A lot of you know I like using MyBlogGuest to invite guest bloggers here. Well, if you decide to give MBG a try, I just wanna let you know in advance it has users from all over the world. If you get messages from people who aren’t local to you, that’s normal. Get used to it. Don’t get me wrong: You’ll likely encounter many users who live in your country — but I’m writing this to let you know you can partner with foreign blogs in a sensible way. I’ll also share a few tips you can use when transacting with an overseas blog.
‘Open mouth, insert foot’ is almost always a possibility in the blogosphere
Let’s say you want to write about something, but you’re not wearing your expert hat, but the urge to write it and share it is strong. This is a perfect time to choose an overseas blog to host your article. Doing so can help reduce the impact of OMIF (“open mouth, insert foot”) in case lots of people disagree with your opinion. For example, my article about password managers was heavy on opinion, so I chose an overseas blog to host it. I didn’t really care about its traffic stats – I just had to get my opinion out there via therapeutic writing. I don’t believe every blogpost on the internet needs to be an expert article. Naturally, the more true blue expert articles Google can crawl, the better. But I’m fine sharing my opinion – frankly, I want people to call me out if my article doesn’t pass the sniff test. If I’m wrong about something, leave a comment to tell me – It’s what I want. My other guest article, about overdependence on Google SERP, was also heavy on opinion. It’s another example of me choosing an overseas blog to publish something of mine. So, there’s no need to be too scared of an “open mouth, insert foot” situation. Unless you want to put on a facade of being Mister or Miss Always Perfect and never publish anything that can be refuted, then don’t take my advice — but I like being real. If I write something wacky and find I need to insert my foot in my mouth later, so be it. 🙂
A little reworking goes a long way
Anyway, here’s an instance of me hosting a guest here – he’s a British blogger. The blogger’s copy contained a number of pricing references in U.K. currency (£) – I wasn’t in the mood to convert the pricing, but I knew I had to keep my readers in mind – therefore, I included a relevant link up top so the reader can convert to American dollars at his or her convenience. Could I have done the conversions and then published them? Yes, but I’m letting you know there are alternatives. What I chose to do is better than being totally inconsiderate of my [mostly American] readers. Plus, the conversion link I provided serves more currencies beyond just British and American ones, and not every visitor to my site is American. I try not to poopoo things.
Rework content for an American audience
Takeaway advice #1 is: Don’t poopoo foreign writers right off the bat, and don’t poopoo the hidden usefulness an overseas blog can offer. As I said earlier, and it’s worth repeating, if you’re American and you register with MyBlogGuest, EXPECT to interact with tons of people who aren’t American. Get used to it. If you’re striking a deal with someone from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, etc., the copy you see won’t seem foreign – and that’s natural – those countries speak English. As for bloggers from other countries where English isn’t the first language, well, typically there’ll be more effort required as far as edits. Be aware of your tolerance level for this. You don’t want to stress yourself out. Takeaway advice #2 is: Guest blogging on a foreign blog will not prevent your words from being crawled/indexed – that’s digital and largely beyond your control. But if you want to feel some “control” (though it’s not much), you can test the waters by guest blogging on an overseas blog. Again, your article can still get in search engines if crawled, but negative comments might have a greater chance of being from far away, so the impact might be mentally ‘less devastating’ to you. If it’s well-received, you can repackage the content for an American audience at a later time. Feel free to leave a comment if you want more advice or to simply share your opinion. How do you feel about foreign bloggers?
