In this post, I mostly talk to myself, and to readers who appreciate good ideas (not really to guest bloggers). You see, I run a successful blog which I am taking seriously, most of its content provided by guest bloggers. I must say managing a multi-authors blog is not an easy task because there is a lot of communications and editorial work to be done before getting posts published on the host blog. So if you are planning to accept guest posts on your blog, prepare yourself for some serious work.
Managing Guest Bloggers Is Not Easy!
Things have changed, and guest blogging became more popular. So, in my opinion it's no longer about how to attract guest bloggers to write for your bog. It's more about how to actually make them write and submit quality contents for the blog. I say here “Make Them” because it's totally in your hands, if you accept low quality content, you are simply attracting more low quality content writers.
For a long time now I have been thinking of a way to reduce the workload, perhaps transforming FamousBloggers.net to a “do it yourself” blog, and try to automate a large part of the acceptance and publishing process. This would give guest bloggers the power to hit the publish button and get their posts published by themselves. That's what I want to discuss with you today, hopefully I can get some more inspiration. So, let me tell you first about my first steps toward this idea.
I planned the new Community News section to achieve two blogging goals!
The first goal is to get more easy fresh content to the blog, and the second goal is to help trusted bloggers to get a quality backlinks with their choice of keyword to their own posts. This will help ranking their posts higher in search engines. I decided to allow only trusted contributors who actually have accounts on FamousBloggers.net and have published at least one guest post on the blog. I didn't want this section to be open to the public, at least not yet!
You see, I have an issue with trust that I will talk about later on in this post, and that's the main reason I keep most of my ideas private and accessible only to people who I actually know and have had a little chat with before.
I call it the Guest Blogging Automation Project
So, just to let you know, this is not an imaginary project, this is something I would love to see for real one day. However, the only part that is missing in the project is trust!
Yes.. I sadly don't have enough trust in bloggers!
Please, don't get me wrong, and read on…
Like anything else in this world, the guest blogging automation project has its own advantages and disadvantages, or to be more accurate, I probably should say it has dangers and high risks!
Advantages of Guest Blogging Automation
Let's talk first about the advantages… Why I believe this project is worth it:
1- More power for bloggers
Just imagine that you can publish your posts yourself – you write the content you like (as long as it fits into the host blog categories), you publish it at the time you prefer, you have as many links as you would like to (if it's all relevant), in short you have the power to hit the publish button! Sounds good eh?
2- More content for the host blog
So true! This is one of the best advantages for the blog that accepts guest posts. In my case I try to avoid publishing more than three posts daily on the blog. This gives the chance for those posts to appear on the front page, which means more reads, and possibly comments and engagement. Also I try to save content for the coming days.
3- Increase publishing average
The blog could jump from 1-3 posts per day to 5-10 posts per day, you never know! It could even be much more than that. Do you know what that means?
It means search engines will visit the blog more often, which leads to a faster indexing. Search engines will simply fall in love with the blog, and probably will rank it higher. This will allow any post to compete with monster blogs.
4- Getting more traffic
From the points 2 and 3 above, when a blog gets more updates, and increases its content, it makes a lot of sense that organic traffic (Visitors referred by an unpaid search engine listing, e.g. a Google.com search) will increase as more posts are indexed in search engines. Also there is a big chance that direct traffic will increase (Visitors who visited the site by typing the URL directly into their browser), this is because of blog visitors who will notice the quick updates, thus they know that your blog is truly active, they will memories, bookmark, and visit it more often as they get fresh content each time they visit.
Disadvantages of Guest Blogging Automation
This is the part I hate most but let's talk about the disadvantages for the project as I see it.
1- Nobody read!
To me, this is a really important point. Let's say you have written the most clear guest blogging guidelines in the whole world, you will sometimes face the fact that people don't read them. Even if they do read them, some of them will try to game you by ignoring those guidelines, and even worse than that, some people will try to abuse your blog.
A human factor has to interact and deal with those who ignore your guidelines to put them on the right direction, or simply to reject their accounts.
2- Getting a lot of crappy content
Here I can explain why I said I don't have enough trust in bloggers. Of course not all bloggers are the same, there are many bloggers out there who have a message, and actually knows what they are doing. But there are a bunch of jerks in every niche that you really want to avoid at any cost. Again, the human eye is necessary!
Plus, some bloggers just don't know when to start guest posting for other blogs, once they launched a brand new blog that has no value for the reader yet, they starve to see their posts published on popular blogs. I am afraid mostly of those who call themselves bloggers just because they own whatever blog!
3- A chance for duplicate topics
If you are getting a lot of content, chances that two bloggers will write about the same topic is high. Especially if it's about a hot or trending topic, so you won't be able to control it, your blog will certainly have duplicate topics or even worse, you could have duplicate content in some cases.
4- Bad links, or another link farm!
I can easily say that most of the bloggers, SEOs, and links builders will do their best to abuse the blog, and take advantage of being powered members to get more links to their client's sites. So, the blog could turn into another link farm!
Full Guest Posting Automation, could it work?
I keep wondering if my idea could ever find the light, or if it's just nonsense and I have to forget about it. I know this project requires a lot of trust, and it shouldn't be open for everyone!
Can I trust you?!
I keep wondering, why so called guest bloggers keep trying to prove I am wrong!
I can believe you. When you have a very successful blog, things can get out of hand especially guest posters wanting to get their article up on your site.
I guess I will still have to wait for that point in my blog’s life.
Thanks for sharing, Heshman. 🙂
Hi Samuel, you are right, things can get out of hand, and I feel stressed sometimes because they blog is taking over my day, that’s why I want to invent a way to automate at least part of the guest posting process so I can focus on other stuff and still make both bloggers and readers happy!
Success is not that far away from you, you just need to be prepared for it!
Hello Hesham, Samuel. I try tie bloggers down to a schedule and have a staff member looking at the submissions and publishing them like that. I have a customer site though, here we also welcome gust posts but they are usually not on topic. I have one guy right now who sent me a guest post for my publishing blog and gave me content that is great but not in the niche. One can rewrite such a post to fit. But Hesham, you’re quite right. To have value is not really possible in automation.
My solution was a staff member. May I suggest you try one of two things:
1) Try get a code like the one Ezine article are using. It may sift some of the work.
2) How about getting a staff manager on board from the Philippines. They are very affordable.
Hi Ivin,
Staff member is probably the best way to go, I already have two staff members on board, more to come!
Thanks for sharing the 1, 2, great ideas, will consider that as well!
I think the cons outweigh the pros by far! I would hate to see famousbloggers become just another website with rehashed junk.
Hi Sean,
Having a rehashed junk blog is not on my plans 🙂
That’s why I tend to ask for a second opinion before making any big decisions about the blog.
I agree with Sean. Automation will kill the value of great posts on FamousBloggers 🙂 I hope to see everything will be checked manually
Thanks for sharing your opinion!
