Loading...
Answers
MenuWhat are some of the common methods used to get bloggers to write about website services?
Should I offer a commission? a free service plan on my site? discount coupons for their readers? etc...
Answers
Paying bloggers for direct advertisements is a bit of a grey area. It's grey because loads of brands are doing it, but it's such a difficult thing for advertising regulators to monitor.
Check out this guide so you're aware of the guidelines and risks: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/bus41-dot-com-disclosures-information-about-online-advertising.pdf
You should also be aware of the SEO risks to your business. In short, if you get caught paying bloggers to write about your company and those articles contain links to your site, you're at risk of receiving a manual penalty from Google. See this for more: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
Risks aside, those tactics you noted are fine, and can work great. Depending on your product or service, You might want to consider signing up for a variety of the affiliate networks out there such as ClickBank or Affiliate Window.
Lastly, the best way to get them writing about you is to make them a part of your growth. Find relevant bloggers in your niche and recruit them as your product testers and focus group. If they feel a part of it, and your product or service genuinely enhancing their lives (or the lives of their readers), why wouldn't they write about you?
In terms of the common methods offering incentives such as sponsorship, discount codes and product incentives are common but you need to ensure disclaimer are made in the right way and any links pointing back to your site contain a rel='nofollow' tag in the link code.
For search engine purposes you need to make sure any links coming to the site are stated appropriately with nofollow tags. Google recently provided further guidance on this area shown at https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/03/best-practices-for-bloggers-reviewing.html
Also you may want to see if the blog has a suitable disclaimer policy to handle sponsored posts and links. For example http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/site/moneysavingexpert-finance is a very good example of how affiliated links are ethically handled as they state in the section of this page at "We want you to know when links are affiliated..."
Having specific two way guest blogging partnerships may help where you promote other bloggers and then they promote your services.
There are a number of blogger community sites, blog directories and pay for review sites you can use but make sure you have a process in place that will allow you to gain reviews on other websites ethically.
In terms of finding relevant bloggers to write about your services this can be done in a number of ways:
Social influencer research and direct outreach for which some useful tools are:
Buzzstream Discovery - https://idb.buzzstream.com - Social Influencer Discovery
Buzzsumo - https://app.buzzsumo.com/ - Content popularity and social influencer discovery
BuzzBundle - http://www.buzzbundle.com/ - Social Monitoring, Content Alerts and Influenecer Discovery
http://klear.com/free-tools - Find Influencers and analyze any social account across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
https://www.hashatit.com/ - Find Twitter and Instagram influencers via Hashtag searches
http://followerwonk.com/ - Find and connect with new influencers in your niche
http://www.notey.com/ - Find specific content authors by country and theme
http://content.onalytica.com/ - Find influencers that fit your content
https://www.voilanorbert.com/ - Find an influencers email address
This method will require the most effort to engage in the social community but is likely to provide the best quality results
Blogger Marketplaces:
www.sponsoredreviews.com
https://izea.com/
http://www.contentfacilitator.com/
https://blogness.net/
Note: for all these you need to be very selective here to find the right blogs that will adhere to required standards
Use tools such as www.similarweb.com and Impactana content marketing Toolbar to estimate the readership and social popularity of any specific blog or post on a particular blog as this will help to use the right bloggers that will promote your services to the largest audience.
Blogger directories:
https://www.blogcatalog.com/
http://www.blogflux.com/
http://www.blogarama.com/
http://www.blogdigger.com/index.html
If you are based in the US or the UK you are more likely to find more suitable blog partners through these but if you are in another country you may want to do a more local search for country specific blog directories.
Blogger and Content communities:
It may be worth participating in a number of blogging communities to help find new prospects such as http://triberr.com/.
Another option may be to joing specific blogger and content groups on sites such as LinkedIn and Google +
It may even be worth checking out whether there are any local blogger meet up groups on meetup.com.
As a professional blogger myself, I get numerous requests every month to promote different services on my blog, so I can comment from my experience on what has proven effective enough to get my attention and support.
I'm going to assume you're aware of any legal issues here, and not comment on that. Just blogger incentives.
1. Find bloggers who want your product
Don't try to get just any blogger to promote your product or service. Instead, get crystal clear on your target audience and find bloggers who fit that profile.
When you reach out, acknowledge aspects of their platform that relate to your product or service―show them you've done your research (this isn't just a cold call/email).
2. Offer a preview or test
Most bloggers are very cautious about sharing products or services with their audience that they don't have experience with, for good reason!
When you start by offering a free account (even if for a limited time) or a massive discount so that a blogger can explore your service themselves, you're more likely to get a fan―not just an advertising outlet.
3. Offer a compelling incentive to promote
Don't worry about paying per click, instead focus on commissions from converted accounts―that way you're forming a partnership with the blogger in question.
The most effective incentives are purely monetary, and typically represent at least a 30% commission or $25 flat fee (depending on your service).
If you have a recurring service, you can even offer a lower commission if the payment actually recurs every month as customers stick around―that kind of offer is rare, and bloggers love it because it means recurring revenue for them.
