In my previous posts about the benefits of being a guest poster and having guest posts on your blog, I danced around the idea of advertisers who are looking for free or paid advertising on your blogs... and I've finally figured out the linchpin for me as a blogger - it's keywords...
A blogger who is looking to share their knowledge with your readership or to help you out when you go on vacation will be pleased with the addition of their button or a simple link to their blog in the post that they write for you. Guest posts that are written as advertising or pseudo-advertising won't be looking for a link that says www.actingbalanced.com or Acting Balanced- they're going to link to keyword advertising that they want to use to boost their SEO - so it might look like something innocuous but they'll slip their links into your post in more deceptive ways - by talking about vacuums or napkins or whatever it is they are trying to increase their searchability with.
There seems to be a rash of new 'bloggers' out there offering to guest post on just about any topic for your blog - I got 23 in the past week. Some, I know right off are people looking to use my site to further their own end game with paid links, others are ones I am not so sure of and want to give the benefit of the doubt... so I don't automatically send them my rates... and I wait to see what comes in.
I've now decided to reword my auto reply for unsolicited sponsored and guest posts - that any keyword advertising in a guest post is considered an advertising post and will be subject to my rates - I've figured out where I'm going to draw my line in the sand...
I'm curious about how you handle this new wave of potential advertisers, guest bloggers and unsolicited opportunity on your blog - please comment below and share your advice or questions!
