And today we asked a company for a freebie to review. And got it.

We haven’t done this before, but one of our listeners bought the product, liked it, and asked us to review it. It wasn’t something we were going to buy just for a review. And I don’t think we’d automatically say “no” to possible future offers.

However, I agree transparency is vital, but staying true to your audience is even more important. I think travel advice now should help people to avoid taking extra rubbish along – think pack light – and all our reviews ask whether it’s worth the weight.

If you do it right, these are a great option. It’s a fairly new trend of promotion among blogs but it’s gaining speed, and I think it’s good for business as long as high standards are upheld.

If anyone has questions about sponsored posts, I’m always available to shoot the breeze.

Feedback from readers was mostly negative, even though I review products and services often, on my own.

At the time, the paid advertisers had ranked my blog pretty low, it was a PR0. Now it is a PR4 with tons of content, a good RSS reach and lots of inbound links, it ranks much higher to them and they have placed my blog in a higher tier of reviews.

I am still entertaining the idea of writing a few more, and look now and again – but only bid on premium paying reviews and on those products or services that are of both an interest to me and would be interesting to my readers. I also try to put myself in their shoes and figure out if I’d want to read a review about whatever on my blog.

Sadly, going by your recent poll of how much unique traffic people get, the vast majority are in the sub 1,000 uniques per day. At that point, making money should be secondary to building quality content and getting traffic numbers and RSS subscriptions up.

http://www.hawaiib.com :)

Anyways I like this sponsored review it stays on topic!

db

Excellent guest post; thanks.

db

We receive many requests to be featured on our blog so what we have done is create a paid travel directory (see link in top right nav on our site)

The listings from our directory are then fed into various spots throughout our blog via RSS, sort of like our own in-house ad system.

We have a few travel journalists known to subscribe to our feed, and a few places we’ve discovered have ended up in print as a result of exposure on our blog, so paid for features in our case is something we’re exploring.

Right now though we’re working on totally redesigning our site and launching a fresh new service which will appeal to accommodation providers and travel companies.

As you can see, we don’t have Adsense or affiliate marketing on our site, which is forcing us to be more creative in our approach.

It might be best to invite companies to take ads out on the blog – rather than risk this type of conflict

Freelance Job

However, I don’t think I’ve ever given an all-glowing review of anything. I always try to include some “negative points” about the item/book/experience I’m writing about. I want to be honest with my readers so they don’t think I’m just trying to make a quick buck off of them.

I’ll freely admit, though, that for me, making money on my blog is secondary. It’s very much a hobby right now, and I’m having a blast with it! Hopefully that attitude shows in my blog.

Thanks.

“YOU should not accept any sponsorship or freebie offers if they do allow you to be transparent and write negative reviews, if any.”

doesn’t make sense. Is there a typo in there somewhere? I’d like to think that you should not accept freebies if they *don’t* allow you to be transparent…