23 Experts Reveal Weirdest Guest Post Request They’ve Ever Received

The common theme we see with guest post requests is the amount of the spelling and grammar errors in the requests themselves. Even stranger, the dialect is often foreign or obviously not typical of a writer from the United States. Example: “Greetings of the Day” as a salutation versus “Hi Steve”, or “I am great writer with experience at blog posting”. If you’re going to offer a guest post, your email should be just as awesome as the post you hope to contribute.

I receive a lot of weird guest post pitches (especially those pitching totally irrelevant topics). But I guess the one that really stood out:

Receiving a guest post request using the very same template I’ve shared (and that I personally crafted, for one of the guides I’ve published on email outreach templates for link building). I wasn’t really sure with what to feel upon receiving that email, if I was going to be flattered that my readers are actually putting some of my tips into action or just plainly bewildered that they haven’t even mentioned that they’re using and sending the template to its original creator.

I receive guest post requests almost daily, and not always for my own website. Since I also write for Practical Ecommerce, plenty are quick to just click my info in the footer of an article. One of the strangest requests I received was from someone willing to write on any topic I desired, so long as they could incorporate links and pre-written pitch info for at least one of their clients. I couldn’t see the pitch info in advance, but I could pick which “unnamed” client would be mentioned from a list, which included an automaker, cleaning products company, maid service, boat repair company and a site that discusses dog breeding. Total fail all the way around.

“I don’t know how many strange requests I get but I do get a lot of unresearched requests; the oddest one I probably received was one where the article was attached to the email and the sender only said this “Post on your website. I’ll wait for the published link.” Needless to say, that is not an approach that could ever work.”

I get tons of requests to publish guest posts, and I usually ignore them. But once I got a truly bizarre request to add a link to a current post. It came from a “volunteer” with a summer health program for kids. One of the girls just happened to find a web page on health (surprise!) and this volunteer just thought, out of the blue, that she should share it with me. Me! Out of thousands of websites that touch on health, she picked me! Just how wacky is this? So wacky that I wrote an article on Socialnomics on it: Link

The strangest guest post request I ever got was one on parenting. I have no parenting experience (as I am not one) and have literally never written about this topic before–ever. Sometimes I wonder what in the world the people making these requests are thinking when they do outreach…

We have had all manor of weird guest post requests. Some of which are clearly sent out in bulk with no real consideration for the topic of the site. I think the one that stands out though was in relation to the name of our business – Bowler Hat. Someone must have seen the name and the URL Link and thought we were a site that sold hats and got in touch with us to do a post about the origins of Bowler Hats. Given we are an SEO and PPC agency focusing on small businesses marketing I am not sure a post on the origin of a certain kind of hat is that interesting to our readers – even if we are called Bowler Hat.

I get a lot of guest post requests (well, some anyway) and 99% of them I reject. Why? Because we all know that it is all about link building, but, I have a site I am proud of and standards I want to maintain. Most guest posts just don’t cut it. Sorry.

However, having said that, I also get a lot of horrible, badly written and downright laughable guest post requests. This one has to be the funniest/strangest because it is just so random and not related to my website (SEO & WordPress is what I write about). And what was worse, is that it comes from a link building company. A big one. So, even they get it VERY wrong.

Here is the pitch – notice the lack of name – ie. Ashley, which is a horrible start, but it gets worse from there…no personalization, bad grammar and more. (Note: I think this was the second mail, as I obviously ignored the first one :>).

“Hi,
I hope all is well.

I have another blog interested in the articles that I proposed for your website. I’m still keen to write for you though, so please let know your status. Here are the topics again. Can you let me know your thoughts?

What’s The Deal With Bulletproof Coffee?
Fresh Productivity Tips That Can Change Your 2018
Caffeine-Obsessed – Things You Can Drink To Lose Weight

Best regards,”

Well, at least it ended politely!

So I do get a lot of guest blog post requests. I haven’t seen anything too strange. The most annoying ones are probably those that are asking about a guest blog post who are in an entirely different niche. I’ve had someone selling fridges ask if they could guest blog post on a site about WordPress. These are typically just spam, but still boggle my mind as to why they think this would work. My best advice to anyone reaching out about guest blog posting is never use a template. Or if you do, at least find something unique or personal about the site your asking and append your template to show you took the time. Form a relationship first and make yourself stand out.

We receive four or five guest post request a day. Of course, at some point you’re going to get some that are pretty odd. Many times it’s clear the person hasn’t done any research on the company. Probably the oddest one is somebody wanted to offer us a guest blog post on dog cleaning supplies. They showed me a portfolio of great work on dog related topics. And wanted to offer me a post that covered the best dog cleaning supplies available online. While I love dogs, this is one that I had to decline.

I get requests every other day for guest posts on my site, had some really odd requests such as posts from people selling sex toys, not sure why they ever felt it was relevant to ask for a guest post on my website, however I can only assume they think that any old link will do as it is hard to get links in that niche. I think niche edits and PBNS are really the only way they would survive but whoever does the outreach in these places are clearly not that well informed.