Spot on Sean! I wouldn’t take those risks! The Cons are just too heavy and could lead to blog suicide!
Hi Nick, you are right, thanks for sharing your opinion!
Hi Hesham,
I believe guest posting is a good thing and yes if you have a popular blog it’s a lot of work. This post suggesting automating the process is a good idea to save workload but it does stand to reason that the quality of the content will not be the same if you don’t have as you state the human eye.
Blog owners must be VERY careful that their blog does not get abused. My opinion automating the process can lead to the blog losing it’s value if it not all monitored.
Therefore you are back to square 1. I don’t agree with automating the process. At the very least I would open another blog to see how it would work and work out the kinks as they happen.
Good idea Hesham but as you and I know the world is not perfect.
Terry Conti
Hi Terry,
Yes, guest posting is a great thing for both sides the blogger and the host (in a perfect world)!
I totally agree with you, fully automation is a huge risk! Thanks a lot for your opiion and the good advice, I like your idea of establishing a side blog at least to test things out and see how it goes.
I’d say don’t do it, not only because the content might be bad but because some of them might post something you really don’t want on your blog. I take guest posts on my finance blog and sometimes I have to turn a post down because it’s nothing but an advertisement, it’s written badly, or because it’s advocating something that I’m totally against. I just can’t take those chances because when all is said and done, my name is on the blog, which means I’m responsible for it.
Hey Mitch, I know you have a straight and strong opinions, and I actually like that!
I remember at the early days, when I was working a full time job at some media companies, we brainstormed some ideas to manage content of the site by what we called “The after editing”, that’s a publish then edit/delete process, it took sometime from our readers to absorb and get used to the idea, and things went good after all!
I am actually not doing this on the blog, I have a pro editor and most of the content get edited before it goes live.
So, I am trying here to find a middle solution, something that could work without hurting anyone (especially the blog) plus give more power to all parties (blog, authors, readers, advertisers ..etc) and keep that under the umbrella of guest posting ( I don’t want to create another HubPages site ).
So hopefully the discussion could lead to some worthy ideas!
I really appreciate your input.
Just looking out for you Hesham. 🙂 Actually, Ileane’s system here is pretty effective.
Aha.. that’s why I am here 🙂
Thanks for being a good friend Mitch!
Sounds wonderful Hesham!
I think this project is unique and very different, even though you mentioned a few cons along with the pros in it.
As a suggestion to take care of the trust factor, may be you could start with allowing those bloggers whom you do trust to join in first, and after seeing the result allow others, as that’s how trust builds up. Also, once people get to know that you are allowing trustworthy bloggers with quality content and backlinks etc. they would take care of things so that they get a chance to appear on your blog.
Also, I think you could allow just 1-3 posts per day and not more so that people get a chance to read and share the content, which will take care of the point about no one reading posts too. Once this catches up there would be an option of putting up many more posts, but then those could lie in moderation until approved by you or someone trustworthy.
It surely does sound like a wonderful project Hesham, and thumbs-up to it from my side 🙂
Thanks for sharing this wonderful news that I hope takes shape soon, and glad you had him over Ileane. 🙂
Hey Harleena ,
You see, I took my blog grow on phases, almost every month I put some development and enhancement to it, most of these enhancements are too small and nobody really notice them, but it makes a huge difference to the blog overall performance.
So, this guest blogging automation project is just an idea, and idea that I am not sure about 🙂 but if this idea come true one day, (especially after reading your comment) I assure you it will be only for trusted bloggers.
But, well.. I have this nature.. I don’t like to upset anyone! But what to do? I have over 40 posts all the time in the bending section, so probably if you submit a post today it won’t go live before a whole month! Recently, I started to get attacked by some guest bloggers 🙂 So, I am trying to find my way out!
For the publishing average, I do publish mostly 1-3 posts a day, but to solve this we must increase number of posts on home page, so this will require a new design and layout!
And yeas, I rarely guest post because of my busy schedule, I’ve actually written this post especially to publish it on BasicBloggingTips because I thought it’s the right place 🙂 and glad to do so!
Many thanks for your input, it’s always good to hear your opinion!
I really enjoy this article, as I have read entire post it proves that once we are the webmasters we are the one responsible in choosing the right blog for our site, another is adding unique content that will attract interested readers.
So true!
Thanks for your reply Hesham, giving us article such as this will sure help us in the future, I mean in our chosen endeavor.
No problem! I really hope this will help someone out there!
Write a “become a guest blogger” page. This is where you tell your potential guest bloggers why they should share their expertise with your readers—for free. Explain that guest posts are win-win situations because they give your readers valuable information while providing the guest blogger with a little free publicity.
Hi Krizza ,
I do actually have a dedicated page with information, guide lines, steps..etc.
Hey Hesham! I would not recommend because people are hungry for backlinks and they won’t care about guidelines and the hard work you did to build famousbloggers. However, there will be few who will try to work for the community and keep the things clean and valuable to other members, but think about SEOs hungry for backlinks from guest posts? Think about the SEO companies looking to spam the blogs.
It will ruin the assence of guest blogging! I guess a paid version might keep the things clean? However, big names can easily pay for blogging!
Good points Ahmed, well… let’s say I must approve accounts on the first place after doing a CIA vs KGB type of background check to make sure I am not feeding the SEOs hunger 🙂
Money is dangerous! A paid version is something I thought of, it could be a good idea, but then I scratch it (at least for now) because I don’t want people to get pissed off when I delete their entries as they will say we paid for it and take it as their right! However, you inspired me by “Big Names”, but a big name probably doesn’t need a premium account on my tinny little blog!
Just wondering, would you pay for such service?
I totally agree with you Hesham, But to start receiving guest post from other Bloggers, first we should write guest post for them.
Hi Ehsan,
I remember I wrote about 5 guest posts in my whole life, this is one of them! I got around 700 guest posts published on my blog in the last couple of years!
I don’t think I can do that 🙂
P.S. I saw you’ve created an account to guest post today, but haven’t got an email from you yet to confirm that! (I hope you read the guest post guidelines page carefully).
Yeah Hesham, I have created an account for guest posting at famousbloggers.net but I don’t know where to submit my guest post to be published at famousblogger.net:S
Ah! .. You need to contact me via the contact us page over FB and send me your username so I can upgrade your account!
Ok Hesham bro, Thanks for the reply.
From my point of view I think that this approach could work, but this is not the right time. Taking into account the pros and cons, I consider that you risk turning famousbloggers.net into a site with poor quality content. There should always be a filter, to reject the spam articles and publish only the ones that fulfill the quality standards.
Hi Jack,
I am trying here to use the “Trust” filter, do you think it could work?
I want to say yes, but I think it could work for a while until all sort of people people find this opportunity. From that point on, I think the quality of the content would drop significantly. Nevertheless, I wish good luck, I would like to be wrong this time.
Yes you are right!
Thanks Jack for getting back to me on this!
