I Started five blogs this summer, to help the students of my course ‘make $1000 a month blogging wat writersonlinecourses.com’ learn the ropes and actually see that the claims in the course are true.
Paid Blog Posts and Page Rank
This blog now has a PR2. That is good enough to get started, but it does bring up some good questions. Will blogging for pay lower the site’s PR. The simple answer is no.
One reason it does not lower the page rank is because paid blog links almost always lead to a page with a higher PR than the blog post. So, in fact, the opportunity to increase the PR of the blog is real.
Communati mentioned that I helped increase the Page Rank of this site. In a real way, I did, by linking back and forth from this site to web pages and blogs with PR3 and PR4. This increased the value of the communati page.
Understanding Page Rank
Now, if the blogger were using heading titles, and were ‘breaking’ their posts every 150 words. If the blogger were building ‘keyword anchored’ links to a specific post, then yes. There may be an argument that the blog is being degraded by the paid ads. But, as there are few blogs in a site like communati that meet the criteria:
-No more than 10 keywords which are repeated through the entire blog
-Staying on topic
-Using proper coding and H1/H2/H3 titles
Then the effect of paid blog posts is minimal and on the ‘plus’ side of the scale, as apposed to the minus side.
Not everyone is intrested in writing for pay. This is totally acceptable. For others, the concept is a natural progression from hobby writer to professional blogger status. Will it offend your readers? I will talk more on this later, but the answer is basically - no, not if done right.
Thanks I will look at all those points.
Comment by Sire — October 31, 2007 @ 12:39 am
Various people (and I tried it) back at WU started adding various website review and other paid/sponsored posts into their weekly blogging.
Here’s the question. Let’s suppose a blogger has developed a niche area, more or less, writing about the environment or books or parenting.
Then, suddenly, here’s a post about resort hotels in Paris or a financial services website.
Once this happens, why doesn’t it drive readers away? That is, if somebody has what amounts to a daily column about a subject that draws readers in, why wouldn’t they be disappointed to find what amounts to advertising there instead of the content they’re looking for?
When I look at the primary mainstream lit blogs such as Elegant Variation, Maud Newton, etc., I don’t see them inserting paid posts into the mix.
So, I guess I’m wondering why the paid stuff doesn’t turn readers away or make the site less professional in terms of its look and feel.
TF
Comment by Trick Falls — October 31, 2007 @ 8:07 am
Gracepub, you are a wealth of information and a giving co-blogger. Your helpfulness to Sire is just one example.
Comment by Jellen — October 31, 2007 @ 9:11 am