How Not to Request a Guest Post

Because I run several busy blogs, I get multiple guest post requests every day. While many are normal, some are questionable, and others are downright hilarious. I started saving some of the worst examples, because it’s better to share and laugh than get frustrated and annoyed.

So, here’s how NOT to request a guest post on any blog or website. But first, let’s start with how you can request a guest post that doesn’t go straight in the trash or spam folder.

A Good Guest Post Request

If you have a blog that gets decent traffic, then you get a lot of requests for guest posts. The best ones are upfront about what they want, are clear about whether it is for a business and let you know their budget if it is a sponsored post. This makes it incredibly efficient and are most likely to get a fast response.

Unfortunately, about 99% of the messaging I get are from resellers looking to pimp my blog out and to other businesses and pay me pennies for the privilege of posting their incredibly off-topic posts that usually attract zero readers.

Examples of Bad Guest Post Requests:Using All Caps and Bad Grammar

If you’d like to post a guest posts on someone else’s blog, it’s a good idea to show them you can string together a few sentences in a coherent manner and use correct capitalization.

The example below does not give me the greatest confidence that this person can write an e-mail let alone an actual guest post. I also can’t count the number of e-mails I get addressed to “sir,” which is amusing as I am a woman with several mom blogs. Why assume I am a sir?

Don’t Be Sneaky

I get a lot of e-mails with people acting like they are doing ME a favor by sending a guest post. While they are actually getting paid to publish the post, they make a big deal of offering to let me publish it for free!

Guest posts often don’t draw in a lot of traffic, and publishing too many negatively affects my DA (domain authority) and traffic. It leads to too many zero traffic posts and makes my site look bad to Google. So, I am selective about the ones I do publish.

Be upfront about what you want published and why. Stop trying to take advantage of bloggers that don’t know you are trying to make money off of them.

Stop Repeatedly Requesting Discounts

Are my rates for sponsored posts higher than you would like? It’s ok to ask if there are discounts for things like bulk posts or advance payment. It is not ok to offer me 1/10th of what I charge and then continue to pester me for discounts after I’ve already declined.

Would you go into a store, look at the price, and then tell them what you want to pay? No. Or at least, I hope not. It’s rude and annoying and gets your e-mails sent straight to the trash bin.

The worst ones are the ones that reply back every time I say no and raise the price $5 at a time. In that case, I don’t want to work with them even at regular price.

The Bait and Switch

One of the most frustrating approaches is the ones where they seem to be ok with the quoted rates at first. Then they follow that up with a lot of detail questions, which means I’ve invested a lot of time into answering their questions.

Then, at the last minute, they pitch a price much lower than we initially agreed.

Why are you making me jump through all these hoops to answer all your questions if you didn’t agree to my rates? I hate having my time wasted.

This method usually results in no deal because I’m too annoyed to continue negotiating.

Making Empty Promises

I get a lot of requests to publish “just this one time” for a big discount and then they promise the next ones will be at my regular rate. I’ve actually given it a try before, and they always just come back with the same cheap rate or sometimes even lower! So, I don’t waste time on future promises anymore.

Not Reading My E-mail

I have an e-mail response I send out to prospective guest posters that includes the rates, what kind of posts are accepted, and turnaround time, payment info and basically all he questions they usually ask.

So, it’s always frustrating to get a reply e-mail with a list of questions that I already covered. My typical response to that is, “Please refer to my previous e-mail, which covers all your questions.”

Stop Asking Me to be Reasonable

As soon as I see the request for “reasonable rates” I usually just delete the e-mail. Whatever I’m sending you, I obviously think is reasonable to start with.

Please Respect My Time

I feel like I spend 1/4 my time blogging, and the other 3/4 answering these guest post requests. I never knew I’d be dealing with so many negotiations and haggling when I got into blogging. It can be quite a time suck.

Will this post cut down on the annoying e-mails? Definitely not. Annoying people don’t tend to read blog posts, or even an entire e-mail. But sometimes just griping about things makes me feel better.

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