A big part of writing on the web is not so much getting your writing published, but getting it noticed. That’s why so many people want to find out how to get a blog review. Your blog is your showcase - it’s where people can see samples of your writing skill and it’s one of the best ways to get your work noticed…but only if you can get your writing in front of the eyes of the right people.

Sitting at the bottom of the Google results won’t get you anywhere. I’ve covered proper keyword analysis and keyword optimization on my previous FreeWritingCenter articles, but there are so many other elements that go into your site traffic and results ranking. Second to proper keyword optimizing is incoming links. Actually, come to think of it, incoming links are probably the most important item that should be on your to-do list for your blog.

3 Ways How to Get a Blog Review

In the early days of the web, you could find Internet directories where you could simply type your own website URL into a field and get it listed in the directory almost immediately. As search engines advanced and “link juice” became so critical to your search engine rank, those directories started to change how they operated.

Basically, allowing links to any website under the sun was detrimental to the ranking of that directory. Once Google weighted the rank of a site’s outgoing links, these directories were hard hit to maintain their own standing. What you will find now is that most website and blog directories will still offer you several solutions how to get a blog review, but the solutions that offer you the link juice you need will cost you. The blog review sites offer the following solutions.

• A guaranteed blog review and permanent link to your site for a fee. The amount of the fee may surprise you, sometimes reaching up over $150 to $200.
• A possible blog review and link to your site for a fee. This solution is cheaper but will take longer because it doesn’t have such a high priority. Basically, they’ll get to reviewing your blog when they have the time. Again, this is paying for link juice to your site.
• A reciprocal link. This solution is offered for free, and it basically means that in order to get a link from the site, you need to provide a link back from your site. In link-juice value to your blog, this is useless and has offers no SEO value. Don’t even bother.

What you are looking for is a one-way link to your site from a very highly ranked website. If you take the directory approach these days, you can get a blog review completed and posted - but it’s going to cost you a pretty penny. This goes the same for most major sites that do reviews - even the one I write for, MakeUseOf, charges almost $200 for a “FastTrack Submission” for consideration on MakeUseOf. You’ll find the same approach on all major websites these days - it is essentially a way for the site owner to earn extra income by selling SEO link juice.

Does it Work?

If you really want to know how to get a blog review - that’s the answer, you have to pay for it. That’s the guaranteed approach. With that said, you could also offer something on your site that is so awesome and unique that it’ll get reviewed at one of these major sites simply because one of the writers saw your site and found it worthy of review. As a writer for such a site, I can tell you that if we are directly approached by something that we determine is truly valuable (and the site owner agrees), it’ll get written about.

So you’ve got two approaches:

1. Pay for the link juice and you’re guaranteed to get high-quality one-way links. Is it worth it? Yes - if the site you are paying has a very high rank in Google’s results.
2. Write or create something amazing and impressive on your site, and then start contacting writers on the major websites throughout the web, and ask if they would consider writing about it. If what you have is truly remarkable, it’ll get noticed.

So the best free approach to get a blog review is to create a blog that is so unique and interesting, that by its very nature it’ll get reviewed.

Top Ranked Blog Directories

If you are interested in taking the fast and easy approach and paying for link juice, here are the top rated blog directories where you can do so.

• Blogcatalog
• Bloghub
• Bloghints
• BloggingFusion
• BlogDirectory
• Blogville.us
• BestBlogs.org
• Blogdup
• WilsDomain
• Dmegs
• BOTW
• Blog-Directory
• BlogTopsites
• Blogflux
• TotalBlogDirectory
• Search4Blogs
• Bloggapedia
• BlogAdr

I suppose I should demand a link banks from these sites as a reciprocal favor - but there really isn’t much point because now the link bank wouldn’t do me any SEO favors.

So bookmark this page and when you’re ready to start investing in building up your link juice - start working down the list and hopefully you get that review. Good luck!

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Ryan is a technology writer and investigative blogger. He has been working as an online writer for numerous clients for over 5 years, and now consults webmasters and blog owners about effective SEO optimization. Ryan has 48 post(s) at Free Writing Center