Starting a Review Site: Promotion Question

Somekid · #1 02-10-2007, 01:30 PM

I've been working on a user-submitted review site and trying to think of how to get people to post. My idea was that people could enter a website when they register for my site and every article they write would include a link to their site (and earn a backlink). Do people think this would attract bloggers?

Also, I'm trying to figure out how to promote this angle. When registering you can enter a website but I don't explicitly market the site as a way to increase backlinks (since most viewers don't care). Maybe I should advertise in blogger sites and create some sort of landing page for them or something. I dunno. Any idea how to get this message across to bloggers without annoying readers?

BradleyT · #2 02-10-2007, 02:08 PM

Just a quick thought on "review sites" in general from me personally.

I usually won't register for an unknown site just to write a review of something but if I'm on a site that allows me to write the review by just using my name and website URL and captcha I'll write a review of a product I like or dislike. However I'd imagine SPAM posts would be a huge problem for a site with such a simple process requiring and admin feature to approve reviews before showing them on the site (which isn't difficult programatically it just requires lots of time to approve posts).

Somekid · #3 02-10-2007, 04:08 PM

Interesting, I like the idea. Maybe I'll add an instant review feature where someone can post a review, a link, solve a captcha and then that review is email to me for approval and then i'll add it. That seems like a great idea.

rjp · #4 02-10-2007, 05:38 PM

You can also set it up so that once you've got one approved review then all other reviews are shown w/o approval. This won't totally remove spam, but once you've said someone is trustworthy then they're less likely to spam.

Somekid · #5 02-10-2007, 07:20 PM

The way my site works currently is that you register and account which includes a CAPTCHA verification. After that, you can post however much you want. I am thinking of adding the instant post mentioned previously though. Also, if the one time CAPTCHA entry isn't enough to prevent spam, I'll have to add a CAPTCHA before every post, although this might get annoying to users.

My biggest promotion problem is getting people to contribute content (although I just launched). I'm hoping two small contests are enough to attract people, but I'll have to wait and see.

rjp · #6 02-10-2007, 09:08 PM

You can always just have a CAPTCHA to login. I've seen a few sites move to this type of login.

Anyway, the point is that if a user is legit and provides a good review you can then allow them to post reviews unmoderated (unless they start to spam). Some people are human spammers and will try to buck the system, and you put those people on an always moderate status. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

threadkiller · #7 02-11-2007, 04:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I've been working on a user-submitted review site and trying to think of how to get people to post. My idea was that people could enter a website when they register for my site and every article they write would include a link to their site (and earn a backlink). Do people think this would attract bloggers?

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a site idea that I'm working on to release next month that is going to use that model. It's not going to be reviews, but rather stories about a particular niche topic. Submit a story with a resource paragraph and link, promise to give me a link if you are a blogger, and I'll create a post for your story.

I'm still working on the monetization part (likely affiliates and maybe a direct ad or two, probably not adsense) and how to do some things in WordPress.