There are many ways to make money blogging, as I explained in my post 5 ways to make money blogging. Affiliate links, Google Adsense banners, and banner advertisements that are sold directly to companies are just a few of the ways you can make money blogging.
Most newer bloggers (and plenty of established bloggers) make money a different way, though. It’s almost like a “dirty little secret” because it’s not talked about that often. What I’m talking about is sponsored posts and link placements.
Why would companies pay for sponsored posts?
Once your blog hits a certain page rank on Google bloggers start getting a lot of guest post requests. The reason why is because websites get a boost in search engine rankings when websites link to them, particularly websites with a Google page rank of 3 or more.
A large majority of people who are offering to contribute content or guest post are people who are being paid to get their client’s link placed on other websites, or more specifically to improve their ranking in search engines. Search engine rankings are based on algorithms that can change from time-to-time. One thing that factors in how high a post ranks is how many links it has from other websites.
The higher a website ranks on search engines the more traffic they get. This ‘organic’ search engine traffic leads to higher sales for companies because they have more people stopping by their page and being exposed to their product or service.
Therefore, if a company can rank higher in search engines through paying to have links on various websites that point to their website, it very well could pay off for them.
Why do some bloggers not take sponsored posts?
Despite the relatively large amount of money available in sponsored posts and link placement, some bloggers abstain from the activity altogether.
- Potential Google Penalties – Google makes money through paid advertisements on search pages. They don’t want people to rank higher through artificial means, like paid links, because they want those advertisers to pay them to have a link that sits on top of the organic results.
Some blogs have been lowered in page rank because Google’s algorithm suspects them of taking paid links. This has happened to a number of bloggers I talked to, but it also has not happened to many bloggers who I know for a fact take paid content. It’s up to each blogger to weigh whether or not to take on the risk of their site being flagged and penalized.
- Editorial Integrity & Spammy Appearance – Sometimes sponsored posts aren’t the highest quality, especially if they are pre-written. While there are ways to ‘hide’ or minimize reader exposure to paid content (see tips below), some bloggers want to avoid having these sorts of posts on their site altogether.
Additionally, advertisers may ask that posts not be published under a guest account or reference ‘guest post’ anywhere in the post. Google is (supposedly) starting to give less weight to links that are in posts that have ‘guest post’ referenced.
Overall, though, many bloggers do take advantage of sponsored posts. There’s likely more than you think. There are certain ways to do it more or less effectively. In some cases, you may never even see a blogger’s sponsored posts.
A few tips if you are going to take sponsored posts
If you plan on taking sponsored posts to make money off your blog, I have a few tips for you:
- Use Link Brokers – You can negotiate sponsored posts yourself, or you can use a brokering service like Link Vehicle. On Link Vehicle you can set your rate and you get an email when an advertiser has agreed to pay your fee. Then you can decide whether to use pre-written content or write it yourself.
- Have a canned email response – As I said earlier, you will start getting a lot of emails for guest posts once your blog gets a Google page rank of 3. These ‘guest posters’ are actually link brokers who get paid to get their client’s links on websites. Most don’t want to pay, but some will. If you have a canned email response for advertisers it will make your life a lot easier.
- Have an end date for posts – Some will disagree with this advice, but I think it’s important that you only agree to keep posts up for a certain amount of time. I typically only offer to keep posts up anywhere from 3 to 12 months. Every once in a while I will agree to lave a post up for 24 months. This protects you legally and makes the site more attractive to potential buyers..
- Keep Good Records – Keep records of all the advertisers you’ve worked with, the terms of posts, and the date you published posts. This will make your life much easier when you have to report your income and will avoid leaving up sponsored posts for longer than you agreed.
- Install the Ultimate Category Excluder Plugin – This plugin is great for sponsored posts. Most of the time you will not want sponsored posts showing up in your RSS feed because the posts aren’t always relevant to your audience and sometimes they aren’t the highest quality. This is why you will rarely see sponsored posts on blogs; most bloggers are keeping them hidden
So there you have it, the dirty little secret of how lots of bloggers make money off their blog. It’s not talked about often, but sponsored posts are widely used as a form of revenue for most blogs that are established.
Check out DC’s new book Hustle Away Debt to learn everything you wanted to know about making money through side hustles!
