Clients ask: When a blogger sends an email asking for a product to review, how do we decide whether we should work with that blogger?

In short: What criteria should we use to compare bloggers?

Agencies have proprietary systems to measure bloggers’ influence, but those tools are typically found at organizations with larger PR/marketing budgets.

What about the legion of small businesses that don’t have a pot of money—those that don’t employ firms like Edelman Digital, Golin Harris, and Fleishman-Hillard? What tools and resources do they have?

Answer: Not much. They often must fend for themselves. Here are 15 questions—broken into three categories—to ask when evaluating bloggers:

What is the blog’s audience?

• For whom is the blogger writing? Make sure the audience syncs with your key audience. Look for an “about” page on the blog; that’s usually the best place to learn about the blog’s purpose and audience.

• How much traffic does the blog receive? You can use Compete.com to get an estimate on monthly unique visitors to the blog; it’s not 100 percent accurate, but it will give you a feel for the traffic the blog receives. (Editor’s note: Alexa.com is another useful tool for ranking websites based on traffic.)

• How many comments do posts receive? This is an indicator of how engaged the readers are in the blog’s content. Balance this against the number of unique visitors the blog receives each month.

What about the blog’s content?

• What is the tone of the blogger’s writing? Is it professional, friendly, or casual? Or does it tend to be negative, caustic, and “ranting”? The latter could be a red flag.

• What topics does the blog cover? Are they in line with what your target market is likely interested in?

• Are there any frequently covered topics or expressed opinions with which you would not want to be associated—severe political views, for example?.

• Is the blog written with care, or are there typos and punctuation problems that might make the content difficult to read and take seriously?

• How frequent are the posts? Is the blog updated regularly, or are there long periods without any posts? The latter might mean a less engaged readership.

• Does the blogger do product reviews? Are they generally favorable or negative? Does the blogger disclose whether he/she received products for free in exchange for writing about them? Note: Bloggers frequently have “PR friendly” or “PR” tabs on their sites that explain how they work with PR firms or companies.

• Does the blogger engage in product giveaways? What are the rules for participating? How many people generally participate?

How about the blog’s appearance?

• What’s the visual effect of the blog’s design? The design tends to be a good indicator of how seriously the blogger is about maintaining the platform.

o Does it appear to be a custom design?
o Does the design look outdated or neglected?
o Is it a crowded, busy design that makes it difficult to navigate the content?
o Design shouldn’t be a deal-breaker, but it’s definitely a factor to consider along with audience, content, and influence.

What about the blogger’s “influence”?

• Does the blogger write anywhere else, such as blogs, magazines, newspapers, books, e-books, and so on? These are all outlets that increase the blogger’s reach and influence online.

• What’s the blogger’s Klout score (check Klout.com)? It’s not the be-all and end-all in terms of online influence, but the service does provide a number for measuring against other bloggers.

• Is the blogger active on social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest? These help extend the blog’s reach.

o How many followers does the blogger have on these platforms?
o How often does the blogger update on these channels?
o Look for bloggers that have larger Facebook and Twitter communities. Larger communities in these spaces give the blogger more opportunity to share content with a wider audience.

• What is the blogger’s tone on the these outlets? Does he or she take a strong stance on controversial issues? Does he or she complain frequently about products and brands? You can identify red flags fairly easily here.

Arik Hanson is principal of ACH Communications. A version of this post originally appeared on Communications Conversations.

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