How much to charge for a blog post?

[AndyB1]

Hi,

I've been developing my site for a few years now and I'm fortunate to have a couple thousand visitors per day.

An ad agency has contacted me to host an article for them, but I haven't a clue how much to charge. They are not looking for the article to be promoted in any way, so I'm guessing its purpose is for back-linking?

Any idea how much to charge? Looks like they just want to pay outright for the post, not commit to monthly payments?

Thanks in advance,

Andy

 

[Fagin2021]

To avoid any trouble with Google make sure the agency understand you'll be 'no-following' or using rel="sponsored" for paid back links. See if they're still interested.

Is the article relevant to your site and does it add value for your visitors ?

 

[AndyB1]

To avoid any trouble with Google make sure the agency understand you'll be 'no-following' or using rel="sponsored" for paid back links. See if they're still interested.

Is the article relevant to your site and does it add value for your visitors ?

Thank you for your response. I'm embarrassed to say I know nothing about this. I'm using automated Google Ads at the moment. Am I even allowed to support this type of sponsored blog?

Yes I think the article is relevant to my site and does add value.

What is the purpose of marking the page "no-follow"? I know from a GoogleBot point of view I'm stopping it following the link, but what is the issue with doing this?

 

[fisicx]

The ad agency wants the links. That’s the only thing they care about. Which means the article will be littered with links to unrelated sites. The lowers the value of your blog to Google.

I said £200 to one agency, they came back with an offer of $20 and there had to be a permanent link on the homepage. I never bothered to respond.

 

[Graham Tyers]

If its any help...

We happily provide free mobile phone contracts to relevant bloggers for maintained blog posts on the topic. So that's a value of £15 per month or something.

As a one-off, £150 probably if its a very relevant blog.

 

[AndyB1]

The ad agency wants the links. That’s the only thing they care about. Which means the article will be littered with links to unrelated sites. The lowers the value of your blog to Google.

I said £200 to one agency, they came back with an offer of $20 and there had to be a permanent link on the homepage. I never bothered to respond.

$20 for a permanent link on the homepage! That is cheeky.

Does the rel="sponsored" and the no-follow put many of the agencies off?

 

[fisicx]

$20 for a permanent link on the homepage! That is cheeky.

Does the rel="sponsored" and the no-follow put many of the agencies off?

Yes. It means the links have less value to the agency. It also means your regular visitors will be unimpressed as the sponsored article will stand out. Unless your recent posts list makes it clear these are sponsored posts and everyone can ignore them.

 

[AndyB1]

Thanks for all the information guys. I was quite excited about this at first as I thought I was being noticed but now, its looks like this is probably more hassle than it's worth.

I wouldn't want it to negatively affect anything I do at the moment as it's working well and growing on a monthly basis.

Thanks again!

 

[Fagin2021]

$20 for a permanent link on the homepage! That is cheeky.

Does the rel="sponsored" and the no-follow put many of the agencies off?

It depends. As @fisicx has said, if all they're after are a load of backlinks to irrelevant sites then their clients have nothing to gain if the links are no-followed or identified as paid. (Except of course, they'll tell the clients they got them xxx inbound links without mentioning how useless that is).

On the other hand, (unlikely with an agency), if they publish a high-quality, relevant, useful article on your blog, both you and the client will benefit. It doesn't matter if the links are sponsored or no-followed because readers will still be able to follow them to the source.

Incidentally, 'no-following' a link doesn't stop Google following it - it just means it won't count towards ranking.

As a side issue if, as you say, you are using an automated (smart) Google Ads campaign, make sure that the keywords, audiences and adverts Google are using to send visitors to your blog are attracting the right sort of visitor - ie. a proportion of whom are doing whatever it is you want them to do.

It's dead easy to get traffic - 'Free Ferrari with every visit' - will bring you a ton, but a lot harder to get the right traffic.

 

[AndyB1]

It depends. As @fisicx has said, if all they're after are a load of backlinks to irrelevant sites then their clients have nothing to gain if the links are no-followed or identified as paid. (Except of course, they'll tell the clients they got them xxx inbound links without mentioning how useless that is).

On the other hand, (unlikely with an agency), if they publish a high-quality, relevant, useful article on your blog, both you and the client will benefit. It doesn't matter if the links are sponsored or no-followed because readers will still be able to follow them to the source.

Incidentally, 'no-following' a link doesn't stop Google following it - it just means it won't count towards ranking.

As a side issue if, as you say, you are using an automated (smart) Google Ads campaign, make sure that the keywords, audiences and adverts Google are using to send visitors to your blog are attracting the right sort of visitor - ie. a proportion of whom are doing whatever it is you want them to do.

It's dead easy to get traffic - 'Free Ferrari with every visit' - will bring you a ton, but a lot harder to get the right traffic.

Thanks for the insights. The agency told me who they represent, the article is for a house-hold name multi-national brand and they sit in a complementary sector to my own.

When I said Google Ads I meant AdSense, I've never advertised my site at all, I've been very lucky in that all my growth has been organic.

 

[fisicx]

Thanks for the insights. The agency told me who they represent, the article is for a house-hold name multi-national brand and they sit in a complementary sector to my own.

If the brand is multi-national why are they guest blog posting? Smells very piscatorial.

 

[AndyB1]

If the brand is multi-national why are they guest blog posting? Smells very piscatorial.

I don't know. I've made an offer based on the information above. I'll see how it goes.

 

[JaredMol]

Hi Man @AndyB1
How is the work going?
I've read your question and have some recommendations:

1. The price should depend based on the number of visitors. $50 is a reasonable price for a start. But don't agree to put the link from the homepage as it has the most of the link juice. For a link in the blog it will be ok.
2. Pay attention to what the article will be about. It should be relevant to your niche. Never agree to put links for the black niches (adult, gambling, casino).

3. I think that you can put a dofollow link only in one case. If it's a really interesting site with nice trust than it won't hurt you. But in most cases it's better to put a nofollow, but the chance that an agency would want it will be lower. Because usually they are interested in dofollow links. For them, there are benefits having the Nofollow link only if you have big amount of traffic coming to your site.
P.S. on Wordpress usually the external links are set by default to nofollow. If still haven't found how to make a link nofollow, then just google "[name of your CMS] how to set up a nofollow link". It will be an easy task.