These are sample guidelines for your own guest blogging platform. I have been using them for my own, but that time is gone now, so if you find them useful, let me know.
Welcome to Inbound – a community of marketers sharing and discussing the latest, more interesting news and ideas in our industry.
We like to keep things simple, but even simple things need rules and guidelines. These are to help make the community valuable for you and everyone else.
Whatever the situation, it boils down to this:
“Does it make the community better?”
We’d love to see you build your influence and profile on Inbound. This is a place for all marketers to share ideas and opportunities, and become better together.
But, we’ll also flag, restrict and ban members who don’t help make the community better. Hey, we’re looking at you spammers!
FAQ: Can I self-promote on here?
To keep the community valuable, we have a strict “no self promotion” policy everywhere else on the site — it’s not in our communal interests to hear everyone’s sales pitches all the time.
FAQ: Can I share my own stuff on here?
Yes. So long as its valuable in itself and not self-promotional (see above). The community voted overwhelmingly in favour of being able to self-submit, if it’s valuable content.
It would be great to see your best content here!
Top tip: The best submissions that drive the most traffic tend to evolve into discussions. If you share your own links, but don’t start getting other people commenting and replying to your thread, you’ll miss out on a lot of extra traffic and publicity.
How to Stand Out
Our 5-Step Insiders Guide to Becoming A Top Member
You might be wondering how you can become noticed in such a large community.
So here’s five insiders tips I’ve picked up over the years for getting noticed in the community.
1. Share something interesting
People in the community respond best to actionable, insightful and newsworthy discussions. Make sure your submission covers at least one of those bases. We might even feature your submission too!
2. Share something remarkable
The best submissions leave something to be talked about (submissions that get comments earn 176% more views on average). So what questions and debates are there to be had? Perhaps share something as a poll or discussion to help guide and nurture a discussion?
3. Sharing something unique
What blogs, links and ideas do you have that few other people know about already? What are things you’ve found that others haven’t? Help the community find new ideas and things to think about. Your unique, valuable insights will help you stand out.
4. Start Great Conversations
Lead the discussions you start. Post your thoughts in the comments, then invite your peers in. Discussions work best when there’s back and forth between members. Be that connecting power to make conversation happen.
5. Always Write a Great Title
Headlines make the difference in getting your submissions noticed. Remember – we’re all marketers, and we all crave good content and copywriting. Your titles are headlines too!
Technical SEO specialist, JavaScript developer and senior full-stack developer. Owner of getButterfly.com.
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