The original article can be found here: http://www.workitmom.com/article-1862
I'm not an expert at online advertising, though I do play one on my blog.
We've already touched on Google Adsense, Adbrite, Feedburner, and BlogHerAds -- they're the big companies who take care of all the legwork for you. But sometimes, an individual or smaller company may contact you directly and ask if they can pay you to put ads on your website. And at first you think, "Heck yeah!" because, hello, free money! But let's examine this, OK?
A year or two ago, I was approached by a guy who wanted to pay me to put a handful of advertisements on my sidebar. I quoted him my own ad rates, a little confused that he wouldn't just go through Adbrite, and I gave him a rate that was on the high side, since I would have to hand-code the links in, and then mark my calendar and try not to forget to delete the ads when they expired. He took my offer, and I placed his ads.
It was sort of weird how he wanted them set up: He wanted the links to go to a subdomain on my domain (like this: his-ad-name.my-blog.com). His sites were sort of link-farmish -- lots of keyword phrases and keyword text on plain sites absolutely covered with Google Adsense for Content ads.
All was well and good for a few weeks. And then I got one of those screaming letters from Google, telling me to remove the ads or I'd be kicked out of the Google search engine. They were trying to weed out those sites with dummy text that you sometimes land on while searching for bacon flavored potato chips. Nice. I got punished, but my advertiser did not -- because he used my domain name.
I kicked his ads off, told him what had happened, and he said something to the effect of, "Oh, we don't care about Google, we're running tests for MSN." I responded with something like, "That's great for you, Buster, but I'm going to lose ad revenue now because my site has been punished." He didn't care, he knew this would happen.
In my last article, I warned you to beware the ads that pay very little. Here's why...
I received this letter recently:
Hello webmaster,
Our advertisers are interested in sponsoring your blog kerflop.com. We are offering you $5.00 for each posted links on your site. You will be paid 15.00 for these 3 links. Your due date will be a 3 days after the links will be given to you.
Simply mentioned the keywords anywhere within the body of each post and write one post in every keyword. It should be not less than 100 words and must be a unique content. You can write it on your own journalistic style but don't give negative comments about the keywords given to you. Hateful or rude review will be declined and please don't mention that the post is a sponsored one or placed it in any category that is called sponsored paid. The anchor text or keyword, where you are to direct the link through should be used in its exact given form.
Please notify me as soon as all links are posted. And reply with your paypal address and kindly fill up the permalinks of the completed posts on the excel file. After we review your posted, we will directly send the payments to the paypal address that you have provided. Please let me know if you want to continue with my offer. Please add bigbucks@blog-for-bucks.com to your email address book to make sure your spam filter does not discard any important messages from us. Please let me know if you have any further questions and if you are interested on this offer.
Yours truly,
Michelle Go
Media Buyer
www.blog-for-bucks.com
First of all, 15 piddley dollars? My friends, even if you're working a five-pageview-per-day blogspot blog, REFUSE THIS OFFER. Your time, your efforts, your mad blogging skillz are all worth more than $15.
Secondly, about 25 red flags shot off in my head over this. Among them:
1.) Hello, crappy pay.
2.) They're going to be making a ton of money if you agree to their terms. Because Google is punishing dead-end crap sites filled with dummy text and ads, those advertisers are turning to us -- legitimate bloggers with something to say. My NUMBER ONE rule regarding advertising is that advertisers will NOT influence what I say. Now, I may not be some ginormous mover and shaker, but if there is an advertisement on my website for that appliance I bought and hated? I will TELL YOU EXACTLY how much I hated it, and I will not censor myself, even if it means I get kicked out of an ad program. So. There.
3.) An advertiser wants me to sneakily incorporate their keywords into my post? No way, no how. I don't even know what those keywords might be! What if the keyphrases or words that would stick out like a sore thumb? On top of all of that... where are their links going to point? To legitimate stores? Or to the kind of websites Google will punish me for linking to?
A big round of NO THANKS on this one, folks.
I haven't done any Pay Per Post ads, but I did get accused once of running a PPP-type project when I told a would-be advertiser what my rates were for hawking their product. I do not have issues with anyone running their blog the way they want to. Those of you that run blogs wherein you accept PPP, hurrah for you. I personally think they tend to pay really poorly for this type of thing. Five dollars per post is well below minimum wage when to take into account how much time it takes to write a good review.
If you're going to look into PPP-type projects, you might want to create a subdomain or a second blog where you review products. That way, those of us who just want to catch up on how your kitchen remodel is going don't have to read a review about a product you maybe haven't even ever owned!
About the Author: Jessica is an entrepreneur raising three noisy children in the middle of potato country. A self-taught web designer who runs a web-design company, I Blame Her, with a friend, Jessica also owns and runs a business with her husband, Very Baby, and maintains a shopping blog for tall women at Tall Moms. She likes dark chocolate, dislikes most forms of housework, and writes about her daily life at Kerflop.com.
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