What are your thoughts on sponsored posts?
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I totally love the picture you put on this post! Great info. I’ve just registered with Link Vehicle so we will see how it goes. I will have to check out that plugin if I start doing more of this- sounds like the jury is still out on how this may affect your rankings, huh?
Ha ha, love the pic with this DC! That said, good tips to abide by especially on the record keeping aspect. That has saved my butt so many times on different things that it’s a no brainer for me.
Haven’t heard of Link Vehicle so I will have to check this out. Thanks for sharing the information DC.
FrugalRules Haha thanks sometimes you find those pics that are just gems and this is definitely one of them. NOT record keeping has kicked me in the butt a couple times so I’m very focused on it nowadays.
BudgetforMore No problem!
colormefrugal Thanks, I was pretty proud of myself for finding such a great pick for the post. I know for a fact some bloggers got hit a few years ago in a Google update and it hurt their traffic. Personally I think there’s just too much money in it to not utilize that income source. I also think if you have lots of other valuable content and are smart about it you should be fine.
I need to set up my canned response. Most of the link offers I get are crap. I won’t consider it unless the content is substantive and the link is relevant.
I take a more stringent approach to sponsored posts. 1.) I personally only work with sponsored posts that fit the theme of my website. Having a sponsored post for a company outside the US just doesn’t benefit the majority of my readers 2.) Many of the sponsored posts are horribly (HORRIBLY) written. Readers can smell a sponsored post a mile away and just click away. I would much rather take the link, and build a useful, unique, and relevant post that will benefit my readers. I write the post, and I introduce my own style and personal experiences.
that’s way it’s a real post that happens to have a link in it…..other than just text that I need to hide in my RSS reader. :)
I am excellent freelance writer who love your site. I wish to contribute highly relevant, unique content that your readers will love. I will send you article on {totally unrelated topic} and can provide yous more free content ever month.
Haha.
In other news – how long have you been working with link vehicle?
brokeandbeau The number of people trying to get free links on the site got out of hand, so the canned response was something that I had to do to save my sanity haha. I usually prefer to write my own post.
DebtChronicles I hear you and that’s probably the best approach. I got a sponsored link for Ford SUVs that couldn’t have had better timing. My wife and I had been discussing/planning a Ford SUV purchase for the past two years!
I saw that you did some campaigns through Social Fabric, which is another way I make money. I like doing the product reviews and even signed my wife up for Walmart Family Mobile because I liked it so much!
Very timely post for me. I received an e-mail for a sponsored post…my first one. I’m not sure it’s legit or not, I honestly am still a newbie to blogging even though it’s close to a year. I haven’t made money on my blog…but find a lot of enjoyment out of interacting with other bloggers and putting my thoughts on my blog. Though it would be great to earn something to offset the costs.
99% of posts are poor quality with a crappy link, they are pretty obvious to spot and a real bother for loyal readers so if you accept them you have to make sure you know what you trade them for.
DebtChronicles That’s basically what I do. I can write a post about almost anything so I don’t need someone else to write it for me.
Love the title of this post and the pic!!! I agree the spammy emails are totally out of hand!!
I stay as far away from selling text links as I can, I’m too wary of receiving penalties from Google -and since they’re my biggest source of traffic I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me – even if I don’t like it. I have sold the links way back when, and I did see a penalty in my page rank and to a degree my traffic. I’ve since removed all links and removed the few sponsored posts that I had.
I think selling text links and sponsored posts is kind of the low hanging fruit, and if your traffic is low it can be a tempting way to monetize that can bring in some decent money. I can’t begrudge folks that income. In a rare instance I may still sell a sponsored post -but would label it as such and make sure it was high quality content.
In the long run, however, I think it may give your site some black marks in Google’s eyes. While you may not notice a huge hit to traffic when your traffic is low to begin with (if your traffic goes from 300 page views to 200 page views) – once traffic starts to grow and you get penalized a 30-40% hit becomes much more meaningful. I don’t necessarily think that you’ll see a hit only from selling text links – but it could be one more signal to google that you have a low quality domain or are trying to help game search results. In any event, I think it’s important to go in with eyes wide open.
