2007-06-23 02:32:52
Too Many Paid Reviews can Ruin a Blog
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When you run a blog and start monetizing it, there is a fine line between generating as many dollars as you can from the blog and then overexploiting it. By building up traffic and readership in your blog, you are building long-term capital with your readers. Mix in too many paid reviews with your normal blog postings and you will suffer the consequences.
If you run a blog and start to receive a substantial amount of traffic, it is usually because people find value in what you have to say. They become repeat visitors, link to your blog postings, tell their friends about your blog, etc. They do this because they find your content valuable and useful.
With traffic comes money. However, it is too easy to fall into the trap of trying to wring as much money out of your blog as possible in the short-term, rather than looking to the long-term viability of the site.
Review Me and Pay Per Post offer unique monetization opportunities for blog creators. The more popular your blog is, the most money you will make. However, you need to carefully consider how many paid reviews your readership will accept before they start to question the usefulness of your entire blog. Remember, users come to your site because they find your content useful, and if they start to think that every blog posting was written just to generate money, then they will stop visiting your blog and the long-term value of your site will be diminished.
I hate to name an actual site in this article, but it will help illustrate my point. John Chow.com, in my opinion, is a great example of a site that has gone overboard in terms of paid reviews. The site generated a tremendous amount of unique visitors per day thanks to unique and useful content. When John discovered Review Me, his paid review to non-paid review postings ratio went way up. I am sure he would say, people were buying reviews for my blog, am I supposed to turn down free money? I'd say definitely, because if you keep your readers happy, you will probably make millions from your blog over the long-term. If your readers start to look for their content elsewhere, the long-term earning potential of the blog will be greatly diminished. It really is a fine line, but you need to figure out what that line is, through talking to your readers. A couple hundred dollars for a paid review is nothing compared to the long-term earning potential of your blog.
There are plenty of ways to monetize your blog without having to resort to paid reviews. Think long and hard before typing out that paid review for your blog, as your unique content is by far the most valuable weapon in your arsenal. Compromise that and your blog will suffer the consequences.
Filed under: Making Money Online | General Knowledge
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