Pros and Cons of accepting guest posts

One of the pros is that you get fresh content written from another perspective, but they must be of top-notch quality.

Pros

• Guest posting in different blogs that are aligned with your niche helps you rich more readers that are into your kind of writing.
• Guest posting helps drive referral traffic through backlinks.
• Guest posting help spread product and brand awareness.
• Guest posting helps your build your writing credibility.
• It helps you build your site's authority.
• And above all, guest posting is a good way to keep your writing skill sharp.

Cons

• Guest posting consumes time, sometimes it is a luxury that you cannot afford when you are running a tight ship.
• It consumes resources. Guest posting does not only consume time, but also the rest of resources that you usually spend in crafting a content intended for your site.
• You become a target of spammers when you guest post.

One of the major down sides I see is that as soon as you start allowing guest posting on your website, you will start getting an inbox full of "SEO Consultants" and "Advertising Agents" who want to find out what it takes to get their high quality and completely non-spammy guest posts onto your website.

You will know they are legit because they have gmail and hotmail email addresses!

I believe the pros are dominant the cons.

Unless you're paying for the guest posts, then the writer will probably want to post a link to their own blog or website. This means at the end of post the reader might click on that link and leave your website.

In my opinion that's the biggest con. It's up to you to decide if it negates all the pros.

Rose

I don't see any cons here but pos - like fresh content, new traffic, social media sharing and so on..

Bad links on your blog is not a good idea. Google will view it as your content and ads will appear on your blog based on it. If the content/links are low quality, it will reflect on your earnings.

Guest post gives you unique content for website

Diversify content, Access new audiences , Network with up and coming professionals, Give your blog the feel of a professional publication


Cons of guest post programs

You open yourself to more spam, The program needs to be promoted, Articles must be vetted, People don't always follow through

Accepting guest posts on your blog helps you to keep your blog full of useful and relevant information. It also saves your time. The major drawback of accepting guest post is quality. If you accept and publish low-quality guest posts then it might hurt your blog reputation.

Guest posts are always good for both the authors of a post and the owner of the website where a post is being proposed for publication purpose. Besides generating traffic, you will also improve your organic ranking through such steps.

Guest posting must be done on real and authority blogs if you want to get the benefits. It is important to assess the blogs where you are taking the post. All the credentials of blog should closely be watched.

Pros

You get to have someone write on your blog and if they have a popular site you'll get some traffic to your site.

It also saves you time with having to write content.

Cons

You'll have to vet the person before they write for your blog.

You also have to make sure that what they want to write will resonate with your audience.

It's always good to connect with other people in your market and get them to write for your blog, but always ensure you do your due diligence before going ahead and just publishing their content to your blog.

Here are the cons that you need to worry about.

1. Every blogger asks for a backlink. You need to validate the credibility of that backlink before you post it on your website. It may degrade your website quality.
2. You might not bring visibility to your own brand ambassador. By calling every influencer to your blogs, people might think all of them are related to your brand in some way.
3. Every blogger has his own opinion. Make sure their opinions is not contradicting your company policy or opinions
4. You need to have a strict moderation in place. Especially if you are exchanging blogs for cost, You may end up with tons of guest post submissions.

That's what comes to my mind now. Ping me if you need any further help.

If you want just a hint of what could happen, do a search on this forum for topics like "where to guest post" and similar. Unless you have some very strict standards, which will take time and effort to uphold, you may be buried in spam posts with questionable backlinks.

A more active approach is to select the people you would like associated with your brand and invite them to guest post. By making your guest posting program by invitation only, you get most of the pros and eliminate pretty much all of the cons.

Key; build friendships with bloggers you know, like and trust. Then it is all pros; give them admins, they churn out content and you get traffic on auto-pilot. Only con; if you have a clear brand voice it may deviate with each guest post.

Accepting guest posts is a great idea! It's a formula that many sites use, and if you plan correctly, you can even drive traffic to your blog just announcing your search for guest writers ;-)

Announce that you are accepting guest posts via press releases, on LinkedIn, in industry publications etc. You can even offer a 'prize' to the most commented on post of the month - this gets the writers into publicizing their own post.

As to linking back to the guest's website - this is a GOOD thing! Google likes to see outbound links to related content, so don't worry about it. I would suggest that you make sure that all links open in a new window, and are no follow.

