As a blogger you might be getting all kinds of emails asking you for paid promotions! Here are some tips and ideas for how these different kinds of promotions work!
Why I Wrote This Post
I was talking with my friend Barb the other day and told her I just got paid $500 to write a promoted blog post... yay me!
And she said, I would like to get paid to write blog posts too... how did you do that?
So I thought I would write out all the details for Barb and you so you can understand all the ins and outs of getting paid to put things on your own blog or website.
Why Companies Want A Promoted Post or Link
If you have a blog or website, big or little, you can get paid to include a link in your post, accept a guest post or write a sponsored post.
The companies want to reach your audience or get a boost from Google by paying you to include their link in your post.
HUGE WARNING #1... So first off, your blog is your income so don't do anything that will hurt your site. NEVER accept an offer for a "do follow link" which means you are not disclosing that you got paid to include a link in your site.
When To Accept A Promoted Offer
I have written about 5 promoted posts over the years, there are a couple of reasons for that...
First off, I don't necessarily want to write about anything but what I want to write about and I have lots of other ways to make money off my site.
Second, when you are getting paid to write a post or include a link the people paying you can be fussy. They might not like the way you write or have to have "legal" change things in your post that involves a bit of back and forth with the buyer.
If they are approaching you then most times they have checked out your site and writing style before they contact you, but it can get sticky sometimes.
Lastly, and most importantly, I only accept promoted offers when I really think the product or service can help my peeps.
There is not enough money in the world to "burn my list" and disappoint my readers by being greedy.
6 Types of Promoted, Sponsored or Link Insertion Offers
If you have been blogging for any period of time, you will have gotten those emails that say someone wants to pay you for content on your site. My feeling is that they really ramp up after you are getting at least a thousand hits a month.
I am going to break down the offers I get from worst to best in order, AND tell you the pros and cons of each one!
Fix a broken link
There is a software out there that can tell advertisers when you have broken links on your website that go to the places that match their content.
A broken link is when the link you had no longer goes to an active page and CAN hurt your site's rankings in Google.
Advertisers will send you a nice message saying you have a broken link and include a suggestion for a page on their site that has the same info that you linked to before.
Pros... I ALWAYS check that the link they send is not to a spammy site and has the actual content that I was referencing before. If so I will sometimes swap out the link and thank them for helping.
Cons... often they are not actually helping and the content is either spammy or only tangentially related to what you linked to before. Also, these rarely pay much if anything to you.
Free software or access for a certain time
As a disclaimer, this one makes me the most grumpy so take what I say with grain of salt!
SAS companies (Software As A Service) will often send you a message that they will give you access to their software for a short period of time to review it and write a post.
Pros... if it was something you were already interested in or you think could help your peeps it might be worth your time to test it out.
Cons... say you use their software for free and love it. You have then written a post for them for free AND after the free trial will be paying them to use their software. I find this to be a way to get really off track with my own business goals and don't ever do them. Either I will pay for the software myself or will turn them down outright unless they are willing to pay my normal cost to write a promoted post.
Do follow link in an existing article
Disclaimer... this is total non starter for me and I NEVER do these! I even have a whole post about why not to accept do follow links!
This kind of link request is usually a message that says, will you add a link to your existing blog post for $25 or so. They want it to be "do follow" to fool the search engines into thinking you randomly added the link out of truly liking their content.
Pros... you get a wee bit of money.
Cons... your whole site could get a manual action from Google, this is NOT worth it!
Post a guest post with a do follow link
Another disclaimer... DON'T do these... they are only slightly less horrific than a regular do follow link request!
For this type of request an advertiser will send you a whole post written out and it will have a link or two in it that goes to their website.
Pros... you get a wee bit more money and maybe a post you can share on your site.
Cons... generally they do not send amazing articles over. Oftentimes it is reused content or now maybe AI written content that could hurt your site long term. Again, never add "do follow" links to your site if you are getting paid.
Post a sponsored article with a no follow link
Okay, now we are getting somewhere! This is definitely an option for you to consider!
If you accept guest posts on your website AND they are okay with the links out being "no follow", then you could for sure consider adding a post like this to your site.
Pros... you don't have to write the article, you are going to get paid maybe $25-100 depending on the size of your website traffic and you won't get dinged by Google for a bad link.
Cons... again, these are not often amazing articles that you can be proud of having on your website. I have found that most of them are pretty spammy and definitely don't have my voice so either I have to post a spammy article or do a whole bunch of editing to make it nice.
Promoted post you are paid to write with no follow links
These are the only ones I accept and as I said, I have only done a few over the years.
With this type of post an advertiser will ask if you accept promoted posts that you write. They are generally offering $250-$5000 depending on the size of your blog. (I generally charge $500-1,000 per promote post depending on the amount of work I am willing to do)
Pros... they will accept no follow links and understand having disclaimers in the post about it being promoted. Also, you make money... yay! Oh and the content will match your site because you write it.
Cons... you do have to be willing to accept edits to your post and there is a fair bit of back and forth before the content is final. You also have to write about something other than what you choose to write about which is something that I am not always willing to do!
If you are trying to make more money from your blog, AND you don't mind a bit of back and forth, this is a great way to increase your blog income!
Sponsored Posts and Link Insertions Wrapup
Ha, ha, ha... while I was writing this post I got an email from a fellow who wanted to pay me to add his article on my site! Can you spot what is wrong with this offer?
Some things that jumped out at me are the INCREDIBLY flowery writing, that sniffs of AI! There are NO "search engine friendly do follow links without any evident sponsorship indicators".
If this guy is writing me he is writing hundreds or thousands of other blog owners at the same time!
Did you catch the "tells" in this email? If so, YAY YOU! You have learned to be able to spot spammy offers that you must avoid at all costs!
