The Top 10 Guest Posting Mistakes That Are Costing You Clients

Agencies can’t afford to make guest posting mistakes. 

Your clients come to you for guest posts because you provide a shortcut to success. You save them time and money so they don’t have to conduct their own outreach, write content, pitch ideas, or build relationships with website owners. They’re willing to pay a premium for fast results, but that means your guest posts need to deliver on their expectations. 

Certain mistakes can make it hard to justify your pricing – or worse, discourage repeat customers.

Prevention is your best defense against agency churn. Let’s explore 10 of the most common guest posting mistakes and how to avoid them. 

The good news is that these advertising mistakes are easy to fix. Keep reading to learn about the top 10 guest posting mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Not Optimizing for Rankings

One of the most common guest posting mistakes is not optimizing your posts for search engine rankings. Just like regular blog posts, you’ll need to use keywords effectively and help your clients promote their posts properly. Otherwise, the guest post may never be seen by potential clients.

Here’s how you can optimize your clients’ guest posts for SEO:

• Choose your keywords wisely.

• Link to the client’s website.

• Use the keyword as the anchor text that links back to your client’s website (hint: this should be a keyword your client wants to rank for).

• Add keywords in the title, the introduction, the conclusion, the body, and at least one header.

In addition, encourage your clients to promote the post on social media and email newsletters. The more people who see your post, the greater the chance that it will rank highly in search engines. 

2. Posting on Low-Quality Sites

We all know how important it is to have a strong online presence. But in our haste to get our content out there, we sometimes make big mistakes. One of these is guest posting on low-quality websites.

These sites are often filled with spammy content, and they won’t do anything to help your client’s business. In fact, they could hurt your client’s reputation.

As an agency, you should have high standards for the sites you use for client guest posting. The “done is better than none” mentality doesn’t apply here. 

Ideally, you’ll want to choose sites that have:

• A high Domain Authority (DA)

• A low spam score

• High organic website traffic 

• Dofollow links

• Author bylines (not generic names like Admin or Guest Writer)

These are hallmarks of quality websites that will help your client build E-E-A-T (which is a big reason they need guest posts in the first place).

Be picky about choosing sites to add to your guest posting network. While you might get publishing privileges to many sites, some of them simply won’t benefit your clients – and that can reflect poorly on your agency.

3. Not Targeting the Right Audience

It’s important to make sure you’re targeting the right audience when you’re guest posting. If your client sells anti-aging creams and you post on a site aimed at teenagers, for example, their target audience is unlikely to see the post.

Make sure you do your research and target sites that are relevant to the client’s industry and have an audience that is likely to be interested in their services. This is why no agency guest post service is one-size-fits-all. It takes a lot of hands-on work and an understanding of who your clients are.

By taking the time to focus on the right audience, your clients will be much more likely to get the results they’re looking for from your guest posting service.

4. Reusing the Same Guest Posting Websites

Just like first-party blog posts, guest posting requires strategy. This can be a highly effective SEO tool when used correctly, but you don’t want to abuse or overuse it.

It’s a classic quantity vs quality situation. It’s better to have a few high-quality guest posts than lots of low-quality ones. 

The problem here is that many agencies reuse the same sites over and over again. Agencies need easy ways to scale their business. Since it’s time-consuming to find, vet, and establish relationships with publishers, they milk their existing network for all it’s worth. 

This might save some time and money in the short term, but it can do more harm in the long run. 

Make sure you’re giving your clients variety in their guest posts. It’s okay to reuse websites, but try to give each client as much variety as possible.

5. Not Featuring the Client’s Business

If your client is paying top dollar to guest post on someone else’s website, you want to make sure your client getting something out of it. One of the best ways to do this is to make sure their business is featured in some way.

There are a few ways you can go about this:

• Relate the topic of the post to a service your client provides.

• Link to a related page on your client’s website.

• Directly mention the business in the post.

Quality guest posting is all about relevance to your client and their audience. It’s not just about building backlinks, but also raising brand awareness and driving organic traffic to the client’s website.

Make sure you spotlight the client’s business in a non-promotional way. This helps the audience connect the guest blog topic with the client, adding more value to their guest post investment.

6. Posting Irrelevant Content

When it comes to offering a high-quality guest posting service, relevancy is key. As the agency, you bear the responsibility of ensuring your client’s guest posts are relevant to the website and its audience. 

Irrelevant content could be anything from an article that’s not related to your industry to a blog post that’s not about your product or service. Not only is this a waste of time and resources, but it can also turn off potential customers and damage the client’s online reputation (and your agency’s reputation, too).

