Guest Posts – Beauty And The Beast

One of the aspects of blogging which has a beauty and the beast aspect to it are guest posts. Guest blog posts are blog posts written by someone other than yourself, but are then published on your blog. Or, these are posts written by you and then submitted to a site relevant within your niche. These are typically one time deals.

The Beauty:

Guest blog posts give you the opportunity to expand your reach. Find other blogs that are relevant to your niche and ask the blog author if you can submit a guest blog post. In my experience, I’ve seen blog authors end up being more than happy to publish a post that is relevant to their site while happily placing a link back to the blog author’s website. Not only is this a great way to self promote yourself, but you get to expand your audience. One of the side benefits of writing guest blog posts is that, it could land you a paid position on a website you frequently submit posts to.

The Beast:

Perhaps I may be the only one who has experienced this, but I’ve noticed that some of my best work is produced when I am preparing a guest blog post for another site. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wrestled with my mind on publishing the post on my personal blog versus the guest blog. The thoughts and feelings of a blog post going viral, or becoming popular on a social website are always the ones which make me stop and think twice before submitting the article to the guest blog author.

What I’ve Learned:

Based on my experience thus far, writing an awesome guest blog post and submitting it to a relevant site is better than publishing it on your own blog, just as long as the guest blog author places a link to your site within the post. This link is vital. If your guest post becomes popular, people will click on that link and you will receive follow through traffic. You will also open yourself up to a wider audience who may not have visited your site had you posted the article to your own blog. And again, if the guest blog posts you are writing are of high quality on a regular basis, there is a good chance that you could net a paying position.

What About You?

What experiences have you had in terms of guest blog posts? I’d like to know from those of you who have published these posts on your own blog as well as from those of you who submit guest posts to blogs other than your own on a regular basis.