A note to potential guest bloggers

If you’ve been perusing this site for a while, you’ll have noticed the increased presence of guest bloggers (12 at last count, the first by Colin Latchem). I’ve been happy to accept offers of contributions (words, not money!), though I have applied a personal preference of having no more than one in three posts from a guest.

That being said, I thought I’d better spell out my position in a little more detail.

Though feeling a little wary early on, I decided to allow guest bloggers because:

  • it adds variety to the site;
  • may help attract more readers;
  • should save me work (actually, it worked out the opposite – at one stage they were coming in so fast I had to churn out more of my own to keep to my one in three policy!); and
  • gives aspiring bloggers an opportunity to publish.

But of course there are negatives associated with it, including ‘loss of voice’, potential creeping commercialism and so on. The motivation of the guest is also a concern: is the guest keen to get across a message in which they firmly believe, or do they just want to get themselves (or their company) free publicity?

It also occurred to me that the ‘rush’ on requests that started last year may be the result of people earning their living by guest blogging (payment being dependent on having a link to the paying company in the article). Incidentally, if you want to be a guest and desire to reach large numbers of readers, this is not the blog site for you!

So if you’d like to be a guest on this site, you should:

  • make sure that you really have something to say;
  • check that I (or another guest) haven’t already posted on your topic;
  • treat your readers intelligently;
  • make links between ideas/information that others may not have thought of;
  • include relevant pics – saves me time looking for something on photopin;
  • include a pic of yourself – not enough guests do this (Tess Pajaron did!); and
  • be patient – lately there’s been a backlog so it can take many weeks to get published.

I got this far and belatedly realised that there must already be advice for guest bloggers out there, so took a look. You might get something from ‘Top 10 Tips for Guest Bloggers‘ or ‘The Essentials of Guest-Blogging Strategy for SEO, Traffic, and Audience-Building‘. Oh dear, I didn’t know what SEO is either – it’s ‘search engine optimization’. And that’s certainly what they’re all about in the article ‘How to Build and Maintain Relationships with Bloggers‘. I suppose we need to know this stuff, but it’s a bit tiresome.

I mustn’t grumble. I suspect/believe that most of my guests are genuinely interested in open and online learning, so will continue to accept guest posts unless something happens to change my mind.

So it should not surprise you that the next post I’ll be uploading is from a guest, Ken Myers. It’s a nice piece, a timely reminder to be vigilant (about what – wait and read, you’ll find out).

photo credit: Rooster306 via photopin cc
photo credit: Sales Tip A Day via photopin cc

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