Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

Still on my offer to pay $50 USD for Guest Posts I accept on my multidisciplinary SD Nuggets blog at TayoSolagbade.com from January 2016.

Between last nite and this morning, a long time subscriber to my newsletter mailing list, working with a leading multinational telecom’s service provider in Nigeria, signed up for a revised version of my End of Year Book Ghost-Writing offer.

He also indicated interest, as I’d hoped he would, in submitting a one or more tips/tricks based guest posts, on his area of expertise (Telecom’s), as it relates to use of mobile phone technology by everyday users.

But something he said about signing a “copyright agreement” made me do a response, that I now feel is worth publishing online for the benefit of others who may be considering my offer, and not sure what exactly it will involve.

Here’s an excerpt (edited to protect his privacy) from his message

===Starts===

From: Seun <Surname and email removed for privacy>

Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 07:08:03

To: “Tayo K. Solagbade”

Subject: RE: Our phone con – follow up

Thanks Tayo for your acceptance to ghostwrite for me.

1) <text deleted for privacy>

2) <text deleted for privacy>

3) & 4) I would go through the links immediately after this mail.

5) I take the offer of the write-up as a challenge, but would need to check my
company policies if this is allowed. I think a ‘general operators’ thing would even
be more educating. But I wouldn’t do it in one fell swoop. I need to make multiples
of 50USD. And then we would need to sign copyright agreement.

===Ends===

Below, is the response I sent to him:

===Starts===

—–Original Message—–

From: “Tayo K. Solagbade”

Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 06:22:06

To: Seun <Surname and email removed for privacy>

Subject: Re: Our phone con – follow up

Don’t worry about copyright.

YOU retain all ownership rights, and your name, photo and byline etc will appear on
each article you submit that gets accepted.

You see, I just get the exclusive rights to publish your piece on my website, so all
who want to read it have to come to my blog to do so, earning me traffic, and giving
you name recognition as well as expert authority status.

This is a practice used online in Europe and America for win-win business and brand
promotion by website owners over there.

E.g.

I’ve gotten paid from it, and I decided to challenge people from my part of the
world to begin doing it as well.

I actually believe by Jan 2016, I will be the first owner of my kind of website, in
Africa, to pay for Guest Posts.

Hopefully others will take a cue.

Talk later.

Tayo

===Ends===

Notice my assertion above, that I believe mine will be the first blog of it’s kind (i.e business/non-political) in this part of the world (Africa) to offer payment of any kind to content contributors.

Especially payment up to $50 USD, in exchange for QUALITY Guest Posts by competent experts or writers.

The truth is website owners in this part of the world generally do NOT really invest much intellectual effort in creating content for their platforms. Many do not even have blogs, and most who do rarely update them.

The common exception are those engaged in a VERY basic form of news content curation/republishing.

By “basic”, I mean little or no effort is made, editorially or otherwise, to accurately establish whether or not a news item is worth republishing on their platform. Instead, the primary determinant is often the opportunity to drive traffic, and get more income via click based monetization systems they’ve setup on their blogs.

The result is that the mental attitude that prevails, most times, is one in which creative generation of useful content by expert authors is NOT valued.

Evidence of this is seen in the various “Write for Us” pages that most of these blogs put up…

Those pages state a preference for (guest posting) experts with proven knowledge and expertise, to write for them. But all they offer in return are “exposure” and rarely little else [A True Story]

When I read those pages I always remember a client of mine who got approached by a popular national daily in Nigeria. They asked him to write a piece based on his expertise as a hearing and speech professional, that they could publish as a special feature on their website.

After he’d naturally expressed interest, they then told him he would have to pay for it to be published!

That was a shock, of course. But he calmed himself and asked how much that would cost. N200,000.00 (Two Hundred Thousand Naira) they told him – and they explained how readers all over the country would see it, read it, get to know his name, and his company name etc.

ALL that would happen – supposedly, in 24 hours…Yeah, right!

In reality, those claims were exaggerated. Most times micro to small/medium operators simply cannot afford to purchase the kind of exposure that would yield enough tangible ROI on their limited budgets.

The truth was that the national daily in question most times had over 150 pages per edition, and most readers never managed to make it through half of those pages, before the next day arrived, and a new issue beckoned for their attention!

To make maters worse, very few readers ever bothered to keep particular issues for later reference. What was more, those that did often ended up forgetting or misplacing the copies!

In essence, their sales pitch was designed to benefit them and NOT my client.

My client never took them up on THAT offer, preferring – wisely in my opinion – to stick with the classified ad that had been working for him.

