The 2 Questions You Must Ask Before Taking Paid Reviews for Your Blog
By Desty on Jul 5, 2007 in Blogging, Making Money Online, Reviews
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July’s fixed expenses for the hosting of Desty Online were covered this morning when Bloggerwave paid me for my sponsored review. While I am writing with joy that planned expenses have been met early in the month, along with 10% of the revenue has been invested, I really want to touch on a warning to the many would-be reviewers out there.
There are a host of paid to blog or pay for review sites out there. Check with Dosh Dosh on what paid review sites are available. If you’re just starting out, there won’t be very many opportunities for you. Let me pass on this small piece of advice: DO NOT TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY OFFERED TO YOU!!!
There are two hard and fast rules to follow when taking on paid review gigs.
Rule #1 Does the product / service / site mesh with your blog?
Desty Online focuses on two areas of interest in its posts: the set-up and running of businesses, and some Internet marketing. In basic terms, we’re here to help you start your business and to pass on tips about blogging and how to market your blog as we learn them. A sponsored review of Bloggerwave, an advertising site that buys and sells for reviews of products and services, falls into a tip for other bloggers in how to earn some extra income from their blog. I had another opportunity for a paid review through Bloggerwave, but the service had nothing to do with Desty Online and its focus, so I turned it down. If you take every opportunity to do a paid review, no matter what the subject is, you will lose readers. Readers are at your blog because of your brand of information. If you go outside that brand just to get paid to blog, you’ll be perceived to be after the fast buck, and who wants to go to a blog just to read ads.
Rule #2 Does your paid review give any value to the reader or is it just to make some money?
Readers don’t want to read ads; they want to read what you normally write about for free. If you do write a paid review and the subject fits in with your blog’s topic, don’t make the review posting itself an ad. You want to tailor the post to what the product is about, but write the post as if it were one of your normal non-sponsored articles. Tie the product into the article, but don’t make the article about the product.
Having the opportunity to get paid to blog via sponsored reviews is a great gig for the blogger, but the blogger himself has a responsibility to his readers. That responsibility is to not only do reviews that fit in with the blog’s content but mesh the product of the review into a quality post so as to enhance the reader’s experience.
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Absolutely, Desty! Without proven quality and established trust, sponsored reviews fall on their face. You have to be picky about these things, because what you post on your blog is integral to your online reputation–and reputation is everything.
Any post that goes into a blog should be to enhance the view experience. Even humor can be used for a serious blog, if used correctly. Me, I just like panda’s sneezing
Great points! Some bloggers catch the paid-review bug, and it seems like every other post is a paid review that has nothing to do with the blog’s content. Very distracting for readers.
Bloggerwave is the worst thing in my life!! Trust me every bloggers all over the world!! The program is suck!! Since the first time I was entering this program until now!! I haven’t been making any money!! This is not make any sense. I’ve finished 3 opportunities, “Bloggerwave”, “Masterseek”, and “Coke Zero” reviews. All of them had approved by Bloggerwave. Later on, my first opportunity “Bloggerwave” is cancelled, then “Masterseek”. I am very confuse, posts that have approved by Bloggerwave can be canceled by them. Be wave with Bloggerwave, this is a new SCAM!! You can check it out at my blog, with those keywords at “review” category.
Bloggerwave, you are damn suck!! Liar!! Damn Liar!! They owe me US$30 and now only US$10. Bloggerwave has canceled the US$20 and has eaten the money for itself.
Guys!! All of you should beware, don’t say that no body care about the real reality of this new scam program!! I have already warn you!!
Hmm…I’ve only done one paid review through Bloggerwave and got paid for it after 30 days. The other opportunities given by them didn’t match what Desty Online is about, so I didn’t take them. May have been a good thing that I didn’t. If I were you Suray, I would send an email to Bloggerwave asking why your articles were canceled. If they can’t give a good answer, then delete those articles, or at the least remove the links that you were supposed to get paid for.
I hope Bloggerwave realize this and repair their system as soon as possible, so that Bloggerwave will not disappoint every bloggers that have treat the same thing like what I’ve felt.