As your blog or website starts to gain more traffic and authority in its niche market, you’re going to gain attention from your competition, advertisers, and other bloggers as well. So don’t be surprised if you start getting emails about sponsorships or making guest posts. But many bloggers might be confused about the differences between guest posts and sponsored articles. So to make it simple, let’s go through what they are and what the pros and cons are of each.
What Are Guest Articles?
Every blog needs a regular stream of useful articles in order to remain relevant and continue satisfying the curiosity of your readers. But writing every single post yourself is not only time-consuming, but also requires you to be an expert in several fields. You can save yourself a lot of hassle by having guest posts on your site. You allow a fellow blogger to write or contribute ideas on your blog and in return, they’re allowed to link back to their own sites, thereby driving up their traffic as well. You can also choose to go with the Best Guest Posting Service to help you increase your site’s content.
Pros And Cons of Guest Posts
A guest post does come with the bonus of providing fresh content to your site. That can increase the quality of your traffic, help you to build search engine authority, and also builds backlinks to your website so that you can increase your subscriber base.
The downside is that you’re not going to make any money from guest posts. Guest posts are mainly just for exposure.
What Are Sponsored Articles?
Sponsored articles are articles that are sponsored on your blog, either directly or indirectly, from a company or agency on behalf of that company. So you could be asked by a company to write a review of one of their products on your blog, for example, and they’ll pay you for it. You can start to see how this is different from a guest post.
Pros And Cons of Sponsored Posts
The obvious obvious pro is that you’re getting paid to create content for your site. Depending on the company, you may also receive from freebies in the mail.
The downsides of sponsored posts are that:
- You risk alienating your fans; your audience knows when you’re putting out sponsored content and they may disapprove or call you a sellout.
- Negotiations with companies can be tricky, especially if you don’t have a lawyer or agent on your side to help you out.
- Writing a sponsored post can be time-consuming. You have to test out whatever it is that’s being sponsored so that you can write an accurate reaction to it and how it works.
- You put your trust on the line. Companies expect you to say something positive about what you’re sponsoring. If it ends up performing poorly when it’s on the market, then your readers aren’t going to trust you anymore.
Many bloggers chose to go with a mix of guest posts and sponsored articles, depending on what kind of blog they want to put out there. Whichever you choose to go with, your content should always adequately reflect your professionalism in the online realm.
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