I am new to the DP Forum and I thought it might be helpful to others if I shared my experiences as I give PayPerPost a try for the first time. My plan is to share in considerable detail how this works out for me. I discovered the possibility of having paid blogger posts a few days ago (on this forum). I thought this would be a great way to promote my 8 month old PR4 website. I did my best to investigate the options. I looked at Blogitive, PayPerPost, Blogsvertise and ReviewMe. After reading what I could find on each company, I decided to give PayPerPost a try. Here are the positives and negatives for PayPerPost (as I see them). First the positives. 1) Positive comments about PayPerPost on this forum. 2) Very reasonably priced. 3) It is the biggest by far. 4) You can specify that you want a postive post. The negatives for PayPerPost: 1) You don't get to choose who blogs for you. This means you could get PR0 bloggers with no traffic. 2) PayPerPost now requires bloggers disclose they accept money for postings. I signed up without a problem. Funded my account and started to write my first opportunity (PPP's name for a blog request). Unfortunately, getting my opportunity into their system was a problem. I typed my request out on their form (big mistake). The form to request blog postings wasn't clear to me, so I clicked on the help link, another big mistake. The help link does not open a new window, so when I backed up all the information I had type was gone. Very aggravating. So I typed everything in again and submitted it. Because the form is unclear, their were problems with my request. I fixed the problems and again submitted the request... and nothing. The page times out. I back up and again the form has been reset. Very aggravating! I finally wised up and this time typed the entry in Notepad so I could save it (if you are wise, you will do the same). Fortunately, the third time was the charm. (Note: Instead of having one GIGANTIC post, I am going use several posts. I need a rest every once in a while.)
you can opt to decline paying a poster if you don't like their site. That happened to me and I won't ever public for them again.
Upon reflection, I believe you can state in the text of your proposal that you only want a certain type of blog. For example, you could request a woman's personal blog with a pagerank of 4 or more. I appreciate your tip and I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience. I can certainly understand being unhappy about writing a blog entry for someone and then not getting paid. Personally, I would really hesitate to exercise that option, unless I felt a blogger was really out of bounds.
Writing My Proposal When I wrote my proposal (PPP's term is opportunity), I wanted to be very specific about what I wanted. I opted to ask for a positive review. The other options are neutral or negative. Neutral means they can be postive or negative reviews. While I hoped everyone would be positive, why pay for a possibly negative review? Well, apparently some bloggers reject proposals that don't allow them the option to be negative. That may be the position of the most desirable bloggers, so it is something to consider. I decided to start off with a request for 10 posting. If felt that would be a large enough sample to gauge my results. The minimum amount you can pay for a blog is $5 plus an additional 25% for PayPerPost along with a $5 proposal processing fee. The bottomline? If you want just 1 blog posting, the minimum amount is $11.25 with the additional fees (the minimum for two is $17.50). I decided to offer $6.00 per posting. I hoped that would make my proposal rise a little above the crowd. (I found out later I could have offerred $6.05 and risen above the other $6.00 offers). I declined tracking because it does not allow for a direct link to my website (no link popularity benefit). I used a opportunity title that I thought would attract the type of blogger I was looking for. I think that was very helpful. The short description that I used was "Visit my website, find something you like and tell your readers about it!". I think this was helpful in attracting bloggers because it sounds easy. It also allows them to be positive about my web site, without them having to worry about compromising the trust of their readers. In my opportunity description, I stated that I wanted two links to my web site. I then clearly listed the linking text and the URL for both links. I didn't want to leave any room for confusion on this matter. I then gave three specific ideas on how they could write about my web site. 1) Visit my web site, find something they a like, quote three or four lines and encourage their visitors to read more at my web site. 2) Write about the areas of my website (part 1, part2, part 3, ...). Possibly name a specific page of the website that you found interesting. Encourage your readers to visit my website. 3) Talk about my topic in general. How does this subject relate to you? Suggest who might benefit from my website and encourage them to visit. My goals for my proposal were: 1) Attract the blogger I was looking for (one version of my proposal was very specific about this, but unfortunately it didn't make it into my final copy). 2) Be clear about what I wanted 3) Make the project read and be as easy as possible for the blogger. I think I did a pretty good job for a first time!
