SharedReviews: Paid to Review

Step One: Register!

Step Two: Complete your profile. The more other members can relate to you, the better.

Step Three: Write and publish your reviews. Be personal and informative! The better your reviews, the more likely they will be voted to the top!

Step Four: Socialize! Vote for others, make friends, and communicate.

Step Five: Promote! Tell people about SharedReviews. Tell people about your reviews.

Step Six: Get paid! A review here, a vote there, and cash is falling everywhere!

When you join SharedReviews you will be directed to select a nickname (user ID), enter your email information, create a password, accept the terms, and verify you are human by deciphering a captcha. All of this is pretty standard when you join any Internet site.

Remember, SharedReviews is a site that shares revenue. You will be paid through PayPal, so you will need to use your email associated with PayPal when you register. Your email information is kept completely confidential.

If you do not already have a PayPal account, you can register for one at paypal.com.

The following is a screenshot of the SharedReviews sign-up page.

Once you are registered, and verified by email, you can begin filling in your profile information. There is an "about me" section, a spot for a "tag line" and a series of fields for different personal information.

For your personal profile information you have the option to keep certian things private. If you want something kept confidential, then select the closed lock. If you want to share, choose the open open lock.

Part of the profile field:

Remember, community members reading and voting for your reviews want to feel they can relate to you. The more complete your profile, the better for socialization and collecting votes!

SharedReviews is very easy to navigate. There are tabs to take you where you need to go.

Screenshot of the homepage:



On the homepage you will find a series of tabs, community members to check out, and the reviews ranking the highest at the time.

1. Search/Community/Create/Profile/Forum/Blog/About

These are your main navigation tabs. They are visible from any page you are on.

Search-takes you back to the homepage where you can search for reviews or see who's on top.

Community-takes you to your community dashboard. Here you can check up on your friends, find out who's voting for you, or get updates on the community.



Create-takes you to the page where the review magic happens. You write your review here.

Profile-takes you to your profile page. From the profile page you can update your profile, see where your share score is at, and view your reviews.

Forum-takes you to the community forum. In the forum you can meet and greet, check up on the status of the community as a whole, or promote your reviews.

Blog-takes you to the site blog. Here you can read all about the site from its conception.

About-takes you to who, what, where, when and why of SharedReviews.

2. Basic and Advanced search tabs. The advanced tab takes you to a search field where you can choose your search based on category. Basic is exactly what it says you enter a key search term in the search field.

3. Search Field

4. Display of the top reviewers.

5. The reviews running at the top of the community.

1. Visit the forum and chat! Ask questions, if you have any. Promote your reviews. Talk about what you will but keep it clean (PG 13). Always be courteous.

2. Make friends! I big part of SharedReviews is community. You are their to have fun so make a lot of friends.

When you click on a members profile, there is an icon of two silhouettes holding hands. If you are friends, the icon is green. If you have not become friends yet, the icon is orange. Invite them to be your friend by clicking the orange icon.

Non-active members friend icon turns red when they become inactive.

Friend requests are sent to your inbox, indicated on the very top right of your screen. If you see numbers next to the inbox click it and you can check your messages.

To accept friend requests, just click accept! Once their your friend you will be updated about them on the community page (tab).

From this little area you can also send a personal message by clicking the orange flying envelope.

You can also tell if a member is online by looking at the little computer monitor. If they are offline it's red, if it's green, they're online.

Once you have your profile set, and have surfed through the site a little, you are ready to write a review. Writing reviews is a big part of keeping the site content fresh. You should strive to contribute at least 8 reviews per month.

You can write about a specific product in any category. Your review must be of an actual product not just a general brand. For instance, your Craftsman 6.5 hp self-propelled lawnmower would make a terrific review. You cannot review Craftsman in general as Craftsman is a brand name and has a wide variety of products.

Certain services are also allowed as long as the service is identified in the category, ie. Online Banking, Title Information, or Printing Services.

