SEO On-Air: Guest Bloggers Must Stand Out From the Crowd

In this episode, we cover:

Today, we are talking to Andy Capaloff, the COO of Curatti. He has been with Curatti since the conception stage, managing two site builds and the blog. He looks after contributor management, including editing and mentoring at Curatti.

In this episode, Andy talks about the changing trends in guest posting and the right approach that blogger outreach agencies must follow for successful blog placement.

Stay tuned for the next podcast episode, where our guest, Brandon Smithwick, talks about how small businesses in the travel and hospitality industry can survive amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Show Notes Explanation

Listen to the audio podcast featuring Senthil Kumar, VP of Digital Marketing, Stan Ventures and Andy Capaloff, COO, Curatti where they speak about the changing trends in guest posting and the right approach that blogger outreach agencies must follow for successful blog placement.

Time Stamp- 0:45 – 2:00

Senthil: So, my first question is whether or not guest post works in 2020?

Andy: We get a lot of guest post requests regularly and a lot of people agree that it is very important, so yes, I can only presume they still work. If it were not impactful, the request would have dried up by now. In a single day, we even got nine guest post pitches!

Time Stamp- 2:04 – 4:35

Senthil: I’m pretty sure while going through those nine emails, you found some of them are copy-pasted. How do you deal with them?

Andy: I stop seeing the copy-pasted emails because they are like wallpaper. You know, some websites have banner ads on one side or others, and regular visitors stop seeing that after a while, it is like the same situation. If your email looks 80% of other emails that come in, then it speaks volumes about your laziness and disingenuous nature. We know you didn’t read our articles or have visited our blog for years. So please don’t do it.

Time Stamp- 4:38 – 8:20

Senthil: Could you share your experience on all the “John Smith” out there, who pretend to be genuinely interested in your site?

Andy: We call them “preternatural”, which means beyond natural or someone trying to be natural but coming across as fake. People often use fake names of some actors or fictional characters and it usually comes from someone based out of the Indian subcontinent or Eastern European countries, or basically, anyone who is not a native English speaker or writer.

Unfortunately, a lot of webmasters will not read emails if it comes from a guy named Senthil instead of Sam. So, it can be very tempting for Senthil to call himself Sam or John and hope that we will not realize that English is not his primary language. We know that this isn’t who he really is and we have a negative opinion of him immediately.

We work with writers from India, Pakistan, and Ukraine. We have seen a successful article being churned out by a guy in Pakistan, and the best part is that he approached us with his real name.

Time Stamp- 8:05 – 14:13

Senthil: The sad part is, many webmasters teach us to do blogger outreach, but they don’t tell us to avoid using fake names. But, this is something we don’t practice in Stan Ventures. We prefer using real names to approach bloggers as part of our guest posting service.

I think if you fake, it breaks the trust in the relationship and if the blogger wants to get on a video call with you, you have nothing to do other than hiding your face! It’s always better not to fake and go overboard with the outreach emails.

With EAT guidelines implemented by Google, people want to know your real identity. What do you suggest to someone who is starting with guest posting?

Andy: If you are really good at writing and have a lot of knowledge but starting a new blog, then you can turn your first article into something really good. However, if you are a beginner in writing, you should aim at beginner blogs. At Curatti, we only work with experienced writers, and I can instantly tell when someone has been on Google and has been writing an article that has been there before. When it comes to blogs with experienced readers, you cannot come across as knowing a lot less than those who are reading it.

There are so many articles that make me go blind due to the repeated information being provided in them. We have heard the phrase “Content is king” a gazillion times, so if you are repeating the same in the blog, it just makes me throw my hands in the air. If you want your article to be featured on my site, write something unique.

Time Stamp- 14:15 – 15:55

Senthil: Once you get the guest post published, some bloggers think that the work is done. While in reality, they should be engaging with the audience by answering the blog comments. What do you think?

Andy: I have stopped getting upset about authors who don’t engage. There’s Alice Elliot who writes about people commenting, and she says that not enough people leave comments. So, I don’t think when you write, you cannot expect a lot of comments coming in, but when it happens, you should be really quick in replying.

Time Stamp- 16:00 – 19:40

Senthil: Google also prefers more refreshed content and indexes user-generated content. So the more you are engaging, the more value you are adding to the content and increasing the page authority. So I think, instead of doing 100 guest posts, write 5-6 engaging guest posts. What do you think?

Andy: I think you should be likable and write content that is easy to understand. If you use fancy words that people need to Google to understand the meaning, they are not going to engage. So avoid using flowery words and write short and precise sentences. Just be real, blog as close as you talk and don’t try to prove people that you are smarter than them.

Time Stamp- 19:43 – 24:00

Senthil: I think an open-ended article has more value than writing something like Mr Knowall. Open-ended articles engage users to add more value to the content because honestly, nobody cares about people who want to showoff.

I think for guest posting, what I feel is still necessary is the follow-up with webmasters. We have seen quite a lot of success with that. It might sound a bit salesy, but what do you think about it as a webmaster?

Andy: Well, follow-up is definitely an essential factor. When someone receives nine emails in a day, they are only going to notice only 2 of them, to be honest. The person who sends the outreach, for him follow-up might be necessary, but for the webmaster, it might not be the most important thing. He might have other important things that will bring him money, so you have to give webmasters the time to respond.