Is Your Sponsored Blog A Splog?

Filed in Blog Better (Blogging 401), Writing reviews

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For the most part, I hate paid blog reviews. That may sound odd coming from someone telling you to start blogging, write better and make money at it. But therein lies the key to unraveling that apparent contradiction: it’s all about writing better.
Blogging for the money
Far too many money-making blogs aren’t worth the time reading them, much less waiting for their poorly-designed pages to load. Those of us passionate about blogging (and with five blogs now, I consider myself part of that crowd) thoroughly resent being lumped in with the people who launch cookie-cutter sites to make a fast buck.

Don’t be one of them. Your blog can stand out for good writing AND make you money, too.

Here are three tips to get you started.

1. Don’t be greedy. Do not snap up every opportunity that comes your way figuring that, hey, $5 is five dollars. Sure it is, but isn’t your credibility and your blog’s reputation worth more than that? That’s what it comes down to, folks: if your sponsored entries are poorly written you’ll look like a hack. Not just today, not just tomorrow but next week and for as long as your entry remains indexed by search engines.

Let’s say that post you tossed off today about how to “find Russian singles” turns up in someone’s search results. They visit your entry and, because you’ve followed my advice about indispensable plug-ins, they see your “Similar Posts”. From there they click to another tossed off $5 entry and another and another. Soon they see your blog for what it is: nothing more than a glorified spam blog (splog for short). And you’ll never see their traffic again.

Think that’s harsh? Then tell me: what defines a splog? Doesn’t it come down to a site purporting to be informative but really existing only to pass link juice and thereby make its creator money? That is precisely what your blog is if it consists of one poorly written paid entry after another. Don’t be a splogger. Don’t be greedy.

2. Write about the topic you claim to be writing about. Let me tell you the first four headlines at a blog I visited today where the blogger does paid reviews. Please note that although the titles are paraphrased, they’re pretty darn close:

- born2gamble.org
- Another Movie I Want To See
- casinosite.com
- A Movie I Want To See
- playslotmachines.biz

Did you pick up that this is a movie blog, or does it seem to be about online gambling, or both? Sure, there are two entries in there covering movies… not movies the blogger’s actually seen, mind you, but movies nevertheless. But there are more entries about online gambling on this blog which bills itself as a “movie blog”.

In fact, even in those two movie-related entries the blogger didn’t write much about the movies at all. He didn’t discuss the cast, the crew, the director or even the plot. Instead there’s a nice big copy of the movie poster followed by a sentence to the effect of “you can find the trailer by clicking this link.” That’s it.

Movie blog? I don’t think so. Splog? I think that’s a fair description of it: clearly the blogger is only interested in filling space between (poorly written) paid reviews because some company requires intervening posts.

All it takes to turn that into a better blog (albeit still a poorly written one if the blogger doesn’t start putting effort into it) is to double… no, triple the number of entries about movies. That is, after all, purportedly what the blog is about. Some actual content about the movies themselves would help, too. Why else do people visit a movie blog?

When it comes to paid blogging, readers tend to be rather understanding people. They know that hosting fees cost money. They know that blogging takes time. They aren’t going to begrudge a blogger the occasional paid entry if the blogger also delivers good, topical content more often than not.

3. Write better. Regularly. I’m on a blogroll consisting of nearly fifty “paid bloggers”. Most days I visit all the other sites on that list, as do the other bloggers on it. In other words, every blogger on the list is likely to get around 30-50 visits a day from fellow blogroll members.

For my sites, that kind of traffic is rather negligible. I participate so I can see what’s out there to ensure my paid entries don’t resemble everyone else’s. For others on the list, traffic from that list is the bulk their hits. Unfortunately, most of them waste those precious few visits because they don’t write daily and, when they do write, they’re simply writing about the very same paid opportunities as the rest of us and nothing more.

That movie blogger mentioned above happens to be on the same list. He’s also the only movie blogger on the list which means, if he actually did something clever (like, say, writing about movies), he’d be giving other bloggers original content to link to. He might find that some blog readers don’t watch much television and therefore don’t know what movies are coming out. He might just be able to establish himself as an authority on upcoming movies as well as old classics.

But first, of course, he’d actually have to write decent, informative entries about movies on a regular basis instead of cashing in his credibility for a mere $5 here and there. Don’t be that guy.

If you’re going to do sponsored blogging, intersperse your paid entries with non-sponsored ones. That’s a requirement, in fact, for some of the companies that pay bloggers to write entries. And don’t just settle for filling the space: write something good, something informative, something you’ve taken time to write well instead of just tossing off. Write something you deserve to be proud of.

You just might find your readership goes up and, along with it, the amount of money you can make with your paid reviews.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Blog Better (Blogging 401), Writing reviews. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Is Your Sponsored Blog A Splog?

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