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By Les Scammell, April 14, 2009 10:28 pm

Most bloggers would be aware of google’s dislike of paid posts – more importantly, paid links in paid posts. If the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) gets its way, paid posts as such will be illegal.

The FTC is looking at plans to update its policies and their sights are set fairly and squarely on bloggers, paid posts and viral marketing. For bloggers who earn their small dollars each month writing paid posts – the time may have come to look else where.

Why the attack on paid posts? I said Google doesn’t like the paid links. For the FTC, they see paid posts as dishonest reviews – in other words, rather than writing a truthful review of a product or site, you are being paid to write a positive review.

Now I know there are a couple of pay for post sites that pay for the link. You don’t have to actually review the site or the product. If the link is to a kitchen sink site, just write any old post about kitchen sinks and include a link, it doesn’t have to be a review. Now, I wonder if the FTC will include them in their ban?

The next question is what will the FTC do to those bloggers that do write paid reviews? Will they prosecute and turn them into criminals? That is fine if you are based in the US. What if your based in Britain, Europe or Australia – will the law cross borders?

This is the biggest hurdle to any government agency trying to control the internet. You may be able to control what is happening within your own border, you cannot control the events from outside your borders. Still, I guess they will try. In the meantime, the poor old blogger is the one that will cop it on the chin – again!

Comments (4)

By Les Scammell, June 15, 2008 9:46 pm

As the blogging world grows the opportunities to monetize your blog grows. However, the number of people actually wanting to buy is not really growing at the same proportions. Let’s face it, most people click on ads if the product interests them.

The only exception are the Pay Per Click ads – here people will click through if they are wanting to find more information as part of their search routine. Unfortunately, I think many people use search as I do. I enter in a search term and look at the results. I then generally open the first three or four results in separate tabs. If I don’t find what I want – I do another search. The majority of the time I don’t even notice if there are any PPC ads with relevant links (is anyone else the same?).

So how do the pro’s monetize their sites? From my many trips around the blogging world, I have come to the following conclusions:

Quality Content – as everyone says – content is king. If you have the content then people will want to come and read. It’s a no brainer really – provide what users are looking for.

Posting Frequency - consistency and quality over quantity. If you can provide an excellent post once per week it is better than a poor post everyday. The more regular you post, the more visitors you will receive. The more visitors, obviously the better the income opportunities. However I come back to quality of quantity. For new bloggers, start slow, be consistent and good and then increase frequency. If you post once per week, make it the same day each week.

Fingers in Pies – Pies? Having many fingers in many pies. Don’t just dump an Adsense unit on your site and hope for the best. What is needed is a variety of ad units.  Affiliate ads and a variety of pay per click or pay per impression ads are required. It is also better to use more than one pay per click advertiser. If you do use Adsense, a variety of different ad units is better than just sticking to the one type.

Blog Space – maximize your space and place ads where they will do the most good. There are many sites that advise on where to place ad units. Generally speaking, above the fold and either top right, center top and within posts seem to work best.

Promote Your Cause – the one area that most pro’s seem to excel at is in their ad promotion – particularly affiliate advertising. Let’s face it, if you can promote a multi level affiliate program, over time you need do nothing more than collect your payments. This takes time, often several years, but if you one or two hundred people directly under you in an affiliate program, you are going to make some serious money.

Give Yourself Time – time is your biggest ally. You are never going to make a fortune overnight. It is going to take time to develop a regular reader base and it is going to take time to develop an affiliate network. As a small business adviser in a past life, my first piece of advice to anyone about to start a business is not to expect a profit for the first nine to twelve months. It all takes time and if you treat your blog as an online business, the same is going to be true.

It Is A Business – as mentioned, you need to treat your blog as a business. If you were running a bricks and mortar business you would be looking to trade in areas that were either profitable, or in high demand that produced a small profit but a lot of sales. Treat your blog like a business when it comes to time, advertising, advertising space and revenue streams. Treat is as a hobby and your income will be hobby income.

Readers Are Customers - my final observation – readers are customers, or at least potential customers. Again, comparing your blog to a bricks and mortar business, you would want to ensure your customers were happy with their purchase and buying experience – you want their recommendation. Your blog is no different. Treat your readers as you would a customer. If they have questions – answer them. If they make comments, respond to them as well – you want the recommendations from your readers.

These are all fairly straightforward suggestions. They are not always easy to put into place in reality. All you can do is try – one step at a time.

This blog will go through another metamorphosis at the end of this month. I hoping by then to have finally limped over that magic $100 Google payout level. Then I will be canning those ads in preference for the Rubicon network ads – they pay reasonably well and pay monthly no matter what your balance is. I will also be changing the theme, I am on the lookout for that ‘right’ theme.  Finally I am looking into a variety of affiliate programs that I can promote.

Together with a more regular posting schedule I hope to produce a more professional looking blog that caters to a reading niche, provides me with an outlet, and perhaps over time produces an income. In the mean time, I am not giving up my day job just yet.

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