4. Offer a discount specific for readers of the target blog
Bloggers love to come across looking like a hero. When I tell people to sign up for a hosting account with A Small Orange using promo code "MEESE" for a discount, they love it! And I do too.
As well, when blog readers see a discount or bonus offer attached to a promotion they're more likely to be excited about the promotion rather than see it as an ad.
In short... make it a win-win. I could go on, but I hope that inspires some ideas.
Of course, if you want to dive deeper into this topic, you're welcome to schedule a clarity call 😉
Related Questions
-
Who do you first reach out to when you're starting a blog with no initial readership?
Are you already submitting your content to social bookmarking sites like Reddit and StumbleUpon? Those sites are great for gaining early traction. As soon as possible, start making a serious effort to convert visitors to subscribers so that you can rely less on social bookmarking sites. Make a list of the 20 most influential writers in the space and reach out to them. At the very least, they might share one of your posts. They might even agree to trading guest posts. Write posts that maximize outreach potential. The more people you can tell about your content authentically (e.g. "I mentioned you in my latest post."), the more pageviews you'll see.SM
-
Where is the best place to find high quality writers to write premium content for a blog?
The highest quality and cost is https://contently.com/ - $200+ per post. Alternatively, I've uses http://jobs.problogger.net/ job board to post an opportunity, and then create a simple "test" for the writers. If they read the instructions and the content is great, try em' out .. if not, then pass. It takes time but you can find great people who will blog for $30-50 per post. Another way - not fast but high quality - is to approach existing blogs in your vertical with smaller audiences ... ask them to guest post or ghostwrite for you .. they already know the subject matter and blogging + if they have an audience you can incentivize them to promote the content via their social channel (by paying social share bonuses). Hope that helps.DM
-
As a blog advertising agency, brands pay our bloggers per post. PR agencies want 'real' conversations, how to pitch w/o eroding blogger's earnings?
I say to pitch the idea or 'outline' first. Have someone (on the payroll) responsible for sourcing opportunities, then ask your bloggers to pitch ideas. (For consistency's sake - consider bringing them together at a daily or weekly meeting?) From there, pitch the ideas to the brands or agencies and paid the bloggers per post to flush out their ideas. Pay-per-post is only successful / economical when the strategy is already developed.HA
-
What is the best way to write blog articles to maximise SEO benefit? I know the needs of my audience, will address them but also like SEO traffic.
Great question, To get traffic from SEO it must be done diligently. And the best way to do that is from a well structured article. The key things to remember that will help your pages rank well: Keyword Headings Put your most important keywords here. They must be coherent, simple yet descriptive. If your blog allows you to insert H1 headings into your article, do so. Don't cram too much info into keywords though, Search engines are smart and recognize when someone is spamming. Maybe do a bit of research using 'Google Keyword Tool' In Google Adwords and see if your keywords are popular search terms. Links and Back links Include links to relevant info when you can, the more credible sources your website links to, the better appeal it has to search engines. Also include back links. Back links are links to a location somewhere that also features a link going directly back to your site, these also give your article good standing. Duplicate Content Try not to say anything twice, and if you do use different terminology. But the main focus here is to always write fresh content. If the content of your article has been written word for word somewhere else first how can yours possibly be more credible? Also write often, the more frequent you post articles, the more frequently your site will be "crawled" by bots. If you do this well your listing can only rise. Be Unique and have the Best Info This entails just doing what you do and doing it well. It might be difficult to compete with other websites if the topic your discussing is already covered in great detail. The best position to be in is one of having information that everyone wants but cannot find anywhere else. A good tip for this is finding a specific niche that suits you well to draw in traffic to your general topic. Hope this helps you get started. For an in depth look at SEO rankings, take a look at the 'Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors' http://searchengineland.com/seotableCR
-
How to increase and maintain the growth of my twitter account?
I love what Lee said about being yourself but staying on message. And Ali was right: choose your goals then plan backward from them. Twitter is a tree: the more your water, fertilize, and prune it, the stronger it will be. Here are a few quick tips: · Actively prune inactive and spam accounts to keep the number of people you follow less than the number who follow you. · Talk to thought leaders, especially people who have more followers than you. Engaging them in conversation will put you on the radar of all their followers. · Give public "high fives." Compliment other people's work, writing, products, and thoughts, and 95% of them will like you. · Use TweetDeck to create custom streams based on the niches you're target, and Buffer App to schedule the delivery of new content. I have to use Buffer; otherwise, I'll sometimes forget to post my stuff! · Be yourself. I can't stress that one enough. · Keep in mind that bigger isn't necessarily better. Again, what is your goal? If you're trying to network in your industry, than a smaller following might be appropriate. If you're selling info products, then you'll need lots of people entering your sales funnel. · Have fun. I believe that people prefer to follow winsome people. · Stay consistent. Your following will grow steadily as long as you're posting steadily AND engaging people in conversation. · Be really generous. I believe that people prefer to follow generous people. · Go read one hundred blog posts about how to grow your Twitter following. By the time you're finished, you'll be the expert. Come back and teach all of us "experts" something, okay? AustinAC
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.