I signed up with Sponsored Reviews a long time ago but it’s been so long that I thought I should see how it works again before looking at this paid to blog company. So I logged into my account and added this blog to it. I don’t know if I’ll accept any reviews but I wanted to test the process.

The Offer

Sponsored Reviews pays you for reviews of at least 50 words with at least one link to the advertiser. These must be live for at least 30 days. You must disclose the sponsorship unless the advertiser forbids it, though how you do that is up to you.

Adding Your Blog

Once you have signed up with the site, which doesn’t take long, adding your blog is a two step process. First, you add your URL, ticking to show that your blog meets the requirements. It must be a live blog, with at least 10 substantial posts and must not be a community blog. It must also have a 3 to 1 ratio of non paid to paid content.

Next, you can put your blog in a category. There are several categories, but some people might find it difficult to pigeonhole their blog. I put this blog in the Business category, as my blog is more about the business of writing than creative writing. You can add a title, description and keywords, press enter and your blog is added. Each blog gets its own public page which lists the ranking, description and review price.

Setting A Price

The price you can charge for reviews depends on your link popularity (according to Yahoo search, and your Technorati and Alexa ranking). This blog ranks 3 out of a possible five. The suggested price is in a range set by Sponsored Reviews. In this case, they suggest anywhere from $20 to $100, though for well known and high ranking blogs, this figure could go as high as $1,000, according to them. Sponsored Reviews takes 35 per cent of the asking price, so you need to set review prices carefully. That said, I earned $9.75 for the first review I did, at a time when others were paying $5.

The Dashboard

Logging in takes you to a dashboard which shows you jobs waiting for you to approve and those in progress, gives reports on the jobs you have bid for, provides tutorials (useful for new bloggers), articles and messages and has a feed from the Sponsored Review blog. It’s just as well I logged in for this review, because that’s how I found out that you can now get email notifications of suitable opportunities. You just enable it in the ‘My Account’ tab and add the categories you want to be notified about.

The next tab after your home page takes you to the ‘find advertisers’ interface. You can search for opportunities via the search box, click on a tag, or just browse the lists of the latest opportunities. The lists contain a word count, a link to more information about the opportunity and a pay range. This varies considerably. On one opportunity I saw the advertiser wanted to pay $10 for a 300 word review. Since I can get $5 for a 60 word post with other companies, this didn’t seem like a great deal. However, there are others that will make any blogger happy.

Choosing A Blogging Opportunity

Clicking on an opportunity title gives you more information, including the website and the type of review wanted. There may be requirements about the tone and the advertiser may also ask for specific links. Finally, there’s a description of the resource you will be reviewing. On the right, there’s a column where you can set a bid between the minimum and maximum. There’s also a drop down box which lists your blogs and the maximum you can bid on each blog. Then you submit your bid to the advertiser and wait for approval.

This is the part I like least, because you can’t tell how long it will take for an advertiser to look at your bid. I have had three bids accepted and several more rejected, but it took weeks and in one case months to find out about the rejections.Once your bid has been accepted you have a week to write the review.

Getting Paid

I can’t recall any problems with payment. I completed the reviews and was paid with no problems within 14 days of completing the reviews. Payment is by Paypal. You can see your review history and payment details in a sub menu of the ‘My Account’ tab.

Sponsored Reviews has lots of opportunities and you can earn a decent amount even on a newish blog. I like the fact that you get to choose your opportunities, and doing this review has reminded me that I should visit the site more often. It’s also worth reading their blog, as there are some great resources there for bloggers. An affiliate program is also in the works, which will mean more chances for bloggers to earn.