Rants & Raves

Edited by Ashe Mischief

I was taken aback when going through the submissions this week– there were so many powerful, strong, opinionated pieces that I felt really taken aback.  With overwhelming positivity or negativity, the fashion community is finding it’s voice– and making themselves heard!

The fashion community is great at sharing the voice of others, and we’ve got several fabulous interviews to prove it.  From Derek Lam at Poetic & Chic and White Rabbit’s interview with Irish woman Sinead Doyle (along with my own interview with Amelia Arsenic at Dramatis Personae), there are voices for everyone.  We’ve got bloggers ranting on the lack of premium denim in plus-sizes at Denim Debutante (hell yeah!), and some showcasing inspirational figures like KOOS (at M.I.S.S.), Philip Crangi (at Eternal Masquerade), and Maria Felix (at Jewelry Whore).

There were so, so many great links this week, it really was hard to narrow it down to 2o. Check out the full listing of Links à la Mode here.

Links à la Mode : March 18th

• Bachman's Sparrow – DIY post on how to use bleach to revamp your “unloved” clothes!
• blackdog finds: – How To: 10 Creative Ways to Revive Less-Than-Loved Clothing
• Denim Debutante: – Guest Blog: Is there Size Discrimination in Premium Denim?
• dramatis personae: – Amelia Arsenic’s Miss X Aesthetic Laboratories & Interview
• Fashion Hippo – Win Marc by Marc Jacobs Leola Bow Wow Handbag
• Fashion Pulse Daily: – Not Your Daughter’s Jeans: Fit for a Mother AND a Daughter?
• fete a fete: – Whiisical spring designs from Camper shoes
• Forty Not Out: – Louis Vuitton – Fall Winter 2010/2011
• Grechen Blogs: – are you incorporating video into your blog? how is it working for you?
• Independent Fashion Bloggers – A New Map of the Two-Way Street: Why Giving Back to the Blogosphere is Key to Growth
• jesse.anne.o: – How do you swap, thrift or buy resale and NOT get bedbugs?
• Jewelry Whore: – “The Fabulous Jewels of Maria Felix, La Dona”
• M.I.S.S.: – Eyes To The Sky: Before BOHO There Was KOOS.
• Obsession: – How I Met Design Duo of Giles & Brother, Philip and Courtney Crangi
• Oranges and Apples: – Sustainable fashion part 2: thinking about speed
• Poetic & Chic: – A candid interview with Derek Lam, fellow San Franciscan and fellow high school alumni!
• Pretty Shiny Sparkly: – It’s leather. It’s quilted. It’s a computer, for fashionistas.
• Style Symmetry: – Interview with the Stylish Sisters of Beckerman Bite Plate
• The Thinking Fashionista: – An in-depth, critical look at the Russian Futurist themes of Viktor & Rolf’s Fall 2010 show.
• The Working Man: – Incorporating Spring Into Your Working Look
• White Rabbit: – An interview with Irish fashion Designer Sinead Doyle and the inspiration behind her S/S 2010 collection.

PLEASE READ IF YOU’D LIKE TO PARTICIPATE:

If you would like to submit your link for next week’s Links à la Mode, please register first, then post your links HERE. The HTML code for this week will be found in the Links a la Mode group will be published later today. ~Jennine

There were loads of great nominations for last week’s Blogger Spotlight goes to Tieka from Selective Potential, nominated by Annie and Shauna Ehninger! Her blog is filled with gorgeous photos and loads of smiles. Here’s a quick interview with the lovely lady…

Why did you start blogging?

After I had worked months to lose a significant amount of weight, I had a new found respect for my new body and fell in love with fashion! It didn’t take me long to discover fashion blogs. Living in a small town, in a state that isn’t noted much for fashion, I felt I needed to prove that even girls from Michigan can have style! There isn’t much outlet for fashion creativity here, so having a blog really helps me step out of the box and become inspired. I feel like I truly have become “me” since I started Selective Potential.. and I love the community I am now a part of and all of the friends I’ve made in the process.

