Looking for a new way to monetize your blog or build links, awareness and buzz about your service or product? ReviewMe, the new service which pays bloggers (under full disclosure) to review products has launched and intends to change the paid blogging world.
Somewhat similar to the controversial PayPerPost formula, ReviewMe pays bloggers to review products and encourages those bloggers to speak their heart – the end result a mix of honest positive and negative reviews throughout the blogosphere.
Better yet, instead of an ‘across the board’ pay per review payout to bloggers, ReviewMe uses a method to value the blog posts; which seems a bit similar to the link valuation method its parent company Text Link Ads uses for its FeedVertising ad offering.
For example, ReviewMe takes into account a blog’s Alexa and Technocrati ratings to determine blog value and I would not be surprised if it also looked at Bloglines and NewsGator subscription numbers.
So, how can bloggers sign up for ReviewMe and how does the process work? Here’s the step by step from ReviewMe:
1. Submit your site for inclusion into our ReviewMe publisher network. Begin by creating a free account using the link below.
2. If approved, your site will enter our ReviewMe marketplace and clients will purchase reviews from you.
3 . You decide to accept the review or not.
4 .You will be paid $20.00 to $200.00 for each completed review that you post on your site.
Oh yes, that full disclosure bit I was writing about? In order for a blogger to receive payment from ReviewMe they must include that the reviews are Paid Advertisements in the posts themselves.
Transparent honesty, works in the blogosphere and sure to work for ReviewMe.
So, here’s my sponsored review of ReviewMe :
I’ve submitted a couple of blogs to ReviewMe (they allow a max of 6 blogs per user) and find it to be a very easy to navigate interface with almost instant blog reviewing and valuation by their program.
Blogs are classified in different groups based upon location and theme while blog owners can also tag their blogs with up to six descriptive tags.
One can also use their system to sift through blogs which have signed up for review me by searching for keywords, looking through categories, or browsing previews of the most current posts made on each blog.
ReviewMe, like Text Link Ads, keeps 50% of the advertising revenue for themselves… so if a review on a blog costs the advertiser $200, the blogger gets paid $100. Still, better than nothing.
Honestly, I think this style of advertising will work. Will it help with link building initiatives? Possibly, on some search engines, but I’m thinking Google probably has their eyes on these Paid Review type services and may discredit link juice from paid posts. At least in ReviewMe’s corner, their transparency will probably not result in any site-wide penalties or problems with the search engine quality rankings… something I’m sure Andy Hagans & Aaron Wall (ReviewMe is the lovechild of the two) have already reviewed numerous times.
Of course, true linking is designed to build relevant traffic, conversions and awareness to a site; and hopefully ReviewMe will help to do so for its advertisers.
