Everyone wants to make money. Some want to be rich and make millions, some are content to just pay the bills they need to pay and get by on the bare minimums and the rest of us want to be comfortable and be happy.

When I started YIS, I never thought it would grow to be what it’s become today. The main reason I started the site was because it was a way to keep my self in check when it came to maintaining my own healthy lifestyle after losing my weight.  It felt good to vent to myself, all the while hoping a few people would read what I had to say, but thinking that it was probably just going to be my mom leaving me comments on my posts…

Over the last three months, I’ve been getting emails from companies, people and agencies, asking me to do guest blogs, feature blogs, sponsored blogs and paid blog posts for them.  If you don’t know what these are, the gist of it is that someone pays me to write about their product on my blog.  Or it could be someone giving me a blog post of theirs to put on my site that is talking about a product they’re trying to sell. If there are any sales from my site they will give me a percentile of the sale. There’s also been some personal trainers contacting me, wanting to sell their services on my site and with all of this, I’m not sure what exactly to do.  I’m a firm believer in knowing a product, knowing a trainer or knowing what I’m talking about before I back it, talk about it or recommending it.

I put a lot of effort, time, energy and money in to my site and as it progresses I’m looking to turn it in to a viable business.  During my weight loss journey I’ve discovered that I love working out and helping others and ideally I’d like to turn my site in to an online personal training site with my blog being the driving force.  With some help from advertisers, marketing and branding association of products I believe in I think I can make all of this a very productive business and I don’t think that being a blogger who uses “sponsored posts” is how I want to make money or have as a reputation.

I love doing guest posts for fellow bloggers on their sites, so that isn’t the issue and that isn’t what I’m here to talk about.  What I’m wondering about is, as bloggers and readers, what do you think about “sponsored blogs”, paid advertising on your site and partnerships?  Are there ethics when it comes to this?

Source: http://www.yourinnerskinny.ca/are-there-ethics-in-blogging/