there are some things you might want to consider before handing over your item ( this is NOT about blog give-aways, but a blogger asking you to specifically give him/her a free item with a review on his/her blog in return):
1. Almost all very popular, high traffic blogs and websites do not contact sellers. It's the other way around--they get contacted by hundreds of sellers asking for a product review.
2. Their blogs are most likely low traffic ones.
3. They want freebies.
4. They could just as easily PAY for your item and then review it.
5. They could just blog about your item or shop for free by using your pictures.
6. There are some people out there who will take advantage of you.
This tool might be helpful when deciding whether or not to send a product for review:
free blog ranker:
http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
(blogs with a page rank of 4 and above get good traffic and have a good ranking)
So please be sure to check out stats and stuff, before sending free stuff.
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rtisan is UpFront
4 comments:
Good advice! It's easy to get excited about the possibility of a blog write-up and to not use the best judgement, but it's really not worth giving your products away.
You CANNOT tell traffic from Google Page Rank!
http://www.backbonemedia.com/google_page_rank.aspx
Google Page Rank for a particular page is directly proportional to the number of links that point to it. However, these links are not all given the same weight. Google claims that some links are more important because they originate on pages that are themselves considered important.
There are blogs out there who get THOUSANDS of visitors a day but their page rank is lower than a 4. It all depends on what words they are linking to whether or not they show up in Googles Rank. There's a million "ranks" out there regarding blogs. Look at Technorati, Alexa, LinkIns. A Google Page Rank is not sufficient info to base your decision off of.
I'm not generally one to stir things up but since I am a blogger and frequently ask for things to review, I have to defend "my kind"
I have some responses to your points, and some of them are obviously sarcastic but you make generalities that are inaccurate and they need to be addressed.
1. Almost all very popular, high traffic blogs and websites do not contact sellers. It's the other way around--they get contacted by hundreds of sellers asking for a product review. I get 15,000 unique visitors a month and have a pagerank of 4 after less than a year of blogging, while I do receive requests for reviews, I also go out of my way to contact people if they have a product I like. It allows me to test drive something, help my readers find great new products, support small independent businesses and gets their product in front of 15,000 people a month. Before I had those numbers I had smaller numbers, in fact I had a big fat 0 Google PR 2 months ago, and the people intelligent enough to realize the potential of blog reviews and sent me a product to review when I had 400 visitors a month are now having posts about their company show up on the first page of Google because of my site. Also, plenty of high traffic blogs send out requests for product submissions for certain events for their blogs. Yes, they ask.
2. Their blogs are most likely low traffic ones. Addressed above, and not always indicative of the quality of the advertising potential.
3. They want freebies. When I worked full time I made over $25/hr. It will likely take me over 2 hours to review, photograph and complete my review. If I buy a $15 product will they pay me $50 to review it?
4. They could just as easily PAY for your item and then review it. GMC could just as easily pay you to drive their cars. That is the exact attitude you are defending against. Blog reviews are advertising and mom blogs are one of the most powerful and influential means to get products in from of consumers. There is value in it.
5. They could just blog about your item or shop for free by using your pictures. Sure but I'd have to end it with "it could be crap" because I didn't get to see it. A review like that has value only to YOU as a link, and while my purpose is to help you promote your business with the review, it is also to help my readers find unique quality products.
6. There are some people out there who will take advantage of you. You could get into an accident if you drive a car. You could bite your tongue if you chew food. Wear a seat belt. Chew carefully.
I *think* your motives are to help etsy sellers protect themselves from the dregs of the earth, and unfortunately there are some out there who are unethical but they are in the minority.
I can't imagine that you don't see the value in getting your product reviewed on a blog, even one that gets only a few hundred visitors a month. Advertising is costly and even if you only make 2 sales from that one review, you are up 1 in profits.
The vast majority of bloggers will earn that product with their review.
Your warning is a good one. They should check out the blog before submitting a product, but not necessarily for the things you mentioned. I frequent a blog with roughly 20 loyal visitors and I'm sure she gets a total of a couple hundred unique hits a month but if she reviewed a product and loved it, probably half her readers would buy it. Like most things, quantity is not always indicative of quality.
Read their content, check out past reviews, ask them some questions about why they are interested in the product and go from there.
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