Guest Blogging and the Myths Behind It

Photo credit: Chris Gin

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.

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 your blogging journey. 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 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 blogs are more inclined to "take a break" these days from blogging, so guest bloggers are welcome to write for them - 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. And, for them, there's always the fear of losing readers if they don't maintain the pace...and the face. That's why they encourage guest blogging to keep their own wheels spinning. There are always takers - the believers and the newbies.

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 nowadays are hardly more than a year 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 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 in your own backyard?)

• 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 early days where guest blogging is concerned. We'll see in a year or two whether these hype-crazed guest bloggers are still running around or grinding to a halt. The very idea fading into the mist of blogging history.

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. You don't have to sweat it out once your site is well indexed and riding high on the right keywords. 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 Franqui'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 not yet into the second half of the year and we are already seeing many blogs struggling to stay afloat, especially the "make money online" sites that seem to produce more guest bloggers than any other blogging genre. Lately, they have been getting a lot of bashing as well but that's another story.

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!

Of related interests:
Rumblings about Guest Blogging