Have you ever wondered why bloggers didn't reply to your last outreach email? Why they refused to link to your shiny new infographic, or what they really think about SEOs?
I conducted a 26 question survey with a sample group of bloggers to help digital marketers construct better outreach pitches and give bloggers the opportunity to voice their opinions.
The feedback might shock some of you; I hope you're ready.
Disclaimer: Due to the nature of the questions, and in the interest of protecting the respondents, the full data set, exact sample size, and respondents' blog URLs will not be made public.
Survey information:
- There are fewer than 100 bloggers in the sample, mostly from the parenting / food niche
- No demographic requirements to participate, however the bloggers are largely from the UK and US
- Survey format: Google docs forms, with a mixture of multiple choice questions and text boxes
Important: The sample is not representative of all bloggers, or bloggers within the UK, US, food or parenting niches.
Section 1: Website information (traffic, PR)
Most of the bloggers are currently making money from their blogs. The largest revenue source is paid content, which was defined as advertorials and reviews.
58% of our sample group is getting less than 10,000 visits per month, and 42% are considerably more popular, receiving more than 10,000 visits per month.
65% of the bloggers' homepages were PageRank 2 or less, and 31% were over PageRank 3.
Section 2: Link selling and link requests
58% of the bloggers said they sell followed links, defined in the question as follows: Do you sell links that pass PageRank, i.e. A followed link is a regular link, a nofollow link is a link that you wrap with rel="nofollow" in the HTML to prevent passing PageRank.
On the other hand, 73% said they also sold NO-followed links on their blogs. Both questions regarding followed and nofollowed links had an "I don't know what this is" option, but we were fortunate to have an educated sample, as no one used this response.
When it came down to their stances on selling links in general, 62% agreed that it was okay to sell links as long as they were disclosed.
88% of these bloggers were sent anywhere between 1-10 link requests per month.
38% already have a predetermined price list for link selling.
On a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being never, and 5 being highly likely, it seems as if our group was not very likely to editorially link to content that has been requested via email (by "editorially link" I mean create unpaid links).
Section 3: Outreach email details
31% said they would never open an email with "Link request" in the subject line.
Ambiguity in the outreach email (example: "hi there") seems to be less favourable, with 62% of bloggers choosing 1 & 2 as their responses, with 1 meaning "never" and 5 meaning they were "highly likely" to open the emails.
There was no clear answer in regards to likeliness of responding to shorter email requests. This was defined as emails with fewer than 100 words.
However, 46% seemed to prefer detailed email requests, defined as an email request with more than 100 words.
65% will open/read an email based on the subject line alone, and 19% will open/read the email regardless.
Section 4: Guest posting, preferred content type, and contact preference
The majority response to accepting guest post requests was "sometimes," the reason becomes a bit clearer in the next question.
If you can prove that you're credible, 54% of these bloggers were in favour of accepting your guest posts over others.
Something that surprised me: Most of the bloggers only received 0-1 guest-post requests per week. It might be helpful to note again that 42% were receiving more than 10,000 visits per month.
In descending order of preference, these bloggers were most likely to embed images, badges, videos, and infographics. None were willing to embed widgets (description of a widget was a weather widget).
81% of the bloggers preferred to be contacted via email or a contact form on their websites, as opposed to only 19% who preferred contact through social media (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn were given as examples).
Section 5: Genuine feedback from open-ended questions
1) What are your overall thoughts regarding being pitched to?
- "I don't mind being pitched to, but the truth is I never accept anything that isn't well written, personally addressed to me (shows that they've read my blog) and is in accordance with my blog and audience."
- "I like being pitched to providing the person has some idea of who I am and what I do, I don't get annoyed by completely irrelevant pitches and try to reply to all whether I am interested or not."
- "Despite clearly stating on my disclosure page that I do not publish sponsored posts or paid links I still receive a number of such requests each week. This is wasting both my time and the SEOs time. I generally delete such requests without responding."
- "My blog is just that...my blog! Whilst I like to ensure that it pays it's own way in that it covers the cost of the domain name, hosting etc it's not just some random space that is crying out for graffiti. I have had random generic one size fits all pitches that I think are quite arrogant (read rude) in their approach in that they want me to do a review or add a link and in return they apparently will share my blog to their network that I know nothing of its size or influence. Whilst I must clearly be flattered that they have emailed me, it in fact makes my blood pressure increase and I don't bother to reply."
