Today started out as normal until I received an email from a website offering professional tax services for the niche I cover blogging. At first they were inquiring about linking to my blog through their site to provide information that their customers often ask that they have no answers for. This led to a phone conversation later and to yet another phone call where we now stand at a tentative offer to provide me with my own web site that they would have their team build for me for free and lifetime hosting for free for me to provide this information from an experienced point of view. The man I was speaking with was not really familiar with the workings of affiliate deals in online marketing,but also let me know that they would give me a % of every sale generated from my website traffic (to be negotiated before the deal is finalized). This would be an exclusive affiliate deal as they do not offer one to anyone else (or so he said). When I asked if all of the on site ad revenue would be mine and under my control,he had no immediate answer,but said he would look into it. My question is this to anyone with experience in this type of dealing. If they were to give me full control of the web site for monetizing and include a generous % on the affiliate deal on top of the free designed web site and lifetime hosting would that be an acceptable deal. I would also be in charge of promoting the site myself naturally. Or should I forgo all of this and offer my blogging services at a set yearly rate of pay and if so what would be a fair price to offer this service for? Keep in mind they would only be looking for 1 post a day that would probably at best take me 2 hours including research.
The only problem with custom deals is that unless you have an inside man or your own accountant that is given access to sales records, you really have no idea how much is owed to you other than what they tell you. For me, it would depend on the company,their history and how profitable they are. A long standing or large up and comer...I may go with the the affiliate deal. It would also depend on how much promotional support I would get form the organization and where my blog would be...part of the main company website or a completely separate site that i have to promote myself. At first I may go with a definite pay scale with the chance to renegotiate later after say 6 months or so. I also assume that a tax blog is only going to be popular at certain times a year and dead the rest of the year. Seems strange that they would be in the business, yet don't have the knowledge or resources to answer questions so I would ensure that this is really an up and up deal and not just another affiliate looking for free content in exchange for a percentage of their percentage. If that's the case you may as well be an affiliate yourself and write your own blog.
Thanks for the input hmansfield. As I posted yes it would be my own web site that I would have to promote myself which I would have no problem doing as I already have much high ranking material in the niche and a subdomain that I have been moving up the ranks quickly. As for it being legit, I have checked them out and the particular site is just one piece of their whole pie as a tax firm. The problem was the guy who found my material and was interested in it while being the manager of that division has no clue about anything in this area as they have people working for them that handle all things internet. I guess what I was really looking for here is what the going rate for a blog post a day in an expertise that they tracked me down based on my material being the most in depth and coming from a point of experience in the field. I'm thinking along the lines of them running the website and doing all of the promotion and just paying me X amount of dollars to provide them the blog for their site. I feel this would be best as I am still green with website stuff and have actually only been writing online for a little over 2 months. Based on prices i've seen for commercial hack like writing going for as high as $10-$25 per post would my expertise that they obviously desire be worth more than that?
You can't valuate it based on any blog hack because you are providing an expertise. A master mechanic is going to fetch a better price per post that just some guy who writes about cars. I can't tell you what it's worth...you have to find out what it's worth to them. Personally, I wouldn't do it for $25 a post. At 5 posts a week that's only $125. If each post takes you 2 hours to write..that's 10 hours a week= $12.50 an hour. I know what I need to make to do such work, you have to decide what you need to make, compared to what they want to pay and see if they are compatible. It also depends on how much work outside of writing they expect you to do.
All valid points,exactly the type of advice I was looking for as like I said I am new to writing and kind of shocked this has happened so quickly. A little overwhelming from my experience with online writing though I am learning quickly. Thanks Again hmansfield!
You said this all came about because they were having difficulty answering specific questions and needed someone with expertise to field them. You may suggest something to up your value like suggesting that they include a forum where people can ask specific questions and get answers and you would be the moderator/resident expert of the forum. Something like that may be beneficial to them and up your value at the same time. If you use something like V-Bulletin, you can run the forum and post blog posts and articles on the same platform and kill all the birds with one stone.
Excellent suggestion hmansfield,one I will definitely have to consider in the discussions and thanks for the plug of V-Bulletin. I'll have to check that out even if not for this deal it sounds like a great tool to have handy.