What is most inspirational for you when blogging?

I would definitely say other personal style blogs – especially girls who are of my same age range, same budget and same style. I’d so much rather read some of my favorite fashion blogs because I gain instant inspiration from some of their ideas! Plus I know they are down to earth and “real”. I’d also say photography is another inspiration for my blog. I always am on the lookout for amazing photographers – trying to recreate their looks and take tips from them. Photography is a big part of a fashion blog!

Describe the type of man or woman who would love Selective Potential…

Someone who loves fashion, adventures, marriage. I work hard to make Selective Potential a breath of fresh air. A place to document the fun in life and the style that is behind it. They’d have to love hearing about new places in Michigan because I boast about my state a lot.. and my silly trips with my husband. I’d like to think my readers enjoy reading about my small town life and ramblings of living in a quaint little beach town along Lake Michigan. Plus, they’d have to like florals.. and mixed prints.. and ombre hair

Choose the next Blogger Spotlight!
Do you have a favorite blogger? Nominate! It will make their day (and we’ll post a link to your blog for being so kind).
Place your nominations here.

This post is by Ann Colville Somma:

2010 will be a banner year for bloggers, as they stand firmly at the center of the new fashion media movement. Lauded as independent voices, blogs in fact exist within a highly interactive community, and in part, it’s this connectivity that differentiates us from traditional media. Every successful blog reflects positively on the community as a whole, and every successful blogger has the opportunity to support -and even bring fame to – the blogs they love. (‘The Sartorialist’ photoblogger Scott Schuman’s promotion of Garance Doré is just one example).

“Coming up” in the blogosphere over the past year, I’ve felt a strong desire to support the community that has supported me. In the early days of my blog, I spent a lot of time commenting on other blogs and linking to blogs I loved. Now, I also allot time each week to brainstorm new ways to collaborate with the blogosphere and, sometimes, with companies that support it. What follows are a few of my most rewarding activities:

Contributing: Beyond the Guest Post

Publications and portals like IFB and Style Sample exist to promote fashion blogs, and survive on the talent behind them. I reached out to both founders (our girl Jennine here at IFB and Tamia at Style Sample) and have contributed stories, images, and more to their endeavors. Though time-consuming and often unrelated to the content on my blog, these projects have provided some unexpected benefits. For example, publications like Style Sample often work to syndicate their stories across the web, so that little link to your blog is in more places than you thought.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Links

Whether you cover an event for a publication or for your own blog, you’ll be meeting other folks with an online presence. At the IFB Evolving Influence Conference and Chictopia10, I exchanged emails with everyone I photographed so I could send them the link to the stories, and then took a little time to edit and send extra pictures that hadn’t been used in the publications. Many people used the images on their blogs with a link to mine, and everyone was happy (and looked great).

The Currency of E-Commerce Promotion

There is a lot of discussion lately about companies approaching bloggers with the hopes of free promotion. I’m not advocating giving away your valuable blog space for nothing, and an awful lot of deleting goes on in my inbox. However, my blog offers curated shopping with a focus on one-of-a-kind pieces, and I’m always searching for content on Etsy, Market Publique, and other sites. Online sellers large and small depend on the blogosphere for promotion, and in turn they love to support blogs. I reach out to every seller when I post about their item, and though I expect nothing in return, I usually get a tweeted link or two, a new follower, or a link to my article on their site’s blog. The currency of my blog is content and traffic, and this type of thanks is more valuable than the pennies that come from affiliate sales. Plus, I gather sell-through data (when it’s clear that my article has led to a sale) for my media kit, which is powerful information for potential sponsors.

Rethinking the Blogger Profile

You’ve seen hundreds of these, and you’ve likely been approached for one yourself; maybe you’ve even been “tagged” for a profile – the blog equivalent of a chain letter. While questions like “What are your key pieces for next season?” are fun to answer, is this really what you want to know about the bloggers you admire?

