Paying for a placement is easy. Paying for a placement on a site that is worth it takes a little more work — and most of that work can be done in twenty minutes, before you spend anything. The checks below are the ones we would want any buyer to run on our own directory, and they are the ones that separate an established site with real readers from a site that only looks like one.
Run them in order. A site that fails the first three is not rescued by passing the rest, and a site that passes all nine is a site you can brief with confidence. Keep notes as you go: the checklist at the end of this article is designed to be reused for every site you consider, including ours.
1. Is it publishing regularly?
Open the homepage and the section your article would sit in, and look at the dates. An established news site publishes every day, or several times a day, with fresh stories across its sections. A site whose latest story is weeks old, or whose homepage mixes current stories with months-old ones, is not actively maintained — whatever its history or its name suggests.
Regular publishing matters for a practical reason, not a cosmetic one. A site that publishes daily has editors on duty, a workflow for handling new articles, and readers who come back. A site that does not may take weeks to publish your article, or publish it and then go quiet again. If you cannot see recent dates, treat that as a failed check, not a detail to ask about later.
2. Are there real signs of a local readership?
You cannot see a site’s audience figures from the outside, and you should be suspicious of anyone who shows you figures they cannot source. What you can see is whether readership leaves traces.
Look for comments on articles, shares on social channels, and a presence in search for the site’s own name. Look for stories that follow local events day by day — a court case, a sports season, a policy announcement — rather than generic articles that could have been published anywhere. A site rooted in its market writes about its market in specific terms: named places, named people, local context that a writer outside that market would have to research.
Absence of every trace is a warning. A site can be quiet on comments and still be read, but a site with no social presence, no search presence for its own name, and no local specificity is asking you to take its audience on trust alone. Do not.
3. Does it have editorial standards you can see?
Read five articles on the site, including one in your sector. Do they have consistent style, named sections, and bylines or an identifiable newsroom voice? Or do they read like unrelated contributions pasted together, with inconsistent formatting and no visible editing?
Editorial standards are also visible in what a site refuses. A site that publishes anything, on any topic, for anyone, is not exercising judgement — and your article will sit among content that readers, and editors elsewhere, do not take seriously. A site with a clear sense of what it covers, and a visible practice of labelling sponsored content, is protecting its readers. That protection is part of what you are paying for: coverage on a site readers trust is worth more than coverage on a site readers scroll past.
4. Does the sector fit, or are you forcing it?
A business story belongs where business readers are. An entertainment story belongs where entertainment readers are. This sounds obvious, and it is the check most often skipped when a buyer falls in love with a well-known title.
Check the site’s sections and its recent stories in your sector. Has it published on your topic, or on adjacent topics, in the last month? Does it cover that topic with knowledge, or does it look like a one-off? If your article would be the only piece of its kind on the site, readers will notice, and editors may well ask why it is there.
Sector fit also protects your brief. An editor who knows your sector will edit your article well. An editor who does not will either publish it unedited, which helps no one, or rewrite it into something you no longer recognise.
5. Does it publish sponsored content at all, and on what terms?
Not every site accepts sponsored articles, and not every site that does accepts them on the same terms. Before you shortlist a site, find out whether it has a sponsored or advertising practice at all, how sponsored articles are labelled, and what link attributes and placement rules apply under its own editorial policy.
This is the check where honesty matters most. No seller can promise you a particular label or link attribute on someone else’s site, because those decisions belong to the site. If a seller promises one, walk away — that promise tells you everything about how the rest of the order will be handled. Our own position is set out in our content and disclosure policy: each site in our directory publishes under its own editorial policy, and sponsored labels and attributes are not removed.
Ask the question in writing, before you pay, and keep the answer with the order.
6. Will it work for readers on a phone?
Most reading in African markets is on mobile, often on variable connections. Open the site on your phone, on a normal connection, and read an article end to end. Does it load promptly? Is the text readable without zooming? Do images and adverts crowd the article out?
If the site is painful on your phone, it is painful for its readers too — and your article will be read, if it is read at all, in that same painful experience. Mobile speed is also a useful proxy for how seriously a site takes its audience. A site that invests in a readable mobile experience is a site that expects readers to return.
7. Is the turnaround realistic?
Ask how long publication takes, and from what point the clock runs. An honest answer names the starting point: in our case, the guarantee runs from the moment we receive your final article, and the article goes live within 24 hours or the order is refunded in full. A vague answer — soon, quickly, in a few days — is not a turnaround, it is a hope.
Remember that editor review is the variable in every honest timeline. An editor who reads, checks and possibly edits your article is doing the job you want done. A seller who promises instant publication on an established news site is either not going through an editor at all, or is promising something they do not control. Either way, the promise is the problem.
Build the turnaround into your plan: brief early, send a final article rather than a draft, and agree what happens if an editor asks for changes. One round of edits is included in every order with us; check what your provider includes before you need it.
8. Is payment safe, and are the terms in writing?
Before you pay, you should be able to answer four questions in writing: what exactly are you buying, what does the order include, what happens if the article is edited or declined, and what happens if a live link is later removed?
Payment safety follows from those answers. One order, one invoice, a recognised payment route, and a clear refund or replacement term are the marks of a provider who expects to be held to their word. Our orders include one link, one round of edits and a live-link report, with 50% paid on order and the balance within 48 hours of going live, by PayPal or Stripe, and a free replacement if a live link is removed within 12 months. Whatever provider you use, get the equivalent in writing.
Be wary of payment pressure: a discount that expires today, a request to pay an individual rather than a business, or terms that only appear after payment. All three are reasons to stop, not reasons to hurry.
9. What happens after publication?
A placement does not end when the article goes live. Ask how you will know it is live, what report you will receive, and who to contact if the article changes or disappears. A live-link report with the article address, the publication date and the site should be standard, not a favour.
Also ask about permanence. Is the article expected to stay live, and for how long? What is the replacement policy if it is removed? A provider who cannot answer these questions is selling you a moment, not a placement. The 12-month replacement cover in our orders exists because links do occasionally disappear — sites redesign, sections close, articles are updated — and a buyer should not pay twice for the same placement.
The checklist, in one place
Copy this into your next shortlisting session, and score each site honestly:
- Publishing regularly, with recent dates across sections?
- Real readership traces — comments, social presence, search presence, local specificity?
- Visible editorial standards, including clear labelling of sponsored content?
- Sector fit — does this site already cover your topic well?
- Sponsored-content terms confirmed in writing, with no promised label or attribute?
- Readable and usable on a phone?
- Realistic turnaround, measured from a named starting point?
- Payment terms and refund or replacement terms in writing, before payment?
- Live-link report and a permanence and replacement policy after publication?
A site that passes all nine is worth briefing. A site that fails the first three is not worth negotiating with, however attractive its name. And a site that fails only on turnaround or terms may still be worth using — provided you go in knowing the weakness and pricing it in.
Run the same nine checks on our directory. Browse the sites by country and sector on our site directory, read a few articles on each title you shortlist, and then ask us for prices only for the sites that pass. That is exactly how the checklist is meant to be used — including on us.
Request prices for the sites that pass
Tell us which sites passed your checks, the sector you are in, and the story you want readers to see. We will quote for those sites, reply within 24 hours on business days, and confirm the terms in writing before you pay anything.