Guest Bloggers, Butterflies and Grasshoppers

 Credit: Chris Gin 

Whither Guest Blogging?  Guest blogging has being touted by some bloggers as a great way to achieve some kind of recognition and popularity. They say it will open doors for you to reach 'new heights' in your blogging experience. Let me state here that I'm no fan of guess blogging and lately I don't hear much about it unlike past years. I'm sure it's still going on somewhere in the Blogosphere but I guess it has gone lame.

The argument is that guest blogging will help generate links, exposure and traffic to your own blog. Obviously, this is the motivation that got many bloggers posting on other people's blogs to gain that extra mileage. In a sense, guest bloggers are like butterflies or grasshoppers.

If you want to move in the fast lane, once you joined the blogging community, you might think guest blogging would enhance the user experience. But first you've got to gain an 'entry ticket' before you're accepted by any other blogger whose site is your target. 

To do that, you have to show that you have got what it takes to write well - with great information, tips and whatever - to cut it though, otherwise don't even think about it...unless your host blogger is such a wooden head to let you post some fluff on his or her site. Well, there are some. You'll be surprised where you can find them!

You can run a high-octane blog if you have that kind of energy and motivation like some bloggers who seem to be able to conjure up 'endless posts' as guest bloggers. Some are doing it for the money because so-called A-list bloggers are more inclined to 'take a break' these days from blogging, so guest bloggers are welcome to fill in - and get paid for it (Well, they can afford it).

If you'd notice lately, some of these blogs are sort of running out of steam with boring articles or rehash. How many times have you come across some bloggers who write about how they are stuck with writer's block for want of new ideas to post. And, for them, there's always the fear of losing readers if they don't maintain the pace...and the face. That's where guest bloggers come into the picture to keep the wheels spinning. There are always some takers. 

Despite all this 'damage control' effort, the trend is showing that these blogs are slipping down from their high horse. You can see some interesting trends here. Of course, these bloggers should be smart enough to arrest these downward trends. They are no noobs.

Most guest bloggers you get to read are hardly more than a year or two into the blogging game. Some are so caught up with the guest blogging idea, you just wonder whether they pay more attention to other people's blogs rather than attending to their own blog backyard. We just don't buy it when some bloggers say "oh, we love guest blogging." Some bloggers are so enamoured of what they are doing, they'd go back to their blogs and glorify guest blogging to high heaven.



Photo credit: Bistrosavage

Here are a few myths that are being propagated by those favouring guest blogging:

• It makes you an authority by doing quality writing on other people's blogs. It pushes you to write better.

(If you are a good writer why can't you become an authority on your own blog? Do you mean you can't produce quality stuff on your own site? The adrenalin only flows when you are writing for somebody else?)

• It builds a good relationship with fellow bloggers.

(Is that the only way to build good relationship? There's more than one way to skin a cat, mate!).

• And, of course, it gets you deep links and increase your RSS subscribers.

(Sure, it will gain you backlinks and all that RSS jazz, but when they find there's not much to shout about at your own blog, their interest will eventually grow cold. Talk about leaving a cold trail!)

• And yada, yada, yada.
  
  Okay, there's no right or wrong about guest blogging. It's just a matter of taste or preference we either want to do or not at all. Having said that, we are the stay-at-home kind of bloggers. We like to tend to our own garden and see the flowers bloom...in our own way. We are not that desperate to do guest blogging in order to gain those extra links and get recognized in that manner. 'Nuff said.
  
  
  
  

It's been more than two years since guest blogging took off. We'll see in another year or two whether these hype-crazed guest bloggers are still running around or grinding to a halt. The very idea looks like fading into the mist of blogging history. Of course, there'll be opinions to the contrary.

Guest blogging can only take you so far - and it's a downhill ride for your blog if you don't start growing your own flowers. Hoping that guest blogging will get you some extra RSS feed subscribers (or pumping up the numbers as some would do) won't help much because, at the end of the day, the majority of these people don't read their feeds or come visiting. Most people end up with too many things to do and they can't just waste precious time reading feeds everyday or whatever. Some just forget their subscriptions.

In other words, there's not much value in trying to get this kind of traffic to your blog. What you need is to gain organic traffic or search engine traffic. People coming via this traffic route have a purpose and the keywords that got your site on the SERPs in the first place (ideally on the front page) are the baits that drove them to your blog.  Who needs guest blogging for that?

We don't need to elaborate on this. You can get more insights about this topic if you go over to Vic's site and hear him out on his video post "Serious Look at Why Readers Subscribe to a Feed" and Grizz's blog has this investigative take on "How to game your stats."

We are hardly out of January and we are already seeing many blogs struggling to stay afloat, especially the 'make money online' bloggers who are the most likely people to fall for guest blogging. So much has been written about the silly syndrome suffered by 'make money online' bloggers, but then, newbies are still web behind the ears!

So much for guest blogging. One nagging question: But how come those established A-list bloggers don't do guest blogging themselves? A penny for your thought. Oh, never mind, it's such a noobie question! I rest my case.

Of related interests:
Rumblings about Guest Blogging