If you want to succeed with content marketing, make sure that everything you post is relevant to the client’s business and aligns with their overall marketing strategy. Otherwise, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.

7. Not Promoting the Guest Post

Ideally, your guest posting websites will already have tons of organic traffic (which means lots of exposure for your clients). But that doesn’t mean the client should leave the guest post to chance encounters.

Guest posts work best when the client promotes them. It’s a badge of honor when another publisher trusts a business enough to publish their content, so help your clients take every opportunity to spread the word.

While promotion is largely in the hands of the client, you (the agency) can guide them to help them get the most out of their investment. Here are some ways you can help:

• Send the client a link to the guest post as soon as it’s published.

• Suggest they create an internal press release to promote the guest post to employees (who might feel encouraged to promote it on your behalf), email it to their newsletter subscribers, and/or post a link to the guest article on social media.

• Create a post-guest blogging checklist highlighting ways clients can get more from each guest post.

Think of it this way: Your job as an agency is to make your clients look good and get results. Inspiring them with ways to promote their guest blog articles boosts your professionalism and the overall value of your agency services. 

8. Creating Content for the Sake of Content

Guest posting is one of the most valuable agency services. There’s high demand for it, and you can command a premium because it’s such a time-consuming undertaking for businesses. But that doesn’t mean you can cast quality aside.

Your content might have a catchy headline, be well-written, and be relevant to the target audience, but it also needs substance. 

Let’s face it: the internet is full of useless information. Your guest posts will be more effective when you create them with purpose. 

Make sure your guest content offers something of value. Remember, this article represents your client and it might be the first time someone is exposed to their name. You can help ensure they make a strong first impression by providing helpful information, not just empty content for the sake of a backlink and a byline.

9. Posting on Websites with Inappropriate Content

When guest posting on another site, it’s important to be mindful of the content you’re sharing as well as the type of content typically posted on the target website. A website might look great by the numbers – organic traffic, DA rating, low spam score, etc. – but if it contains questionable content, your client’s reputation might suffer.

Your guest post should follow the client’s brand guidelines and reflect their business in the best way possible. This means avoiding posting on websites that also contain potentially offensive or sexually explicit content. Your client might not want to be associated with this type of website, even if they might gain lots of exposure.

10. Not Following Basic Guest Post Etiquette

When it comes to guest posting, it’s important to play by the rules. Every website has its own set of guidelines for guest contributors, and if you don’t adhere to them, you could end up getting your clients’ posts removed or even being banned from the site.

Basic guest post etiquette includes:

• Not writing spammy content

• Not promoting a business too much

• Posting only relevant content

• Avoiding offensive content or statements that could damage the client’s image

Before you submit your guest post, be sure to read through the site’s rules and make sure you comply. It only takes a few minutes to do, but it could save you a lot of headaches down the road.

Tips for Agencies to Avoid Guest Posting Mistakes

Now that you know what not to do when guest posting, it’s time to learn some tips and best practices for avoiding these mistakes. Here’s how agencies can improve their guest posting service to keep clients happy.

1. Don’t Oversell Your Service

Clients have varying expectations when it comes to guest posting. Rather than focus on the sale itself, focus instead on how you can look like their superhero when you get them the results they expect. This means being upfront about what guest posting can do for them, how it benefits them, and your role in the process.

2. Explain Your Approach

Guest posting is big business, which has unfortunately opened the door for bad actors to use dishonest and harmful techniques to get clients published. While you don’t need to spill all your secrets, you should be able to explain your approach simply. This can help build client trust and show them why you’re the best choice to work with. 

3. Get Approval on Topics and Anchor Texts

To ensure your guest posts align with client goals, gain their buy-in when choosing topics, keywords, and anchor texts. If they’re unsure of these things, take the lead and make recommendations. Be able to explain your choices and illustrate how it will help them reach their goals.

4. Keep Building Relationships with Publishers

Once you have an established network of publishers, don’t stop there. Remember, it’s not wise to keep reusing the same sites for the same clients. The more sites you have to choose from, the more value you can offer your clients.

Ready to Start Guest Posting?

As an agency, there are two ways you can approach guest blogging: You can do the campaign yourself without any writers, connections, or keywords. Or you can let a guest posting service handle the logistics.

We’re one of the best guest posting services on the side of the internet, and we’re careful to avoid the above guest posting mistakes. From quality control to keyword tracking and monitoring, our clients have seen incredible results from our campaigns.

Ready to see how we can help your business? Try us for free.