Blogging Money & Traffic - My Experience Part 1
Posted on March 8th, 2008 in Online Experience, Review |
Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. Few succeed. If those white-collars claim that the corporate world is a cut-throat business, then the going-ons of the blogosphere is just down right nasty. Recently, I decided to try out a wide selection of paid blogging and traffic gaining websites, hoping to find the golden nuggets hiding in various corners of the internet, and of course, make a few quick bucks while enjoying myself. What I found was a bit surprising and overwhelming. And what I experienced left me stranded on an island - unsure of whether I should continue toiling or pack my bags and get out asap.
On a side note, you know those lists floating around with titles like 10 Great Paid Blogging Sites? It irks me to no ends that some of these get their descriptions right off the services’ websites. If they were ever in politics, they would know that what individuals and companies don’t say on their websites are what counts the most.
Part 1: PAID BLOGGING SERVICES
Service: The IZEA ticket/knowledge bank is one of the worst I’ve seen. To answer a simple question such as “why was my post rejected”, one has to search the knowledge bank or find the category, go to page two, and click on the question, which links to a page that links to the terms of service. And how many words are on this wonderful TOS document? 5866. Yes, I checked. On a bright note, their service team is pretty fast and the interface is user-friendly with splashes of bright colour.
Opps: On a given day there are usually 8 pages of opps (160), but your blog might only qualify for a few. I admit, I have an inherent bias against PPP because my PR rank went from a 4 to a 0 after taking up one of their opps. Grr, the antagonism will never die. The opps range from $5-$25 for me (and the occasionaly $95 that I never grab in time), with the highest at $135+ at the moment for high PR blogs. Each opps has its own list of requirements. Bubble ads and tracking images are usually required - a definite downside.
Profit: Some stay-at-home mums can make an income off of this so I suppose it’s an okay catch. Payment takes a month to be sent out, unfortunately, so don’t count on immediate cash. I’ve made enough to pay for burgers for a whole week from the one post I wrote since I started.
Service: This site has a very short and succinct set of rules *glares at PPP*. I got approved in a day and got opps two days later.
Opps: The admins send opps in the form of Links right to your dashboard. I had five offers of equal value though unequal content interest. The blog topics definitely need work, but I guess bloggers are desperate enough to write about anything.
Profit: Two posts later, $10 are supposed to be sent to me in a month, so we’ll see how that goes. I don’t have much faith in these “opps will appear” structure instead of the “opps pool” because as we’ll see later, the availability number will decline.
Service: Aside from the lovely and easy-to use interface, I don’t get what the big hype for Review Me is about. Maybe it was still a new concept when it was first released; maybe they do a good job on viral marketing; either way, the format is almost exactly same as BlogToProfit, though users can browse through other blogs.
Opps: I got three sent my way in the two months I’ve used it. I completed one, ignored one, and accidentally let the other expire. The subjects are usually product-based, so they’re rather easy to integrate into a blog and fun (comparatively) to write about.
Profit: Low and meagre at $5, probably because my PR got slashed.
Service: Instead of waiting for the opps to show up, this site allows users to “bid” on advertiser’s offers based on the monetary range they set to their own blogs. I suppose then the advertisers get to choose who get the opps.
Opps: The opp categories are nicely labelled, and users are given the option of what they want to bid on. Since I started in January, I’ve only had two offers accepted (at the lowest value possible, no less) and 20 or so pending offers. Although there are pages and pages of interesting ad topics on internet-related merchandise and service, I find that a lot of advertisers are just using the site to promote their products instead of actually allowing users to blog about them. It’d be great of Sponsored Reviews gave the advertisers a deadline, and automatically select the first few bids after it’s passed!
Profit: See above. $6.50, it has potential though.
Service: The interface is a bit outdated, and they want users to upload a real picture of themselves for some reason, probably to make sure we’re actually bloggers, not pharmaceutical and porn spambots.
Opps: I haven’t had any since the $6 one I turned down when I first started. Hmmm… running out of sponsors and advertisers dearies?
Profit: None to speak of. They pay each month, as outlined in the FAQ.
