Three months ago I started charging $ 20 to consider a guest blog post submissions and it changed my life. Not just clear out many of the most annoying e-mail messages in your Inbox, it elevated the quality of the posts I get and reduced the time I devote to editing them to levels I would never have dreamed possible.
When your blog reaches a certain size and level of popularity, you can expect to gain regular football plans from other bloggers, product, people, book author, and all kinds of random people looking to help your site in exchange for links back to their. Guest posts are a wonderful way among writers (or products) to gain exposure and experienced bloggers to publish more varied content.
But the problem is that everyone plays the same game, and there are many more small Blogs than there are successful. Another problem is that the most successful Blogs get popular, since they put out a steady and high quality content, so all contributed by a guest writer must meet these standards – otherwise, you will lose the audience. That put pressure on the blog owner to be a tough editor, which often result in more negative than positive talks.
Tired of having to spend hours each week explains the mediocre writer why my site is not a platform to sell Lama calorie count apps, or to "7 vegetables you should know about" is not an interesting title, I knew I had to change the workflow.
Thought I hire an editor/Assistant, but not a big media blog, couldn't I fit it in my budget. I thought also pays for the higher quality writing – I write several blogs that pays me for my work – but didn't want to encourage people to send even more sites. I just wanted the places I get better. So I nixed these options.
Finally fixed, I require a $ 10 minimum donation to my campaign for charity water to even consider a service as a guest. Donation does not guarantee the post is published — it only guarantees I read and think it is. I chose a charitable donation, rather than a for-profit fee because I didn't want it seems to me that if I'm charging for links or by taking advantage of the authors. The sole purpose of the donation is saving me time and make sure that someone who sends a pitch is willing to put their money where their mouth is a serious writer.
Charity water has a fantastic online system that allows donations easy to track. I added my donation requirements at the top of my guest posting guidelines (the most likely landing page for anyone wanting to submit a guest post). I also created a canned responses in Gmail explain my policy, I can easily send to anyone inquiring about guest posts.
The results were astounding. Email pitches directly decreased in numbers dramatically. The amount of sites I get from self-promotion link asylum seekers (those I always reject) decreased from around 90% of pitches to about 20%, and no one has chosen to donate and have thought about his record. Above all, the few that has taken me up on my offer written fantastic post that I was happy to edit for clarity and publish in summer tomato.
Even more amazing are the answers to my new system. Self promoters responds almost never in my jar replies (win). The less experienced writers apologize for their inability to donate and leave me to my business (double win: these guys requires most back and forth emails and editing). And most remarkable of all those who have increased and contributed has been overwhelmingly positive about my guidelines, says things like "it looks like a large charity, I would have happily donated anyway" or "all places should require this" (Charlie Sheen-type # winning).
The reality is good authors know when they have something valuable to contribute and have no problem stepping up to the plate. Weaker authors (those that submit drafts with ten exclamation full throughout) know when they are to reach out in their league, and prevents them from unwillingness to proceed with the submission.
Be careful, however: donations are not required for each blog. If you are not currently spend much time answering pitches or edit guest, charges are not necessary. New bloggers can take advantage of those accept guest posts and go through experiences in order to edit them, Know your audience before you make any major changes to your blog policy.
All that said, not all of which contribute to my site. If I invite anyone to submit a post because I think they have something interesting to share, not the donation is needed. I do not like people to share their successes or their farmers ' market updates (this is a weekly segment on my blog), because I do not have the same problem with the quality and uncertainty that I get from raw pitches.
Required donations is a great deterrent for self promoters seeking links from high-profile websites. They also save you lots of time by increasing the quality and the reduction of places you need to read. Best of all, it is good to know all which contributed to the time you saved the building a water well and allow hundreds of people access to clean water.
Would you charge a fee for a guest post on your blog? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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