Remember, you control what is posted on your website, you do not have to accept all submissions. Be clear in your guidelines and take the time to post a well thought out submission form on your website to make it easier for both sides.

It can work very very well - just plan well, and stay in control of the process.

Melody

These days, established blog owners are rammed by guest post request through contact forms. The content is not of great quality. It is hard to find quality content which can go with the standards of a worthy blog.

Contrary to what has been posted here - I have had great success with guest posts. It all depends on WHERE you are posting the opportunity!

One great resource is Linkedin - join groups related to your industry and post that you are looking for guest writers - I used to run a news site for the payments industry, and we constantly had good, high quality content submissions.

Don't be discouraged by the responses here - you CAN find quality writers for your blog - you just have to find them where the quality people in your industry hang out.

There is a HUGE difference between the jerks that do comment spam and business people that are looking to establish themselves as an authority in an industry.

And you don't need to worry about any negative SEO because you are only going to be accepting and publishing quality content, with legitimate links. You are in control - not the writer!
Melody

WAY BETTER:

Create a group of people like-minded as you.

I mean group of bloggers who share a project and can write in your blog (of course in exchange of revenue).

MASTERMIND of content creators and owners.

So you can check better what they write and u rest assured that it's also in THEIR interest to write in your blog good content.

The main downside is you will be approachd by SEO marketers, but, as long as you can get a reciprocal arrangment - such as charge people to publish on your site - you can make this into a plus.

I still use a Google Page Rank checker like this one... Supposedly, Page Rank is no longer a factor in any of their algorithms, but if you want to get a good idea of a site's popularity it's a quick and easy way to find out.

Guest post pros: it's helps to improve search engine visibility and provide more referral traffic and big cons is that sometime content is not accepted by webmaster due to low quality.

Accepting guest posts can have some pretty awful consequences. I mean from an SEO perspective. Think of it like this...

A site approches you offering to guest blog (with the hope of them injecting their links in your site). It is going to be pretty much guaranteed that the guest blogger is doing this same thing all over the place on different sites. It does not take too much machine learning for Google to spot a pattern and hit both your site and the guest bloggers.

There are good writers out their who don't charge a lot of money for quality work. You just have to look for them but if you find them (and you will if you look) you are guaranteed quality content on a regular basis and it will all be yours.

You are aware that the publicly available version of PR hasn't been updated in years, right?

At best, a PR checker can only tell you how popular a site may have been at the last update. Again, that was years ago.

Great info sugardesigngroup, thank you!

Pros is possibly good content

Cons is you need to moderate the content and it's easier said than done

If the content is good and verifiable (and tested on your behalf), then by all means accept the guest post.

But if it is based on theory, and obviously sounds like an article spinner junk article... then deny it easily. Once you've found someone who delivers great guest posts for you, maybe you can broker a deal with this author, and continue to get them to keep writing content for your company's website.

Pro: Gives You a Break

If you're struggling to blog regularly, or if you're going through a busy period, guest posts can plug a gap. You might want to establish a specific guest slot (e.g. Fridays) to help you plan ahead and schedule posts.

Con: Not Your Voice

Your readers are used to you - and they may not be keen on reading content from other people (especially if you've built up a strong voice / brand). If the guest posts aren't quite up to your usual standard, this can knock your blog's reputation.

Accepting guest posts with fresh and unique content is beneficial for website. On the other hand bad quality links inside post affects website reputation as well as authority.

Guest posts are great, but you must be careful what you accept to post. It is your voice on the web and your reputation on the line.

If you have a popular blog, then you might not have the time to write all the content your self. High quality guest posts provides fresh content. Unique and high-quality content is something that all website owners need, but it is very time consuming to produce.

Guest posts also give you and your audience a new insight on things which can generate a lot of blog comments. (Blog comments are also fresh content!)

I see more pros than cons when it comes to guest posting. Only post high quality, unique guest posts. Mediocre content is not going to cut it anymore.

Thank you everyone. Just a connected question.
How do we promote this page such that i get the attention of bloggers?

Pro : it can give you a break, if you find it difficult to blog regularly a guest post can fill the gap of those busy days you can't blog.

Cons: Since most of the readers are used to reading your content. Some guest post may not be up to your standard and this can affect your blog reputation.