Posted: 11:33 pm by tom in
Blog,
Blogging,
Marketing,
Reviews
As we all know, sponsored reviews can be a great source of traffic, and drive a lot of new visitors to your blog. However, many people seem to only look at purchasing one based on two factors:
The cost of the review
The popularity of the website reviewing them
However, there is a lot more to think about. I’ve outlined a few extra factors that should help you to make the best decision in purchasing your sponsored review. I recommend Sponsored Reviews as a great source for quality reviews!
1. How often does the webmaster post? - This is very important to consider as the more often that they post, the quicker your ad will be pushed from the homepage, giving you far less exposure. Ideally you want a hugely popular site that hardly updates, but this probably won’t exist. Just don’t go with a blog that updates 3 times per day.
2. How many posts are shown on their homepage? - Similar to point 1, it’s all a matter of exposure. Try to purchase a review on a blog that displays as many posts as possible on their homepage, your ad will be receiving the maximum exposure for the maximum time.
3. How many page views is the website receiving? - If the webmaster is successfully drawing visitors into their blog’s inner pages then your review will receive more long term exposure. If their page views are extremely low then once your blog disappears from the homepage it will be gone forever. Use Alexa to check page views.
4. What are their other reviews like? - Far too many people purchase reviews without researching the blogger’s writing style. What are you looking for in your review? If you want honest, harsh criticism about your design then make sure that’s what the blogger will offer. If you want a sugar coated complimentary post to drive more visitors then make sure that’s what they will give you. Did their previous review posts receive a lot of interest? (check comments etc…) or do their readers seem to skim over this kind of content?
I hope that these tips are helpful, and I recommend always taking the time to THINK before you buy.
I would also just like to do a shout out to a couple of fellow bloggers to say thanks!
Connor Wilson posted an excellent free review of Push Standard’s design. He gave me some really great ideas to work with, and I highly recommend using his reviewing services. You will notice that this post is being displayed at full length on the homepage. I’m interested in trying this technique based on part of Connor’s review. Please let me know if you prefer it to the old system. Thanks!
Jon Wheatley is a blogger that I’ve known for a little while now. I highly recommend that you check out his blog j0n.org. Basically Jon is a fellow Strokes fan and was kind enough to give me his domain thestrokes.info! I really appreciate it, and hope to turn it into a Strokes fansite in the near future. Cheers Jon!
You just gave me some valuable info. I plan to market my blog better in the future, and sponsored reviews will be one of the things I’ll use. And I do like reading the full post on the homepage!
I read Connor’s review of your site earlier this morning…and I agree with the recommendation of publishing the full article on the home page. However, I’ve noticed that several of the top bloggers don’t do this. So, I’m not sure what is best…but full article is my preference.
BTW, Connor did an awesome job of reviewing the design. His feedback was excellent.
I’m glad that you guys prefer the full page post, I think that I’ll keep it like this.
Jim: Connor’s review was really useful I agree. I know that many top bloggers don’t display full posts, but it seems like a better system to me. One problem that I see is duplicate content though, I’ll need to research that a little.
Great post, Tom! I think sponsored reviews are a great way to get some good exposure. I haven’t bought any reviews yet, but I love writing them. I have written a number of them through SponsoredReviews on my personal blog. I try to relate them all to my life in some way or another. I’ve found that it helps keep my readers’ interest. I usually get quite a few comments on those posts as well, so at least some of them seem to be effective in taking visitors to the advertiser’s site.
Also, I’m glad you changed to the full post view on the homepage. I like being able to read an entire article without having to click “read more”. That’s why I’ve always shown the full articles on my blogs. And it really bugs me when I see only partial posts on the RSS feeds.
Keep up the great work!
Thats great info, I hope people read this post so they dont waste money! I know i wont waste any money now.
Thanks for the support Tish
Thanks also Andrew
I’m glad that you found the post useful.