This was an educative piece for me. Since I am new into blogging, I think I would have fallen for those easily. Now I know better. Thanks for the great breakdown DC
Haha- love that pic, DC!! I agree with Travis’ approach – sounds like a good, solid plan to me.
I am all about the record keeping. It works for anything and allows me to understand where things are!
Excellent write up! From my own experience I’d be really careful with accepting sponsored posts. You may not be penalized right now but it is only a matter of time. If you’re blogging for long-term success I’d stay away from them. Your domain authority is what is at stake, taking low quality submissions not only hurts your authority but also your readership. My 2 cents anyways.
I have not done any sponsored posts although I’ve begun to receive requests. I’m real cautious with this kind of stuff as I think it diminishes the quality of the site. The content of these kind of posts I read on other sites is simply horrendous. I usually click away quickly.
Since I do not have the problem yet of people asking for guest posts, I found this incredibly helpful! I can absolutely see the “lure” of accepting sponsored posts, but I guess like any “business” choice, you have to weigh the pros and cons and the cost benefit analysis for you short term and long term. Thanks for letting us in on the dirty secret so we can make a more informed choice.
Holly at ClubThrifty DebtChroniclesHaha same here Holly. It’s a great skill to have (being able to write a post about just about anything).
Ugifter HAHA yes exactly what the emails look like! I then give my canned response and usually don’t ever hear back, and if I do they argue that the content will be beneficial so they don’t see why they should have to pay. : )
I’ve been working with Link Vehicle a little over a month and have gotten 3 posts. All have been paid (they pay for all of them once a month, beginning of the month). It’s bee really useful as there isn’t much back-and-forth and you set your price and that’s that.
Andrew LivingRichCheaply I’ve been pretty open from the beginning that I started my blog to make money. I didn’t even understand/realize what sponsored posts were or why I was getting guest post requests until about 8-9 months in when another blogger explained it to me. I figured this post might be good reference for people who don’t have a lot of background on it.
RFIndependence Definitely true Pauline. I think the ultimate category excluder plugin is essential if you plan on posting articles you didn’t write.
BudgetBlonde Haha thanks Cat I am pretty proud of the post title and pic : ) The spammy emails sometimes completely overwhelm me!
moneymatters I was hoping you would comment, Peter, as you were the first person I talked to about this issue. What’s your opinion of taking sponsored posts and “wheening” yourself off of them as your blog grows? I.e. if you take 5 a month when you are growing if you lower it to 3, then 1, then 0 as your other income streams grow? It’s a strategy I think can work, especially for people who need that initial income to motivate them to continue blogging.
BorrowedCents No problem! I may or may not have posted a ‘high quality guest post’ in my early days : ) I actually thought it was a really good piece (a rarity) but at that time I didn’t know you could charge for it.
Laurie TheFrugalFarmer Thanks Laurie! So many positive comments about the pic haha.
DebtRoundUp I’ve created a few tracking spreadsheets for all sorts of things and it’s helped me so much. The better you can track things the easier it is to review progress, report income, etc.
DC @ Young Adult Money moneymattersThat’s a tough question – one I can’t answer for people – it’s a risk/reward proposition that you have to figure out how much you’re willing to risk your site’s growth and brand for a monetary reward. It’s a calculated risk in my opinion.
I took sponsored links and posts for the better part of a year or more when I was first starting my blog, but I did see a drop in page rank and a bit in traffic that I believe was related at that time – so I think in some ways it may have hurt the growth of my site.
I’d be careful of taking too many sponsored posts on your site, if you have too many of them it can tend to start looking bad to the search engines – your site will start to have a higher ratio of low quality content, and in some respects if sites you’re accepting links from get penalized – it can be bad for you as well to be associated with or linking to those penalized brands.
In essence – it’s not a strategy I would recommend for someone with a long term blog strategy, but I can completely understand why people do it because it is easy income.
Sorry if that’s not a definitive answer, but who really knows with Google what will be penalized and what won’t – and which sites will see problems and which won’t. You just have to make a decision on how much you’re willing to risk your site’s future search traffic in return for some monetary reward.
Kyle James Thanks for sharing your perspective. I think excluding from your RSS essentially takes the readership hurt out of it, but not the domain authority issue. I agree, though, that more likely than not it will catch up with you if you do it for a long period of time.
moneymatters DC @ Young Adult MoneyNo need to apologize for your answer! I essentially agree with you on this. I think having an “end date” and actually following through with trashing the post is a good way to spread your bets. There’s always risk, though, as you pointed out.
