How to write an impressive product review

Writing an impressive product review is not an easy task for a blogger. The internet has a wide range of content and product reviews which comprises a  substantial percentage of the total content available. Most people go online to search for information on a particular product before they can make a purchasing decision. Therefore, a detailed product review provides useful insights to potential buyers and in the process enabling them to make an informed purchasing decision.

By learning about a product’s strengths and weaknesses, a potential buyer ends up feeling more confident about their purchase. Therefore, bloggers can make a name for themselves by creating quality and detailed product reviews for their readers.

You can choose to review a wide range of products including; gadgets, kitchenware, books, food products, movies, machinery, vehicles, machinery, dogs, and other products of your choice. There are some reviewers that specialise in a particular category of products while others cover a wide range of products.

It is important to point out that a quality review goes beyond product-centred content as the author is supposed to highlight both the advantages and the drawbacks of the goods or service under review. There are some bloggers or reviewers who buy and test a particular product or service before they can write its review. Such a reviewer gets an in-depth understanding of the product and is in a good position to educate other potential consumers about the product.

Customer reviews can provide you with some insights about various products, but they do not offer comprehensive information about a particular product or service. Therefore, it is always a good idea to look out for reviews written by an independent author or blogger as most of them are comprehensive reviews.

The one-sided product reviews that are developed by in-house content creators lack the much-needed credibility and neutrality. Moreover, product reviews should enable readers and potential consumers comment on, rate, or discuss different products.

A good product review should cover a wide range of areas including product features, the author’s personal experiences with the product, first impressions, pros and cons, target users, quality verdict, and available alternatives. However, user reviews should not be ignored as they also provide some useful insights to readers.

A recent survey revealed that online product reviews are trusted by more than 88% of consumers. In fact, most companies have been able to increase their sales as a result of positive online reviews. Creating quality product reviews enable an independent blogger or reviewer to;

Gain organic traffic

Have the freedom to write about a product of their choice
Gain the trust of readers
Build their authority as a reviewer
Earn some extra money as an affiliate

Most bloggers confuse product reviews with sales messages, but the two are completely different. Sales messages are promotional in nature and lack detailed information about the product. Also, sales messages do not highlight a product’s flaws. They only focus on glorifying the product without providing the reader with an objective view of the product or service.

Therefore, bloggers planning to specialise in product reviews should understand the basic requirements for writing a quality and objective product review. This post provides some useful tips on how to write a product review on a blog. The following are some useful tips on how to write a quality product review on a blog;

1. Buy or Get Access to the Product

It is always a good idea to access the product or experience a particular service for you to be a good independent reviewer. You can access a product by;

Convincing the manufacturer to give you access (Being an affiliate partner)
Buying the product
Using a friend’s product

Marketing departments in most companies are more willing to give independent reviewers access to their products for review purposes. They understand that a professional product review can help in marketing their product.

It does not make sense to review a product you have ever seen. In fact, the first rule when it comes to writing a product review is to buy or ask for the product. Bloggers who only want to benefit from a few affiliate sales can write reviews without accessing the product. If you write reviews on your blog in such a way that you never use the product properly, your readers start hating your blog and its contents, and they never come back to read any more contents. However, those who are interested in providing value and quality must get their hands on the product.

You can create an affiliate link and sign up as an affiliate partner for you to access products at discounted prices. You need to be very careful when it comes to affiliate programs, and that is why it is important to read and understand the terms and conditions of each affiliate program.

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2. Consider Being an Affiliate

As mentioned earlier, becoming an affiliate is one of the strategies that bloggers can use in order to access product for review at a cheaper price. Becoming an affiliate partner is a good idea as it comes with a wide range of benefits with the most important one being the commission that one receives through referrals.

The commission paid on referrals can be recurring or fixed depending on the terms and conditions of the affiliate program. There is no reason why should not earn some passive income from reviewing products as product reviews play a major role in promoting products.

It is important to become an affiliate partner for all the products you intend to review if the manufacturer has an affiliate program. However, affiliate sales should not be your main motivation for writing a product review.

You should not lose your objectivity just because you want to make more affiliate sales. This kind of motivation can help you earn money in short-term but lose your authority as an independent reviewer. In fact, an independent blogger should only use the affiliate programs to access products for review at a cheaper price.

