Bloggers,
Like me I'm sure that you get hundreds of emails, PR messages, review requests or people that want to write a sponsored or guest post on your blog or website. But I find a hard time drawing the line sometimes at when to allow sponsored/guest posts on my site. I of course like many of you are involved in affiliate programs where you get paid to write about a certain topic on your blog. But what happens when you are emailed and asked to publish something on your blog for free? Where do you draw the line? If you do it free for one person, then is it fair to charge the next person a fee for this service that you are providing? A lot of emails that come to my inbox claim, that if you simply publish this article it will drive hundreds of thousands of readers to your site. While that sounds lovely, I would love to hear from other bloggers out there, about their experience with this. I'm not opposed to posting guest posts as long as its not "free advertising" because I do sell ad space on my blog, and don't feel its fair to give an advertiser a 125 x 125 space, but then turn around and give an entirely free platform to another business in basically a full page ad. It just seems a little unfair. So I feel like some people/businesses are trying to get by the system. I'd love to hear from you on how you manage these requests.
Go!
Author: HeatherWife, Mother of Two Boys, Coffee Addict, Pinterest obsessed, an aspiring writer balancing every day life of raising a family and blogging about it.
6 comments:
In between the myriad of spam request there may be one or two sincere "freelance writers" that may actually write useful content for my site. The problem is that I'm so inundated with the spam that I probably have overlooked any legit request. They all appear to start off with the same pitch and after a while it just gets frustrating.
Yeah, those pitches sound a lot alike, its definitely hard to differentiate which ones are legit, but I look at their wording and what they "promise".
This week was the first time I have actually said no to doing something for free. I will do charity and special needs awareness for free because that area is so dear to my heart. However, when they want you to write about a "product" that they are selling and making a profit on that is called advertising. Advertising is just not free. period. Why should they get to make profit off me talking about there product but, my time is not worthy of $20? I'm not sure I really want to do business with someone that thinks that little of me!
Exactly!!
I will only accept the occasional free guest post from writers who are featured in one of the book review groups I am in and then only if I need the "filler" and think my readers would be interested in the book. I have read boilerplate "guest posts" on other blogs and personally think they are often not very well written and the information may only loosely apply to the blog's audience. I have no problem with paid sponsored posts, but a) I want control of the content and b) we should never give our valuable space away for free unless it is for a good cause.
Thanks Teressa, I share the same viewpoint.
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