A blogger’s most controversial topic is how to vet guest bloggers. The expectation from readers, bloggers, and even the ones who pay you for views is that as a blogger talking about your niche, you will share your expertise.
This guide explores the basics of vetting guest bloggers for your blog. It provides a general framework for tips and strategies on how to get your ideal guest blogger. In addition, it outlines some of the importance of guest blogging and common mistakes to avoid.
All right, let’s get started…
What is guest blogging?
Guest blogging is when you write something for a blog that is not your own. This could be because the blog owner wanted to focus on another topic for a while, or simply because they needed someone to write about something for them. Guest posts are written by guest bloggers.
A guest blogger is just like it sounds. An expert that has well-respected blogs or authority in the industry. A guest blogger is someone outside your company who publishes content on your site.
When your article appears on another site, it provides exposure to a large audience who might not have found you otherwise. But before getting started, you will need to be sure that you are publishing high-quality content.
Learn more: How to create contents that your audience will love.
What is vetting guest bloggers?
Vetting guest bloggers is an SEO ritual that connects you with a blogger who understands the concept of contributing to your SEO campaign. Simply put, vetting guest bloggers is the process of checking out potential guest bloggers to see if they’re a fit for your blog.
They can be new to blogging or familiar with it, and it’s up to you whether they’re seasoned pros or up-and-coming bloggers who want to get more experience.
The tips below will help you identify ways in which you can use to vet guest bloggers for your site.
1. Clearly define your guest blogging goals
There are a lot of things to consider when you vet guest bloggers. When it comes to growing your audience, engaging in guest blogging is a tried and true strategy.
But if you don’t know what you are looking for, you’re more likely to end up with a bad-fit blogger than the one who will spread your brand and message throughout the blogosphere.
Defining the goals of your guest blogging strategy and vetting your potential guest bloggers by their ability to achieve those goals are the first steps in building a strong guest blogging relationship.
This is a very important piece of the puzzle. Before starting your guest blogging process, take some time to figure out exactly what your goal is. You want to choose guest bloggers that are absolutely perfect for your niche. To get started, you can answer questions such as:
What sort of exposure are you looking for? What will the return on investment be? These questions will help you decide what kind of blogger to go after (or to decide whether or not this is the right move for your blog at all).
2. Develop a strong community
Getting people to pay attention to your content is a little like getting kids to eat their vegetables. If you have the right recipe, both can be fun and delicious. But to get there, you need the right ingredients.
A strong community, built around a product or service, is essential to any startup or small business. In terms of an online community, blogging is one of the best and most effective ways to build one.
There is a lot of spam out there, and it can be hard to weed out the good bloggers from the not-so-good ones. That’s why it’s essential to build a strong community before you start inviting guest bloggers.
A great way to do this is to engage with them yourself first, comment on their blogs, leave some insightful feedback, and when the time comes, you will be able to call upon your trusted followers for help. Once your blogger reputation is established, trust is built and spam becomes less prevalent in your blog comments.
3. Provide a clear description of their pitch
There are many creatives in the world who have an idea and are likely ready to go with that idea. For novel new ideas, this is typical.
However, with the high number of other people trying to sell their novel ideas, it is very important to provide a pitch document which details your plans for the project. The next step is to provide a brief description of what their pitch is about when they get in touch with you.
You want to give them enough context so they see that it’s something worth writing about, but not so much where you’re giving away all the information contained in the post. Point out their hook and make sure they know what you want them to write about.
4. Tell guest bloggers about the benefits they will enjoy when they write for you
Using guest blogging as a search engine optimization strategy can be a risky business if the guest bloggers you want to vet aren’t aware of your expectations.
The big dilemma is that you need people to blog for you but you want high-quality, keyword-rich content. To find the right candidates for your site, offer some kind of value in exchange.
Once you have good reasons or benefits outlined, let them know in detail what they’re going to get out of the deal. The following examples are just a few suggestions on what the benefits could be: premium content, links back to their site, shared AdWords revenue, or even a standard fee.
Do you have an idea for a guest post? Chances are that someone else already has that idea. You’ll have a better chance of getting your article published if you offer something unique. And what’s more unique than the promise of getting more traffic and exposure for your blog?
