On one occasion, freelance writers were able to express their opinions and personal views on their matters without a commercial agenda. In the past few years, public relations firms and large corporations have used blogs. (And content marketing in general) as a means of delivering marketing messages to a wider audience. This leads to unfortunate results for bloggers and blog readers’ trust.

There is a fine line between blog posts and ad chapters. If you pay in product form or in cash to write about other companies and their offers, you are not just risking the trust of your audience as search engine algorithms become more complex. In 2014, however, you could be penalized by Google and other companies with search engines.

Why is transparency important?

Disclosure is an important part of building and maintaining audience trust.If a company provides you with a free product, it’s important that you be clear when you’re writing about the product.

Keep in mind that once you’ve received a giveaway from a PR company or another company, it can be difficult to give an unbiased opinion of the product, even if it’s really intentional. Most people will not lie about the product they receive. Instead, they may hesitate to write negative comments, considering their obligations or guilt.

How can I prevent this?

If you want to maintain credibility, it is important that you stay honest. Many bloggers refuse to accept promotional giveaways if they don’t like the product they offer. This means that they only post positive reviews about products that they really feel good about.

Some bloggers insist that getting a free product will have an immediate negative impact on your credibility, and you shouldn’t write about things you don’t want to pay for yourself. Regardless of your policy, it is important to be specific on your website and that you adhere to it with the best ecommerce marketing services, otherwise your marketing may be meaningless.

How will this affect my search engine ranking?

Google has a strong opinion of the difference between valuable and useful blog content and sponsored ads. If they think what you write is more advertising than actual content, there is a good chance that your blog will be penalized and may suffer for a long time in the future.