Contributing to Other Sites Without Giving Up Your Content

By Melanie Blodgett. Photography by Simple Desks.

When I share that a majority of my income comes from contributing to other sites the two questions I get asked the most are:

1. How did you get your contributing positions?
2. How do you come up with content for several sites?

In this post I’ll address the latter.

I get it, coming up with fresh content five days a week (or however often you blog) is a lot of work and nobody is immune to the blogger blocks. We've all sat staring blankly at a screen searching for anything to post about. If you’re contributing to other sites where you’re accountable to your employer to publish content, how do you avoid the block? And how do you avoid giving up the best content that you want to save for your blog? My advice is to:

1) Seek out contributor positions where you can blog about topics that interest you, but ones that you aren’t currently covering on your own blog

For example, one of my first contributing positions was for a blog called Being Pregnant. As you can probably guess, I wrote about pregnancy and topics that women who were expecting would be interested in. Since my personal blog focuses on DIY projects and parties, I wasn't taking away content from my site.

2) Make the content work double duty

If you are contributing to a site and producing content you would be sharing on your own site, by all means do it. Provide a teaser post where you show a couple images and talk a bit about it, then send people to the post just like you would do if you were showcasing a product or a post done by another blogger. If it’s content up to par with what you’d be providing on your site anyway, your readers won’t mind.

3) Divvy up topics and formats you like to use and assign them to specific blogs that you write for

I usually keep original tutorials for my own blog, share good finds in slideshow format at Babble, and talk about motherhood for Disney Baby. Sometimes they overlap, but for the most part I’ve separated them out well. I never feel like one site is stealing content from the other.

If you’d like to learn more about making money online, join me for my class Bringing Home the Bacon When Your Blog Isn’t Huge on March 25th.

Comments

[Artsy Forager]

Any advice on ending a contributor position? I've been contributing to another site for almost 2 years, but think I'm ready to move on, as the site is not being run as professionally as it once was. I'd love to hear your thoughts, Melanie, or anyone else's!

[Melanie]

I would give them the courtesy two weeks notice and send a kind, "It's been great working with you but I've decided to pursue some other positions that won't allow me time to continue contributing." If you have any suggestions for replacement bloggers, you might want to send along their contact information. They should understand.