The world of guest posting seems to be growing at a rapid rate like we haven't seen in a long time, and I bet most of you have considered the benefits of being a guest blogger. With Google taking aggressive action against blogs and web sites who have focused their efforts on low quality link networks and always using the same anchor text, it was only a matter of time before guest blogging became the next most sought after way to build incoming links to sites and blogs and increase traffic.
With all of that said, it's also now more important than ever for blog owners to keep a careful eye out for the content they are allowing on their blog. As guest posting continues to rise, so is the demand for writers and link builders to make money by selling link building through guest blog posting services.
The bottom line is, not all guest post writers are the same. Some are excellent and really care about their reputation and the content they submit to blog… while others are in the game for just a quick buck.
It's time to focus on the lower end of the guest blogging spectrum and break down seven reasons why you might be a horrible guest blogger.
1. Too Many In Content Links
One of the easiest ways to get an automatic denial from any quality blog accepting guest posts, is that you load up your blog post with way too many outbound links. The majority of blogs will allow one or two links within the footer of the article, and sometime an extra within the content of the blog. There is nothing worse then sending a blog post to someone and the first thing they see when they open it up in a word document, is a slew of blue text links to all of your sites and ad links. This is one of the best ways to get your guest blog posts denied.
2. Your Article Doesn't Make Any Sense
The only thing worse than reading through a guest post submission that is poor in grammar, is reading one that simply doesn't make sense at all. Of course there are writers from all around the world and not everyone can write in perfect English, but there is a fine line between what is acceptable and what isn't. No respectable blog is going to post content that doesn't read well and they are various misspellings through out the article. If you are going to be focusing your efforts on guest writing, but are a poor writer, then you may want to outsource your writing through other content providers.
3. You Are Just Selling Links Through Posts
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of guest posting in the past few months we are also seeing a big rise in the paid guest blogging services being offered. The truth is, many of the guest posts you are receiving on your blog are simply for paid link advertising. How many times have you seen a footer that said “This guest post was written by Adam James, who specializes in debt consolidation“? Usually this isn't a problem, but when you start receiving guest posts with more than 2 or 3 links setup this way, it's quite annoying and doesn't go over well with many bloggers.
4. Never Leaving Comments on Your Guest Posts
Blogging is a two way conversion. Whoever is writing the content for a blog should have the decency to stick around and follow up to any comments and leave some input of their own. This point is made specifically for the guest writers out there who are selling links through their posts. You will almost never see them write or leave comments on any of their posts, as they only wanted to get their links placed and get paid from their clients.
5. Providing Absolutely No Value to the Blog
Every once in a while a new guest blogger will do a post that is just disappointing. All blog owners are open to accepting new content from writers and hoping to bring some new life and writing to our blogs, but when we receive articles that provide no value at all or is just rehashed and spun content, that's just a complete waste of time. Spend the extra 5-10 minutes to think up a really great topic that people are interested in and relates to the readers of the blog you are submitting content to. Do this and your blog posts will be accepted at a much higher rate.
6. Complaining About the Publish Date
You've read through a guest post, took the time to fix some spelling errors and formatting, then took the time to schedule it into your blog post. After doing so, you follow up with the person who wrote the post and tell them it will go live in a week or two, only to get an email back a few minutes later from the writer saying they need it published within the next few days. Once again, this is due to a guest blogger who is selling links and needing to get paid by their clients. It's nice enough that many of the blogs out there will post someones content, but now we need to work around their schedule as well? I think not.
7. You Don't Follow Guest Blogger Directions
Probably one of the worst signs that you are a horrible guest blogger is that you simply don't follow directions. Many blogs have guest blogging guidelines clearly written out (Ms. Ileane even has her guest blogger instructions as an audio podcast) on their site about how many words to include in your article, how many links you can use and what topics should be written on. Even after writing all of this very clear and easy to read information, people still submit articles loaded up with links, are very short on real content and sometimes submit articles that are just completely non-relevant at all.
How to Go From a Horrible Guest Blogger to a Valued Blogger
Believe it or not, but there are some really amazing guest blog post writers out there, and many that will always get their content approved right away. What makes these guest bloggers stand out from the crowd and never be considered a horrible guest writer? It's simple… they take the time to write quality content that is catered to the sites they are submitting content to, they always follow the submission guidelines and most importantly, they are sticking around to not only comment on their own blog posts but they will also spread your links around the major social networks and other blog posts they might be writing on other blogs. It's all about providing quality content on a consistent basis.
Is there any use if you guest blog for nofollow links?
Hi Aswin….
Guest Post not only provide your backlink but it also provide you new visitor to your blog as well plus you get involve with new fellow bloggers…..so if your are putting Guest Post on a nofollow blog even though you will get exposure to new visitors.
