General Discussions

**usearchme** · 08-19-2007, 02:37 PM

Hi guys

Wasnt sure where to post this, so i hope its ok here, I have had a few emails now from people asking me,

I would like to offer you a monthly payment for posting our clients' text ad on your website.

I would be interested to know if people think this is worth while, or is it just another con that i have not fell for yet lol.

Woc

**ADAM Web Design** · 08-19-2007, 03:51 PM

I look at it this way...if they're looking to buy text ads on your blog, send them to Google Adwords. You can buy site-specific ads there, I think.

If they want inline text ads, it means they're screwing around and trying to get a cheap SEO pop. Usually, this implies that their sites aren't good enough on their own. To those people, I say...screw them.

I did briefly look at the paid review thing, but then I found that 90% of them want positive reviews only, and I couldn't come up with 5 positive words, never mind 50.

**vangogh** · 08-19-2007, 05:05 PM

Woc I don't think it's a con. People do want to advertise on sites they think will help drive traffic to their clients.

Whether you should do it or not is up to you and your goals. There's nothing wrong with advertising. It's a legitimate business model and if your blog is popular enough you might be able to make a living solely from selling advertising on your site.

However do spend the time to really think if this is what you want to do. You might make money selling links, but you might potentially turn some people away if they discover you're selling links. They might begin to wonder how many other things you are selling and question your motives when you link out.

You should also thoroughly check the sites of the people wanting to buy links. Are they the kind of sites you'd want to send your visitors to. Those links and the sites will reflect on you.

If you do turn people away you could potential lose money from any products or services you sell. Also there are many who think you're better first building an audience and only then monetize through advertising (including things like AdSense). A non-monetized site can usually grower faster and easier so you might first build subscribers and advertise after you have significant numbers of people reading your blog.

Another consideration is Google who has made it clear they don't want paid links to count towards how they rank pages and sites. Google wants all sold links to have the ref="nofollow" attribute applied and would probably prefer you making it clear the links are to sponsored sites. Adding those things might mean the buyer is no longer interested in the link as they possibly are wanting some seo value out of it.

You can certainly add paid links in a way that it's doubtful Google could ever figure out money was involved, but if they do find out they could stop the ability of your entire site from passing benefit in any link which would include both external and internal links.

Again though the decision is up to you and there isn't anything wrong with it. Just be aware of the pros and cons before you make your decision.

**usearchme** · 08-19-2007, 05:09 PM

Hi there

Thanks for the advice guys

Woc