That is really a great idea. It would really do a lot for your time to automate guest posting. Maybe it would also be good if you can have your guest bloggers to sign up so you know who posts on your blog and are sure of the quality of their work. After they click the publish button the articles they pass should also be reviewed first before getting the ‘Okay’ sign.
Hi John,
I took the approach of registering guest bloggers, I never publish a post on the fly! so basically I do exactly what you thinking of! So .. Now, I want to improve it more!
Oh yes – if you accept low quality content and actually publish it on your website or blog, you are simply attracting more low quality content writers and even worse , Users. Good and unique content is the Most basic of having a blog or website that hopes to grow its user base or online visibility.
Thanks Anton for your input! I am taking blogging seriously as a business, so I thought it would be good to get a second opinion and inspiration by fellow bloggers before taking any steps towards the project!
Hi Hesham,
Awesome idea! I feel it could work really well if you continue to build the solid community you are working on now.
Bottom feeders will show up but with the proper policing protocols in place you can delete these clowns fast.
Overall, I really dig the idea. And you provided me with inspiration to guest post again 😉
Thanks for sharing your insight Hesham!
Ryan
Hey Ryan,
Just by thinking of giving the power to trusted bloggers won’t keep any clown on board! And, basically that’s what I am thinking of!
Glad to inspire you my friend, and looking forward to your coming guest posts anywhere on the web 🙂
I like your idea but I think on internet some people are doing their some how in shape of spamming and that will only be controlled through human inspection and I think if you do the automation of this procedure this point could be the main crucial point before doing automation.
Thanks for sharing your experience regarding guest posting!
Hi Ayaz ,
Having a human eye save us from a lot of headaches! So, there will be always a human inspection, the question is “before or after?”, the after editing is more easier to handle, but annoying to the reader!
I am just throwing all my ideas in one place “post”, one day I will come back here and grab all the good conversation and ideas!
Thanks for stopping by!
Gues blogging can be a difficult task in managing especially when you deal with different people as a wp author.but no matter how difficult it may look,there is always the need to manage and make them abide by the rules.nice tips
Hi Timi, actually managing a multi-authors blog is a hard task, to me this is a full time job indeed!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Hi Hesham, to tell you the truth full guest posting automation it’s not so good idea for Famous Bloggers and actually for any blog that needs to always have quality content. I know from my own blog that it’s difficult to maintain a multi author blog and I am sure you get tens of guest posts everyday and at the same time you have and your business ThesisAwesome to manage and you are probably overwhelmed some days.
A solution could be if you let 10 or even 20 bloggers (I am sure you know pretty much all the good bloggers on our niche) publish guest posts without moderation.
This is certainly less risky since these bloggers would not risk their reputation for anything spamy, doing this will certainly increase the amount of quality blog posts and at the same time you will have more time…
Hi Kostas ,
Probably the best ideas I’ve got them from you!
Yes, I need 10-20 trusted bloggers to give them the power of publishing their posts by themselves, also I think I will need to provide them with a quick training to make sure we keep the same general layout of the blog posts steady.
Probably I will choose them based on their guest posting history 🙂
Perfect! I appreciate your input.
I agree with Krizia. Great idea by the way. That could work.
Ah, another person agree here 🙂 Thanks for sharing your opinion, but what makes you think it could work?!
Hi buddy. You have clearly pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of “guest blogging automation”. The issue about trust is totally understandable and as a matter of fact I think that is is commendable. See, if you worry about these things, it only means that you are thinking about your readers and wish ONLY to provide value. The problem with this type of system are precisely the disadvantages you bring. People in general, at least the less serious ones, will most definitely abuse the system. The quality of your blog will most likely drop, unless you find a way to “filter” on the front end the bloggers that you will give access to.
Maybe you can create a new “sub-domain” or a something similar to test the waters and then, promote the real good ones to your main blog. If you are able to “approve” only those that you really think will follow the “rules” and are trustworthy, then I think that “automation” is clearly a great alternative to pursue. You are right about managing a “multi-author” blog, it is not easy and depending on the case, can cause some serious headaches 🙂 Just my two cents…
Hey DiTesco ,
Wow, you just gave me a nice idea on how to test this out! Yeah, that could be a solution, some sub-domain name to get posts, probably I will set it to no indexing by search engines, then move/promote those with quality to the main blog!
I think testing out things will give us the final answer whither automating guest posting is a good or bad idea, I am not ready yet to take this step into action!
I found a better idea in the second half of your comment 🙂
Actually, and with no doubt.. I trust you! So, here is a question, would you be interested in having a powered account on FB?
Thanks for the vote of confidence. As for my interest in having a “powered” account on FB, Yes. Although, I can’t commit on regularity with my contributions 🙂 Got to be honest..
The idea seems to be maturing 🙂 Open a sub-domain, noindex it, and promote it to your main blog, once you are satisfied … I was thinking like somewhere in the lines of what YouMoz does when promoting an article to SEOMoz.
I figure out that many news and media sites are actually doing it this way, a user create an account, he/she submit articles to their own page on the site, then editorial group promote articles on front page or the main blog.
Good idea to consider!
I understand what you mean buddy, and I know that many bloggers won’t commit on regularity, so just FYI regularity is not my target, only quality! So I think regularity will come latter!
In that case, if and when you decide to go forward, you can count me in 🙂
you can trust me Hesham. But on the other hand, I haven’t done any guest posting yet at all.
I like what you said. I honestly don’t think full automation is possible.
What is good content to one person is lousy content to another. You can not adjust for that taste through automation.
Others have tried. There are a couple of systems out there. But I don’t trust them at all. Just as you said…
Hi David,
Ah, it feels great when someone tells you “You can trust me”, what a relief!
I believe that there is nothing impossible, there are only hard to achieve things 🙂
I agree… Automating Systems are not really our best friend!
I think full guest blogging automation would only work if it applies to only a handful of trusted bloggers. If you open it out to more than that there’s a chance it would get seriously abused.
Hey Rob,
Yes.. I totally agree, and by the way you are on my list of trusted bloggers 🙂
Would you accept to have the power of the publish button? does this sound good?
Yes, Hesham, I’d be honored!
Yes, Hesham, I’d gladly accept.
I’m thought I’d replied to this earlier. I apologise if it’s a double-post.
Cool!
Thanks for getting back to me!
There is a huge risk that your blog turns into a link farm with bad content if you automate everything.There has to be a review system in place or it will not work.I would rather have a lot less high quality content on my blog than hundreds of low quality articles.
That’s a good point Tom, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
You can trust me, Hesham.
That said, I also suffer from trust issues – very well founded ones, when it comes to blogging – and would never implement something like this on my own blog. Not even sure I’d want to be a part of it on someone else’s. Because some people just live to game the system, you know?
Now you know why the major publishing houses are struggling – not only to find good books to publish among all the submissions, good, bad, and mediocre – but to compete with the self-publishers and the vanity press, now that everyone can just “hit a button.”
