Hi Bonjour, Blogger!
I wrote a post last month about a product I bought with my own money. A company has gotten in touch with me asking for a specific link on certain words in my post. Why do they want that? What should I do?
– Confused
OK, so let’s start with the why. The reason why this company has gotten in contact with you isn’t because they want to help your readers find the product, or because they really love what you did. This might sound a bit harsh, but the only reason that this company has contacted you to insert a link to them on your post is to benefit them. There is no real benefit to you to amend that post.
That being said, if you are asked to amend a post to add in a specific link, then you should (if you feel comfortable!) ask how much they will be paying for it. There is no difference between this sort of post and a sponsored post that you have been paid to do – the benefit to the company is the same however the post comes about.
Some bloggers choose to insert the links out of goodwill – and that’s fine! However, it’s worth noting that if a company knows you’ll insert links for free once, they’ll assume you’ll always do that and you may regret that first act of kindness.
Over to you – when you get these requests, what do you do?
Really timely post as I had a company contact me recently to post a link in an old post which all felt a bit off to me especially when I asked about payment and they said they couldn’t because of google guidelines etc.
Victoria
FlorenceandMary.com
Should these links be nofollow, whether they do pay for them or not?
Compensation – yes!
But then I also disclose the post as a “sponsored post” and those links will be “no-follow”.
Regards,
Annette | Lady of Style