How to Sign up to accept Sponsored Articles and fund Freelance Writing

The Blogosphere has brought about a powerful new means of uniting advertisers and bloggers in a way that allows bloggers to provide reviews, articles, promotions, product endorsements and product placement ads within the articles of their blogs.

Historically, advertisers would only advertise in this fashion on TV, or radio or more recently on very large websites with millions of visitors. As technology improves and as more people flock to the Blogosphere for content and information and editorials and perspective, advertisers have realized that there is significant value in sponsoring blog articles.

Instead of paying for a large expensive ad to appear on a website that will bring in 100,000 visitors, advertisers are advertising on a 1,000 blogs that bring in targeted niche traffic numbering anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand visitors.

These micro niche sponsored ads can be personally crafted by a blogger in a way that incorporates the topic into the blog and readers are more likely to read it and pay attention. The cost for the advertiser is much cheaper and the audience is much less generic than the traffic that shows up at a larger site.

Blog content can theoretically last for years or maybe forever. Internet surfers might perform a search engine search and find that sponsored article for many many years to come, thus the sponsored article takes on a life of its own!

PayPerPost

PayPerPost - Started in July 2006 and founded by a Media company, this site provides some of the most diverse sponsored article opportunities and pays bloggers the highest percentage of ad money from the Advertisers total spend. Payment is via PayPal and occurs after the article is 30 days old.

Blogitive

Blogitive - Started in February 2006 and affilliated with USWeb, this site pays bloggers to write 100 word articles about press releases provided by various companies. Many companies write press releases and release them to the newswires. Some of these press releases get less attention and so this service helps companies generate buzz.

Blogsvertise

Blogsvertise - Service pays bloggers to write at least a couple paragraphs. It requires that three hyperlinks to the Sponsors website be included. Payouts can range from $4-$10 per article.

The LinkyLoveArmy.com

the LinkyLoveArmy - This is a brand new service that is just launching their beta as I write this update. They offer a completely new Blog Monetization model unlike any other service out there today. I can't provide more information on the model yet due to non-disclosure requirements, but as soon as they are out of beta I'll give you more insights. Now is a good time to get in on the ground floor with a site that will not only earn you money but earn you PageRank as well -> Which means more money earning potential from all of the above companies!

ReviewMe

ReviewMe - Service pays bloggers to write reviews. Rates depend on the merit or value of the blog. More established blogs with high PageRank can earn up to $200 per article. Less established blogs can earn $20-50 per article. Brand new blogs may not be accepted and some topics also are worth more than others.

• Additional Articles
  • Reviewing ReviewMe
  • Received my First Payment from ReviewMe

Associated Content - AC

Associated Content (AC) - AC pays for articles to be uploaded onto their service. They then publish them through their site or sell them to other Publishers. The rates that they pay range from $3 - $20 per article. They pay more for exclusive content (that is not published on your blog or anywhere else) but you can still earn $3 -$5 for articles that are non-eclusive. When combined with some of the Freelance Writing Services and Services that find Sponsors for your articles to your site this can be a powerful Revenue tool

V7N

V7N - V7N is a new site that offers to pay bloggers $10 per link. There is a catch. Bloggers can not disclose that they are being paid to place the link. Plus, the system is currently handled via a discussion forum, email and private messaging, so there isn't really a good web page or marketplace to work and this limits the transactions to the gentleman running the forums ability to keep up with work. If it grows into a bigger site, could be very interesting given the dollar amounts. On the Positive side, bloggers only need to include a link with keywords and so that leaves the entire post open to write about anything, providing some of the most writing freedom to be found in these programs.

Loud Launch

LoudLaunch - LoudLaunch showed up in early January. They offer a decent enough website and sign up is not too difficult. They claim to pay amounts based on the PR of the blog. The higher the PR the higher the rate, which is similar in theory to ReviewMe, but the rates seem to be averaging around $5. Plus, they try and offer up some offers for free. Advertisers can list one free offering at a time (for a good cause?). I think this concept has some potential but may not be adopted widely. As the service is new there have been some early complaints of the technical nature, but the complaints do not sound any worse than those compared to the early days of the services listed above.

Performancing

Performancing Invitation to Blog - Performancing offers an excellent community of ProBloggers and new bloggers. The site has a long history of providing high quality guidance and insight into professional blogging techniques. The site has recently come under new management and is making some changes for the better. One of those changes is a new monetization program that pays bloggers $10 if their blog article on Performancing is accepted to run on the Performancing front page. They will also rotate your Adsense code into their site and you will receive 70% of the advertising revenue related to your content (I think they mean the content on your Performancing blog and possibly content from your articles that hit the front page). Its important to note that when you go to Performancing and sign up for an account (see invitation link above) you receive a blog of your own at Performancing's domain. This is the blog that might be rotated to their front page and not a blog on your own domain. Don't let that detract you, Performancing is a well respected and popular site. I write there occasionally, yet my blog there (Brett Bumeter's Blog - no customized names I think) has a Google PageRank of 4!

