Hesham who runs one of the best blogs on the Internet to help show other bloggers how to build quality blogs, improve SEO and find ways to make money with your blogs online shows us in a post earlier this week about writing articles online for money the right way.   It is a fantastic article and one that I highly recommend anyone who is thinking about writing paid reviews start thinking about.

I can offer my own advice and opinions here about writing paid content and specifically “product or service reviews” on your blog as writing paid reviews is my primary income sources for my blogs and has netted me more than $2000 in the last twelve months.  Most of my paid reviews come in the forms of opps that earn between $15 and $25 dollars per review, but I have done five paid reviews for SocialSpark that individually netted more than $100 and two that have paid $250 for a single paid review in the past twelve months.

I share with my readers the best programs to make money online from my own experiences and I echo Hesham’s clear and concise article that preaches that when writing product or service reviews that honesty is the king here.

Many programs I have seen where they clearly state “favorable review only” and in these cases take a look at the product and determine if you honestly can review it favorable.  Your reputation is at stake and if you recommend or promote something you don’t believe in yourself then you risk damaging your ability to promote any products in the future.  Your blogging reputation is extremely important and something that should never be jeopardized just to make a few dollars here and there.

This is one of the reasons why SocialSpark is one of my favorite programs that pay bloggers to write honest reviews and because they are the broker you know you will be paid for writing a fair review even if the review isn’t positive.  Be honest but don’t be disrespectful either, if you find faults in what you are reviewing point them out without anger, emotion and simply clearly state your findings and what did or didn’t work for you about the product.  You don’t have to sugar coat it, but you should always be respectful when reviewing  a product even if you didn’t like the product.

Example of a unfavorable product review:

Many bloggers had written about the Jones Soda ToFurkey and Gravy around November which is a gimmick soda that tastes like Tofu and Gravy.  The stuff is very sugary and odd flavored and I thought it a riot when one blogger posted the video of her husband drinking the stuff and almost retching on camera after the taste.  This was a paid review and honest and done with such humor that it only helped to increase the brand awareness and make others want to try it to see if it really tasted that odd.

Summary

You cannot make easy money blogging and being paid to write product or service reviews is not every bloggers goal.  There are however many programs that pay bloggers to write reviews and if your blog reaches certain pagerank milestones you will start seeing the offers come in.  Hesham is also right that PageRank 4 or higher appears to be the magic number that garners advertisers attention, I have not seen very many with PR2 or less blogs, though I see a few with my PR3 blog.

When choosing to write reviews of a product for money remember that you need to clearly disclose that you were compensated for the review but that the review is your honest and unbiased opinion.  Your review must be fair and credible as your reputation is on the line and in the United States you can have some legal liability if you don’t honestly disclose being compensated for reviewing a product.

I have always told other bloggers to be “Choosy” about what they review on their blogs, you don’t want to review products that don’t fit within your blogging theme or niche.  Personal blogs have an edge here because you can pretty much write about anything, but niche focused blogs can have their image tarnished by blatantly writing about products or services that aren’t even closely related to what the blog is about.

Be a credible blogger and if you are going to try and be paid to write product reviews then write honest reviews 100% of the time.

-Dragon Blogger

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Saw an announcement on twitter and visited a blog called “Writing Jobs for Web & Print“, this is a fantastic blog that brings you job opportunities for writers, bloggers and anyone looking to try to make some money with their writing ability. You can find blogs looking for bloggers, journalists wanted, writing contests and more.

In addition to posting open opportunities online, you can find good articles about writing, blogging for a living and job hunting. If you are a writer and looking for writing gigs, or are interested in blogging/writing then FreelanceWritingGigs.com to check out and read.

-Dragon Blogger

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If you are already running blogs then you are already taking advantage of an effective way to communicate with your audience, but there are other sites to build an audience without having to start your own blog.  If you are more interested in writing editorials, or articles in a journalism type of fashion then you might be better served joining a writing website like Helium or Associated Content which pay writers for articles for performance (page views) and in some cases up front.  Though it doesn’t amount to much, you can augment your blog writing with publishing a few articles on these sites and include references with a link back to one of your own blog article and serve two purposes.

A) finding a separate audience on a site that you normally wouldn’t be reaching for an audience

B) giving the readers a chance to click back to your own blog if they enjoyed your article and want to read more.

Remember just creating a blog isn’t enough these days, you have to go out of your way to build up an entire online presence and personae.  This involves guest posting on other blogs where your name gets mentioned with a link back (this serves to get your name out there, so more people can come across your blog handle).  By networking with other bloggers and building relationships, you can expand your online presence and in doing so you will get more recognition which in theory should translate to traffic back to your primary blog or blogs.

-Dragon Blogger

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