Guest blogging has become quite a common trend these days. Many bloggers are taking advantage of guest writers, and it seems a mutually beneficial process. The host gets to put their feet up for the day and get a nice juicy piece of content with no effort; the guest gets to raise their profile amongst new circles. Everyone’s a winner, right?

Well, what about the reader? Last month Vivien from Inspiration Bit started quite a debate when she asked, “How comfortable are you with guests?”Many readers are happy with guest blogging – they trust their favourite bloggers to chose wisely and allow quality writers to help with the blog. Some however, see a guest article as some kind of intrusion – an interruption to the ‘personality’ that they expect from the blog.

Personally, I empathise with the camp who see blogs as a window into someone’s personality and so see guest blogging as kind of disturbing that personal connection/relationship. However, I’ve also seen it pulled off successfully and when guest blogging is done well it can add a new perspective to a blog.

In a recent interview by a guest on her own blog, Lorelle talked about guest blogging and gave some sound advice on how to be a guest blogger. Likewise, there’s some excellent advice on Wisdump, and over at Devlounge Connor Wilson explains how guest blogging can be, in his words, a “three-way of pleasure!”

Last week my friend Justin Kistner asked to write for miLienzo.com. Justin is a web designer and Internet strategist, he writes for his own blog, Metafluence, contributes towards the blog carnival site, Advanced Operators, and is a regular commentator among these very pages. I was happy to accept Justin’s offer and likewise I will be writing for him in the not too distant future.

Next week Justin will be posting an article concerning web design and managing a clients expectations: a topic that I’m sure will be relevant for any creative freelancer. I’m really looking forward to seeing Justin’s article so I hope miLienzo.com subscribers are too.

Your thoughts on guest blogging

I’d love to hear your opinions of guest blogging. Do you value the content of a guest blogger as much as you do the blog’s author? Do you find the change in writing style and personality off-putting?

I haven’t done this for a while so (… deep breath) a HUGE thanks for all the recent comments: Eguru, elysa, Josh, Bastian, Rick, Linden man, David, Shantanu, Justin, Firewalker and (gasp) dt.