Balancing the Quality of Sponsored and Personal Content

As most of my readers know I write a few sponsored posts in between my regular posts. From the last 14, 2 have been sponsored ones which is pretty reasonable.

In the beginning this blog was just a regular blah blah corner for me, I did try to make some money with it but somehow it just didn't work. A few months passed and I got a better idea of where I want to take this domain and how I wanted to build it. I monetize the blog now via PPC ads as well some affiliate links on the sidebar and I've managed to sell my first advertisement to Techinline, whom I will do a roundup review in another post.

The other thing is the sponsored posts, which I mentioned above. I would like to talk about Why it is Important to Balance the Quality of both Sponsored and Personal content. Which is something all bloggers should aim to do.

Most of my posts are a minimum of 200 words and I spend anywhere from 1 - 3 hours formulating them. Recently I've had the chance to get quite a few offers from Sponsored Reviews and I like the flexibility it offers me of doing a review over a number of days. This gives me more time to look at the advertisers product and have a much clearer picture about what to write for them. { My review is $25 cheaper with SR compared to ReviewMe /hint }

An advertiser looks to you for an insightful edge into their product, so why not give them the same edge you give your personal posts? Whether you like it or not sponsored posts are here to stay and going forward you can expect them to be a substantial portion of your monthly blog income. Now is the time for building up your rep for writing quality posts because the ones who are doing so now will only be getting more of them in the future.

But, I've noticed in a few blogs that as the quality of a sponsored post may have increased, their personal content has greatly decreased. With sporadic posts about what you eat, picture filled posts, a rant about an experience at the store are just some of the things I've come across. This will have a negative effect on your overall blogging persona - the one that you've built so painstakingly. Your readers will quickly realize this and move on from your blog. Remember you're trying to build a blog fan base.

You have to keep giving them the same type of content and chutzpah that you put into a sponsored post as well. Just because you're not getting paid for that post doesn't mean you forget the purpose you started the blog in the first place...unless of course that's why you started. In that case, Good Luck!

So taking the time to write your personal content is of the utmost importance, probably even more important than your sponsored ones. That's what attracted your readers and a potential advertiser to you in the first place so keep that money train moving by always putting out smoking quality content as much as you can.

Obviously, it's OK to still talk about your cat...just not everyday!

Technorati Tags: blogging, making money online, sponsored posts

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