Now Accepting Guest Posts

Submit a Guest Post Today

We may have discontinued our guest posting service, but that doesn't mean we don't support guest posting. A lot of companies are successfully finding guest posting opportunities, while others may still need extra help. It's not easy to find opportunities and to secure partnerships, and like many others, we see the value in guest posting and in reaching new audiences. Therefore, we are now accepting guest posts for our two blogs: Chief Editorial Officer and News Guru. This should make it easier for those who are having trouble finding and securing opportunities, while still offering something to those who are interested in opportunities and guest posting services. Below is a description of our two blogs.

Our News Guru blog covers topics such as grammar, promotion, sourcing, and good writing to empower online magazines and blogs to be the news providers of the future.

Guest Post Submission Guidelines:

• All posts need to be between 600 and 800 words
• Post/post ideas should cover one of the topics mentioned above (please double-checked what's already been published, so you don't submit an idea we've already covered)
• Posts must be high-quality, original content (i.e. not published anywhere else online).
• Post/post ideas should provide value to the reader, offering compelling information, tips, advice, or ideas. We will not publish posts that are designed to make a sale or to promote a specific company's product/service.
• However, backlinks to your website or any other website of your choosing will be allowed.
• Include a short bio (50 words or less) at the end of your post.
• Submission of your guest post or idea does not guarantee publication. Your submission will be reviewed and if it will benefit our readers, it is likely to be published.
• We do not offer monetary compensation for guest posts at this time.

To submit a guest post or a guest post idea, please send us your article/idea using our contact form, as well as any other questions or concerns that you may have. We look forward to your submissions and your ideas!

Related Links:

Should You Have to Pay for Guest Posts?

Why More Blogs and Online Publications Should Allow Sponsored Posts

Is Guest Posting Worth It?

Should You Have to Pay for Guest Posts?

Guest posting is an important aspect of article marketing, and is a great way to build inbound links and to attract new traffic to your website or blog. But, should you have to pay to put a guest post? If so, how much?

I ask because I wanted to have a guest post published on a blog for personal purposes. It wasn't a sponsored post. It was merely something I wrote to have published on a site other than my own. When I submitted this guest post, the blog owner not only agreed to publish it, but wanted $150 for it since it included a link in the text. This link wasn't a backlink, but merely a way to cite a statistic that I used in the article. I thought the price was outrageous since it wasn't a sponsored post, and that the blog has a separate form for sponsored posts and guests posts (neither of which mention any price on the page, mind you). I asked the blog owner if the fee would be waived if I removed the link. I also clarified that the link is there as a citation, not to build an inbound link for a company. I never got a response.

I definitely think that sponsored posts should be paid for, since they are slanted to favor a particular standpoint or company product. They should also be paid for because they would include additional inbound links beyond what's in the byline. Guest posts, however, shouldn't be paid for, especially if the only inbound link will be in the byline. If it was the norm for guest posts to be paid for, then it wouldn't be touted as an excellent way to do inbound marketing. Granted, inbound marketing isn't for free, but no business would want to engage in something that had to be paid for twice. I just can't see how this $150 fee is somehow industry standard in blogging or in inbound marketing.

What do you think? Should you have to pay a blog to publish your guest post just like you would a sponsored post? If so, is $150 too much, too little, or just right?

Why More Blogs and Online Publications Should Allow Sponsored Posts

As part of our article marketing services and our brand journalism package, we offer our clients guest posting, where we'll write an article, include a link or two back to websites of the client's choice, and get the article published. In case it's unclear, when it comes to blogs, a sponsored post is a post "that contain links that point to the home page or specific product pages of the website of the sponsor for which the blogger receives compensation in the form of money, products, services or in other ways." These sponsored posts are what clients get with the guest posting, since these posts are designed to appear on the blogs and online publications of others.

We admit that we're running into a bit of a problem, one where blog and online publications simply aren't interested in these posts, which makes delivering on these services tough. Most of the them aren't interested because they don't want posts that are sponsored. We've previously written on why brand journalism isn't such a bad thing, and sponsored posts in our humble opinion are a form of brand journalism that isn't such a bad thing either. Here's why more blogs and online publication should allow sponsored posts on their sites:

Sponsored Posts Can Be Valuable Content

Who said that because something is paid for that it must advertising garbage that no one wants to read? Is fruit suddenly bad because it was bought from the store instead of grown in the backyard? No, and the fact that money was involved shouldn't automatically discount a sponsored post as something that won't be worthwhile for your audience. Take the time to read a sponsored post, as you would any other guest post or submission from one of your writers, and see if its up to standard. If it is, should it matter that it was sponsored?

Sponsored Posts Can Bring Traffic to Your Site

Think about it, if you let a company sponsor a post, they'll tell everyone about it once it's published. If you want to increase traffic and reach out to new people, then letting in a sponsored post may be a good way to go. They'll post a link on their website (giving you a backlink), share it on their social networks, and maybe send it via email in a newsletter. That's a lot of potential new audience you're throwing away because you don't like sponsored posts. You don't have to make every single post on your site sponsored, but allowing one or two in there a month wouldn't hurt.

Sponsored Posts Can Monetize Your Blog

If you're looking for a new revenue stream, or a way to monetize your blog and make some money from it, then accepting sponsored posts is the way to go. For a flat fee, you can say you'll accept sponsored posts that are on certain topics and meet certain guidelines. You could encourage companies to pay that fee by showing them what kind of reach they can have (number of visitors, unique views, time on site etc.) by getting the post published.

Sponsored Posts Can Enable You to Pay for Writers, or Pay Them More

With this brand new revenue stream, you can then offer writers more than just the Google Adsense revenue or a pithy "pays per hit" formula. When you can offer writers more money, you can better retain those writers, or bring on better writers, all meaning that your site will improve over time with more content and more better content. Being able to pay writers well adds credibility as well, as it makes it seem like you've been in the business a while and that you know what you're doing (versus those new startup sites that can't pay anything cause they have no revenue. Stupid noobs).