I think the future will swing back to favor those who exercise restraint – maybe in favor of well-vetted, if not well-edited content, but certainly in favor of the human touch.
Hey Holly,
I know I can trust you, so wonderful to hear that!
I see your valid points clearly, really inspiring thoughts. Being afraid of the future, I do feel struggling with this idea since log time back!
I think this is a good idea, but I don’t necessarily know if it would work. Like you said, you would probably get a lot of low quality content.
You are right Alicia, that’s why I am asking you guys for opinion!
I appreciate it.
Hesham,
Though I can appreciate your point of view it sounds to me like you want the benefit of a successful multi-author blog and community that forms around it without putting in the work to create that community.
You said that accepted guest blogs is a lot of work… But I’m not really sure where all that work is coming from? Some simple formatting… maybe… and adding a picture. Maybe you have to add some SEO plugin information.
Allowing people to auto-publish their own Guest Posts without review sounds like a bad idea to me or at least not the type of idea that leads to quality Online resource that many multi-author blogs become…
Just my thoughts… Obviously I could be wrong.
Thanks!!
Ryan H.
Hi Ryan,
You are right, I want to manage a multi-authors blog without butting in the less effort and time from my side. I want to take a place like any other guest blogger on the blog, I need to feel the freedom 🙂
I will tell you from where all that work is coming from, here are some stuff that I can recall, each of these cost me time, efforts and money.. so I will try to explain it:
– Development/Design ( endless effort, time and money)
– Connecting with authors via email/social ( more than 30 minutes / day)
– Editorial work (money: the blog have a dedicated editor)
– Formatting (I do it personally so that’s from 30 minutes to 2 hours / post)
– Internal/External linking (I do it personally 10 minutes – 1 hour / post)
– Choosing and uploading images ( I do it personally 10-30 minutes /post)
FYI, I publish 1-3 posts /day , so managing the blog takes (from 3 hours up to 6 hours) of my time daily! I do work up to 16 hours in most week, and yes.. I don’t have weekends like normal people!
If you compare this load of work to the blog income, you will feel bitty for me 🙂
So, yes.. I would love a way to make this blog fly on auto pilot, but… yes again! It sounds like a bad idea!
I really appreciate sharing your thoughts and opinion!
Hesham,
I really appreciate the feedback dude… 1 – 3 posts a day is serious stuff!
Thanks,
Ryan H.
No problem Ryan, I appreciate you stop by my post!
That’s actually what host bloggers do, they accept and reject posts based on quality, to me.. this is a matter of business, I won’t trade quality with anything else!
Thanks Sanjay for sharing your opinion!
Intriguing idea, Hesham… I know what you mean about the trust factor and also about bloggers not reading information. I have actually stopped accepting guest posts for this reason.. it ended up being easier and less time consuming to just to write posts myself.
I do allow a couple of guest bloggers to still contribute, because I know them and they always put out ready-to-publish, quality content.
Good rant!… and good luck with your project.
Hi Bob,
I thought so many times to quite the manage guest blogging thing, but never being able to take a decision.. So.. Wow.. you actually did!
Thanks for your wishes, the reason of this post is to have a conversation about the idea, it’s still an idea after all!
Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it.
Short but efficient comment 🙂 Thanks for your input!
i usually write very often on my blog but my post takes more time for indexing in google search engine. So i decided to post regularly on my blog and doing this procedure my articles are indexing very faster.
Hi Shenoy,
Good for your, just make sure you provide quality and interesting stuff!
Hi Hesham,
I like the idea of it all and all the positives are clear to see. However when we get to your concerns I see them as well founded and very honest.
We’ve all come across people that abuse our comment rules, even when they’re there for the world to see. So I dread to think what could (and would) happen if you opened the doors and allowed people to post content themselves.
Would you be able to have a script created to scan the posts for duplicate content, links etc? I know you scan the content but I’ve no idea whether it’s possible for the links. I know Amazon have a script for checking for PLR products with just the titles changed, but again not sure about links, i think the only way to achieve that to 100% is like you say the human eye, which defeats the object.
Umm tough call Hesham, but a brilliant idea 🙂
Best of luck with it all 🙂
Barry
Hi Barry,
Glad to see someone have thought about same ideas 🙂
Creating a script that check all content including the links is possible, actually my editor use an application to check if posts has been published somewhere else before start working on it, I just don’t recall the service he is using.
However as you stated.. Nothing is like the human eye, and there are people who tries to game the system and they will succeed anyways no mater how tight the system is!
Haha.. I know it’s a tough one, that’s why I wanted to involve the brilliant minds in my issues!
Thanks for stopping by Barry, I really appreciate your thoughts.
Hesham,
This is a great eye opener as I have thought about setting up a couple of guest blogging positions on my blog as well as being a guest blogger. But I wanted to make sure I had the traffic, knowledge and where with all to deliver good value to both the blogs I would hope to write for as well as the community on my blog who would read a guest post.
I can see why I have not pulled the trigger just yet and actually I’m not sure if I will…at least for my blog. Time will tell. Thanks for the transparency of this topic with showing the pros and cons of guest posting.
Ken Pickard
The Network Dad
Hi Ken,
Great to see you are taking your time to study the case before taking steps towards it! Maybe people would just jump without even thinking!
I wish you good luck either way! And, thanks for stopping by my post.
This sounds like one of those ideas that sound great in theory, but may be impractical in practice. The thing I’d be most worried about, especially if I had a lot of high quality content, is that it would become overrun by low quality content and become a link farm. It’s becoming clearly obvious that Google does not like such sites, so you’d have to be careful if you did follow through on this.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do here!
Hi Grady ,
You are right, low quality kills high quality indeed, let’s see how things will turn to be!
Thanks for reading my post and taking time to comment.
Hey Hesham, great to see you here and enjoyed the post.
Yeah, if only right! I just started allowing guest posts on my blog but only once a month and by invitation only. So mine is very manageable and I started it out this way to see how it would be received. So far it’s been great.
I still get lots of emails from people wanting to write posts on my blog who have never visited my blog before. Now I’m aware that a lot of blogs accept these but I do get tired of telling them no. Heck, I can’t even get people to read my commenting rules. Okay, a few do since it’s first posting.
But hey, maybe one day some type of automated system will catch everything and life will be grand right! Yeah, in our dreams.
Until then, carry on with your excellent self cause you definitely rock Hesham.
~Adrienne
Hey Adrienne,
Glad to hear that guest blogging is going well on your blog. and yeas I understand what you mean, that’s why I took a decision not to reply to those who waste my time by email.
Yeah, everything could change in a matter of days haha.. nothing is stable these days 🙂
Many thanks for stopping by my post, I appreciate it.
Don’t do it unless you are only looking to do a “pump and dump” on the site. If you just want to pump up the volume of content and then sell the site (dump it) before it gets out of hand, fine. But assuming that’s not your goal, then I promise you’ll regret it. The spammers will run wild with it. Guaranteed.
