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11,979Terrible Tips For Partnering With Mom Bloggers *
I happened upon an article today called 7 Tips for Partnering with Mommy Bloggers — which, I take time to browse, for obvious reasons.
The author of the article, Tim Parry, for MultiChannelMerchant.com, offers 7 tips for partnering with “mommy bloggers”, provided by Ian MacDonald, division VP, ecommerce and marketing with PartySuppliesDelivered.com.
As I begin to read, I am shocked by the first tip, in which Ian McDonald advises:
Make sure you understand the goal — it’s SEO: Getting your domain and links on other reputable websites is a key component of SEO.
Let me just say, if your goal in working with mom bloggers is simply to pass PageRank to your website, you are not only missing the mark — completely — you may also be endangering that precious SEO instead of helping it.
With a Google PageRank update having taken place just a few days ago, this is a timely topic of discussion for bloggers, and brands.
According to Google’s Quality Guidelines, paid links intended to pass PageRank are a violation.
So, mom bloggers, what qualifies as a paid link? Plain and simple, if you received money, or products in exchange for your post, the links within that post are considered paid links by Google.
Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. (Google.com)
As a mom blogger who woke up one morning last June to a glaring red PR 0, I can tell you from personal experience that the money or products gained from selling paid links (this includes sidebar links, and any link within a sponsored or review post where you received products) is not worth it, ultimately. Once you lose that PageRank, your checks are going to stop rolling in anyway!
Ian McDonald goes on to be quoted as saying:
You get an amazing ROI because the cost of the promotion is only the cost of your time finding the bloggers, the cost of the merchandise you send her for free, the shipping charge to get it there, and your time in helping develop the blog.
Do you hear what he’s saying? He’s getting an incredible bang out of the mommy blogger for that $8 rubber chicken he sends.
Tip 2 acknowledges that the mommy blogger may not even be capable of writing her own quality content about the $8 rubber chicken, but that’s OK, Mr. McDonald is prepared to pull up his sleeves for her.
You must do the heavy lifting — You must find the mommies, pitch the idea, pitch your product, and maybe even help with the copy.
In a scenario where the main goal is funneling link juice from a mom blog, I’m sure that providing copy isn’t putting the company out, too terribly. It must be exhausting finding all those mommy bloggers, though.
If SEO (passing PageRank) isnt the goal, what is?
Including links to brands in our posts is perfectly fine — Google doesn’t mind if we are making money on sponsored content, they only care that we are not selling links.
If you area a reader of this blog, you can see that I work closely with some wonderful brands. The goal should be advertising, providing the brand with valuable insight and content, brand exposure, and targeted traffic, not SEO trickery designed to pass PageRank.
I really think that most reputable brands are on the same page with me, here, however I receive 5 or more pitches per week from companies like PartySuppliesDelivered.com who want to send me a few items in exchange for a post designed to boost their SEO.
My Advice for Brands
If this is your thinking? Knock it off, you’re jeopardizing your own PageRank too.
My Advice for Mom Bloggers
Hey, I’m not pointing a finger at those of you who are selling links in your sidebar, or posts. I’ve been there, done it, and enjoyed the supplemental income. In fact, I shed a tear the day I decided to start declining these type of paid post and paid link offers.
It’s ultimately up to you whether or not you want to run the risk of losing your PageRank (mind you, I think that PageRank is ridiculously arbitrary, but as we all know, it does matter).
How To Appropriately Link Within Sponsored Posts
1. Add a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the link tag.
2. Using a WordPress plugin like Yoast SEO to “nofollow” the whole post.
3. Redirect the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file.
Bloggers, what do you think about the original article? Did you find the tone as condescending as I did?
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Fabulous graphic and spot on post!
His article kinda made me want to hide my head in shame :( He made us sound so “bought” and that we don’t do much. If I knew they would do all that heavy lifting so much, I guess I wouldn’t work so hard on my blog!
I am a relatively new blogger, and a mom, although my blog is not focused mostly on my being a parent. I do post about my son and about issues that affect me as a single parent raising a teenager and I always have some interest in related topics and other blogs. Only recently have I begun working on getting to the point of monetizing and am still only in the research stage.
The article on which you’re commenting does nothing more than show us that the person who wrote it, and the company(s) who support it, are not interesting in truly learning about the people they are talking about. They are just as clueless about those they want to ‘employ’ as they often tend to be about their market audiences.
