Paid Reviews

If you are a small business owner with a blog, you may want to consider being paid for reviewing products or services.The way it works is that there are companies that pay bloggers to write honest reviews for advertisers. The amount that a reviewer is paid varies depending on the company but some of the factors that can determine payment amount are:

• The quality of your posts
• The size of your readership
• How well-known and established your blog is (or is becoming)

This is beneficial to advertisers because it can be an excellent way to launch a new service or product or to create buzz about a new website. It's beneficial to the blogger because not only are you paid for writing reviews but you are also providing a service to your blog visitors by giving your honest opinion on products of value that they may find useful. It can also establish trust and build credibility if your blog visitors know that up front that even though you are being paid, it is going to be an unbiased and objective review. You will provide all information for your visitors - the pros and cons because you want your visitors to be well-informed by the information that you share. Your credibility is on the line so this is very important.

If you should decide to participate in being paid for writing reviews, here are a few suggestions:

• Be up front with your blog visitors. Disclose to them that while you are being compensated for reviews, it does not determine in any way what you will write.

• Review products that compliment your blog and add value to the lives of your blog visitors. For example, if you have a blog about graphic design standards and practices, you may want to review products such as software, cameras, videos, etc. Your visitors are probably seeking this type of information and adding this as a bonus can keep your visitors returning.

Here are a few websites that offer bloggers the opportunity to write paid reviews:

• www.sponsoredreviews.com
• www.reviewme.com
• www.payperpost.com

These companies listed above and others may vary on their processes - account set up and working with advertisers. Generally, the review is written and if the advertiser approves the review, the reviewer paid. To learn how much is paid out upon approval, the actual approval process and how long it takes to receive payment, you can visit the websites to check out how the system works.

I personally do not participate in paid reviews but if a blog owner is upfront and honest about what s/he is doing and the review is honest and unbiased, I do not think there is an issue. On the other hand, if the advertiser can do no wrong because the blog owner is being paid, uhmmmm...that would be a problem.