We have received a good number of guest posts over the past few months, and when it comes to strange guest post requests, it would have to be in our SEO Hacker Tribe site, where we receive a bulk of all of the requests.

Some of these strange requests include getting a guest blog request from a website that sells car covers. Seeing that our guest posts are all about SEO and digital marketing, seeing a request from a company like this is truly unusual. We have also received a good number of requests that only want to promote their service, which means that their submissions contain only short paragraphs that promote their products and services. These kinds of posts are dismissed, yet it is always fascinating to see every now and then.

The strangest guest post request I have ever had was for a startup who were trying to create socks that could be work outdoors as shoes. It wasn’t the fact that it was a solid sock, it was the fact that they wanted me to spend a couple of days walking around outdoors and in different places with just socks on. They even managed to look just like socks! They also wanted a video of me walking around in them.

I tried to explain what is was that I did, but that seemed to fall on deaf ears. For weeks after I kept getting requests for a post and review.

They eventually stopped and as far as I am aware, never decided to run with this idea, although I know others have also tried to do this as well.

The weirdest pitch I’ve received was from someone who apparently uses guest post pitches to collect information and leverage relationships.

Recently, I got an email apologizing for taking so long in sending me a post and asking how I wanted it to be sent over. Since I didn’t remember the guy, I scrolled through the thread to catch myself up. The pitch had been made 4 YEARS earlier when I was managing another blog.

I told him I wasn’t with that blog anymore, but I could consider it for my own blog, and he agreed. He also began plying me with questions: who was running the blog now, what was I doing now, who ran the blogs I write for, etc. I finally sent him an email reminding him that he still hadn’t sent me his blog post, but he never answered.

Instead, I got an email from one of the blogs I work with, asking who this guy was. He was emailing editors, telling them he was friends with me!

True story.

I do miss the days of outreach companies actually doing real outreach work. It’s a dying practice, everything is about automation nowadays and it’s de-personalizing the web.

Your topic is cool because it will help shed more light to these automated practices.

Have a great week!

I think when companies get desperate and don’t do their research properly and just want to push bulk outreach, a lot of us get very weird and totally unrelated requests to write about products and services. My strangest guest blog request to date was to write about a fridge. I was very surprised to be honest, it is the last item I ever expected someone would approach me about 🙂

Every single one.

Because I’ve never run a guest post.

The strangest guest post request I have ever had was from a knitting site that asked if I would be interested in posting something about knitting, weaving or other crafting. I run a digital marketing agency. I post every day about digital marketing strategies and tactics. I have never, ever, ever posted anything that would make people believe that I was crafty in any way, shape or form. I deleted the request. Two weeks later I got another request from them, asking if I could consider writing for their site again. I replied, somewhat facetiously, first asking what it was that made them believe I had any skill in knitting or other crafts. I then provided them with a link to my site and all of my social channels and asked them to select a topic from there that they felt would fit their audience. Before asking someone to guest post, do a lot of homework. Know their style, know their target audience (since you are after that group when you have them share the post), and most of all, know their topics or area of expertise.

It’s difficult to find the one strangest guest post request because I get a lot weird ones. It seems most people these days assume that sending an

– impersonal
– template based
– automated

message is the best way to approach bloggers. It’s not. It never was. Blasting spammy emails like this will only ostracize people!

Thus I will share an actual mail I got a few days ago. I hope you will notice the main mistake the author made. It should be obvious. In case you don’t know what I mean read my explanation below:

Want To Contribute On Your Blog!

Hello Team,

Hope you are doing well.

I’m an avid reader and I find each and every bit really amazing. I’m interested in sending you an article on similar topics that contain original, through and up-to-date content. I believe it’s worth publishing and should interest your readers.

Actually, I am also a blogger and my topics circles around the marketing, sales, business, technology, and management. I am hoping if you give me an opportunity for writing a guest post for your website. It would be the best platform to share my knowledge.

Wanted to reach out to know if you allow guest writers on your website? If yes, I would love to send you my post for review purposes.

Looking forward to your positive response
Sincerely,
Evie

This is the real message. I haven’t changed anything. What’s the actual problem? It’s one huge lie! As an

“avid reader” it’s very clear that I’m a single blogger. I’m not a team.

The would-be guest blogger didn’t even visit my site or looked up my about page. As you see the message is completely generic and could be sent to any (team-based) blog out there.

The message does not mention my name, my blog’s name, any piece of content I have published. There is no connection to me whatsoever.

The only context is that the person writes about some generic topics I also covered yet none of my main topics – blogging, social media and search – get mentioned.

Just one visit to my blog and a short look at my tagline would make my focus obvious. This is not how guest blogging works. That’s just spamming people. Do your homework people. Laziness does not pay off.

I have written an article on how to reach out to people many years ago: Link The advice still applies. It’s also relevant for guest blogging.