Guest Posting Is A Good Idea

In early 2014, there was a lot of buzz that Guest Posting was dead thanks to Matt Cutts from Google saying that a lot of guest posting is just spam.

I seldom host guest posts on FS because most of the inquiries are thinly veiled advertorials or indeed spam. My average guest post hosting frequency is probably one every 1.5 months over the past five years. But for the SEO industry to go in a tizzy and say that guest posting is detrimental to your site is just ludicrous. I swear to goodness, if I wasn’t a blogger, I’d be an “SEO expert” because they have successfully been able to make a ton by making clients do things, and then undo things, and then do new things, and then undo the new things!

Remember, if an SEO is such an expert, why doesn’t s/he have her/his own site to make tons of passive income? Passive income is clearly superior than active income. I play poker with a couple Google middle managers in the search department and they consistently tell me about crazy stories some webmasters do online to try and game the system. Beyond basic SEO, there’s nothing much more you need to do!

WHY YOU SHOULD ALLOW GUEST POSTS ON YOUR SITE

1) Different perspectives. After a while, you start to get bored about listening to yourself speak. I know I get sick of my own voice. As a solution, I’ve started to practice the art of publishing Comment Commentary posts like, Stock Options Are For Suckers Who Accept Below Market Pay, and Tenacity And Faith – Do You Have It? These posts have proceeded to engender a lot of discussion given the DNA of the posts are centered around a discussion and debate.

Beyond Comment Commentary posts, even better is allowing your readership to highlight their own personal stories based on a reaction they had with one of your posts, or to present them the creative outlet to crowd source ideas through your platform. Every time someone writes an insightful comment or e-mail, I e-mail them back asking if they’d like to share a story. 35% of the time it works.

2) Attract a new audience. One of the most popular recent posts on FS is one by Samurai Marco entitled, Confessions Of A Spoiled Rich Kid. Marco’s father sold several companies for mega-millions and shared with us what his life was like growing up hanging out with very rich children. The conclusion of the post is very helpful and insightful. Given Marco is in Canada at the moment, The Globe and Mail picked up the article and published it on their recommended readings page. As a result, FS received tens of thousands of new visitors from G&M in a day and a half.

3) Keep things entertaining. Burnout is very real for bloggers. By allowing others to guest post, you get to recharge your batteries for at least a day or two. It’s fun to let authors run with the post, respond to comments, and share the post with their friends. In return, authors will receive traffic from your site, or a lot of help from your community if they have a problem. Furthermore, you allow the author to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. We all know the gratifying feeling of writing a post we’re proud of and releasing it the world. Perhaps gratification is the reason why so many of us continue to write!

4) To be someone you are not. It’s good to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. The more different from you the better. I like looking for guest posts from women who might be much older, much younger, and in a much different financial situation. I found one in Steps To Get Out Of MegaDebt, recently. This post allowed me to be more empathetic to folks in deep credit card debt, and also understand how one gets in and out of debt.

DON’T ACCEPT ANY OLD GUEST POST

I deny 95% of guest post requests because they are mostly from SEO folks. I accept 95%+ of guest post requests from readers who’ve been reading and commenting for at least six months and who’ve put together a unique proposal. If you’re looking to guest post on other sights, please create a personal email by addressing the blogger by name, highlighting at least one of your favorite posts of his or hers to show you understand the site, and suggest some post ideas.

Look for sites that actually don’t publish every day, or multiple times a day because you’ll get more prime airtime. Definitely try and post on sites with larger and different audiences than yours. Finally, look for sites which have an interactive community.

As a host, definitely work with the guest post writer on ways to make the post better. They’re putting a lot of work into their post, and they probably don’t write as often as you. As the managing editor of a startup blog, I understand that a helpful editor means a lot. In terms of guest post frequency, I’d limit them to no more than once a week.

Publishing interesting guest posts is an awesome way to build traffic and community. The reason why Matt Cutts and the SEO industry warns about guest posting is because there is this nefarious other online world out there that is full of spam. None of us come anywhere near the shady activity that happens in that online world. And I’m certain we never will.

STARTING A MONEY MAKING BLOG

It’s been over six years since I started Financial Samurai and I’m actually earning a good passive and active income stream online now. My online presence has allowed me to pursue other things, such as consulting for various financial tech startups as well.

I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, learn how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes like this one. 

Leverage the 3+ billion internet users and build your brand online. You never know where the journey will take you! This post has been updated for 2017 and beyond.

Regards,

Sam