How to get paid to write… on your own blog!
Writing sponsored articles have become one of the best ways to earn money from your blog. There are many brands interested in paying you to help them get known! However, when written incorrectly, sponsored posts are a flop: readers reject them, advertisers fail to achieve their goals… and you even risk getting penalized by Google! Do you want to know how to monetize your blog with sponsored articles that add value and do not look like ads?
Who has a blog, has a treasure
If you have a blog that is quite old, in which you publish content regularly and that is aimed at a more or less specialized audience… You are in luck! Brands all over the world are looking forward to helping them get noticed by your readers with a sponsored article. And of course, they will pay you for it, probably even better than the clients who hire you to write articles on their blogs.
And it is that branded content, that is, content linked to brands, is a booming marketing trend for a simple reason: advertisers have realized that it is more effective to invest in quality content than in advertisements. Consumers love being able to enjoy an interesting article, video, or infographic; but they don’t want to be attacked by annoying ads while browsing the Internet or watching their favorite series.
However, if a blogger they follow tells them about a certain brand, product, or service and invites them to learn about it because it can be useful to them, users are very willing to click and find out more about it. This is what we at getfluence.com call “influencer marketing”.
Yes, believe it or not, you too can be an influencer in your sector or market niche. On our platform, we have many brands interested in gaining more visibility by becoming known on influential sites by posting sponsored articles. But that does not mean blatant advertising, promising things that are not, or filling the article with links to try to take users to the advertiser’s website…
Tips for writing sponsored articles
A sponsored post is that a brand pays you to talk about the company, a product, or a service on your blog so that the users who follow you can get to know it. There are many ways to write a quality sponsored article that fulfills its promotional function and at the same time is interesting and useful for your readers.
I am not going to expand on the basic tips for writing a good blog article, because I see that in this community you have already discussed the subject extensively. So here are some best practices that we recommend for publishers who sell their sponsored articles on our platform. We hope they serve you!
Do not agree to write any sponsored article.
It is advisable to stick to issues that are related to the theme of your blog. That doesn’t mean you can’t find an original approach to embedding the sponsored post on your site. For example, if you have a tourism blog and an SEO company offers you a sponsored article, you can focus it on “SEO Tips for Tourism Businesses”.
Agree on conditions that are in your comfort zone.
Sometimes clients who hire sponsored articles have unrealistic requirements, such as not including any other type of link, and not mentioning competitors… If you do not feel comfortable with these requirements, or you consider that you will not be able to meet them, before accepting the assignment Negotiate the terms and try to strike a balance that is satisfactory to both of you.
Take care of the article like any other on your blog.
Accepting a sponsored article does not mean selling space on your blog to post anything. That would cause the article to “squeak” on your site and not fulfill its purpose. If the client asks you to write the content, do it with the same professionalism and dedication with which you usually write the rest of the posts on your blog. And if he proposes to publish an already written article, review it to make sure that it is of sufficient quality or adapt it to your blog if necessary.
Do not turn the article into an advertisement.
Nobody wants to read a 500-word article about how amazing a brand, product, or service is. That’s not influencer marketing, that’s an advertorial! It’s much more interesting and useful if you can give your personal opinion (even if it’s not 100% positive), offer a tutorial on how to use it, or explain how you think it might be useful to your blog readers.
Work especially on the title.
The title is the most important element of any article, also in the case of a sponsored post, since it will make the difference between your readers clicking on it and reading it… Or passing by! Even if it is a sponsored article, think of a title that is attractive and makes the reader want to read it. It is also important to write an attractive lead or introduction to the text.
Avoid abusing keywords and links.
Just because a business pays you to appear on your blog doesn’t mean you should mention it every three lines with a link to their site. Also, that could get you penalized by Google. Find a way to introduce the link in a natural way, that fits into the text. It is not recommended to include more than two links to the same website in a sponsored article.
Distribute the links throughout the text.
Similarly, the link doesn’t always have to appear on the first or last line of your text to make sure the reader sees it. It is more advisable to place it towards the middle of the text or at the end of the first part, to give the reader time to become interested in the topic and feel like clicking on it.
Use images and videos.
Graphic content makes your article more engaging and enjoyable to read. In photo banks, you can find many royalty-free images to illustrate your sponsored article, and on YouTube, there are millions of videos on all topics that you can integrate into your post. You can also ask the brand if they have any material that can be useful to you, such as infographics, gifs, graphics, etc.
Give your style to the article.
Being an influencer does not mean becoming a “blog-ad”, but using your ability to reach others to earn some income that helps you maintain and continue to improve your site. Therefore, when you have to prepare a sponsored article, try to maintain your own style that your readers like and adapt to the requirements agreed with the advertiser, but without giving up being yourself.
How about these tips for writing sponsored articles?
Writing sponsored articles is not as complicated as it seems, nor does it have to become a sacrifice to maintain your blog. On the contrary, if you focus it properly, you will be getting other companies to pay you for writing content that adds value to your blog. Isn’t that the dream of any blogger?
And if you’re just starting, don’t know how to find the right advertisers for your site, or want to know more about influencer marketing and how to benefit from this trend on your blog, don’t hesitate to visit getfluence.com and we’ll help you.
Have you been asked to write a sponsored article? How was it? Explain to us!
