So I was reading around like I do, and the crew out at seomoz gave me a great idea to whomp up and pass around to you.

No doubt many of you are seasoned blogging professionals.  This advice may not be so helpful to you.  But to those of you just getting started, consider this:  don’t let people comment on your blog.

You might wonder if this isn’t counterproductive.  Didn’t I, after all, spend several posts railing on the concept of building community?  I did, no mistake there, but if you’re too new to have a community, showing that you have no community makes your blog look weak and unprofessional.  So what they recommend you do is wait to add a comments section until you have one or both of the following:

1. At least one hundred RSS subscribers per day

2. At least seven hundred fifty unique visitors per day.

There’s definitely something to be said for keeping the lid on commentary until your audience justifies such a measure, though I’m not sure it’s the best.  After all, it does something of a disservice to your early readership, the ones you’re counting on most, to not allow them to comment on your posts.

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We’ve all been HERE, right?  You just get one of those days…or weeks…when you can’t blog.  Maybe you’re down with the flu or carpal tunnel or your in-laws are in town and they brought their kids and it’s just not the thing to do in polite society to hit them over the head with a shovel and bury them in the back yard.

That and the wife would kill you next.

But anyway.  A lot of people have been in the situation where they just can’t blog, and so they turn their attention to finding a temporary guest blogger.  And if you ever find yourself in that opportunity, you should take advantage of it.

Why?  Simple.

It builds credibility.  Your work is now suddenly seen by a segment of the population that may not ordinarily see it.  Now a whole new group of blog readers get to discover how skilled a writer you are, and how deep your expertise runs.

You can get free links.  Tell all your newfound readers that there’s another great source of information out there, and it’s all available at the end of one easy to follow link.  Not everyone may take advantage of it, but any that do do so for the low, low price of a guest blog post.

You can discover new topics to write about.  Maybe you haven’t heard about one big thing or another that’s making the blogging rounds.  But with a guest shot on another blog, you can catch up.

There are lots of reasons to take a guest blogging engagement.  Sometimes, you’re even paid.  But whether there’s actual cash involved or not, it’s still worth your time to step in for someone else for a day or two.

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