Make$ Money$ Blog - Truth, no scam

PayPerPost just posted an important message for all their posties to read. I am glad that they finally bring to us posties some of the grouses of the advertisers. I personally have 8 bans, out of 461 posts. I receive only 85 votes, 12 of them within these few weeks. Yes, I am sore about the 8 bans but probably I deserved it? Or probably, there may be some reasons stated below?*shrugs* However, after the roll out and with tacks, votes and bans, I admit that I am now very careful with my paid posts. I do not want to get more bans. My five tacks dropped to four after I got another ban (from 7 to 8). So, I am working hard to make sure that I get more positive votes to gain back my tacks. (five tacks = higher payout)

Now, let’s see what the advertisers said about us:

many of the posts seemed to have been done in haste and with little style
How you can improve this? Go back to your post and re-read and improve even after you have submitted it. The time taken is worth it in the long run. Do some spell check. It is important to get your advertiser’s name spelled correctly. During the town hall meeting, Tamale told us some posties received bans because they spelt the name of the advertisers wrongly, several times in a post.

visit my site and get a general feeling about it

Some advertisers gave detailed information of their requirements and one can actually write straight from the PayPerPost’s dashboard. But to give extra frills, visit the advertiser’s site, check out those extra buttons, banners and see if there is anything worth mentioning on top of what you are required to say. For example, write something like, “Hey, do you know that they are currently giving (discounts/freebies) etc? I saw it on their site.” Or, “While I was over on their site, I notice they have this very useful information related to….(whatever). Go on and see if it is helpful for you.”

Having said these, I have visited advertisers’ sites and when I do not get the nice feelings, I sometimes dropped the opportunity. Though these are paid posts, I do not want my readers to be misled.

If you consistently create poor quality content you will get fewer and fewer chances to take an opportunity and eventually you will work your way right out of the system.

In the past, before these tacks, bans and votes thingamajic, PayPerPost was more flexible. However, now advertisers have a voice, which they rightly should. Therefore, remember that we are dealing with professionals, businessmen, marketing gurus and other people who have invested money. So, they have expectation of a certain standard. Though a post may be only USD6 to you, remember that they probably invested hundreds and if not thousands of dollars to the campaign.

There is no excuse of poor English, bad grammars and half-hearted pieces. One can improve if one puts our heart into it. Another thing is – if you are not exactly sure what you are writing about, be truthful and admit it in a nice way. For example, I will say something like, “Though I have never been to (country) and admit that I am not very familiar with (something), but I have seen it on TV and movie, how lovely the place is. I have also read about (something) and hope I will have the opportunity to visit.”

Some of you simply take too many sponsored posts or are too fixated on monetizing your blog

I agree with this. Remember my post about ‘Is your blog a used car lot?’
. As I said, sometimes it is good to forego other paid to blog programmes if you are serious in being a good Postie. If you notice, all the blogs I use for PayPerPost are only filled with PPP and probably a smattering of ReviewMe. It is tedious to maintain multiple blogs but it pays in the long run. I have blogs for PPP, blogs for other paid to posts and I have some blogs that I keep ‘clean’.

not moms who are writing about making money online all the time.”

I know many women feel this sting. But yeap, it is true. Advertisers do get confused if they come by to your blog, see a chubby face of your baby and you write about night feedings and the next thing you know, you are writing about their dedicated server or industrial storage. Things have to blend. Remember that when PPP said ‘not moms’, they are not against moms who write for money. I think they meant that we have to have a certain flow and balance.

Another trick of mine is to get the filler posts to have some elements related to my previous posts. For example, I took one Italian student website. I try to add some education things in the next and previous posts.

Don’t talk so much about making money (unless that is truly the focus of your blog) and balance the content on your blog

Heh, may I gloat over this? :P Make$ Money$. Where I can gloat about my earnings and no one can accuse me of the above.

that mix would be more like 1 paid post to every 6 non-paid posts.

This is very high and I admit I can’t achieve that because paid posts offers come in all the time and I can hardly find 6 posts to balance it out. However, I make sure that my paid posts do not appear like paid posts by using real life situations and experiences. And yeah, now that PPP has said it, remember that it is not quite alright to fill six other paid-to-post posts with one PPP’s post. Advertisers go to all the sites of the posties and they will notice that all the posties are writing about almost the same issues. (gold, silver, brides, flowers) Even if the posties did not mention that they are paid, advertisers and PPP reviewers know.

Some advertisers will look at that and rate you lower or ban you if they don’t like the volume of sponsored posts you are doing.

And the above will be the results. So, what I did was to separate them out. I have two hidden blogs which are used solely for that. As I said, get multiple blogs, get your own hosting and create sub-domains if you cannot afford to purchase more domain names. You can host several blogs in one hosting. And there is no excuse like ‘I can’t afford $xx.00 dollar to get my own hosting. Writing paid post is a business and businesses need some initial investment in order to gain.

just probably not right after a sponsored post. It is important for you guys to be aware of these types of issues when you are writing.

One of the advertisers’ grouses was – They hate to see us jumping in glee about the amount we made from paid posts sitting next to their sponsored post. They are human after all. From today, I am going to make sure that I tread carefully around ’em advertisers.

In conclusion – Ponder, improve, ponder and improve even more.