With the arrival of Google Panda and Google Penguin, lots of traditional link building techniques have lost their importance. More and More Website Owners, SEO’s and Link builders have started including guest blogging as one of important activities in their Marketing Plans. In the recent times, flow of guest blogging requests on my blog Bloggers Passion has increased to great extent. I hope you guys also facing the similar kind of situation on your personal or business blog in case you are accepting guest posts on them. With so many guest post requests, ideas and posts coming for review, I must say percentage of high quality guest posts have reduced. Lots of link builders, SEO’s and freelancers seem to be coming to my blog just to complete their quote of guest post links.
Right now, I’m getting 100 plus guest post requests in a month and if you look at the actual guest post which gets published on my blog, they will be just 10-15 only. Here are some common reasons which force me to say No to a guest post on my blog:
1. Your Guest Blogging Request Email Matters a Lot to me
Some guest bloggers emails me explaining they are interested in doing guest posts on my blog. They will be writing 500 words long guest posts and in return they are expecting 2-3 backlinks from their guest post body and signature sections.
I just ignore such emails. In their Email, they have shown their intensions, they are on my blog just to build backlinks for their own or client websites.
2. You are Sending Guest Post on Unrelated Topics
I have already mentioned the kind of topics I’m accepting as guest post in my guest blogging guidelines section on my blog. But still some guest bloggers are pitching me their guest posts on off topics. Since my blog is about Blogging, SEO and WordPress Web Hosting Comparison related topics, you cannot expect me to publish a guest post around health or travel topic here.
3. Too Many Mistakes in Your Guest Post
Some guest posts are sent without any proof reading. No doubt I love making minor corrections in the submitted guest post but don’t expect me or any other blogger doing too many corrections in your guest post. This could be one of reason for your guest post rejection.
4. You are Asking Me to Add Keyword Based Links
I have clearly mentioned in my guidelines; I don’t accept keyword based backlinks from the submitted guest post on my blog. But still some guest bloggers don’t forget to enter their keyword based (SEO Optimized) anchors in their posts. I’m no more accepting such links, no doubt you are allowed to add links for your brand or your Social Media profile in your guest post.
Normal Link:
Keyword Based Link:
5. Not Following my Guest Blogging Guidelines
Most of blog owners are not accepting short guest post there days. You are expected to submit a guest post carrying a good length and don’t forget about the content quality. So if you are submitting a 400 or 500 word long guest post, most of popular bloggers will not accept your guest post.
Lots of blog owners start accepting guest posts on their blogs to bring more diversity and to share new ideas from other bloggers with their target audience. So submit just high quality, unique and targeted guest post to the blog owner. And before submitting your guest post to a blog owner, make sure you are aware about his/her guest blogging guidelines in detail.
6. You are Not Replying to Comments
As a blog owner, we used to accept guest posts on different topics and it’s not necessary we got detailed knowledge about every published guest post. Guest blogger, who is submitting the guest post around any particular topic, knows much better about that topic. And he is the best person to respond to queries coming from my blog readers on his guest post. If you have the habit of not replying to comments, lots of blog owners will say no to your guest post.
Some blog owners may even delete your published guest post if you are not replying to incoming comments on your guest post after receiving email notification about comments on your guest post.
7. You are Linking to Bad Websites or Become too Self-Promotional
Blog owners may ignore your guest post altogether if you are linking to bad or unrelated websites in post content or author bio. You should not add too many links for your own website in your guest post body.
You should do the reverse. You should add links for couple of earlier blog posts and pages from the blog owner. And while linking to other websites, make sure you adding references for good and trusted websites only.
8. Don’t Have an Account on Gravatar
I have noticed some blog owners will not accept your guest post if you don’t have an account on Gravatar. You can see one live example here at FamousBloggers.net where its owner Hesham Zebida, is expecting you must have an account on Gravatar in case you want to submit your guest post on his blog.
So you should create an account on Gravatar today and make sure you are using your own personal image there.
These are some of common reasons which are forcing me to say no to lots of guest posts that are submitted to me. What is your criteria for rejecting a guest post and on what basis your guest post was rejected by a blog owner, please share your thoughts and concerns in this regard in the comments section.
Sometimes it’s absolutely right to refuse those guest post.But I think some useful or high quality posts should not be rejected!Anyway,thanks for sharing your great ideas!
I agree with you Anil Guest Posting requests are now more abundant as they were a few years ago. I personally don’t even open guest post requests that has too general subject line such as “Guest Post Request” unless a blogger mentions the name of the website he wants to post guest article it suggests he is not serious.
Its a great post for those blogger who recently accept guest post. I am fully agreed with you that after Google Panda and Google Penguin update Guest blogging is main strategy for link building.
Today Matt Cutts also told in Web-Master video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMxC3wQZOyc&feature=youtu.be) that If you accept High quality Guest Post then its fine otherwise stay away from guest posting
It is a very big problem when the blogger is writing and posting under a particular niche on his blog and he recieves a guest post which is completely out of topic and irrelevant to the niche or topic. This can irritate the blogger because the person sending guest post has not researched about the blog and does not know a single thing about that blog.
Haha , same with
and some guest authors force me to post guest article
with different – diff type of lines
The main thing is Low Quality Content [scraped & spun]
If I had to choose a guest post that had to be posted on my blog, I would look out for points like fresh content that is based on some modern topic or issue, good language and perfect hold on english without any msitakes and that writer should be genuine. You have provided a perfect checklist, thanks.
