Creating a System for Accepting Guest Posts
Written by: Eric Brantner on July 27, 2010 – 5:57 pm
Okay, I admit that I’ve been on a bit of a guest blogging tangent my last few posts. Most recently, I offered some tips for attracting more guest posts on your blog. Once the guest posts start rolling in, you’ll need to have a system in place for accepting and posting them. If you aren’t organized, this can be time-consuming and overwhelming. The good news is it’s pretty easy to create a workable system for managing your guest bloggers.
Here are some tips to streamline the process.
- Immediately decline posts that don’t meet quality standards—Don’t waste your time struggling to make low quality posts fit your blog. Your time is more valuable than that. Just immediately respond to those who submit posts letting them know the reasons you’re rejecting their guest post. If they wish to correct the post and resubmit it later, you can allow it, but you don’t want to be spending your time having to go through every little detail of posts that are obviously not up to snuff.
- Let the blogger know when the post will be published—Once you’ve accepted a guest post, schedule it and tell the blogger when he (or she) can expect to see it go live. This way, the author knows when to check back so he can respond to comments, promote his post, etc.
- Consider creating contributor accounts for guest posters—If you use WordPress for blogging, you can allow guest bloggers to register for a basic author account. This allows the writer to put the post into WordPress, format it, and submit it to you for review. Then, if the post is good enough, all you have to do is schedule it to be published. This can save a lot of time as you don’t have to upload the posts and format them.
- Try publishing guest posts on a specific day each week—As a frequent guest blogger, one thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of blogs have specific days of the week they post guest content. For instance, I just submitted a guest post to an internet marketing blog, and the blog owner explained it would be published 2 Wednesdays from now, because he only puts out guest content on Wednesdays. This helps your readers know when to expect guest posts, and it just keeps your blog structured properly.
How do you manage incoming guest posts? Share your tips by leaving a comment.
July 27th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Good tips Eric. I completely agree with #1. If someone wants to be a guest blogger, they need to brush up on their writing (and sometimes English) skills. It's not worth the time to touch up some other post that has many issues.
July 28th, 2010 at 8:09 am
Eric,
Glad to see you on a guest posting tangent.
Anyhow I think letting guest bloggers create an author account and submit the post for review is the way to go.
I have been spending so much time doing that but I'm switching to this method because well I simply don't have the time to go through and format every post. I'm too busy running my business.
Excellent tip!