Service: Aside from the bulky and depressing interface, the slowness of the service really irks me. This site is either still in redevelopment mode or died after a short dash at success. Some of the features don’t work and the rankings of supposedly high-earning members seem bogus, or shall I blame my PR slash again?
Opps: Quite a few people have said that this might be a scam site. After all the wonderful promises of richness and excitement, I received no opps since I registered in December.
Profit: Nil.
Payu2Blog Rating n/a
Service: I requested an account here a few months ago and still have received no response. Apparently it takes a while to get approved but those who make it in receive nice opps and money. Rumour, yet proven.
Service: When I started writing this post, I wanted to save the best for the last. But lately, Smorty has hit somewhat of an advertising slump. Its creators have implemented new features like the star-rating system and a forum to pick up the traffic. I guess we’ll wait and see what happens, though out all of the above, I recommend Smorty (hence the referral link). I recently carefully waded through their TOS and saw some underhand tactics (warning: small font is blinding), such as putting search engine keywords in the footer irrelevant to the page content and linking certain words to boost SEO ranking.
Opps: There were a dozen or so opps in the beginning ranging from $6 - $21. Higher PR blogs get higher offers. The subject contents are interesting (comparatively, oh and aside from the casino sites), for example: e-commerce software, site redesign reviews etc.
Profit: I’ve been doing Smorty more actively than the rest and made about $50 from it. They send payments every Friday, right on the dot. Quite reliable.
General Thoughts
Paid blogging leaves an indescribable aftertaste in your mouths. It feels like cheating your readers … but there’s always the argument “It’s my blog and I can do whatever I want with it”. Some bloggers find a nice balance between sponsored and unsponsored posts, and still manage to produce great, interesting content. Other fall into the giant (or not so giant) money pit and let their blogs die. I don’t think anyone with a 9-5 job would try to get money from blogging, simply because it’s not worth it. Those without a steady salary, making money with blogging maybe the only way to buy those lovely dresses (*cough*).
If I missed any good services out there, feel free to let me know in the comments and I’ll give you my honest two cents.
Blogging Money & Traffic - My Experience Part 2 is coming soon.
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I'm Crystal, a Canadian who thinks she can take on the world simply by getting up each morning. They call me the caffeinated IBer wandering on the Internet. 
16 Responses
That was quite an informative article! Well done! As a poor college student, I’ve always been interested in making money via my website, but was wary (see: paranoid) of signing up for these… perhaps I’ll try one or two now. Thanks for doing all the dirty work for me.
Funny thing is I’ve been wanting to do these get paid to blog site, but after doing more research, I found a consistent trend, they suck…Anyway, I think I am just going to concentrate on my site and its content and then do the ad thing…What do you think?
@ Chris - That’s the idea. I find myself so focussed on these sites and trying to get traffic to my site that I overlooked the content. Successful blogs didn’t get there by being popular right off the bat - they had unique and interesting content.
My opinion on PPP and the like is pretty low because of the users. I view them as more of a scam than anything else because of the ability to pass it off as a simple review to unsuspecting folk who aren’t as computer savvy as the rest of us.
This was a nice informative post, if I were the sort I’d be all over it like Oprah on a baked ham
I wrote these up last year. Not much has changed. Stay away from Smorty, Bloggerwave is a waste of time, and PayU2Blog is very low-paying ($5 per opp).
Great post! However, I wouldn’t give Smorty that high rating since I haven’t seen new opps in like forever (the same with Blogsvertise). And I don’t like BlogToProfit either since the links doesn’t really match the categories in your profile.
PPP is going down which is a shame, the only site that good to me right now is ReviewMe, never had any luck with them before actually.
And btw, PayU2Blog got my “toilet award” a while ago. http://www.infektia.net/the-toilet-award-payu2blog/
I don’t think that I’d ever blog for money, but this was a really good blog for anyone who would want to get into that :).
Thanks for these reviews, I was wondering if I should look into any of these since a lot of people seem to be doing it. I’ve put your site into my reader and will be waiting for part 2
I’ve worked with most of the companies you’ve mentioned above (including PU2B) and have to say your experiences are almost identical to mine. I, too, left PPP and have *nothing* nice to say about them. Smorty is spammy and Blogvertise isn’t much better.
