For people who write on their blogs daily, the prospect of making money is an attractive (though often elusive) goal.
Bloggers may put AdSense on their blog, promote affiliate products, or maybe create products of their own.
One trend that is beginning to catch on is to write paid reviews for other businesses on your blog.
But how do you convince companies to pay you to write a review on their behalf? This is where ReviewMe comes in.
ReviewMe is a website which brings together bloggers who want to review products and advertisers who need their product reviewed.
ReviewMe will pay a blogger anywhere from $20-200 to write a review for a company's product on their blog.
Here is what you need to know to get started.
1.
Not everyone is accepted If you have a new blog or a blog with a low readership, then you might want to hold off before you apply.
ReviewMe will determine how much your blog is worth based on factors like your Alexa ranking, your RSS subscribers, and the number of links to your site.
The good news is that if you are turned down from the program, you can always reapply at a later date if your rankings have improved.
2.
Advertisers choose you You don't get to choose which advertisers you would like to write reviews for.
Instead, an advertiser will search through ReviewMe's database of blogs looking for a blog that he thinks would be appropriate for his product.
Once an advertiser has selected you to write a review, you can either accept or turn down the offer.
3.
The Review Must Be 200 Words This isn't too bad of a requirement.
It should be fairly easy to write 200 words about a product after you have actually used it.
4.
The review doesn't have to be positive This is a relief for bloggers who are worried about maintaining the integrity of their blog.
This isn't a paid testimonial; it's an actual honest review.
5.
Restrictions There are a few strict restrictions that you should be aware of, or you won't get paid.
First, you are not allowed to change the review, the links, or the date of the review at any time.
This shouldn't be a problem for most bloggers, but for those who like to do some "spring cleaning" every now and then, this is something to keep in mind.
Also, you must provide a link back to the advertiser's website, and it must be the link they give you and not an affiliate link.
ReviewMe is pretty strict about this.
6.
How Much Can You Make? There's really no limit to the amount you can make or be paid.
It all depends on how many advertisers ask you to write reviews for them, and how much your current review pay rate is.
Your pay rate is based on your Alexa Rank, RSS subscribers, back links, Google ranking, and reviews of your past reviews.
That last part is the real kicker.
After you post a review, the advertiser gets to "rate" your review.
Based on those ratings, your pay rate can either go up or down.
For this reason, you may want to think twice before you give a terrible review.
Constructive criticism may be fine, but you probably want to point out some of the good aspects as well.