I submitted my proposal on Monday evening and it was approved at 1pm Pacific Time the next day. For the first few hours I was getting a new blog posting every 20 minutes. The results were mixed (as I had expected), but on the whole I was very pleased. When I was getting close to having all 10 blog entries, I decided to bump the number up to 20. I did this for three reasons: 1) I thought once all 10 postings were used up, the opportunity would be closed. 2) If that were true, I was concerned that I would have to pay another $5 for another proposal that was exactly the same as the first. 3) I also didn't want people from the first proposal blogging about my site yet again. By 11pm Pacific Time, all 20 blogs were posted. So, on average, I was getting two postings an hour. That tells me, inspite of the $6 payment, my proposal was pretty popular. I attributed that to my detailed proposal and the popularity of my website theme. As it turns out, it appears that you can bump up your post requests after your initial request has been filled. You live and you learn. In hindsight, I think I made a couple of errors. 1) I set the proposal to expire after seven days. I should have set it to six months or more. That would have allowed my to get additional posting on the same subject for a much long period of time. 2) I set the number of available postings too high. For the purposes of this first try, I think 10 postings did make sense. In the future I will ask for one or two posts and bump the number up every few days. In my next posting I will evaluate the quality of the blog postings I received.
Thank you RomanticGuy, I would like to know what are PR of those blogs (main pages) you got reviews. Also, please post number of visitors (if possible) you got after 7 days in overall from those blogs. Thank you for PayPerPost review
I am glad to see someone is interested in what I have been writing. I thought I was a voice crying in the wilderness. I am trying to give a detailed accounting, but that is taking up a lot of time. If there is not interest in the information, I don't have much incentive to spend the time... So far I haven't had a lot of traffic. I was hoping for a combination of traffic, other bloggers picking up on my site and inbound links. I was planning to post stats (PR, quality, etc.) on my blog postings later this afternoon, so stay tuned. Thanks for your interest.
As a blogger who sometimes picks up PPP opportunities tour experience as a seller is most interesting - I hope you continue to write a little about it because I really do not have much of an Idea about the request side of things. I think that all Bloggers should learn about the requests side so that they can write better posts or only pick up the appropriate requests. I see instaqnces of Bloggers grabbing everything that comes in - the $$ is the most important thing for them. Personally, I only pick up requests that fit my blog and pay a reasonable amount.
Thanks for the encouragement. I am gathering the statistics. It is just taking a while with 20 blog postings. Hopefully, you will feel it was worth the wait.
I have finally finished gathering the statistics on my first 20 blog postings with PayPerPost. I will try to provide general stats on all of my postings. I will start with the blogger's homepage PageRank. Here is the breakdown: PR0 - 9 bloggers PR1 - 1 blogger PR2 - none PR3 - 2 bloggers PR4 - 6 bloggers PR5 - 2 bloggers As you can see, half the bloggers had a PageRank of 1 or lower, but the other half had a PageRank of 3 or higher. I actually received a lot more PR3 and up bloggers than I was expecting. Based on my calculations, my links are roughly equivalent to links from 3 PR5 pages. Did I get a good overall PageRank for my money, no. I am still happy, yes. Having links from bloggers with a range of PRs is more natural. I think having a number of links with good link text is better than a few links with higher PR that have bad link text, such as "Click here". So how did my bloggers do with the link text? Here is the break down. 2 text links - 8 bloggers 3 text links - 8 bloggers 4 text links - 3 bloggers 5 text links - 1 blogger Eight gave me two links, which is what I asked for. So 60% gave me more links than I asked for. Am I happy with that? The number sounds great, but what I am interested in is a matching linking text. Unfortunately, no all the links had good matching text. So how many pages did they link to? Here is the breakdown: 1 page linked - 3 bloggers 2 pages linked - 10 bloggers 3 pages linked - 6 bloggers 4 pages linked - 1 blogger So three of the bloggers keep linking to the exact same page, disappointing. Ten did as I asked, linked to two different pages. Seven blogger linked to more pages on my website than I asked. Overall, I think these numbers look good to me. So I have all of these links, but how many had good link text. Here is the breakdown: 1 text matched links - 4 bloggers 2 text matched links - 7 bloggers 3 text matched links - 7 bloggers 4 text matched links - 1 blogger 5 text matched links - 1 blogger I am pretty disappointed with the 4 bloggers that only managed to match one link with the proper link text. Seven did as I asked and the other nine were great. Wow, this little project turned out to be way more work than I was expecting! I am going to call it a night. I will post more stats tomorrow. I hope everyone is finding all the detail helpful.
