Dear Link Builders/VA's,
This letter is for all the link building go-getters out there. I know a lot of you are trying to make a living online, and these days in order for people to find the sites you're trying to promote it's going to involve some link building. As a blogger who is both the target of some of your efforts and as someone who is involved with link building myself, it seems that many of you are just throwing your time and money into the wind.
There are many bloggers who openly vent their disdain for the quality of some of the guest post submissions and requests from link builders coming their way, but my problem is with a step before that- your prospecting email (or as I like to call it, the fishing trip).
Whether you are a blogger looking to gain back links from guest posting, you're a content writer doing SEO work on behalf of your clients, or you're a virtual assistant assigned with the task of vetting potential link building opportunities, you'll have a lot to gain from paying attention to the points below. Here are my biggest pet peeves with emails requesting a link to my site that have me (and I'm sure many other bloggers) heading for the delete button in no time flat.
Five Characteristics of Failed Attempts by Link Builders
1. You sent me a cookie cutter message. I have this sinking suspicion that there's a handful of master link building request emails floating around made by the some link building Queen Bee that keeps getting copied and pasted (with some minor changes, of course) to flood ad nauseam the inboxes of many a blogger. I have personally received hundreds of such emails, and I'm only the webmaster of some relatively small niche blogs. By the process of deduction, I imagine that one of the “originals” goes something like this:
I was the surfing the web looking for a good [enter niche here] and I came across your site. I have been reading the articles on your website, and I am very impressed with the quality of your information. I would like to write an original article for you to use on your website – this article will not be used anywhere else on the Internet.
This content is for free. In exchange all I ask is that I can have one or two links within the body of the article back to one of my sites.
If you don't take the time to write a more original introduction then chances are your guest post is just as un-original. Delete!
2. You didn't read the guest post guidelines… or my site. Another link building approach that gets me heading for the trash icon is asking me if I ever accept guest posts, when I just published one that day or what my guidelines are when there's a pretty prominent menu option on my website titled “Guest Post.” Even better is suggesting a guest post topic that has little to do with my site:
“I have a post called ‘Low Cost Chicken Dinner Recipes.' Please let me know when it will be published on The Frugal Entrepreneur.”
Ummm… Delete!
3. Don't flatter me! Don't get me wrong. Compliments are very welcome and much appreciated. I like to hear how my efforts are helping other people, or how my content is being used. But if you're going to make the effort, then at least make it sound real. Canned statements such as, “great site,” “I'm impressed with the quality of your content,”or “I'm an admirer of your site,” etc, or picking out the latest post and either re-stating one or two of the sentences in it or offering some equally bland compliments, won't get you very far in your link building pursuit. You're not being genuine and it shows. Delete!
4. You forgot who I am. Sometimes I get emails from link builders like:
“Dear Mr (or Ms?!) Not My Name, I would like to submit a guest post on your site, Notmysite.com,…”
I know. I know. I'm not trying to be mean. You've probably sent out link prospecting emails to dozens and dozens of sites. You're tired, you're eyes are blurry from peddling all those links and posts. But that's precisely the problem. Delete!
5. You use awkward language. Receiving emails from link builders with phrases such as, “I was tasked with writing a post…,” or “Hello Sir, I was trawling through Google…,” are a big turn off. Now I know, as an American, that English is spoken differently in other countries like England and Australia, and also that there are some competent people from foreign countries who can speak a decent English. But usually I can tell if that is really the problem rather than a link building foreign virtual assistant passing as a supposedly American-based blogger.
Bloggers please take note: If you are using a virtual assistant even if he or she is from an English speaking country, then please, please make sure this person knows how to communicate in the way you want him or her to. (I recently wrote a post about working with VA's that you might want to check out.) If you don't make an effort to monitor the quality of your communications, then how can you expect me to make the effort to consider your request? Delete!
In short, dear Link Building One, I want to work with you. But you need to make sure your request is compelling and genuine. That's the only way to win over a delete- happy blogger like me.
Regards,
Adam Gottlieb
The Frugal Entrepreneur
You gave me a great suggestion, Adam.
I will modify my guest posts request page,
indicating that duty of guest blogger will be visit/comment/answer to comments in the page of his article.
Otherwise I will remove links within one week.
I think one week is more than enough, right?
Answering to you :
I reject guest posts if they are not “really quality content”,
or if there are clearly a review of their service/company.
Once I removed the guest post because I found out it was posted elsewhere before submitting it to me.
Now I check the originality over the web of all the guest posts, before publish them in my blog.
