10 writing mistakes that ensure your guest post won’t get published

This article originally ran on PR Daily in July of 2017.

You might think that if you can write an informative and interesting post, it can be published on any blog.

You’re wrong.

Here are several common guest-blogging mistakes writers make, along with proven practices to follow when authoring guest posts:

1. Thinking guidelines don’t apply to you.

Guidelines are important. They specify the blog’s requirements and why you should take them into consideration.

They include whether you should pitch your idea first or directly submit the completed draft for review, rules on including self-promotional links and what topics you can write about. The guidelines clearly state what you should do to stand a chance to be featured on the blog. Ignore them, and you might not have another chance with the same blog again.

Remember that high-authority blogs get a massive number of requests per day. All of them might not adhere to a blog’s guidelines, but a large site can still receive enough excellent posts it can publish every day for the next few months.