- "I love being pitched to. It makes me feel like I am writing about relevant things that can fit with brands and that people actually want to read about! Makes me feel a bit *special* (she says in a daft voice!) It makes me feel like companies want to interact with my readership and encourages me to try new ideas/recipes/competitions. I can do this on my own BUT if I am going to be paid, receive a gift or samples in exchange for my effort then that is even better!"
- "I have no issues at all to being pitched, but rather than ambiguity about what an SEO wants i.e. I am a freelance writer and want to offer you a guest post, I would just prefer a straight we are looking for a follow link and have this budget! I also prefer more unique pitches. I am happy to write posts if you provide me with experiences or review product of a certain value. I like regular income, I love working with clients that I know will be coming back or want to develop relationships and value my websites."
- "I like that PR companies are taking bloggers more seriously. Some pitches/approaches do have some way to go before we, as bloggers, feel that we are seen as on a par with mainstream media, however things are improving and its getting there."
- "I am happy to be pitched to, I prefer honesty in the pitch and I like to know that the pitch is genuine and the person has actually bothered to look at my site. I can pinpoint flattery a mile away and when a person has not even bothered to find out the ethos of my blog. A genuine pitch will be for something that would fit in with my blog and what I write about too often than not I get pitches for non relevant stuff that would never fit in with my food blog."
2) Can you think of the most outrageous request for links?
- "Asking for a backlink straight up, no offer of anything, nothing in it for me but hard work and no reward, or a brand asking you to review a product they aren't prepared to send you - because they say you can write a good review incl backlinks without a product, from a description sheet and recommend it. You can't be truthful about something without having the full story (or product) I'm all about transparency so this and sly ways to get links really annoy me."
- "I am often asked to place a link for free on my blog to a company in return for the opportunity to write content for their website as no charge to myself....what a treat!!!"
- "The kind of approach which starts off sounding good, that we can build a working relationship but ends with we have no budget. It makes us feel very undervalued and miss led to a degree"
- "An online craft store wanted me to feature a seasonal craft activity tutorial that they'd written. It all sounded good and was relevant to my blog so I went back to them with my rate card and said that as I liked the tutorial so much I would actually be happy to discuss about a rate reduction to feature this. Their short, sharp response was to tell me that it was "illegal to pay for links" and if I was a "proper blogger" I would have known that!"
3) Is there anything you'd like to say to the SEO community?
Personal note here, this is by far the best feedback I've ever received as an SEO. I've intentionally added as many quotes as possible because I find it extremely valuable and hope you will too.
- "Don't try and trick a blogger, we talk!"
- "SEO is becoming overrated and content, which should be more important, is fast becoming less so. I find it hard to "follow the rules" of SEO, to have enough "key words" in my opening paragraph, or my title, to remember everything that I "should be doing to improve my SEO". I know that's why my SEO is in the toilet, but I would like to say that I find it to hard, complicated and confusing as to why I should. The problem today is that it has become a game of who will win - the SEO or the search engine, and the content, who is the king, is fast becoming obsolete."
- "Please don't try to persuade me to not disclose any links or features, it is not good for either side."
- "I feel like anyone else wanting to work with bloggers that SEO's need to show they value bloggers, read our blogs and give us credit for knowing about guidelines with regards follow/no follow rules. Trying to convince us that we don't know about these things does not hold well and makes us feel undervalued. We want to work with SEO's and want to build good relationships but this can only be done by treating us with respect for what we do from the start. Make approaches personally instead of making us feel part of a blanket approach email."
- "Buying follow links on blogs risks the page rank of not only the bloggers you work with, but also your clients. Google are regularly updating their algorithms to identify paid follow links and remove them from their indexes. Google provides a sanctioned way for you to get your clients to the top of the search results by paying - it's called Adwords."
- "I sometimes feel like I am at the mercy of the SEO community and that there is something secretive about it all. I am just a person who has a blog and I have no knowledge on the whole SEO front, but I would like a fair go at being 'discovered' out in the big world of the web."
- "Don't expect that we (bloggers) are going to give our time, effort and energy to you for free. You wouldn't work for free so please don't expect us to! Make sure what you pitch is relevant, READ MY BLOG,I'm not just ""a blogger"" I do have a name! It's even in my URL and my email address - how can you get it wrong?
