To Delete or Not Delete: That is The Question
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I delete paid posts. I also delete unpaid posts.
I’ll give you a moment to swallow that little bit of throw-up in your mouth… I know, most bloggers don’t. Every post is a part of them, paid or unpaid. That’s great. As a former Market Communications manager, I learned long ago to set aside pride of ownership and evaluate my copy with an objective eye. And some of what I write is crap.
Do I delete all unpaid posts? Not all of them. Just the ones that aren’t adding to the value of my blog, and I’m permitted within the TOS to do so.
Which posts add value to my blog?
I check my stats nearly every day. There are a ton of analytics packages out there, but I like pMetrics enough that I pay for it. The interface is super-clean and easy to understand, and it tells me everything I want to know - uniques, pageloads, time-on-site, referrers, SEARCH TERMS and SPECIFIC POSTS HIT.
Those last two are a key factor in my decision to delete or not delete. If a post is bringing in search engine traffic, why would I delete? No way. I wrote a review on my diet blog for a guy who wanted his website reviewed. He was selling a supplement, and was going through a program with it himself. I did the review as directed, about his WEBSITE (and caught a lot of grief from people that thought I endorsed the product), and it still brings in hits months later. Delete it?
Nope.
On the other hand, more than half of my paid posts never get traffic. One reason for this is the Opp Orgy I referred to several days ago. When you take posts that aren’t relevant to your blog, you stand little chance of ranking high for the search terms that may be contained in that post. Lesson learned. Ideally, I want to take posts that are in synch with the content of my blog and pay me - double-dipping, as it were. Nothing like using a paid post for content ideas!
So, those irrelevant non-value-added posts are outta there.
An incredibly important (and little-understood) reason to delete
Link equity.
Scott Karp notes that newspapers are having trouble coming to grip with the realities of web advertising. Advertisers view a website as having infinite space for ads, thus de-valuing the price of the ad.
Furthermore, it is generally accepted that every outbound link costs you a little google-juice.This makes it that much harder to get to and maintain a high page rank. So, i’s important to be compensated appropriately. For instance, if it’s going to cost you $X in time or money (time has a value and you should know yours) to get a link from someplace, you want to be sure you’re being paid at least $x + $1. At least, I do.
Additionally, if you limit the number of outbound links on a site that is attractive to an advertiser, you increase the amount of google-juice to each advertiser (fewer outbound links = more google-juice passed on). You also create a positive supply-and-demand effect on pricing - not just for paid posts, but your other monetization methods as well.
What about the TOS?
Each paid post broker has specific terms of service you, as a blogger, must abide. You must know these terms before you take a paid post, and you better damn sure know them before you delete a post. For the reasons cited above, you have to be sure you’re being paid an amount commensurate with the value you’re giving.
PPP has a 30-day minimum window before permitting deletions. There is a wide range of pricing available for many opportunities, so at least when you take an opp that is low-paid, not relevant, and not performing in terms of traffic, you have the option to remove it. I have not removed all of the PPP posts I’m entitled to remove because some have been nice additions to my blog’s content and I’m proud of them.
SponsoredReviews.com also has a 30-day deletion policy, but warn that a blogger found deleting consistently will be dropped. Since mosts of the posts I’ve done for SR have been relevant and added value to my blog, I don’t believe I’ve deleted any. I should go back and look, but I’m feeling a little lazy and unprofessional. 
Linkworth’s LinkPost service as a 12-month deletion policy. I don’t mind this because, again, most of my posts have been very relevant AND I priced my blogs accordingly. I expect to be paid more for a Linkworth post than a PPP or SR post.
I cannot find a deletion policy for ReviewMe and I assume a ‘no-deletion’ policy. Again, not a problem because I’ve only done very relevant posts and priced myself properly.
With LW and RM, several of the blogs I’ve registered could be doing many, many times the number of posts that have been written. They have good stats, but I keep in mind two things - the value of a long-term link, and my history of selling direct. I don’t like to cannibalize my direct sales because of the EXTREMELY HIGH commissions charged by both services.
What is your rationale for deleting or not deleting? Do you even care? Am I over-thinking this?
tag: PayPerPost, Paid Blogging, SponsoredReviews.com, Linkworth, LinkPost, ReviewMe, Paid Reviews
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