Guest blogging, as a link-building, a content marketing and an outreach tool has undergone a rapid shift ever since Matt Cutts announced that Google has taken note and will soon start penalizing spammy tactics. And since that announcement, everyone related to the internet industry is having second- thoughts about accepting and contributing guest posts, and there’s a good reason behind it – posts that feature mediocre content and have been written just for the sake of getting a link back are no longer going to work. However, these developments don’t mean that you should neglect every guest blogger and completely close doors to contributions. Guest contributions still hold value; you however need to follow certain pointers while accepting guest posts, some of which include:
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The author’s social media following
If you’ve been accepting posts from ghost authors in recent times, it’s time to stop… This is because search engines are now placing greater emphasis on established authors, with active social media profiles, so your blog as well as the readers are likely to reap more benefits from contributors well-established on social networks. Also, make it a condition that you’re only going to publish contributions from authors who decide to share the blog post on their social profiles. Doing this will not only help you attract more page views in the form of social followers of the author, but will also point social signals to your site, which make up one of the important factors of modern search engine optimization.
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Previous contributions
While you may receive some credible pitches from guest bloggers, it is important to review their history of contributions to make sure they’re going to contribute something worthy. This will save you a lot of time and help in filtering out the pitches and authors. To view the past history, you can straight away ask the author to show their previous contributions in the form of published links. However, avoid accepting samples as a sign of their writing history: online links work best and show that the author has experience in blog contribution.
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Relevancy
Relevancy is now more important than ever, so be careful when reading pitches and straight away reject blog posting inquiries that are not relevant to your blog. For example, it would be a bad idea to talk about the loans and parenting if your site carters to the tech community. Good examples of relevant blog posts write up would include top 5 expense tracking applications and iPad productivity apps for working mothers. This brings in relevancy while allowing cross-niche blog posting contributions.
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Word count and outbound links
Word Count Tool will play an important role in determining how serious the guest post pitcher is about providing contribution. Your average aim should be 700-1000 words, and a bare minimum is 500 words. As for the outbound links, they’re important because they give readers an insight on the subject of the post, so establish guidelines that educate guest post bloggers to include outbound authoritative links in their contributions.
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Outsourcing of Blogs
When you want to build trust, bonds as well as relationships with your readers. So they are interested to read your next posts. Now you want to promote your posts through outsourcing services. You can get various service providers that can promote your blog among readers so they become popular.
If the above stated facts are kept in mind then there is no harm in accepting the guest posts as it enhances the user readability experience and makes them return to a blog again for varied styles of content and writings.
