Recently significant promotion began for this blog and the new blog directory.  One of the channels being utilized is blog post reviews.  While working with the different providers and options available, several observations were made.  A lot of time was spent working with these systems.  Hopefully the below information will be useful to those interested in the topic and help save others time in the process.

Most blogs are designed to cover posts on a few related topics.  For example, this blog covers marketing, SEO, and web directory related topics.  However, it seems there are a vast number of blogs selling their credibility.  That is, they write about topics completely unrelated to their blog’s theme in order to earn revenue from advertisers.  This practice is damaging to blogs in a number of ways, including:

• When readers visit a blog, it is because they are interested in the topics the blog covers.  It would seem to be very difficult to build a loyal reader-base if visitors cannot count on the blog to provide this information consistently.  If half the time visitors see posts for unrelated products and services, they will loose interest, and the blog looses visitors as a result.
• Credibility is important for a blog.  There’s nothing wrong with making some sponsored posts, but be sure to investigate the site and its offerings thoroughly.  Including incorrect information and assumptions can turn away both visitors and advertisers.  As mentioned above, it is best to only write about web sites that are related in content to your blog.
• Many advertisers looking to invest in blog reviews may be otherwise interested in your blog based on its status, but can be easily turned away if unrelated posts are displayed.  As most know, it is best to have links in content that is related to the site being linked.  Links are much less valuable when unrelated content from other posts surrounds them.  Therefore, when a blog contains posts on many various, completely unrelated topics, all of the links there have less value.

On the other hand, from an advertiser point of view, be sure to keep the below considerations in mind when choosing blogs to review your site:

• Be careful about subdomains.  The stats for some blogs are artificial because the Alexa and/or other measurements actually come from the main domain, such as a blog provider service.
• Many blogs seem to place the normal price for reviews quite high for direct orders.  Yet, if you post an opportunity for $10, they will take advantage of it.  Be careful about this.  It seems to be best to order directly only from very well established blogs, and then let the others come to you for review.
• Some services for blog reviews allow you to review each blog, and accept/decline as you feel appropriate.  This is ideal if you have the time to manage the incoming options.  Other services allow you to apply filters based on blog stats, such as Alexa or PR.  This can be useful, but often increases the minimum charge considerably.  Also, with these providers, there does not seem to currently be an effective method of allowing only blogs from a certain theme.  The final provider type selects high quality blogs for you, and takes all the work out of your hands.  This type general produces the best results because of the higher quality blogs participating at the higher price point and, of course, saves a lot of time, but is also the most costly of the options.  Be sure to select the provider that best meets your needs, time constraints, and budget.
• There are always exceptions, but try to select blogs related in content to your site.  Of course, there are usually a few options that pop up that seem to be good deals, such as sites with high traffic that make a very affordable offer.  It’s understandable to select a few of these, but still, try to stick with your theme for the reasons mentioned in the above section.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Webmaster and Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.