Regarding your suggestion… it sounds like a really good idea- not only will it increase engagement all around, but it will help to ensure that your guest posters are really who they say they are.
And, I’m also pretty picky when it comes to the quality of writing for guest posts. Spun (and re-used) content is still really big-business these days, and with so much emphasis being placed on getting natural, in-bound links, I expect that bloggers who accept guest posts will continue to be flooded with requests.
Adam,
That’s my I review every single comment that gets left on my blog.
I dont want the TEAM SPAMMER to enter my house.
If they were smart, they would leave a proper comments and not “Random Jibberish”
Super funny post, buts its true – which is sad.
This blog really made me laugh! Five out of five characteristics, man, if you could really understand those you’ll be at the top of the list! I won’t deny that I encountered most of these people, but I won’t blame them. And in fact, it’s their job.
Yes, it’s their job, and no one should take it away from either- there’s definitely a need and a place for it these days. But, their job has to be done smarter so that their efforts can lead to real, worthwhile results.
Finally someone wrote about the menace,coz it’s a huge problem for everyone and most of the times these types of link builders will have unrelated links.
Usually, the posts that have these unrelated links are pretty low in quality so they don’t get so far. On occasion, though, I’ll get sent a really great post, but with unrelated or low quality links… then it’s just a shame.
Hi Adam,
Nice post – oops bland flattery 😉
I certainly understand where you are coming from on both sides of the equation. Your guidelines are actually lenient compared to many people I encounter should I link request even make it past their spam filters.
The generic link emails usually are similar to the e-mail inheritance type scams where the sender is banking on volume rather than quality. Unfortunately, until a few people stop responding to then everyone will continue receiving such requests.
One of the more effective techniques I encounter in the search engine optimisation business is a brief email that states:
1. I already added a link to your site here: xyz.com/links.html
2. Could you please review my site for inclusion on your page: yourdomain.com/links.html ?
Thank you either way for the time.
Signed,
Smarter Link Builder – A better search engine optimisation company’s VA 🙂
I could not resist to include a suggested format above since it saves everyone immense amounts of time. Those who are link builder may want to use a variation of this template and those who are bloggers can quickly decide if they will provide a link back by first checking out the quality of the one provided.
Regarding the point about volume over quality: Very true. As long as there will be bloggers and website owners open to publishing lower quality, promotional, or spammy content, there’ll be people willing and happy to send it to them- especially for a coveted backlink.
Regarding your technique: the best part about it is that it’s direct, and I definitely appreciate that. It’s also a big money-saver since on one has to write a guest post.
But, as a blogger, I personally like getting the guest post as long as it is quality, and I am more than happy to give people links back in exchange.
Well you have shared something juicy! I really enjoyed the article. Sometimes it becomes really irritating to get such mails. Asking for links is really not bad but the content should be descent and related to the niche of the blog. maximum times the article is also of low quality. Sometimes they start in this way “hello dude…”. I mean this is not at all a right way to approach. I hope after reading this article, they will surely understand their mistakes ( i bet those who are reading this post wont repeat anymore). Thanks for the article Adam
It seems to me that many sites and services are trying to keep their overhead low. So they think that hiring cheap, overseas help is the way to go. But they forget that language and cultural differences lead to mis-communication and “mistakes” that will quickly eat away at any “savings” that they hoped to achieve…
Hiring an overseas VA or freelancer can be a really good, money-saving experience. BUT, you need to know who you are working with and what the extent of their skills and experiences are. You also need to evaluate the ROI of their input. Contrary to what the 4-hour work week “experts” say, working relationships such as these cannot run on auto-pilot- at least not at the beginning.
Hi Adam!
Nice post and I thought most of the people does as you mention in the post but I believe they did what they know about it and I think its their job as well and using simple and genuine e-mails will certainly helps them getting guest post approval I believe its their research or knowledge through which they are responding like that.
After reading this article they should get the lesson about the approach of getting approval of guest posting on bloggers blog.
Thanks for sharing great tips 🙂
Yeah, the problem is, most of these people won’t be reading this post…
Hi Adam, first of all great post. Just a quick comment to add to the subject of link building. The problem i see on a daily basis as you mention in your post is people dont seem too take link building seriously (I receive around 20-30 emails a day asking to leave guest posts even though i have forms set up for that exact thing) or the classic (i’ll place your link on this spammy site and this spammy site if you link to me) . Links that are actually worth anything & will help your rankings are always hard to get. When somethings easy to do, especially in this business it won’t last as there are no short cuts to success. The sooner spammers and individuals learn this, the quicker they will experience their success.
