Why paying for a review on JohnTP was worth the money
A couple of days ago John Metcalfe from Web Business Blog posted about me paying for a review on John TP’s Blog and asked whether it was value for money. I replied with a quick comment at the time but i thought it would be good to give a better explanation as to why i believe paying for a review on John TP was worth the money. You can read the full post here however for reference i have reprinted the points he raised below :
While reading some of the rss feeds that i subscribe to on a daily basis i noticed that Kevin Muldoon from Bloggingtips (great blog by the way kevin) has had his blog reviewed by JohnTP Review Of Bloggingtips.com
The price that kevin paid for this review was $250 of which john will get paid a percentage from reviewme. While John gave a great review of BlogggingTips with some good pointers of where Kevin could improve his blog i would question whether kevin would have been better off saving his $250 and getting critical feedback from elsewhere for free!
Here’s my point and i invite john and kevin to correct me if i’m wrong…
Wouldn’t kevin have been better off going to one of the top internet marketing or blogging forums and asking them for some critical feedback of his blog ? Doing it this way kevin would have been able to get feedback for free and would have got answers from several experts in the blogging community not just one person…
I know kevin will get a quality link from John’s pagerank 6 blog but is it really worth $250 ?
I’d love to know what you think and please correct me if i’m completely off the mark with my view…
Before moving on i need to congraulate John on having such impeccable taste, BloggingTips is a great blog! 
Why i advertised on JohnTp
I believe that John Metcalfe has based his opinion of me paying for a review on JohnTP on the assumption that i paid for the review solely to get feedback on the blog. This is not the case. If you have read the comments i have made to the reviews of Blogging Tips then you will know that i do really take on board the criticism and suggestions i receive regarding Blogging Tips however the main reason i pay for reviews on blogs such as John TP is to get more exposure for this blog and to expose it to a wider audience.
John TP averages around 1500+ subscribers to his RSS feed. He covers a range of topics on his blog however one topic he writes about a lot is wordpress. Therefore, its pretty safe for me to assume that the majority of those 1500+ subscribers (plus all those but visit his blog who do not subscribe) are bloggers. This is clearly the audience i want to advertise Blogging Tips to.
Of course, i could post a link to Blogging Tips in forums and ask for feedback and i’m sure i would get some traffic and perhaps even a few new subscribers however the traffic would be low compared to getting a review on a popular blog.
I have paid for a lot of reviews of Blogging Tips in the last 2 months. I will be writing a post next week about it all however for now, i want to explain what i am looking to get from a paid review of Blogging Tips.
- Traffic (Main Reason)
- More Subscribers (Main Reason)
- Incoming Links to the Blog
- Criticism and Suggestions for the blog
I reiterate, whilst i do want feedback on the blog and more incoming links, the main reason i have been paying for reviews is to increase traffic to the blog and increase the number of subscribers here.
Blog Advertising Costs are all relative
$250 might sound like a lot of money for a review and perhaps it is. However, in internet advertising the price of paying for something like this is all relative. When google does the next page rank update in a month or two i will start to sell advertising here and perhaps do the odd review myself. I’d be over the moon if i got a page rank of 6 however realistically i think Blogging Tips will get a page rank 5.
I will be able to determine advertising costs here once i do have a pagerank however the main factors a potential advertiser will look for on a blog is at is Page Rank, Blog Traffic and the number of subscribers to the RSS feed. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the more traffic i get here and the more subscribers i have, the more i can charge for advertising on the blog which will result in my monthly income for the blog increasing. As i said, it’s all relative!
You gotta spend money to make money - This old quote is kinda cliche but it is also very true. With any website, a % of monthly income should be set aside for advertising purposes. I’m just lucky that im in a position financially to promote the blog before it actually brings in any cash. The cautious amongst you may view advertising the blog before it makes money as a gamble but those who have run websites before know that advertising a new website at the beginning of the sites life is essential to giving it a head start.
Overview
All in all i have no regrets in paying the money i did to get a review on John TP and i’m sure it will boost my daily traffic a little.
If you are considering ordering a review from ReviewMe then i hope you take the time to understand what you and your blog will receive from ordering such a review. Remember, there are alternative advertising options available and you should look at all of these before placing an order
Thanks to John Metcalfe from Web Business Blog for posting the question on his blog that inspired this post! 
If you are have any more questions about this then please leave a comment and i’ll do my best to answer them.
Thanks,
Kevin
Success Online | June 15th, 2007 at 12:33 am #
You obviously had the “end in mind” and you were going for a very specific audience. I think you did it for the right reasons. How many of your readers are bloggers??? Probably alot right?
Web Host Buzz | June 15th, 2007 at 1:15 am #
You could pay $250 for a Press Release & not have it reach such a targeted audience.
However if you write a REALLY good article & approach blogs with it then more often than not they’ll publish it for free. I find that a good article is more likely to drive me to subscribe to your blog rather than someone else talking it up
Wallace | June 15th, 2007 at 2:02 am #
honest,i am quite disagree with you,
i will pay $400 at JohnChow or $40 at CQ,
the title is Review: BloggingTips.com and just like tell every one is a paid for review and is a advertisement!
the best way is insert the reviewme post as a normal post.