5. Guest bloggers need to feel welcome at your site
Guest blogging is a fantastic way to get quality content to your blog, but it won’t be nearly as effective if you don’t make your guest bloggers feel welcome. If you are going to implement a successful guest blogging program you need to ensure that you respond to inquiries in a timely fashion.
Using guest blogging can be a great way for your site’s visitors to interact and share their favorite topics. This is a chance for your blog community to acquire a serious following. Acceptance into the community goes beyond a single blog post.
Tell the writer you appreciate their offer to guest blog and you’re looking forward to publishing their guest post. You can also use this opportunity to get to know them better and give them tips on writing SEO-friendly copy for your site.
6. Establish some rules so guest bloggers know what is expected of them
Hosting a guest blogger is a great way to grow your blog’s audience and generate some revenue. In addition, a good blog is a direct reflection of the business and how it is run. As with any business, there are rules and standards to consider when you choose to work with a guest blogger.
Vetting guest bloggers can be hard work and if you don’t let them know what you’re looking for, they will end up sending you a bunch of irrelevant information. Also, establish some rules on how they should pitch you their post ideas as it can be time-consuming to read through a list of random ideas.
Furthermore, be specific. Let the guest blogger know that you want a certain number of posts in a given time or some criteria for choosing the subject matter that will be posted.
Be sure to mention when you expect the guest blogger to fulfill this agreement and what the penalties are if that deadline is not met.
7. Only accept high-quality guest posts
If you agree to publish guest posts on your blog, only accept high-quality submissions. If you accept anything and everything, it will hurt the quality of your blog in the long run. As a blogger, you want to increase the number of quality posts on your blog.
Blogging is no longer just about getting traffic and earning money from ads. By bringing talented contributors to your blog, you not only raise the value of your content but also gain new readers and followers.
A guest blogger that consistently produces quality content will also help build your brand credibility.
8. Interact with your guest bloggers
To make your guest blogging strategy work, you’ll need to actively engage with your guest bloggers. You’ll want to maintain a friendly and mutually beneficial relationship with your guest bloggers.
Interaction should not stop after approval of the blog posts. Make sure you continue to interact with them throughout their blog series.
This shows your guests how crucial their contribution is to your company’s cause, and it also shows that you respect their time by communicating with them regularly.
By continuing to communicate with them through phone calls, emails, and even scheduled meetings will ultimately make your guest blogging campaign a success.
3 Common guest blogging mistakes to avoid
1. Guest blogging without a purpose
Guest blogging is a great way to generate content and attract new prospective visitors. But, if you don’t plan ahead, it can lead to bad results. Set yourself up for success in your guest blogging campaigns.
Most importantly, have a purpose of guest blogging rather than just doing it for the sake of doing it. Will you be promoting a product or service? Are you building links or connections to an audience?
Guests blogging for the sake of guest blogging is a sign of desperation. It’s great to want to be out there on the web, interacting with people who may lead to potential clients, but throwing random posts out there hoping someone somehow stumbles upon them isn’t a good strategy.
2. Promoting irrelevant sites
There are many benefits of guest blogging. The regular exposure and links are the most obvious. A large number of links pointing to your site gained through guest blog posts can also help your website get higher rankings in search engine results.
However, it is important to note that a large number of ‘bad links to your website or ‘bad’ websites linking to you could lead to penalization by Google Penguin (and other search engines).
There is a lot more on this online, however, for these purposes, I just want to concentrate on ensuring that guest bloggers aren’t linking to irrelevant sites.
3. Generic pitching
When pitching guest posts, make sure that you are specific about the topic you are pitching. Generic pitches like: ‘I’d like to contribute a guest post on X topic’ or ‘Would be interested in writing something for your blog’ etc will be a complete waste of their time and yours!
No blogger wants to receive pitches that have not been personalized or customized for their space. Even a little bit of information about the blogger, the blog, and the niche can go a long way toward making your pitch more effective.
Importance of guest blogging
Build relationships in your niche
Guest blogging is one of the best ways for a blogger to build relationships with other bloggers in their niche. Since guest blogging puts you on the other person’s blog, it gives you a chance to meet them online and develop a relationship with them offline.
