Case Study: Do You Agree With Guest Posts?

The web design blogosphere is quickly evolving both as number and quality and this has lots of advantages. It’s true that the quality of the posts has not the same ratio of increase as the number of new blogs but it’s better to emphasize the positive aspects. The competition between bloggers and their blogs is harsh but users are the great incumbents of this.  Any web designer, by reading the blog posts,can learn new ideas and techniques; much more, some people with the aim of these “online teachers” have become self-taught specialists. Amazing, isn’t it? Of course, the simple reading isn’t enough to improve your skills,practice is mandatory, no one evolved without it. In this context, it’s easy to see the advantages of using blogs but how can a reader repay the blog owners? There are some possibilities as: promoting the posts through social media networks, participating in debates by using the comment forms, recommending it to the friends and colleagues of work, writing reviews of these posts. These modalities are at hand and are a great reward to any blogger.

Another form of rewarding for the good content posted is to contribute with an article, to share your acknowledgement with other readers. This kind of article is called guest post and the people who write these obviously, guest post writers. The guest post may be written only to present the readers your opinions but there are other potential advantages.

First, almost all guest posts contributors have reserved a personal bio at the end or at the beginning of the post, a special place where the author is describing himself. Second, there may be links to portfolios or other websites, blogs etc.inserted, in this way the readers will visit these, hence it is a good tool for promotion. Third, the links contribute to a better ranking from Google and other search engines which are vital in order to attract people, these links being equal to traffic and money.

In spite of these real advantages some blog owners find that guest post don’t bring benefits and reject the extra-contributors. Are guest posts useful, do they have a positive or a negative influence? My personal opinion is that there is nothing wrong to publish the articles of other people if they match the highest standards of quality. Please let me know what you think about this issue and share your interesting thoughts with us, by using the comment form. To be more objective, I have tried here to present the advantages and the disadvantages of guest posts; reading these may help you establish a correct opinion.

Advantages:

1.  Fresh Ideas

It’s really hard to post daily but having always fresh ideas and interesting posts, definitely the routine affects the potential. The same thoughts shared constantly will run away your visitors; give me a reason why they want to read the same stuff twice. A guest post is clearly the unique element that brings the needed freshness; a blog owner or a senior editor has the duty to check the post before publishing, once its quality is satisfactory, the length and segmentation correspond to the standard, the grammar and spell check are alright, publish it. It’s very important to study the reaction of the visitors, if the number of unique visitors of the post is as the average mean of your articles or more, that means that the reaction is positive and you should try another guest post.

2. New style and different approach

The world is fast changing and what today is interesting and innovative tomorrow is old-fashioned; the same is potentially happening with the blogs and a constant worry of a blog owner is to come every day, if it’s possible with a new idea, a cooler style. A single person hardly can really do it but the guest posts also may bring the desired originality. A guest blogger may have a more personal approach while you are perhaps more distant; try the new style of a guest blogger, a single item can’t really destroy your work.

3. Multiple points of view

At first sight, this tip seems mostly a good advice to failure but in the search of objective opinions or in the dilemmatic issues, multiple points of view are more than necessary. Pragmatically speaking, the “argues “perhaps are anesthetic, but healthy for a correctly based voice. I am pretty sure that these hot debates are appreciated by readers and this viewpoint is the conclusion of a carefully made study of the traffic when these types of posts were put online.

4. Save time and energy

The writing of a post requires time and resources hence isn’t better to post the work of others as long as they agree with? I don’t see why not, it’s advantageous for both sides.

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Disadvantages:

1. Inconsistency

It may appear a big issue: the loyal visitors are coming to your blog because they like itand they are interested in your posts (including style, format, length, ideas etc.). A new approach may be welcomed but the conservators probably won’t be content and you don’t want to repeat such troubles. The next action is to stop accepting guest posts and increase the number you write. When we are talking about money, safety is first.

2. The oscillations of the traffic received

The traffic obtained is proportional with the money received and no one likes to lose money just to encourage some amateur bloggers. No blog owner likes the fluctuations of the number of visitors. All of us have to pay bills, rent and each person estimates a monthly income and budget fluctuations can be annoying.

3. The risk of accepting guest post: poor quality, stolen content

The precedent two points are important but the negative consequences can’t harm massively your small affair. The big issue is related to the quality of the guest posts, it’s difficult to check if the material received isn’t in fact a modest rewritten version of another post. Usually the posts must pass the Copyscape exam but no one may check all the archives of all web design blogs only to verify the quality of a guest post. There is nothing more embarrassing than having comments of the readers that are upset because the post is “too inspired” from other source. A high quality blog purely can’t face such an uncomfortable situation; surely it is a yellow card from the readers.
In a nutshell, the guest posts aren’t 100% bad or good, it’s a matter of personal perception, presenting advantages and disadvantages. I want to see only the good side, I agree with the idea of guest posts, but I am very curious about you? Do you agree with me?