You can review software as long as it is not freeware.

If you are uncertain about a review you would like to do, you can always ask in the forum or message the administrators.

Reviews are started by clicking the "Create" tab. You will be directed to this edit page:



You should write a title for your review. Titles are very important. The title should tell your reader exactly what you are reviewing, preferably the product brand and model.

The product brand/model name is your keyword phrase. For example, "Wilton Bench Mount Vice" would be a brand (Wilton) and model (Bench Mount Vice). This keyword phrase will be located in the URL that directs search engines to your review. You can add to your keyword phrase to give it a little oomph: "Wilton Bench Mount Vice Gets The Job Done."

Remember, you only have 50 characters for your title. You should keep it as precise as possible.

A little tidbit: Titling is an important part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Good SEO helps search engine spiders find, crawl, and rank your reviews. The better your SEO, the better your review will rank. Higher ranking reviews will be found by readers when they search for information about it. When readers find you, they find Shared Reviews...

You should select a category for your review to live in. There are many categories to choose from. Ensure that you have your product in the proper category.

Reviews in the wrong category may be reported or rejected. This affects your ShareScore. If you have trouble selecting a category, go to the forum and ask for advice.

After your category is selected, you should fill in the brand, model, check own/tried it, and your store/price fields. You will also be given a selection of rating ticks. Your review will not publish until all this information is filled in.

If you have a picture or video of the product you are reviewing, then here is where you can upload it from your computer to your review:



Pictures really add to a review. The best pictures are those you have taken yourself. You can find static product photos all over the Internet; however, you must remember that many of these images are copyrighted. Copyright infringement is a big issue. If you are in doubt over using an image, ask in the forum, check Wikimedia Commons, or search for free stock images.

SEO tip: Put the product name in the file name of your picture. Search engines read the photo html also.

Now for the heart of your review!

As mentioned in the category section, after selecting your category, a series of rating boxes will pop up. You should rate your product based on your experiences. You can also add up to 6 of your own ratings, if you feel the generic ratings do not cut it.



Next, there is an edit field for you to enter your review text. Your review should cover at the very least the features, benefits, and how the product personally affected you. The more personal the better as consumers are looking for real reviews from real people.

SEO tip: You should scatter your keyword phrase (the product brand and model name) throughout your review. A good rule is to have the keyword about every 100 words.

After you have written your review, you should run a spell-check for spelling accuracy. Spelling errors can kill a good review.

Before you publish your review, you should read your review out loud. This is a good test for flow, grammar, and syntax errors.

The final entry field is for tags. Tags are essentially labels or indexes for your review. Tags allow for organization of your review and give search engines additional keywords to spider.

SEO tip: Your tags should include the product, brand, model, and any other pertinent information or keywords.

When you feel your review is ready you can preview it, publish it, save it to draft, or cancel it. Preview is a nice tool because it lets you see exactly what your review is going to look like prior to being published. You can save your review to draft to publish later--very handy for storing your reviews for the next month. You must click the Publish Review button for your review to go live.

Remember once your review is published, it is out of your hands. You will not be able to edit any errors. However, you will be able to update it with information by clicking "update" once it is published.

Voting is one way SharedReviews shares revenue. If your votes are calculated in the top reviews that generate revenue, you get a share of the revenue. That said, you should vote for the best reviews in the category as those have the best chance of earning a revenue.

You are given a certain number of votes per category. The number of votes you can cast is determined by your ShareScore (participation in the community: writing reviews, commenting on reviews, reporting reviews, building up friends, referring new members, and voting). The higher your ShareScore, the more votes you get.

The voting rules from About SharedReviews:

Voting Rule #1
You have a limited number of votes to cast in each category per month. The number of votes is determined by your ShareScore.

Voting Rule #2
For obvious reasons, you can't vote for your own review.

Voting Rule #3
You can only vote for a particular review once, ever.