Well, I’ve been told.

My inability to promote The Fair Review project has been a bit astounding. This week I got my bottom well and truly whooped, as I only recieved one review. I need to more to promote it, a few people have suggested badges for their sites. Any other suggestions?

Without further ado, here’s the solitary review.

• Reviews And Ramblings Around The Blogospher - Review Here

To be included in a future batch, please review one of the blogs in the Fair Review Directory, and then submit the link to us. Why not go ahead and review one of these blogs listed above?

Thanks to all the reviewers!

Geedos Down Under is a blog written by Geedos - “Furness Vale’s most intrepid explorer”. And explore he has, he has tales from across Europe and Asia. However, this is not a travel blog.

If anything, it’s more of a personal blog. Geedos gives his thoughts about news and events. There’s no particular rhyme and reason to his posts, just whatever’s in his head. The categories are pretty standard for a travelling male, Sport, The Internet, Ramblings and Australian Life. Nothing horrendously deep or complicated. It only really gets deep when Geedos rants about Germaine Greer

Thankfully, nothing horrendously dull too. Geedos is a good writer, and knows exactly what to achieve with his blog: to entertain you and interest you for a while.

You won’t find articles on how to make a million quid overnight, nor will you find articles to improve your adsense placement, instead you’ll find one legged dancers, jokes and posts about the other, bit rubbish team in Liverpool. The design achieves  a similar goal to the blog, functional and doesn’t detract from the content.

With that, I can’t criticise it. It’s a great blog for what it does, and is not as painful as a lot of personal blogs. It is on my own personal feed reader, even before he submitted it to Fair Review.

Thanks to all the people who have submitted a review recently. This week I am rather impressed with the results, as I have done very little promotion (a few projects on the go at the moment - which you may know about soon!). Nevertheless, I am planning on doing some this week, I promise.

Fair Review is beginning to get some nice traffic and hits to it, and a number of people are reporting back growth and discovering new blogs. So it is well worth doing. Without further ado, here’s the latest batch of reviews.

• Entrepreneurship and Web Business Strategy - Review Here
• Online Investing to Earn Money - Review Here
• David’s Journal - Reviewed Here
• It’s Write Now - Reviewed Here
• The Money Blog - Reviewed Here

To be included in a future batch, please review one of the blogs in the Fair Review Directory, and then submit the link to us. Why not go ahead and review one of these blogs listed above?

Thanks to all the reviewers!

So, we’ve gone through how to get into the directory, now what to do when you are reviewed yourself? Well, you can do nothing, but the best thing to do is the following.

•  Visit The Blogger That Reviewed You, check them out, make a comment, subscribe to their feed. You could find a new blogging friend!
• Re-affirm the nature of Fair Review. You could mention the review in a post on your blog, and talk about Fair Review again. You could get more reviews, and it’s a good way to beat Blogger’s Block!
• Listen to the criticism. No review should be 100% positive. A little bit of constructive criticism doesn’t go amiss. No site is perfect and I’m always looking for aways to improve Fair Reviewers Blogs.

If you want to be included in a future update to get reviewed, why not submit a review here?

Craigblog.co.uk is a relatively new blog (going since April) written by Craig. Looking at his website, I notice that he is Scottish, other than that, there is very little information about him. As his blog calls himself a personal blogger, maybe it could be an idea to add a little bit more information about himself. You don’t need to go to deep, just something to help readers connect with him.

Craig’s blog covers a multitude of subjects, as it’s a personal blog. Mainly he is into his sport, especially his F1 and football. This is a good thing in my opinion - as I rarely see any sports blogs myself (and on my other blog, I get yelled at if I post about football for more than two days on the bounce) . Craigblog isn’t just about sports though, for example, there’s this good post looking at the recent £35 Million lottery winner. The writing in a number of posts is in my mind is strong, such as this post on the 2012 Olympic Logo Design.

A couple of suggestions to make Craigblog better though.  Firstly, the area around the RSS Feed box. I would suggest using a standardised logo, as people usually look for things like that (I certainly do). I would also suggest losing the Technorati count widget. 5 blogs that link to you isn’t a huge amount, and it may put off potential readers for your blog.