When profiling another blogger, my goal is to create content that’s new and compelling for my readers. (If I achieve this, chances are it will be fresh enough for the subject to want to send their readers to check it out). A few examples of story ideas:

- Behind the Collection: Most bloggers would love to show off their hard-won clothing and accessories. Do you always admire a blogger’s vintage shoes? Ask for (or offer to shoot) images, and gather stories about her collection. Jak & Jil’s profile of Anna Della Russo is a fabulous example of a concisely edited profile.

- Insider Secrets: Pick a town or city and chances are a stylish blogger is living and shopping there. Wouldn’t you love to pick their brain about the destinations they love – from flea markets to hidden boutiques? If you’ve got skills, you can even draw a cute map based on the tips they give you.

Their Future is Yours

We have each other to thank for the wealth of opportunities that now exist for bloggers. The key to understanding blog growth is engaging with successful bloggers and the publications and companies that support them. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to make that next big jump, it pays to reach out and give back. Chances are you’ll find ideas, answers and support along the way.

Ann Colville Somma is the blogger behind Holier than Now, co-founder of the Cliquesound ad network, and a branding and innovations consultant to the fashion and beauty industries.

Photo by Dustin Fenstermacher

You’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve built up your community, your readers, you’ve made friends with other bloggers. Then the emails start coming with opportunities for you, it’s great, but then also start the emails coming requesting contact information of other bloggers.

This has been a personal pet peeve of mine for a while, but figured with the IFB community, it’s to be expected to a certain extent, people think I know a lot of bloggers. But I’ve been hearing around that I’m not the only one being hit up for information, and I’m not the only one who is suspicious or annoyed. Not that I don’t want to spread around opportunities, but judging by the sheer volume of contact requests, that either someone isn’t doing their job, or someone is benefiting off the years spent building relationships in the community, for free.

I’m not talking about a friend of yours who asks for one or two contacts to help them out, your friend has invested time and built a relationship with you, or someone working for a cause you personally believe in, that’s different.  I’m talking about complete strangers who ask for blogger contacts for monetary gain.  It’ll sound innocent enough, they’ll have an event for a product launch in your area and ask you to invite your blogger friends, or they’ll have a giveaway campaign and ask you to suggest your friends, it’ might even be an opportunity to join a campaign for sponsored posts.

Develop your contact sharing policy

Think about what your comfortable with. If it doesn’t bother you to share contacts, then you don’t need to worry. But if something in the pit of your stomach is telling you something is up, listen to it. Go back and look at all the times you felt uncomfortable, then talked yourself out of it. What do these situations all have in common? Personally, I have a ‘No Contacts’ policy for people I don’t know. Meaning, I don’t send out contact information, unless they are a friend of mine and I think it’s appropriate.

The reason why I do this is because:

(a) who knows what they will do with the contact information after the initial introduction
(b) introductions take time and thought
(c) I don’t like to feel used.

At first I would give out information thinking I would have the opportunity to build a relationship, but most of the time it didn’t mean anything, except that person would want more information or they’d want editorial space on my blog.  After a while, it got really old, and the requests have increased, as have complaints from other bloggers getting the same requests have also increased.

Part of it, is that some companies believe bloggers are naive, that companies can just shave hours off their job by asking one blogger to shell out the names of bloggers she knows are good, and even more hours off their job by getting the blogger to contact the other bloggers, all for the promise of an opportunity. Whether that opportunity is a good one or not, isn’t the point, it’s the fact that your community has value, you made it have value, you put in the hours, the work, being the wonderful person you are, all the time, not just for a few emails, or for a few campaigns.

When do you give out contact info?

Giving out contact information is really up to you, use your intuition. Introducing people to help create good relationships is indeed a wonderful thing, when done the right way. I love, love, love introducing fantastic people to each other, there is almost nothing more satisfying than helping to create a mutually beneficial relationship. However, lately it seems that some companies take advantage of that spirit for their own monetary gain without producing anything in return, and that’s what bothers me.

If you say no, and protect your contacts, your community,  you might fear that they’ll just go an ask someone else. They probably will. So how much does your time and community mean to you?

