Blogging For Free Stuff

Blogging for free stuff can be a great opportunity for you if you’re professional, good at writing, and especially if you have a large following. Writing a blog post for a company is one way to exchange a marketing service for their product, or help them with market research. The post that you write will provide a backlink for the product. This can help the company’s search engine exposure (organic backlinks help increase search engine rankings). It also influences your blog followers to purchase their products. These are the reasons a company might be interested in sending you a free product.

Is the stuff that you get for blogging actually free?

It’s free in that there is no monetary commitment to purchase the product. However, you may have expenses building a blog, building your blog following, performing the review, and promoting the review. Can you get a free blog? Yes. Can you build your following for free? Yes. Can you perform the review and promote the review for free? Yes. So potentially the freebies you get are actually free. However, most bloggers who blog professionally do have some expenses and they spend a lot of time getting to the point where they can actually ask a company if they’re interested.

Professional blogging is a microbusiness online. Anyone can do it, but it takes work. Like any business, the business owner may do a lot of work up front and get paid very little; but if it’s managed properly then he or she will eventually be able to work much less and get paid more, sometimes much more. Blogging is one of the businesses that can produce passive cash flow and which you can start with $0 up front. While work is involved, that is still considered free. Many of the freebies mentioned on AF.c are not convenient; they take time. Whether it’s worth it or not is up to you.

How To Start A Blog

The word “blog” is short for “web log”.  It is a type of web site where the author can publish entries on a regular basis and the entries are displayed with the most recent one at the top. The Actually Free Blog is one example. There are multiple free blogging platforms. The most popular three are Tumblr, Blogger, and the basic package at WordPress.com. Others are listed under Web Freebies. It is quite possible to use any of these free platforms to make money. Yet, if you’re blogging professionally you’ll want to learn all you can about digital marketing; and the more you learn, the more you’ll realize that some expenses may become necessary to help your blog gain more exposure. You could start with a free platform and then transition later to a paid platform, or you can start with a paid platform and avoid the costly transition later.

Paid platforms include Ghost, premium packages at WordPress.com and a self-hosted WordPress website. The self-hosted WordPress website is the most recommended. You can choose a hosting provider like Bluehost. Once you pay for the hosting, installing WordPress is free.

The paid options will give you more features and flexibility for building and promoting your blog. Websites are simply a collection of files that are stored on a computer which is connected to the world wide web. The computer is called a “server” in this case. With these paid platforms you’re basically paying to rent space on their servers. You also need a domain name, which is the address of your website. (It’s like paying for both the land and the house, you have the address AND the building). Some of these platforms will give you a free subdomain. For example, if you’re using wordpress.com, the subdomain you’ll be given will be something like yoursite.wordpress.com. It’s better and easier to promote your site when the domain is just “yoursite.com” where “yoursite” is whatever your name is. Even if you were to use some of the free platforms, getting your own domain is also suggested over a subdomain. Hosting could be anywhere between $5-$10 a month, the domain name will be about $10-$15 a year.

Starting the blog is simply a matter of following a few technical steps. If you’re using a free blogging platform then you’ll go to their home page, click “sign up” and then follow all their prompts until your blog is completely set up. If you’re starting a self-hosted WordPress site, then you’ll go to the hosting provider first to purchase a domain name and hosting. An SSL certificate and malware scan are also suggested. Once you’ve purchased these products from the hosting provider you’ll log on to your cpanel and install wordpress. This will give you a separate WordPress login to start building your site. For more details and specific steps, watch videos on YouTube. They’ll have screenshots that show exactly where to click and what to do. If you’re building a WordPress site you’ll also need to choose a good theme and learn how to use it. If you know how to use a word processor like Microsoft Word, then you’ll be able to learn WordPress. The level of difficulty is about the same, you just have to learn how to use it.

If you would like assistance creating a professional website, contact Mirex Marketing. (Serious inquiries only, do not expect free services or advice)

How to Build Your Blog Following and Why It’s Important

If you’re blogging for free stuff, then you’ll essentially be trading a marketing service for the products that companies send you. In order for this trade to be worthwhile for them, you’ll have to demonstrate that your blog is a valuable marketing resource. This means that you’ll have to grow your blog following before companies will even consider sending you something. You must have an influence that can potentially help the company make more sales since that is the purpose of marketing. There are more benefits to growing your blog than simply to get free stuff. You can also monetize the blog with advertising and affiliate links to get paid for it. One expert who blogs for free stuff suggested that 30,000 page views per month is the minimum.