- I write because I love it first and foremost, but if your brand fits with mine and we can build a relationship with each other then that's good but I don't want to write about clinical trials in Oz for money! I don't have type of readers that would be interested - it needs to fit with my content and a sufficient incentive needs to be offered. If you want something for nothing, you'll go no further than my trash can with a spam flag next to your email address! I want to be challenged, I don't just want to write a boring post that includes a back link, I want it to be fun for me, and if my readers can take part in some way, even better! Interaction with my readers makes them real. Otherwise, they are just a number on a stat sheet. If I have pitched you and my blog is not suitable, please tell me why! If my stats & metrics are not good enough then tell me your bottom line for accepting, if I got in touch with you then I feel that your brand IS relevant so I will get back in touch once I have met your baseline for stats & metrics as I want to work with you. Metrics aren't everything to a blogger like they are to an SEO. Stats and metrics are not our jobs, writing is so often when people don't get back in touch, I feel like they were never interested in my pitch in the first place. I'm not going to tweet my hatred to the world if you say no, I'm just going to go back to you at some point - I am a person the same as you, manners cost nothing, even if you're telling me no!
- Please don't get the same people writing the same things over and over, I read blogs too and it sometimes gets boring when the whole of your bloglovin feed is crammed with the same SEO link that everyone has just been paid for, stagger it out a bit more! You'd probably see better results too! I won't click on the same link from every blog, I'm sure most other people won't either!
- Don't get overwhelmed by stats! Some bloggers don't even care about them or know what DA, PR and PA is never mind MozRank or citation flow. If you want a blogger to know this, show them how it is relevant to them and to you at the same time.
- A lot of bloggers are scared of stats because they are complicated to understand and it's impossible to fathom how you can make them go up as there is no clear explanation that lots of us have tried to find! The rest either care too much or don't care at all about their stats! I fall into the I get it, I care category. I want to know who reads me and where in the world they are, I am actually interested! Educate us more on the kind of metrics and stats that you want from us and how they are relevant to you! Be clear on nofollow and dofollow when you pitch to avoid confusion too, there is nothing worse than agreeing a fee with someone only to find that you won't be paid unless you change to a dofollow link once your post has gone live, the fee is almost always higher from a bloggers point of view for a link of this kind, it's OUR pagerank that is being put at risk if we disclose or not!"
- "Please, please don't try to confuse me with jargon. Don't make up stories about what is and isn't acceptable according to Google as I do know. Try to offer everyone roughly the same fair rates. Its very amusing when an SEO person tells me that they have no budget left so can only pay me a third of what they paid my husband twenty minutes ago. Try to pay promptly and also pay me the amount I've agreed and invoiced for, not ten or twenty pounds less and expect me to chase as seems to happen quite often."
- "False praise will almost always get you caught out- don't tell me I'm an amazing baker when I haven't written about baking on my blog for years- I'll hit delete after reading that sentence."
- "Many bloggers, especially parent bloggers, are people juggling lots of balls at once. Whilst blogging may not be their full time occupation please don't assume that this means that we're either stupid, prepared to work for free, or don't talk to other people. Professional bloggers do know the law around disclosure rules, do know what Google's position on follow / nofollow links is, understand what other bloggers are being offered for similar content and do know just how much brands pay SEO agencies to get links out there on the internet. I have great working relationships with some SEO companies where both sides know exactly what the other one wants out of the relationship and there is professional respect between us. Sadly that is not the case with all SEOs who approach me."
- "I like being given links before other people, so my content is unique and more applicable to my blog. I like to be paid extra to write the copy myself (I do a good job of making it applicable to my readers).
- Be clear in your requirements and explain what they mean in none SEO jargon. Are you looking just for an embedded link, or do you want a post with lots of engagement? Give constructive feedback. Look at ways to reward bloggers that respond in a timely manner and please pay promptly. I do not have time to keep chasing payments."
- "The majority of bloggers work hard, we take our work seriously and are very proud of what we create. Please do stop and think before asking us to cover press releases or produce copy with no incentive for us at all - would you work for free?"
- "Let's all work together to create a professional, mutually beneficial network. Bloggers who blog to blag give us a bad name. Equally PRs who throw things out to hit numbers give you a bad name. We need a foundation of respect, professionalism and effort from both sides. Bloggers will provide you excellent copy, network well on your behalf and promote things if you treat them as professionals and respect what they do.