Image via The Commons on Flickr

Spring Fever

Edited by Jennine Jacob

Do you get spring fever? Oh man… the itch to run around outside in flowery prints and frilly laces gets greater and greater each passing day. To heck with chunky sweaters! This week we have a load of great spring style posts, Holier Than Now checks out cape coats, if you’re strapped for cash Out of Order gives the perfect 45min spring skirt tutorial, so cute! And girly clothes not your thing? The Demoiselles has a great homage to genderbending unisex looks. I’ve been thinking of doing a couple of days in menswear myself. Well, as soon as I learn how to tie the half Windsor knot.

There were so, so many great links this week, it really was hard to narrow it down to 2o. Check out the full listing of Links à la Mode here.

Links à la Mode : March 11th

• 39th and Broadway – Death By Over-Scheduling
• Agent Lover – Mad Crushin’ on Pebelle
• Bobbins and Bombshells – Shop News…Hand Recovery Sale AND Give-Away!!
• Denim Debutante – Denim Advice: Why Should I Buy Premium Denim?
• Diary Of A Girl Left Behind – Sorry We Don’t Have Your (Shoe) Size
• Fashion Pulse Daily – London Fashion Week: Vivienne Westwood, Mark Fast & Burberry Prorsum
• Fete a Fete – The Frye Company SS 2010
• Glossary – Sipping tea with Sandra Beijer
• Grechen Blogs – Isabel Marant, the Internet & Social Media
• grit and glamour – Return to pretty, please!
• Hello Beauty! – Shu Uemura Spring 2010 Égérie Collection: Sparkling, rock star chic (with makeup lesson video)
• Holier Than Now – Spring (Transition) Shopping : Caped Crusaders
• Independent Fashion Bloggers – What does your ideal workspace look like?
• M.I.S.S. – Women Making History: Elisa Palomino
• Oranges and Apples – Sustainable fashion part 1: conceptualising the issues
• Out Of Order – DIY Tutorial – Spring Skirt
• Previously Owned – a PREVIEW of Private ARTS la shooting for MINT mag!
• Retro Chick – Vintage Hair Video Tutorial
• SF Indie Fashion – Good Looks: Moody Winter-Almost-Spring
• Shrimp Salad Circus – how to rock orange lips
• Smiles Go With Everything – How to Search Effectively on Etsy
• The Demoiselles – Gender-Bending: Menswear

PLEASE READ IF YOU’D LIKE TO PARTICIPATE:

If you would like to submit your link for next week’s Links à la Mode, please register first, then post your links HERE. The HTML code for this week will be found in the Links a la Mode group will be published later today. ~Jennine

We’re running a little behind on the Blogger Spotlight, and I’m very sorry about that, it’s such a fun feature to showcase a lovely blogger from the community!

Last week’s Blogger Spotlight goes to the lovely Bailey, Meister & Co.

With the most adorable girly girl outfits and an out of control cute pug, Jager, you must stop by the gorgeous Hanako’s blog. I’m still giggling at the pug video, which caused me to lose an hour looking at cute puppy videos.

Nominated by: Retro Chick, Denim Debutante, Nookie, Style with Benefits, and Stylester

Why did you start blogging?

I started photographing my outfits a few years ago for reference…kind of as my alternative to Cher’s (Clueless) fabulous closet!  I eventually found a few online wardrobe sharing communities and was quickly hooked.  It seemed that starting my own blog was the next step!

What is most inspirational for you when blogging?

The friendships that I have made.  I never expected or imagined that I would meet such amazing people as a result of having a blog.  I have posted about a few personal issues and the support that I have received is astonishing.  The outfit ideas, recipes, and laughs are all just a bonus!

Describe the type of man or woman who would love Bailey Meister & Co…

Bailey Meister & Co. is a little bit of everything, which is why I think that it can be read by both fashion and non fashion bloggers.  It is primarily a personal style blog, but I squeeze in weekly “Etsy Wednesday’s” which showcase the best of the Etsy community. I also blog about things that I love, which is generally decor, food, travel, my life, and of course, fashion.  One day you may find advice on how to look perfectly pulled together in jeans and a tee and another, you’ll find the quintessential recipe for a lovely Sunday brunch!