At this point I’ll highlight some potential benefits to be had from Guest Blogging, compared to traditional media

As a business owner, when you write a Guest Post, whether free or for a fee, unless something goes badly wrong to make your host take it down, it WILL remain there for life…doing what practitioners call TIMLESS MARKETING for YOU!.

That means it remains accessible to anyone who finds it online, to read and learn more about you, be impressed and possibly reach out to you. Since today’s technology allows anyone do that 24/7, it means you could be sleeping and I would be reading your guest post, for instance.

By say 9a.m, what I read at midnight, in your piece, could make me give you a call to ask if you could ghost-write a book in your field of expertise, for me (THAT, has actually happened to me more than once i.e. prospects calling me up after reading my piece on 3rd party platforms like Ezinearticles.com, Africanbusinesscommunities.com – and some going on to buy my products/services).

Unlike ads placed in newspapers and other conventional media (e.g. TV, Radio, Magazines) your guest post will have a zero shelf life, and never “expire”, go out of circulation, or require renewal payment etc

It will therefore continue to turn up in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) when people conduct relevant searches – at ZERO COST to you!

This is likely to happen with increasing or consistent frequency if you did a good job writing it. And especially if you got it published on a high profile blog or website, that enjoys good search engine visibility.

Consequently, more people will read your write-up, resulting in name/brand recognition for you as an expert authority in your field.

Your byline, if well crafted, will also do the added work of making some go over to your own blog:

a. to read more of what you offer

b. and/or signup to get your new content (e.g. via an email newsletter)

c. Or even to contact you for possible business

The blog owner benefits in several ways as well…

First of all, offering to accept guest posts will make his/her blog pop up when prospective guest posters conduct “Guest Posts Wanted” searches online.

Secondly, by hosting guest posts submitted by competent expert authors, his/her blog will gradually get indexed by search engines as a reliable source of useful content, leading to even greater visibility, more traffic, higher authority status etc.

Thirdly, the authors whose articles get published will go out of their way to tell others in their networks about it, by sharing the URL. That will create more buzz, and back links, leading to more people talking about the blog, and visiting it.

As is obvious from the above, both parties (guest blogger and blog owner) will reap multidimensional benefits from the symbiotic relationship.

In essence, done right, Guest Blogging will always be a win-win experience for those who engage in it – even if NO MONEY changes hands

It’s important that I make the clarification that guest posting can – and does – work even when authors do not get paid.

In other words, blogs offering to accept guest posts without paying for them may STILL deliver enough useful value to the guest poster, to make it worthwhile. This will be especially so, if such blogs enjoy good search engine visibility, and/or are enjoy authority status in the market they serve.

Having said that, I also argue that we, as blog owners, can take the game to the next level, by challenging guest posts authors to send in BETTER content quality, in exchange for decent remuneration.

I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again: one need NOT already be a millionaire to be able to offer payment for guest posts one accepts!

So, I’m taking a stand (following the example of USA based Carol Tice when she did it in her part of the world, some years back)…

I’m challenging other blog owners seeking guest post submissions (especially those who claim to be earning six figure income) out here in Africa, and indeed elsewhere, to begin offering payment to their authors.

….AND I challenge them to do it right by offering payment from $50 USD upwards. Nothing less.

I do this because I believe we should aspire to international blogging standards or best practices, not just in terms of work quality, but also in terms of pay we offer to get such work done for us.

Except you go looking in content mills, you will find that $50 USD per article is generally considered the acceptable minimum for paying writers online.

PS: For those who doubt my intentions, or my ability to do pay up (click here to read how I’ll fund it), January 2016 is less than 4 weeks away – TEST ME, or watch for the post author’s testimonial

If you’re a blog owner seeking guest posts, I challenge you adopt this idea I propose

…and if you’re a guest post author, KNOW from reading this that even if others will NOT offer to pay you, s o long as you can deliver an acceptable piece that meets my content quality requirements, I WILL pay at least $50 USD to publish it on TayoSolagbade.com

In fact, I invite YOU to test me!

If you’re a guest post author, and can offer compelling content quality in the categories featured on my multidisciplinary blog, send in your submission (see guidelines here).

If it meets my requirements, I’ll accept it and let you know.

Whatever happens, my offer is open to an international audience, and I am sure I WILL find one person with stuff good enough to feature every month, starting January 2016.

When the Guest Post goes live and payment is dispatched, I will provide visual proof, and get the author to confirm it, below the post’s page.

Join me, and let’s spread the word. The benefits will be enjoyed by ALL of us!

PS: Screen shot – My $50 USD for a Guest Post Offer already appears on page 1 of Google’s SERP for the string “Guest Posts in Nigeria“…as at 12 noon Nigerian time today, Thursday 10th December 2015.