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Pay Per Article – Blogs and Websites

A few weeks ago I posted about Pay per Post on Forums. I wanted to continue the mini-series today by focusing on a different way by which internet bloggers and writers can make money, and a way which I have been contacted about many times – getting paid to write an article for a blog or website.

Firstly, you need to have a good online reputation and examples of your writing ability so that people can contact you in the first place. I started writing in February on my Blogger account and I think it was because of the latter that many people didn’t take me seriously. However when I switched to WordPress and my own hosted domain name and blog, I started to get people contacting me about writing for them.

These days, many internet webmasters simply don’t have the time to continually update their huge portfolios of sites. As a result, they like to hire out to smaller-time bloggers and writers who they know can guarantee good results.

There are 2 ways in which this form of revenue-making can work and I will explain the pros and cons of both:

1) People ask you to write an article about their service or website and post it on your own blog.

Pros:

You can recommend sites to your readers and followers that they may be interested in and some which may be relevant to your site niche.

You can drive your blog’s traffic to the other person’s site

People tend to pay you more for this type of service – as they are getting a link from a reputable site and traffic.

Once a person has seen the power of this type of referral – they are more likely to ask for more articles in the future, which means more content for your blog.

Cons:

If someone’s paying you to write an article on your own blog then you’re obviously going to tend to be biased towards their product or site. This means that you will be giving your readers an unfair review of the product. Most of your readers will not appreciate this – and as a result you could lose some valued subscribers and traffic as your reputation declines.

Supposing you have an entrepreneurship blog – you will only be able to review products or sites associated with that niche, thus there will be less opportunities to get paid for an article.

You may be referring your traffic to competitors websites. Also after a while your site may start to get a little spammy with outward links.

2) You write an article so that it can be used on another site or blog.

Pros:

You won’t be driving traffic away from your site and your own blog will still hold its reputation and authority in your niche or field.

You can ask if you can put a small link to your own site at the bottom of the article you’ve written. This way you can drive visitors back to your site and you can get a reputable link.

Cons:

You won’t be able to use the article you have written for your own website/blog.

People may pay less for this type of work – and they don’t get traffic from your site – therefore less jobs may be needed.

Overall, I am more comfortable with doing the second type of job, as it does not compromise the reputation of your own site. I have been asked to write articles about fellow entrepreneurs sites in return for a small fee and place the text on my site. At the time, I did not say that I was writing the article for money, which when I think about it now, was a big mistake.

Some may say that getting paid to post may result in shallow or dodgy articles, but I think that if you are getting money, that it is always fair to do a good job. However one site in particular – PayPerPost.com has been criticised for its lack of quality control. Its always best to get jobs from people you know. By networking with other bloggers/entrepreneurs in my case, I can always find someone that needs an article!

It’s always better to be honest with your readers and to tell them about your intentions with an article – so you can still keep your authority in your niche. From now on, I will inform readers of Blogtrepreneur of any such activity. In terms of revenue, the cost I get is pretty decent for a 15 minute job. I have received anywhere from $6 to $10 for a 350 word article. This may increase as my internet presence becomes more well known, and as my blog becomes properly indexed on the major search engines. The key is to build up your own articles so people can view your work. I find that having my own blog is quite a good way to market myself and let people know about my skills.

As a final shameless plug, if you would like me to write an article about any topic for your own site/blog I would love to do so, so please get in touch. If on the other hand you would like an article to appear on this blog, please make sure that the content I will be writing is in the niche of entrepreneurialism, business, or blogging.