May 29th, 2007 at 5:00 am

Make Money Online - Sponsored Reviews/Paid Posting Review

» by monawea in: Follow the Changing Web, Online Income Sources

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I have been wanting to post about sponsored reviews/paid posting since I started this blog but didn’t want my readers to think that that was going to be the focus of this blog. I jumped on the paid posting ban wagon since almost it’s conception. I have learned a lot about paid posting within this last year and hope to share some things that might help you become a better paid posting blogger. I believe there is a wrong way and a right way to do sponsored reviews/paid blogging/paid posting.

About a year ago PayPerPost launched and it caused an uproar among much of the blogging community. You would have thought PayPerPost was possessed by the devil the way people were reacting. The words ’selling your souls’ were actually used to describe those getting paid to post. This startup company wasn’t the first to explore paid posting. Blogitive had been around for almost a year before PayPerPost launched. PayPerPost had a larger vision for it’s startup and proceeded to create a buzz that had good and bad affects on the blogosphere. Much of the controversy has died down due largely to the fact that most companies now require disclosure.

I joined Blogitive in June of 2006 and then PayPerPost in July of that same year. At the time I was desperate for money and this seemed to be a way a home schooling house wife could help the family finances. At that time I was confused as to why people were so upset about paid posting. Most of the controversy surrounded the fact that PayPerPost did not require disclosure. It was suggested that people would feel ‘tricked’ into believing a sponsored post was only given a positive light because it was a paid post. Though Blogitive and PayPerPost always encouraged honest reviews I can now see why there was such a negative view of paid posting.

Over this past year I have went from taking 3-6 offers a day on three ‘paid posting focused’ blogs to being very selective and taking only a few offers on one content focussed blog. I made over $3,000 in a 6 month period through paid posting. Most of the money was made within 3 of those 6 months. I have observed blogs that have gone from content focussed to paid posting focussed as well as the reverse. It seems that paid posting has caused bloggers to either recognize the benefits of a quality content blog or to become over zealous with paid posting and loose much of their quality content.

For me personally I recognized that a blog that has quality content can make more money with less work. I also recognized that by having a paid posting focused blog I was not feeling pride of ownership. My paid posting focused blogs were merely their to generate paid posting income. Though I always gave honest reviews the blogs I had created had no visitors and really not all that much value to any readers that might happen upon my blog.

There are a few definite downfalls to ‘paid posting focused’ blogging. Here is a list of downfalls that I have come up with through my experiences.

  • Paid posting focussed blogs have to post in order to get paid. As opposed to creating a content rich blog that can generate money even with out posting first.
  • Paid posting focussed blogs loose credibility. Even the readers that you have don’t really value the posts that are unsponsored if every other post is sponsored.
  • Paid posting focussed blogs don’t usually generate high traffic therefore loose passive income opportunities ( like Text-Link-Ads, Chitika and Kontera).
  • A paid posting focussed blog that has slowed down or is dead is less likely to generate income. Passive income sources like affiliate links can still generate an income through archived pages of content rich sites.
  • Paid posting focussed blogs looses the authors pride of ownership which in turn creates less quality non paid posting content.
  • Paid posting focussed blogs generally tend to take whatever offer they can get (especially with PayPerPost) which looses the ability to get paid from high paying offers. Advertisers will eventually realize that they could have paid $10 for the review they paid $50 for.

These are just some of the reason I chose to stop focusing on paid posting and start focusing on quality content. Creating a content rich blog takes more time to develop and generate traffic but in the long run will offer you more passive income and a sense of satisfaction. Sponsored posting can be an excellent source of income as well but should never be the focus of your blog.

For the rest of this week (and maybe into next week) I will be writing articles related to sponsored posting/paid posting/sponsored reviews. I will be including information that will help you establish a price that advertisers will actually pay, advice on what type of offers to take, disclosure policies and examples of sites that have a good handle on sponsored reviews. I will also be giving reviews of different sponsored review companies (like PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Sponsored Reviews) as well as finding ways of getting around the companies huge fees.

Check out the other 3 articles in this series:

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

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