One of the most important steps to building your blog is choosing the right audience and writing for that audience. Provide good content that your audience wants to consume. If your audience doesn’t like the content, it won’t matter how much time or money you spend promoting it. Most of the promotion will involve social interaction around the content and if it’s not worth sharing, then you’ve gained nothing. The content not only has to be quality, but it should also be frequent. You should post something new at least once a week, probably more. Since you’ll want to establish a track record for writing reviews, you could start by reviewing products that you already own or borrow products from friends and family.

Once you’ve established a good base of content and a system for creating new, quality content regularly, then you can promote the site through search engines, social media, and email. There are plenty of paid methods for driving traffic to your website, but these free ways are the best ways to start. They take time, but building them up properly produces better returns than any other marketing channel for any niche, industry or business.

Search Engine marketing, more specifically “search engine optimization”, involves two parts: onsite and offsite SEO. Onsite SEO is the process of making your website friendly to search engines. You’ll need make it easily navigable and user-friendly (search engines favor sites that are more user friendly). You’ll also want to add meta data to the pages to give search engines more information. Offsite SEO involves building quality backlinks to your website. You can be a guest speaker on internet radio shows or write guest content for other blogs. The higher your content quality, the more other sites will link to you without you even asking. There is much more to SEO; this is just a very brief description.

Social Media includes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. Facebook is a social network, Twitter is a microblog, Pinterest is primarily a sharing site for images and YouTube is for hosting and sharing videos. You’ll need to start by creating a specific page, account or channel on each of these platforms just for your blog. Whenever you post an article on your blog you will want to repost it on social media and then share with others through the social features of each platform. It’s not enough just to post it, you’ll want to share, post and repost on multiple groups and with friends. The more that you can get people to “like”, “share” or comment on your posts the better. All of these social signals will produce traffic to your blog on their own and also supplement your SEO, since search engines look at social signals. There is much more to social media marketing; this is just a very brief description.

Email marketing is one of the best ways to capture your audience and re-market to them at a price that is nearly free. Email has the highest ROI of any marketing channel. If your audience enjoys your content, they will not mind being notified of when new content is available or receiving additional content in their email. You’ll need to create an incentive to get them to opt-in to your email list. The form to opt in will be displayed on your blog. You can communicate with them through autoresponders which save a lot of time. You can also create monthly newsletters. You must use a commercial email marketing application to do this. A free email account such as gmail or hotmail is not sufficient. Mailchimp is free to start, Constant Contact is one of the better paid options.. There is much more to email marketing; this is just a brief description.

You’ll want to monitor your website performance so that you can tell companies how many page views and unique visitors you are getting. The more the better. If you’re using WordPress you can get this information from WordPress stats. Also, Google Analytics is the standard for monitoring websites no matter how the website is built or what it’s built with.

For assistance with analytics, SEO, social media marketing or email marketing, contact Mirex Marketing.  (Serious inquiries only, do not expect free services or advice)

You could also approach this from a different angle and leverage the free product to build your blog. Explain to the company that you’ll not only write about their product, but you’ll also give it away as a prize for one of your blog followers. This will give them exposure and you can leverage something you’re getting for free to build your blog.

How to Get Free Products To Review

Once you’ve built your blog up to about 30,000 page views per month or more, you might find that some companies will be reaching out to you. Some will offer you products to review, others will ask if they can leverage your traffic in other ways. At that point, you do not have to give away backlinks or exposure for free. If they want a backlink, offer it to them if they give you a product.

Just waiting for requests to come to you may not be sufficient, so you can reach out to certain businesses and ask. Select the manufacturers of products who will serve your audience and products that you wish to try. Do your best to find the person in charge of public relations or media relations. Then send them an email asking them if they would like to collaborate. You’ll describe the type of traffic that your blog is getting and the audience that you write for. Feel free to add any personal notes, such as if you’ve tried some of their other products and that you like their brand. Don’t ever write them saying that you’re just writing to ask if they have any free stuff for bloggers. That will not go over well.

