The #1 Problem With Paying For Guest Posts | Skipblast

The #1 Problem With Paying For Guest Posts

It feels like I’ve been paying for guest posts for forever now. And a couple of years ago, I shared some of my thoughts on the problems with guest post services.

But in the two years since writing that, I’ve noticed another problem.

And it’s not just with using the guest post services, because it can happen when you go direct and pay the site owner for the privilege of giving them free content.

So, what’s the problem?

It’s niche edits.

**My “like you don’t already know this” disclaimer: as always, I’m an affiliate marketer and this post contains affiliate links, meaning I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

Why It Sucks

Picture it, you’ve decided to spend some of your hard earned monies on guest posts for those links you need so bad.

You end up using a service so that you don’t have to do all that work on your own. And you acknowledge that you’re paying extra to do it this way.

You’ve accepted guest post costs for what they are at most services – too fucking much, but you’re also too fucking lazy.

So, you drop a couple hundred bucks on a link and move on to the next link.

But the site where your guest post ended up is sorta, kinda, maybe greedy? opportunist? just a good business person?

Before you know it, you’re getting pingbacks from this guest post.

It seems like they’ve updated it, so you head over to check it out to make sure that your link wasn’t removed.

Whew, it’s still there.

But wait, now there is a new link added to the post. The post that you paid to have written.

Months later, another pingback, and another new link added to the post.

This sucks not only because you fucking paid for that content, but now your link juice is getting diluted because it’s being split between you and the people who paid for niche edits.

Fucking hell, aye?

And this happens more than you probably realize.

The latest example for me is a link that I bought more than a year ago and had paid just over $200 for the guest post.

live paid guest post

We won’t discuss how the link was overpriced to begin with since plenty of the SEOs selling links in all the Facebook groups have been offering this site for $35 on the lists that I’ve seen.

But today, a fresh pingback hit my inbox where the post was edited and a link to some rando site added to it.

This is problematic for both link buyers and link sellers.

And honestly, I think it will end up being problematic for the people who own the sites selling the links.

I’ve already adjusted how I buy links based on this. Cause why the fuck would I want to pay for a guest post so that some other SEO can come along and insert a link on the content that I paid for?

vu79g4u

So, What Links Am I Building?

I’m not buying guest posts on sites that also sell link inserts/niche edits.

Luckily, NO-BS lets you choose between a guest post or link insertion (if a potential site offers both). The only time I’m choosing guest posts over link inserts if is the GP is cheaper.

Right now, I’d say that 90% of my link building is HARO.

But I’m in some niches that just don’t do well with HARO. So, I do about 6% of link building focused on skyscraper link building.

That leaves me with:

  • 2% guest posts/link inserts
  • 1% PBNs and 301s
  • 1% resource links

Obviously, these figures aren’t exact but I think it’s still a pretty good idea of what I’m doing.

What’s crazy is that if you’d asked me this a year ago, it probably would’ve been like 75% guest posts!

sZV25FK

I even used to do guest post link building for ecommerce clients.

At the end of the day, here’s what it comes down to for me – highest ROI at the lowest cost.

And when the link juice is getting diverted to other sites, then that lowers my ROI.

I don’t really have any other helpful alternatives for you that fit my Team Lazy model. I just wanted to make you aware of this problem (in case you haven’t noticed it yourself).

2 thoughts on “The #1 Problem With Paying For Guest Posts”

  1. You make some good points. Just the other day I was approaching some bloggers for guest posts, seems like they all charge for a guest post on their website – but have no value proposition. Did a background check via ahrefs – their rankings were actually lower than ours.

    Reply

Leave a Comment