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How to Maintain Your Integrity as a Blogger Even When Blogging for Money

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Maintain Integrity

Let’s face it: While some bloggers blog for the sheer joy of having their say on whatever topics are dearest to them, other bloggers do it for the money.  However, just because you are keeping that blog up for the sake of generating an online income, it doesn’t mean that you should be a sellout.  Believe me, nobody gets that far in the blogosphere by being a sellout.

Your integrity as a blogger is one of the things that you need to protect if you want your blog to be taken seriously by your peers and your readers alike.  As idealistic and naive as this may seem, your integrity is all you’ve got in this business.  Lose your integrity and you will lose your credibility to your readers.  Without any credibility, your readers will not have a reason to continue reading your blog.  Without your readers, you will not be able to generate the web traffic that you need in order to create a decent income from your blogging.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t sell anything through your blog.  The point is that you have to be careful with what you put up on your blog and what you sell to your readers.  You can create a balance between making money with your blog and maintaining your integrity.

Can You Fake Your Passion

One way to do that is to write only about what you know.  Staying true to the facts and not fabricating any detail for the sake of entertaining your readers is always a good practice.  Also, you should stick to topics that you are sincerely passionate about.  You need to have passion in your writing to make you believable to your audience.  Passion is such a hard thing to fake when you are blogging.

Try Before Recommend

In addition, you should never, ever try to mislead your readers.  If you want to push a product at them through your blog, you need to back up the hype with some good, solid facts.  Actually, you should try out any product you promote to your readers before you sell it to them to make sure that you are giving them something of quality.  No one likes to be played for a fool and you will lose your readers if you treat them like fools.

Lastly, whatever deal you come across, you should scrutinize it with extreme prejudice before you offer it to your readers, even if the chance to earn money from the deal seems too good to pass up.  Sure, that banner ad that an advertiser wants to put up on your blog may yield you some nice profit, but it will not do you any good if your readers get to download a Trojan if they click on the banner ad.  It will only backfire on you in the end.

Just because you are blogging as a means of generating some decent online income, it doesn’t mean that you have to sell your soul to earn a buck.  You have to protect your integrity as a blogger at all times because your readership and the web traffic it brings to your blog depend upon it.  Nobody likes a sellout and you will only end up losing if you sell out.

About

I help people to quit their 60 hr per week job and double their income within 90 days. I am currently run Blogging Mechanics site, where I give away more information how you can make killing online.

