{"id":204,"date":"2010-09-21T15:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T19:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debradalgleish.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/21\/how-not-to-offer-a-blog-guest-post\/"},"modified":"2010-09-21T15:11:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-21T19:11:00","slug":"how-not-to-offer-a-blog-guest-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debradalgleish.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/21\/how-not-to-offer-a-blog-guest-post\/","title":{"rendered":"How NOT to Offer a Blog Guest Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some of the blogging expert sites suggest that you write guest posts on popular blogs, to get a bit of publicity for your own blog. Today I got an email from someone who offered to supply a guest post for my Excel website.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&quot;I figured you might be interested in including a guest article for contextures.com about the story of an Ann Arbor couple that &#8216;greened&#8217; up their wedding.&quot;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As tempting as that sounds, I&#8217;ll pass, thanks. <\/p>\n<h3>What Went Wrong?<\/h3>\n<p>How can I pass up this irresistible offer? It was self-centred, completely off-topic, and had a &quot;do-gooder&quot; approach that made me suspicious. Here are just a few things the author did wrong:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>didn&#8217;t bother to find out who owns the site, and there was no salutation in the email <\/li>\n<li>obviously has no clue what my site is about &#8212; no mention of how the article would fit the site&#8217;s theme <\/li>\n<li>in first 3 sentences, &quot;my&quot; and &quot;I&quot; used 8 times, versus &quot;you&quot; and &quot;your&quot; used once each. <\/li>\n<li>return email address has event planning theme, but the article pitch was for environmental awareness &#8211;&quot;With your support we can educate the public about the dangers of excessive wastes and hopefully help people lower their carbon footprints.&quot; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What Could Go Right?<\/h3>\n<p>I don&#8217;t really have guest posts on my blog, but have written about a few sample workbooks and macros that people have sent to me. If someone really wanted to do a guest post on my Excel blog, a random email wouldn&#8217;t be the first time I&#8217;d ever heard their name. They&#8217;d have added comments to the blog in the past, or emailed me previously, without pitching something. <\/p>\n<p>Someone who wanted to write a guest post would know that my blog is about Excel, and would suggest an article tied to that. For example, instead of &#8216;greening up&#8217; a wedding, an article about tracking wedding costs in Excel would be relevant. Or, for a green theme, the article could explain how to calculate a cost comparison of energy sources in Excel.<\/p>\n<p>Also, if you had an article to share on my blog, you&#8217;d tell me how your article will help my blog&#8217;s readers, not you. What interesting Excel tips will you share, or fabulous new template design?<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the author should include a link to his\/her website or blog, and be clear about its purpose. Don&#8217;t try to guilt me into posting your article, by claiming it will help the earth, if your site is all about selling something. I&#8217;m not opposed to business, but I don&#8217;t like feeling conned. <\/p>\n<p>___________<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of the blogging expert sites suggest that you write guest posts on popular blogs, to get a bit of publicity for your own blog. Today I got an email from someone who offered to supply a guest post for my Excel website. &quot;I figured you might be interested in including a guest article for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/debradalgleish.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/21\/how-not-to-offer-a-blog-guest-post\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How NOT to Offer a Blog Guest Post&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excel-blog"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How NOT to Offer a Blog Guest Post - Debra D&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/debradalgleish.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/21\/how-not-to-offer-a-blog-guest-post\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How NOT to Offer a Blog Guest Post - Debra D&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some of the blogging expert sites suggest that you write guest posts on popular blogs, to get a bit of publicity for your own blog. 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