Choose the next Blogger Spotlight!
Do you have a favorite blogger? Nominate! It will make their day (and we’ll post a link to your blog for being so kind).
Place your nominations here.

During the past few years I’ve been working from home. Working from home definitely has it upsides, like:

• Wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt to work
• Doing the laundry while you answer emails
• Going to the gym at 10am
• Going for days on end without touching makeup
• Taking naps

As much as I love that, working from home has it’s downsides…

• The hazy line between work and home
• Working 18 hours a day
• Feeling guilty about not working & not working
• Wearing sweatpants for days on end
• Not seeing people for days on end
• All your friends have avatars

Looking at this list you can tell I’m probably tired of working at home. For the last two years, I’ve worked at home, and just yesterday I decided to start looking into office space. Since moving back to San Francisco last week, I was lucky enough that my old job had a few empty cubicles and they were happy to have me around. To tell the truth, after all this time working at home ‘living the dream’ it is really, really nice to be sitting in the beige cubicle. People stop by to say hello, I’m wearing a blazer and heels AND make up! Yet, still working for myself, I can come to work at 9:15 and that’s ok, except, my boss is a total hard-ass (hehe).

The past few years of working at home, I started to think I was socially retarded, thinking “What happened? I used to be very social.” but the truth is, I was just isolated and probably depressed because of it. Humans are social creatures, and to varying degrees we need each other.

It was also nice to pack up at the end of the day and walk away from my work. Sure, there’s a hell of a lot to do around here, but that mental separation allowed me to have a nice evening with my husband picking out dinnerware. We got up this morning really early, had coffee and breakfast, and now I’m here in the cubicle, working…and feeling like I’m really ‘at work.’

Many bloggers blog from home, some in internet cafes, some work ‘at work’ a few work in their own offices… it’s the dream to be your own boss…so what does your ideal workspace look like? How much care do you put into your work environment?

Image by sabrinaeras / CC BY 2.0

Fashion Flashback

Edited by Debutante
As fashion weeks start winding down, some are looking forward to the next trend in fashion. This week, I was thrilled to see so many bloggers focusing on the past -the history of fashion. An obvious passion of mine, vintage fashion has never been so influential. fête à fête reviews a gorgeous collection of vintage inspired jewelry. Fabulous Finds narrates a 1950s styled romp through Palm Springs. Oranges and Apples shares inspiring vintage Life magazine images. In politics, if you don’t learn from history, you’re destined to repeat it. In fashion, if you don’t learn from history, you won’t know you are repeating it!

Links à la Mode : March 4th

• Bobbins and Bombshells – Fashionable History: Mary Quant
• Confessions of a Fashion Editor – Couture Cakes
• Dedicated Follower of Fashion – Spring/Summer Trends 2010 – The Tourist
• Dozen Dresses – DIY Skirt – The tutorial!
• dramatis personae – B&Lu 0 Gift Certificate Giveaway!
• Fabulous Finds Gal – Come With Me On A Sunny And Dreamy Retro Holiday In Palm Springs With The Photographer Bersa
• Fashion Pulse Daily – Marchesa Fall/Winter 2010
• Fasshonaburu – Who’s Who of Fashion Week
• fête à fête – Larkspur & Hawk’s vintage inspired jewelry
• Glossary – Please meet Paula and her pretty Pink Bow!
• hello beauty! – Bobbi Brown Spring 2010: Cabana Corals and Makeup Face Lift Collections (with video)
• JewelryWhore – Interview With Corvus Noir!
• Oranges and Apples – : Vintage fashion photo inspiration from the Life magazine archives
• Out Of Order – Bonnie & Clyde
• Prom Mafia – Betsey Johnson does DC
• Retro Chick – Estethica – Ethical Design Spotlight – Tara Starlet
• Stop Getting Low-balled As A Blogger | Independent Fashion Bloggers
• Superstylin – Total Fashion Dork Status
• The Fashion Planner – YouTube Beauty Gurus
• True Queen – One Dress That Will Take You From Work To Play in 3 Different Ways
• Tweed & tea – My name is Jacqui, and I am a perfume addict..
• ventures of jenn. – ode to the maxi
• White Rabbit – The Man Behind the Lens