Hello Anil,
You have aptly highlighted the worst mistakes made by guest posters. I reject a post if it has plagiarized content. No matter what we write, it should be unique and self written. The quantity never matters, only the quality concerns me. I encourage genuine posts always even if they are very simple in language.
Regards,
Sanjib
hmmmm..
Great very Well said. you should only accpect Guest Posts from HIghly Proessional Bloggers who knows Much About SEO and Updates from Google on Blog SEO and Rankings…
Accepting guest post is highness of blog owner but as you mentioned that you get mails mentioning that they want backlinks or so…Now this is really bad as this clearly shows their intensions and proves that they are not interested in writing rather just want to generate backlinks. Guest posts should be relevant and comprehensive which help readers to gain some information not for self (blog) promotions.
Erica, ratio of such emails have surely increased in my inbox. This type of requests make me feel as if they are wasting mine and their own valuable time.
Hmm…. Really, the webmasters would be happy if he will get guest posts having good quality and happily provide the link bank to give credit as they deserve but doing guest post just only for making backlink just annoy the webmaster.
When a person sends request emails in order to get his guest post posted to the blogger, he or she must not be annoying, he or she must be calm and genuine and choose the tone of language he is writing in with a lot of care and patience. Anything offensive would not be appreciated or tolerated by the blogger.
That’s very true Nicholas. You need to be very cool and calm when doing communication with blog owners. And don’t send too many emails to a blog owner asking the same thing over and over.
Hi Anil,
I totally agree on the tips that you have suggested. Infact, its absolutely true. Guest Post mostly gets rejected when there is unrelated content mainly. Secondly, I like the fifth point that you said of not following the guest post guidelines. This also angers many of the blog owners and they simply rejects it. Thanks for the share!!
Aditi, I have set up some canned responses in my Gmail account to send automatic replies to people informing the reason for their guest post rejection. It would have taken lots of time if I manually type my reply for each and every guest post query on my blog.
really nice post thanks for sharing 🙂
Agree with you, most of the bloggers do guest posts for just backlinks, which is not a good reason to submit your your guest post.
It’s true. A lot of bloggers offer to guest post just to place backlinks. I think it’s one of the marketing strategy. It depends on the blog owner though. Some blog sites allow them to. It’s just a matter of knowing the guidelines first and sticking to it. I’m still for high quality content.
i also got many guest posts which are not relevant so rejected but thanks for list of reasons you mentions………
Apart from relevance, what other factors you keep in mind while decision about accepting or rejecting a guest post?
Seriously, These days people only do guest blogging to create mere backlinks thereby ignoring the contents and quality of the articles.
Then guest blogging will also lose its importance in Google eyes. If you remember, these days, Google is not giving much weightage to links from article directories. If you have noticed, most of article directories huge amount of traffic after Panda update from Google
Guest Posting Solely for Link Building is killing the meaning of guest posting. They could buy blogroll links on blog farms for that
Everyone is trying to become more smarter than Google, Since they know links from blogrolls or sidebars are no more effective on Google, now they have started using guest blogging for link building purpose.
Awesome post! Well yes, in recent times flow of guest blogging has increased and webmasters are taking guest blogging as an important strategy for promotion. Being a guest author one needs to follow guest blogging guidelines for better understanding and should try to reply to the comments for better interaction. Thanks Anil for sharing this wonderful post 🙂
Good to know you are finding my guest posts here HBB very useful, Nizam. I think if guest bloggers have to work very hard in publishing their guest posts on good blogs at least, concept of guest blogging will remain effective. And if they are able to publish their guest post by writing 400 word odd content, importance of guest blogging is going to get down soon.
Well, that figures! No wonder I am getting such emails from people who are so keen to have guest post. I do not have a guest blog platform in my blog as mainly my contents are focusing on the people I train. I know it is a good idea to have diversity but I am still not convinced about it.
The latest guest blog proposal I got was with a $35 offer if 4 links are posted within the content. Well, guess what I am going to do.
Annetta, I would suggest you not going after such offers. When accepting a guest post on my blog, my main concern remains about content quality. If its quality content and guest blogger is not becoming too promotional, I don’t hesitate in publishing that guest post on my blog.
You have outlined some really good guidelines which will be beneficial for both the blog owner and the guest bloggers,… well, the good guest bloggers. With these guidelines in place, everyone will be happy.
Alicia, these kind of guidelines are going to make good bloggers happy. But people who are just coming on your blog for building backlinks for their website will not be happy at all. They have to find other blogs where they can spam.
Yeah! This is a serious problem. Lost of marketers doing guest blogging just to get back links. It making Blogosphere more nosier. This is bad for really passionate bloggers who is genuinely want to share what they know with others. I’d really appreciate steps you have taken to not to feature poor quality content.
In other hand I really like Google algo upgrades. They should make it even better to filter out high quality content and ban poor quality marketing purpose posting.
Correct. I too never accept any guest posts from the guys who want just backlinks. I only accept unique and quality articles as quality matters.
We should be accepting only high quality and relevant guest posts on our blogs. Really satisfied with your views Avi. Apart from ths, we should keep certain level of ratio among the content written by us and guest bloggers.
Mailinda, Google is surely moving in that direction. With each update, they try to remove or lower down the rankings of websites and blogs that produces thin contents.