Received this email requesting to be a guest blogger

[jamesray50]

I received the following email today to be a guest blogger on my website:

"Hi

My name is Brenda Lyttle and I’m dropping you a line to see if you accept guest bloggers on [http://topnotchbookkeeping.com/]. I write about finance; and I thought an article about the same would be a good fit for your blog.

The post will be 100% original, written just for your blog and will not be posted elsewhere. If you’re interested in this, please get back to me.

Thanks,
Brenda Lyttle "

I Googled the girls name and she sends this email out all the time to various people claiming that she writes about all types of things. She is evidently not an expert in the financial field and is just a writer. Has anyone else received these types of emails? I'm not going to accept her offer because there is no name recognition for my industry so I don't think it will help my website. Or am I wrong? Would keywords in her article help? Would I see her article before I decided to post it?

[vangogh]

I get them all the time. Someone has identified your site as one they'd like a link from and to get the link they want to write a guest post. There's nothing wrong with that general process. If they write a good article it's a win-win. You get some good content and they get a link.

What I do is reply and say the person is welcome to write a guest post, but I won't guarantee publishing it until after I can see it. I'll then offer a few guidelines for what I'll accept. If the person sends an article and it's good I'll publish it. If not I'll let the person know why I won't. More often than not the article won't be worth publishing. It's usually some generic advice that doesn't really say much, but here and there people have written good posts for me.

I don't think you need the name recognition in order to let someone else guest post. The benefit to you is the possibility someone writes a good post for your blog. Don't over think it. Just use your judgement after seeing the post and if you think it's worth reading publish it. And yes you do get to see the article before publishing it. Don't grant this person access to your blog. They'll typically send a Word document and once they do it's up to you to decide what to do with it.

[jamesray50]

Thanks, guess it won't hurt to read it.

[vangogh]

Exactly. Odds are it's not going to be anything you want to publish, but you never know. And be prepared. Someone has identified you as a good source of a link, which likely means others will think the same thing. You'll probably get more of these emails.

Take the whole thing as a sign you're doing something right. You're being contacted because someone thinks your blog is valuable.

[KristineS]

I got these sorts of e-mails all the time when my personal blogs were live. I generally took the opposite approach from Vangogh, I ignored them. Usually it was some random request and I didn't get the sense they'd even read my blogs or knew what they were about. Of course, my blogs were personal and not a business blog, which might have made a little bit of difference. Still, maybe because I write myself, I'm not generally inclined to be interested in writing from random people that I don't know. That's just me though.

As you said, there isn't any harm in looking and the content might turn out to be useful.

[vangogh]

With a personal blog it would be different since you weren't looking for viewpoints other than your own. Most of the time these requests are by people who aren't familiar with your blog and are just looking for a link or two. However some do send good posts so there's no harm in letting them send something. The worst case scenario is spending a few minutes writing an email or two and reading whatever they send. You can usually tell within a paragraph or two if it's worth reading further.

[KristineS]

True. There isn't necessarily any harm in reading the post and it might be worthwhile.

[vangogh]

Exactly. Maybe are going to be garbage, but some turn up to be decent articles. It is a legitimate request to ask if you can write a guest post for someone. Assuming the post is of a high enough quality it's a win-win for both sides.

[MissesBeatriz]

Oh my ! No no, I have never received an email of that sort. What a weird person and spammer. BE careful , I hope that email doesn't contain a virus. Plus I would only guest bloggers I personally know or that are in my circle of bloggers.

[vangogh]

It's probably not spam. It's usually someone who wants to get a link from your site so they offer to write a post in exchange for a bio with a link in it. There's nothing wrong with the request. Where it's a problem is the post probably won't be the highest quality. It won't necessarily be a bad post, but it'll likely be generic and not really say much.

As long as you read it first before agreeing to publish it you're usually fine. You can see what they submit and then decide if you're willing to publish it.

[patrickprecisione]

Yeah, agree with Vangogh on this. I get being suspicious (you always need to be careful) but again, what could it hurt to read the content they send over. If you like it, publish it and give them a link for their troubles. If not, just send a polite email saying it doesn't fit with your blog.