Friday, July 24, 2009

Why You Can't Get Paid For Blogging: The "Pay-Per-Post" System Explained

After disappointing results with the pay-per-click system, I started searching for a more surefire way to make a few cents blogging. That's when I came across PayPerPost, the site that claims to pay its army of bloggers to make posts on behalf of advertisers.
Now, this might sound like the first paragraph to one of my posts that would recommend a site, software or item to you. However, it's quite the contrary. It's just a euphemistic introduction to a post that will delve into the flawed paid-to-blog system.
Pay-Per-Post claims to have fooled 265,000 innocent bloggers into joining their forces. Let's hope that you don't become one of the disappointed people crawling out of their ranks. On the other hand, I am not going to apply the label of "total scam" on this site because Izea, the parent company seems like a bunch of good people have apparently made ads for a few big companies. Still, I will apply the label of "unsatisfying waste of time" and this is why.
To begin with, considering blogging your job takes the joy out of it; and as I've said before you can't create a successful blog without liking it. If you blog for pay, you make it a duty and therefore enforce pressure on yourself to keep doing it. Plus, the topics you'll start writing on will become forced and who likes raving about a brand of chocolate cake that tastes like cement?
And trust me, readers can tell when you're being forced to make a post; first of all, because of the fact that you have to announce that it is a sponsored post and second because you'll lose all your personality in any paid-for post. You may be thinking, "Well, they'll still like to read my blog." But the truth is, that nobody likes to read something that is a blatant attempt to sell something, which the writer is getting cash out of no matter how useful or charming. Thus, you might be seeing your readership tumbling rapidly after you start writing fake posts.
Also, there are strict guidelines that regulate your sponsored posts once you join and if you don't follow, you don't get paid. These include mandatory photos, average tacks, Google ranks, Technorati ranks, Alexa ranks, regions, blog hosts and more.
But even when you do loyally abide by these rules, you'll probably never get paid more than a few dimes for each post, that is if you get paid at all.
And if you were to take a look at PayPerPost's website, you'll quickly realize that it follows virtually all the rule of a spam site. The cheesy graphics, the made-up testimonials, the brilliant colours, the fake photos of users etc. etc. etc.
But not only does this apply to PayPerPost, this applies to pretty much all paid-to-blog sites. And for that matter, it applies to pretty much all work-at-home sites.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for your post! We couldn't agree more that blogs created solely for the purpose of getting paid are a waste of everyone's time and we try our best to keep them out of the system.

Clearly our services aren't for everyone, but I did want to clarify that we are not a scam in any way.

People do get paid. In fact, the average payout in PPP is $5.00 per post. The minimum payout is $1.00, but since most bloggers do not accept payments this low, advertisers have learned to offer more.

Also, the photos on the site are actually of past and present IZEA staff and I'm pretty sure we're real. :)

If you ever have any questions or want accurate information about any of our sites and services, please don't hesitate to contact us.

All the Best,
Carri Bright
Communications Lead
IZEA