3. Maintain Honesty

There are millions of poor quality products in the market but bloggers who want to make quick money turn a blind eye on their flaws. If you want to be an independent and authoritative product reviewer, honesty is always critical. A product review that is just full of hype with no balanced opinion cannot in any way be considered to be credible.

Misleading potential consumers about the quality of a particular product or service just to make money is unethical. It is important to acknowledge the fact that your role is to provide an objective opinion about the product and not to market the product entirely. You can highlight its selling points, but you should not forget to mention its drawbacks or weaknesses.

Some people are naturally nice, and it is difficult for them even to point out an obvious problem. If you are such a person, you should just forget about being an independent product reviewer and try something else. Pointing out a weakness in a particular product should not in any way be equated to a negative review.

A good blogger should employ constructive criticism when talking about the product’s disadvantages, and this includes suggesting ways of improving the product. Therefore, saying the truth might actually help a manufacturing company to improve its products by addressing the raised issues.

The most natural thing for most people is to avoid the negative experiences in their product review, but a good blogger should always try to resist this kind of temptation. By becoming an honest source of information, you will be able to strengthen your brand and generate more traffic to your blog.

The credibility of a product review largely depends on the author’s honesty. It is easy for readers to detect whether you are honest or not, and any instances of dishonesty can cause a lot of damage to your brand. The best way to be balanced in your review is by a looking at the product from a buyer’s point of view. In other words, just mention the product’s flaws and strengths and your rating will be high.

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4. Take time to Study your Product

It is advisable to do your research once you are able to access the program. You cannot become an expert without proper knowledge, and that is why research is critical. You should demonstrate to the reader that you are well informed about the product and the industry in general.

It is a good idea to study everything about the product and the brand to ensure that all your writing is factual. In addition, you should study some of the major competitors’ products as such information is critical when it comes to comparison. Therefore, you should try to understand the product and the related industry.

5. Consider Product comparison

As mentioned earlier, it is a good idea to study competitors when doing your product research as this leads to a well-informed product review. Any good review should include product comparison for it to appear objective. Such a review enables a reader to have an overview of the entire industry or product category and in the process make informed purchasing decisions.

In addition, readers get to know about the available options and in the process feel more confident about their final purchasing decision. Product reviews earn more credibility when they talk about alternatives as it is a clear indication that the reviewer has a good understanding of the industry. You can provide some extra information about the alternative products instead of just listing for more credibility.

6. Open a Discussion

It is always a good idea to get a discussion going or ask for feedback from readers anytime you publish a product review. You should provide your readers with an opportunity to contribute to your review as this is very helpful when creating an online community. Having some space that is dedicated for discussion provides some extra insights about the product that you may not have covered in the review.

Also, this is another way of demonstrating honesty as it shows that you are not pretending to know everything about the product or the related brand. Most people underestimate the power of user-generated reviews, and yet over 50% of millennials have more confidence in user-generated as compared to other types of content.

Therefore, smart product reviewers cannot afford to lose an opportunity to harness the power of user-generated content, and that is why they provide such platforms for their review. Empowering readers to contribute to your review improves the SEO ranking for your site as the web page is made longer by a discussion thread. Also, adding a discussion thread below your review helps you to accumulate more social proof.

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7. Ensure the Review has Core Content

Most bloggers do not know the core content of a product review and end up focusing on irrelevant content. It is important to focus on what users would like to know about the product for your review to generate traffic. As an independent product reviewer, the following are the major subjects you should cover in a detailed product review;

Features: This section covers the major components of a product including its functions

Target Market/Group: This section discusses the target users of the product under review including some of the reasons why the product is suitable for the mentioned target group or groups. In most cases, this part includes the characteristics of a product’s average user.

The Main Benefit: Most of the product’s benefits are covered in the pros and cons section, but it is always important to highlight the product’s main benefit at the top. Most manufacturers look forward to this section as it defines the reader’s first impression of the product. This section should explain how the product can improve a user’s life and how each of the features is of great importance to the user.

Practical Details: This section includes important information such as delivery timelines, availability of guarantees, where to find the product, and the product’s price. Reviewers with an affiliate link can include the link in this section to direct readers to where they can get the product.

