Cultured Views

It seems the blog marketing industry has caught on like wildfire in the past couple of years, even I put a foot on the ladder last year and have managed to earn some some cash writing here for advertisers.

The companies that you have to sign up with in order to participate differ widely in their practices but I think it would be safe to say that many of us bloggers have been burned at some stage – even ripped off at times. These companies generally use the Google page rank in order to mete out opportunities to bloggers, and as we all know from recent times, Google has responded in kind by slashing many bloggers PR to zero. I know of some people whose sites were at 6/7 and were taken down to zero simply because of the selling links business.

But what is wrong with this?…selling is the way of business!

Bloggers unfortunately have become the one’s stuck in the middle – the advertisers basically want bloggers with good PR to write their ad’s, the companies recognise this too – yet they fail to acknowledge Google’s stance and the effect it has had on bloggers. With increasing numbers of people sitting with a site at zero what options do we have?

One company in particular states in their terms of service that bloggers must post their assignments devoid of no-follow tags, in accordance with the advertisers wishes. Well we all know what happened to those of us who did – big fat zero (thanks Google!) This same company is now contacting their bloggers and paying them to install no-follows in some of their submitted articles, on the wishes of the advertisers. Maybe the advertisers are now starting to get hit as well – obviously. It is interesting though that this particular company has seen the vast majority of it’s bloggers get hit by Google due it’s no-follows policy; I am wondering who is left there with any PR at all to do the assignments as most are at zero now.

Then there are those companies where you have to bid on an assignment – if your bid is successful you have up to a week to write and submit; but the advertiser can keep you waiting for up to two months before you know whether or not your bid was successful. Then again there are those who simply do not bother to do either – I have list of expired bids with one company that numbers just on 200! If I make the time to bid surely they can say yay or nay in a respectable timeframe.

What we bloggers need is a new blog marketing company that serves the bloggers and advertisers, not just the middle man.

Related posts:

1. Google’s at it again
2. A new way to get paid – Snap Bomb
3. Could your blog support you?
4. Other people’s blogs – Infektia.net
5. A Clear and Concise Home Improvement Blog