- Don't ask them to bend or break rules, don't ask for non-disclosure, don't insist you're doing them a favour by letting them promote your site, business or product without paying for the time and work that they give you in return."
- "We may seem like odd people that waffle on on the internet but you know what, we are just people too and blogging, more often than not, is our hobby and passion. A little respect about what we do and our worth goes a long way. As does friendliness and relationship building. I'm ten times more likely to do a cheap or even free post as a favour for an SEO I like, respect and have built a relationship with than a fly by night SEO."
- "If there was a way that bloggers could be in touch with more white hats then they wouldn't feel the need to accept the black hat approaches that appear so frequently in their inbox."
I think this word cloud sums up the bloggers' thoughts pretty well:
My personal conclusions from the survey
- Don't expect bloggers to work for free. I am not telling you to buy followed links.
- Be honest, and don't try to pull off any tricks.
- Talking about stats will only confuse them, and benefits no one. Be clear with your intentions and outline the benefits for them in your request.
- If you want to buy nofollow links, your best bet is to provide an advertorial feature that is likely to target longtail keywords and drive referral traffic. I am not saying your only option is to buy nofollow links, but you should understand the risks of buying followed links and make your own call.
- Bloggers are far more informed about SEO than we think, so don't try and pull any tricks and be honest about your intentions. I am not saying that all bloggers were ever oblivious to requests, nor that all SEOs have tried to take advantage of all bloggers.
- I would experiment with different subject lines, but I'd steer clear from ambiguity, and provide a detailed request versus a quick email.
- From the results, I would assume that a good guest post is still probably the best way to get an editorial link, as long as you can prove credibility and the content is relevant. I would also ensure that the content I would provide would be good enough to post on any other site, including my own. I would also include exclusive/unique images for the post as an added incentive for the blogger to accept my request.
- Email and contact forms still seem like the right way to approach a blogger, although I would still resort to social media as plan B.
Additional reading regarding topics discussed in the post
- The Blogger Outreach Equation - Moz
- 8 Tips for Blogger Outreach - Moz
- Outreach Letters for Link Building [Real Examples] - Moz
- An Outreach Experiment for Paid Links in the Travel Industry - Paddy Moogan Blog
- The link economy v. the content economy - BuzzMachine
- Don't Act Too Entitled as a Mom Blogger - For Dummies
- If Bloggers Want to Be Seen as Professionals They Can't Write Posts Like This
- Should You Let Someone Buy a Text Link on Your Blog?
- The Shady Marketing Scheme That's Buying Off Your Favorite Bloggers
Final word
There are likely to be errors in the survey design, and the sample is not representative of all bloggers. It doesn't mean that the results are not indicative of the situation; in fact, I've learned more from the feedback questions than any other blogger outreach post. I'd love to hear your comments, but please try to keep them constructive. I'd like to thank all of the bloggers who took their time to fill in the survey, your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Thanks for putting this together David. While I might have wished for a larger sample set across more verticals, it's nonetheless fascinating to see how bloggers perceive link, guest blog & story requests, and their various biases/impressions.
BTW - totally agree with the advice around non-ambiguous subject lines. When folks reach out to me and say "Any chance you can check our our startup website?" or "Starting a new project in XYZ niche and wondering if you can answer a question?" I'm WAY more likely to respond than those that use "Hi there" or "Inquiry" or the like.
I think the biggest mistake that I noticed SEO guys doing is that they make the others feel annoying and frustrated the way they write their Email.If you want to earn it you need to put yourself in other person show.
Don't try and trick a blogger, we talk!"
First point I shall say that most fail because of it.We usually want to trick it to have it. Try to persuade him in nice way by being specific and good tone with words choice giving less double meaning is always helpful.
David its good work but next time please include many guys in pool than limited audience.
Thanks Rand. I wish the sample size was larger too, but like you said, the feedback was fascinating nonetheless.
We have a saying around here, no content is boring...it's always special to someone else. Saying that, when you do decide to pitch someone on a story or go after a blog post, we tell everyone to be human and relate to the source material. Give them examples of previous work and be transparent about why you're contacting them.
Very weak article that should not have been published in its present form.
The disclaimers off the top don't cure the fatal flaw: small sample size in a small niche.
The silly use of meaningless graphs is an almost comical parody of scientific rigour. This post should be used in a high school stats class on what not to do. And the teacher should mock it. The post could also be useful in a Journalism 101 class: What Happens When Good Sites Go Bad Because The Editor Was Asleep.