Regards
Lee
I agree except those businesses that can dedicate a lot of resources to their SEO efforts may take this route. Even if only a handful of people actually “bite” and provide a link, the amount of money invested may be considered nominal…
I’ve personally received link requests in this way from some pretty well-established brands.
I can’t wait for the day that this becomes a problem for my blog!
Adam,
Good stuff…
The awkward language one always breaks me. I understand that English isn’t a first language for everyone and that’s perfectly fine.
But there is a huge difference between struggling through a language that generally breaks every rule it’s supposed to have and a computer generated message meant to look like… I have no idea.
Thanks!!
Ryan H.
…It looks the like the person or business behind those messages is either totally out of touch with the way people engage each other online or doesn’t care. Either way, most site owners won’t give much attention to these messages. In fact, after a while, I can usually tell what kind of email it is just by the title and the first few words of text.
Yes Adam, I’ve been receiving a lot of these and so surprising after all the “Penquin and Panda” updates! It’s pretty bad if they put in the wrong website or your wrong name. Immediately hit the spam button and delete into the trash. You think they could spend their time writing quality content instead…
Actually, it’s not so surprising that these kinds of link building attempts are being made after Panda and Penguin…
Think about it from the side of the person or company trying to get the link. A guest post in particular is the second-best link vehicle you can get from another site. The best, of course, being an organic link within a post from the hosting site’s author…
And many bloggers are in need of content- even if it is just to keep their site refreshed, and updated- but they may not have the time, nor resources to produce all of that content themselves.
The reality is, however, that guest posting is getting abused- especially by the bigger companies that can afford to hire a troupe of talented content writers or are willing to throw money at SEO companies who then throw money at an even bigger troupe less skilled freelancers to get an impressive link portfolio. This strategy happens because it works… at least for now.
But, mark my words, Google will likely include in their algorithm a variable that specifically down grades the links from most guest posts (kind of like the downgrade that commenting gets). Then it will be on to something else…
You’re soo right, Adam. I get these e-mails all the time and they’re extremely annoying. You’re right, if the link builders and their VAs spent a little more time trying to reach out bloggers then they would definitely get a more favorable response from us. I had a great laugh reading this one. 😀
Yeah, the problem is they’re trying to get an easy link, and in doing so they are kind of insulting the bloggers who have spent so much energy, time, and money to build up their sites.
hm I really hate all of the linbuilder-tools. They spam always my blog with useless comments. I have every day to delete about 200 comments.
Kind Regards
adressen kaufen
I know exactly what you mean. I have an amazon site that I initially set up because I wanted people to genuinely care about the content I put up and put their authentic comments on the blog. Instead, I get a ton of useless junk that I have to delete. I would be much more willing to post a link to their site and comment if they just took 60 seconds to write something that makes sense and is useful.
Hi Adam,
It’s just common sense. You feel it inside if the communication is genuine. The ones that give you praise in such a stupid, stupid way get deleted pronto.
The ones with broken English are tricky. Tricky because I try to be reasonable but they too often get deleted.
Good point, if you can’t take the time out to make sure I am not stupid or desperate how am I going to consider your request?
Terry Conti
It’s relationships 101- the same rules apply online as they do off-line. If you are not genuine and if you don’t value what the other has to offer, then you won’t have many successful relationships. Those who come in with a real appreciation of the time and effort that was put into the site they are trying to get a link from will stand a better chance of getting the links and exposure they desire.
This is such a fantastic post and so very timely, Adam
As a dog blogger, it’s immediately obvious that people haven’t bothered to read my site with the articles they’re proposing. These inquiries inspired my guest posting guidelines and my refusal to accept guest post submissions from people outside of the pet industry.
It’s frustrating going through all the emails and trying to find the sincere contributions.
Thanks for expressing what I’ve been feeling so well.
It seems to me that the more defined the niche, the more ridiculous the article suggestions, and yes it is frustrating going through 20-30 of these kinds of emails to sift out the real people…
On my end, I’m always trying to clarify my guest posting guidelines, and I’m getting better at being able to tell what kind of content I’ll probably get, often without even opening the email.
Thanks Adam, that did need to be said.
I appreciate you speaking out on that. I have recently been getting spam comments that say ” I tried to leave a long comment but when I hit submit, it disappeared, I don’t feel like writing another one”. I have been getting several with the exact same verbiage. LOL. It’s funny sometimes to see.
