Guest blog on my web site.
-
**I received this email from a lady who wishes to write articles and post them on my site under my news section . Ok, if its quality I dont mind hiring somebody to create a post. Her proposal is as follows and this is her email :-**Basically what I can offer is to write a couple of articles for your News section, something fun and interesting for your visitors which will hopefully drag some traffic your way. I could make them well suited to your site and I could include in each a link to a client of mine - one who wants to be exposed on a good site like yours - and for doing that I can offer you compensation of £33 for each client link - 1 per article. For example, one client is Watches of Switzerland, so I could write an article about ideal wedding gifts for a groom maybe, or something about a perfect Honeymoon destination like Switzerland, and slip a link in there. Other clients include Weddingsite and Lampcommerce - which could be included in something about making a matrimonial home.
There are a few stipulations I would need to abide by, like - the article would need to be 500 words, it would need the link to be a 'do follow' link, it would need a picture or two, and it would need a couple of 'sacrifice links' (just links to Wikipedia or something to make it more Google friendly).
Question. Is this what a guest article is ? and also is the format ok ? Sorry if this seems a dumb question but still learning guys .
King regards to everyone
Peter
-
lol... I get mad and delete them... but maybe I could get some giggles here instead.
-
Wish I could say the same. When they use incorrect English grammar in the request email, we send it round the team to have a giggle....
-
Yes, since he made that video the number of requests that I receive has dropped.
-
Matt Cutts recently said that Guest posting is dead. I don't have the link but I am sure you will find story if you look
-
Hello Egol
Im listening to you and Andy and will not go along with the proposal. We do write good articles anyway for ourselves but this seemed something a little different, but I sure dont need penalizing for it, so Im grateful for you taking the time to respond. Thank you
Peter
-
Very pleased to have helped Peter
-
Hi Andy
Reading what you and Egol have written confirms why I asked the question. In the past I would have gone along with this and thought nothing from it. As always I appreciate your views and on this occasion ill take your advice and leave well alone.
Cheers
Petert
-
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.
I have encountered a few guest bloggers that I really respect. I occasionally receive offers of free articles from people who simply have a story to tell and they know that my website gets a lot of traffic related to their story's topic. These people are generally content area experts who produce wonderful work and they often have great photos or graphics to accompany the article. And they are not asking for links, trying to shill a business, or even seeking payment.
I have several of these articles on my site and have felt so good about them that I have given the author payment for hundreds of dollars simply to create a transaction that I have paid them for the right of publication. Once I started paying, a few of them have written several articles - on topics that I don't have the expertise to write about. I have gotten some of my best content from a couple of these people.
-
"In my opinion the PR services have been infiltrated by a lot of spammers who wear suits to work."
What a fantastic way of putting this Egol
-
...passing page rank from you to their client, something they are clearly doing for their own personal gain....
Right. I agree. And some of this crap is coming from people who call themselves "PR Services". In my opinion the PR services have been infiltrated by a lot of spammers who wear suits to work.
-
This response is my personal opinion. You will find lots of people who strongly disagree.
The opinions that people have about guest blogging can be strongly biased on whether they are the guest blogger or the blog owner. And the blog owner's opinions are based upon the care and pride that they put into their blog.
My experience is that almost every person who writes to me about "guest blogging" is looking to give me a low quality article to post on my site that is nothing more than a sign post with links out to one or more other businesses. The goal is to get a link for SEO purposes, maybe a little traffic, nothing more. And 99% of the time the quality of the content is far far below my standards. Most have been crap that I would never want to show to my visitors and would not publish if they gave me ten times as much money.
Another thing to keep in mind is that many of these people are hoping to use your site as a platform for link manipulation of search engine results. If google doesn't like paid links - and that is what you will be publishing. If you have a lot of them (or maybe even a few) on your site then google could decide to reduce your rankings because you are selling links.
The litmus test, in my opinion, is.... would this person still want to do guest blogging if the link was nofollowed or if there was no link to their website? If the answer is "yes" then you might have a great guest blogger who will produce great content - because they have a message to get out instead of a bunch of links that they want to get out.
Since a LOT of people want to do guest blogging I am expecting to receive a lot of thumbs down for this post. I have just given you my honest assessment of 99% of the pitches that are given to me.
-
Hi Peter,
I would certainly walk away from this, but that is just my opinion. Some people are OK with it, but it makes me very nervous when these types of post are a) being paid for and b) against Google's TOS.
