Cosmetic Dentistry Beverly Hillss last blog post..Cosmetic Dentistry Beverly Hills

thanks for trying to visit my blog. Unfortunately, I was just moving from blogger to a self hosted WP install. The site is up again, but I need to tweak it a bit, as I am not used to WP at all. One thing I want to do it to have the nofollow tag removed, as on your site.
On the traffic issue: yes, I know, I am working on it and I am starting to see some goos results. I have an average of 2 visitors per day, which I think is not too bad at all. I have a few strategies planned to improve that (like commenting on nice and interesting blogs like yours). I hope to double my score in 2 month from now!

I still think the ad posts could be so much more fun to write and read with every one coming up with more creative material…

thanks for stopping by and voicing your opinion Steven, hope to see you around here more often… tc and kit

I almost fell into the same trap you did – in my draft for the “I signed up for ppp” post, I linked to a couple of RT’s sponsored posts to show just how good sponsored posts can be. I figured that it would add value to the post for the advertiser (PPP). But the opportunity was fully reserved for a week and when it came up again, I had second thoughts and removed all links except for the one they asked for. I guess that’s safer.

Anyway, I think you should continue with sponsored posts. Some people will be worried by it, but then some will be worried by any sort of ads! If your normal content’s good enough, people will keep coming back even if there are some sponsored posts.

I plan to follow a similar set of guidelines to RT’s, making sure there are at least 4 non-sponsored posts between sponsored posts, only writing about topics that I feel comfortable writing about, only doing them if I’m allowed to disclose they are sponsored, etc. I think this will work well.

RT, I’m 9 years, 357 days younger than you (leaving leap years out of it)!

Pearl referred to you as a PRO, not me ;-)

In terms of years I’m close on behind ya – yes sir, no spring chicken any longer …….but from one ole fella to another, I do think you integrate your sponsored stuff really well, so here’s wishing you many, many more years of experience!

Theres no substitute for experience…. :) hope you have a great birthday :) you’ve got to tell us the date then…..

wait, don’t you have to wait for the approval before writing the reviews though? oh yeah, I should be able to write reviews of just about everything on the other blog (your ‘everything’ has a devilish sound to it :D) – would you be kind enough to mail me the urls pls? :)

I hope you get paid for all too… yep, pls keep us posted….

@Pearl: The “art” of sponsored posts is simply doing exactly what they ask for and nothing more. You can make the posts longer but not shorter, but the added text has to be relevant in some way. No extra video, links or anything like that unless they point to the sponsors site.

I wouldn’t worry too much about specific readers who are turned off by sponsored posts/paid reviews. For every ONE of them there are at least TWO who aren’t bothered by them in the least.

I wrote 11 reviews last month and I got only two approved so far. I’m curious if I’m going to get paid for all of them. I’ll keep you posted.

The photos on my blog are created with a camera, which costs money, not clicks. The same for lenses, memory cards, flash units and assorted accessories. The blog itself is on a server, that costs money.

It’s all the way you write the reviews. RT is a master. I’ve had no complaints from my readers, and some of the “sponsored” posts receive more comments than other articles.

While you may have a PR 4, Google will quickly smack you down for selling links. My Alexa and Technorati rating were the highest of my circle of blog friends. When the new rankings were released last week they were “granted” a 4 or 5, I was given a 2.

Ken: having a separate blog is a smart idea. This has been a learning experience

For writing about such things, I set up a special blog about personal finance issues (not yet accepted by PPP, but I’ve got some assignments from SponsoredReviews.com).

No one complained really, the emails were more like friendly advice and I was glad they were vocal enough to alert me, ‘coz I’d have hated to lose any of my subscribers…

you are absolutely right, adsense or any of these other ads are mere distractors and haven’t made me any money so far… signing bonuses for some affiliates is better than what I have made with these! So, yes, they will all be gone as soon as I change themes…

thats a great point to not let the reviews sit there by themselves and have a rather good post immediately above it… I’d definitely make that a must if I continue with them…

hey, like I said, thank you so much for the support and sharing your views… take care and stay in touch…

thanks for stopping by to comment….. tc and kit

thanks for commenting Maurice… tc and kit

PS: ‘they’ meaning the advertisers rejected the post and when some readers showed concern, I had second thoughts!

Oh about comments, I live to see them … I love each and every comment on the blog, honestly! Oh you are being modest now, you do get them and get a lot too….. i still remember your top 5 project about fingers :D

I’m sorry to admit I’m not as much of a regular reader of yours as I should be. I don’t know why. I enjoy your writing.

This post has special significance to me because I’m dealing with the same decisions you are about monetizing my blog.

I see you have a fair number of ads in your sidebar and a few in your main column but I would bet they don’t produce much, probably not much more than one paid post. I know mine didn’t. In fact I had one conversion on a Google referral that paid more than my entire AdSense total to that point. It paid $8. That’s when I decided to dump the ads.

With my new PR4 I decided to start monetizing again through a few paid posts and informed my readers of my decision. I haven’t received a single complaint.

It bothers me that some of your readers feel it’s OK to demand that you not be compensated for your time. It requires absolutely no effort at all to NOT read a post. If you see it is a paid post, simply skip it.

Click, scroll, Ta Da!

Paid Post Gone!

What’s the problem?

One thing I do is not let the paid posts enterupt my regular posting. In fact, I make a point to post a regular post imediately behind a paid post so the paid post doesn’t spend any time at the top and the readers have something to read.

I don’t expect my readers to read my paid reviews. Those advertisers are buying my PR4 links not the views.

This is your blog, Pearl and I would never tell you how to run it. Period.

I just wanted to put in my 2 cents and offer my support.

On OpTempo I already do free reviews so the transition to paid would be easy.

Some people seem to get it far more right than others. RT over at Untwisted Vortex does a good job and many could learn by his example. I often see reviews that people have written that are so lame and strained it does turn me off as a reader. One springs to mind where a lady was trying to say that she had finally narrowed down her vacation choice to some exclusive five star resort, on a blog where she constantly whined about her financial woes, her out of control debt, her unemployed spouse……it was so obviously untrue, well, you get my drift. That kind of thing is what turns people off and gives the critics and blog snobs all the ammunition they need to bash PPP and all the others.

I see nothing wrong in writing sponsored posts, but writing awful sponsored posts will probably bring you your just rewards. If I can find relevant subject matter and an advertiser who accepts a warts an’ all opinion on a product/service that I can write an informative post on, then I’d go right ahead. (Unless you are well established the reward is often hardly worth it though).

but of course, I am never against making money off of blogs, reviews wont somehow fit in here, as i see it! the thing is, i think readers don’t have to say they are upset, they’ll just go somewhere else…. 99% of the time I’d do the same… I was lucky some of them sort of alerted me before simply moving on!

In each of the posts, I did make it very clear that they were sponsored posts

thanks for commenting Nick…. hope to see you around here more often

However, I can understand your concerns: you have a lot of comments on your posts, you have focused blogs, while mine is full of articles taken from article databases (not anymore, but I did that last year on a quite large scale). I barely get any comments anyway, so I can’t say I miss them more on paid posts.

I have looked at the issue of writing paid reviews on my blog. However I am not familiar enough with the process as yet. I would write paid reviews if I could find subjects that fit my Niche. I admit that earning some money here and there to help support my blogging habit would be a good thing.

I think maybe a sort of “intro” to a paid review would at least warn your readers who might me offended. And I would hope readers would understand your (my) need to earn a little extra cash here and there.

Nick