PayPerPost now requires that its bloggers disclose that some of the postings are sponsored. If they don't disclose, they can be banned. But, PayPerPost allows each blogger to decide how they do that. They can have one disclosure page or they can note each entry that is sponsored. I am sure most advertisers would prefer the disclosure page. I saw a range of ways that the bloggers choose to disclose. Here is a breakdown: Disclosure page - 8 bloggers Bottom of the posting,reduced font - 3 Top of the posting, reduced font - 2 Bottom of the posting, normal font - 2 Top of the posting, normal font - 1 In the posting itself - 2 Top of the posting, a bit in your face - 2 The list is roughly in order of my preference. I am not sure which of the last two is worst. A reduced font disclosure at the top or bottom I think is acceptable. The others going down the list go beyond what I think was necessary. How was the writing quality? Here is my evaluation of how well each writer got my message across. It is based on scale from 1 to 5 (5 being excellent): 5 - 8 bloggers 4 - 8 bloggers 3 - 2 bloggers 2 - 1 blogger 1 - 1 blogger Overall, I think they did pretty well. What got a writer a rating of 3 or less? Basically it was poor english grammar or straying off message. As it got later in the evening in the US, my proposal was picked up by a few writers overseas. I did not consider that posssibility when I submitted the proposal, but foreign bloggers with good english writing skills were certainly welcome. My website has substancial overseas traffic. How much did the blogger write? Do you expect me to count every word? Well, I did anyway. Here is the breakdown: High: 504 Low: 140 Average number of words: 227 Median (middle) number of words: 203 I asked for 100 words, on average I got about 200 words. In term of number of words, everyone exceeded expectations. Should I just have asked for 200 words in the first place? No, I don't think so. I think the 100 word request made the proposal more attract. PayPerPost allows you to rate the bloggers. The scale is 1 to 5 with 5 being the best. Here is how I rated the bloggers that posted for my site: 5 - 8 bloggers 4 - 4 bloggers 3 - 5 bloggers 2 - 0 blogger 1 - 3 bloggers Bloggers rated a 5 if I feel like they gave me more than I asked. A rating of 4 meant they met my expectations. A rating of 3 generally meant there were problems with the links or their writing fell short of expectations. A rating of 1 means I don't want them writing for me again. PayPerPost gives you the option to ban writers from writing for you again (I have read that it may not be fully functional just yet). I banned two, I am hoping my concerns with another get resolved which would make her a 4. Another topic that I probably should have covered with the PageRank and link stats is shared domains. Here is the breakdown: Had their own domain: 2 Used a shared domain: 18 Blogspot bloggers: 10 Unique domains: 11 I had a much higher number of blogspot bloggers than I had thought. On the bright side, several of them had a higher PageRank. That is it for the general statistics. I will write a bit about my best and worst bloggers a little later. I hope you are finding the detail of my posts helpful.