A real guest blogging article should have a link / citation to the author, rather than to a site. For me, these articles always look spammy, sometimes content spun, but never really beneficial. Opening up the link as a 'do-follow' is also passing page rank from you to their client, something they are clearly doing for their own personal gain.
I hope this helps.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it possible to do guest blogging on moz blog?
Hi, I know it used to be possible but now i don't find any contact to submit an article to the blog. How does that work? Is that still possible to do it? And if yes, what are the conditions to be writer for Moz blog? Thanks. Stephanie
Content Development | | steph_ba0 -
Content Duplication Issue On Content Publishing Site
I am running Free Article Posting site but I discover people are posting their content which already has been published on different sites before. What should i need to do in order to save my site from Google penalty.3 waiting for your kind help in this regard Thanks in advance
Content Development | | Mustansar0 -
How do you rank a site in a very competitive market?
Do you focus on article submission, social media backlinks or what?
Content Development | | shauna70840 -
Knowledge base for seo, announcing new articles on blog (dupe content)
Hi all, Im thinking of creating a knowledge base with all many asked questions in my company. This could be a great Link-bait source but also nice ranking opportunities i think. But sometimes some new articles are so actual that i also want to blog them.
Content Development | | mdkay
Can i for example double post them (or post a big excerpt) on the blog and canonicalise it to the KB article?
Will links to the blog have equal value to KB links? And will this work?0 -
I wrote this blog, now what can I do?
Morning Guys As part of a bigger SEO Project I am writing some blog posts. I am trying to use information we have based on shopping habits within our store. So I have written this first blog post: http://blog.uniquemagazines.co.uk/2013/03/top-10-womens-magazines-purchased-as.html What can I do with my blog now to get more exposure? I have submitted our blog to a couple of RSS directory lists. I also created a pintrest board, and announced the blog post on our facebook and twitter accounts. I am hoping to do 1 of these bigger posts per week, and this took me about 3-4 hours to research the stats and compile the information, so obviously the more I can get out of it the better. Also, I am hoping over a number of weeks I can identify what sort of content relates best to our customers/browsers. Thanks Paul
Content Development | | TheUniqueSEO0 -
The concept of Blogging
Can anyone describe the fundamentals of blogging? Should I be aiming blog posts at "subject A vs subject B" or more on recent projects that have been worked on such as "keyword working with company A to complete subject X" ? Also, should I allow comments on posts and filter out the spam using plugins and manual methods or should I just turn them off and forget the hassle? Any help would be grand!
Content Development | | Hughescov0 -
Google plus Rich snippets for guest posting on large websites
I work for a content marketing company and the majority of our clients are large banks looking to get their message out there. We're thinking of favouring writers with Google plus profiles and adding the rel=author tag so all the articles incorporate rich snippets and a profile image. So this is more of a discussion into whether you think this would be beneficial to a large corporation. I know it aids in search and authority but it would mean a company would have many faces and they usually have one.
Content Development | | acs111
Think of when a company makes a speech on TV its always 1 person designated as the company spokesperson. Another way would be to write on behalf of somebody in the company and have there profile image but I can imaging this is frowned upon by Google. What are your thoughts0 -
Your Site and Google News Question
My site has been in Google News for about 3 years. Over the weekend, I received this message from Google Hi John, We periodically review news sources, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users. When we reviewed your site, mainstreetmonroe.com, we found that we can no longer include it in Google News at this time. We reviewed your site and are unable to include it in Google News at this time. We can't include sites that don't have a formal editorial-review process for submitted content. If this exists on your site, please let us know where and we'll be happy to review your site again. Mainstreetmonroe is scheduled to be removed from Google News for a period of at least 30 days. After this 30-day period has elapsed, you can re-apply for inclusion in Google News provided your site meets our guidelines. We appreciate your assistance in this matter. Please note that you'll still be able to find your site in Google Web Search and other Google services. Thanks for your interest in Google News. Regards, The Google News Team What exactly do they mean? I submitted my website news section, but they have been displaying our forum area in the news too. I think the forum is what GN is talking about. What is the best way to fix this problem? Move the forum to a subdomain? Website: http://www.mainstreetmonroe.com/ Forum: http://www.mainstreetmonroe.com/Voice/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=2
Content Development | | JohnBeagle0