I agree the free form comments from the bloggers have value. But the first third of the article should have been omitted. The first part of the article is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Thank you for your opinion and feedback. Just to be clear, the sample size was small, but the niche is definitely not. The primary niche that was selected (parenting / mom / dad ) have blog members exceeding 50,000 in the UK & US alone.
I believe that the niche was sufficiently sized for the example yet there is truth in sample size being non-applicable. A lot of work done never the less and the results were fascinating . Good job Dave!
Agreed. If I were to do this again, I'd probably survey 100 bloggers per niche, and at least 5 different niches.
That would be a lot of compiling! Yet the 5 different niches would give a more concrete study. But like Rand said it was a great article and I agree 100%
Ditto.
Indeed! Even with less than 100 bloggers in the survey, the inputs from the bloggers are still worthwhile and educational. And I definitely agree regarding the fact that bloggers know a lot of SEO! Don't underestimate them.
Hi David,
Fascinating blog post, and something that resonates with me.
I posted my own thoughts and opinions on my own site - but working in some verticals, particularly with large amount of fans, SEO's need to remember that there are some people who are genuinely interested in writing and share their thoughts on their favourite subjects. These posts are often a lot more specialised than the average SEO Copywriting Team blog (one on my site - for example - took apart a Japanese NES for a blog post), and often ask for a lot less in return.
They're also generally a lot easier to deal with as well, without having to rely on 5-6 emails to get a decent response.
Bloggers aren't stupid, many SEO's are also bloggers, why do some SEO's believe bloggers are?
Thanks David, what a great read! I know the sample size isn't huge but I found this very insightful :) I'm generalising here of course but it only takes a few lazy or ill mannered SEOs to give the majority a bad name, and though a lot of it is good practice and basic manners, it's good to have confirmation of what bloggers want.
Hey, just a heads up that some of your links under "Additional Reading" there at the end actually link back to this blog post. They are "An Outreach Experiment for Paid Links in the Travel Industry - Paddy Moogan Blog" and "If Bloggers Want to Be Seen as Professionals They Can't Write Posts Like This".
I'd really like to see those articles, so if you could fix those, we'd all benefit. :-)
Thanks, and great piece.
Fixed! Thanks so much for the heads-up. =)
Though not representative of all, certainly a smart sample blogger here for sure. And their responses, thousands of dollars worth of feedback! Thanks David
Hey David, great work on the research and post. I was surprised to see that nearly 50% of the respondents make money from paid blogs/advertorials. Did you get any idea of what percentage of that content is transparently disclosed as being paid?
Good question, and I wish I would have asked further details about how they disclose. I know it's not much, but find "stances on selling links" to see the chart - 62% said they disclosed paid links.
Great advice from actual bloggers! Being transparent and offering the blogger value seem to be the key. Great post David.
SEOs have a 'business model' in that they charge their customers for their advice. Most bloggers don't have a viable business model, therefore we write part-time and we ask for money from SEOs as we know they can charge their respective customers.
Writing a 'good' article takes us roughly a day's work (travelmemo.com travel blog in the luxury niche). It includes taking photographs, developing the photographs (raw photo format), meta tagging and naming each single take, coming up with the post's copy, assure quality, promoting the post via social networks, mailing hotels and destination management companies. Traveling to destinations is rarely paid.
We know from our stats that we send hotels dozens of interested travelers. So why should we place such an editorial report and link for free? Unfortunately neither AdWords nor affiliate links cut the mustard for us. As with other bloggers sponsored posts are by far our most efficient source of income. That Google sort of bans that is a problem for bloggers. It makes it hard to create a sustainable business model.
I agree. I also think that writing a 'good' article takes most people a day at minimum. I remember one of my Moz posts (https://moz.com/blog/what-every-seo-should-know-about-iis) took 3 weeks of research, and 3 days to write.
I empathize with your statement "So why should we place such an editorial report and link for free", and I think that you should respond to link requests with a benefit statement such as "We know from our stats that we send hotels dozens of interested travelers". If I was having this discussion with you, and you told me that your site was likely to refer X amounts of traffic, I'd definitely pay for an advertorial post (paid link, disclosed using rel=nofollow). Whether you choose to editorially link to content is your right, but I do think that those who usually link to others end up receiving editorial links as well.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
this sort of content marketing has no where these days...
It's fascinating to see the outreach from the "other" side. Food for thought.
