What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing guest blog articles for businesses?

Hi everyone

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting quite as many blog posts on this blog lately. That is for two main reasons:

1) I also write regular blog posts for http://www.beatredundancyblues.wordpress.com and http://www.beatredundancyblues.co.uk and a News and Inspiration page for http://www.beatredundancyblues.com

2) I have recently written a guest blog article for Sage One and I am currently writing one for Pay Justice.

So what are the advantages of writing guest blog articles for businesses?

1) It’s a challenge, having to come up with new and fresh content that will fit in with the content of their previous blog articles and be suitable for their customers.

2) Your creative muscles are stretched.

3) Your writing skills are improved.

4) It boosts your profile as a writer.

5) Increased SEO for your sites, if the businesses put links to your sites at the end of your articles.

6) The articles show off your expertise in a given subject or range of topics. This is fantastic if you are a non-fiction writer as it enhances your credibility.

What are the disadvantages?

1) It can be very time consuming and mean spending less time on your own writing projects.

2) Not only do you need to do research for the article content but you also need to do research about the company whom the blog article is for. You need to find out what the company’s mission is, what they are about, what their point of view is and what previous blog article content has been published. Again, this can be very time consuming.

3) Often there will be no payment for guest blog articles.

4) You may receive a very vague brief or no brief at all, as to what to write about. This means you will need to use your research of the company, as previously described and your imagination, to come up with a blog article idea and create some great content from it.

5) When you write the blog article content, you need to ensure that there is no conflict of interest with your own online profile, business, or blog content.

6) You need to target the article to the said company’s target market, not your own. Although you may find there are some overlaps.

I hope you find this information useful for your own writing ventures and to assess whether or not, blog article writing for businesses, is right for you.

Until next time, write soon.

Sandra