From the point of view of someone who blogs PPP opportunities, if what you want written is 100 words or less and your pay out is no less than $5, then you are likely to get a decent number of responses. Yes, the money isn't terrific, but it does add up. I don't grab every offer that comes along. If the instructions are clear and the site is appealing, I'll take that offer and do my best to right a compelling piece on behalf of the PPP client. I can imagine that you get a truly mixed bag of blogs and bloggers. I started with PPP back in October and have seen them working through internal issues adding disclosure policies and later requiring all blogs to mention that the post was paid for. Thanks for sharing about your experience from a client's point of view. I have often wondered what type of results people get by using PPP.
Thanks MattKNC! I appreciate your encouragement. I tried to make my opportunity a fun, easy and financially attractive option. I think things work out best when it is a win-win situation. I tried to do what I could to make that happen. One thing I would like to see from PPP is the ability to reward your best writers. I would have liked the opportunity to set aside $20 to distribute to the writers that did a great job for you. I think that it would be a good incentive to do a great job. And, by the way, I put my money where my mouth is. One writer did a beautiful 500 write up on my website. She was very positive, the links were done correctly and her blog was a PR5. I couldn't have been more pleased. I sent her a nice thank you e-mail along with $14 through PayPal. I got a great write up, she got a thank you note and some extra spending money, win-win.
Ahem. If you find someone good on PPP can you work with them directly? I guess what I am trying to say is that if I have written something for you in the past and you like what I wrote, I could do likewise for you in the future directly. I am beginning to wonder if I have!
This was my first try with PPP, so I would suspect you were not one of my writers. One of my gripes about PPP is that they post an easy to read Terms of Service statement on their website. When you sign-up they have this really long legal agreement. I was confronted by that very late at night and I had no interest in reading it all at that time. Since then I have looked all over the PPP site looking for a copy of the long legal agreement. I guess I will have to go through the motions of signing up again to see what I agreed to. Since I don't have a copy of it now, I don't know if you are allowed to work directly with someone who wrote for you through PPP. I know it is not in the TOS posted on their site, but I am not sure about the long legal agreement. To be clear, I am not in a position to pay $20 per post. The money I sent her raised my per post cost from $7.75 to $8.45.
My best blogger has a very nice site. The color scheme and the graphics are very appealing. I asked for 100 words, I got 500 beautifully written words. Her tone was very postive without giving the hard sell. The link text matched the landing page and the links were very prominent, without being overpowering. There was no disclosure statement around or in the posting. Her blog homepage is a PR5. While she does not have her own domain, the domain was unique to my sample of postings. This woman has a site that I love being associated with. The only disappoint is that she does not have a lot of traffic on her site. My worst blogger? Which one should I choose. Unfortunately, I had several disappointments. One blogger was clearly written by someone overseas. It may have been a word by word translation from another language. It was very poorly written. While I received 4 links from the site, only 2 had the correct link text. The homepage was a PR0. A blogger from overseas is fine, but the posting should be able to be easily read and understood. This one isn't even close. I have asked PPP not to accept this posting and I have banned this blogger from writing for me again. The next blogger had a problem that can be fixed. The posting looks fine on its unique page, but not on the blog homepage. On the homepage copy, the links to my site are not visible. I have asked that this be fixed before the posting is accepted. My last blogger was very interesting. First of all, the theme of this blog is totally at odds with the theme of my website. I would have never dreamed that a posting for my site would end up on this type of blog. In addition, the original posting was 250 words. The first 50 words were on the theme of his blog and the last 200 words were about my website. This included a paragraph that disparged the quality of my content. It gets worse. Later the post was updated with another 350 words on the theme of the blog. I felt the posting about my website had been hijacked. I have asked PPP not to accept this posting and I have banned this blogger from writing for me again. So that is the best and the worst. I will let you know if I end up paying for any of the worst. In my next update I will take a look at traffic and links.
Great posts RomanticGuy! Your thorough analysis of the entire process is very much appreciated by myself, and probably several other less-than-vocal readers. Please continue when you have time. I'm anxious to hear about traffic stats.
Thans again for writing this up - it has given me a great insight into the Buyers experience when dealing with a Blog/Advertising agency.
I was actually planning to use PayperPost myself so I do very much appreciate your detailed review. Very helpful indeed. THank you!