Guest Post Fail? | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Have any of you solicited a guest post only to not be sure if you should publish it? 

I have a few guest posts going up this month about different ways people paid off their student loans. Last month I did a similar thing with debt stories in general and had no issues. This first guest post I received was from someone I never really had any interaction with, but she sent me a link to her site and I thought it was ok – I was actually excited to have someone from completely outside the PF blogosphere writing about their student loans. 

The post I got back from her is weird. The grammar is so off that I'd almost think she was a spammer – but there's still a coherent story line. I didn't expect the writing to be excellent – I mean, I did go read her blog. She's not William Shakespeare or Janet Evanovich – the writing there is a little rough, but more coherent than what I received. 

The final thing I'm concerned about is that her niche seems to have something to do with being handicapped and I sort of wondered if her incredibly weird post has something to do with an issue I just don't see? 

Currently, I just edited the heck out of her post. I'm not super excited about it, but I'm also a little stuck. I can either try to scramble to write something myself tonight or just go with it. It's also not awful with all the edits… any advice?  

Just went to your site – didn't take long

OVLG.  They are notorious for trying to get free guest posts.  If you tell her you are taking out that OVLG link (which is who she is getting paid by) you will get a nasty response. 

Well, I opted to run it… mostly because I spent two hours trying to make it coherent. Lesson learned though, this weekend I rebuild my stockpile of posts in case something like that happens again. 

MyJourneytoMillions, how do you catch that sort of thing? Trial and error (as in I now know to avoid people linking to that company)?

How long can you claim the newbie blogger stupidity? …at least a solid year, I hope. 

I get all sorts of spammy guest post requests like that. Unless it's a blogger I recognize from Yakezie, or someone who has a blog they link me to and I can check out beforehand I just ignore it. 

I had a situation come up recently where a writer contacted me and wanted to write a guest post.  I had not heard of her so asked her to submit some samples of her writing to me.  The samples she submitted were… not good.  Weird writing style, weird topics, and grammar that really made me wonder if English was her first language or not.  I briefly considered letting her write something and then editing the heck out of it, but then I realized that would be a lot of work for me.  AND I realized that I would feel compelled to fact check everything since I did not trust her as a writer.  That would be a TON of work for me.  Unfortunately she kept emailing and emailing me, and so finally I had to write her back and inform her that her writing style was not consistent with that of my site.  Probably lame, but I could not think of anything better!

The last time someone approached me, I said it would be $100. They paid, and I posted it with a "sponsored content" label.

Next time, I'll ask for more money.

Annie

Yep, I agree with what everyone has written.

I always only offer options such as 1 link or 2 links, 1 year or 2 years and have different rates for these. I never do permanent links and I push for no follow instead of do follow. I have an advertising tab these posts go under and I push for higher rates than $100 (although that was a good start!)

I simply tell them there are limited sponsored post spaces available on my site and if they want one, these are my terms and fees. I rarely get rejected. Sometimes they try to negotiate but the worthwhile ones always pay, dodgy spammers don't want to. 

Just want to let everyone know that these posts are being farmed out to places like the Philippines, India, and Singapore (to name a few). Many are not native English speakers and are working as part of a gigantic system to place shady, gray market links online. 

Whether it's a guest or "sponsored" post, I highly recommend resisting the urge to publish it, as you will likely take a beating from Google. The search engine has been decreasing ranks to those that accept this journalism, as it degrades the accuracy of Google's search results.

Just my two cents,

Sam

MoneyStepper – I'm bad, I don't track anything. I have analytics and everything but I simply don't focus on my stats. I focus on my reader engagement. I decided to push rates more when I had interest from large companies and once I knew how much an author can charge for things in Australia e.g. base rates for freelance writing, I just increased everything. My PR took a hit a while ago and I haven't even worried about it because none of my advertisers have cared. I do a lot of public speaking here in Australia, am a published author and won Best International Personal Finance Blog the last 2 years, so they want all that. PLUS there are very few Australian finance blogs, and I am one of the first. As such, I can be choosier and charge more. I just bought a new site and upped the rates on it immediately. The same advertiser they had asked why the hike (it was doubled), pointed out the benefits and they accepted that and took 4 more spots.

I started at $100 when I was really small and accepted $150 with Crystal, but the majority of my advertising now is significantly higher than this. The higher rates really weeded out the crap and now I pretty much only have to deal with higher quality clients.

Also, I write my posts. I give them the option of submitting if their emails have indicated their English is good, because as Frugaling said most are not English natives. I point out that posts written by me have a personal slant and more engagement. I rarely get advertisers wanting to do their own posts now. And I charge extra for me to write it, on top of my advertising rate.

Hope that helps.

So to add another note to this whole mad saga, as I mentioned I did opt to publish her article after I spent hours revising it into something not totally a waste of time for my readers. At the beginning of this week (roughly 3 weeks after her post went up), she contacted me and asked to write another one. I politely declined using colormefrugal's method that I didn't feel like her style really lined up with my blog. A few days after that she contacted me again with: 

Hi Todd,

I hope you are doing good. I have sent an article to post on your site (http://brokegirlrich.com) and it has posted in second week of January, 2014.

Here is the url: http://brokegirlrich.com/?p=466

Due to some technical issues and other issues, I can't keep my link live and author bio with this article. I would be thankful, if you kindly remove my link with author bio. 

You can keep the article live but kindly remove the link.

To begin with, my name is not Todd. Nor am I a boy. But beyond that, WTF? If this weren't already shady to begin with – it's just sort of the icing on the cake. I know I mentioned I learned my lesson previously, but I figured I'd just add this final piece of the puzzle for other new bloggers who are considering guest posts. 

That being said, this whole mess came from a girl named Amy Lewis, so if a girl by that name contacts you – I'd pass. Ugh.