I do make some decent money now and then with ReviewMe (I’ve got a $60 one waiting right now!), and I made $100 over the weekend with SponsoredReviews.
Have you tried LinkWorth yet? They’re my biggest resource these days, both for reviews and sidebar ads. Also, Text Link Ads is reliable (effortless) income.
@ Jacky - I’m about to head off to university myself, so I try to scrap together what I can. Glad this helped!
@ CyberCelt - Thanks for the info on payu2blog.
@ Malin - Man I got to feature your Toilet Award in my next post =D
@ Gloria - Thanks! I have it done but am searching for additional tidbits to add, hopefully it will be out soon.
@ Kate - I’m using TLA right now as you can see in the sidebar. Time to give Linkworth a try.
hey dude,
cool webpage. i have been into paid programmes since october last year. let me share abit on my views here :
1) Smorty - used to be my favourite. i have earned more than 200usd with them with my pr2 blog. since my pr hit down by big G to 0 recently, i havent been receiving any single oppurtunity. advice : if u hav a good pr, do join, u can earn alot. payment weekly - excellent choice.
2) Reviewme, sponsored reviews - my 2ndary choices. sponsored reviews has lots of assignment which u can bid for, but dont put a high hope, i managed to get all $5 usd posts only. all high bids were rejected. any tips for that? while reviewme offers 2-4 reviews each month. $5usd each.
3) pay per post - I joined since a month plus ago. This was the main reason for my pr becomes big fat zero now. I find it a substitution for smorty. Since it has its own real ranking system, you stil can grab high $$ post if your page have lots of traffic. if you have a high pr and you are with ppp, congrats!!! lots high $$ oppurtunities for you. but with one worry - may slap by big G anytime.
4) Blogsvertise - again, its with ur pr. i received post n payment from them before. but it is very very rare. like one per month. but i have heard from others with a pr4 blog making good money out of it.
5) pay2u to blog, bloggerwave, linkworth - i never receive any offer yet. stil waiting. anyone receive payments from them before?
That is all from me. good luck n hope to hear more about blogging to earn money from you guys!!!
Payu2blog does pay. I’ve been with them for a few months now. I make more from them then I do from payperpost at times. They pay every 2 weeks. Depending on how long you’ve been in waiting for approval, you might try sending them a reminder message. I signed up with them a while back and never got approved, so I followed up and they approved me within the next few days.
I like Smorty for the same reason you do. However, I have seen very few opps with them. Possibly because my PR is still low.
Thanks, that was exactly what I was looking for! Unfortunatly as I have a PageRank of 0 I don’t seem to qualify for anything on any of these sites, but your listing was very useful for future purposes.
Very informative post. I’ve tried several of the sites (PayPerPost, Smorty, and Sponsored Reviews) and have earned about $250 total so far. However, my PR went from 2 to 0 and in the classic Catch-22 I haven’t seen as many opportunities since. I have some hope that the IzeaRanks system may create more opportunities at PayPerPost (owned by Izea) if they can convince their advertisers to ignore Google and pay attention to the “RealRank.” I just joined Bloggerwave with two different blogs and expect to be approved for $10 each (the initial Bloggerwave promote) but they seem to be on their way out.
I had no expectations of getting rich this way, but it is nice to earn a few bucks for something I was doing in my spare time anyway. The most fun about all of this is that if you look at a large number of blogs (via BlogExplosion or EntreCard, for example), you start to recognize the bloggers who are doing it for money. We all throw the key link terms into a post that we probably would have written anyway (see my sponsored Candy’s Wedding post for some wedding invitation service or Where Do Homeless People Get Their Shopping Carts? for Smorty’s Ashop Commerce on Roxiticus). Clearly, some bloggers do blatant advertising of stuff they wouldn’t buy/recommend, but I just get a laugh out of it. The top PPP bloggers make an even better read out of their paid posts.
Anyway, keep up your Ubiquitous commentary, I’ve enjoyed it!
Hi, I came by to see if you were involved with the troysblog entrecard contest, but couldn’t find a post. BUT this post and part2 will save me a lot of trouble.
[...] As far as a more detailed description about the paid blogging process, there’s an excellent post here: http://u.silencios.org/index.php/archives/blogging-money-traffic-my-experience-part-1 [...]