This is a paid review for Shoemoney’s blog. I have to say that I am a big fan of Shoemoney, aka Jeremy Schoemaker. So I was surpsrised when I saw that he had asked for a paid review on my site. I’m not sure what Shoemoney is up to here, but I’m guessing that he is testing out paid blog review services somehow. Shoemoney, I would have done this one for free buddy, so here goes.

I’m not sure where I first heard of Shoemoney, but I know I started reading his blog sometime last year. Now, I read it everyday at the top of my list (knocking off SEOmoz, by the way, sorry Rand.) I think it’s because he likes talking about making money online, and that is something I am really interested in right now. Plus, he likes to mix a lot of humor in his writing. He also likes to write about business and making money in general. I guess you could say I am really trying to take his advice and put it into practice. I started using Google Adwords as well as Yahoo and MSN search advertising based on Shoemoney’s advice. I also have looked into affilate marketing, but I learned I suck at it so I have to learn a lot more before I jump into it and build more traffic first.

I also love Shoemoney’s podcast on Webmaster Radio. I listen to it every week and even went back and listened to a lot of the past shows. He seems to have the best and most interesting guests. The podcasts are definitely worth your time. I was dissappointed when he said his contract would be up soon. I will miss it but I understand it’s stressful, and you have to try new things and then move on.

If you are new to Shoemoney, I recommend going back and reading what he has to say. There is great content in the archives of his web site. Seriously, you can learn a lot about making money on the web. Late last year, I went back and read all of his posts for 2006 to catch up and to learn as much as possible.

Well, I probably sound like a geek sitting here gushing about Shoemoney. But I really do believe what he says, and that if you work hard like he does, you can really make good things happen for yourself. I think that is what Shoemoney is about overall. Also, Jeremy if you would leave a comment here, that would be pretty cool. Maybe you could let us know why you are paying for blog reviews, when Lord knows you have tons of links already. Peace.

One of the things that is creating a lot of buzz this week is the launch of ReviewMe, a site that pays bloggers for reviews. In fact, I signed up for ReviewMe and am being paid to write this review!

How it works is bloggers sign up and submit their blogs, providing the url and a description. When you submit your blog, it is automatically reviewed and assigned a rating plus 2 dollar amounts based on the rating. One is the amount that an advertiser must pay for a review on your blog, and the other is how much you get paid to write a review and post it on your blog. Advertisers then sign up with ReviewMe and pay for the bloggers to write about them.

The key to the success of ReviewMe is that the blogger is not required to write a positive review. This is what makes them standout from Pay Per Post which is a similar service that requires the blogger being paid to write a positive review. While paid blogging is attracting a lot of attention lately, ReviewMe is slightly less controversial in that they require the blogger to disclose that they are being paid to write the review. Pay Per Post does not require the blogger to disclose that the review is paid for. Another cool feature of ReviewMe is that the blogger can choose which reviews they accept. If you don’t want to write about something, you don’t have to. The only other requirement for ReviewMe is that the post has to be 200 hundred words or more.

I really like ReviewMe, and think that it provides a great service that serves both audiences. Advertisers get talked about, and bloggers get paid to do what they already like doing anyway. I’m sure many people are wondering why they didn’t think of this first.

To launch the site, ReviewMe is offering $25,000 to get bloggers to sign up and write about them. This is very smart on their part because it is getting them great publicity, and it proves that the product works! ReviewMe is already successful in launching their product thanks to their own service!

A couple of questions that have been raised so far are whether or not the reviewer is required to provide a link to the advertiser and whether or not that link can hurt the blog’s credibility with the search engines. So far, no one knows whether or not you are required to link. It is known that search engines do not like paid links and can devalue a link if they determine it is paid for. I think it is up to the reviewer whether or not they provide a link.

In addition, many analysts think that paying bloggers to write reviews may hurt the credibility of blogs in the long run. Overall though, of the reviews I have read of ReviewMe, almost all have been overwhelmingly positive. Only time will tell whether or not this service will take off. I believe ReviewMe has a bright future ahead of them, and that getting paid to blog is here to stay.