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{ 29 Responses }

  1. Franck Silvestre says:
    I'm with you when you say that you should blog about your passion. This is what I do and recommend. As for trying products you recommend on your blog, this is not always applicable, especially for people who promote Amazon products. Sometimes, an affiliate can also promote based on other people reviews. For example, if you know someone who used a product and was satisfied with it, you can recommend it based on his experience. Franck
  2. Paul Salmon says:
    While I haven't got into writing product reviews, yet, any products that I do promote I have used in the past or currently am using. I just don't feel right promoting a product that I haven't used in the past. In terms of passion, the topics I write about I am very passionate about, and many of my articles are related to solutions that I have found to solve a problem. I do this to try and help others that have encountered the same problem. Does it always work for them? Not always, but when it doesn't I do my best to help them along.
  3. Mark Roth says:
    Interesting article. And interesting graphic to go with it: https://famousbloggers.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/integrity_money_making.jpg Please allow me a curious question: Where did you get it?
    • Hesham says:
      Hi Mark, we've got the image from the cover of "Where Has Integrity Gone?" by Simon Schrock
  4. Mani Viswanathan says:
    Blogging for making money is good, but if solely done it's bad in the long run. Because Blogging is all about relationships, building a reputation in the Internet world. So if a blogger solely blogs to earn money then he would earn plently of bucks, but not the respect a blogger normally earns.
  5. Salman says:
    Hahaha you're totally right. I've seen so many people desperately asking for people to click buy through their affiliate link. I think when you are doing affiliate marketing. Being honest works just like in daily routine
  6. TJ McDowell says:
    I've actually been thinking about a promotion scenario in the event that my blog ever takes off to this point. If you have someone wanting you to review their product, and they're paying you for the review, what happens in the case where you can't actually give the product a glowing review? Do the advertisers just expect a fair shake or are they really paying you for the product promotion more than just a review? If you can't endorse the product, do you just not get paid? I think you're right that the answer is not just lying for the money. If I was reading a blog where I found out that I was intentionally deceived, I'd definitely stop reading the blog, and I may even go to the extent of telling others not to read the blog.
  7. mrokoi says:
    Point number 2 is very important to me. I agree with the facts that you must first tested any product that you want to promote. The buyer will trust you more and they will choose you for other products in the future...
  8. Lucian says:
    Before i started to write on a blog i had many customers that requested me to buy premium wordpress themes for them so i spent a lot of time searching for premium themes. On my blog i want to share the experience and help others making lists with best premium themes that i find and i like.
  9. Jamie Northrup says:
    You have some good points Peter... If you plan on being a long term blogger than your reputation is key, and if you want to be more than just a blogger (like freelancer or consultant) than it's imperative not to sell out. I agree making money is great, who doesn't want to make money, but I definitely have seen first hand, someone who is passionate about their subject / field is going to be far more successful in the long run in terms of money and happiness.
  10. Alex says:
    There are lots of blogger that start throwing products left and right and give it the best review (just) for money. Doing this can, maybe, work once but after the buyers gets a product you recommended and sees that all the things you said are bullshit that wont happen the second time, thus you lose all your leads in a mater of days! But if you only do honest reviews with products you tested and those who buy can see it's exactly what you said, they will trust you more and in the future, maybe they will choose you for other products! So be smart and recommend only products you would use!
  11. Biodun says:
    Good point, it's just about being honest. If you want readers or customers to know about the inner workings of your blog especially if you blog to promote a services or product . When readers know they can trust your buying recommendations, you'll increase the chance that they'll buy other products you refer them to in the future.
  12. Jan Husdal says:
    Can You Fake Your Passion? In the early days of my blog it was easy to do, but the more passionate I grew about my topic, the more difficult it became to write about something for the money and to forcibly tweak the topic and content of the paid post so it would look as if it were a regular post (except for the giveaway disclosure at the end...duh). Which is why I gave up on sponsored posts altogether. That said, my experience is that with integrity comes opportunity, i.e. I no longer have to hunt down possible review options; as a recognized blogger in my field they come to me, which allows me to chose which products (mostly books) I would like to promote, if - and only if - they fit my passion. Some I do for free, because of my passion. Some are paid for, which is nice, but being a blogger with integrity is nicer.
  13. Kimi says:
    Hey Peter, I just commented in previous post, almost similar to what i am going to comment in your post, i hope you don't mind =) I love the point, try before recommend. Before i used Thesis myself, i really want to recommend it because of my blog's niche. But i hold it, because i don't use it LOL.. So now, i use Thesis, and i feel free, and feel non-guilty to recommend this product to my readers. Because i use it, it somehows makes me confident about promotion. Thanks for the good point you have made.
  14. Rahul says:
    very interresting , that will helps people to talk a lot about things they really love so they can be convincing and specially stick to subject and never mislead readers !!!!
  15. Karan Labra says:
    Well I do blog as it is my passion, but if your passion can make you money why not go for it? I just write for my readers and design my posts in such a way that my readers like them.
  16. John Soares says:
    Good points here. I think it's also important for bloggers to limit the amount of affiliate products they review. I've stopped following blogs that started out providing lots of informing and interesting content, but then switched to mostly reviewing affiliate products -- even if the reviews seemed honest.
  17. Marie says:
    Hi Peter, I couldn't agree more. Admittedly, there are some bloggers out there who blog just for the sake of blogging and not really caring enough about reputation, the company or internet users. Without integrity, their blogs and their lives would never amount to anything!
  18. Pritam says:
    Yes, you need to maintain the integrity as a blogger. I research on each and every topic I want to write about so that my readers can learn it from my experience and most of the times I buy the things myself before referring this to someone. I strongly believe in that but sometime if I know something is really trustable and it might be useful for some of the readers then I recommend to my readers and get the feedback how they liked this.
  19. Lennart Heleander says:
    Hi Peter, As a real estate agents is it the same system, you must control to 100% what you are selling so the buyer recommendations you to other potential buyer. References from clients is the best sell trick you can have.
  20. satrap says:
    You know, I am one of those bloggers who started blogging to make money, and I have to say, I think I stayed true to myself. The sad thing I keep noticing about many money maker bloggers is that they promote and recommend anything they can make a buck of. I would have to agree with your number 2, it really adds to your credibility if you try the product or service you want to promote before you recommend it to other people.
    • Peter says:
      Thanks for your comment. I personally think that there is nothing wrong to promote tens of products on the blog, as we all need to make money. However, I do agree that people should test what they promote, and I can honestly say that I have purchased every product I promote on my blog - although this particular blog is only for reviewing Internet marketing products. But, it really all depends on the aim of the particular blog. Kind regards, Peter
  21. Michael Aulia says:
    I do lots of sponsored reviews (gadgets sent to me and I review them). To keep my integrity, I normally screen these gadgets (or apps, games, whtaever) so I'd only review items that I know have the good points more than the bad This way I can keep my integrity and at the same time make the sponsors happy with my positive attitude and also things to improve on the products
  22. Murlu says:
    It's always really, really important that you can add your own real-world experience behind your post rather than just theory because that gives you something truly unique to talk about vs. something that can be created just from copy & pasting, ya know? This goes really far when reviewing a product because if you can't really get behind it than your readers will pick it apart - build trust by example and then you can gain the revenue.