A paid blog posting can mean a lot things for many bloggers. While some consider it acceptable to a certain extent, others detest the idea in its entirety and deem it as if you have sold off your soul to the devil.
Lately, the idea of generating another income stream has somehow sparked my interest on the topic. This led me to sign up for PayPerPost a few weeks ago. It did take me a few more days of waiting for my blog to get approved but it was well worth the wait.
Why Pay Bloggers?
The reasons are very obvious on as to why companies are willing to pay individual bloggers to write about their products.
One such reason which most web professionals are well aware of is link-love. The possibility of generating literally thousands do-follow back links using highly targeted keywords can work wonders for your site.
The other major reason is buzz. Marketing professionals take into account how much media mileage they can get for their marketing expenditures. Each article related to their product is given a certain media value. A few thousand paid blog postings can generate so much media mileage which when quantified can be worth much more than the amount they originally invested with the blogger. Plus add to the fact that these media mileage reports look really nice on printed paper for the entire board to review.
How Buzz Can Be Made
A PR firm normally sends out press releases on behalf of their clients. Also, most large corporations have their own PR machinery which they employ for a variety of purposes. The publication then uses these press releases to sometimes make filler articles as needed for their daily layouts.
The practice usually involve pre-arranged barter agreements, entertainment and sometimes cash which is usually done for a ”special promotional feature” or more widely known as an advertorial.
Why Did I Join?
My goal of becoming debt free within the year is one of the main reasons why I joined PayPerPost’s blog network . Another reason is curiosity from the time I first read about how others are making a living by being a postie. This sparked my interest to experience and to gain first-hand knowledge about the marketplace learn the positive and negative effects on advertisers and publishers.
I’m not sure how much money can be made for writing reviews, but I am giving it a shot.
Easy 20 Bucks
PayPerPost pays you $20 bucks just by writing and publishing your initial post. They do require you to place a disclosure image at the end of your post. This is to ensure your readers that you are maintaining your much valued integrity, as a responsible and independent internet publisher.
Which Lesser Evil?
Majority of paid blog postings come with full disclosure even at the risk of losing their pagerank. This is a risk most posties make when writing paid content.
If newspapers can take in advertorials and other paid forms of content often times without any disclosure, then getting paid to write blog reviews with full disclosure may not be such a bad thing after all.
2 Comments
To me, it really depends on your priority – would you rather make quick money by writing paid/sponsored posts, or are you going to stick around and develop your reputation for the long run?
As I’m not in a rush to make money, I’d stick with the second decision. However, I applaud your decision and approval by PayPerPost (it’s not easy) and wish you all the best with sponsored posts.
Yes, it is all about what priorities you set.
Writing sponsored posts will not force me to write any misleading and dishonest content. It would go against my very own set of morals. Part of my goal is to become debt-free but I still can’t see that being solved merely by sponsored posts.
My Google PR went to zero a few weeks after writing paid content but maybe it will come back after I build up more backlinks and start to aggressively market my site.
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