Need advice on Paying for content?

[LauraHT]

Hi,

We would like to attracting more readers onto our blog by accepting guest posting from external bloggers. Could anyone refer any good artricles on MOZ about the best practices on managing the activities and what would be the normal KPIs and ROI?

[NateStewart]

I'm not greatly familiar with this topic but this is what I suggest.

• For starters: Don't Pay For Content. Not even for guest posts.

In my opinion, you should just be able to ask someone to write a guest post on a certain topic, maybe you think someone else's point of view might be better than your own or you just don't want to write about it. You both will benefit from the post if it is a well written post, it is marketed correctly and linked back to the authors site.

I think the ROI can be represented by traffic increases and user engagement. If you are running adwords then you might find a monetary return that way. If you are selling a product and the article helps direct readers to your site or product you can monitor the monetary gains that way.

Setup Goals tracking in google analytics and track visits through article to your products (you can create a funnel all the way through checkout if you want). I hope all o this makes sense. like I said above, I'm not really familiar with guest posts. Oh and don't forget to return the favor for the guest author!

I just did a search on moz for "guest blogging". Here are a few article links.

The ultimate guide to advanced guest blogging

Getting Started with guest blogging WBF

Why guest posts and blogging is a slippery slope

[KeriMorgret]

In addition, here's a post I wrote about how we review content and some of our process for guest posting at Moz.

http://moz.com/blog/inside-youmoz-how-to-guest-blog-for-moz

[LauraHT]

Hi, Thanks for the update and the info is helpful

The reason of not paying for content is it because that would turn the post into a form of advertisement therefore it would drop the value to the audience?

Some of the online guest posting sites like MYBlogGuest has a monthly fee is it not considered as paying for content?

Thanks again

[CleverPhD]

Google thinks so

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2335246/Google-Penalizes-MyBlogGuest-a-Guest-Blog-Network