If you are in the business of marketing products or services, then you are likely to know that a very effective way of engaging your target market can be through telling a story. Sponsored posts can be a great way to get your story across.
It might be your story or the story of the product or experience you want to share. Or it might be a story of an outdoor adventure relevant to women, in which you can show how your product would enhance their experience, enjoyment, and/or safety.
No matter what angle you take, so long as the story provides value to the reader in terms of being relevant to the outdoors and offers useful, factual information that people can appreciate, then Camping for Women would be interested in working with you and your brand.
What do sponsored posts look like?
Sponsored posts essentially look like most other guest posts in terms of appearance and layout of text and images.
However, there are a few differences that we highlight below:
Attribution
While a guest post will always be attributed to the guest author and provide a bio of that person, sponsored posts will be attributed to the brand sponsoring the post. Instead of a bio of a person, details of the brand, including contact details will be included with relevant links to the brand.
It is still possible for women authors to be acknowledged as the writers of sponsored posts if this is preferred. This can be done while still including the brand’s contact details linking back to their website, or a specific page that offers more detail on a product or service.
Preferred layout for sponsored posts
Short paragraphs are always preferred, as this spaces out well on the post making it easier to read.
The content included between Heading/Subheadings should ideally not exceed 300 words.
It is usually best to include images with your post text. A rough guide might be 1 image every 400 or so words, depending on the context and the product/brand. This helps break up the text even more and generally creates a greater level of interest.
SEO considerations
Although we market all posts to our subscriber base and reader forums when we publish, we always encourage those that submit posts to ensure they maximize their attractiveness to the internet search engines (Search Engine Optimization or SEO).
By following guidelines that are SEO friendly, ensures women outdoor adventurers will be finding and reading your post for a long time to come.
Some of the more significant guidelines include that the post:
- Has an absolute minimum of 800 words. The more words and information you can include, the better. Google in particular loves long articles that provide value to readers.
- Includes ‘keywords’ that are made up about 1% of the words used. The keywords for your article do not need to include the name of your brand or product (although they could). It is really about ensuring you can be found by those using those keywords when searching online. It is usually best to use long-tail keywords (three words or more).
- Link(s) to external sites that have high credibility and provide more references for readers who want to find out more. These could include links back to your own site if you have more information there, although they will be marked as sponsored links to comply with SEO.
- At least one internal link for SEO purposes. That means linking to at least one other article published by Camping for Women.
- Ideal for the keywords to be used in the title of the post as well as one of the subheadings.
The above are the main things relating to SEO but if this all seems a bit confusing, then you don’t have to worry. The team at Camping for Women always works on optimizing all sponsored posts before they are published.
Links to your brand
Sponsored posts are welcomed to include links back to a brand’s website so that readers can click on these to view the site and find more information. As mentioned earlier these links will be marked as ‘sponsored’ or ‘no-follow’ for the purposes of transparency and SEO.
Is this a good or bad thing?
Some people assume that marking a link as ‘sponsored’ or ‘no-follow’ with sponsored posts is not a good thing for the SEO of the brand site. This is simply not true because the link sits on Camping for Women’s site and not the brand’s site. Hence it is in the brand’s interest that the post follows the SEO guidelines as this will result in:
- More views of the post;
- More interest in their content; and
- More clicks through to the brand’s site.
How about link insertion?
Often, we are asked if we will insert a brand’s link into a pre-existing post for a fee.
Many sites do offer link insertion however we do not offer third-party link insertion into posts already published.
This means when you publish a guest post with us, the only links that will appear will be those deemed appropriate for the post by you and Camping for Women. We will not subsequently include links to any other parties’ domain(s) within a post that you have sponsored.
What is the cost of a sponsored post on Camping for Women?
The standard cost of sponsored post that remains permanently on the site is just US$80.00, payable by Paypal. We are always happy to negotiate this rate even lower in cases of multiple orders or to support a worthwhile cause.
However, we do not automatically publish a sponsored post simply because a brand has ‘put in an order’. Camping for Women reserves the right to refuse to publish any post if we do not see any genuine connection with our reader’s areas of interest.
Are Sponsored Posts the right option for you?
Many brands prefer the more personable, interesting, and detailed approach that can be achieved with sponsored posts, over the option of placing an advertisement on a website.
There is also the ability for brands to link to their post on the site to show how they have engaged with our readers and subscribers and how they position themselves to the outdoor women market. You are also entitled to use the ‘as featured on’ logo to link to your sponsored posts.
What are other options to promote what you offer?
Although sponsored posts offer a lot in terms of telling your story in a lot of detail, there are still other ways you can highlight your brand to our readers.
These include:
Reviews:
Camping for Women works with independent product and service reviewers that write about their experiences with your brand. These are published and promoted to our readership as well as being featured on our Reviews page.
Reviews are created and published free of charge. The only cost to brands is the cost of shipping their product to the relevant reviewer or hosting the reviewer if your brand is around providing an experience. If you are interested in us publishing a review for your brand, please send us a pitch addressed to our publisher Nicole Anderson via email [email protected]
You should outline a description of the product and also include links providing more detail, as well as the preferred location/country for review. We will then look at the product more closely and determine if one of our reviewers would like to undertake the review.
Other briefer options:
These include things like advertising on the site, being promoted via our social media channels, and offering reader incentives as outlined on our Media Opportunities page.
Have any questions?
Get in touch with us by sending us a message on our contact page or by sending us an email: [email protected]