This is a blog about money, finance, and getting ahead in life. Part of money is making money, which I try to do to some extent with this website. The FTC has issued new guidance regarding online media and the endorsement of products. There are three main ways I earn income from this site.
1.) Free stuff – I love free stuff, I love free books, free software, whatever. People send me free things for me to review. I do not guarantee I am going to say something good about it, I could trash it if it really sucks. Sometimes I give the free stuff away and sometimes I hang on to it. This isn’t really me making money, but the FTC says I have to tell you I get free stuff to review. When I write a review of something I got for free I will from this point forward make sure you know I got it for free.
2.) Direct Advertisements. See the pretty boxes over there —> the Google Adsense ads, the banners. Those are all direct ads spots. I don’t sell a lot of direct ads but I do get some and they pay me to display their ad. I don’t say one thing about them just put up their ad.
3.) Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate marketing is where the majority of bloggers make their income. They write about a product or service who in turn pays them a flat fee or percentage of each sale they generate. Let’s suffice it to say if there is a link on my site going to somewhere you can buy something, it is an affiliate link and I am going to make money if you purchase the product. I make every attempt to accurately represent the products associated with my affiliates.
I do not do paid reviews, any review I write is my actual opinion of the product I won’t sugar coat a review just to get paid, it is bad mojo I don’t want. It is very likely however that the links out of the review will pay me if you buy the product. For instance whenever I write a book review I include amazon links to buy the book. I get a percentage of the sale if you purchase it. Thinking about buying something? Go to Amazon now with that link and buy it so I can get paid!
{ 2 comments }
Rock on. I guess it's time to write one of these for me, too.
Everyone's knocking the FTC, but it's not as bad as it seems. I might know when someone's getting paid to promote a product, but the common consumer has no idea what affiliate marketing is. At least that's the case with all my friends…
Power to you–go out and make some cash. 🙂
I don't really have an issue with the FTC's ruling. I think the people who are up in arms about it are the people who lie through their teeth to convince you to buy something. I give my honest opinion on products and services and in most cases I really just outline the features. If you aren't shady the ruling doesn't really matter other than you need to make sure you are transparent with your advertising.
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