Writing product reviews is an important part of our business. We know that the better our reviews are the better the sales will be. We learned this first hand when after writing hundreds of poor quality reviews we decided one day to change one page on one of our sites to a long detailed helpful review. This page was already getting traffic but conversions were poor. When we made the change the result was amazing. Sales increased – so much so, that we knew that we needed to change our style of writing reviews.
Writing product reviews is simple really but we make it really complicated because we tend to focus on the money first and that clouds our actions. If you couldn’t make a sale from it all and your primary goal was simply to be helpful then how differently would you write your reviews? Oftentimes it is worthwhile keeping this in mind when you write your reviews. In other words, write them like you don’t care whether you will make a sale or not.
Of course we also need to be practical here because we still need to eat so we can’t afford to not make sales. The key then is finding a balance between providing real value to our readers and making those all important sales. The problem however is that a good majority of people focus more on making sales than providing value so the balance is tipped towards the wrong end of the scale.
In order to write good quality reviews, all you need to do is put yourself in the shoes of your readers. I think that just about all of us have at some time or another looked for a review for a product online. I do it all the time. I very rarely buy a high priced item without checking out a few reviews first.
The last time I spent time looking for reviews was when we were heading overseas and we were looking for a camera to replace the old Kodak camera we had been using for the business. I spent quite a few hours checking out the best cameras for our specific needs and eventually decided on the Canon S95 – brilliant camera by the way – I highly recommend it – it’s almost impossible to take a bad shot.
The reviews that helped me the most when deciding on whether to buy this camera or not provided a lot of detail. They didn’t just list the features of the camera, since I could find that myself on the manufacturers site, but they went further by telling me what those features could do for me. They were also personalized and what I mean by that is that they provided their opinion and you could tell that they knew what they were talking about. I knew there was a real person behind the review and that made me trust their opinion more.
So since I know what I want to see in a review, it helps me when I am writing my own product reviews. I can put myself in my readers shoes because I have experienced what they are going through first hand.
Since the Amazonian Profit Plan was released, we’ve looked at a lot of product reviews from our readers and we’ve seen a lot of really good ones in that time. In fact, some have been exceptional. However, we’ve also seen a lot of not so good ones and and just about all of them are because of one or more of the following reasons:
1. The product review sounds like an advertisement
The goal with your product reviews is to write them as if you were telling a friend about the product. Instead we see a lot of people write their product reviews like they are trying to sell something and it just ends up sounding like the manufacturer wrote the review.
People read reviews for a reason – they want the real story behind the product and it’s your job to give them that. They don’t just want a rehash of the content they can find on the manufacturers website.
It’s often worth going back and reading your reviews to see if this is the case. As we mentioned previously, put yourself in your readers shoes – would you like to see that review if you were deciding on whether to buy the product? Would you think it was just overly promotional and just trying to get a sale out of me?
Think about what you want to see in a review and apply that to your website.
2. The review isn’t personal enough
This is one of the most common mistakes we see with product reviews. Just because you don’t own the product, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get personal about it and give your opinion. This is why you need to use ‘I’ in your reviews. This is particularly important in the first paragraph. Your readers want to know that there is a real person behind the review and they will continue reading if they see that.
Here are just a few examples of what I mean by using “I” in your reviews. Just by adding these types of statements throughout your review it starts to sound more personal and you will get more people reading through to the end.
“I like the safety features of this stroller”
“I prefer this drill to the XYZ drill because…”
“In my opinion, this feature of this dog bed beats all other dog beds hands down.”
“I don’t think you will find any other chain saws with this safety feature.”
“I’ve also reviewed the XYZ drill and it just doesn’t compare to this cordless drill.”
3. The review contains too many ads
In the early days when we were desperate to make some money with all of this we would often include lots of ads on our product review pages. We assumed that the more ads we had, the more likely our readers would click through to a merchant and make a sale. We eventually realized that it didn’t work as well as we hoped. The more ads we had on the site, the more likely people would just click away. Plus these days most people are becoming blind to ads and simply don’t even notice them anymore.
