Make$ Money$ Blog - Truth, no scam

I received an email last night from one of the paid to post program which I signed up but never post except for one single post on their launching. I shall not name names, ok? But I quite like the way they sent the message across to bloggers that it is not alright to sell out :

There is a difference between a blog of substance and a blog of subsistence; don’t allow the sole purpose of your blog to be about making money. Once you cross this line, in our opinion, your blog will begin to deteriorate and will start to lose its value to advertisers. If we review your blog and the last 4 of 6 posts were paid posts from various companies then we have a problem. The best blogs are those where the audience and advertiser do not feel like they just entered a used car lot.

I fully agree on this point. I have seen many bloggers getting sucked into the vicious cycle of writing paid posts for companies A, B, C right down to Z. It saddens me when some even take up those USD2 payout writings.

Though I hate to sound like some self-righteous bitch who knows-it-all, let me share some ideas and principles that I stick to:

1) Remember that your blog has a bigger audience than you think. Don’t get so engrossed with writing paid posts that you forget other options like Google Adsense, TextLinkAds and other monetizing program. These advertisers do come by and will be turn off with the presentation of your blog. My TextLinkAds again sold all 10 links on a few of my blogs and that’s because I do not write paid posts except for PayPerPost. Which again, I pick only topics relevant to my blog niche.

2) I think it is not worth the lousy feelings in the gut, tasteless in the mouth and sick to the core when we have to write about things that really, really are not relevant or interest us. It is not worth the money, which is usually only USD5 at the max. Of course, I had done that a lot of time and that’s how I know the feelings. I’d rather write about something that really sets off my creative side (heh, as if I have) and feel good about pressing that ‘Submit/Publish’ button.

3) You are taking the risk of having taken off Google Index if you loaded too many paid posts on your blog. I can tell you that Google do reduce their payout on paid posts blogs. I saw a drastic dip on two of my blogs which have high number of paid posts. I took off my Google Adsense from another two which are totally paid posts blogs.

4) Remember that our advertisers and the middle-men companies do have a say. If our blog is too spammy, they will ban us from future dealings. Think of the long term future and try to minimise the paid posts.

5) Marketing people are always on the lurk, looking for good bloggers. Let’s say these are the cyber head-hunters. Good opportunities do come by so work hard not to turn your blog into a used car lot. No one will find it attractive and in the end, you are the one losing out.

I shared these in good faith as I learnt through trials and errors. Moreover, I have many blogs and am able to compare stats between paid posts blogs and non-paid posts blogs. I hope readers will find these tips useful and not get angsty over it. ‘Cos in the end, it is your own conscience you are dealing with. This is in reference to those commentors who left comments like, “Bitch, don’t teach us how to blog.” Yeah, I do love those comments because I know I have said something that touches on people nerves. But they won’t get to see the daylight cos I have fed them to the spam monster.