Part of creating good SEO is having a blog on your website, and part
of having a blog on your website is having great content on that blog.
This is where SEO writers come into play. Writers of course don’t have
to be focused on SEO (that can be your job), but most writers who offer
guest articles to a blog know a thing or two about the process. They
know what it means to use keywords naturally, they know how important
link-ability is, and they know how to analyze a website and decide if
it’s quality in the eyes of Google.
To make a long story short, writers know a thing or two about
creating a blog that appeals to great online writers. You have your
classic tips—ask for pitches first, never make too many edits, have a
“guest post” tab, etc.—but writers can offer you a few tips that are
less well-known.
From a Writer: A Few Unique Thoughts for Websites Accepting Guest Articles
Understanding the ins and outs of your business means understanding
your audience. When it comes to accepting guest articles on your
website, the potential writers are essentially your audience. You can
offer them a great backlink, but that’s no long something special
anymore (every company has caught on to why that’s important).
You want to create a great place for your contributors, and that
means listening to their observations. Below are some of the things that
writers notice when it comes time to guest post on a website:
- There is nothing worse than writing for a site that doesn’t allow you to subscribe to comments.
Subscribing to comments on a post that you’ve written is great
because you don’t have to keep checking back to see if someone
commented. It shows up right in your inbox, and you can be sure to
you’re replying to everything, even months later. It’s good for the
website, the writer, and those commenting, so it’s worth the little bit
of extra time it takes to make it happen.
- Telling a writer about other sites that you own is like hitting the jackpot.
If you own more than one website, mention that to writers that ask to
contribute to your site. In many cases, the writer will be able to
contribute to that site as well, so it’s a win-win situation.
- Telling a writer you are not going to accept an article is much better than just ignoring the issue.
It seems that sometimes editors don’t think that writers want their
inboxes full of “no thank you,” so it’s better to avoid sending an email
altogether. This is certainly not the case. Even if you want to be very
short with a writer, it’s better to get something than nothing at all.
This will help the writer stop wondering what’s going on with a
particular article and get them out of limbo.
- If you don’t have an actual email address on your contact page, a writer might move to a new site.
There are absolutely pros to not putting a physical email address on
your contact page (spammers, for one), but in some cases this isn’t
ideal for writers. Many writers like to write articles first and then
try and send the article to a website. Websites are often more
responsive when this happens because they know that you’re serious. You
don’t have to sit there and wait to maybe get a response from a random
contact page that you filled out (and therefore have no record of in
your inbox). It’s just not ideal.
So what’s the moral of the story for small businesses? If you
want to accept guest articles on your blog, keeping these things in mind
will give you a better chance of creating a good relationship with your
writers. This doesn’t mean that you have to make your guest posting
process easy, but just be aware of some of the things that will help
writers be more successful (and ultimately help you become more
successful).
Are you an online writer who has a few tips for small businesses
looking to accept guest posts? Let us know your thoughts in the comments
below.
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