Some of the best writers that I follow are moms and bloggers and they inspire me on a daily basis. Do I, as a consumer, trust their suggestions and their reviews on products? Much of the time, yes, if that blogger lives the kind of lifestyle that I do, or try to.
Great article, Crissy…as always. Sadly, the writer of the original article tries to sound like an authority, yet is unaware that both the blog and the company would risk their Google PR by doing what he suggests. Duh.
Is it horribly condescending? Yes. Is it true? Yes. There are plenty of bloggers who will not only take the product and write about it, but use text links provided by the sponsor. What’s fabulous about that article is that is should be a wake-up call to a lot of review bloggers about the service they are providing *for free* and how valuable they really are.
By the way, I hope you nofollow’ed the links to that site in your post! ;)
Absolutely!
Outstanding Post! Great rules to blog by!
I guess I’m a bit confused still. Do you do an audit and replace all links on your blog? Does this include affiliate links as well? I’ll have to look up the no follow tag and update my sidebar links atleast. My blog just got a 2 I’d hate to lose it after almost 2 years. Thanks for this post .)
I don’t even know how to respond. Aren’t these the pitches we all delete immediately?
Woah, wow. I’m shocked at the tone of that article…and the ignorance. The sad part is, small companies that don’t know better may believe them.
Wow, what a pig, umm, IDK.. Reminds me to go check my No-Follow tags. Great post Chrissy!
Having mixed feelings about this.
It is VERY important to get your SEO rankings up so that you pay less in Adwords and the like so targeted potential customers can find your site. Blogging has become an integral part on the online retail experience.
Purists who blog for its own sake won’t be up to shenanigans and those who are in it only for the SEO and the $$$ will be identified and die by their own devices.
I guess it’s like anything else…. support the blogs you like and disregard the ones you don’t. Nature will take its course.
Crissy, thank you so much for sharing this. I feel so much more assured in my decision to decline a recent PR request that I was quite excited over…until they demanded that I provide 8 months of free advertising in my sidebar and above the fold in exchange for the opportunity to receive and giveaway a product that was worth $40. No thanks. I’m not stupid and you’re not going to use me. Love this!
That is just insulting.
The products I have received has never asked me for a review, link, or anything specific. If I like the product, I write about it, and I use affiliate links.
I did receive an email the other day where someone offered me “high res images” in an effort to entice me to post their free advertising. It made me sick. Probably the most insulted I have ever felt from a PR company.
Excellent post, Crissy! Lots of info I didn’t know before.
So how do you recover from a zero PR? How did that even happen?!
Your article points out again what I always recommend to other serious bloggers: if you are trying to blog professionally, don’t work with brands that offer you only an $8 rubber chicken :)
Your time is so much more valuable, and you are better off not working for them for such little money. Work on improving your blog instead and opportunities will come.
Fantastic article. Thank you!
Great article! As for Google page rank… I will not be surprised if this time next year, it was obsolete.
Great article Crissy!
The sad this is that there are so many bloggers who allow themselves to be treated this way because they just want any little shilling and so it looks bad on all the others from a certain point.
I guess I’m kind of confused here. I’m fairly new to sponsored posts. So, let’s say a company offers me $20 to write about their product/site and there required links. Like 2 or 3. I agree and post it. Is this what is killing my PR? I went from a 0 to a 2 and then back down to a 1. Looking back, this was probably after I started doing more paid posts. MMMM….
If I do a post like this and add a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the link tag then it won’t my current page rank? I do like the paid posts, the extra income is nice to have. But are taking this lower paid posts with links preventing my PR to rise which leads to not getting bigger offers?
Being still “new” to all of this and NOT tech savvy at all, I can honestly say I don’t even know how to check to see if I have a rank let alone what it is. {This probably isn’t a godo thing for me to admit} I suppose I need to look into this “no follow” that you speak of.
Every day I learn something new thanks to people like you!
I’m not entirely new to this, I’ve been blogging for 3 years. But I only recently have done a couple of sponsored posts. My Google PR has been a 5 for a very long time, I’m proud of it and I don’t want to ruin that (I don’t have a clue how it got that high). Would a no follow tag on links keep me immune? I rarely do sponsored posts, but those really help pay the bills :)
PR 5 is so wonderful! And yes, when you do take on a sponsored post, just make sure you nofollow it. I won’t pretend to know if that will keep your PR at 5, but it will keep you from receiving a penalty for paid link page rank passing! :)
Great post! Can you do another post on how to do this…
Redirect the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file.