Thanks again – I wish we could reach them, but I think they get paid to submit those comments so they will probably never stop!
For a while, I’ve been wanting to collect some of these spammy comments and create a top ten list of the most ridiculous and/or creative ones. But then again, maybe I just would be giving them more ideas…
Hi Adam,
You have come with an interesting point here. You have showed us some interesting examples of pet peeves link building request which got deleted right?
I want you to show us some examples of compelling and genuine guest blogging email requests which must win over a delete?
I have many examples… except the problem with highlighting one or two of them is that then all of a sudden people are going to start using their approach almost word for word… the underlying point to my post is that people need to monitor their communications to make sure they are successfully conveying the message they want to, but aside from that, they just need to be themselves.
I’ve accepted links/guest posts from some emails that were 3 sentences long; others were a few hundred words. It really depends on the ***person*** behind the email
Yeah I totally got you Adam. Thanks for providing all the tips here. Will do my best next time on my guest Blogging request.
great post thanks…
Hehe! I won’t leave it that 🙂
I totally hear what you’re saying about the regurgitated emails. There was probably some guru who sold a $7 system on some forum that claimed that anyone could get a flood of traffic simply by sending out these emails.
I get them all the time. That’s why I set up a custom plugin to handle all applications and reviews. They have to provide a URL to an example article of theirs and fulfil all the criteria like having a real name in their profile and a registered gravitar before they can even submit a post for review. Just those simple steps eliminate 90+% of the bad ones
Once they submit a post, I have another system that can let them know why it got refused and gives them a chance to fix it.
The reward they get is a post on a PR6 site and it sent out to 15000+ email subscribers, the reward I get is I only have to write one post a week but I’ve always got a new post to publish every day with at least 2 weeks of posts in waiting.
Everybody wins when you let people know from the start what is acceptable and what is not. Just like you’re doing with this post!
Potential guest bloggers and link builders listen up!
Hi Adam,
That is why I removed the contact page from my website. I stopped accepting guest posts on my blog because of the low level guest posts I was getting, and even worse, they never responded to comments. If I am in need of some content than I contact bloggers that I am friends with to see if they would want to guest post on my blog.
Amazing… It’s not just about letting people know what’s acceptable; it’s about also having a system in place that automatically sifts out most of the spammers and link building free loaders, while helping the legitimate people improve their submissions. Yours is a good model to follow
Haha.. I heard some “ouch” deep inside me. Thank you for the great post, Adam.
Yes – I do agree. When approached by someone who would like guest blogging opportunity I always look for the basic signs of Professionalism and whether they did actually read my site or only there for the link sharing opportunity. Being Sincere and trustworthy online is a big deal to people – and also hard to achieve. Some people are easier to recognize as incompetent – and sometimes you only notice it receiving their guest post.
You’ll easily find “guest post guidelines” on most of the blog which accept guest post. So it’s really important to read them before sending any proposal and request for guest post.
I am seeing more posts of bloggers critiquing guest post submissions its interesting to me.
If your blog had no guest post submissions then you would probably complain about that, right?
Thanks Adam. Looks like I have a language barrier, as you mentioned in number 5, but I will continue to work hard learn English 🙂
I have been experimenting with Guest Bloggers on my blog lately but I’m unsure if this is a solid way to go.
I’ve found that the real benefits of having guest bloggers depends on what YOU, the owner of the site, put into it (like everything else in life). If you see a site, such as this one, where guest blogging works, then you can be sure that the person in charge of the site worked his or her behind off to get it that way.
Adam
This is spot on. What always amazings me is how transparent these link spammers are. In mean, you can usually spot them from their use of language alone. I saw a great example on a blog only a few minutes ago. The text in the comment itself was truly awful. No sentences, no grammar and just total gibberish in terms of meaning. However the blog title he was linking to was written in perfect English. So it then becomes 100% clear that someone is writing decent content on a blog and having people who do not speak English promote these posts on other blogs…..However what I don’t understand is why people publish these nonsense comments??!?!? I just delete them, every time.
I only started blogging a few months ago and I have been totally knocked over by the volume of automated comment spam. I have Askimet installed so it is not a real problem but I can find myself deleting 50 or so spam comments every couple of days – the volume is massive!
I love the way you have put your points here. You mentioned that you get emails from webmasters saying how they would love to link exchange with like minded bloggers and therefore you should put their link first. Just wonder why people do that as I never respond to them anyway. Link spam does not work.
nowadays guest posting becoming spam. I m getting alot of guest posting mails to my email.