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I replied to a sponsored content email

kevq.uk

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Re: I replied to a sponsored content email

#11

Post by skilled »

As someone who has experience with this kind of thing, I'd advise caution. Last couple of years, some of these companies who pay for sponsored posts will use your post to further try and improve their "SEO" rank.

E.g. Kev publishes that post. Paul goes ahead and purchases blackhat links to the published article (all with the same keyword in most cases) in hopes of 1) signaling that the article is very relevant 2) hoping that Kev's article will build up "seo juice" and boost rankings to his eCig site or whatever.

I've tried to report this crap to Google multiple times, but those sites still sit on page 1 results even after months have gone by. It's such a crappy practice and hurts people who genuinely try and hustle their search marketing by producing good content.

Re: I replied to a sponsored content email

#12

Post by Noumenon72 »

sh4rks wrote: post #2

> If you scroll back up and look at the agreement Paul and I made in January, there was no mention of me not being able to label the content as “sponsored”. But they did mention it..

Perhaps Kev also didn't read the part of the email saying "Please send a sample of the post you recently published". That could explain why there was a two-month delay, since Paul would have been waiting for him to reply instead.

Re: I replied to a sponsored content email

#13

Post by RubyRidgeRandy »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #3

I own a content business. We publish "sponsored" posts on other sites. They contain original photos, unique information written by an expert, are always 100% relevant to the site's audience, and are always marked as guest posts. So sponsored/guest posts aren't always bad ;) We find sites that are looking for good content for their audience and are not looking to get paid (but will pay a small editorial fee if asked).…

Yeah this kinda came off as asshole-ish. Sponsored content is supposed to be mutually beneficial. The first part of the article makes it seem like link-building is some king of taboo SEO tactic instead of regular tool everyone uses...

Re: I replied to a sponsored content email

#14

Post by sdoering »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #3

I own a content business. We publish "sponsored" posts on other sites. They contain original photos, unique information written by an expert, are always 100% relevant to the site's audience, and are always marked as guest posts. So sponsored/guest posts aren't always bad ;) We find sites that are looking for good content for their audience and are not looking to get paid (but will pay a small editorial fee if asked).…

Personally I find your argument disingenuous at best.

> We find sites [...] that are not looking to get paid [...].

So basically what you are saying is that you are looking for free real estate for hidden advertising.

You get paid by your clients while the sites' audiences are the real product.

> [...] are always 100% relevant to the site's audience [...]

I worked in publishing. I worked with many content farms as well in my time. If I had gotten a dime for every piece of content written by an "expert" (but in reality some poor student in most, a general editor in best cases) I would probably have a nice vacation awaiting me.

"information written by an expert" is a nice claim as long as no one: - needs to define what an expert is - doesn't need the expert to be an expert in the relevant field

Additionally Google (and others) value recency and pushes good content down because it is "old".

As long as there is a valid business being made with the SEOfication of the long tail by pseudo expert advertising disguised as content with the goal of making readers believe it was genuinely written without conversion goals in mind by a neutral party there is very little chance of this situation improving.

Re: I replied to a sponsored content email

#15

Post by dwighttk »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #12
sh4rks wrote: post #2

> If you scroll back up and look at the agreement Paul and I made in January, there was no mention of me not being able to label the content as “sponsored”. But they did mention it..

Perhaps Kev also didn't read the part of the email saying "Please send a sample of the post you recently published". That could explain why there was a two-month delay, since Paul would have been waiting for him to reply instead.

I think Kev saw the money line and stopped reading… those were both after money was mentioned.

Re: I replied to a sponsored content email

#16

Post by weird-eye-issue »

sdoering wrote: post #14
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #3

I own a content business. We publish "sponsored" posts on other sites. They contain original photos, unique information written by an expert, are always 100% relevant to the site's audience, and are always marked as guest posts. So sponsored/guest posts aren't always bad ;) We find sites that are looking for good content for their audience and are not looking to get paid (but will pay a small editorial fee if asked).…

Personally I find your argument disingenuous at best. > We find sites [...] that are not looking to get paid [...]. So basically what you are saying is that you are looking for free real estate for hidden advertising. You get paid by your clients while the sites' audiences are the real product. > [...] are always 100% relevant to the site's audience [...] I worked in publishing. I worked with many content farms as we…

First off, I wasn't making an argument, just stating my perspective.

We don't have clients, so you completely don't understand my business.

I stopped reading after the first few sentences since it's clear your experience is working for shitty SEO agencies and you refuse to believe there are legitimate publishers like my company that occasionally do guest posts when it makes sense

Re: I replied to a sponsored content email

#19

Post by kabes »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #16
sdoering wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I find your argument disingenuous at best. > We find sites [...] that are not looking to get paid [...]. So basically what you are saying is that you are looking for free real estate for hidden advertising. You get paid by your clients while the sites' audiences are the real product. > [...] are always 100% relevant to the site's audience [...] I worked in publishing. I worked with many content farms as we…

First off, I wasn't making an argument, just stating my perspective. We don't have clients, so you completely don't understand my business. I stopped reading after the first few sentences since it's clear your experience is working for shitty SEO agencies and you refuse to believe there are legitimate publishers like my company that occasionally do guest posts when it makes sense

If you don't have clients, then who is paying you?

Re: I replied to a sponsored content email

#20

Post by weird-eye-issue »

kabes wrote: post #19
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, I wasn't making an argument, just stating my perspective. We don't have clients, so you completely don't understand my business. I stopped reading after the first few sentences since it's clear your experience is working for shitty SEO agencies and you refuse to believe there are legitimate publishers like my company that occasionally do guest posts when it makes sense

If you don't have clients, then who is paying you?

Our affiliate partners and advertising networks because we publish our own content on our own sites. We don't get directly paid for posting on other sites
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