A List of Alternatives: As mentioned earlier, this section is very critical in a product review as it helps the reader to learn about the existing alternatives to the product under review. However, it is important to point out that the section is optional. Also, this part becomes more relevant when the product under review has many alternatives.

In the absence of specific alternatives, you can leave out this section. In fact, most in-house product reviewers do not include this section as it might make their potential customers to be aware of existing options. However, independent reviewers have to include this section as it is a clear demonstration that their content is a source of information and not promotional.

Pros and Cons: Every good product review must have the pros and cons section. Most product manufacturers do a very good job in highlighting their product’s pros, and this gives reviewers an easy task when it comes to listing pros. However, there is always scanty information about the product’s cons, and it is the responsibility of the reviewer to find the flaws. It is because of this reason that one should access and test the product before writing a review.

No matter how amazing a product might appear, you should remember that it can never be perfect. Highlighting both pros and cons demonstrates your worth as an independent reviewer hence improving your rating. Most affiliate reviewers exaggerate the list of cons, and this can end up affecting their credibility. You should only point out the pros and cons that exist if you want to be a respectable brand when it comes to product reviews. In fact, you should focus on the cons that affect the product’s usability.

The Discussion Section: As mentioned earlier, you can improve your blog’s rating by including other people’s opinions in your product review. Reputable online retailers such as Amazon have the customer reviewers section for products to provide a wide range of insights to potential buyers. In fact, users tend to trust the opinion of fellow users as compared to other types of reviews.

Your Final Opinion: As an objective and balanced reviewer, users always look forward to your final opinion about the product under review. They believe that you are more informed about the product and your opinion might help them make a good purchasing decision. Therefore, it is always an anti-climax to finish your product review without stating your final opinion about the product.

You should mention your overall experience and whether the product is worth buying or not. Since you are an independence reviewer, you should not be afraid to share your honest opinion about the product.

However, you should always use respectful language even if you do not like the product. Being respectful does not mean that one should fear about revealing the truth. You can recommend the product under review to your audience by including your affiliate link.

5-Star Ratings and Rich Snippets: The main objective of this post is to help you create a must-read product review on your blog and adding such features can help in improving your ratings or ranking. Your product review page should have a simple 5-star rating system with HTML and CSS to guarantee you the much-needed visual ratings. Rich snippets that can be seen in the search results can also be a welcome addition to your product review.

Such features give your review page a high visual rating score hence helping to drive more traffic to your blog. Your reviews should stand out from the rest as that is the best way to enhance your CTR. In the long run, your SEO results largely depend on the CTR. Affiliate links can also help in boosting your rating, but they should be used sparingly. A product review page that is dominated by affiliate links can overwhelm the reader and make the content to appear overly promotional.

Some useful Statistics about Product Reviews

The use of online product reviews to form an opinion about a particular product or business has increased in the recent past, and some studies have revealed some interesting findings that current or potential product reviewer should know. To begin with, 70% of consumers are in a position to write a product review when given an opportunity.

Second, 90% of consumers form an opinion about a product or business by reading less than ten reviews. Third, 54% of consumers read positive reviews about a product or business before visiting the official company website.

Fourth, 73% of consumers believe that relevant reviews should not be more than three months old. Fifth, the conversation rate can be improved by over 67% when a particular product review includes the product’s flaws. Finally, 58% of consumers trust in a company’s star rating.

Such statistics provide some useful insights to a blogger interested in product reviews by highlighting the latest trends when it comes to online reviews. In other words, writing a quality product review is not as easy as most people think as it takes a lot of research and good strategy to write an objective product review.

When it comes to writing a powerful product review, the provided tips will definitely give you a solid foundation. Basically, one is just expected to share with readers his or her opinion or concerns about the product in an honest manner. You should let the reader know how you genuinely feel about a particular product and supports your opinions with facts.

The information in this post can be of great help to both current and aspiring bloggers who want to start writing product reviews as content on their blogs. Users are always looking for quality online product reviews, and one can take advantage of the ever-growing demand for learning how to create quality product reviews. A well-written and objective product review increases traffic to your site and in the process enhancing your reputation as a product reviewer.

Read few of the review blog posts from this blog using the links given below:-

1. Review of Infolinks, an Adsense alternative for your blog

2.Grammarly review

3.Review of Tabtor Math

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