That said, I’ve been writing my novel for the last few months, so I’ve had to depend on guest posts a lot. I do, however, have strict guidelines, and tend to reject at least as many as I approve. Sure, it takes time, but I know my site won’t get destroyed while I’m finishing up my book. That’s important to me, and I bet it’s important to you.
Hey Donna,
I understand what you say, and probably you know that I won’t be selling my best location and window on the internet! Of course I want things to be better!
Thanks for sharing your story, I hope someone will learn from it! I wish you good luck with your new novel.
Hesham, for this to have any chance of success you would need to very carefully vet contributors before you let them loose on the blog. Having no direct quality control over content would be a very bad idea indeed, if my experience is anything to go by!
Hi Pete,
You are so right, many thanks for stopping by and sharing your opinion.
I don’t think total automation would work. I do believe, however, that if you had someone to handle the guest blogging posts to weed out the poor writing or duplicate content, as well as someone (preferably the same someone) who could handle minor editing, you’d be set for something great. I’m for hire! 🙂
Hi Tamara,
Your comment makes a lot of sense! Once I have a good and easy to manage system, I will be looking to hire a website manager!
Hey Hesham,
It’s a great idea but a bit risky, I think for automation to work, there should still be some level of monitoring so that only the good stuff goes through not everything, or at least have the people monitor each other by having a “Report It” button in case someone spots something inappropriate, but then again that doesn’t protect against the quality of the article.
It’s a tough one, that’s for sure. 🙂
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Sayed,
You are right, there must be some level of modiration, and also some sort of support, the “report it” or “report this article” button is a must, thanks for pointing me out to this.
Let’s say that my goal is to reduce the work load to the minimum I can, so it won’t be disturbing my other projects that actually profit me most.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
In case of guest blogging I have read that most of the gust bloggers are writing the same story on many blogs with different wordings. I think for guest blog owners should be very careful before publishing that post.
Hi Azam,
That’s correct! I am aware of this.. Many bloggers write about same thing, especially trending and hot topics!
Hesham,
To me, the headache part will be the duplicate topic or low quality content. So, accepting guest blogging will be a heavy load for the editor. The key of guest post is to let your readers to expose to some one else opinion and learning new stuff. If the content is inferior, that will certainly defeat the purpose and will have negative impact to the blog.
For the blog farm issue, this is kinda hard to avoid unless you spell out even stringent rules to ban the linking to the sites not relevant to your niche and limited to 2 links. Guest post is very different from blog network though the backlinking benefit will be the same because people. The key is the quality of the content.
Cheers,
Ming
Hi Ming,
You see… some blogs are designed as a multi-authors blogs, they are made for guest posting since the beginning (example: FamousBloggers.net), some other blogs were personal, then their owners decided to accept guest posting!
Of course, this idea won’t work without having a tight guidelines! However, I see that social bookmarking sites has no issues with duplicate content, each of these sites has 100s and some times 1000s of users who submit almost the same content everyday!
I’ve wondered about these same topics with my blog. I just recently started accepting guest posts which I didn’t think I would ever do. In my opinion, the pros outweigh the cons.
Hi Ben,
I see that everyone who just started accepting guest posts won’t agree with this idea, and simply most them think it won’t work!
I keep wondering why! probably no one want to risk their blogs!
You can trust me….honest! I’ve never done a guest blog ‘cos I’m currently too busy with my own, but it’s definitely on my list of ‘to do’s’. Frankly I’d guest blog anywhere that would have me (almost) because I’m at the start of my blogging career – which doesn’t mean I can’t write riveting articles, of course. 🙂
Show me where to sign up and I’ll be in like…..did I mention you can trust me? Trust me, I’m a doctor – never thought I’d ever say that!
Hi Carol,
Once you have good amount of content on your blog, you will be ready to guest post for others, or then readers won’t find value of visiting yours!
Of course I can trust you Doc 🙂
Hesham, sounds like a great idea with many pitfalls.
There would still be a level of monitoring required to keep your blog to high standards and would still require you to be very hands on, no matter how automated you make it.
Much hard word and long hours go into building an authoritative website such as yours and I’m sure you are not prepared to turn it into a dumping ground. However, with the correct amount of automation it could be amazing!
Sandy Moore
Hi Sandy,
I agree with you and I like this:
“With the correct amount of automation it could be amazing!”.
I do agree with your pros and cons. From what I have observed, there are also some guest bloggers who work really well for the first few days or months, but eventually, they get tired and they make bad articles and they just do plain advertising!
Hi Sara,
Ah! That’s a good point, I haven’t thought about it! Yes.. people get tired sometime and they change the way they work 🙂
I have guest post automation on one of my sites…All guest posters have authors access and it is run with a great amount of trust. They must stick to the rules or their account is degraded.
The funny thing is, it is working. I just need to get my act together and promote this blog as it is not one of my big websites..ie less important to me..
Hi Mitz,
No wonder you are the one who will understand me most 🙂
P.S. do you mind sharing a link to your blog? I would love to take a look!
Hi Hesham,
This sounds like a good idea but it surely has its risk. I believe you have pretty decent numbers of contributors and i feel to be fully automated, you should make your guidelines stricter. Just one guest post to make the grade probably is not enough, to consistently roll out quality post requires a lot of effort from your contributors. I would suggest at least five guest post accepted.
At any point of time, you feel that someone is submitting crappy content, you should immediately pull him out of the project. Once automated, i guess you can’t have full control, that’s why most of the folks are having the reservation of this working but at least you are bringing this up for a discussion. So kudos to you for the idea. Though i have my reservations too, i hope you can find a way which works best for you. All the best.
Hi Lye,
They say no profit without risk 🙂
I like to take the risk if I can profit from it, also who knows! Maybe everybody involved can profit as well! But because I am not sure, I tend to ask for opinions and feedback to strength my idea!
FamousBloggers.net has 550 contributors as we speaking! (of course not all of them are active or contribute regularly).
Managing a multi-author blog is a huge load, and I suppose no one really do it alone, a team should run it! So, I just don’t want to get stuck one day and have to sell or abandon the blog!
This discussion is going insanely awesome!
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts, I appreciate it.
I like the idea of automation, but the quality of content would be a concern. How would that be addressed with automation?
Hi Marcie,
I believe an idea like what DiTesco proposed in his comment above could solve the quality issues!
Agreed. And maybe I should read previous comments before I make mine. 🙂
I just can’t believe how useful these comments are! Really inspiring and worthy stuff allover the comment section 🙂
Are you really even talking about “automation” or simply allowing a handful of trusted writers on staff to have self-publishing permissions? That’s not what I think of as “automation.”
That’s a good question!
What I mean by automation is automating the process as a whole in my back end (“my side” as someone who owns a multi-author blog), so I won’t be forced to put any additional effort my self to make the blog active!
