Everybody’s doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’ it, everybody’s doin’ it … guest blogging! Yeah! Oh, but maybe you’re not doin’ it. Having trouble your guest posts published? Tired of getting rejected? Maybe your making one of these nine mistakes that are guaranteed to get you a rejection letter.
Ignore the guest posting guidelines
Did you look around the blog to see if the owner has posted guidelines for guest bloggers? Most do these days. Find them and follow the rules, no matter how ridiculous they may seem. That blogger might be using those rules to weed out the first round of rejects.
Don’t read the blog
Have you read the blog to see what they talk about, how they talk about it and what’s important to their readers? No owner of a high-ranking blog is going to risk his readers disapproval just to give you a backlink. Read the blog so you can be relevant.
Don’t worry about spelling and grammar
Did you re-read your guest post at least three times, looking for spelling and grammar errors? If this is a problem for you, maybe you should ask someone else to check it out before you submit. Look at that blog you’re sending your post to. Does he have poorly-written content? Unlikely. So why would he want to publish yours?
Don’t worry about engaging the audience
If that blogger accepts your guest post then his readers are going to read it. If they hate it, they’re not going to be too happy with him. Don’t just provide some regurgitated information you found of the Web. Read the blog, learn the audience and write engaging content.
Don’t worry about being relevant
Why bother being relevant? Surely any blog owner would be honored to publish your well-written article, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with his blog. Ummm… maybe if you’d read the blog you might have better luck?
Don’t do any internal linking
While internal linking isn’t necessarily a requirement, if you can do it your guest post will certainly be more attractive. If it comes down to you and another blogger, that might be the deciding factor. Plus, it lets the blogger know that you were willing to go the extra mile to get your post accepted.
Don’t worry about that blog, just promote yourself
I can’t tell you how many guest blog posts I’ve read where the blogger does nothing but link out to his own content and talk about how great he is. Please. If you’re that wonderful and popular why do you need to shop around your guest blog posts?
Don’t worry about building relationships
A fly-by guest blog post? Really? Today a blog owner can be risking his ranking anytime he publishes poor-quality content or links out to a questionable blog. Work at building a relationship with that blogger before you submit a guest post and he’s much more likely to accept it because he knows you.
Go ahead, throw in a few affiliate links while you’re at it
Did you remember to put plenty of affiliate links in that post? Well, that’s why it got rejected. Your post is filled with spammy links, and it’s probably poor quality. And why would a high-ranking blogger want to send his traffic to your affiliate links? No wonder your guest post got rejected!
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!