We know that the best types of ads (if you want to call them that) are just plain and simple text links scattered throughout the product review. It took us a long time to realize this but we make most of our income from text links than any other type of banner ad, Adsense ad, widget, pop-up or fancy new form of advertising.
The more subtle you are with your ads the more likely people will trust you and read your review. So keep it simple and avoid using too many ads on your product review pages.
4. The reviews are too short
We’ve already mentioned above how we initially started out writing poor quality reviews. They were usually around 300 words and although the content was okay, it just wasn’t enough for our readers to make an informed decision about whether the product was right for them.
If your reviews are short then it is most likely that you aren’t providing enough value. We’ve said before that you only need a handful of reviews to make a decent income online so you can take your time with your reviews and make them the best they can be.
It will depend on the product of course, but you should be aiming for a review length of around 1000 words. You can make it longer if you wish. I am in the process of writing a review for an internet marketing related product and it is currently at 3700 words….too much?…maybe but if someone is interested in that product they will have everything they need to know about it before making their decision…they shouldn’t have to go anywhere else….and that should be your goal with your reviews.
5. The review focuses too heavily on the negatives
If you want to write valuable reviews then you can’t simply focus on the positives only. On the other hand, if you focus too heavily on the negatives it can kill your sales.
Just about every product is going to have a negative consumer review only because there are some people out there that are just never happy with anything. They can’t help but write about what they don’t like about the product. When you see those sort of consumer reviews on Amazon then you simply ignore them. These are not the sorts of negatives that you should be adding to your product review. It is only when you see the majority of the consumer reviews talk about the same specific problem with the product that you need to include it in your review.
Mind you, if the majority of the consumer reviews on Amazon are complaining about the product then it is probably not a good product to be reviewing in the first place. This is why we always suggest selecting good quality products – products that you yourself would buy.
If you have to add a negative to your review then if possible try and turn it into a positive. For example, if your product review is about a particular vacuum cleaner and a number of reviewers have complained about the noise of that particular vacuum cleaner then you might say something like this: “A number of reviewers have complained about the amount of noise this vacuum cleaner generates but I see this as a sign of a really powerful vacuum cleaner.”
Some final tips…
- Always add images to your reviews – we always add an image to the very top of the review and link it to Amazon – (see How to Add an Amazon Image Link).
- Try and get the word ‘review’ into the title of your post – most people looking for reviews will use the word ‘review’ when searching in Google.
- Leave plenty of white space – we’ve seen a few reviews where the paragraphs are all bunched up together. White space just makes things a lot easier to read.
- Create sub-headings throughout your review. It also helps to make the review easier to read.
I hadn’t thought about this before – If you couldn’t make a sale from it all and your primary goal was simply to be helpful then how differently would you write your reviews?
It’s highly likely you will write differently if you were doing it just to be helpful. I’ll have to remember this one!
I also need to remember to make the reviews a little more personal. I tend to not be so personal.
Great tips!
It’s always a good idea to write your review without thinking of the money first. Once the review is done then you can start to play around with it and add keywords and text links and so on. But getting the review to be as helpful as possible first is always the goal in our opinion.
The way I see it, money is the last thing you look at when choosing a product. Before that you should be evaluating how useful the product is and how much better off your audience would be using it because it solves various problems that are plaguing them.
Regardless of the price, if you find a product that works for your audience then you will sell tons of them. So I agree, look at price last.
You’re right on the money. I agree 100% that the reviews we all tend to write are too “salesy” and not personal enough. I’m taking a long look at all my current reviews and re-working them, even writing new ones that follow your model and ideas. I’ve done exactly what you mentioned ( short, impersonal, with lots of banners) for years and wondered why they weren’t working! It’s all really simple if you think about what you look for yourself when you are shopping online. Thanks for the help!
We’ve still got hundreds of reviews on our sites that are ‘too salesy’. When I look back I can see it was just our desperate attempt to make money.
