Email Message:
Hi Marcie
My name is Raphael ____. I am so excited to send you my guest post.
The title is: How to Write an Internet Marketing Plan
You can find my article in the attachement
Thank you for your time
Raphael
Bio:
Raphael _____ is a blogger, freelance writer, he is a motivated guy, you can find him on his personal blog at ______ or _____
*************************************
I received this email message from this unknown person telling me that he was excited to send me a guest post. While I admired the audacity of Raphael for trying, it was disappointing to see his lack of effort toward this guest post submission.
Now sure why I was disappointed?
Following are the seven submission mistakes he made along with tips on how to increase the likelihood of your guest post being accepted.
MISTAKE #1: ASSUMING I ACCEPTED GUEST POSTS
As you can see in this message, Raphael never asked if I accepted guest posts. I suppose he assumed I did.
Learn from this young man. Don’t assume that the site owner accepts guest posts, even if their site say they do.
MISTAKE #2: SENDING A GENERAL MESSAGE
While it is good that he addressed the message to me directly, Raphael did not tell me for which of my sites he wanted to submit his article to or how his topic was relevant to the readers.
Let the site owner know that you’re familiar with their site by sharing how your guest post topic fit the site and how the audience would benefit from the information you’re providing.
MISTAKE #3: GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION ERRORS
There are at least six punctuation and grammar errors in the above e-mail.
Be sure to read, revise and edit before clicking that send button.
MISTAKE #4: NOT READING MY BLOG
Had he read my blog, he would have known that this topic was not a fit.
Always read a site to become familiar with the site’s topics, audience and writing style of the owner.
MISTAKE #5: POOR FIRST IMPRESSION
Frankly, this whole message was a turn off from delivery to presentation. See numbers 2 and 3.
With anything you do, put your best self forward. You rarely get a second chance to make a good first impression.
MISTAKE #6: SUBMITTING A POORLY WRITTEN ARTICLE
Needless to say, the email message was a prelude to a poorly written article.
As I stated before, you have to put your best self forward. The introduction in the email and article may be the only contact you have the site owner, and you want it to be the best it can be.
MISTAKE #7: NO BIO IN THE MESSAGE
Raphael did include a link to his bio in the message, which is cool, but he did not include it in the email message to let me know anything about him which made him a random person submitting a subpar article.
Be sure to include a short bio in your guest post submission letting the site owner know who you are, what you do and why you’re qualified to present the topic. Don’t make them do extra work because they probably won’t do it.
Above are seven guest post submission mistakes Raphael made. What are other mistakes you’ve seen?
Image: www.farbox.com.au