Even with a no follow link, it will still get you publicity and traffic to your site. It’s always good to get link juice, but the promotion will always help too, especially if it’s a big site you are guest blogging for.
Yeah that’s right. Nofollow links still bring exposure to guest bloggers, however, most of them will require dofollow links because what they want is link juice from your blog. I often set links to nofollow or even delete links if the guest bloggers don’t come back to reply comments on their blog posts.
@Aswin. Nofollow and Dofollow backlinks has many benefits, it all depends from where they are from. If you can try as much as possible to get a nofollow link from a PR7+ site to your website, it has many benefits; it helps Google and other search engine bots sees your site as a valuable source of information for the reader of the blog, and it also create some kind of buzz for your website on the long run. And to end it all, you will get large amount of traffic.
@Zac, Thanks a lot for your seven points, most of we GUEST BLOGGERS falls in one or two of these categories (we needn’t to fake it), what matters most is for us to adjust and do the right thing.
The main reason I stopped taking guest posts from guest bloggers on my blog is to chase away guest bloggers whose aims is to just get published (they are not ready to help my audience) from those who are always interested in adding values at all times. And ever since when I stopped accepting random guest bloggers on the site, I have noticed random changes to the blog.
So, I believe if all we guest bloggers can read through your post and try as much as possible to implement your tips, the guest blogging industry would have a turn arounds.
Once more, thanks for taking your time to write these as a guidelines for us.
Hi Zac Bro,
I must say that you’re also one of those Professional Writers, who get their Guest Posts approved too faster!.. I’ve seen you Guest Posts, many times on Probloggers Blogs too.
That really amazes me reading your posts, am always AGREE with your precious thoughts.
Will try your MIND BLOWING tips to become Professional Guest Blogger..
Thanks a lot.
Thanks Mairaj, I do a fair amount of guest blogging now and have spent years building up my own blogs and reputation online.
He is right, You are really an inspiration for us. You spent a lot of time on the growth of your blog, but really you built a great reputation online.
Thanks, I appreciate it a lot! It’s not easy to have a blog and have think about the time and years you will have to invest in it to make it big, but when that time comes, it’s well worth it.
You are extremely right on this. Perhaps you can get away from one or two guest posts but how long can you keep up the appearances. As you said, guest blogging is a two way street hence the questions and answers must continue. Ileane has great standards and guest bloggers can learn from her.
Definitely, it’s always a pleasure to write for BasicBlogTips.
I’ve faced few of such guest bloggers in my blogging experience. They send copied articles asking me to publish them. Most of these people are the ones working for upcoming SEO agencies where they’ll not have proper idea about writing or contacting webmasters.
Rightly said Radha……some bastard are also in this industry…..who is just sharing the single copy of article to 10 publishers…..its really shame on them
This not only is a waste of time, but can damage site reputations and search rankings if seen as going live with duplicate content. Very annoying to deal with, and I’ve been seeing an increase in this lately!
Hi,
I get at least 6-7 guest post on daily basis but there 1-2 are good who post good content and reply to comments on their post regularly but most of them are so bad that they even don’t reply to your mail once you published their content. At the time of sending content they say that they read the guidelines and they will fulfill it but after publishing the content, all the promises goes in vain.
Hi Atish…
you are right bro…It is responsibility of Guest Author to response all the comments but mostly write guest post only for backlink…they don’t think about relationship building
Yes, Building relationships is much better than only building links.
It’s become a nasty link building business of spammers now. One of the best options for solid and quality original content is to simply hire writers you know for your site.
I faced all of them with some of my guest bloggers on my blog. So many don’t follow instructions that clearly explained on write for us page. You know some many times so many people asked me “Are you accepting guest posts?” without checking write for us page. Guest bloggers have to check write for us page and their content quality before submitting it for review.
Now coming back to the posy, All of your points was really true , well explained. Nice share 🙂
Absolutely correct Sai…
people usually contact directly before knowing about the blog…..
Hi Zac,
You’re remarking solid points about guest posting. I’m suffering myself of all the points mentioned because, as I’m accepting guest posts, you see SEO teams and several paid ghost writers trying to “sell” articles of low quality, worst duplicated or spunned or with a plethora of outboundlinks.
The #4 is something I stress before accepting a guest post, but even having a clear guest post guideline and that was agreed before posting, still several don’t answer the comments. I warn if they don’t answer some of them, perhaps I reserve the right to delete the link in the author bio. Indeed, I’ve a case lately that I’ll remove it even I communicated several times about replying.
The market is offer and demand, and after Google penguin the demand of guest posts, just for links, in huge!
Cheers,
Gera
Hey Gera, I was having the same problem when I first started accepting guest posts on my blog. The guest bloggers promises us that they will respond to every comment but after getting their guest post published they don’t answer to the comment.
