Associate Programs Newsletter #344
Here’s an affiliate who’s tapped into an extra revenue stream that generates $800 a month.
However, Google’s get-tougher attitude could be a fly in the ointment for future earnings.
CONTENTS:
1. $800 a month NOT from affiliate commissions
2. Google gets tougher on paid links, directories
3. $20,000 in 20 days challenge
4. Thought for today: You’re right
__________________________________________SPONSOR__________
Earn up to $110 per every web hosting customer.
——————————————————–
AvaHost Web Hosting (https://www.avahost.net) offers
new high conversion affiliate program.
Our feature rich and inexpensive web hosting plans
will help you to find new customers easily!
You get $50-$110 commissions per new web hosting client.
Also we pay 10% on second tier commissions.
Sign Up: https://www.avahost.net/aff/affiliate/
___________________________________________________________
==============================================
1. $800 a month NOT from affiliate commissions
==============================================
As you may remember, PayPerPost’s launch in June last year was controversial. For example, TechCrunch said: “PayPerPost.com offers to sell your soul.” Business Week called it “polluting the blogosphere”.
Since then, more than 50,000 bloggers have joined the PayPerPost marketplace, which connects advertisers with bloggers who want to be paid for pushing products.
One of them is affiliate Tony Thomas, who says he’s been a PayPerPost “Postie” for just over a year.
“I make around $800 a month with them. It’s a good extra stream of income,” he says.
He usually earns from $10 to $50 per post and has earned as much as $65. Popular bloggers can make more.
When PayPerPost was launched, one of the big criticisms was that disclosure was optional. Since December, bloggers have been required to disclose that they’re being paid to review products.
However, such disclosures are often just an easy to miss small blue “I Disclose” icon displayed among a stack of colorful advertisements.
On the other hand, affiliate websites often contain no disclosures whatsoever.
On his business blog – https://small-biz-blog.net – Tony has a prominent graphic saying: “HIRE ME! A post on this blog is $15.”
“I’m honest,” Tony told me. “If I know a company isn’t good or find it’s not good, I won’t take the Opp (opportunity), no matter what the pay is. I do not take an Opp that insists on a positive tone (advertisers can ask for a positive or neutral tone) unless I truly feel that way. Anything else is dishonest.”
Posties walk a fine line, he says.
“There is a lot of money that can be made depending on the time you have to dedicate to it. There is a stay at home mom who makes over $17,000 a month doing it. She has a number of blogs in the program.”
Here’s how it works.
When you submit a blog for inclusion in the program, you select from categories for the ads you’d like to see offered to you. For example, since Tony’s blog covers online business, marketing, etc, he chose the categories Business/Entrepreneurism, Internet/Web Design/Blogging, Sales/Marketing, and Technology/Gadgets. You can select four categories and you can change them every 30 days if you choose.
“Only the advertisers that select those types of tags will show up for me to take,” he says.
Advertisers choose how much they want to offer to pay for an “Opportunity”.
“They also get to select how high a PageRank you need to have, what the limit is for your Alexa score and at least how many words you need to have in your post. Only the ads that my blog qualifies for can be taken. The others are highlighted in red.”
PayPerPost has eligibility rules. For example, the blog must contain original content, it must be at least 90 days old and have at least 20 posts.
“The better your PageRank, the better opportunities you tend to get. I’ve seen opportunities offering as high as $1,000 to a Postie. My PR is only 4, so the highest I’ve taken for myself is $65.
“Getting an Opp depends on who is fastest to grab it. There is a limited number of times a particular Opp can be taken and the advertiser decides that. Once an Opp is gone, it disappears from the list. Opps can be added any time of the day or night. It’s a crap shoot sometimes.”
The $15 button he has on his blog is another way of attracting advertisers. However, that’s not the normal way of getting jobs, he says.
Each Postie is able to take up to three Opps a day.
“Some days I do nicely, some days not. I always have a tab of my browser open and refresh throughout the day to try to snag something. I do this every day. Weekends I tend to take off.”
How long he spends researching and writing paid posts varies.
“If I’m not familiar with the company or product, it could take me 30 minutes to get more info on them. If I know about them, I may shove a post out in 10 minutes. When I find a $50 Opp only insisting on 50 words and I know the subject, that’s golden!”
Tony says he’s never had any problems with PayPerPost.
“A post must remain on your blog for 30 days before you get the payment, which is through PayPal. Once you get past the initial 30 days and start taking Opps on a daily basis, you start seeing money daily.”
Tony also signed up for a PayPerPost competitor, ReviewMe, but didn’t like it.
“It has hardly any opportunities (or whatever they call them) and the payouts are poor. Most of the opps I’ve been offered are $5 to $6 for 250-word posts. Why would I do that when I can get $10 up to $50 for 50-100 word posts?”
All this sounds like work to me – for once-off payments. I prefer to look for tasks which pay me over and over again. However, paid posts have an added benefit. If you write keyword-rich paid posts which suit the theme of your blog, they should help your blog attract more traffic so that it generates more revenue from your affiliate links or AdSense. So in a way, you’re getting paid twice for your work.
Here’s Tony’s blog:
https://small-biz-blog.net
Before you zoom off to try PayPerPost, read this…
=================================================
2. Google gets tougher on paid links, directories
=================================================
If you’re considering using PayPerPost, you need to remember that Google is getting more aggressive in tackling sites which sell paid links.
Google engineer Matt Cutts says paid links that pass PageRank violate search engines’ guidelines. To him, paid links are like littering – they make the Web a dirty place.
Here are two reports on Matt Cutts’ participation in a discussion on paid links:
https://www.seroundtable.com/archives/014573.html
https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2007/08/are_paid_links.html
(You can safely ignore the funny video.)
Here’s more bad news for sites which sell links:
Google is decreasing the PageRank of sites that sell links
(from a very reliable source)
https://searchengineland.com/071007-173841.php
Why Google penalized dozens of “bad” directories
https://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-makes-a-good-web-directory-and-why-google-penalized-dozens-of-bad-ones
Google says on its website: “Keep in mind that our algorithms can distinguish natural links from unnatural links.”
How much of what Google says is bluster and bluff, and how much is genuine? Time will tell.
You could try to argue that paid posts are “reviews” and therefore different from paid links. However, I think we all know that PageRank link juice is the main reason why advertisers are willing to fork out serious funds for paid posts.
Will Google eventually identify and take action against the tens of thousands of bloggers who use PayPerPost and ReviewMe to sell links without using “nofollow” tags?
Maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t expect Google to MANUALLY lower the PageRank of The Stanford Daily website. That looks suspiciously like misuse of power to me, coming as it does from a search engine which sells advertising links.
You’ll have to weigh up the risks yourself. I wouldn’t want my only source of revenue to be a blog containing paid links.
[UPDATE: In November, 2007, Google reduced the PageRank of blogs posting PayPerPost posts to zero.]===============================
3. $20,000 in 20 days challenge
===============================
Do you like a challenge? Here’s one. Have a look at Michael Green’s “$20,000 in 20 days” challenge.
The deal is quite simple. Either you make $20,000 in 20 days or you get your money back.
This has been hugely popular and so Michael has extended the introductory launch offer for seven days. That was a couple of days ago, so you have only five days left to grab the introductory offer.
Do think you can do it? Find out.
Take the $20,000 challenge here…
https://www.associateprograms.com/2020challenge
==================================
4. Thought for today: You’re right
==================================
“If you think you can do it, or you think you can’t do it, you are right.” – Henry Ford.
All the best
Allan Gardyne
Leave a Reply