Based on inspiration I got from the comments on this post, I think this has two main parts (or actually more):
Part (A): A technical part such as development and related stuff -in my opinion- this will require a system that allow self publishing in an easy way from the front end of the blog, such as creating signup forms, article submission forms, uploading images..etc.
Part (B): The other part is choosing/upgrading the right people to contribute!
P.S. What I am looking for is to actually hire someone who could manage the blog, at this time I need someone who have amazing skills (communication, SEO, publishing, social, design …etc) and will cost me a lot! (more than the blog revenue).
So, I am seeking a way to automate a big part of the blog management process, thus I can hire a person with less skills!
I hope this explains!
Hello Hesham,
I impressed with lot of discussion on this particular topic.
I think Guest Blogging is a good idea as long as you get a quality content from your guest authors.
Every technology or idea has pros and cons in this world but we should always look for more pros.
Not every blogger is a spammer and you should look for more qualitative content.
You can manually delete certain spam content if you come across.
Spammers are not usually writers so most of the time you won’t find them.
I appreciate you for coming up with such a good unique post.
Hi Vicky,
Actually guest blogging has been always a hot topic!
So here in this post we are investigating this idea, so far most of the opinions are against it!
Man.. sometimes I have a clear vision, but everybody around sees it differently and almost think I am crazy 🙂 this is what I call a brilliant idea haha!
By the way, deleting content shouldn’t be an option, simply because those posts will be indexed by search engines, and shared on social media, so deleting the content breaks links and leads to 1000s of visits to a 404 page!! We should think 100s times before deleting a blog post!
I know this is a complicated situation 🙂
Thanks for your input, I appreciate it a lot!
I think there’s a big difference between creating an efficient process that automates the publication of quality content and a content mill which recycles poorly written content.
I could see the concern if you didn’t have a following and were trying to find good content, but surely you have enough contacts to build a stable of quality bloggers. New ones could be added after they’d been vetted or provided a writing sample. You could have some sort of rating system where readers rate the blogs so they can see which are getting the best views.
You could even create an opportunity for bloggers to sponsor the blog for, say, $25/year. As long as you had a requirement that the posts be informative and educational (not one long ad for their products/services), it would maintain the integrity you intended.
I don’t see how automating this is any different than the “jerks” who post unsavory things to a company’s Facebook page. The social media manager monitoring the site takes 3 seconds to respond if it’s a way to showcase their customer service or deletes it if they’re just being mean.
Lastly, and I don’t mean to offend since I didn’t see any other comments mention this, but if you want to ensure the quality of the site, you need to make sure your own posts are free of spelling, grammar and sentence structure problems. I noticed a number of errors in this post and it was really distracting.
Hi Robin,
WOW! That’s a fantastic feedback! I now started to believe that full automation is a dream!
Let me list a few of the great ideas out of your comment here:
– Rating system.
– Provide a writing sample
– Sponsor the blog
P.S. Thanks a million for pointing me to this, I work hard to enhance my writing skills, I am not good enough yet!
Nice post Sir.
Guest post are the best way to socialize with other bloggers. However you covered the topic in a completely different perspective. Amazing post.
Thanks for sharing your views 🙂
Sure, no problem!
Hi Hesham,
The advantages u have given is of no value against the disadvantages. If u leave ur blog in the hands of others ( though trusted people ) u will loose the juice of ur site. Moreover, if you have given rights to genuine blogger, he/she will try to publish good contents but their will be no quality control. Every blogger has his own uniqueness but it is not necessary that it bears quality. Hence, u may give this opportunity to 1-2 people on trial basic with close look on them & if u found worth doing then expand ur reach. Byeeeee.
P.S.- Thanx for this informative post.
Hi Minesh,
I see what you mean!
Thanks for the good advice, testing this out with few trusted bloggers will indeed help on deciding whither to go for it or just scratch the whole idea!
First of all, you and me and the rest of the good and honest blogger already know the internet is full of crap, people will do whatever they can to get rank well in the niche, for example, I had been encouraging people to use their real name and some still use keywords as name, so do you think they even care about “trust”?
It doesn’t matter if your blog is run by Google or MSN or even Yahoo’s team of people, no matter how hard your team work, people will always find loop holes in your guidelines.
One thing for sure is there will never be “trust” on the internet, because there is always a sentence I always believe and that is “every man for himself” and that is a fact we need to know even if it sucks.
I surely won’t agree with you about your plan on doing this, because I doesn’t want you blog to fall into the “Crap” category. Quality content is judge not by the people writing the content, but by the people reading it and if you give these people the power to use the publish button at will, even if they write crap, they will still say it’s quality.
Do you remember how Brian from BE had to defend himself over those people who abuse BE by voting for one another to rank in first page? It was difficult to face those idiots who kept telling their content is quality, seriously Quality “MY ASS”
You know it and I know it, most of the content they vote are absolutely no quality, that is why Brian had to step in to stop it even if those people start writing shit about his sites.
Look, just imagine you start this guest posting plan of yours and people start abusing it, and one day you say “That’s enough” and chase those people out, what do you think those people will say? You know it and I know it, they will surely talk shitless stuff out of it.
So, I hope you understand why I disagree with your plan, it is not because your plan sucks, it’s because of the people. There is no “trust” and it’s too much of a risk in it.
HI
Ah.. same as you.. I had enough of the “real name and keywords as name” thingy!
The other Ms. Ileane G+ed her decision which I totally agree with!
Oh!.. No!… I don’t want to chase anyone.. seriously! That’s the last thing I would ever do 🙂
Damn it! You always shock me with the… Truth!
Hesham,
I can understand that, given the size of your site, you can think to automate the publication of articles by guest bloggers.
The cons are too many for me, because you can not control the upstream, and you should probably delete many posts after publication.
The risk of duplicate or shit content is very high.
My advice: follow the process manually, even if it brings a lot of work.
Hi Erik ,
I see your point! And, I hate deleting content, I mean what would I publish it on the first place if I knew there is a chance for removing it! This definitely not a good thing to do!
Thanks for the good advice, I appreciate it!
Hey Hesham,
I tried to automate my blog once, but that went terribly wrong. Not only did I get the worst of (duplicate) content, but also tons of links to sites that can crush a blog’s rep in a flash.
Th automation lasted a week, it took me three days to clear it of crap and fake users. Of course I did everything wrong in trying to automate.
The problem: You can automate income streams, production processes,but you cannot automate humans. Any plugin that proclaims it can automate a blog can be directly plugged where ‘the sun don’t shine’.
But I guess you can train a staff to run it for you. They could do it very well.
One drawback: You’ll be only checking numbers and graphs to see how your blog is doing. It’s like watching your baby grow up without feeding it yourself.
Somehow I feel that it’s not the way to go, but here’s a suggestion:
Semi-automate your blog.
