You may have heard that guest posting is dying. Well, there’s some truth to that. But it’s also one of the best and most profitable ways to get high-quality backlinks from high-quality sites.
At SidelinPlay, I've been running a multi-author WordPress blog for 10 years, with over 100 bloggers publishing here.
I did cut back on the number of guest posts I publish, but I still accept guest posts from reputable users or people who can submit something valuable to the community.
Regardless, this article is designed to help you set up your blog to accept guest posts.
So let’s get started!
Many bloggers enable the ability to publish guest posts on their blogs via email, but with WordPress you can automate this process much more easily. To make the most of guest posting opportunities, you should enable the guest post submission feature through your WordPress dashboard.
In this article, I will share some plugins and settings for creating a multi-author WordPress blog. You can follow this guide to enable guest post submissions from your WordPress dashboard.
For an overview of guest posting, check out:
Guest Blogging: The Complete Guide to Guest Posting
How to Enable Guest Post Submissions in WordPress from the Dashboard
The first thing you need to do is enable registration in WordPress.
Most blogs that allow guest posting use default permissions. This means that subscribers and guest bloggers have to email the administrator to upgrade their accounts. In my opinion, this is time-consuming and can become a hindrance when you want to guest post.
Therefore, it is best to grant default permissions to "Contributors". ( If you are concerned about spam, read on...)
Enable WordPress Registration
Log in to your WordPress dashboard:
- Head to Settings > General > Enable User Registration > Memberships and click the “Anyone can sign up” box.
- Set the "New User Default Role" to "Contributor"
Now that we know the basics, let’s move on…
AccessPress Anonymous Post Pro plugin
I discovered this plugin a few years ago, and while I haven’t used it extensively myself, it looks to be a complete solution for bloggers to accept paid and/or free guest posts.
With this plugin you can let others submit guest posts directly from your dashboard or through a submission form on the front-end. I haven’t had a chance to explore this plugin in detail yet, but judging by sales and reviews from existing buyers, this plugin looks pretty good and you should definitely give it a try.
If you’ve used this plugin, please let me know in the comments section. I’d love to hear your review!
WangGuard: Stop Guest Posting Spam
The main reason most bloggers don’t allow the default registration level to be “Contributor” is because they’re trying to prevent visitors from posting spam.
Spammers use automated software to register on WordPress and send submissions. I used to see 100s of spam submissions a day and it was a pain to delete all those posts and users one by one.
Now, deleting the user doesn't help since they can always sign up again and repeat the process, but I can prevent these types of submissions from reaching me in the first place.
WordPress Notification Plugin: Enable "Submit for Review"
Now, this is a very useful plugin.
It’s called Peter’s Collaboration Email .
Whenever a post is submitted for review, it notifies the administrator. Users with Contributor permissions can use the "Submit for Review" option, which allows users to submit the post for editorial review once they have completed the draft of the guest post.
The user will be notified if the admin accepts or rejects the post. This helps a lot in automating the process of notifying the admins and contributing authors about the status of guest posts.
This is a very useful plugin and I rely on it a lot.
View Peter's collaboration emails
WordPress Interaction Plugin: Enable Post Comments
Here is another useful plugin from the same author "Peter".
Pete's Post Notes plugin adds a Notes column to the post editor sidebar.
This feature is useful if an author wants to add a side note for an editor or administrator about their submission. As an administrator, if you reject a post, you can quickly add a reason for rejecting it, or you can request the author to make changes.
Simply add a comment and change the article status to Draft and update. The guest poster will receive an email with the comment you added.
This is a simple but very useful plugin.
Other matters
These are a few plugins that I use all the time and they work really well.
There are also many more things you can do to give your guest poster a better impact, like providing a custom WordPress login page or login box on your blog’s sidebar .
You can also:
- Create a landing page for contributor information - like this one.
- Add an author box below your posts to ensure users know who wrote the post.
- Add an author archive page so readers can see all posts by any author.
Finally, avoid turning your guest blog into an article directory.
Creating a Multi-Author WordPress Blog
These are some simple tips that you can follow to create a multi-author WordPress blog.
Now it’s up to you to decide what additional incentives you want to offer your readers to entice them to guest post on your website.
If you run a multi-author WordPress blog where people can submit posts from the WordPress dashboard, I would love to learn new tips from you. Please share via comments.
Like this article? Don’t forget to share it!
Also read:
- Best WordPress Plugins – for Blogs and Business Websites
- How to Change the WordPress Admin Login URL for Better Security
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