Blogging is fun. Especially when you’re blogging about your interests. How about spreading the love and blog on your friends’ blogs? Or maybe invite a friend to blog for you! But why?

• Comes with benefits. Most people aren’t willing to blog for nothing. They usually are offered a service or product or maybe even money!
• More exposure. Opened up a new blog and need more exposure? Guest blogging is a good way to let people know that there is a new blogger in the community.
• More friends. You have friends from your blog, and you have friends on your friends blog (where you guest blog). Isn’t that double the friends?
• Wider audience. Besides blogging for your blog, you’re also guest blogging, so your audience is twice the usual size!
• Gain experience. Experience is priceless… where else can you get an established blog with an audience who’s willing to read?

Hiring a guest blogger comes with many benefits, too, including:

• More opinion, different viewpoints. Surely, not everyone who reads your blog is objected to your opinion, but it’s nice to have different viewpoints once in a while to get their minds working on which side they want.
• More topics. Not a good accountant? No worries! Just hire an accountant blogger to guest blog for you! It gives your audience a wider range of topics to read about.
• A break. Everyone needs a break once in a while for something different.
• Less work. Relax! Have fun! Do something else for a change!
• New friend. Or improved relationship.

When choosing guest bloggers…

• See their previous work. Can’t risk having poor content! Even if they don’t offer it, remember to ask!
• Get to know them a little first. You should know the blogger at least a little, if you’re going to trust them to take your blog in their hands, even for one post.
• Have an idea of what they’re planning to write. Ask them about what they’re planning to write if they’re chosen. This way, you know for sure you get what you choose. (Or see next point.)
• Have them submit and article beforehand. This way can be a little hard, and can cause disputes if you don’t have a regular amount of readers; remember to state that once submitted, you have the right to use or not use the article, all rights given (or something similar).

Lastly, getting the word out to the world that you need guest bloggers may sound hard, but here are just a few tips.

• Announce it. You have a blog, so where else can you get free advertising?
• Tell your friends. Offline friends, online friends, friends’ friends. Tell anyone and everyone!
• Forum posting. Make a new topic on a forum announcing your news. Put it in your signature. Send it to everyone in your friends list. If you aren’t in a forum, search “Blogging Forum” on any search engine and they will come up.
• Visit others. Maybe if you offer to blog for your friend, they will do the same?
• Create a “Write for Us” page. This page should include the contact form, email, any terms and conditions you have, any benefits, extra information, etc.
• Do it on a special occasion. Sometimes, when there is a reason, people are more likely to volunteer, e.g. your birthday, because they will more likely be thinking they are doing you a favour in honour of the occasion.

Has anyone had any special guest blogging incidents? Please share!

P.S. Would you like to guest blog here? Subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified!

Be yourself! Be honest! Be real! Be opinionated! It’s your blog afterall. And be anonymous (safety first)! Don’t try to imitate another “popular” blogger’s style and don’t look at sitemeter all the time or try to cater to the “masses” in order to get “popular” or gain a readership. If you do, you’ll become a slave to other’s whims and you won’t be yourself anymore.
-Spit Out the Cat

This again, builds your character; how much do you want your character to be built or revealed? Do you want readers to know the real “you”?

This post is part of the Blogging Tips meme.

There is no “dumb” question about blogging, if you don’t know ask.
-Nise Fun Pages

A lot of people are afraid of being called “dumb” so they keep their questions. But you learn by asking questions! So those people never improve. Don’t become one of those.

This post is part of the Blogging Tips meme.

Your two most important tools – enthusiasm and dedication.
-The Gravel Pit

Enthusiasm and dedication are two very important tools! A very boring article doesn’t have enthusiasm and dedication. Try to implement these two features into your posting.

This post is part of the Blogging Tips meme.

Don’t hold back.
-Aidan Mother

“Don’t hold back” can mean a lot of things. I asked the author about it and this is what she said:

What I mean by “Don’t hold back” is that you should post what you want, the way you want to.

• Don’t be afraid to post a review just because you didn’t like the book and don’t want to offend the author
• Be willing to ask the tough questions in an interview
• Try new things
• Go after the big scoop

This post is part of the Blogging Tips meme.

Be, EXCELLENT to each other.
-Bush Mackel

This is one EXCELLENT tip, to stay on everyone’s good side. However, if you want to really build character on the blog-o-sphere, getting on the bad side of a few people won’t hurt.

This post is part of the Blogging Tips meme.

The Blogging Tips meme that I’ve started is spreading like wildfire (like Brown Baron said).

