JMH Techtronics

With 25 of my 30 posts accepted I guess I will just get an early start on my review of my experiences with CreamAid as an advertiser. Take a look at my post Well…I Bought a CreamAid Conversation for a bit of an overview of what my conversation was about.

Considering the price I paid to get these links I can’t say I’m entirely surprised by the types of posts that I have gotten. I was very lenient with the ones I accepted because I paid very little for the posts. Almost every single one of them was from a Blogspot blog. Maybe a handful that actually had any Page Rank already. Of course I didn’t pay that much so I can’t expect them to be high ranking blogs. I did expect them to at least follow the directions in the post, and have had to reject at least 5 already.

Of the 5 I rejected they made many mistakes. Some blatantly disregarded the requirements, while others simply had sites where I could not contact the author because they had their comments turned off and no other way to get to them. There were even sites that had less than 10 total posts and have been online for less than a week. I asked very simply to get a link to my site AGLOCO Cash Machine, and specifically stated that I would not accept any posts that used their own affiliate link in it. Almost every post I rejected either added their own affiliate link, or simply linked to AGLOCO directly. Both of which defeated the purpose of my campaign. Others made mistakes, I was able to contact them, and they promptly made the adjustment.

On my CreamAid conversation panel I was able to deny any post that I wished. All I had to do was check the reason why. The 2 that I checked most often were “Blog is too new” and “Post does not fulfill the mission stated”. Very easy to do and that was the only requirement to deny the posts.

The posts that I accepted fulfilled the minimal requirements, while some went above and beyond. Some even gave me multiple links to my site so I was rather pleased with the extra effort. Others have done the minimal effort and by looking at their blogs will have some real problems doing this paid posting thing. I made the requirements extremely low so most I just accepted if the blog was older than a month and they had my link in the post. Some will end up with decent PR so I got a real bargain with those for what I paid.

I wanted to recognize a few posts just to give you an idea of what I deemed as acceptable, or in some cases way more than I could have asked for. Here is the short list:

Gogo-Snoopy
Hifidel
Sweet Peamy
Miriels Days
Judy Chow
Laane World
Ask Jason Marketing

Most of those posts did the job and gave me extra links with a well thought out post. I appreciate the extra effort for those so I am giving them a linkback from this site for it.

Now as I stated in the original post my main goal of this campaign was to get some AGLOCO sign ups, as well as get a few links off the bat for nothing. My hope was to get at least 50 AGLOCO sign ups out of the deal. At this point I have not even come close to that. As of this writing I have received only 11 sign ups from this particular conversation. Hardly what I had expected when submitting the conversation. OF course this could change over time as I do have at least 25 blogs with my link on it. Most of these blogs are not traffic machines by any stretch of the imagination so I don’t have any more expectations from those sites.

Overall I cannot say I would use the service again. Even though you have the ability to deny any post forever it has come to a point that I am receiving very little in the way of new posts for this advertisement after I hit about 15. Seeing as the pay is so low I can understand the weak blogs that take the opportunities, as well as the low amount of post being submitted. Since there is really no incentive for bloggers to use the service due to advertisers taking advantage of very low cost per link, there is really no benefit for an advertiser from an SEO standpoint. You may get lucky and catch a decent blog here and there, but the odds of that happening are slim to none.

I actually did a couple of posts for a CreamAid conversation when I first started blogging and just didn’t bother to ever come back. Most advertisers will let it sit there for months. Until the advertiser accepts the posts the conversation will keep going even if the required amount have been entered. Either that, or they are rejected outright over and over and get a link in return regardless. As a blogger the service just isn’t worth my time. As an advertiser that just gives you less to work with because a good blogger would have moved on immediately after the long time it takes to get paid a measly $1-2 to do the post. Although you can deny posts for virtually anything, you may be waiting for a year to get posts from blogs that have any sort of ranking.

So what do you think I should do? Shall I just leave the other 5 barren for as long as possible and keep denying them all until I get a golden blog, or just get it over with and take the next 5 that come through? I get paid to make posts myself so the former really isn’t going to be something I would do. I only ask this because it is possible to do so. I literally could get myself a ton of extra links from a hundred junk blogs that don’t necessarily ever have a hope of being anything worth note and hope that I get a ton of sign ups.

Considering that is the case, I do not see how this service is really all that viable for either the blogger, nor the advertiser. Even if I wanted to pay more I would still end up with the same type of blogs. It would just cost me more and get me no extra benefit. To me CreamAid is doing a disservice to itself, the advertiser, and the blogger by not having any sort of requirements whatsoever in what they allow an advertiser to do.

Do I feel like I wasted my money? Hard to say. I know I didn’t pay for great links, but the lack of sign ups really was a disappointment. If this would have been for any other reason than to get sign ups I would have never used the service. I could have gotten much better links for free just by trading other bloggers. Cheap advertising gets cheap results.

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Filed under: Blogging Tips and SEO by JMH

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