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I haven’t been accepting guest articles for quite a while on this blog and I definitely have my reasons. There are so many advantages that comes with accepting guest posts and at the same time, there are disadvantages you’re not probably aware of. In the last couple of months, I’m pretty sure I’ve turned down nothing less than 30 guest posts offers or even more. If you’re wondering why I took this step, I’m going to explain that later in the article. The fact that I don’t accept guest posts that much right now doesn’t mean I won’t be accepting them anymore, I just might be more strict.
Things to consider before accepting guest article
If you’ve been getting lots of emails from content writers and other bloggers to get their articles featured on your blog, here are a few things you should consider before you go ahead and publish them:
1. Guest article or sponsored post?
One thing you probably don’t know is that some of these submitted guest posts should be labelled sponsored posts. Why? Content writers who submit these posts, in most cases, do get paid to do so. Most of the time, they’re only using bloggers to make money, submitting articles with paid links and getting paid for it.
2. Who are you linking to?
You should take time to visit sites you’re linking to in the author’s bio. Some of these sites may contain illegal materials or other things you shouldn’t probably link to. You readers will definitely hold you responsible for external links within your articles and extreme care should be taken while linking to other sites. Besides, these sites may already have bad reputation and even affect your ranking.
3. Does the content benefit your readers
Now, this is a major factor to consider before accepting guest posts. Some of the so-called guest posts are crap, I mean pure crap. Some are written for the the sole purpose of getting link juice from you, not to benefit readers.
4. Is it a spun article?
The fact that the article you’re posting is 100% Copyscape protected doesn’t mean it’s not a recycle article. This is one of the major reason I stopped accepting guest posts and so far, I have no regrets. These type of articles may get you in trouble with bloggers who wrote the original article and since it’s more or less a copied content, your search engine ranking may get hurt.
Disadvantages of accepting guest posts
I’ve been there and I definitely know there are negative sides to accepting these articles. Here are just few of them:
1. Your content get watered down
When you publish lots of crappy posts, your contents gets watered down and your blog gets filled with low quality contents. This is why you should only accept posts that really add value to your blog and not just any guest article.
2. You get articles with no search engine traffic
Some of these guest posts are not optimized for search engines, they’re just some bits and pieces of senseless sentences put together.
3. Your readers lose trust in you
When your readers can’t hear your voice any longer and they keep getting served low quality contents, they begin losing trust in your blog.
Why you should accept guest articles
There are certain benefits you get when you accept guest articles on your blog and they may even outweigh the disadvantages:
1. More contents to publish
With guest articles, you definitely have more contents to publish on your blog and you may never not run out of posts to read on your blog. Of course, you may even get to publish daily when your blog is very open to contributors.
2. Publishing topics you have no idea on
As a blogger, you definitely can’t know everything and guest articles can help in this regard. You get to publish posts you personally can’t write because you have no idea on those topics. Contributors can actually add to the value of your blog.
3. More time to do other things
When you have no time to write articles, contributors can help you out. You have time to work on other things both offline and online.
Now, should you accept these articles?
I’m not in a position to tell you how to run your blog but having shown you the pros and cons, you can surely make the right decision. Ever since I stopped accepting guest articles, I stopped being lazy and wrote more than I used to. I no longer relax and depend on submitted articles, I do my own thing almost everyday.
Also, I’ve managed to keep low quality contents to the barest minimum and even if I’m gonna open the door for contributors later, the rules must definitely change to maintain the standard I’m trying to keep.