I will say this - most people would give up after 6 months, so it is very commendable. Craig has a passion for blogging by the looks of it. His template, whilst a common one, is customised and he does use the adsense well.  If he could drive F1 fans to his blog posts, then he could be successful and the F1 posts could prove to be a nice little earner.

You can subscribe to craigblog.co.uk by clicking here.

Thanks to all the people who have submitted a review recently. It’s been a bit quiet this week, and it’s partly my fault, I’ve had PC failure and been unable to promote it this week. Nevertheless, here are the people who have submitted the review this week:

• craigblog
• Blog Avenues
• Interesting Observations
• Geedos Down Under
• The Prize Blog

To be included in a future batch, please review one of the blogs in the Fair Review Directory, and then submit the link to us. Why not go ahead and review one of these blogs listed above?

Thanks to all the reviewers!

So you’ve picked a blog and written a review, you think that’s it? Well, one thing to do is to sit back and wait for reviews, but one good idea,

• Let Your Reviewed Blog know about your blog post. If you’ve linked to a blog post, then they may send a trackback, however it’s a good idea to inform the reviewed blog that you have reviewed them. Comment is good, an email is better.
• Don’t Bury Your Review. People usually do a review then post a post straight after, or bury their review within their archives using timestamps. All you will attract is the curiosity of the reviewed blog, and may not evoke much interest in the post. If you give your reviewer something, you will get things back.
• Get Your Readers Involved. Chances are that if you enjoy a blog, your readers will too. Why not encourage your readers to visit the blog involved. This can work two ways, both good. Your readers could “invade” the blog in question, and provide they are cordial, the target blog would appreciate the increase in readers, and reciprocate the favour. The other bonus could be your readers could submit fair reviews, either about you or increasing your network.
• Social Bookmark Your Post. This is optional, but why not stumble and digg your review? You can generate more interest in the review, the reviewed blog and your blog.

Next week I will talk about what to do when you get reviewed, but to fully appreciate that post, you need to be in the directory. Batch #3 still has a number of spaces available. Why not submit a review now?

Autum Sky is written by Linda Belle, an 18 year old student “Currently lost somewhere in the piny woods of Texas”. Her blog is a personal blog about her life and - specifically - her thoughts.

The first thing that struck me about this blog is the design. Looking at the footer, I assume she designed it herself. It’s rather impressive mix of sky blue, black and white. It’s rather nice, and does suit the blog well.

Going on the posts, they are rather long in nature. However, they split up well with headings and bolded text. The posts have evolved into this format, and it suits it well, as some of the earlier posts are a huge wall of text. An example of this is 10 Ways to Enjoy a Stormy Day.

If I was to suggest a way to improve it, I would replace the Feedburner Feedcount Feedflare with an RSS button. At the moment, there’s only 7 feed subscribers, and it can put people off. Which it shouldn’t, as that number has become 8, as I’ve subscribed to her feed.

I suggest you do too.

Thanks to all the people who have submitted a review recently. Here is the people who have submitted the review this week:

• Blog Duck - Blogging Tips & Ideas
• Mike’s Money Making Mission
• Taosbound
• Manuel’s View
• Stories From Papi
• In the Text

To be included in a future batch, please review one of the blogs in the Fair Review Directory, and then submit the link to us. Why not go ahead and review one of these blogs listed above?

Thanks to all the reviewers!

So you’ve picked a blog you like, now it’s time to write the review.

The quality of the review could make or break the value of the review. The point of Fair Review is to make the blog reviewed become a reader, to help you all grow. So here’s a few tips I have noticed from reviews currently submitted, to help your blog grows.

• Make sure your review meets the criteria, it’s not that difficult, I don’t think it’s too demanding. You should be able to include all three items without any problem.
• Try to make your review exceed the criteria - Like 3 or 4 posts? Why not link to them? You get the bonus if you link to the bloggers feed, you will get a link to the feed. Just don’t stick to the basic criteria.
• Make your review sexy - Why not include images  in your post? A good example is the Blog Duck review of The Gospel According To Rhys. Look how appealing the images make it.
• Sell the blog you are reviewing to your readers - You like this blog, you’re readers like you, why not help the blog you are reviewing by converting 3 or 4 readers to readers of your reviewed blog? It will help all concerned.

Have you got any tips? Why not add them to the comments!

Have you not yet written a review? Submit it here.