I know others who have said that even if their site was to implode (which I think is unlikely as by implode I’m assuming zero Google traffic) all the SEO posts would be worth it because of how much money they’ve made to this point.
So yes, it’s a personal risk/reward analysis each person has to make.
Brian @ Luke1428 I think it diminishes the quality from an SEO standpoint but there are ways to hide the pre-written posts from readers. I think the best approach, though, is to write your own posts and work the link into it. Even then it sometimes will make sense to hide it from your RSS and in turn, readers.
blonde_finance Oh you’ll get the emails soon enough :) I’m glad it was helpful and I really wish someone would have explained it all to me before I really got going. Unfortunately I didn’t and was a bit in the dark, but I learned as I went and asked advice from a few different bloggers and so far it’s working out. Best of luck on making a choice whether to pursue or not!
DC @ Young Adult Money Kyle James Yeah but when you have a new reader land on your blog you have one shot at making them a loyal reader and when they see a thin sponsored post you’ve blown your chance.
Kyle James DC @ Young Adult Money That’s a great point. I think the only way to get around it is to write all your own posts even if they have sponsored links and even if those posts are excluded from RSS.
Kyle James DC @ Young Adult MoneyOr of course, just not accept sponsored posts.
Great, informative post!
I like the idea of using a site like Link Vehicle, seems like that could work well. Same for that excluder plugin, that is an excellent idea. I haven’t had any offers for guest posts on my current blog, but have had them on past blogs I have had, and this has a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t have thought of. Great stuff.
This is a nice piece of information for us new bloggers. So much of these blogging little secrets are hard to find so thanks for sharing.
Do you have a way to keep posts out of email subscriptions if you don’t want to share. Category excluder works great for RSS, but is there a way to make it work for email?
I have received a few requests for sponsored posts but have not accepted any at this point. In part because of any Google penalty but also because I haven’t been really impressed with the sponsored content I see on a lot of blogs. Especially when I only did two posts per week, I really didn’t feel like I want to give my space (and hopefully my good content) to someone else. Now that I am expanding, I would consider but it would definitely need to feel like a good fit or value. Thanks for the info – bookmarking for future reference!
As a new blogger, this was a super informative read. Making money blogging is still a bit of a mystery to me, but I’ll bookmark this post for when the right time comes.
Sounds like a pretty cool way to make extra money, if you’re willing to take on a little risk. I’m unfortunately not yet burdened with such a decision. ;)
I do this “dirty little secret” but I do try to keep the integrity of my blog, so it has to be approved by me, and also I post on “off” days and keep my rates high enough so I don’t just take anything.
Our Fine Adventure Thanks for the kind words and glad you found the post useful! Even if you use a site like Link Vehicle you can still negotiate with brokers on your own. I say the more avenues towards income the better.
Raquel@Practical Cents No problem, Raquel. This was definitely something I wish someone had told me about when I first started but it seemed like everyone was hush hush about it. Thankfully another blogger keyed me on it before I started posting all sorts of guest posts.
Eyesonthedollar Hmm my email subscription (feedburner and bloglovin) are both based off of RSS. Since the category excluder keeps it out of RSS, it stays out of email.
Thanks for sharing this information! I haven’t really gotten any requests, but I would rather write my own articles. I don’t really trust the quality of these paid posts after seeing them published on other blogs. I know I turn away from them, and I’d rather not lose readers over it, especially since I have a smaller audience.
ShannonRyan I think there are a few things specific about your site that makes it the right choice to forego them for now. Your site also is aligned with your book and writing career. You also mentioned the two posts. Since I have posts M-F it’s easy to squeeze in these posts unnoticed. Hopefully it helps in the future, though!
CashvilleSky I’m glad you found it informative! This was a big topic that nobody seemed to want to talk about so I figured it would make for a good post.
DonebyForty Hmm well your blog is at a pr 2 and I think most advertisers like to see pr3 or higher. I have heard of advertisers doing deals with pr2, though, so I’d expect some to start reaching out. By advertisers I mean people trying to post guest posts for free, that is ;)
Beachbudget I like your tip about keeping rates high. I upped my rates recently and I happily turn away people who are trying to get in for less. It keeps the ratio of regular vs paid posts high too!
