How to Write a Good Product Review? The Do’s and Don’ts

In the world of affiliate marketing, product reviews are often regarded as the bread and butter for building an online business. Is it always about the rating stars and the call-to-action-buttons? 

In this article, I am going to show you how to write a good product review using your own voice without sounding like a salesperson. 

What Exactly Is a Product Review

First thing first, it’s important that you realize that people are quite consumer-savvy these days. We would search online (and offline) until we can find sufficient information to help us decide on a purchase. Based on this behavior, it’s essential that a product review is written with the reader’s interest in mind, NOT as an article to push your affiliate links.

Your reader could be a parent, a professional or simply a teenager who all come from different backgrounds. By putting yourself in their positions, you’ll have a better idea of how a certain product can influence and benefit their lifestyles. Hence, it’s your job to convey this message as clear as possible in your review.

What Not to Do

In your first few articles, it’s easy to ‘overdose’ a product review with unnecessary information or worse, with things that won’t help your web page to rank. Here are some tips on what to avoid.

• Don’t recreate the marketing talk – You are not the company’s salesperson, so don’t inject (too many) marketing jargon into your review. If people want to read this, they can always visit the company’s website.
• Don’t go off-topic – I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve read a review whereby only the first or the last paragraph talks about the product while the rest of the content is completely irrelevant. From a buyer’s perspective, a lack of information will make me disinterested in the product itself.
• Don’t attack other brands – In the case of product comparison, don’t use a review to bash up another product. If there’s something negative that you must say, be diplomatic about it and carved your words nicely. People can read between the lines, so from a professional standpoint, such reviews can make you (and your reputation) look bad.
• Don’t place affiliate links everywhere – I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s important to be reminded again that placing too many affiliate links can be seen as spam in the eyes of the search engines which can pull down your page ranking. Since this type of link is often tied to some kind of sales pitch, your review could very much end up sounding like a sales copy machine that could drive people away from your site.

What to Include in a Review Instead

Now that we know what NOT to do, we can focus on some of the qualities that can enhance your product review.

(1) Perform a Proper Keyword Research

A lot of times, the articles that we write disappear on the search results because we are not targeting a certain keyword, specifically long-tail low-competition keyword.

Why are these criteria important? Well, descriptive keywords are better for pulling in relevant searches and low competition simply allows you to rank higher faster. I use the Jaaxy Keyword Tool for my research and I really like it because it’s fast and efficient.

Here’s an example of a low-competition keyphrase.

QSR is the column referring to the level of competition and for this one, we only have 16 which is a good number to start with.

Here’s another example of a long-tail keyphrase.

This key phrase has more user context and also very low in competition QSR = 6, as opposed to the more plain term “loreal bb cream review” that has a QSR = 65 (higher competition).

(2) Write in Your Own Words

A review is all about your experience with the product so using your own words is the best way to show people what it is all about. Write it like how you would recommend something to a friend. You wouldn’t sound like a salesperson, would you?

In the affiliate marketing world, simple, ordinary words are actually more convincing than all those marketing jargon.

(3) Pay Attention to Details

With this, I mean every single detail that you can dig from the product to make your review more distinctive from the others.

• If there’s a free trial, test it out (good for researching digital products).
• If there’s a sample in the store, go check it out.
• If you can afford it, purchase and experiment it yourself.
• If it’s a popular product, read as many reviews as you can to gather more information.
• If it’s not a popular product, find out why and offer your readers a better option.

All these efforts point you to do one thing that your readers will appreciate you for; your honesty and genuine view towards a certain product based on your experience and thorough research.

It doesn’t really matter if the product is good or bad; it’s the fact that you take the time to put all the pieces together (thus saving the readers’ time) that shows how much you care to provide the right information before they buy something online.  

(4) Add Engaging Media

Images and videos are powerful media that can complement a product review because it allows the readers to imagine how the product would feel/taste/smell prior to purchase. The merchant usually has a set of product videos and images which you can embed on your site and if they don’t, search for it on YouTube (or better yet, create your own video) and use screen captures like Monosnap to take your own images.

(5) Summarize With a Strong CTA

At the end of the review, provide a summary of what the product can or can’t go along with a strong call-to-action (CTA) to your main affiliate link. After reading your brilliant review, the readers are now more confident to follow your recommendation to make a purchase. If you have been honest from the very beginning, getting people to convert into buyers shouldn’t be too difficult at this point of time.

(6) Don’t Forget to Optimize

For your review to reach out to a wider audience, you need to make sure that it is optimized for the search engine as well. Here’s a quick reference for you to follow;

• Make sure the targeted keyword is in the title, in the subtitles, and in the image ALT Text.
• Engage in comments as soon as you get it published.
• Share your post regularly on the social media that you are actively involved with.

If you are using WordPress for your blog, setting up this SEO plugin will boost your page optimization.

Examples of Some Good Product Reviews

A good place that I would recommend affiliate marketers to check out before writing product reviews is the Amazon marketplace. You would find ordinary people offering a ton of comments that have all the qualities that I’ve just mentioned.

Have a read on this positive review about a dog restraining harness.

Here’s another one – a negative review (with images) – on the same type of product.

What do you think about these reviews?

I find them very descriptive, transparent and they gave me a better idea on what to expect if I am buying one for my dog. In other words, they are very helpful. So, emulate that ‘ordinary voice’ if you will, and you’d be surprised how your product review becomes much easier to write and to read.

Practice Makes Perfect

There’s no such thing as a perfect review because product trends and consumer behaviors change all the time. However, if you are willing to learn how to write a good product review by following the aforementioned tips, you would come very close to writing one.

I hope this article has been helpful to you. If you wish to learn how to write awesome product reviews for conversion, check out the video training by Jay, from Wealthy Affiliate for free, by following the link below.

Do you have any questions or thoughts about this topic? Please leave your comment in the space below and I’ll get back to you.