Blog Integrity and Making Money

Blogging is often-times a fascinating media outlet in terms of financial capability. On one hand you have bloggers like Shoemoney who have hit the absolute pinnacle of making money online, utilizing their informational and interesting content to convert readers into customers. This isn’t inherently bad, because the blog itself is awesome, so why shouldn’t he be paid for the content he produces?

I’m sure most readers feel this way, but there’s a fine line to walk. People don’t mind Shoemoney selling things to them because they know that was not his original intent, that he in all likelyhood just wanted to create a blog that readers would enjoy and to chronicle his online ventures into making money. But what about us little guys? How do readers interpret sponsored links and posts on blogs with small-medium traffic? I don’t really know, but I intend to find out!

So here’s your chance for some feedback. Given the recent steady (but slow) climb in traffic and my newly found pagerank, I’ve been receiving a number of requests for sponsored posts. From what I’ve gathered, most readers begrudgingly accept this sort of advertising, and I’ve read a few sponsored posts over at MDJ. What do you guys think? Is it alright to have sponsored posts on the blog assuming that I continue posting like usual (aka they don’t take the place of a real post?). Leave me a comment, some email, whatever you feel like!

-Xias