Running Guest Articles on Your Blog? Is It Really a Good Idea?

March 18, 2011 by Daniel Sharkov|

Everything happened around four weeks ago. Doing research, writing articles, promoting them and all the other small yet important tasks were beginning to take their toll on me. Finding time for all of this was starting to turn into a big struggle. Non-blogging stuff were relentlessly draining all of my focus and energy. Working on my blog less than two hours a day was just not enough.

Just when I started thinking about slowing the phase and probably even quitting, a brilliant (or maybe not?!) idea came to my mind.

With the huge Twitter network I have, I thought that finding people willing to contribute with an article is not going to be much of a problem.

Luckily it really wasn’t and after a week of tweets, encouraging people to write for me, I got around twenty candidates. Since then this blog saw eight additional guest articles to the two it had before. So this raised the question whether all of this was actually a positive or rather a negative trend.

Below I’m going to share my opinion on the subject. It would be great if you take the time and give your two cents in the comments section below as well.

Guest Articles Present Different Points of View

That is probably the number one benefit of guest articles on your blog. They can definitely spice up your style and present a different perspective to your audience. Let’s say you have some sort of a problem to solve. You do what you have to do and in the end you get it solved your way. When facing the same problem, someone else can choose a totally different approach. For some people the first solution might work the best, while others might find it difficult to apply and vice versa.

Guest Articles Can Widen Your Blog’s Reach

On the other hand no matter how passionate or knowledgeable you are about a topic, two brains are always better than one. A guest blogger might know something of great value, you never thought about. I myself have published a few such articles on this blog. The one on brand buildingis a good example. So in the end your content can prove much more comprehensive than one from a single authored blog. All of this can have positive impact on your SEO and your audience, leading to more subscribers and readers.

These are by far the two most significant pros of guest articles. Now let’s head on to the cons:

Guest Articles Can Destroy Your Blog’s Identity

The identity problem is definitely the first thing that comes to my mind. Blogging is to a great extent a way of expressing your thoughts, your views on the world and your experiences. Repeating the word “your” three times in the last sentence was not at all accidental. Many people have started a blog solely because it is an awesome way to get their opinions heard by a huge audience.

Guest Articles Can Drive Away Regular Readers

That very same audience is actually the other side of the problem. Although guest bloggers can help you increase your readership, they can also drive away regular readers. Believe it or not, but many people are subscribing to your blog, because they like your style and the way you present the information. It is not about the information itself. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that what you are offering cannot be found anywhere else. Internet is a vast place to say the least.

Conclusion

All in all guest articles can both have a positive and negative impact. Whether it is going to be the first or the second, depends a lot on the frequency. The perfect balance would be to write your own content and mix it with some quality guest content.

Your Thoughts

Hope you enjoyed the article. If you did please take the time to vote or retweet! I always appreciate reader input, but this time every comment will be especially important for me. What are your thoughts? Is it all about the information you are getting, or does it matter who is giving it to you?

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

I’m Daniel, an 18 year old student and the author of this blog. My articles cover a variety of topics, including blogging and writing tips, social media, traffic generation and more. Connect with me on Twitter, Facebookand Google+.

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