Here's Why Editors Reject Your Guest Blog Pitches [New Research]

Inbound marketing: You know it’s all about using content to educate others and attract people to your brand. You create and distribute unique, valuable, educational content, and members of your audience take notice.

If you’re practicing inbound marketing, you probably also know that guest posting your content to outside publications is one of the most effective ways of reaching those people where they already are and drawing them directly to you.

When you do it well, guest posting can be a great addition to your content marketing strategy. You can reach new audiences, establish credibility, drive qualified site traffic, generate leads, and earn links that help you build a stronger organic presence.

And at a time when 55% of marketers say growing traffic is a top marketing priority and 61% say SEO is a top inbound priority, guest posting can be a seriously effective solution.

Unlike blogging on your own website, though, guest blogging requires you to earn placement. This means that you have to work alongside a publication editor to deliver content that fits.

For the second year in a row, my team at Influence & Co. has surveyed online publication editors across multiple industries to uncover trends in what they’re looking for in the guest posts they accept.

We asked them all kinds of questions: How much and what kind of guest content do they plan to publish? What do the best guest posts have in common? What’s the biggest problem with guest content? Are there certain times of year when more content is needed?

We’ve compiled the full findings from this survey — plus an analysis of more than 3.5 million pieces of published content — in “The State of Digital Media 2018” to help our fellow marketers produce, pitch, and publish guest content that better meets their company goals.

So, if you’ve ever wanted to know what’s going on inside the minds of the gatekeepers of your guest posts, this one’s for you. Check out the infographic below to learn more about what editors and their audiences are looking for — and how you can deliver it.