Kevin | June 15th, 2007 at 2:53 am #
i agree with that point Wallace however there is little i can do about the title of a paid review - its completely up to the author (as well it should be)
Wallace | June 15th, 2007 at 6:07 am #
it is my 2 point cents,
please don’t mind. : )
Kevin | June 15th, 2007 at 6:16 am #
haha no worries bud. Everyones welcome to their opinion
Dave Starr --- Mr. GPS | June 15th, 2007 at 6:53 am #
To me you made sense in your decision, Kevin. I am always amazed by how many other people think it is their function in life to criticize other people’s spending. If one doesn’t want to make a purchase for themselves, great. If someone else wants to buy the same thing, well that’s super too. It’s my chief turn off about blogging and the ‘Net in general … too many “run your life” sort of people. Anyone who read this has my full permisison and ecouragement to spend $250 on any darn thing thye want … and I’ll never pass judgment.
Here’s a neat factoid though about paid review benefits to the reviewer. Aside from the money … which is certainly significant … it’s a great source of getting known.
I have been reading your blog for a couple weeks but had never even heard of JohnTP until this discussion started. So now, he got at least one more subscriber in addition to his share of the $250 from ReMe. “I love it when a plan comes together.” (maybe I shouldn’t say that, didn’t something always blow up right aftre Col H. said that…..
Kevin | June 15th, 2007 at 7:03 am #
i wasn’t upset or annoyed with the criticism. Not in the slighest - i welcome debate and im happy to explain the reasoning behind the decisions i make with this blog :):)
you do bring up a very good point though - these reviews do get you known in the blogosphere. i’ve seen an increase in the number of links to posts here and i’m sure these reviews have played a big part in me getting noticed.
A Tentative Personal Finance Blog | June 15th, 2007 at 7:14 am #
How much money do you think you’ve spent on reviews? I think I’m going to start looking into buy a few reviews too.
Kevin | June 15th, 2007 at 7:18 am #
mmm…im not too sure if im honest. I could be close to a thousand or even over it..when i write the post about it all ill total it all up :):)
GoddessCarlie | June 15th, 2007 at 8:07 am #
I think as long as you know/think that the review will be mostly favourable with perhaps some good constructive criticism, then it is well worth the money. You get both a recommendation/links as well as perhaps some good ideas/tips for improvement. I do agree it’s a good investment (unfortunately I don’t have the money for it, as well I don’t think the type of sites that review are catering to my niche).
Frankly, I often see reviews about sites that have only been open for a day or so. I think that is a waste of money. They should have waited at least a week, but more promising a month. I admit I have looked at some of these sites but I’ve never returned.
GoddessCarlie | June 15th, 2007 at 8:37 am #
p.s. About the “more” tag comment in his review. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when people voted, but I defiitely would have voted for the ‘more’ tag. I use it myself sometimes. I think it would make browsing your front page so much easier, so I can skip over articles I’m not interested in and read the ones I am. Just make sure that you give a decent amount of introduction (maybe even some of the post) before chucking in the tag
Vijay Teach Me | June 15th, 2007 at 2:19 pm #
Hi Kevin,
it is very true for the readership to increase new eyeballs are to be attracted.
Jamdo | June 16th, 2007 at 9:26 pm #
That’s a really good review of the reasons for getting a review with John and exactly why I thought you had done it. In fact now, I might consider it myself.
Cheers
Rob
Dave Starr --- Mr. GPS | June 17th, 2007 at 8:00 pm #
In counterpoint to what GoddessCarlie said about knowing or expecting a favorable review, I would submit this is the last thing to think about.
If a reviewer predictably gives “friendly” reviews, his/her reputation within the blogging industry is going to go down, rapidly. And if you pay for a review and it turns out negative? You’ll certainly learn something from what the reviewer criticized and likely _more_ review readers will come to visit than would for a favorable review. Even feel compelled to leap to read some new blog because a known blogger recommended it? Yawn. But if a blogger you have confidence says “wow this blog is bad ….”, you know you are going to be clicking on the link in a heartbeat.
Markus Frind, one of the believably richest site owners ever, who is my idol … he makes millions per year, does it all from his home and does not use mailing lists, squeeze pages or sales letters … first got tons of bogosphere notice because a group of web designers started calling his site “ugly”. Know what? It is, but Markus, like Liberace back in his day “cries all the way to the bank”.
Negative reviews can be even better than positives, or so Dave opines.
Ruby @AdviceandRants.com | June 20th, 2007 at 8:27 am #
Hi Kevin
I really enjoyed reading this post.
That’s especially because I am considering paying for reviews after maybe a month or so.
Like you said, all expenses are relative. How would you compare a ReviewMe to a google sitematch ad? I read a poster on JohnChow who said his sitematch ad on that site cost about $0.18CPC. He only got a total of about 180 new readers out of 20K readers, though. So percentage-wise, not many of those viewers clicked…. How do the ReviewMe readers compare?
Thanks, and keep up the great blog. I love that you’re so honest and critical of the fads that go through the net, that’s what keeps me coming back.