Webupon

Blogging is something that is in my blood. I love to blog, and have been an avid blogger for some time now with different topic blogs and websites in my time. I suppose my love for blogging is down to my underlying passion for writing.

The simple truth is that I love the sound of my own voice, whether its in print or during public speaking, and blogging is a great outlet for this. I get to share my passion with the millions of people who happen to be online at any given moment.

With blogging comes the opportunity to make money. Now some people see this as abhorrent, that it is a corruption of the ethos of blogging – that bloggers are the independent experts of the internet, the people that should be trusted to give honest advice. These people would say that paying a blogger is tantamount to corporate sponsorship, which strips the blogger of any credibility. Once a blogger is not credible, he or she has no further use to innocent surfers and as such should give up and go home.

I do not believe that opinion to be entirely valid, although I would be inclined to go along with some of it.

The question really boils down to be whether or not Blogging is a public service or a business. I don’t see why it cant be both.

Is it not possible for bloggers to maintain some sort of impartiality to a subject whilst being paid for it? Don’t journalists have the same situation? Why is it so hard for people to believe that just because someone is getting paid to write their blog that they are suddenly corrupt?

The answer to this question is sadly all over the internet. People don’t believe that bloggers can be impartial whist getting paid because there are so many blogs promoting scams and rip offs that exist purely to make money online. There are as many examples showing bloggers off to be scam artists as there are genuine blogs out there.

The thing is that it is quite possible to make a lot of money blogging and still maintaining your credibility. In fact, being genuine will allow readers to believe you and therefore make you even more money from your blog.

So there you have it. When a blogger gets paid to blog it does not damage the credibility of the site. It is the bloggers choice to sell out or not. Bloggers who do not, stand to make more money than those who do, its just its easier to sell out.

In conclusion, pay per post and affiliate links do not cheapen a blog, it is the blogger that cheapens his own blog by not putting in the effort to keep it alive.