Every morning I wake up to several “can I write a guest post for your site?” emails from writers working for SEO companies. See, there’s this whole weird corner of SEO that’s all about barfing out (usually questionable) guest post content for blogs, in exchange for links in the body of the post. It’s not something I ever EVER do (you want links from the Empire, you buy advertising, the end), but the inquiries just keep coming… sometimes as many as 5 or 6 overnight. (It’s always overnight, because the writers are usually non-US based.)
This morning I had two SEO guest post inquiries, and they illustrate the best and the worst I’ve seen in a long time. FIRST! The best:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: [email protected]
Name: Emily GeorgieHey,
Just a quicky. Your blog excites me! it’s a great looking and well kept blog. Unusual these days!
Anyway, I’m part of a team of rockstar bloggers and I blog for lots of brands. We are always on the lookout for good site placements for those blogs and yours fits the bill!
If you are looking for awesome content to excite your readers then we can certainly provide that. We can also offer a small fee per post to cover your time and help your with the cost of running the site.
What do you think? We’d love to write regularly.
Emily
[related-post]Aww, Emily! You manage to seem like a real person! You seem like you might be interesting, and just have an unfortunate job! (I get it: I spent my 20s as a copywriter cranking out copy about things like urine testing kits. Believe me, I really REALLY get it.) Your email address doesn’t include a random string of numbers, which many SEO guest post spammer email addresses do ([email protected], etc). You might even be a decent writer — your English is certainly solid, unlike most SEO guest post inquiries.
I’m still not going to accept your offer of brand content in exchange for unpaid links, but your email is solid. Best of luck to you, Emily.
Then there’s this:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: [email protected]
Name: Dedicated WebmasterHi there,
We require guest post in your site. Please let me know the process of guest post in your site.
Waiting for soonest response
And… scene.