Great idea for a survey, David! The free form responses are especially helpful. I think it's ridiculous that one marketer told a blogger it was "illegal to pay for links". It's against Google's quality guidelines, but (as far as I know) it's not against the law anywhere.
I love it when bloggers post the ridiculous emails they get. They're fun to read, but as a marketer they also make me cringe. One blogger I enjoy reading posts them frequently (Mildly NSFW, profanity): https://thebloggess.com/category/marketing-gone-bad/
If you send a rude/silly/unresearched pitch, you deserve to receive this response. ;-) https://thebloggess.com/heres-a-picture-of-wil-wheaton-collating-papers/
I've personally seen an email from a marketer saying they could take legal action if their paid link was ever taken down! Thanks for the links.
"Most of the bloggers only received 0-1 guest-post requests per week."
I imagine this changes quite dramatically in other niches. I know that I don't even accept guest posts on my blog and I still get 2-3 emails a week from writers pitching their services/content. A good blog is bound to get found by an SEO sooner or later, especially if they are on the hunt for a place their client can write.
Hey David! Thanks for this great post; I am also shocked at this point, Are you sure that 69% of the bloggers only received 0-1 guest-post requests per week. Because this is putting me in doubt here.
It's a small sample ( less than 100 ), and yes, this surprised me too. If I could go back and ask this question again, I'd ask how many requests they were getting 6 months ago versus today. I have a feeling that many of these bloggers turned away many SEOs (for the reasons they mentioned).
Did the bloggers want paying for taking part in your survey..?
In all seriousness though, this is my biggest issue with Google. They can hide all the keyword info from me they like, and they can reduce organic listing real estate in SERPs in favor of AdWords ads, but what I really don't like is the importance they still place on links (or at least they need to change how they see links: authority and relevance > all other link metrics).
Google have created a false economy when it comes to links, which has resulted in preventing what they are preaching the most - the sharing of great content.
You can create a superb online resource, article or infographic, however part-time bloggers will 9 times out of 10 always ask for money.
"Oh, that's great! Thank you for sharing it with me. My readers will absolutely love this and it fits in with my next blog post really well. That'll be $100 please..."
It would have been interesting to see the bloggers in your survey broken down by both niche and by 'quality' of blog. Reason being is that from experience, certain niches react differently - some being more clued up on how they can get money for links, while others don't link out or share content on principle.
The quality of a blog, while a very subjective metric, is also something that I suspect drives the money grabbing nature of bloggers as well. Large blogging communities (Moz, as a handy example) are 'good' blogs that put time and effort into them and as a result, don't sell (extort money for) links. They do however freely link out to great content - exactly how it should be.
On the other end of the scale (just above spun content blogs!) are 'crap' blogs run by part time bloggers who probably only set them up in the first place to get themselves some money (either through AdSense or selling links).
This makes me sad.
I don't want to 'play the Google game', I want to create awesome stuff online and let people enjoy it!
I would have loved to include a variety of different niches, and you're absolutely right about different niche bloggers behaving differently. In regards to quality, I should have at least cross tabulated homepage TBPR with the rest of the responses.... Thanks for the feedback Paul.
The best advice I could give to an SEO person would be to have your own blog. So many of those free written answers are exactly how I feel when I get requests to add links to my blog. The impersonal nature and the obvious play that an SEO has only skim read the last post is sometimes cringe making. If an SEO has their own blog or could try some visualisation they'd see that this is something that took many times thousands of man hours to create and curate, you're asking us to put a pin on our baby, and you're in a line of 10 others asking the same.
Do your research, pick out the blogs that really share the a certain sympatico and just make a total effort to target these blogs, it will take less time and be more successful than compiling SS after SS of potential blog links.
Great point! When you're getting these emails yourself, it really hits home how bad these tactics are and how some marketers seem to think bloggers will drop whatever they're doing to help them. For example, here's a quick summary of a recent email exchange I had:
Them: Would you like to repost this article from our blog onto your blog?
Me: No, I only accept original material. Are you interested in providing an original guest post?
Them: Um . . . Maybe later . . .
Great stuff David, agree with you on all points. Seems like you had an amazing time while doing this survey with your bloggers group. :)
From my personal experience of making guest post request, it's always best to go straight to the point instead of buttering the blogger. Your subject line should be as simple as it can be - like Guest Post Request on Blog (blog name). Start your email with greeting the blogger with his/her name, that gives a personal feeling. Keep your email 80-100 words at maximum and express your views on why and what you want to contribute to their blog. Additionally, you can provide them reference of your blogs published on some other (or your own) blogs, that way you seems to be a genuine author to the blog owner.
