OK- I have been rocking the paid blog posts lately. I mentioned a few weeks ago (in the post:Wasted effort pays off)  that I have a bunch of old blogspot blogs that I’ve brought back to life for paid blogging,since they all have PRs of 2-5. Yes,I am a sellout! But it’s all in the name of research,right? Here are some reviews of paid-to-blog websites. Keep in mind,you need to set up your own blogs,whether they’re on your domain,blogspot.com or elsewhere.

There are a few “industry standards”that apply to each company

• Payout is 30 days after the post is approved although some companies don’t pay on weekends
• The post must be visible during the entire 30 days,they WILL spot-check and you can lose your fee if they can’t get to the post. I discovered 2 of my sites were down a few days ago when I got notified that they couldn’t access my posts. Luckily,they were nice about re-instating it after I fixed the problem
• The higher your pagerank,the more you can be paid. A brand new blog with no pagerank and no readers isn’t worth as much as an established site with readers and a higher rank
• You can get referral commissions for referring advertisers,but not other bloggers
• Your blogs need to have content with recent datestamps. Nevermind that you can change that datestamp in blogger,because that is frowned upon.  You should add new content,preferably ten posts in the past 90 days.  Roundup articles work well,so do half-articles or excerpts from your other sites with a “read more”link at the bottom

Blogsvertise Review

This company is fairly easy to work with. Their office works quickly most of the time. When I submit a post,it’s generally reviewed within 24 hours. I do have a few that have been awaiting review for 2-3 weeks.  When you consider that they’ve been visible and live on my blogs during that time and the advertisers have likely already had their backlinks indexed- it kinda sucks that the posts may still be rejected.  It’s also a bit sucky that I won’t be paid for these until 30 days after approval,so delaying the approval process is pretty crappy.  I’m not sure who is responsible for this,but I also haven’t complained about it. Every interaction I’ve had with the company has been polite,professional and I can only assume there’s a valid reason.

The signup at Blogsvertise is easy,you submit your blog for review and once it’s approved,they email you assignments.  If you ignore them too often,they’ll delete your account.  When you get the email,you can either accept the assignment or decline it,so that it may be re-assigned to another blogger.  Most of the assignments include 3 backlinks and 2oo words. Use the details in the email,since each advertiser sets his own terms.

My biggest criticism of Blogsvertise is that TWICE now,I’ve taken the time to write a post and submit it,only to have the advertiser cancel the request,so then I have to take the time to go back into my dashboard and delete the post.  Even after the post has been sent out on RSS and indexed with the backlink.  I get no kill-fee and basically just wasted my time &energy that could have been spent studying or hanging out with my kids or whatever else I choose to do for free.  Writing lame blog posts for companies that mooch a day’s worth of pr4 backlink is NOT on the list of things I’d choose to do for free.  It makes me wonder if that’s some black-hat marketing technique,to “take a chance”on bloggers being too lazy to remove the links,or hoping that they’ll still get the google juice even when the post disappears a day or so later.  Either way,it sucks.

Social Spark Review

At Social Spark,(also by Izea)
you’re paid in points which are each worth a penny. So a post that’s worth 1500 points is really worth $15, 1250 points is $12.50 and so forth. You must get to $50 before you’re paid out and payout goes into your account 30 days after the post is approved.   The new site has a feature that I just KNOW a lot of bloggers will be uncomfortable with.  You enter your admin username and password and they post it for you automatically.  So you write your post from their interface (and theoretically,they can change it but I’ve done like 30 so far and they have never changes anything) and it doesn’t go live on your blog until it’s been approved by the client. They won’t reject it if you’ve followed all the rules. After it’s live,you can enter your own dashboard and add a category or tags if you want.   I only have a few of my sites set up through the new Social Spark.  For the WordPress ones,I added a second user with permission to post. I’m always worried about the one angry or unethical employee who steals passwords and hacks people’s accounts for his personal benefit.  Maybe I’m crazy.

PayPerPost Review

I’ve actually been with PayPerPost since like 2007. They’re owned by Izea,the same company that owns Social Spark (above) and several other sites. PayPerPost has seen several incarnations. The oldest version I know of featured endless lists of opportunities,some as low as a nickel each.  The newest version operates differently.  Clients send out their opportunity (called a lead) to bloggers who meet their guidelines.  You review the opportunity (including proposed fee) and either say “Yes,I’m interested”or “no.”Then,the results go back to the advertiser who chooses from the list of interested bloggers. If you’re accepted,it becomes an opportunity for you. I have four sites listed,with PR’s of 2,2,3,and 4 and none of them have had opportunities,though I’ve accepted ten or fifteen leads.  I don’t know how long the process takes,or what other blogger’s success rates are.

Izea has some awesome opportunities for bloggers,including a “university”where bloggers can learn about blogging for money. I haven’t checked those classes out,though. Even i it just helps you sift through all of Izea’s opportunities and resources,then it would be a smart thing to look over.  Izea has their own rankign system that takes into account your Alexa rank,your Google page rank and a few other factors. It’s called “Real rank”and it’s worth checking out.

One very strict rule Izea has is that you may not post back-to-back sponsored posts. So you need to sandwich your paid postings with actual unpaid content.  I’ve seized that opportunity to post little blurbs and roundup posts of articles on other sites of mine,and to create more incoming links to my revenue share articles on other sites.  The hidden bonus in this is that all my old “wasted”blogs are now seeing traffic (duh) and even getting adsense clicks (not much,but more than nothing)

BuyBlogReviews Review

OK,this site was apparently given a makeover recently because I just logged in and it does NOT look familiar.  Honestly,I haven’t written much for them- it looks like you need to browse opportunities,and then bid for the work.   For the sake of this article,I peeked at an opportunity. It looks like they take your Alexa ranking into account,as well as “link popularity”which I can’t find a definition for,so I’m not sure hoe they determine this.  I did see that they pay 15 days after approval. They claim that their 30% cut is the lowest in the industry.  It makes me wonder if they take their cut after the opp is approved,so you only get 70% of what you bid,or do they add it to the top.  Perhaps they’ll answer that for us.

Sponzai

Sponzai is another Izea property. The signup is really simple,but I haven’t taken any opportunities through there.  As we speak,I am adding blogs to their database. I will let you know if anything interesting arises

So- what paid blogging programs are you familiar with? Which do you love,which do you hate or have you simply not tried any.  If you’re a niche blogger already,there’s no reason not to sign up for paid postings,I get $8-$20 per post,depending on the pagerank of the website.  These are QUICK posts that take little or no brainpower.  All they want are incoming links using their keywords,in most cases.  If you,like I,have a bunch of old blogspot blogs on your account,gathering dust,then register them for paid blogging. It’s so easy .