Yes, a blog can be personal, but in the past years blogs have grown beyond the personal logs of one person. Today, bloggers are the most valueable source of information, on the internet. Bloggers are working from day to day, to make/keep their blog worth visiting.
Photo by jhester
To attract new visitors, it could be a possibility to let other bloggers post articles on your blog. Perhaps you can let them blog about a subject that is close to your niche, to enrich your blog. For example, with my articles about the internet, blogging and SEO, the subject of marketing is real close.
Things you need to keep in mind
Once you’ve decided to take your chances, you should be aware of the risks that come with a guest blogger. Those risks are the reason why bloggers are a bit careful with giving permissions to strangers. Most of the time, guest bloggers only have permission to write content, not to publish articles. This way, it’s all up to you to decide what article goes online and what articles don’t.
But there are more things to keep in mind, some more advanced things that some people tend to forget;
- The style of writing of your guest bloggers should be matching with your readers. If readers don’t like the content of your guest bloggers, the only one who has advantage of the article is the guest blogger!
- Your guest bloggers content is better than yours, so visitors are leaving your blog and start following your guest bloggers blog. Always try to keep the guest bloggers as an addition to your own blog and not let the guest bloggers take advantage of you!
Examples of large blogs, who use guest bloggers
Big names on the internet are using guest bloggers, just to add extra (quality) content on their blog. Like I mentioned before, guest bloggers can be the way to add content that’s just a little bit different from your subject(s). A great way to add content, that otherwise would never have found it’s way to your blog, including new visitors!
Skellie, author of Skelliewag and Anywired, is asking for people to help her blogging and contribute to Anywired. Off course, for bloggers with some spare time, this is the way to reach new visitors and gain some new fans of their blog! Not only for bloggers that ‘hire’ guest bloggers, there is some win of using guest bloggers, also for the guest blogger itself there are some advantages.
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I don’t agree about bloggers being the most valuable source of information on the internet, but that’s a different discussion.
Then what is the most valuable source of information, according to you? We can start a thread here about this topic!
I’d join forces with Bas on that comment!
There are some bloggers who contribute great content to the Internet.
There is also a great(er) percentage who are neither entertaining nor do they provide any useful information.
(Just have a look at my (hobby) blog… Do I even want to be a major league information source? No, I only want to have fun & write about whatever comes to my mind at any given moment.
And if it happens so that my friends or the occasional outsider stumbles about some information he actually thinks of as useful: All the better! Saying so, I don’t even think I’m the worst. Don’t hurt my feelings by contradicting, guys!)
Not to speak of the trillions of copy cats.
There are corporate blogs where scientists lead discussions on very specific topics (e.g. neonatal screening or gas chromatography) as part of CRM efforts. Definitely worthwhile content for those working in those fields.
Still, looking at the last ten info related files I downloaded there was:
The Gutenberg Society
Wikipedia
O’Reilleys
Three “standard” web sites
Two phpBB forums focusing on ERP systems
An EBook site
…last week. No Blog!
And, yes, I enjoy reading this Blog… And found some worthwhile articles, so statistics may change for the next week. Open up a topic on information sources in the internet and you’ll get a more structured response.