We never ask for a link back from any blogger directly, we simply put it in the word file we send to them. If they feel the link is required, they simply put it over there. Otherwise we don't have any issue with that (your content get readers anyway), the plus point here is we have started building a relationship with the blog owner and we will be treated as a value adder to their blog and not as someone with link appetite.
Doing something (even not very big thing) for free will give You later 2x more income (for example), than doing it for money. I noted that some time ago and it works:)
I know a few of the bloggers who participated, and they're fantastic people. You're right, I did enjoy this exercise. Funnily, these bloggers actually seemed to prefer longer emails (>100), but again, this sample is not fully representative.
Hi Dave!
I admire your survey and findings. What kind of sampling did you use, is it convenient sampling or random sampling?
Also please share how did you plan research parameters? You did focus group discussion? Or some other method?
More convenient than random. Questions were designed with the help of Distilled staff, and I didn't conduct a focus group. The survey was administered through Google doc (form) and consisted of multiple choice, and text based answers. I'd love to be able to conduct a focus group, but I'd need budget and a lot more time. Do you think the design was decent?
It is decent if only personal conclusions are to be given.
We all can see the handwork you had done in the gathering survey information, little more efforts like doing random sampling, gather parameters by open ended discussion or FGD, and proper use of Semantic and Likert scale for all parameters would have given much better results.
Nice Effort :)
I definitely think we should be doing more research studies, with bigger (random) samples, and a more scientific approach. I consider this post as "opinion", but I'd love to repeat it in the future. Maybe you'd like to help me out someday? ;)
pleasure :)
Great work David. The stats shows pretty interesting numbers. Thanks for sharing.
interesting, it would be great to see how responses were across several different verticals.
Hi David,
Not sure if you mentioned in your post (I probably missed it) but what's the size of the sample group? Nevertheless, thanks for the data, interesting to see how other bloggers react to Link Building and Email Subject Lines.
Less than 100 but more than 30 - sorry, I can't disclose much more than that
Nice post David,
I am appreciate your blog its a better describing topic of blog writing. I am also think blog is very useful for the communication. It share the knowledge from person to person and also share his new Idea about on this topic. I think blog is a one of best strategy for SEO.
Thanks for this Blog.
David, thanks for posting a detailed case study on blog outreach, it's valuable. Have you seen blogdash.com? Any similar ones for networking with bloggers?
Interesting read, i didn't quite know how bloggers operated and this post shined some light. Thanks gathering the info.
Good insights, would have been interesting to see what the perceptions and attitudes were across a range of different niches. My experience is the the Personal Finance bloggers are more than happy to publish content or work with SEOs but are simultaniously a little gredier.
Hi David,
as I told you previously on Twitter, I think the results of this poll are über interesting especially because they paint the daily scenario of any normal industry niche.
In fact, even though I may agree with Rand about the nature of the universe used in the poll, I see those kind of trends in almost any other niche like travel, tech (not marketing!), games (i.e.: video games), lifestyle or cooking.
Most of the time, in fact, that reality - and I mean paying bloggers (not for links but for publishing) is totally missing in the gazillions posts about outreach (pious silence?)
Said that, the only possible ways for not being obliged paying (which sometimes in not so affordable for small businesses), are:
I love the idea of involving the bloggers into content ideas right from the start, I think that's a great way of showing we genuinely care. Thanks Gianluca!
Some great insights, David, especially in relation to the subject line. It's always interesting to pry in to peoples beliefs and opinions and find that they're pretty much the same as yours! Bloggers will never work for free, and they want you to be straight with them. Now, I can empathize with that!
Great post.
Thanks.
Just be respectful. I sympathise with the blogging community who are bombarded by (quite often) rude idiots who are only wanting to take something. These people get found out. It annoys me more so as the people that do it more likely do so from the hiding place/ comfort of their office desk. I guess they less frequently waltz into a furniture shop and ask for a chair. Then add that they are not paying for said chair. Maybe they work sitting on the floor.