Disclose and explain clearly that any products you’re given will receive an honest and accurate review. You should not feel pressured or obligated to write a raving review just because they give you a free product. All your leverage comes from maintaining a blog of quality content that serves your audience. If you write a good review for a bad product, then you will begin to lose your audience and that decreases your influence and income from the blog.

After you contact multiple companies, some will say “no”, some will say “not now”, and others will be interested. If they say “no” then thank them for their consideration and ask that they keep you in mind for possibly working together in the future. If others say “not now” then ask when they might be interested or when the best time would be to check back with them. When others are interested, keep your cool and stay professional, even if it’s your first time. Once you’ve written a few a few reviews professionally then the PRs of the companies you write for will talk to others and you’ll find that the ball starts rolling.

You can use the promotional opportunity to involve others who would benefit and get even more free stuff. For example, one blogging mom was given kid dresses to review. She contacted a local photographer who took photos of her kids for free while they were wearing the dresses. She used the photo in her review for the dresses and credited the photographer.

See also 250+ Places to Get Free Products To Review On Your Blog

How to Write a Good Review

Obviously, if the company is willing to send you the product, then you should try it before writing the review. Get experience with the product which you can use as part of your content.

The review that you write for the product should not be a sales pitch. There should be a somewhat informative tone, similar to what you’d read in a newspaper or magazine. Start by identifying the problem the problem that product solves. Perhaps even dramatize it a little by getting the reader to imagine themselves in the situation where they need the product. Then explain how the product relieves that problem and how life is different when you have it. Compare it with other products on the market or products that you’ve tried. If it is better, the you should especially explain why it’s better.

Hopefully the product is a good one and your experience with it makes you want to write positive things about it. That’s the best case scenario for you and the company that sent you the product. But, if it’s not that great, explain why and critique it. Explain what you hope the company will change about it or improve for the next model. You don’t have to praise it if it’s not a good product, but you can put a positive and uplifting spin on it. If you want to avoid writing bad reviews altogether, then don’t accept the product or explain to the company who gave you the product that the review won’t be positive and ask if they want it back (and if they do they’ll have to pay postage).

Definitely include a link to the product or explain where people can buy it.

You should disclose in the review that you received the product for free and whether you received additional compensation for writing the review, which is now an FTC regulation. Read How To Make Effective Disclosures. If you do not properly disclose then you could get into legal trouble later.

How to Promote Your Reviews

Once the review is published and live there are a few ways that you can boost it. Promoting your review is similar to the way you’d promote your blog (above), but here you’ll do it on an individual basis.

Go to question & answer forums and look for people who have asked related questions. Don’t just leave a link to your blog in the comments, leave the specific link to the review that you’ve published. Comment on other blogs that have related content. The content must related or you’d get marked as spam. Keep it relevant.

Announce the article on social media. You can sync your blog and social media so that when you publish an article it automatically posts to Facebook, twitter and other platforms. But just posting it there won’t be enough. You’ll need to share it with friends and in groups and respond to any comments on it.

If you’re doing your email correctly then you could also send the article to your subscribers directly.

Your goal is to increase the reach as much as possible so that you can use the stats to demonstrate to other companies that your blog has marketing value.

Following Up With the Company

If the company is willing to go through the effort of sending you a product to review, then you should keep your end of the deal and deliver. If the review won’t be good, then you should tell the company before publishing your article. They may already have improvements planned and they might send you an updated version. Keep the lines of communication open.

Notify the company once the article has been published so that they can see it (and see that you’ve done it)

About a month after the article you should also follow up with the company by giving them a report on your stats. If you’re really nice you could also give them stats after 3 and 6 months. This would even give you a reason to contact them again to ask if they would like to do it again.

Following up is the most professional move you can make in the entire process. Companies will appreciate it and they’ll be more willing to do business with you in future, and tell their colleagues about you so that you can get opportunities with other companies.

Blogging for free stuff is one a few ways that you can provide marketing services or market research for freebies. Since a blog is technically a form of social media, you could apply the same principles on this page to other types of content. For example, you could build the same following and reputation on YouTube and make product reviews with video, instead of writing. Other ways to exchange marketing services for freebies include Mystery Shopping, Product Testing, and House Parties. Rarer opportunities include Human Billboard Advertising and Car Wrap Advertising.