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I’m a bit disappointed in the services that are available to help bloggers sell their “real estate.” When I first began blogging, I ran across all the paid review services and applied to them. In the beginning, I was promptly told that my blog did not meet their rigorous quality criteria. Well, now it does and I’ve been accepted into all of them. However, the problem I am now finding is that their advertisers don’t meet my rigorous quality criteria … with my main gripe being … they are cheapos.


Going to PayPerPost to the available opportunities for a blog that hasn’t acquired A-list status yet, I find review after review for $5-$10. The graphic to the left is today’s “Featured” opportunities. The $35 one requires that your blog be at least a pagerank 5 — ha ha ha —. Are they not aware of the Google slap that stripped some of the top blogs of a lot of their pagerank? And do they think that an A-list blog will review them for $35? Not likely. Quite simply, I’m not going to do an in-depth review of someone else’s product or website for 5 bucks. That isn’t the way I want to position this blog. I spend a lot of time writing content and a paid review is not exception. My last paid review was 450 words with two graphics and numerous backlinks to pages within the site. It is well written and I had to research the site and company before writing about it. It’s on another blog I write, but I was paid $25 for it and that is acceptable to me. I can live with that at this time, but if these companies think they’ll get that level of attention for a measly 5 bucks, it won’t be here. You also cannot list more than one blog until you’ve accepted and completed 10 reviews. I’m also limited to 10 reviews per month …. hahahahahahahahahahahah … I seriously doubt that I’ll find ten reviews a month that I’m interested in.

Review Me is another one that had declined my application and has now accepted it. They no longer have an affiliate program in place, so new blogs cannot display that graphic that tells you how much a review is on this blog with a link to order one. If you are in the general marketplace but don’t yet qualify for the “premium” marketplace, you can’t even set your own price. You can’t even browse the marketplace to hunt for opportunities. You get accepted and then sit around and hope someone chooses your blog out of thousands to make an offer to, and I don’t even have a clue as to how much they have me listed for … the price that they list me for may be unacceptable to me.

Now we come to SponsoredReviews. I recently joined them and was immediately accepted for a $25 review on my sports blog … that’s the 450 review I was talking about. Not only do they list some quality advertisers, but you can browse the marketplace and bid on the reviews you’re interested in. You can also set your own price and list as many blogs as you think will qualify. I currently have four of my blogs listed with them to cover different niches. This one appears to be the most promising of the bunch so far.

I’ve recently been accepted by Smorty … very recently. I found very few opportunities listed there, but it’s too soon to evaluate Smorty, so I won’t go into any detail until I’ve had more time to check it out.

OIOPublisher is a new and very interesting concept in selling your blog real estate. I recently posted about OIOPublisher here. Today is the announcement day for a contest I entered to win a free copy of OIO. If I don’t win, I’m going to pay the one-time price of $37 for OIO and give it a whirl. I like the idea of getting rid of the middleman altogether and selling your blog reviews and ads independently. If OIO has a viable and thriving advertiser marketplace, they just may be the best option yet. I will post about it when I’ve actually got the script and know how it works in greater detail.

I was selling Text Link Ads but found that I haven’t really earned nearly enough money with them to risk Google’s powerful and almighty wrath. I’m still with Kontera, testing out the benefits and also new to Chitika MiniMalls, testing out their program.

If you are selling text ads, ad space or reviews on your blog, this great little plugin (for wordpress) cuts the middle man right out. When word really spreads about this plugin, you can kiss those services good-bye. Instead of taking commissions from your earnings, OIOpublisher charges a one-time fee of $37 for the plugin. I purchased it and have it installed now.


Zero Commission Taken: Keep 100% of the revenue for every sale made. Many other networks take up to 50% commission per sale made. That adds up to quite a nice chunk of change you’re missing out on!

More Sales Options: Most other services feature only one option so you have to have one account to sell Text Ads and another account to sell paid reviews. With OIOpublisher you can sell whatever combination you choose.

Instant Payments: When a purchase is made, the money is yours…. simple as that!


Installation is simple. There is a “Business” tab on your dashboard once installed. The PHP code for the non widget wordpress is listed on the main Business Tab. Simply paste it within my sidebar and it will do the rest or use the widget version! The screen shot here shows links after each purchase to purchase links in a specific post. You choose your price, the length of time an ad or link will run and the plugin does the rest.

Right now the marketplace does not have a lot of blogs listed … but surprisingly, John Chow and the Cow guy are both using it. I noticed that I have been seeing the Cow ad on a lot of smaller blogs … well, OIOpublisher is the reason. It appears that not only does he list his blog, but he purchases a bunch of ad spots.

You can of course, set the plugin to allow you to approve the ad before payment is made so that inappropriate ads won’t be purchased. Additionally, you can also set it to allow your own affiliate program for your links and ads, paying others a commission to sell your ad spots, reviews and links.

Conclusion: This plugin is very new and it appears that they have a lot of plans for marketing it and further development, based on customer feedback. With the lackluster offerings from the services that take a commission, I suspect that this plugin will be very popular once the word spreads around. Why give away money to a middle man if you don’t have to? Download OIOpublisher and cut out that middle man!

This is just a recap of the different services I’ve come across and started using to the degree, and how they are beneficial to me … or NOT. Some of you may have different or better experiences with the companies I’ve listed and if so, I’d love to hear about it.


» Post Purchase:  Text Link

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