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“I have an amazing opportunity got you”
“I’d like you to experience a professional writer on your site”
“The benefits of publishing this content is immense, are you brave enough?”
These are just a few of the opening lines to guest post pitches I’ve received the last few days..
Sadly the content offered didn’t match up to the opening pitch. If you read through some of the comments here – Guest Bloggers – Best Practice and here – Guest blogging guidelines, you’ll see that I’m not the only one experiencing guest post fatigue.
I’m fed up with the whole guest posting thing – people keep emailing me to guest post who obviously have not taken 3 min to see what I write about. And then there’s the guy who impressed the hell out of me with the writing samples he provided so I gave him a shot – good thing I checked the link in the bio he sent me because it went to his Empower Network pitch page! Finally there are those who s-a-y they want to guest post, but never bother to follow up. I’ve had it! If you’ve found reliable people to work with – bless you. From now on I’m not even going to bother to wasting my time with a polite response.
Maquita Herald, Inspired Gift Giving
Hi Sarah, I’m with Marquita, the guest post request spam all but turned me away from allowing guest posts. I went to “invite only” for the most part. If I don’t recognize the name in the request, I don’t even bother opening the email.
Most of the submissions I’ve received would have need checked with Copyscape, rewritten, formatted and I would have needed to create an image for it. By the time I do all that, I could have written a better post myself. And then you never know if they will bother coming back to reply to comments or even promote it on their end.
I would love to have a handful of regular guest bloggers that could log in and write posts without all of the work and worry that it causes now. I have several bloggers that I can trust but they do not have the time to post on a consistent bases.
Brian D Hawkins, Hot Blog Tips
…I must be getting more successful because I’m starting to get horrible pitches from horrible writers who tell me how much I am going to benefit from allowing them to promote their crap on my website.
Mary C Weaver Prime Fitness for Women
Potential host bloggers are tired of the spam-fest that masquerade as pitching a guest post.
The blogger that’s serious about guest posting to increase and grow their own audience will find some fantastic opportunities to guest post. But in the mean time, they have to risk being categorised as a guest post spammer.
I’ll admit to being in the category of pitching and never getting back to the host.
I’ll share with you my problem – fear. I fear the post being accepted but not being good enough. I fear finally getting the recognition I need to grow my business and I fear having to write something, put my all into it and then find out it’s not quite good enough. But that’s no excuse for bad manners, and as I type this I think I need to type two apology emails to big sites that accepted my pitch but I didn’t follow through because I feared editing my drafts…
The key to success here isn’t perfecting your pitch but perfecting your relationship with the potential blog hosts.
- Do your research. Almost every one of the people that commented on the two posts felt that the pitches were spam and not tailored to their blog.
- Links are an issue. Like Maquita I’d have trouble sharing a link to the Empower Network. I have friends there that love it, but it’s not for me. I’d have a hard time associating my blog with that site. On Birds on the Blog we don’t have links to gambling sites, bingo, pay day loans. Life for women is tough enough without our influence sanctioning loans that have an APR of 2789%
- Follow-up. I get around 2,000 emails a day. Yup, 2,000. I know people who get a heck of a lot more. Once a month I feel guilty about having a full up inbox so I archive it. If I’ve promised your post will be published then an email would be appreciated. Every blogger I know is busy. Many have a life offline (yeah I know, can you believe it
) so follow-up.
And finally, let’s talk about links…
I get a decent pitch and we banter back and forth via email and then I get the request for just one link in the body and one in the bio. That’s cool. I can live with that. But the person wants the bio to say they are the staff writer for the company… I now feel deceived. Why not tell me that outright? Why pretend to be someone you are not? For example you are not the female CEO of a company, you are the SEO writer for the CEO’s company. That makes a difference to me, to my readers and to the companies credibility.
And as Angela points out here…
I had a post sent to me quite recently that was OK apart from the fact that it contained several links out to posts on another site; posts that covered the exact subjects of posts already available on my site.
