As a trusting consumer, you have every right to be informed about my reasons for and position on monetisation and feel satisfied with the validity of any endorsements.
This is for you.
Call me vague or naive, though when I began this blog I truly had NO IDEA that people actually earned a revenue from blogging! I simply wanted to help others by sharing projects, ideas and inspiration, and I had a genuine yearning to connect with a supportive, like-minded community.
It’s important to note that I write this blog primarily for the love of it, not to make an income.
That said, over the years this little blog of mine has grown, and running it does cost me money and consume a lot of my time (and unfortunately I can’t live on love alone).
For that reason, I might on occasion collaborate with carefully vetted sponsors. This enables me to:
One: make some ‘pocket money’ to help supplement my husband’s teacher’s wage.
Two: support brands (particularly small/independent businesses and blogs) by offering them affordable exposure.
Three: introduce my readers to brands and products they may benefit from and enjoy.
Four: cover some of the costs involved with self-hosted blogging to help make this site viable and keep it running.
It’s incredibly important to me that all sponsor engagement is as enriching and transparent as possible. In the interest of my cherished readers, my blog itself and my own personal integrity, I have, and will continue to, decline advertising opportunities (no matter how lucrative) I deem irrelevant, unsuitable or inappropriate. Any sponsor related activity will always be disclosed and any form of remuneration will never influence my opinion or adversely affect the content of this blog. I will never use sneaky contextual links or publish commercial guest articles. It’s also important to keep in mind that the vast majority of my brand and product endorsements are in no way compensated.
I am extremely selective about the sponsor opportunities I accept. Amongst other factors, I make a deliberate effort to ensure they; relate to the nature of my blog, offer my readers some value, reflect my own personal taste/style, closely align with my personal ethos. In essence, if I don’t love something and think my readers will love it too, it simply won’t appear on my blog. Supporting small/independent businesses and blogs is a priority.
The relatively modest income I receive from engaging Google Adsense accounts for the vast majority of my humble advertising revenue and is what affords me the opportunity to offer incredibly reasonable sponsor rates for small businesses.
