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Tips for Creating Unique Content by Writing Effective Product Reviews.
Writing product reviews is one of the best ways to add unique, valuable content to your website that both visitors and search engines will love.
You can write a product review on almost anything, just look around -- I'd bet that you can see at least one thing right now that you could write a review on. Chances are good that someone, somewhere, is looking for information on that item right now. You could be the one who gives them the info that they need.
It could be a new brand of breakfast cereal, some software, a book, a Beach Boys compilation CD, a new cordless mouse... the only restriction is that it should have something to do with your website theme.
This past week I've received several product review submissions for the article directory that I've had to reject -- mainly because I felt that they were incomplete, not very helpful to a reader, and thus not likely to be picked up by a publisher for reprinting.
So I thought I'd share my thoughts on what makes an effective product review. Whether you write a review for your website or to use in article marketing, the following tips will help you to write a one that is informative, complete and helpful to a reader.
At its simplest level, a review is just a personal assessment as to how good (or bad) something is. The main thing to keep in mind while writing is that you are performing a service for your readers and your review should answer all their questions... you should not be using a review as an opportunity to write an ad.
To make the process simple and quick, you may want to use your regular template and think of it as a 'blueprint' designed to pre-sell a product... I said Pre-Sell, which is quite a bit different from simple advertising (and the topic of another article for another day). You can format a review as a list of questions & answers or as simple descriptions and opinions, whatever works best for you.
To write an effective review:
You should be familiar with the product. You don't always have to own an item to review it, but any review that comes from personal experience will be much easier to write, and will carry a 'Ring of Truth' that is just about impossible to fake.
If you surf around and read a number of reviews, you will notice that the best ones often start out by 'setting the mood' for the reader... they describe the problem that the product is designed to solve and try to create a mental image in the mind of the reader of what their life is like now, without the product.
I think that this approach serves two important purposes: first, it shows the reader that you understand their problems, and secondly, it puts the reader in the right frame of mind so they are more open to the solution that you are about to propose.
I've also noticed that the product being reviewed is not always the same product that is being promoted by the writer - this may seem silly at first, but if you think about it, it's brilliant. A reviewer that is brutally honest in assessing a product or service is more likely to be perceived as a trustworthy person, so any recommendation that he makes will carry a lot more weight.
How you structure the review is a matter of personal choice, but the following points should all be covered:
* Describe what life would be like without the problems that the product is designed to solve. Note that at this point you aren't talking about any product, just the solution to a problem. You are helping the reader create a mental image of a life without the problem.
* Follow that up with an introduction and brief description of the product, emphasizing again the problem it is designed to solve.
* Give your readers a listing of the product features and the advantages of those features.
* Give your readers a listing of the products disadvantages. This part is very important. Be honest and tell your readers exactly what you think about the product.
If you cannot in good conscience recommend the product under review, you can later use the mind-set that you have created to steer your reader to another, better product.
* Once you have listed the good and bad, tell your readers how well (or how poorly) the product performs all of the functions that it was designed for.
Keep in mind that they may not be concerned with a feature (or lack of a feature) that you would consider a disadvantage, they may only be interested in some other feature, so tell them how well it performs all functions.
* Provide comparisons, hard data and test results whenever such things apply to the product.
* For some types of products, you may want to give your readers the average or exact purchase price, any accessories available, cost of ownership and anything else cost-related that applies.
If the product is available offline, it is helpful to give them an idea of where to find it. If there are seasonal fluctuations in price, that would be good to know about too.
* Summarize your findings and rate the product... A rating should be simple to understand and give an instant idea of the overall opinion of the reviewer.
It need not be anything elaborate: a 1 to 10 scale, with the rating given as "Overall Score: 8 out of 10 on our usability scale" conveys all the information the reader needs to understand the rating system.
If you plan on doing a series of reviews, choose a rating system and stick to it. You may even make a series of small images to illustrate your system. In that event, you may also want to clearly quantify your rating system, with different review criteria clearly stated and an explanation of how a product is tested and receives its rating.
* Don't forget to include a "Call to Action" in your review. Once someone has read your review they need to be led to the next step. That can be simply "Click here to Buy this Product", "Sign up for my newsletter", "Read this other review of a better product" or whatever you want them to do next.
But whatever you do, don't leave them sitting there wondering what to do next - tell them what to do or you will lose them.
The point of a well-written review is to help the reader reach a decision: To buy or not to buy. As long as your review is genuinely helpful to the reader it will help you in your marketing efforts, even if it is only to help establish you as an expert in your field.
A few closing thoughts about writing product reviews:
This article has focused on writing reviews for adding unique content to your website, but there is no reason why you can't write one as an article for submission to an article distribution website. The only real differences are that you can't show product images and you usually cannot place links in the body of the review, so you have to make the resource box do that work for you.
If you don't like a product, either don't write a review of it, or be brutally honest in your review. If you do write a negative review, be prepared to get an angry email or two from the product creator and maybe even some users who disagree with you.
If that happens, and you get embroiled in an argument over whether or not the product is a good one, you may even be able to use the situation to your own advantage... controversy breeds traffic like little else, and the more public it is the better.
A word of caution, though, maintain your professionalism throughout the whole thing or you may gain the reputation of a jerk or a dumbass, and that won't help in the long run.
If you do decide to write reviews for website content, try to add a new one regularly. After a while, you may find that it really is one of the easiest ways there are to add fresh, relevant, unique content... and you may be surprised at how well they are received by your readers -- and by the search engines.
To Your Success!
Tim
By Tim Brown © 2006. About the author: Tim is the webmaster at http://BLT-Web.com, where webmasters can find free tools, advice, tips and other useful resources designed to help them build a successful website.
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