The best way to make those guest bloggers answer the comments, you need to connect with the guest blogger on Facebook and Twitter etc to make it easy to contact him instead of sending email every time. Whenever you think there’s a comment on his/her guest post which need to be answered, just PM the guest blogger on Facebook or Twitter.
I don’t say that by this way they will surely answer to the comments, but it will be easy to contact those bloggers.
Hi Zac….
Thanks for your tips….
ne major problem that I have noticed that people don’t read the blog and their content before dropping the guest post to that blog…..they don’t even bother whether their content is matching the blog’s category or topic…..
One should first analyze the blog n then read their guest post guidelines then only you should create an article for guest post to get maximum from it.
Hi Zac,
lots of useful tips. It’s common sense after all. When it comes to guest posts we need to bring value to that blog and not make it about revenue. It shows if it is all about that and readers surely won’t appreciate such an article.
Mariella
Hey Zac,
You are right, As the way of guest posting is increasing these days, the way of horrible guest bloggers also increasing day by day. I have seen such guest bloggers which you’re talking about in this post.
The real guest writer are those who not only writes quality content, but also follows other guest blogging steps like sharing their guest post with their social profiles and responds to every comments on their guest post.
Not responding to comments and ignoring the blog’s guest posting guidelines are huge. Adding value is a must. Along with that I would say to write something that sounds like you are speaking directly to the readers. I have had some guest post submissions that lack any personality and have the feel of reading a text book.
Hey Zac, Nice points you have mentioned here to ruin guest blogging. Any one point from the above is enough to reject your guest blog.
Great share. Thanks.
I have a big problem with people doing no 5 – offering blog posts that are just not interesting and offer no value to my blog! I hope they read your post!
Some people actually do those things? From one standpoint, it is laughable. From another, very sad. Guest posting ought to be a two-way street. The guest blogger and the blog owner both benefit.
The guest blogger who tries this nonsense, or even—who doesn’t throw his entire efforts into creating the best content possible and maintain a relationship with the blog owner and his readers has lost sight of his goal. If he/she submits his material to a quality site, and gets turned down, he has only himself (or herself) to blame.
hey the points you mentioned above are really nice…….not commenting on the ones guest post is a big mistake
I found this out the hard way dealing with Ezine articles. I had to pretty much rewrite my article for them. You are right the proper techniques are as less outbound links as possible because they ruin the inside of the article.
I played around with ezinearticles in the past and had around 500 articles on their sites. They were decent back in the day, but not so much anymore.
Hi Zac,
I’m glad you’re not a horrible guest poster 🙂 But you’ve definitely hit on a few things that prove to be the most annoying part of opening a blog up to guest posters. My number pet peeve, however is not even people who don’t respond to comments – it’s people who can’t follow directions and then send me fifty thousand emails asking me when their post will be published. I feel like it’s common sense, that if you submit a post to a blog that explicitly tells you that they receive a large volume of submissions that you should expect a delay – sending emails only adds to the delay, because now I’ve got to stop what I’m doing to answer the stupid emails! I’m sorry about this rant, but this drives me utterly crazy.
Great post after a long time 😀 , cant find a single point that you have missed ! i have met almost all these types of guest bloggers. Hope they learn from this post.
Hi Zarc,
really this is exceptional post about Guest posting. I have been looking for some good guest posts blog and you have given the right paths to those bloggers ho just wants guest post on their blogs, They do not read content quality and just wants to get some content for some bucks !
i have seen most of the bloggers who just wants payment of posts and payment of lins in the post. They never think about content and Content is king.
Thanks
Saif
I think I agree with what all you’ve said on this post. Yes, having a guest blogger also takes a risk not because they will harm your site, but just because the reputation of your site is at stake and need some keen consideration before hand if you think the content will be posted will give such benefit on your side or otherwise.
I am really interested in becoming a guest blogger on some big sites my hope is to one day be able to guest blog on the Huffington post.
Thanks for the post I just printed it out and but it on the wall
I always had issues with impatient guest posters of my blog who are always concerned about their publishing date. I get around 5 Requests daily, its virtually impossible to process and publish all in one day
Hi Zac, Nice points, I think everyone who accepts guest post must have met these kind of people..some posts we reject some we may have published but It’s a learning process. With the penguin and panda stuff it is even more important that we scrutiny these posts and make sure not to publish low quality stuff.
Guest blogging is something we’d like to try in the future. Good thing I found this article. Didn’t know that there were certain “guidelines.” It may be common sense, but better safe than sorry. Thanks for this.
I hope one day I can be a good “Guest Blogger” in the Auto Detailing world. I was recently asked to write a guest post for the BBB San Diego section that will post in two weeks. I am excited that most of the items on this list were followed.
Thanks!
Hi Zac!