-Train some staff to moderate and communicate with your readers and contributors
-You can take some time off and don’t have to be present al the time.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Andi
Hi Andy,
Seriously, If I make over $100,000 a year, I would hire an experienced person full time to manage the blog, and that would be the best automation ever for the project!
Great advice indeed! Much appreciated!
Haha 100,000 sounds convincing allright :p
Yeap, I need to take care of my self first so I can take care of others 🙂
Hey Hesham,
Maybe you should try a different approach. I think completely automating the system will not give you quality content. I guess you are checking a lot of articles on their quality. Why don`t you check the reputation of a writer?
If you are a business you must hire employees that have certain skills. A company will not hire everyone. Your blog is your business, so maybe this approach will save you time.
Content is the foundation of every site. If your foundation is weak your site will collapse. By filtering on authors (maybe with Google Author rank) you know the reputation of a person and what they usually write. Maybe this will work.
Good luck with your project!
Hi Nicky ,
You are absolutely right, I would hire experienced staff on the very first chance I can!
I’ve implemented Google Authorship already on the blog, and I don’t accept anyone who don’t have a Google+ profile to guest post!
Thanks for sharing your opinion, I appreciate it!
I suppose when you have successful blog, people are jealous, they think, why didn’t I do that before. But then that’s part and parcel of any work. Even if you have a day job, there will be leg pullers.
Hi Shalu,
Yeah, people would be jealous of you, but then we need to think different about this, getting and touch, be friends and having a relationship with successful people yet gives you the power!
Hi Hesham,
I love your thoughts, but from my experience with guest bloggers, an automation would never work (but I’m only talking about my experience).
I get a few requests every day, and if they are fairly good, I accept them. But, I have a clear guideline on what the guest posts should be like, and very few read them. And, even though one of my most important “rules” is that the guest blogger should reply to the comments, it’s very hard to get the guest blogger to do it. I want my blog to be personal, and I want my guest bloggers to contribute, not just by publishing a post.
But, getting them to reply to comments has been really hard 🙂
Hi Jens,
It would never work! I like the way you say it.. haha!
I would suggest stating something like removing credits if the guest blogger didn’t follow the guidelines.
Very soon I will announce my new guidelines and make it even more clear than it is.. I will state that credentials will be removed if the author didn’t reply to comments, removed personal image, Googe+ or any other social personal link!
Yes, we don’t want another dead piece of content on our blogs 🙂
What an interesting and scary idea! In my opinion, I don’t think a project like this could ever work if it was open to the general public. There’s about a 100% chance that you would end up with a lot of junk and spam.
But if it was controlled to a handful of people who have already proven that they can provide good content, then it could definitely work. You’d basically be creating a mini blogging community. You could maybe even have a voting system so that people who don’t get enough votes/comments/shares/whatever would not be able to post anymore.
Duplicate topics don’t bother me. We all read the same things over and over, we just go to different sites to do it. When something is in the news we read it many times. That’s because everyone has a different voice and spin and opinion. In fact, I think having duplicate topics could be a strength because it would give people various ideas about the topic from different perspectives.
I think if you can start with a handful of people you trust, who have good blogs of their own and prove they are good at what they do, it can grow from there. Perhaps there are membership levels with certain limitations, or perhaps if someone has been submitting posts long enough they earn the right to add another blogger to the group that THEY trust.
Definitely an interesting idea … sounds like it could be fun to contribute, too, and get to know the other bloggers. I’ll be waiting to see how this turns out!
Hi Carol ,
Thanks a lot for your awesome and detailed input! I like your take on duplicated content, I totally agree with you! And, yes.. It’s all about Trust!
Sure, it would be great to have you on board.
I appreciate it.
I would be most concerned about duplicate content. Not the accidental type, but the kind where someone is blasting the same exact article to multiple sites in order to get backlinks. It just degrades the blog. I would say that I spend the most time checking for this problem and have seen some submissions of per or duplicate content that I’ve had to reject. Allowing automated submissions would seem to allow more people to get by with this kind of article blasting.
Hi Richard,
Yes, you are right, I see your point about duplicated content. Checking posts before publishing is a must.
Thanks a lot for stopping by my post and sharing your thoughts.
Great post Hesham and great Idea, but maybe it will be hard to execute.
Because at the end you would get more traffic but your blog post quality would decrease and that will lead to lost of that same traffic.
That’s why the real human supervision is always the best solution, I know that it can be hard and that it is hard work but you did very good so far and I’m sure you’ll manage everything even better without any automated work.
Hi James,
Yes, not impossible, but hard to execute! Thanks for your encouraging comment. I appreciate it.
Hi Jose,
I agree, so I won’t allowing everyone indeed! Thanks for sharing your opinion with us!
Hesham,
It’s very refreshing to find another person like me who does NOT trust guest bloggers!! Since the beginning of 2012, I’ve received and posted at least 250 articles thus far on my blog, and we’re only in mid May! YES, I have read and personally edited EVERY single one of these articles. I proofread EVERYTHING. If need be, I tell them to put in paragraph titles, clean up some sentence construction issues, etc. If I’m reading the post and find more than 3 grammatical errors, I just let the sender respectfully know that the post won’t be published, because of X Y Z!
At least, now I know I’m not crazy NOT to automate the guest-blogging process on my blog; by the way here it is: http://www.Kodjoworkout.com
I visited your blog, and I wish I had an editorial staff as robust as yours. Well, it’s just me myself and I for now. Hey, that makes it three ;-).
Cheers mate!
Kodjo
Hi Kodjo,
By the way, I didn’t mean that I don’t trust “guest bloggers” by the word! I have many fellows who are so trusted in my network, so let’s just be clear about this, not all bloggers are the same!
I had to deal with grammars and typos in a different way, I hired an editor to check all posts before it goes live, so errors has been reduced, and I consider this as another service! I think it’s cool to help them out and at the same time help my self get their posts published!
I see you are doing good, so keep it up! Thanks for sharing your experience with us!
Hi Mohsin ,
Of course no body wants that type of dead posts!
I liked your concept, Hesham. To give guest bloggers the power to hit the publish button reduces your time spending on blog but it may require human eye to check which quality guest blogs are publishing in your website.
Hi Pete,
By the way, that could be a win-win situation as many posts stays for more than a month in the pending section, so this idea could speed up the publishing process for everyone who guest post on the blog as well as reduce the work I put into it!
Thanks for stopping by!
Anything automated has an increased chance for abuse. But the main problem I see with your idea is what prevents people from c/p a random article on the internet to just post on your blog?
Hi Josh,
In the automation process, nothing really can stop them!
I know this post is off topic and not related to the blog post but since i can’t visit famousbloggers.net blog because of the redirect you have on IE users once again. This is the last time, i’m offically unsubscribing to the famousbloggers blog. The owner keeps added a redirect once and awhile on IE broswers because he can’t seem to handle fake traffic he is getting.