This is a really helpful article. I especially appreciate the idea of going back to old reviews and tweaking them to be sure that I haven’t made any big mistakes in them. That’s part of what makes this business so appealing: It’s not as though I need to republish a physical book in which I made a mistake; rather, I cans simply edit an online page that I created a long time ago to make it more polished and helpful!
That’s what we do now Ellen. We don’t bother building new sites anymore because there is no need. We just rework old reviews.
Thank you for your excellent advice! Writing good quality reviews is essential to success, and tips from those who are as successful as you are can make all the difference in the world!
I only subscribe to a couple of blogs, but I can honestly say that I look forward to every post on your blog.
Thanks Tammie – that’s good to hear. We try to make sure we provide quality on this blog. We could write a blog post a day and get a lot more traffic but I don’t see the point really if the quality isn’t there.
Always good to get a reminder on the basics of how to write a good product review. I think I’m gradually getting better but I have hundreds of pages to check and see if they can be improved.
You two ladies are a real inspiration to me. I went on the recent Melbourne Millionaire Mind Intensive because “that’s what Paula and Wanda did”! Loved it and came away with a much more positive mindset on what is possible for me.
Good to see you enjoyed the seminar. We liked it too although you have to be careful to avoid all of the up-sells and there are plenty of them. You can still get a lot of value from that seminar without having to spend any money.
Awesome tips. I want to start reviewing products on my website and these tips will come in handy, especially the tip on making the reviews more personal and longer.
Looks like you do that already on your website Diane so you should be a natural at it.
Avoid Shiny Things!! After purchasing the Amazonian Profit Plan I did a review that got lots of praise. Along the way I have let shiny things and others opnions (different than yours) spend time in my ears and mind. I’ve learned that listening to too many voices only makes you more confused. Follow one path for six months or more and do the work it requires before chasing the next big thing. There will always be gurus with the next big thing and we need to avoid most of them. I am back on track although I have bought some domains that don’t fit the criteria(money wasted) so I won’t be buying too many sites in the near future(No money). Unfortunaltely because I need to start over with my selections.I’m proud of the first site and I will continue to work on it and expand the reviews.
The long review flows with a story from my heart and only convinces me that you ladies are trying to get us on the path to success we just need to listen and avoid shiny things,gurus and write long reviews (1000 words or more) even if someone else trys to convince you otherwise. My advice “DON’T LISTEN”(sorry for shouting).
Please follow the tenets of the Amazonian Profit Plan.
Thank you Ladies.
I think we all let ‘shiny things’ get in our way in this business. It’s difficult not to. We are all looking for the easy way out and I’ve bought too many products over the years trying to do that.
I really think the problem is that people don’t give things a chance to work. There are plenty of other methods out there apart from ours that work but people keep moving from one thing to the next…we did the same thing. And I think the reason for that is that there is this perception that making money online is easy and that you can start making money super fast. When that doesn’t happen they think that the money making product they purchased doesn’t work so they move on to the next thing. This is a never ending cycle with a good majority of people online.
Check, check, check. For my products reviews site, I’ve done everything you’ve suggested – except I think I could make it a little more personal by interjecting my opinion in it here and there. I do so much research on each product that I think I can have one at that point!
I would like to make a point with a lesson I learned the hard way. Google slammed me with its second round of updates. I was soaring with traffic – over 100% increase each month it seems. Then just before Easter my site lost 2/3 of its traffic and ALL my keyword rankings.
I made a mistake, and I am convinced I know what happened. I was highlighting a sentence here or there pulled from Amazon or other retail sites where customers leave their own reviews.
I have a section on each review where I talk about what others are saying about that product. So I was pulling a sentence here and there that was relevent to the point I was making.
Thing is, that’s duplicate content! Sites like Buzzillions and Wize.com are comment aggregates. So are lots of spammy crummy wordpress review sites that use some plugin to pull comments right off Amazon. So various bits of my content were not original, despite the fact that each review is easily 1500 to 2000 words – or more.
So I cleaned up my entire site and paraphrased very carefully all the quotes I pulled.
I hope the next time Google scans my site, it will see nothing but original content and more inbound links (the other remedy I’m working on to correct my loss of traffic.)