Angela Boothroyd, Studying Online
Links are going to be a problem if you are not going to be respectful; many bloggers prefer to deep-link to existing content from their own site. Others are going to be okay with a few links to your own content. But if you don’t communicate open and honestly with your host blog then any hard work and effort you’ve done already is next to useless. If you are looking to build an open and long-term relationship with other bloggers then you need to observe how they format their posts and how they link to other content.
It’s no good forming a bond and then finding that the policies the blogger have in place don’t suit you. We’re back to square one with doing your research and then writing your pitch.
When you read out loud your pitch for a guest post slot ask yourself ” Would I be happy to open this email and then post this content?”.
If the answer is no, then rewrite it until you will be happy. The chances are you’ll be welcomed with open arms, you will the be the guest poster everyone is looking for.
Sarah Arrow
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My my, this is the second post this morning I’ve found myself quoted in … but you’ve provided some great advice here Sarah so glad I could contribute even in a small way. Despite my experiences up to now, I too would be happy to find a few “regulars” and maybe one day that will happen. In addition to my own site, I’m a “featured” contributor to another personal development blog – along with 4 or 5 other writers – and that blogger had each of us sign agreements formalizing the partnership. I didn’t mind at all and so far it’s worked out well for everyone involved.
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marquita herald recently posted..Adaptability: The Essential Ingredient to Successfully Manage Change
Twitter: martyinmaui
I wanted people coming late to the guest post articles to realise they are not alone, and that making tough decisions isn’t as tough as they think.
I wonder if there is the need for a “regular contributors” match making service? A place where we could meet like-minded people? It would take the guest blogging aspect to the next level.
Sarah Arrow recently posted..WordPress Video Training
Twitter: saraharrow
What a great and valuable post, Sarah, I resonate with so much of what you say.
Keeping blatant advertising pitches and dodgy links out of our range of websites and publications has been a longstanding concern and consumer of those precious resources of effort and time.
It’s so important to add value as a guest blogger, (as any kind of blogger, really…) and a privilege to be given access to the eyeballs and heart of a community, one can only assume that people who merrily spam have little or no long term vision of developing a faithful following and building trust and engagement with readers which can be developed into real business relationships.
C’est la vie, I guess
Twitter: christinemiller
It happens that I am just finished putting up a guest post policy – not because I am overwhelmed with requests (as in zero) but because there is a certain type of post I am looking for. I want to encourage posts – that fit the topic framework I have described.
I am hoping to find marketers who will share the story I have outlined. Yet the draw is not going to be my page rank (1). What do you think? Pie in the sky on my part?
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Richard Goutal recently posted..Collaboration Overview
Twitter: rgoutal
I have a very strict guest posting policy. I do not allow companies to submit material. It has to be for an individual blogger/ individual running and doing their own business. Now I occasionally do interviews with companies, but guest blogging is an opportunity for the individual blogger.
I have a form for guest blog inquiries and if anyone fills out my normal contact form for a guest blog inquiry, their submission is trashed.
I normally these days actually ask specific bloggers with a very good reputation in the community, who clearly is doing it right. My site is 99.5% filled with my material and even some of the old guest posts are about to go through some cuts as they do not meet my requirements.
For me, it is important. I’ve been in this for more than a decade and letting novices not getting it right is not acceptable.
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Nile recently posted..Market On As Many Useful Mediums Possible
Twitter: blondishnet
I don’t are they are using any software or done human because I get same type of email format in my three blogs. Their email is not also that much professional. Among those, I have email few of them that how can I trust your content after seeing your email. I get common reply for that as well “We use professional USA & UK native writer for content creation”. My task is to just contact bloggers. Till to date, I didn’t get that much good content by any guest author.
Twitter: blurbpoint
HI Sarah, I really haven’t had a whole lot of experience with guest blogging on my site and not sure I want any, I guess I just never really thought about it. Last summer I was a guest blogger for a friend when she went on vacation for a few weeks. I did meet a few great friends because of this to. Thanks for the information, like I said this does give me something to think about Thanks for sharing Chery
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Chery Schmidt recently posted..Becoming Conscious About Your Actions As An Online Entrepreneur
Twitter: cheryschmidt