Hit The G-Spot With Your Reviews
Filed in Make Money Blogging, Writing reviews
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You do know what the G-spot is, don’t you?
Did you know your money-making blog entries can have g-spots, too?
As with its physical counterpart, a blog entry’s g-spot takes time and effort to find, but the results can be overwhelmingly splendid.
Finding the g-spot, and doing it every time, will bring more traffic, more opportunities and more income. And it’s easier than you think!
Follow these seven steps and you’ll soon have your readers eager for more.
1. Take your time. When it comes to building traffic (and, hence, the rank needed to score higher-paying opportunities), more is not always better. If all that’s available to you today at Company P are $6 entries, it’s tempting to take as many as you can. But since Company P also requires you to write intervening, non-sponsored posts (as many do), three paid opps means writing six entries. Six!
When that happens it’s easy to start thinking, “I’m not putting time into this one for a measly $6″ so you dash off a quick paid entry. Now you’ve got to hurry and write a quick intervening post, too, so you can get to the next paying opp. Unfortunately that haste to earn $6 just resulted in two half-hearted entries. Lather, rinse, repeat until you’ve reached the maximum allowed per day.
Meanwhile, you apply to do posts for Company Y. Under their system, you set the price and they decide when/if to assign opportunities to you. But when they visit your blog and see those six hastily written entries (that made you all of $18), your name goes to the bottom of the list, or darn near to it. Why? Because they don’t want to ruin their income by sending their paying clients to your blog.
Keep that in mind: every single entry on your blog, both paid and non-paid, reflects on you and your abilities. If you want to earn more, you must first show that your writing is worth more.
2. Probe deeply. Never write about the obvious advantages of a product or you’ll get lost in the crowd. Brainstorm for some unique aspect to focus on. Visit the advertiser’s site. Do they have a FAQ? These specifically address obvious questions. Read them. Do they have a link to press statements about them? Read those, too. You’ll find out what others have already said.
Did anything trigger ideas about other product benefits? Good, that’s the point of the exercise! Now you’ve got the information to write an entry different from the other 50 or so your fellow bloggers are about to write.
Let me show you what I mean: assume you have to write about “garage tile floors”. You initially wonder why anyone would buy tile when they probably already have cement in their garage. You visit the advertisers site and see the tile is made of vinyl and comes in several colors. But who, you wonder, would want to shell out money just to park their cars on tile even if it’s pretty?
Wait a second. You just overlooked something: some people don’t park their cars in their garage. Some folks with small homes press their garages into service for rec rooms or work rooms. Wouldn’t a tile floor be nice in one of those? Those 1/4-inch tiles would definitely feel warmer on bare feet in a rec room, wouldn’t they? And, hey, wouldn’t vinyl tile do a better job cutting down noise in a work room than concrete?
By probing deeply you just came up with something different that will make your entry stand out.
3. Sweet talk always helps. Resist the temptation to work your paid link in quickly. Instead, set it up by writing about the problem the advertiser’s product can solve.
If you were writing on that “garage tile floor opp”, for example, you could first write about how people outgrow their homes when they have more kids or an elderly parent moves in. Maybe you know someone who’s been through that. Maybe you have. Then, continuing on, you could point out that with today’s sluggish housing market selling a house can take quite some time but meanwhile everyone remains crowded in a house that’s too small. A solution? Why, turn the garage into living space by adding drywall and insulation along with attractive “garage tile flooring” (using your paid link there) that will make it feel just as comfortable as other rooms in the house.
Working up to the paid link engages your readers. It shows them a problem which they may be going through or can at least envision. It gives them something to relate to up front. Once people can relate to a problem they’re more receptive to information about solving it, and that is when they’re ready to read about the advertiser. When you make that happen your readers will stop rolling their eyes at your paid reviews because they’ll see them as helpful, you sweet talker, you.
4. Clean up afterwards. Save your completed entry in draft mode and re-read it, preferably in a preview pane. Did you spell everything correctly? Did you use proper grammar? Yes, I know you think you did but we all make mistakes. Unfortunately, so many of us are making them that advertisers now feel the need to specifically instruct bloggers to spell-check their entries. How shameful!