Certainly, quality content creation for guest posting do all the trick for any guest blogger and for me its an art which every blogger learns with the passage of time and certainly its all about giving something in return is all the main purpose behind the guest blogging and if you are doing it properly and achieving your goals, than its easy to approved your guest blog post.
Thanks for sharing great post 🙂
Guest posting is very important in making back links and bringing more traffic. It’s a good thing for interaction/
Zac, superb article to read as well as important concepts that needs to be followed. Guest posting has been increasing on a very large scale these days & services are also becoming optimum. It is essential one can certainly make the things so wonderfully & achieve some high end targets. Also, it is necessary to see what errors one goes through & what one needs to figure out of loopholes.
We all have done this mistake in the past, thinking that guest blogging is just another quick way to gain a backlink. Lately, things have changed and we have to bring some value to the blog, in order to be accepted. From my point of view, I think it worth the effort, as these links are valuable in today’s context.
Hi Zac,
Yes – When someone complains about their article not being posted quick enough it is quite obvious that they are only doing it for the money and not really any value as supposed to a person wanting to establish a better or more broad authority online. And yes – these people tend not to follow or adhere to the blogging guidelines or rules. This is a clear sign that the guest blogger is not worth posting the article on your website. Especially if it is a high traffic website or blog.
So then it’s not just me?
I get requests on a daily basis from people who obviously didn’t read my guest posting guidelines and I don’t really expect that these people will. You can tell by the post (different fonts/sizes) that it’s a copy and paste job that they do and send out to multiple bloggers hoping for a bite.
I used to take the time to respond to each one, directing them to my guidelines, until I received a guest post that was just horrible for dog owners. The person obviously didn’t have a dog nor know anything about dogs and the tips she shared were ridiculous and irresponsible. Now I just delete these unauthentic requests.
I love hosting guest content. It gives my readers a fresh prospective and let’s me off the hook for a day. But I’ve learned quickly to edit the submissions and send them back if I need revisions. I want their articles to get noticed and by working together, we can make that happen.
Great post!!!
When it comes to guest blogging I only think of two things (most of the time): it’s either the owner of the website/webmaster is swamped with work and wants to keep content running on his blog/site or he wants to attract more readers with the help of semi-famous bloggers. There’s no other thing that comes to mind (like I said this is subjective).
Good point. Having a guest blogger just for the sake of it, to make your blog seem interesting is pointless in my eyes. Guest blogger or no guest blogger, the content must be good and strong. That is all.
I don’t like those guest bloggers who do too much linking to their own website pages and ignore linking out to other trusted resources. To be a successful guest blogger, we should mix things in a pretty way and should go through one’s guest blogging guidelines before sending a guest post for approval.
I always like to add in a few extra links to other blog posts of the blog I’m writing for. This also saves the blog owner a lot of time as well, while increasing overall page views.
These are great suggestion for a beginner blogger to focus on guest blogging. Many people commit the same mistake again and again writing guest posts which are not relevant and don’t have a structure. Before start writing one should have a clarity on the subject matter and learn how to organize the content delivery.
It’s never easily to continually come up with new topics when guest blogging, so one thing I like to do is look at previous blog content and see if I can do any updated to spins on new article topics. It’s all about getting creative with your writing.
Great post Zac and great sites you mentioned up there. You really do need to be a killer blogger now days in order to make a big difference online.
You’re one of the top guest bloggers around too! I see you on all the big name sites.
I wrote up another post that was inspired off of this one, for anyone interested.
http://zacjohnson.com/how-guest-blogging-can-destroy-your-blog-and-reputation/
Guest posting has become the part of blogging and internet marketing. This will help us in many aspects, so we have to careful when we are going to submit a post. And blog owner have to keep an eye to the posts before publishing it.
Woah! That was an amazing title. After reading this post, I’m really feeling i’m not a “Horrible” one though.
Well thats true. A horrible blogger will not follow up after his post has been accepted. However, if he has written some good content and he gets a good review, he should probably come back and comment on his post. This can maybe help him to make a good online image in the future with the bloggers as well as the traffic.
I’ve faced few of such guest bloggers in my blogging experience. They send copied articles asking me to publish them. Most of these people are the ones working for upcoming SEO agencies where they’ll not have proper idea about writing or contacting webmasters.
wow…awsm post…its relle useful for guest bloggers like us…thanxx alot…:)
Post without Any Sense, Just Selling Links Through Posts & Does not give value to Blog. These are simply identity of Horrible Guest Blogger or spammers! As we know that Blog commenting is important part to achieve a back link but most of people just comment without having any Sense of their comment.
Thank you for sharing these valuable tips.I used different way to increase more traffic but now i seem that guest post is most essential for traffic. It’s essential to follow guest blogging guideline to be a successful guest blogger. I will try next.
Certainly good tips and definitely not the mistakes to make as a guest blogger. It pays to be awesome but it will also make the awful pay! 🙂