One of the effective ways bloggers can earn income from their blog is to write an in-depth and a well-researched product review.
Don’t we all look out for reviews before buying a product?
Of course, we go online searching for customers’ reviews and even recommendation from friends before deciding whether to purchase or not.
The same thing will happen when visitors land on your product review page; they want to see helpful, honest, and unbiased information.
With that, they begin to trust and see you as an authority in that field. Such that when you make a recommendation, they accept your judgment and even buy from you.
In essence, writing in-depth and well-researched reviews can boost your conversion rates to a large extent.
Hence this post will walk you through the step-by-step guide to writing a great review, including a checklist and Google updates to ensure you stay on track.
Let’s get started.
What Is a Product Review?
A Product Review is a form of content typically written by marketers who have used the product and want to share their thoughts on it with others. It should have a good title, a catchy introduction, what the product is, how it works, its pros and cons, alternatives, and recommendations.
An in-depth review helps potential customers make an informed decision about the product they are interested in purchasing. It states what is unique about the product and how it differs from similar ones in the marketplace.
Why Do Consumers Read Product Reviews?
Statistics from qualtrics show that 93% of consumers read product reviews before making a purchase. In addition, 84% of people say they trust online reviews just like a personal recommendation.
What does this mean?
In essence, consumers want reassurance that they’re buying quality products from trustworthy sellers. They also want to know how the product compares to its rivals to help them make the best decision.
Why Should You Write Product Reviews?
Build Trust
A helpful and informative review helps build trust and credibility with the audience. It, in addition, improves your brand image as trustworthy.
Social proof
When you share your experience using the product, it serves as good social proof.
Generate Revenue
When you write an honest and unbiased review, you get more readers clicking on your affiliate links, thus boosting your conversion rates.
Decision-making
Reviews guide potential buyers to make the best choice before buying a product or service. It provides information on the product’s features, advantages, and disadvantages compared with similar ones.
10 Common Mistakes To Avoid Writing A Review
When writing a review, watch out for mistakes that can hurt your brand image, causing you to lose potential customers.
1. Poor and biased review – When the review is not informative enough, readers will have no idea what to expect from the product. 62% of consumers say they will avoid brands with biased and exaggerated statements.
2. Not comparing to others – writing a comparison kind of product review can help readers form a good decision and boost your conversion rate.
3. Not researching – Instead of copying what others have written about the product, do thorough research and develop your own unique information. One way to ensure that what you publish online is original is to use a plagiarism checker.
4. Not stating the negatives – most consumers will find it hard to believe you if your review didn’t show any negative about the product.
5. It takes time to read – the review is too long, and it gets tedious to read through the entire thing.
6. Not providing enough information – readers want detailed information about the product before deciding. An in-depth review will help them make the best decision.
7. Not linking to the website – One of the most common mistakes is not linking to the manufacturer’s website.
8. Not enough visuals – readers want to see what the product looks like and how it’s used.
9. Poor grammar and spelling – writing a review with grammatical and spelling errors can hurt your brand image and discourage readers from reading to the end. So if you want visitors coming for more, ensure you communicate clearly and concisely.
There are many grammar checker apps to fix these errors.
10. Not promoting the product – you don’t write a review and forget all about it. Instead, it would be best to promote it to potential buyers who may be interested in it.
How Can You Write A Great Product Review?
Writing a product review is not easy; it requires much time, research, and a thorough understanding of the product.
But if you are looking to write a great product review, Here are some essential things to keep handy
1. Use the product
If you want to write an in-depth review, it’s best to try out the product yourself. You better understand the product and share your honest opinion with your readers by doing this. Here are questions to ask.
- What’s the intent behind using it?
- Do you have enough information on the product?
- Whom is this product targeted at?
- How much time have you spent with the product?
- What are its strengths and weaknesses?
- Does this new technology make people’s lives easier or more convenient in any way?
- How does it compare with its rivals?
2. Show benefits
Instead of highlighting only the product’s features, show readers the benefits.
Consumers want to buy products that can help them solve their needs so, showing the benefit will help them make the best decision. And if there are drawbacks to using the product, clearly state them.
3. Know your audience
While there are thousands of products you can review in the marketplace, remember to promote only those relevant to your target audience, try to find out how the review can add value, and help them solve their problems.
4. Optimize for SEO
Remember to include your keyword in the titles. Also, try to target long-tail keywords to increase your chance of ranking high on search engines.
