PayPerPost’s New TOS

I signed into PPP today and saw a message on their new TOS. Here’s what I extracted from their “Best Practices” post and which posties should pay special attention to:

PayPerPost’s Best Practices are guidelines designed to help Posties best utilize the PayPerPost marketplace. In addition to our Terms of Service, these guidelines provide a framework to assist you when sponsored blogging on our platform. Following these best practices will help ensure higher approval ratings and tack scores.

Maintain Balance
You should strive to maintain an editorial balance of at least 50/50 sponsored to non sponsored content. Try to separate each sponsored post with at least one non sponsored post. Please remember that the ToS requires that each PayPerPost sponsored post have a non sponsored post before and after that post.

Archives
Archives should be accessible from any page of the blog. Name the archives link something obvious, many blogging hosts offer calendars to make this even easier. Provide ‘previous post(s)’ and ‘next post(s)’ links at the bottom of the pages on your blog. These archives and links are most useful when added to the main pages of your blog as well as to individual post pages.

Spelling and grammar
Many online tools can help with this, and your own blogging host may have built in spell checks. Use good grammar and spelling as you’re creating your post, and give it a last look before submitting it for review. Does the post make sense? Are there any errors remaining? Fix those before submitting to provide better content and increase your chances of good ratings by Advertisers.

Link placement
Incorporate links into the text/body of your post. Links to the Advertisers’ sites are best when fit into the text of your post. Links left outside the body of the post - either before or after the main content - are awkward and lose meaning.

Relevance
Look at the site included in the Opportunity you’ve accepted. Spend some time, and make sure you understand the site and related content. Don’t assume you understand the topic just from the name of the website or the brief description provided in the Opportunity itself. Make sure the post is useful to your reader and the Advertiser.

Word count
Required word count on any Opportunity is not a maximum goal, it’s an absolute minimum. Don’t formulate your posts by focusing on just meeting the minimum word requirements. Feel free to go beyond that minimum word count! Also, stay on topic. If a car rental site is requesting 200 words, 200+ words should be about car rentals.

Choosing appropriate Opportunities
Only select Opportunities you find interesting. Don’t grab Opportunities just to max out on your possible posts for any given day. Selecting Opportunities you find interesting will help you stay true to the focus of your blog, and will keep your readers interested in your blog. Advertisers often appreciate personalized experiences as they relate to the topic of the post, too. Feel free to use personal experiences when you have one, but don’t go overboard and create ‘personal’ experiences. If the topic of the Opportunity is something you’ve been interested in but haven’t had any personal experience, explain why you’re interested. Again, readers are smart folks - if your content seems insincere, it loses meaning and will lead to lower traffic long term.

Sponsorship
Give credit where credit is due. When you want to communicate your content has been ’sponsored by’ or ‘brought to you by’ be sure to include the related Advertiser’s name or site. Instead of saying “Brought to you by PayPerPost”, say “Brought to you by ACME”. Referring to all sponsored posts as brought to you by PayPerPost isn’t accurate since it is the individual Advertisers who pay for your content.

Titles & Categories
Don’t put “PPP” in the title of your post or create a separate category just for sponsored posts on your blog.

Mentioning Payment Amount
Please don’t mention how much you were paid for an individual post, nobody likes a bragger.

Money Posts
We are more than happy that you earn money through PayPerPost and through other means. However, your blogs that are all about making money online aren’t attractive to most Advertisers. Please keep your “money posts” to a minimum and try not to post a money post directly before or after a PayPerPost sponsored post.

Look and feel
Make your blog aesthetically pleasing to attract readers. In other words - make it look pretty without using colors that clash, too many different fonts, overloading the screen with multiple pictures, pop up links or moving pieces. Songs, pop ups, and crowding the pages with ads can all be distracting to readers. A blog can show your unique personality without overwhelming your audience. Adding too many items to your blog can also make it slow to load across different browsers.

Content link ads
Disable content link ads in your sponsored posts. Many blogging services offer the choice for you to add content link ads to your blog. The blogging host then picks certain words throughout each of your posts, and automatically places pop up ads to those words. You may disable these types of link ads, and should do so for your sponsored posts.

Search
Provide your readers with a Search option to more easily find certain items in your blog.

Consider Advertisers
Look at your blog from an Advertiser’s point of view. Is it a blog where they would be thrilled to find their site, product or service mentioned?

Find friends
Find blogs with similar topics. Maybe you can exchange ideas on look, topics, practices. You can also add each other to your blogrolls!

Find help
Read through and understand the Terms of Service (section 5 is most pertinent to blogging) and the FAQ’s. If you have questions about any of it, send a ticket to Customer Love.

Ultimately, what would your blog look like without sponsored content, including sponsored posts, pop up links, buttons and billboards? Would you read it? PayPerPost Posties are sought after because of the quality they offer. Blog because you have something to share with your readers. Make sure your blog contains enough non-sponsored elements to give it a strong presence.

MY OPINION - PPP seems to be on the controlling end for posties who want to write for them. I do not want to sound negative but there are just too many conditions and since I own my blogs, I do not want to be dictated on how I run my blogs<