BlogJob - a Good Site for First-time Bloggers

Today BlogJob announced that they are temporarily suspending their rewards program due to a decline in traffic, apparently caused by technical issues which have led to the site suffering a lot of down time.

Hopefully the site will still recover, but if you're not already a member, now is not the best time to sign up. I will update this article as soon as there are further developments.

For some time now I've been contemplating starting my own blog but I could never find the self-confidence to do so. I was well aware that there was a lot more work involved than just writing good content. Attracting readers to a new blog isn't easy and I don't have a big social media following to bring my blog to people's attention so I feared that anything I published would go largely unread.

Despite my fears I recently decided to take the plunge, but before getting started I did a little research to help me decide which site I should use to host my blog.

Some people believe that it's best to create a self-hosted blog. I was unwilling to go that route as I didn't feel ready to invest money in purchasing a domain name and paying a hosting fee when I wasn't sure I'd make a success of my blog. As a first-time blogger, free hosting seemed like the way to go.

BlogJob appealed to me because it takes the option of free hosting and makes it a little bit more attractive by paying its members for allowing the site to host their blogs.

Yes, you read that right! BlogJob will pay you for allowing them to host your blog. You can earn a small amount for each post you publish as long as your posts are a minimum of 300 words in length. You won't grow rich that way, but it's nice to see a little money coming in while you're trying to find an audience for your blog.

The first thing you need to know is that BlogJob pays in points. This is significant because a point doesn't have a fixed value. Points can be exchanged for vouchers to spend online, but I haven't examined that option too closely because I prefer to be paid cash using my PayPal account.

Using PayPal, you can redeem 5,000 points for $25. But as the chart below shows, it's better to keep accumulating points as their value will increase if you do so.

BlogJob will pay you 50 points for each new post you publish, and there are smaller tasks that will earn you 1-2 points for interacting with other members. You can even earn 2 points per day just for logging in. BlogJob will also pay you 50 points each time you refer a new member.

Potential earnings through the BlogJob payment scheme are limited though as a new member is restricted to earning a maximum of 150 points per day. If you earn the maximum points every day it will take you 68 days to earn 10,000 points ($100). However there are projects which will enable you to increase that limit substantially over time. Something as simple as referring 250 visitors and 2 new sign-ups is enough to increase your limit by 100 points per day. The former can easily be achieved by using BlogJob's social media share buttons. You can rack up referred visitors by sharing other members' posts as well, so it's a good idea to share any articles that may interest your Facebook friends or Twitter followers.

To reach some of the higher levels you will need a blog that generates a lot of traffic (thousands of visitors every month) and may also need to sign up for one of BlogJob's business opportunities. As these business opportunities involve investing your own money, however, you may prefer to remain at a lower level and use other methods to monetize your blog. I will discuss these later.

You can find full details on how to earn points and how to increase your daily limit on BlogJob's rewards page.

While you are free to remove your blog or selected posts at any time, if you choose to do so you will lose the points you earned for those posts. This is just one reason why it's wise to use other methods to monetize your blog.

If you have an AdSense account, it's really simple to link it to your blog. Once you've done so, your adverts will be rotated with those being posted on BlogJob's behalf, with 75 percent of the adverts displayed on your blog earning money for you while the remaining 25 percent will earn money for the site.

Some members claim that other advertising programs earn more than AdSense does, and these may be easier to sign up for if you don't already have an AdSense account. However there are a few programs that BlogJob prohibits members from using. At time of writing these are RevenueHits, Bidvertiser and AdsBronco, but it's best to check the advertising page before you choose a program in case others are added.

It is also possible to use affiliate advertising through sites like Amazon.

Given the problems writers have recently had at sites like Bubblews and a few of its clones, many are now uncertain whether to trust new sites they encounter. I haven't been at BlogJob long enough to cash out yet, but I've been reading the forums and other members claim to have been paid. I'll update this section as soon as I've earned my first $100 but so far everything I've read points to BlogJob being a trustworthy site.

Update: I'm not as productive as some bloggers who seem to be able to churn out several posts a day, but I finally reached 10,000 points in April 2016 and received my $100 with very little delay.