I would love to know how!
To be honest he made me want to rush to the mystical internet space bathroom and purge my morning breakfast of what I call mommy reviews I had just wrote. I have only had one company every request that I add they voice (opinions) into a post. I was newer at that time (about a year and a half ago) and did so. Now I still smart enough to put it in quotes and site the source even then. I would never publish a review written by a member of the company or someone whom is directly affiliated with them. It is simply wrong on all accounts.
The original writer also seems to have failed to take note of all the changes google has made in paid keyword links. He has the mommy blogger theory all wrong. I would like to think that companies come to work with me (and us) for our honest opinions and our ability to get their products/services seen by consumers who are in that market category and are open to buying.
Seriously just in the last month our household alone has purchase a vacuum, several toys and games and even a cellphone based on what we read in a bloggers review. That is what is suppose to be all about, right?
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From a PR rep standpoint, I do hope that bloggers who will nofollow all product review and promotional posts will be upfront with companies and PR reps about such a policy, as many companies/PR reps will automatically assume that links will be dofollow, since that is the default for posts. To not be upfront about this may cause unnecessary confusion or dissatisfaction. Just a thought. :)
I always try to educate PR and brands that I work with, that I follow Google Quality Guidelines. However, it shouldn’t be the assumption of the PR/brand that blogs will dofollow, just as we have to take a step to meet FTC guidelines to disclose, we have to take a step to nofollow in order to product our blogs (and to protect the sponsor.)
MOST of the PR reps and reputable larger companies I work with are clear on this. The ones who are not clear on it, need to be educated, or need to stop hiring bloggers in order to boost their SEO.
The assumption should be that all paid links, sponsored posts, and reviews follow Google TOS. This should be common knowledge between bloggers, and brands.
Awesome post, Chrissy. Very interesting on what they had to say. And yes, I agree 100 percent. No one writes my posts, but me. That’s insulting that they put “may need help with copy.”
Thanks for the great info – there’s a LOT of valuable info in here. I know that I, for one, would love to do more of the other types of posts… but have no idea where to start. How do you get the big gigs like KMart, Whirlpool, and Home Depot? (I’m sure it’s not an “easy” answer… but any info would be great!)
Great post! As a relatively new blogger, I learn something new everyday. Haven’t done a single nofollow tag! But now I know better ;). Thanks for the tips!
My question is this then…If I manage to figure out how to put a nofollow attribute on all of my outgoing links, doesn’t that, in effect, negate the links that have previously been purchased on my blog through sponsored posts, text links, etc?
Wouldn’t it be a fairly devious practice to change those links to nofollow (which, if I’m understanding correctly, would remove the SEO from the post) and not inform each and every one of those reps?
And lastly, what would be the point of a company continuing to work with my blog for sponsored posts or things of that nature if they are going to be nofollow links that will provide them no SEO? It may be that I am completely misunderstanding the point of the nofollow/dofollow attribute, but this seems like a deal killer to me.
Thanks for the post. Sadly, it doesnt surprise me but they do the heavy lifting. Thats insane. I have had PR folks ask me to write a post first before even offering the glory of a DVD review and giveaway.
And what do I get for my hours of work a $30 DVD.
And thanks for the no Follow how to. I have read that I should do this but had no idea how to do it.
Interesting info, although I’m not making a dine from blogging and have not tried to. This will be useful in the future,however. Thanks.
If you use the amazon affilate program like Amazon & write a post/link to a product (using the text link they provide) am I screwing myself by not using a nofollow tag? I really don’t want to screw myself here and had no clue that I shouldn’t directly link to their product. Are affilate programs different/exempt from these google rules?????
Great article, and I have to say I just did an article on this subject today, and I’m glad I came across yours because I feel the same. We linked to you in our article, we went through hell and back today with a partner buying links whom we reported and it was awful, and your article was the only one that made me feel better as a mom blogger Crissy. I honestly felt as though I had done something wrong using nofollow, and I wanted others to be aware the importance it actually has. Thanks so much! :)