Bloggers can make money from their blogs by offering sponsored posts. Sponsored posts not only mean more content for your blog but they also bring in extra income.
What is a Sponsored Post?
A sponsored post is an article that you place on behalf of a brand, company or agency on your blog that may or may not be written by yourself. The article will contain links to the brand’s website. You then get paid, so in fact a sponsored post is like an advertisement.
Whether you write the article, or the article is provided, both methods are acceptable, however, there are certain ways you should go about this.
Sponsored Posts Written By the Blogger
The brand/company/agency will provide you with the links to the topic of the article and any details about the product or service being advertised within the post.
It’s important that when you write the article, it doesn’t sound like an advertisement. The post should be helpful and informative for your readers and should also relate to your blog.
Writing the article yourself can take time, it does however give you control over most of the content.
Articles Written by or for The Brand
These articles are provided by the brand/company/agency and you simply copy and paste them into your blog and add images to complement the post.
These posts take less time to do, around 15 minutes of work, so are an easy way of earning extra income.
Bear in mind that you don’t have much control over the content and sometimes they can be overly salesy.
Disclosure
Sponsored posts must be disclosed. This lets the reader know that you were compensated for the article. A disclosure can be something like this placed at the top of your blog post:
This is a sponsored post on behalf of BRAND INSERTED HERE. All opinions are 100% my own.
Social Media Disclosure
When sharing the content on social media, you must also disclose the relationship using either of these hashtags: #ad or #sponsored.
Tag your sponsor as well on social media. You will find that Facebook requests that you tag your sponsor.
No Follow Links
Because you are receiving compensation for your work the links in the content must be marked as “nofollow” to adhere to Google’s guidelines and maintain the integrity of the search engine results. The “nofollow” tag is an HTML attribute that can be added to hyperlinks to instruct search engines not to follow or pass any link equity (PageRank) or “link juice” as it’s quite often referred to, to the linked page. This applies to affiliate links in your blog posts as well. You can read more about nofollow links here.
You may get asked to include links that are do-follow by not adding the no-follow tag. This is against Google’s TOS and it can result in a manual action. If you do get asked this, inform them that any links must be tagged as nofollow/sponsored and if they don’t want this then you cannot work with them.
How Much to Charge for Sponsored Posts
The rates that bloggers charge for sponsored posts can vary depending on several factors, including the blogger’s niche, audience size, engagement metrics, expertise, and the specific requirements of the sponsor. Here are some of the range of rates you might encounter:
Micro-Influencers and Small Blogs (Fewer than 10,000 monthly visitors):
Sponsored Blog Post: £50 – £200 per post
Mid-Level Bloggers (10,000 – 50,000 monthly visitors):
Sponsored Blog Post: £200 – £500 per post
Established Bloggers (50,000 – 100,000+ monthly visitors):
Sponsored Blog Post: £500 – £1,500+ per post
Top-Tier Bloggers and Influencers (100,000+ monthly visitors, significant social media following):
Sponsored Blog Post: £1,500 – £5,000+ per post
Sponsored Posts Networks to Join
Sponsored post networks are platforms that connect brands and advertisers with bloggers and influencers for the purpose of creating and publishing sponsored content. Below are some networks you might like to try:
Get Blogged – Blogger outreach platform.
Intellifluence – Influencer marketing platform that enables brands and influencers to connect and collaborate.
Awin – Awin is an affiliate network that also has an opportunity marketplace where you can offer sponsored posts.
Valued Voice – A platform where you earn money to place sponsored content on your blogs and social channels for brands and advertisers.