5. Add good images and videos
Keep your review page attractive with high-quality photos and videos of the product. You can even upload relevant YouTube videos displaying how to use the product.
6. Write An In-depth Review
While there is no “ideal length” for writing product reviews, it’s good you put in as much detail about the product as you can.
7. Research The Product
While you may have a good experience using the product, it’s essential to research others’ opinions about the product. Therefore, you should visit the website to gather more information.
8. Share on social media
Promote your product review pages on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and email. You can create a coupon, bonuses to encourage your subscribers to buy.
9. Add affiliate links
While it’s essential to add affiliate links, remember not to spam your content with too many of them. Only add a few where necessary.
Google April And December 2021 Product Reviews Update
Google rolled out an update For English language reviews in April. The main focus is to reward sites that share well-researched and in-depth content.
While Google is not penalizing low-quality product reviews, it will prioritize high-quality content written by experts.
Here are the questions Google wants you to use as guidelines while writing. Do your product review.
- Express expert knowledge about the products?
- Show what the product is like physically, or how it is used, with unique content beyond what’s provided by the manufacturer?
- Provide quantitative measurements about how a product measures up in various categories of performance?
- Explain what sets a product apart from its competitors?
- Cover comparable products to consider or explain which products might be best for specific uses or circumstances?
- Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a particular product, based on research into it?
- Describe how a product has evolved from previous models or releases to provide improvements, address issues, or otherwise help users make a purchase decision?
- Identify key decision-making factors for production areas? For example, a car review might determine that fuel economy, safety, and handling are key decision factors and rate performance in those areas.
- Describe critical choices in how a product has been designed and their effect on the users beyond what the manufacturer says?
Google added more updates on what it’s expected from a product review on December 1st
- Provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your reviews.
- Include links to multiple sellers to give the readers the option to purchase from the merchant of their choice.
Both reviews have now been merged, and you can access the article here.
Product Review Checklist
While there’s no one way to create a product review, here are essential components to include when writing one.
- Attention-grabbing headline – the first thing you want is to grab readers’ attention to read more. From the title, they should know what the review is all about.
- Introduction – give a brief overview of the product, how you found it, what it does and who it’s for.
- Key features – show how the product can help readers solve their issues, state what makes the product unique, and include links to the merchant’s website.
- How the product works – give an in-depth report on using it with relevant images and videos, including the installation process, how it measures performance, etc.
- Who is the product for – describe the group of people who should use the product
- Pros & cons – list the features you like about the product and be honest about any drawback you witness why using it.
- Pricing – try to include the product’s price, coupon, and discount if available.
- Alternatives – compare the product with similar ones.
- FAQS – include questions people ask about the product. You can get this from Google people also ask and the manufacturer’s website.
- Conclusion – give your final thoughts, summarize your overall thoughts on the product stating how it can help consumers meet their needs.
- Include a call to action – tell readers what exactly you want them to do after reading the review. Also, provide a comments section to clarify any questions concerning the product.
Remember to include affiliate disclosure in compliance with FTC rules.
final Thoughts
Readers want in-depth information before deciding whether to buy or not. Hence, writing an in-depth product review helps them make the best purchasing decision and, at the same time, boost your conversion rates.
Over to you
Do you have more tips you want to share with us? Please leave them in the comment.
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Hi Muslimah. This is the best guide I have seen on writing product reviews. Thanks for taking the time to address all aspects of this topic. It is really going to help me in my new venture where I want to be doing deep reviews on products I love on the web. I will also be sure to share it so more people can benefit from it.
Glad you find it helpful, Dave.
And thank you for the share.
Cheers.
Okay, I think I am on the safe side when it comes to writing product reviews. I do not do any of the negatives you have just mentioned so I’m good. But you are right, a good product review builds trust which eventually leads to revenue from your website. I would advice everyone to pay special attention to this article
Yes, it’s not all about selling but providing value to build trust and credibility.
Thank you for recommending this article.
Cheers
This is a great manual for writing product reviews. There are some basic principles we often have in mind when writing a review, but it is difficult to put into practice. In my case, beyond simply comparing the good and the bad of a product, there are cases in which I evaluate too subjectively from my point of view.
It would be a great help if you write a review based on the manual in the content of the article.
Hi Minjun
I agree it’s best to let people know everything about the product in the review, either good or bad. That will help them make the best decision.
Thank you.
Cheers.