To Monetize the Blog takes a lot of time and hard work to develop a blog and gain a readership. For most bloggers, this dedication needs to be justified by providing a stable income. Advertisers are always looking for ways to promote the products and services they sell. A popular way for them to increase sales is to pay for a review on a suitable blog. If you have a qualitative Blog for a special Market you will be paid!!!
Love the data here. My takeaway is that there's still a tremendous amount of opportunity particularly in the guest posting arena; an area that I think lots of us felt was being over saturated. Perhaps its only over saturated with the spammy guest bloggers wanting to provide poorly written posts on a topic that they can't add any value to.
Same here. I would treat a blogger the same way I would as a popular media sites, when it comes to proposing a content piece.
I do not know much about this, I found it a bit complicated, but I will look for more information to complement it and to better understand the article
Great to see bloggers selling followed linked. Take THAT Penguin :)
David,
Amazing article thanks for sharing! I found it interesting at how high the number of bloggers only accepted paid submissions. While what constitutes as "paid" it shows that many SEOs and brands are still paying on a regular basis for links. I would love to see a poll anonymous of course of moz users who are paying for links followed or non followed. While a small sample size it seems many SEOs are deciding to not let the right hand see what the left is doing.
Having said that I agree the information is very valuable. I have found that being transparent has lead to way more opportunities than not. I also have seen great success from getting to know the blog before outreach. Read it comment on articles for several weeks before emailing. Mention a recent post in the email and pitch an idea or two that is extremely relevant to their blog. If they turn you down keep sharing their content and commenting and reach out again later down the line. Developing long term relationships with websites who have the ability to drive qualified traffic back to your website is way more important than a few follwed backlinks from low quality websites that accept any content thrown in their direction.
Quick correction here, "I found it interesting at how high the number of bloggers only accepted paid submissions" - well, not quite. They were less likely to link to editorial content, but not necessarily only accepting paid submissions. They seemed to still like the idea of a good guest blog post, which should infer crediting the author with an editorial link.
The Moz poll idea would be interesting, and might be something you should propose to the (awesome) editorial staff for Youmoz.
Thanks for the clarification.
If they accept Your content, they'll pubslish it, but I think that's mostly their "own land" and their "rules". They know, You earn something from it, so don't expect he or she will do what You want for free.
As a beauty blogger there are a few things that annoy me when I'm being contacted by an SEO:
Annabella x
Thanks david , this article explains clearly on how to built people through blogs . Not only website makes site built among people , blogs are the one of good way to keep explaining our site detailed
Hey David i'm agree with personal conclusions on this survey.. but do not represent yourself as a spammer /selfish by using SEO habits.. :P
I'll try ;)
David, definitely a great post.
It actually made me laugh in the middle as I saw a lot of things that I could relate to in the literal sense.
Very Informative post. Thanks for sharing with us.
really interesting article, i didn't thought that it worked like that with bloggers...
Like it so much this content :D
No doubt. I was an awesome post to read. I've been finding people like to you improve SEO of my website. Actually my post is related to Free SMS so which type of Guest post should i write to increase the SEO of my site ? i want help. You can give a look on my website I've shared with anchor Text.
[link removed by editor]
Still can't believe I was reading a survey report, it looked live!
David,
i have been experimenting from the other side of the coin. "accepting guess posts or content"
i took 3 ground rules for which content i would accept.
1) quality content (this means that i have to admit that content provided to me is a well formulated article)
2) Must be a responsive source (means a real person is behind the request).
3) The article must be SEO friendly (no a farm of links, and other stuff you see out there).
The main reason for this test is not guest post others people material (nothing wrong with that), but is actually to create relationships. With 3 new sources of people that submitted articles, I took a conversational approach. Found two scenarios. One the submitter was there for its own gain and nothing else; The other two came into deeper cooperation in helping those particular pages to receive a better page rank, connectivity, Social, etc.
So looking from the blogging side. Is is not only paid links or money. is fruitful relationships that go a long way.
Well said man!
I totally agree with "we should not expect the bloggers to work for free". Although we cannot pay for links directly, but we should pay for their work. They don't have to make us a favor by posting our articles. It takes time and effort. This is why we created blogguests.com. We want bloggers to get paid for their work, not for the links. After all, for many, the blog is their livelihood.
Haven't heard of blogguests.com, thanks for sharing.
Blogguests looks like boon to bloggers community! Nice platform.
Appreciate David, Static websites don’t attract many new clients or customers. But a regularly updated blog can produce a constant stream of good leads from all around the world.