I am no where near being an expert on blogging but personally, I will not allow a guest blog on my website. I have to research the website and weigh carefully the pros and cons and possibly what the outcome might be in the future, which we always hope to be good. I will exercise caution and due diligence if you follow your gut feeling.

Evelyn

I've read your other comments, and am guessing that they are right; they have made good points.

Guest posting is a great tactic if you find the right guests to post. It is nice if it's someone you already know. Then you can be sure it is safe.

Good luck to you.

Hey Candy,

Unfortunately, I have to go with Jeannine and Diane on this one.

Firstly, guest posting is a legitimate marketing tactic to get high PR/DA backlinks and potentially some traffic for the "guest poster".

And this is also a way for a website owner to get free content, and if you own a huge authority site, you can also potentially charge to "allow" someone to guest post on your site, i.e. this could be a legitimate source of income.

Just reading the email, this is clearly a generic email.

Basically, the person has probably done a "Google Blog Search" around a number of different keywords.

They have then found blogs and sites that are ranking for those particular keywords.

They create a standard email and then blast this out to all the blog/website owners.

There is actually software that find blogs via keyword and mass send emails.

It's not particularly effective in terms of conversion rates to results.

Someone who has sent a geneic email like this will probably have "blasted" the email to 10,000 different blog owners, and will probably receive 5-10 positive answers.

They do this over-and-over again and eventually they have about 30-50 website owners responding in the positive.

They do this every single month in the hope of providing content for 30-50 websites in the hope of increasing their exposure in the search engines

Then in order to create 30-50 blog posts, I can only wonder where and how they will create/steal that content from (and indeed the quality of the content).

All this is done to create backlinks to their own site and as a way to syphon off some traffic.

I'm not saying that guest posting is not a legitimate way to earn backlinks and traffic, but you can typically tell by the standard and layout of the email of what to expect.

You are a far better writer and communicator Candy than the person who has written/sent this email.

I wouldn't let them anywhere near your site.

For me, the only way I would allow someone to post on one of my sites is if I have created a relationship with them over time.

Typically, this is through interaction via social media, or the most obvious source available to us, other members here at WA.

If I regularly interact with someone at Wealthy Affiliate, I like what they say and how they say it, and I believe that they genuinely will add quality to my websites, then I could be inclined to ask them to guest post.

If you're looking to go the other route, as in guest post yourself somewhere in order to obtain potential backlinks and traffic, I would suggect checking out HARO (Help a Reporter Out).

Authenitic writers and journalists looking for blog content. I know people who have hit this big time and ended up featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, Oprah, CNN, etc.

Just imagine the increase in rankings and traffic a few links from these sites can give you.

Does that make sense?

Sorry, I know probably not what you wanted to hear, but on the positive side, at least you must be ranking for certain keywords for you to get noticed and sent an email in the first place... Yaaay!!

Partha

Wow, that sounds like a great opportunity, Candy.

Unfortunately, our WA sisters and brothers may be on to something. But it still sounds like a great idea.
Why not do it? I have heard about guest posts but never considered them. Instead of focusing on a negative why not find someone within the community that you have energy with and do it.
I have read your work and would not mind if you write to me. Well, not sure if you have seen my work. But if you are up for it we can both feature on each other's blog.

Though I think you could be better suited to collaborate with a female blogger?

Sounded like a great opportunity and it can still be.

Ntlhane

Hi - sorry, this is a generic email, which will have been sent to hundreds of other websites. First of all, they have not even addressed you by name.

As regards guest posting, typically, they would expect you to write for their site in return, and they haven't suggested this. And why are they saying they can "share" a post? That implies they would use something that has already been published.

You wouldn't gain anything by this and if their site has a low domain authority, it could actually drag yours down.