should or not accepting guest posts
Guests posts can be a powerful form of link generation, but they can also be a very powerful form of content generation. Huffington Post built an empire on guest contributors, and a lot of other sites have been able to build their platform using the same methods.

But there are also downsides to accepting guest posts.

If you’re planning on accepting guests posts on your site, there are a few things that you’ll need to consider:

Why and When Guests Posts Can Be Powerful

Guest posts can be very powerful for your website, and they’ll be able to help you do a few different things:

  • Generate content faster. When people submit guest posts, it allows for a wide-range of content that may resonate better with your audience. A fresh perspective is what a lot of blogs need to find success.
  • New audiences can be reached thanks to new writers coming to submit posts. Authors that are very serious will do all that they can to promote the post that they’ve written, and this will mean helping generate significant buzz for your website as a whole.
  • Bring experts to your site that may have a good standing in the community and add credibility to your website. The goal is to build authority, and there are few better ways to build authority than to have experts writing content for your website.
  • Guest authors will be coming to you, helping you boost your own network of professionals. These experts will network with you and maybe help you expand your reach or introduce you to other opportunities in the industry.

When you allow the right guests posts, you’ll be adding the feel of a professional publication to your website, too.

Why Some Sites Choose Not to Accept Guest Posts

A lot of websites choose not to accept guest posts. Why? Because with a lot of the good also comes a lot of bad. You’ll have to work much harder to control all of the guest posts than most people assume. Sure, this will involve editing, but it also will involve accepting pitches and reading through a lot of emails.

blog no idea

The downside of guest posts also includes:

  • Authors may direct spam or low-quality links to their posts in an effort to try and make them rank highly in the search results.
  • Spam will become your best friend, and a lot of sites blindly accept posts with no correlation to the theme of their site. If you’re offering medical equipment, you would expect a post to be medical- or health-related; not a post that is on LeBron James or Apple.
  • All articles should be edited, allowing your site to maintain a very high level of quality. If you’re not editing articles, you’re leaving yourself open to spam content and links.

If your site grows into a large publication, all of the editing and acceptance of pitches can be a full-time job.

Now, if you’re still on the fence, you should consider how much your blog means to your site. If the blog can add value and help with content marketing, it will often be a good choice to accept at least some guest posts.

But be picky on the posts that are accepted and keep a high level of quality.