude will get you nowhere. Even if you have 10 guest posts each published on Mashable and Problogger, you still have to deliver quality on your next blog post or it won’t work.
People will not read your crap just because you once wrote an excellent post on a A-Lister blog. And, the blog owners will also won’t be ready to compromise on quality just because you are a guest posting super star.
In any case, quality comes first.
High PR = More Traffic
No! That is totally wrong. A blog with high PR necessarily means that the blog is authoritative.
Something off topic – However, recently the Mozrank seems to do well and give very good stats about blogs. So I’d suggest looking at the blog’s Mozrank instead of pagerank (but if the blog is already having a good PR that should be fine). Well I went a little bit off topic but wanted to mention this.
Now back to what we were talking-
The sad fact is that many bloggers still think that a blog with high PR will have more traffic. That can be true but that need not be true. And, even if the host blog has tremendous amount of traffic, that doesn’t mean that all of those readers will click through your blog to check it out. In my opinion only very less than 10% of the people ever want to find out who you are.
Guest Posting Means High Quality Backlinks
That is both true and false. It depends on the blog you are posting at. Guest posting surely means backlinks, but the quality of the backlinks rely mainly on both the quality of the host blog and the quality of your post. So don’t be fooled by this myth and start guest posting on every blog you stumble upon.
That is a waste of your time and writing energy. Pick out top quality blogs and write guest posts only for them.
Takeaway
Hope that I have at least given a tint of the wrong beliefs and myths about guest posting. Guest posting is a cool thing. Just don’t have wrong notions and expectations. Such expectations will never be satisfied (since they are not going to work anyway); you will be easily disappointed and demotivated. Avoid these fake expectations and enjoy the true benefits of guest posting.
This article is written by Jane Sheeba. She is the one behind Find All Answers. If you wanna get help on self-improvement, relationships and blogging tips, you can visit her blog. She also has a free ebook for you to grab. If you wish to write for HBB, kindly check this.
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Hi Jane,
It is actually a great and useful piece of info. I am satisfied that you simply shared this with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.
Lucy
I’ve had a couple guest posts on one of my blogs but I’ve never considered doing one. This article has given me something to think about.
really great post…..
What a post !!
I missed it, Informative
Hello Jane, its one of the informative post about guest posting. And, guest posting is one of the great direction to get high quality back links with the great support. Its really great work.
amazin post, I love the 1st point u sadi that 1ce in u can post crap and 1ce established a s a good author u do anythin….really a big mistake I believe a lot of people do!!
Today, internet is the ruler. It’s a great platform that lets people express their views in the form of write-ups.
You’re right, it takes time and focus to be considered authority in your domain, well said.
Interesting post.. You will sure clear the doubts that people have about guest blogging. Most people do guest blogging to earn fame and name. Well I believe blogging should rather be an Passion
Nice Work 🙂
I have written an article which was posted as a guest post on a blog. Another blog owner is interested in putting that article on his blog. Would that be a good idea? I would appreciate some other thoughts on this?
Guest posting is just a common word among bloggers and so are the misconceptions about it. You have tried to clear it in a brilliant way. Keep it up
Well a blogger should smartly choose posts for Guest Posting. It should not happen that he produces the best post (he could produce) while guest posting and he blogs something average on his own blog.
Cool 🙂
This point should be added to the above list 😉
all about guest blogging ,great share dude
Interesting Write-Up Jane.. quite points got cleared to me about Guest Blogging.. I also was among who had some misunderstanding of Guest blogging..but now its resolved..
Thanks Jane, guest posting is definitely a great way to start exposing yourself to a big audience. You need exposure when you first start blogging and guest posting is the solution.
Nicely explained all things about Guest posting….even previously i use to thought that high page rank means high traffic…but lately it got broke….love the way write..
Thats right, it does not means that once you wrote a perfect guest post and people liked it, it does not means that you start writing a crap now.
You must have a quality content only then you can attract traffic, here I want to add one more thing if you don’t have quality content then no blgger will post your article.
Hi Jane,
I must appreciate you as you have certainly clear some false thinking about guest posing on the blog.
I wrote only 3 guest post as of now. But what I know is a guest blogging should never be ONLY FOR BACK-LINK. If you are a good writer no matter where you write you will get appreciations. (As like this post).
Yeah Some people do guest post only for Backlinks.. Bloggers Should reject such kind of post 🙂
Apart from the targeted traffic one gets from guest blogging, you can also establish yourself as an authority in your field by publishing your posts on authority blogs as guest blogger over time. It may take more than a couple of posts, but you’ll surely get your name out there.
Hi,
I can second that “you can also establish yourself as an authority”, it is very important as you can basically hijack the visitors to your website. As and example, take a closer look at the Yahoo answers. There are no follow links but it does not matter as long as you get cool traffic source.
Regards. Tessa