Over the last six weeks or so I have included a few income earning streams into my blog. The following is not a report on what I have earned, rather it is a report on how the options are progressing. If you have any ideas that work please let me know – don’t spam we with rubbish – I will just delete it.
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Pay Per Post
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I have signed to up several pay per post organizations. Generally speaking the number of posts from each organization is pretty low, however taken together they are not to bad – not enough to quit my day job though.
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Sponsored Reviews: I have had a total of three reviews through them. The reviews were easy enough to do and were accepted without a problem. I have read where some bloggers have had problems with the review being canceled after it had been published – so far no problems with that issue. Payment – there were no problems receiving payments. The amounts were not high. I am waiting to see if I get any decent value reviews to do. You need to check on the links before accepting any tasks as some of them are region specific and will not let you in. The site is easy to navigate so out of 10 I would rate them an 8.
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Smorty: I have had five posts through Smorty. There posts are very straight forward requiring only one link. They are generally priced at $6 which, for ten minutes work, is not to bad. You do have to be careful when submitting your posts – something as simple as leaving out the www in the post URL can cause problems. Smorty also come back down the track to make sure the post is still there and hasn’t been deleted. The biggest issue I have with Smorty is the slowness in getting posts approved. Payment is smooth and I have not had a problem there. Out of 10 I would rate them 8.5.
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Blogvertise: I have had three posts here. All have gone through smoothly and I am slowly receiving payments. With all these sites I would prefer a once a month payment rather than having it dribble in. The dollar value for some of these posts can be very small and hardly worth the effort. I use them as practice more than income. It is interesting that of the three posts so far, two have been sent to me and the other a grab bag (someone else has rejected the offer). My other site has had four posts of which two were grab bags. The site is easy to navigate. All the processes are smooth. Payments are a little slower than other PPP sites. Out of 10 – 8.5
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Linky Love: I have had only one post through Linky Love, and that was immediate. Accepting the post took a while but payment was quick. Most sites require 200 words in a post – LinkyLove only required 75 words. I found the process was difficult and the access page a little hard to navigate, but then I have only done the one post so I have not had the opportunity to get used to it. Out of 10, only a 6.5
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Bloggerwave: One post, the intro post. Nothing since. The post was accepted fairly quickly. The payment ever quicker. Easy to follow – just not a lot of work from them. Out of 10, a 7.5.
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Of the others, PayPerPost keeps rejecting me, I am not 90 days old yet – feels much older. Payu2Blog, I am in the last stages of being accepted, or rejected. The only other one that I have looked at is LinkWorth who have both PPP and PPC. My blogs have been accepted but since then nothing. Their site confuses me a bit and can be so slow to load.
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PPC
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For me, I have had no success at all with any PPC program including adsense. These will slowly disappear from my blog over the next month or two. I am using WidgetBucks, Advertlets, Crispads and TextLink Ads. Some of them, like TextLink Ads and LinkWorth are not even showing up on the site so really they are not worth the effort. PPC is only going to work if you have high traffic and the traffic sees something it likes. Mind you, why you would put in a link that takes the traffic away from your site gets me, especially since a lot of these links do not have the ‘open in a new window’ option. Likewise, if you are selling say, hats, why would you want to have the competitors ads on your site which is what you get with content related ads. I try to include the ‘open in new window’ option in all my links – when I remember that is.
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In summary, pay per post is earning a little. I am not that I like the concept however over time, if I can get a little smarter I may be able to write them within the context of my sites – time will tell.
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Let me know what you are using. I know I am probably losing the opportunity for affiliate dollars by not putting in affiliate links, however most affiliate programs don’t earn much. If you want a link, please let me know.
Stumbled, and bookmarked.
I have taken more than 100 PPP on my blogspot blogs. About 60 from Sponsored Review, 30 from PPP and rest from Smorty, Blogvertis etc.
But Google frowns at them. And these sponsored posts have returned my blog back to PR0, which was recently awarded PR4 from its earlier PR0.
Now I seriously considering removing all those posts, and resubmitting to Google.
Great post Les with lots of useful information. Its even better as you have rated the PPP sites. I haven’t given any of them a try, But I might in the future.
P.S. The earlier comments from Web Tools mention that his page rank has been affected. How about for yourself?
Thanks for your comments. I know that Google has hit PayPerPost bloggers, I am not sure about any of the others. Google I think is resenting PPP (Izea) introduction of their own rating system. I know here in Australia Google will need to be careful as we have very strict restraint of trade laws – my feeling is that they are already in breach of them – time will tell.
My PR is still zero, not blanked out yet. But I am only 2 and a bit months old so I don’t expect to know the results until the next round of ratings updates.
If Google is targeting all pay to blog bloggers then it showing how scared they are of the concept.
cheers
les
Your comments about Blogvertise are interesting. After I submitted one post there, the new tasks just stopped. After several inquiries, I received this message back that “To increase the number of tasks you get try working on your readership and page rank.” It sure seems like a catch-22 situation between the paid posts and page rank. Laraine.
This is a great round-up and review – thanks.
Personally, I think PPC has always been a bad deal. Most people just “tune out” the links anyway, and there is a huge problem with fraud.
This is very comprehensive and I appreciate your sharing. Does Google have issues if you have ad sense and one of these programs. And if yes, how do they show their displeasure?
Thanks
Three weeks ago I checked with my auction ads account and was I surprised I earned US$25. Then again I checked a week ago and bam! it’s gone. I don’t know what happened. I think I even took a screenshot of that earnings page just for fun. I just need to look for it so I can post it.
Cheers!
i was never a fan of payperpost but i was never really a big fan of google either. there are other ppc sites like kontera, adbrite, etc but if none of the ppc are working for you then i’m not sure how much that will help. but a lot of places have referrals, oh and check out the affiliate programs from places like shareasale and commissionjunction… they may or may not help you. but some places pay for click, leads and commission so it doesn’t hurt…
Jay
Hi,
I just came across this article and I find it very interesting.
In regards to Smorty, I just signed up today. I did one task that submitted correctly. On the other two I keep getting a pop up that says the anchor text cannot be found. It’s there so I don’t know what the problem is.
Thanks for sharing.