PLEASE READ IF YOU’D LIKE TO PARTICIPATE:

If you would like to submit your link for next week’s Links à la Mode, please register first, then post your links HERE. The HTML code for this week will be found in the Links a la Mode group will be published later today. ~Jennine

Originally posted on Style Symmetry

Whether you take 500, 50 or 15 photos you are going to have to narrow it down to a select few or even just one to place on your blog or online community. How do you choose which picture is the best? When I take outfit photos I use a self timer set to take 10 photos, so I can take anywhere from 10 on a good day to 120 on a really really bad day. After the photos are taken the first thing I do is delete all the obvious fails right off the camera. Then I upload whats left on the computer and use the bigger view to scrutinize and then am usually left with 3 to 5 full length shots. At this point I break the photo down into three sections; face, top half of outfit and bottom half of outfit. With me so far?

I go over my face in each photo, like in this photo below I really like that I’m smiling but the middle section of the photo isn’t the most flattering, not horrible but lets see if I have a better photo.

In this photo I think the middle looks alright, good posture and bottom half deceptively great but that scowl on my face is not going to cut it!

Half smile here is definitely not as good at the first photo but there’s a better look at my headband and the outfit looks good enough so this photo would be my choice.

For the close ups I take anywhere from 10 to 50 photos on self timer, usually only 10 to 20. My goal here is to capture a few smaller details. It can be a bit nerve racking for me to be that close to the camera so I often do a little shake or make funny faces beforehand to loosen up and then pretend my husband is behind the camera while it’s rolling.

When I come across a photo that makes me giggle, I choose it for an outtake shot.

What is your process for taking photos? How MANY photos do you take?

This post is by Ashe Mischief

When you begin to monetize your blog, you need brass balls.  Cajones, testicles, whatever you want to call them– as a predominantly female community, we genetically don’t have them. Why do we need them?  As bloggers, we’re a minority, and a minority where the rules and guidelines have yet to be defined.  This means that marketing and advertising companies see us as uneducated, uninformed, and–sadly– willing to do anything for a buck or a product.

In a tough economy, you want to stay afloat and look lucrative to advertisers– it’s harder and harder to attract them right now, so saying “no” when they come around feels like a silly thing to do.

One of the first things I did this year was put together my media kit.  In it, I established rates for various forms of advertising I accepted on my blog, including sponsored posts, text ads, and banner ads.  This helps because when a potential sponsor contacts me, I have a handy PDF that explains what I offer, what the rates are, and what discounts I have as well.

In the past two weeks, I’ve been approached by advertisers who have frankly tried to low-ball…. here’s how, and here’s the unabashed facts about my site & them.

Advertiser #1:

They contact me about getting a link on my site.  Very simple email that doesn’t address me by name or mention my site.  I write back,
“Rates for links are $20 per month, and appear under the “Friends Of” sidebar.  There is a discounted rate for links purchased in 6 & 12 month increments.  If you’re interested, please let me know.”

They respond within the hour, with the reply:
“Can you do a hundred dollar gift certificate for the year to SITE for a sidebar link?  We just want a text ad, not a banner ad.”

The problems with this:

• The advertiser clearly didn’t research my site at all
• The advertiser was expecting a $140 discount for advertisements on my site, when we didn’t have any relationship together at all.
• They assumed I would want store credit to their site.

Advertiser #2

Contacted me with the following email:

Good day! We came across your site today while searching for quality sites to help us gain additional exposure in the fashion community.  Our SITE has been helping students pursue fashion design & merchandising education since 2005!

