Years ago, guest posts used to be a great way to collaborate. Bloggers closely followed other blogs, engaged in constructive discussions and networked. Guest posts were an extension of this blogger community networking.
When this blog came into existence, guest posts were a great way to network and collaborate. It helped you source fresh ideas on to your blog. Both the host and the guest benefited significantly.
Like many others, I found guest posts as an alternative to creating fresh content. With the blog being a side hustle at that time, accepting guest posts helped keep blog active.
With tonnes of spam emails and outreach, guest post request emails no longer interest me.
Outreach Link Building: Multiple Ways
Guest post outreach has become a nuisance today. If you have a moderately successful blog, SEOs from the dark underbelly of the Internet come hounding.
For me, the mention of “guest post” conjures up an image of a burglar with a laptop, trying to steal a backlink.
Here are the kind of spam emails that you can find in your inbox as a blogger.
Email Automation Spam
Today, guest post outreach is automated. Automation email marketing is used for spamming bloggers. Anyone with a mildly successful blog will tell you how annoying it is to have “personalized” guest post outreach emails flooding your inbox.
A machine sends out an email for guest post outreach, follows up again when you don’t revert within a few days, and then continues with the spamming.
With no human involvement, the cost is cheap for the sender. On the receiving end, it can be truly annoying. The only solution: spam filter.
Outreach Link Builders
Where labour is cheap, people send out all those emails manually. Based on my personal experience, most of handwritten spam guest post outreach emails originate from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and the Philippines.
Basically, there are people who send you emails with bad English, using copy-paste template emails, and even have the audacity to offer $10 for publishing their article.
Fictitious Outreach Expert
As people tout guest posts as a white-hat SEO link building method, more money goes into building such backlinks.
Most of the emails in your inbox will come from a fictitious person with a name and picture trying to resemble a person from some developed country, say, the USA. A closer look at the names and email addresses will unravel the deception. Many names are fictional to the extent of being unrealistic.
Many SEO freelancers have branched out into guest post outreach. With time, people doing outreach have turned to more elaborate disguises.
People involved in link outreach often create fictitious identities, sometimes to the extent of impersonation. You will have a smart guy or girl in the profile picture, social media links and Linkedin account to prove they are real people. Some take it further by investing in a domain name and creating bare-bone blog or website.
Outreach Agencies & Aggregators
Among your guest posts request emails, you will find many looking to confirm if you accept guest posts. These people don’t have any website to promote or any article to get published. They are creating a database of blogs accepting guest posts.
Irrespective of their email text, the message is: Do you accept guest posts or sponsored posts? Please send me as much information as possible so that I can add you to my list of websites for guest posting.
In many poor countries, people realized there was money in guest post outreach and backlinks. With hopes of making money, they starting sending spam emails to build their list of blogs. These guys don’t have anything to offer.
All they want is to have your blog in their list of sites available for guest posts.
Once they have a few websites, they start sending more spam emails — offering guest posts for a price.
Such link builders add your website in lists that you would rather not want to be. Your blog would be advertised on platforms selling backlinks without ever seeking your consent.
Be Real & Network
Being an old school blogger, I like the personal connection that existed in the past. Now, blogs and websites don’t have much of a difference. Personality and connection is missing from blogs. Today, successful bloggers sound more like a salesperson and less like a friend.
Instead of connecting with a blogger only for a link, I would rather like that the person start building a real connection. Interact with each other via comments, social media, emails, etc.
Make friends with fellow bloggers. Of course, that is only possible the blogger is working in her individual capacity and not as an employee. Outreach link builders will have trouble even memorizing all the blogs they have in their spreadsheets.
Until things improve — guest post outreach emails are going to keep hitting your inbox. Maybe, I will add some email filter to automatically delete guest post requests.