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
As far as hosting goes, I’ve had 14 guest posts on my site so far this year with a couple more in the works. It does provide a welcome respite from churning out three posts a week. I only accept from bloggers/commenters I know or those who run a blog and can show me they already know how to write. But I probably get 1-2 requests a week from people who can’t type a coherent email. Annoying!
As far as writing for others, I really enjoy it…oddly enough, slightly more than I enjoy writing for myself. Perhaps that is because of a desire to see others approve of my work. So I work extra hard on my guest posts. I read/heard somewhere (I think from Michael Hyatt) that you should always save your best work for others. That seems counter-intuitive…wouldn’t I want my best stuff on my site? Maybe. But what good is your best work on your site if no one is coming to read it? There is a much bigger universe of readers out there to impress at much larger sites than my own.
Preventing burnout is really a great benefit.
I heard about the best stuff on other sites as well. I guess it depends on how big and awesome the other site is. I always to try to write my best, but I find that I’ve generally always written the best stuff on FS.
You’re welcome to share your best stuff on FS one day!
As usual people take what Matt Cutts says WAY too far. There is nothing wrong with guest posting and it is still a perfectly normal, healthy way to not just interact with other people but also promote yourself in the process. I’ve both guest posted and allowed more guest posts on blog this year probably more than ever before with no regrets.
I do find it quite amusing how Matt is considered God to SEOs, and how they scurry like crazy with every announcement he or John Muller makes. Sitting in SF, it is kinda hilarious as Googlers are everywhere here.
Eek! I’m a genuine blogger and if I were to ask to guest post somewhere, I’d really mean it (and thanks to Debt Debs for nudging me out in the open last week). But I gotta say, now I’m really freaked out about asking to guest post. I’d hate to have an experienced blogger think I was spamming them! My greatest fear in blog networking is having the experienced folks think I’m some bratty new kid!
That said, I’ve recently had a few requests from folks who don’t read my site offering me “content”. What is up with that? I agreed to run one piece and now I wish I hadn’t – it’s completely against the relevant themes of my site.
That is called advertising low quality stuff on your site.
If you comment and build a relationship with a more experienced blogger over 6 months, you will have NO PROBLEM ever getting your GP accepted.
You’ve had some great guest posts Sam. I haven’t been publishing guest posts that much since the vast majority of what comes in on its own is total junk. It’s true though that guest posts are a good way to mix things up and share different perspectives. I get tired of my own voice too and know what it’s like to suffer from burn out. I haven’t really done much at all for writing on other blogs. I think it’s mostly because I am not proactive about it and I’m not a fast writer so I take all the free time I can get to focus on publishing for my own site. I look forward to the day I can leave my day job and have more time to write! :)
Perhaps that time is sooner than you think! :)
I’ve only ever gotten pesty SEO type requests to guest post and didn’t pay much attention. I’ll keep these guidelines in mind when and if quality guest post requests come through. Thanks for the resource!
I had just started, don’t know where I am going but I got my spam post. I hope to someday be a guest on someone’s site and host some on my own. Someday. Till then thansk for this great site and the awesome tips!
Good, thought-provoking article. I admit, I’ve been close-minded about guest posts lately because I get a zillion spammy requests every week to run linked, poorly-written articles. (Just today, one of these spammers wrote “I won’t even ask you for payment” to run his crappy article! Wow, really?!) But you’ve made me realize that I need to be open to quality guest posts and partnerships that are a good fit. Thanks for this.
I love guest posts: I love writing them and I love accepting them on The Money Principle. What I don’t like is aggressive people offering weak posts and pestering for links to commercial websites (in exchange for the very entertaining post, you understand). What entertains me most is when, after I’ve explained that I’m not interested because the article contains links to commercial cites, they say ‘how about I move it to the bio line’. I have a very special reply for that :).
If any of the Yakezie folk would like to guest on The Money Principle don’t haitate to send me an articles and I’d review it.
I had very few guest posters on my blog, just because, as you mentioned, most are spam posts. I mean, if you want to be published, do a better job than I do, don’t just propose some crap that would promote your website. I haven’t done guest posting myself, since I just don’t find the time. I do plan on getting few blogs on my list and prepare something really great for each of them. Just as I don’t like crap posts on my blog, I wouldn’t provide such things to my potential publishers.