Sorry so long, just wanted to give your readers another heads up.
It could be that Google specifically went after sites duplicating Amazon content. There are a lot of them out there so perhaps you are right when you say that the comments you took from Amazon are the problem although it seems pretty harsh if you only grabbed a few here and there and the rest of your review is all original content.
A lot of innocent sites got slammed in the last update so I am not sure Google got it quite right. You could just be one of those innocent sites and you can resubmit to Google if that is the case. You can do that here:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843
What types of text link ads do you put inside product reviews?
Just regular text links. We just link to Amazon products mostly but sometimes we will use other merchants from CJ, Linkshare or Clickbank.
Right in the middle of a review? Isn’t that defeating the purpose? A distraction?
I dunno how happy I’d be reading a review for one product and having to glaze over links to other products in the middle of it.
They are not links to other products. The only links we put in the review are links to the product we are promoting. That’s what I am trying to reinforce here. We don’t add anything else but links to the product – however a lot of people will add Adsense ads, or Amazon widgets or text links that pop-up when you hold your mouse over them or buy now buttons to the product and so on. We’ve just found that simple text links to the product we are promoting in the review work the best.
This is a great post that covers some of the crucial elements that people miss in their reviews.
I think that if you treat the review like a blog post and remember that you want to keep the readers engaged to the very end is important.
My biggest problem I notice with reviews is it’s almost like the people writing them have forgotten what the real world is actually like.
Relate to me and allow me to be in your shoes – even for a moment and I will be so likely to buy from you it’s not even funny.
Thanks for sharing.
(I have set my Facebook page centered around how to make money with Amazon niche sites to receive your RSS feed, so I would like to take this moment to personally thank you for your consistently helpful and relevant content)
I’ve just been checking out your blog Alex. You have some great content on there. Worth a visit if anyone is reading this comment – http://alexwhalley.com/
Thanks so much for the feedback Paula,
That really means a lot coming from you.
Hi Paula and Wanda,
Another very helpful post. Even though I have read and definitely put your Amazonian Profit Plan to work for me, I found this post very helpful. I’m going over my reviews right now and so your post is very timely.
I think the hardest part of a good review is making it personal. I find that reviewing a product you don’t own is probably the most difficult. We want to be honest so we try to find the right words to put a personal spin on the article but at the same time be straight with the reader. It’s a challenge but it certainly can be done.
Thanks again for your great blog,
Jerry
You are spot on when you say it is a challenge to get the personal bit just right. We don’t want to lie in our reviews but at the same time we want to be personal so that the person trusts our opinion.
It’s all about the amount of research you do. If you do enough of it then you can easily provide your opinion. You only have to read Amy’s comment above to see that.
It is so easy. Why do I make it difficult?
It seems like it takes me forever to research and write a product review. I think i may be dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s but forgetting my I’s.
I have been working out my site for a little over 2 months now and have been attempting to follow the APP system. I still work on additional reviews and am trying to put at least one review out per week. Trying to build out backlinks now as there is very little traffic to the site. A good portion of the traffic is me.
Now this particular product does not meet the APP guidelines, but is an interesting Amazon 1st person review for a $4,900 green portable laser.
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This review is from: Laserglow Technologies Hercules-550 Hercules green portable laser (Office Product)
I have used red lasers as cat toys for years but it seems like my cats figured out what it was. Since then I could not get my cats to run around much, they just sleep now and are getting quite fat. Worried about there health I got on amazon and found this laser pointer. Sure the price is quite high and it does not have a build in pen but I wanted to bring the life back into my little furry friends. I put up the boat I never used anyway for sale on craigslist and a few weeks later I had this laser pointer in the mail.
Boy this is a well built laser. Quite heavy (very solid!!) Good news is that my cats love it! Its like they are kittens again. The pointer emits a green colored laser. It feels quite hot if you point it at your skin. There is warning labels all over it…but my cats don’t seem to be hurt by it.
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I am not suggesting your reviews go like this. The reviewer was not a verified purchaser by Amazon.