DigitalJournal

DigitalJournal - DigitalJournal is similar in concept to AssociatedContent with a big difference. You submit articles to DigitalContent. These will be submitted to their site but should not be duplicate content from another source. You should also search the site first to determine if someone else has posted the same thing (similar to Digg in this regard). As your article is published on their site, they will earn advertising revenue from the content you created and they will share the advertising revenue with you. In the month of January 2007, this new service saw its top poster earn $350 in one month. That is pretty good as these advertising sharing models work, but it required a lot of posting and a lot of reviews on that users part. As this site grows the advertising may pay better. It currently seems to be rather new and slightly small. It does have a very good user interface and site layout for readers. Sometimes that good looking interface feels a little slow.

Smorty

Smorty - This is also a brand new site and program launched in the middle of April 2007. The site is run on Ashops ecommerce platform and puts bloggers together with advertisers. There are multiple rates that can be paid to bloggers. The minimum charge to advertisers is $10 and the minimum payment to bloggers appears to be $3. The site requires reviews of at least 150 words (which is a bit long if you take a $3 review) and a max of 500(which defies my logic but if that's what they want . . .) I am working on completing some of my first opportunities with this site and have not had the ability to test their ability to pay me, which is probably the most important test!

PayU2Blog

PayU2Blog - This site has been running since about February of 2007. Their web interface has been recently upgraded. They offer up a great friendly and personal touch. They used to do most of their business by email and phone and are still one of the most accessible paid to blog companies around. I DO recommend this site for several reasons! 1. They have lots of ops to write. 2. They only require 60 words. 3. You can write about anything as long as you use the link and keywords. (Its kind of like an inline keyword ad). This site gives you more writing freedom than anyother program to date with the possible future exception of LinkyLoveArmy.com.

Sponsored Reviews

Sponsored Reviews - This site is like going into a marketplace. Advertisers bid out jobs and Bloggers bid on those jobs. Then there is even a mechanism in the process that allows you to communicate with the advertiser and haggle out a price. Don't expect to go back and forth on price too often though, maybe just once. If the advertiser or blogger doesn't accept, you are not likely to hear back from them a second or third time.

Pros - Once you complete the work, you get pair relatively quickly, within a few days. They do have an invitation program. You can sign up with the button or link above.

Cons - You have to be active in trying to bid on jobs. Don't expect too many advertisers to come to you as there are just a lot of blogs in the system. It can take for ever to sort through things.

Tip - Make sure you use very good keywords that really do cover what your blog is about. Advertisers will often times investigate your site. If you give a keyword and they come to the home page and do not see that your site is about the category you list, then they will probably not give you a bid. Just because you show it in your category list, doesn't mean that the advertiser can see it. Keep you categories tight here and / or think about pushing very concentrated niche blogs here.

If you are a blogger from the Americas or the UK, you can and will have a competitive advantage against Pacific Rim bloggers here. When English advertisers go to Sponsored Reviews they are inundated with pacific rim blogspot blogs. So if you have your own domain, can put 6 words or more together and are from the Americas or UK, it can help you earn a good reputation and get work. I've heard of people charging $50 - $90 here for reviews, but I do not think it happens much. Prices will tend to shake out at the $9 - $15 level for English bloggers and $3 - $6 for Pacific Rim bloggers.

Shvoong

Shvoong enables you to earn money from writing book reviews. The way they pay you depends on how much traffic you bring to the site.


However, this is a place where you can recycle book reviews that you have already written. Publishing altered or teaser versions of your book reviews that can then link off to original book review deep links.

Blogging Ads

Blogging Ads - This site should not be confused with BlogAds, which is not a paid to post business. Blogging Ads is a paid to post business. They typically pay $5 per opportunity, but they offer some items that make this easy. You can write your own ad copy using their required links and keywords, or you can choose from a few pre-written ad articles. Now reusing pre-written ad articles might be considered duplicate content and I do not encourage it as those articles will never place high themselves in Search Engines, but they will give the advertiser a link in their approved way. If you have a blog with strong content already and want something easy to throw in an ad every now and then, this could be a good option for you. They do limit you to 3 opportunities per blog per month, so if you have 1 blog you can only earn $15 per month here. They also say that if you have multiple blogs you can only take up to 10 per month across all blogs, so $50 total if I understand the program right. I've only recently started working with this one and will provide more feedback as I have it on this paid to blog site. Their interface is pretty clean.

Flixya

Flixya - Flixya provides you with a way to blog on a group site, upload videos like on YouTube, even pictures and more. You separately associate your existing Adsense Account with them and they will run your Adsense accoutn on the site with the articles and other content that you post. So if you put a viral video out there that attracts 1 million visits, you can earn some rate according to the success of running Google's adsense ads next to your video or blog there. This site will not pay you up front but should pay on the back end, or maybe the earnings will come through your Adsense account. I'll let you know as I develop more experience with it.