JourneytoSaving I think most of them would be happy to have the author write them instead of providing the post. That way you can make the topic something relevant and work it into the post. When I have done these offers I typically write them myself and almost 100% of the time exclude them from my RSS so none of my readers really see them.
David,
This is great, unfortunately since my rank is 0 I have zero demand. I would love to increase my PR, do you have any tips?
Wow! This is so cool. Thanks for posting this. As a new blogger, l obviously have not run into this, but what great information to have if it ever happens. I often wander at some things, makes more sense now. Thanks again.
Charles@gettingarichlifeI have to say I’m surprised that your blog is a PR of 0. I just took a look and saw that you’ve been posting since 2012, so you’d think a Google Update would have boosted you by now. I’m no SEO expert, but I know getting people to link to you can be valuable. I know I’ve linked to you at least a few times and I imagine others have as well. I know Google likes sites with lots of pages, so maybe having more posts? I suppose if the posts are low quality they won’t help you, so maybe that’s not the best approach. I also know that Google has been running it’s updates less often over the past year or so. I would assume during the next update you’d get bumped to pr1 or pr2. Unfortunately you just have to wait for that update to happen.
KemkemNo problem and I’m glad you found it useful.
Excellent info DC, thanks for being willing to open up and share. I don’t think I’m anywhere near turning an actual income from the blog, but hopefully one day in the future I might. I’ll be sure to keep these in mind, and I’m going to check out Link Vehicle right now.
I appreciate posts on this topic. It’s totally the “dirty little secret” of the blogging world. I accept a post here and there on my “off days” if the rate is good and the link is worthwhile. I do try to keep the posts in line with the rest of the content on my site so they doesn’t come across as spammy.
All true.
The most important thing if you are going to go this route is to not set yourself short. If somebody offers you $50 to place a spammy payday loan post– then you just can’t take that, even if you really need $50 at that point in time.
However, I would never judge anyone for running sponsored content on their sites. It is much more difficult than most admit to really get affiliate sales and other alternative income techniques up and going.
Great tips, DC. It’s easy to learn about how adsense, affiliate advertising, etc. work. It’s intuitive and there is lots of info or tutorials out there. You don’t often hear much about the details of sponsored posts or links – probably because it’s not as glamorous. This article is very useful.
ImpersonalFinance No problem, glad you enjoyed it. If you hit pr3 you can definitely make some money using this approach. I still don’t have a ton of adsense or affiliate income, though I hope to slowly increase that over time.
StudentDebtSurvivor I just rejected one that didn’t fit well with my site. I think long-term it pays to be picky of which ones you allow on your site. I wish more people would post about this stuff too. It’s almost a “taboo” topic.
seedebtrun I agree with you that affiliate income and adsense/banner advertising income is a lot more difficult than most people are willing to admit. It’s still a relatively small portion of my blog’s income and I think you have to spend quite a bit of time and experiment quite a bit to get it to work.
PFUtopia It definitely isn’t as glamorous and some bloggers won’t even go that route. I think it’s a good way to make some money and stay motivated at the beginning, though.
Hmm, I honestly had no idea. Thanks for the info DC. Having just started my blog I expect that this wont be too useful at the moment, is there a certain page rank or traffic metric that you need to have to participate on LinkVehicle?
I find sponsored posts annoying so I don’t allow them on my own site. It’s not worth a bit of money to annoy my readers and put up crap content. I do use affiliate links because I don’t find them irritating and ads on the side, but not in, my posts.
This is a really helpful post! I have had a lot of requests for guest posts and I say I only take dear debt letters. I’ve had one sponsored post, and edited it to make it sound better, and I also clearly stated it was sponsored, but was in alignment with my values. I am pretty picky, even though I need the money. It has to be something that makes sense and doesn’t feel wrong to me. I would not advertise payday loans when I’m in so much debt! The Ultimate Category Excluder is exactly what I was hoping for. Wish I knew that sooner. Thanks for the informative post.
deardebt No problem glad it could be of use! Yeah the ultimate category excluder is a big winner. Pauline told me about it so you’ll have to thank her : )
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