It shows people that you’re an industry expert and blog author, and it establishes you as someone they want to follow. This is great for your brand. Some bloggers have even gone so far as to get married after meeting each other through blogging.
Boost rankings and brand awareness
As bloggers, we all wish that we get higher rankings in the search engines. We all want our blog to be that next big deal on the web. Getting your post to rank high in google is one of those things you really look forward to.
You can half-hope it would happen when you submit your guest post through blogger relations programs. Guest blogging gives your company or brand the power to reach a lot of new people, quickly. It’s become an effective and inexpensive route for bloggers and brands to connect with targeted readers.
Not only will you get some traffic from their site, but you’ll also get the chance to engage with those readers. After all, a guest blog feed relies on people taking an interest and giving their feedback.
Learn more: Smart ways to increase your blog traffic in 30 days.
Improve your writing skills
Guest blogging is not only a great way to increase your profile and boost traffic to your website, but it’s also a great way to improve your writing skills and grow new audiences.
The opportunity to write for another audience allows you to test what works and what doesn’t when writing, as well as experiment with your writing style. Since you are writing for an audience, you must ensure they understand everything you write.
Learn more: Benefits of blogging for business.
Is guest blogging a good investment for you?
Yes. Guest blogging can be a great investment. It’s certainly not a guarantee for success, but if done right it’ll help build backlinks, establish authority, marketing within your industry, and build relationships with influencers and new community members. However, it’s important to vet potential guest bloggers before they start writing for you.
FAQs
How much do guest bloggers get paid?
A typical guest blog post will earn an author anywhere between $50-$300. The topic of the post will determine the price, as well as how long the blog post is and also the experience of the guest blogger.
How do guest bloggers get opportunities?
Guest blogging is a two-way street. A blogger needs to be looking for opportunities, and brands need to be creating them. The pool of bloggers in both of those areas is vast.
For guest bloggers, the opportunities fall under the categories that are most important to them, whether it be brand name exposure, traffic generation, monetization, or recurring revenue.
How effective is guest blogging?
Most people think guest blogging is just a way to get links back to your site. While a backlink from an influential blog can certainly help, that isn’t the real goal of guest blogging. The main goal is to drive traffic back to your site.
A guest blog is a great step in building your brand’s reputation and increasing its visibility. The content will reach a new audience, and that can bring new visitors to the site. It is a win-win situation for both the guest blogger and the blog owner.
You’ve probably noticed that as soon as you start publishing guest blogs, you will almost instantly receive links pointing to your website. This happens as soon as someone embeds one of your articles into his or her news stream or tweets about it. It is that effective.
Who hires bloggers?
Guest bloggers tend to be hired by two different categories of companies. The first category is publications/content creators, such as a magazine or newspaper.
The other category is brands that use content marketing to reach out to their customers and promote their products. Bloggers are a hot commodity in the marketing world.
Companies are eager to work with bloggers who have fresh, engaging ideas and drive traffic back to their websites.
Why is guest blogging important in relationship building?
Guest blogging is a mutually beneficial activity where you provide audiences with fresh articles and websites with fresh content, which may increase traffic to both parties.
It gives you the opportunity to reach a new audience, get your brand positioning and information before them, and gain credibility for something you haven’t done.
By providing a platform for brands or individuals to share insight on your blog, you will be helping others and establishing yourself as an industry expert. Thus creating loyalty and trust for your readers. They will keep coming back for more.
Final thoughts
In summary, the world of blogging has changed a lot recently. With multiple guest bloggers taking over the responsibilities of writing posts, there is room for error in the process of deciding who to work with.
This post provides the nitty-gritty details on how to vet potential guest writers and provides information on some of the frequently asked questions relating to guest bloggers.
Remember, when hiring a guest blogger, you’re not just getting someone to write your blog post for you. You’re bringing on a virtual employee. One that will affect the reputation of your business, so it’s important to vet each blogger properly.
Lastly, I have created a post on the most profitable blog niches that you can use if you own a blog and want to widen your reach. I hope you find one that grabs your attention as you go through them. I wish you all the best!