Back in October, we set up a survey to ask you some questions regarding your blogging finances. Thank you all so much for answering the questions – we know these things take a little time but we really do appreciate it!
First, the demographics of people answering the survey. 95% of people answering were from the UK, which is what we expected! Ages ranged from 18 to 55 with most people in their early 20’s. Blog topics ranged from the typical fashion, beauty and lifestyle, to the more unusual like gardens, festivals and finance. You’ve been blogging for up to 10 years(!) but most people have been blogging for about 3 or 4 years.
53% of you have been paid to write a blog post, and of those, 72% were asked to not use the nofollow marker when placing a link in that post. This is of course incorrect, as per the Google guidelines. Whether this is because the person asking for the link doesn’t know the rules or whether they don’t care, it’s pretty concerning!
Let’s talk about pricing for those blog posts. The lowest amount someone charged was $20 (which at todays exchange rate is about £14.80). The most quoted was £1500, but that was a significant outlier – most people were charging about £150. This is much better than the last time we looked at blogging finances – but there were still so many people who are definitely undercharging! Most respondents from the lower end of the scale were happy to accept the amounts offered – don’t be afraid to go back to the person asking for a blog post and requesting more money!
Domain Authorities varied greatly with the highest being 48. Interestingly, the highest DA was not the person charging the most for blog posts – they were actually charging less than average! If you’re unsure about what you should be charging, try Social Bluebook for a basic idea.
Next up was blogging networks. We’ve covered lots of different networks on the site, but only 40% of respondents have actually received sponsored opportunities through them. There are a few things to think about here. Are there too many blogging networks out there, which means opportunities are spread out between them quite thinly? Are blogging networks not matching opportunities to the right people?
62% of you use affiliate links, but it’s slow going – 70% of those that use affiliate links have earnt less than £25 in at least the last 3 months. Networks varied, but quite a few of you are using rewardStyle and Shopstyle, which are the best way to link to most items you’re interested in (and hopefully means you’ll be able to reach a payout threshold quicker!)
Finally, social media. People who accepted sponsored Instagram posts were happy to accept amounts between £5 and £1000. The average amount was £100, but again, those with the larger followings weren’t the ones charging more than average! On Twitter, amounts were lower – an average of £50 per tweet.
This is actually one of the reasons why we wanted to run this survey, to show you that you are worth more than you are charging, and that you can charge more. As we said in the original post, we believe that by sharing this information in the community, we can all grow. If you have just one motto for 2018, make it this:
Thanks for sharing, it’s really interesting to see the differences!