How does it look on your page? Are the paragraphs longer than 3 or 4 sentences? Break them up to make them more visually digestible. Did you use the same word too many times? Look up synonyms. Replace passive tense with active verbs wherever you can.
Oh, and while you’re cleaning things up, make sure your links work. If your software offers previews, right-click on your links to open them in a separate tab. (Copy and paste them into a new window if you don’t have a preview option.) Broken links lead to rejected submissions which means you’ll have to wait through the re-submission and approval process before you get paid.
5. Don’t brag. Even when you feel like you’ve put your little heart and soul into an entry resist the urge to Stumble or Digg yourself. Yes, we’ve all done it but that doesn’t make it right. People actually do look to find who first submitted an entry to a social networking site. If they see you submitting your own entries too often you can guarantee they will never become fans of your site.
Besides, how will you know when you are really writing well if you don’t give other people a chance to tell you first?
6. Don’t just roll over afterwards. When you write an entry that finds the g-spot, it’s going to generate comments. New bloggers often feel they need to respond to each and every one via email. I, personally, don’t agree. If you’ve got the “Subscribe to Comment” and “Comment Relish” plug-in installed (two of my 10 Must-Have WordPress Plug-Ins), it makes more sense to respond in your comment section.
Why? If someone’s a first-time visitor, Comment Relish will email them for you which makes a personal response unnecessary. Regular readers may have already subscribed to your comments, so when you respond in your own comment section not only will they receive a copy but others will see that you participate on your own blog. Oh, and meanwhile the number of comments on your front page will go up dramatically.
7. Practice makes perfect. As with any skill, the more you try to write reviews that hit the G-spot, the easier it will get. Yes, taking your time and probing deeply before writing may slow you down at first. The results are worth it: better writing, happier readers, higher traffic, more opportunities with companies that pay more money. Do it often enough and it will become second nature. Then you’ll wonder why you didn’t bother trying harder before.
That answer’s pretty obvious: because you didn’t know better.
Now you do.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Make Money Blogging, Writing reviews. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Tagged in: blog | blog entry | blogging | money | paid blogging | paid review | sponsored reviews | traffic
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Top Commenters
Gosh, that’s a good post! You’ve made some great points and used some excellent examples. Stumbled.
Lori’s last blog post..Awww that Happy Place
Thank you, Lori, and welcome Stumblers.
Sex and blogging, this will get you hits.
Summer’s last blog post..White Wine Goes To My Head
I can’t say enough good things about this blog. (Gee, maybe I should do a post about it.) But I want add something as a blog READER. I like sites that have a feed for all comments. Especially using a blog reader so you can see what people say about a post. You have one ITTIB but on here the comment feed is post specific so I would have to add a feed for each post as I read it.
Here, let me fix that! Subscribe here. (It’s in the sidebar now, too.)
Good lord, Kate - just reading this entry made my pants tighter!
Excellent - and spicy - “how to” - well done.
Love it. Stumbled it. And written a review about your blog.
Jamy
awesome, kate…..very clever!
matt stoddart’s last blog post..Happy Birthday To Me…
Thanks, Matt! Sex, advertising and blogging just seem to go so well together.
How To Hit The G-Spot Writing Paid Reviews On Your Blog…
You know what the g-spot is, don’t you? Good for you.
Did you know your paid blog entries can have a g-spot too? No, I’m serious! If you want to write paid reviews without alienating your readers you’ll need to find that g-spot, time and time again…
Very interesting post indeed Kate - Keep up the captivating approach to your post, I guess you are a disciple of MALT (More Action Less Talk). You have led by example with this post. Keep it up
Olanrewaju O LEWIS’s last blog post..Soaring Like an Eagle - Part III
I could’ve sworn Elvis said it first. (YouTube link.)
Great post! Heck, great whole blog. I added you to my blogroll gizmo and one day will figure out how to get it to show up on my blog so others can click on it and come here
Franklin’s last blog post..Ever heard of a taxicab?
Thank you, Franklin. Hope to see you around here lots!