With that being said, we would like to be considered for a link under your favorite reads section:  http://www.mischiefmydear.com/dramatispersonae/ Here are the details of our site to add.  To match the other useful links you could say.

We could offer you a one-time donation of $250 to help with this via paypal.

Please let me know either way to confirm or deny this request.

I responded to them with:
Thanks for getting in touch with me about a text link ad.  Currently, I do not sell Text Link Ads under the “Favorite Reads” section of my sidebar, as those are for blogs I regularly read.  I believe that selling links there compromises my reader’s trust in trying to find other blogs who I read.

However, I do sell links on the other side.  Right now I work primarily through Text-Link-Ads.com (which reads “Advertisers” and will be ending soon), but do also sell them individually.  For individual links, I place them under the  “Friends of ” banner in the second column.

Rates are currently $25 per month for a text link, but I could do a reduced 1 year rate for $250.  Then at March 1 next year, we could discuss whether or not you’d like to continue to purchase link space on the site.

If this sounds good to you, please let me know and we can make arrangements to get your link up and for payment.

I received 1 more follow up reply from them that said:
Hi, thanks for getting back to us. Unfortunately that option won’t work for us. If you’re interested we could provide a guest post on fashion design education, that is our other option.

I politely told them no thank you.

The problems with this:

• They clearly had no respect for the fact that I was unwilling to compromise my reader’s trust in where I placed my advertisements.  So much so that they were willing to do a guest post for me!
• They had no respect for the work I put in to my blog or the fact that I have rates.
• I knew if I had accepted their offer of a guest post, they would have snuck text links in there.
• Why wasn’t I interested in a guest post?  Here’s why:

  • My Alexa ranking is: 270,295 with 207 incoming links.
  • Their Alexa ranking is: 1,762,390 with 28 incoming links.  (With Alexa, it’s important to know that the lower the score, the “better” you’re doing.)
  • Their guest post would have increased their incoming links and overall score, and what would I have gotten out of it?  I wouldn’t have gotten a mention on their blog, as they have none. I wouldn’t have been financially compensated.  They would have been using and abusing my audience and the 2.5 years of hard work I’ve put in to building my blog for their own gain.

Why do I share this all with you?  To see how something so innocuous as buying a link can be disadvantageous to not only your blog, but the blogging community you’re a member of.

While these both happened to be instances were a company was wanting to increase their SEO profile, it can happen anywhere– it can happen with indie designers who want a super discounted rate or coverage because they’re “independent,” or a big company trying to bully you in to accepting lower terms and rates for banner ads, because you should be grateful that they approached you.

Every time I accept an offer from an advertiser

How to prevent this from happening to you:

• Know Your Stats: Check up regularly on your rankings on sites like Google Page Rank and Alexa.  It’s great to be able to type in the website that’s approaching you, to see if how close (or far off) they are from your own scores.  If your own site is more lucrative then theirs, then you’re the only one with anything to lose by accepting their offers.
• Set Up Guidelines & Rates: By setting up your own guidelines for advertising and your rates, you have no reason to feel guilty when you say “No,” or counter their offer.  You have set these up with consideration to how much work goes in to your blog, how many hours you spend writing each post, marketing yourself, and frankly, you deserve what you ask for!

Why You Should Care:

• You work hard on your blog, whether it’s full time & professional or hobby.  You deserve to be treated with respect and compensated in a fair way.
• You’re part of a community at large, and when you devalue your own work, you’re also devaluing the work of your favorite bloggers.
• Nobody likes to be taken advantage of– and that’s what these companies are doing.  They’re taking advantage of you.
• We all like money– but would you take up a boss on a sketchy side business proposal that broke company policy or the law?  Is the money worth compromising your own views, your reader’s trust in you, your blog authority,  your own page rankings and scores?

While I’ve said “No” to both advertisers and won’t be doing business with them, they’ll just move on to another blogger.  That blogger could be you– and they may not offer you the same rates they offered me.  They may not even offer you compensation at all.  And you have to ask yourself– is it worth it?

Image by vigilphotography / CC BY 2.0