While adding the links from the pingbacks and trackbacks that I’ve gotten, I noticed that there were quite a few careless bloggers out there that didn’t care to check and double check their links!

I fixed the links for them on my meme post, but when bloggers get tagged, they copy it directly from their blogger friend, and not usually from the starting post (if they even know it).

Here were some of the mistakes I found:

1. Missing the http:// header on the link. This links back to the original blogger’s blog. (e.g. The link “neonscent.com” coming from the URL http://www.neonscent.com will turn into the link http://www.neonscent.com/neonscent.com.)
2. Manually inserting the URL but for getting to actually link. This doesn’t count as an incoming link, and the main point of memes is to increase incoming links! (e.g. Incorrect: http://www.neonscent.com; Correct: http://www.neonscent.com)
3. Including the “-” hyphen in their link. This also doesn’t count as an incoming link; the link would go to “hyphen URL” which would display an error page, unless you linked to the right page but with the wrong anchor text. (e.g. Incorrect: -http://www.neonscent.com; Correct: -http://www.neonscent.com)
4. Linking pattern change. This might or might not be a mistake (I didn’t correct it anyhow), but some bloggers didn’t follow the linking pattern and wrote their blog name for the anchor text instead of the URL. (e.g. NeonScent instead of http://www.neonscent.com) This makes your link stand out, but doesn’t do much good to your blog; who knows what readers might think?
5. Not following instructions. This is basically the most important thing in memes beside getting more incoming links. In my Blogging Tips meme, some people didn’t read the instructions or misunderstood, but anyhow, some bloggers starred their own post or erased other blogger’s stars. A big mistake.

Smart bloggers read here:
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As you can see on the sidebar, NeonScent has the Top Commentators Wordpress plugin. To take advantage of it, I don’t mind you putting the topic of your website for your name when you comment, so that you get an anchor text with your website which will bring up your search engine results.

Comment posted by Christa
at 5/6/2007 8:14:59 PM

Hey I just wanted you to know that since my domain is messed up because of the bandwidth I have a temp site. But I will be back at the domain soon.

Comment posted by Irina
at 5/6/2007 3:18:52 PM

That’s a great plugin, I haven’t used it.. Good luck with everything. Enter to the rooftop layout contest which you can gain great prizes like money and advertising! You will have so much fun during the contest so don’t doubt to enter. The rules are very easy! Good luck!

Comment posted by Grace
at 5/6/2007 2:30:40 PM

Emsz- The counter resets every week, and I think you’ve commented in the last post.

Comment posted by Emsz
at 5/6/2007 2:27:19 PM

*lol* I won’t be taking advantage xD I think the link is quite enough Funny how I am in the top 3 xD I haven’t been visiting that long xD

Comment posted by Erin
at 5/6/2007 1:49:00 PM

The Top Commenters plug in sounds really cool. I love how you have so much neat stuff and webgadgets (for the lack of a better word…at this point in time) on your site.

Comment posted by Grace
at 5/6/2007 12:16:09 PM

Bob- I’ve been working on the positioning of the links. Thanks for the heads-up.

Comment posted by Rei
at 5/6/2007 8:41:29 AM

hey dear, ah this plugin is awesome, i have seen it before when i was using wordpress (long time ago lol)

Comment posted by Bob
at 5/6/2007 4:09:29 AM

Oh, and either your post level text ads pricing is placed wrong, or safari doesnt like your blog

Comment posted by Bob
at 5/6/2007 4:08:22 AM

I wrote a small entry on that. I dont think this will help your blog buildup.
http://bobmeetsworld.com/nofollow-keyword-commentators/

Comment posted by Vivian
at 5/5/2007 8:39:10 PM

Yay! That is a great idea, but my site doesn’t have a topic yet.

Not everyone thinks of Yahoo! Answers as a blog promotion tool. Not everyone uses it either. Don’t worry– this won’t cost any money or banners. You just need a Yahoo! email account, time, and patience.
Log on to your Yahoo! Answers account and go to your blog’s category. For example, NeonScent’s category would be Computers & Internet.

Go to questions that you have answers to on your blog. Give a link to your blog in your answer.
Some general tips:

• Give the best answer.
• Be the first to answer. Newer questions are at the top, so the chances of your being first to answer is very big.
• Give useful answers.
• Do not spam.
• Do not copy/paste. People can see that you have given the same answers to different people, and your rating will go down.
• Make friends. Give the address of your blog to your friend, and if that friend finds it useful, they’ll pass it on to another friend.

Happy Answering!
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