You’ve probably been in this situation. Researching blogs that would be great for hosting your fresh article and after a few days of reading a potential blog and getting the gist of what the blog is about you realize that it’s just perfect for your guest post.
You pitch your article via e-mail but get no response for a week. Even after a followup e-mail the blogger stays silent. You start thinking that there are some problems with your writing and promptly send it to a random low-quality blog that assures you that it will publish your article “in 24 hours”.
This becomes a routine. You are not able to get responses to your pitches and you keep massing links on low-quality websites, effectively working against your link-building and visitor-attracting plan.
Have you just been unlucky? Are all of the blog owners inactive or have your e-mails been ending up in spam folders? Or is it your pitch?
Everything Changes and You Stay the Same
One out of 10 times you might have run into an inactive e-mail address or a blogger not in search of guest post in that particular time but 10/10 times your pitch stays the same.
If you had prior SEO experience you were probably used to doing things on your own but in recent times everything is social. From the obvious social media to the less obvious social link building.
It’s no longer possible to work on your own – you have to include other people and be good at it. Once you get into that frame of mind you will realize what the pitches are about. Meeting and talking to people, working together on achieving a common goal and keeping in touch.
If you’re not doing it socially you are playing the numbers game: sending out hundreds of e-mails, using an e-mail template, daily prospecting, week after week. This works, but only with people with the old mindset of mass publishing and “wham-bam”.
Real Bloggers Are Real People
The bigger the blog is the more guest post pitches the blogger has to wade through every day. The last thing he or she wants to see is another templated e-mail and upon seeing another cliche in the subject line they are likely to just delete it.
It’s their right. They are the masters of their domain and you have no rights to ask for anything. You didn’t get to know them, they didn’t get to know you. You just offered them a pitch and an article. You needed to offer yourself.
Be a Real Person
The basic rule of courtesy is to at least get to know the bloggers name. It usually available on the “About” page or on some of their social media profiles. Don’t be afraid to approach them. Like, favorite, comment, tweet, they are all valid forms of communication.
When you are sending your pitch in, mention some of your comments or any prior communication. Just a bit of personalization in that regard goes a long way and will make the difference from you being a “stranger” or a “friendly acquaintance”.
This will also help you with writing. You could better understand the style of writing on the blog and the community behind it. If you are contacting a blogger with a prewritten post – don’t tell him or her that! Offer a couple of article ideas that will be written just for their blog. It invokes quality and baits the blogger ego.
This makes it easier on the blogger than having to decide on accepting right away. You could even count on getting a reply asking for a different title, which is what you are looking to get – a reaction.
About the Author: Andrew Handley is a blogger, writer and content marketer for midislandcollision.com. He has had his ups and downs when it comes to guest posting but now he’s aiming only for quality.
