Paid Contributor Programs: What They Offer, and What They Don’t
It’s not always easy to make the news. The publishing industry is a tight one, and even the grandest publicity stunts or the finest contributed articles sometimes fail to see the light of day at the whims of an editor with an overflowing inbox. As such, it comes as no surprise that paid contributor programs have been a tremendous success in recent years—and their popularity is only growing. These programs guarantee a soap-box for content at an agreed-upon fee, allowing companies to bypass the hassle of pitching the press. When that content is able to earn the respect of readers, paid contributor programs become an efficient and useful means of exhibiting the value that a company offers.
Before leaping into such an arrangement, however, there are several factors to consider. While paid contributor programs boast many advantages, they are not without weaknesses. As with anything else in business, the best course of action for a given company will always depend on its specific circumstances and needs, and the various pros and cons of a paid contributor program must be carefully considered within the appropriate context. To aid in that decision, the guidelines below cover what such programs offer, what they don’t offer, and when they are most appropriate.
What Paid Contributor Programs Can Offer
The primary benefit offered by paid contributor programs, and the primary service for which the company actually pays, is domain authority. Anybody can publish anything for free via the internet, of course, and so companies aren’t really paying to get published, per se. Rather, they pay for access to an audience—in much the same way as traditional advertisement—which here comes in the form of domain authority. Any paid contributor program worth its price will already have a relatively high-ranking domain as recognized by search engines like Google, which then feature the company’s content toward the top of search results on relevant queries.
Beside domain authority, paid contributor programs can be expected to yield two other noteworthy advantages: endorsement and quality control. Endorsement, of course, lends a company a share of the publisher’s perceived status. Paid or not, being featured in sufficiently reputable media outlets will inevitably enhance a company’s own reputation. And, finally, paid contributor programs offer quality control. Publishers generally have strong editorial teams who take good professional care of the copy that a company submits, often enhancing the quality of the end product.
What Paid Contributor Programs Don’t Offer
The most notable weakness of paid contributor programs may be somewhat surprising: they generally do not offer an extensive audience. Naturally, the very reason a company would pay for publication is because the publisher has a large and consistent readership. The mistake that companies tend to make is assuming a contributed piece will take an even slice of the publisher’s overall traffic, when in reality contributor content generally accounts for a limited portion. As such, companies must ensure that they have realistic, data-based estimates for the actual extent of exposure before making a decision.
It is also worth noting that paid contributor programs do not offer much in the way of improving the client company’s website ranking. Many companies assume that, since the paid content will feature embedded links to their home website, their own domain will receive a higher ranking among search engines. Nearly all paid contributor programs, however, use “nofollow” links—links to which a sort of attribute is appended which tells search engines to ignore them when assigning the linked website’s rank. Companies should inquire ahead of any decision whether embedded links will be of this sort, and proceed accordingly.
When Paid Contributor Programs are Most Useful
Bearing the above two sections in mind, there are two instances in which a paid contributor program is particularly handy. The first of these is when a company is just starting out and is looking to gain trust and share of voice as an established member of their industry. In such a case the company lacks the domain authority or brand equity to enter into the proper discussions, and would benefit from purchasing those assets via a paid contributor program, if only for a temporary period.
The second instance is when a company has suffered a reputational crisis, and is in need of high-ranking positive content to “push down” negative publicity. In this scenario populating the web via a paid contributor program can provide fast and reliable crisis-control which might otherwise have been unachievable.
It is worth noting here that, in any event, paid contributions are most useful when they earn their place in spite of their status as being paid. Quality may not be a prerequisite for paid-publication, but it remains a prerequisite for success. At the end of the day, the content which a company produces is a showcase of that company’s value to the consumer. Only when content is worth the reader’s time will it ever be worth the company’s own.
Conclusion
Paid contributor programs are a tool like any other. Used correctly, they can achieve substantial results for a company’s public image. Used incorrectly, they can drain a company’s resources in pursuit of unrealistic expectations. The key, of course, lies in the knowledge of the user, who must understand the tool in order to use it at the appropriate instance. Bearing in mind precisely what paid contributor programs do and do not have to offer, a company can likewise make informed decisions according to their unique and ever-changing situation, equipping themselves for the times in which they truly need it most.
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