It’s a shame because I’ve been with the blog since a few weeks after it launching reading the blog posts.
Hi Derek,
I’ve told you before, I can’t remove the Fake Traffic Blaster plugin from my blog, at least not yet. I am preparing a shocking blog post about this, and you will see by yourself what I mean!
I really apologize for this, but it’s just not possible for me to hurt my blog!
This is an interesting idea.
While I certainly see the lure of allowing automation, I have to think the benefits are outweighed by the negatives. The quality of the content is just too important. When you overwhelm people with lots more posts that are “Meh!” they may miss the ones that are really good. (I am even willing to concede there might NOT be “bad” posts).
If you were to let people “autopost” it would have to be a very select group. Perhaps something like people that have posted 10 guest posts rather than 1… and even then i would do it based on the quality of the writing..not just carte blanche.
There is nothing harder to change than a bad reputation. Once you get the rep for lower quality content, it will be hard to change peoples opinions back, and I think some editorial process is necessary for that.
(an alternative is to HIRE some people you trust as editors and streamline/speed up the process of editing)
Hi Steve ,
You are right, and probably choosing trusted guest bloggers based on quality not quantity is the right way to go!
And, yes! I am considering hiring on the first chance I can!
I really appreciate your valuable input, many thanks.
Hmmm Interesting! I’m on the fence with this one. I’m not one for automation, BUT…if it can be controlled and I had my “trusted” people I know in it, yes, I would go for it.
I don’t like anything spammy to connect myself with, especially now, with all the Google bots cracking down. Even a picture can effect your blog.
Maybe I’m a control freak, maybe it is fear, but this is an interesting idea which I would tread the waters slowly.
I don’t even use automation on twitter ha ha….maybe I’m the only one in the world that doesn’t – but I’m careful who I “hang out” with.
This is something I cannot really say yea or ney about unless I looked into the process further. But thanks for the idea. It does seem rather exciting to me.
Donna Merrill
Hi Donna,
Fear keep your business safe, risk make you earn more! However, I think I can’t risk my best projects, I will do if I have alternatives.
I am not also fan of automation, at least not the fully automated stuff, however.. I do automate tweets from trusted blogs in my network, I see nothing wrong in that because simply.. I trust what they publish!
I appreciate you stopping my post today.
Hesham, You can trust me.
I am very much agree with your idea, i mean it is like some revolutionary changes in blogging and really it need strong faith on guest blogger.
To make it successful, you may conduct various test to check who can stand tall on your faith. Take a initial with your most faithful people and later open for others after clearing some tests.
It will be really helpful for some blogger to grow easily with their blog.
Thanks For Sharing such kind of worthy idea. 🙂
Hi Avinash ,
Haha.. I really didn’t mean to make a revolutionary changes in the blogging history or anything from that 🙂 I just wanted to save myself some time to focus on my other projects without having to abandon the blog.
I am always up to test everything, I actually do a lot of testing, and would love to dig deeper into this one, of course I will be able to share my test results with people who are interested.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.
Welcome Hesham,
Young and Active Mind Never Stops. You are really going to do something different and unique; No one can take this type of initiatives which you are talking about.
I really liked your idea.
Again Thanks for sharing with us. If you’ll start then please tell me and tell to other geeks like me.
Happy Blogging 🙂
Wow! Thanks!
Again Welcome 🙂
You are again Most Welcome 🙂
That is a good tip especially to those fresh to the blogosphere. Simple but very precise info… Thanks for sharing this one. A must read article!
My pleasure!
I never realized just how much was involved with guest blogging; I was under the impression it might actually be easier because you had the content being provided by someone else. This was a very insightful post and now I have much to do before incorporating this for my own business!
Hi Gayle,
Now you know it’s a not an easy task, accepting guest pots on your add additional tasks to your busy day!
Thanks for stopping by!
I don’t think you can automate this process. The importance and power of the host blogger reviewing guest posts is really important to ensure quality on our site. If that was lost or comprimised then you become a big article directory full of junk articles, nobody wants that!
So true Gary, I am now thinking about a different approach to attack this idea 🙂
Thanks for sharing your opinion!
Hi Hesham,
It’s been my experience that a majority of people who want to guest blog for me don’t read or follow my clear guidelines. If you were able to automate the process I would hope that you could automate it for those you trust and but not those who you don’t yet know or trust.
Stacy
Hey Stacy,
Thanks for the advice, this actually what I am welling to do!
There are always people read post and even guest post. But it’s see how you use the content of post to attract readers. I’m always looking forward to see how guest blogger is going to share their on my blog.
Hi Ferb,
Let’s say I was lucky on this one 😉
The importance and power of the host blogger reviewing guest posts is really important to ensure quality on our site. If that was lost or comprimised then you become a big article directory full of junk articles, nobody wants that! Thank you for sharing.
Hi Bery,
Thanks for sharing your opinion, I appreciate it.
Thank you for sharing this very nice article. It is very helpful and interesting.
Managing the guest bloggers post won’t be an easy task at all. There would be a lot of thing that needed to be addressed before hosting the guest blog and taking every kinds of blogs will certainly harm the site. While guest blog will greatly help to increase the traffic if they are of quality one.
So true Bishal, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
This is really interesting. Some people think once they commented on your post, email it to the blogger their comments will be accepted. I guess it is time for them to realize that it doesn’t work out that way. I have always believed that guest bloggers must always have something to contribute with the blogs that they are visiting.
Hesham, great article!
I too was thinking about a way to automate this process, but in the end I came to the conclusion that guest blogging should not be automated. At most is should allow automation but each author/article should be scrutinized by others.
I think a “sandbox” approach will work, where anyone is allowed to send content, but only highest manually rated articles get to be published.
What do you think?
Hi Traian,
I like the idea of having a sandbox , authors post in it and we promote the good posts on the front page or something like that, I believe SEOmoz are doing something like that by separating the main blog from the community blog!
Thanks a lot for haring your thoughts! I appreciate it.
Hesham, yes, SEOmoz has a separate directory for user generated content and another one for the main blog. Even the UGC is reviewed by editors. I know that for a fact since I recently got one article published there – http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/how-to-get-more-clicks-with-low-rankings
Actually it will be fantastic if you could have few trusted people read the content and vote each submitted article, even before the article going live on the sandbox (UGC).
Cheers!
Guest blogging is a great way to bring traffic and to build relationship with other bloggers. On the other side automating this would not add any value, as you said no body will read such posts so no traffic and no benefits. SO as per me guest blogging automation is not a good option.
Thanks for the post!
Guest blogging is a wonderful way to achieve top quality content to your blog, without investing too much time or money on writing fresh content. But again: automation cannot do what humans can do. And that why I thin the idea of guest blogging automation is interesting, but eventfully is going to fail. Its your blog, so spend the time and go over posts you publish… what if its just spanned content intended only for links?
You have to go over the content yourself, no way to avoid it. Thats my opinion.