Blog Training and How-To Guide for Business Blogging

This tip is courtesy of Kimberlee Morrison, Associate Editor for Know More Media and author of VinylNotes.

One of the issues with having a guest write on your blog is deciding what it is they should write about. You chose them for a reason though, and you should always begin with the end in mind. When you seek out guest authors for your column, you must ask yourself what they have to offer your readers and where you’d like them to focus. Is it their experience or their expertise you want to give your readers the benefit of?

With this in mind I want to offer you several ideas for the types of posts are good for guests.

The Interview: This can take the form of a standard group of questions you ask the person being featured or it can be customized for each guest. Jason Boog (ThePublishingSpot) has a series he calls “Five Easy Questions,” where he sends authors a set of loaded questions that often require involved answers. Each day Boog posts the one question with the answer and stretches the feature out for a week’s worth of content. It can be difficult to find new authors to interview every week, but the technique is genius and relatively simple. Of course there are other types of interviews so you can just pick the one that works best for you.

The Expert Tip: It’s always a great idea to offer readers ideas and tips from other experts and industry leaders. When you find someone with and idea you want to share with your readers, how about asking them to do just that? The best way to do this is to have them write up a piece about a specific topic and post it on your blog. When doing this, it is important to remember to give the author credit as well as providing a link to his/her website.

Interim Authors: Sometimes you have to go on a vacation or you just need a break. During these times you can make sure your blog does not fall victim to dead air by getting other authors to contribute content that would fit into the flow of your usual blog content. The best way to handle this is to compile the guest articles ahead of time and scheduling them for publication at staggered times during your hiatus. Again, make sure you give the guest author credit and provide a link to the website.

That’s all I have for now. What other types of guest posts would you recommend? What are some of the potential drawbacks hosting guest content?