Anyway, be careful with referring to Amazon reviews. Some could be salted, both positive and negative.
Sorry for the long post, but I can say I really enjoy the information provided by Paula and Wanda.
That’s why we suggest looking for products with multiple reviews. That product you are talking about only has two reviews…really not enough to gauge the quality of the product.
You will often find that really expensive products have these type of made-up reviews…just people who are trying to be wise guys. It distorts the reviews however which is not a good thing. I usually report them to Amazon when I see them.
Paula & Wanda,
What do you mean by ads? Are you referring to having too many links directing other to go back to Amazon?
Thanks. I really appreciate you two.
The text links to Amazon are okay – add as many of those as you like, within reason of course.
When I say ads I’m talking about things like Amazon widgets which link to the product or Adsense ads or banner ads. They are too obvious and look like you are trying to sell something.
Well said, again! Rankings are nothing if conversions are dismal. What’s really funny is how much one page can make a difference in your life if you pick the right product and write your heart out.
Getting back to the “brevity” issue – it’s astounding to me how many of my competitors don’t get that. There’s a glut of 200-300 word “reviews” with 1/2 baked “content”, sure it ranked well: but how does that convert?
When I’m doing 10X that and eventually out-ranking them, I can say a personal review, with research and thought put in for the shopper, really brings home the fried strips of pork meat.
It all comes down to quality vs quantity. I keep saying that you only need a handful of reviews to make a steady income online. If you focus on less but put your heart and soul into it you will succeed.
Here’s a “review” post (linked below) that I just put up that is, for now, going out to be purely informational. No real links back to products yet because I want it to become an authoritative article.
Over time I’ll link this one out to specific products and to our online store.
You could probably get away with adding links now Craig. The reason I say that is that your site is already an authority site and people already trust you. Plus I know that if I were reading that and I was interested in buying fencing shoes I would appreciate some links direct to the products rather than having to go search for them.
Also, just a suggestion… it might be worth you making the review more personal like we suggest in the post above. You know a bit about this topic so add some “I’s” to it. Give your personal opinion and experiences. Eg. “when I first started fencing, one of the things I knew I had to have was a pair of good quality fencing shoes but knowing which ones to buy wasn’t that easy.”
People are more likely to read on if they know there is a real person behind the article.
I forgot to add that you did a great job with the review.
Thanks. I’ll spruce up the review a little bit with some more personal experience.
I’m planning on one of these types of articles for every main product category in our niche. That will be good practice for doing it in other markets.
I love the way you and Wanda approach this, Paula. I think too many times we’re concerned that we’re leaving money on the table so we oversell on our pages. Just to confirm, you’re suggesting that we remove all advertising from the site except the text links for the item we’re reviewing on that page, right?
Not necessarily from the entire site, just from the product review page itself.
When we write reviews we like to put them on a full-width page. In other words we remove the sidebar (and keep the header and footer). We remove the sidebar because it keeps the reader reading and not clicking away to something on that sidebar. The less distractions the better.
That’s why we use the Flexsqueeze theme because you can remove the sidebar for specific pages. But there are plenty of themes available now that allow for full-width pages.
Great advice! I too have had the best results with in-depth reviews, IF the product calls for it. Some products/keywords just don’t need them, like if the visitor is mainly looking for the best deal rather than a product review. In that case you don’t need much content, and you can get away with just pushing them to Amazon as quickly as possible.
For products that I think need a good review, I usually start off with a shorter review covering only the basics. If/when I start receiving traffic, and I’m not satisfied with the conversions, I beef up the review and really put some effort into it.
There are a lot of people out there with poor quality reviews but getting traffic to them. They only need to do what you do and expand on the reviews and they could be making some good money.
This is very true. I write a lot of product reviews & sponsored review posts and I still find that I make many of the mistakes you have mentioned. Especially the one about the entire thing sounding like one big ad. :)
That would have to be the most common problem we see Dean so you are not alone.
This was super helpful. For some reason, I always thought shorter reviews, but I do not see where my logic was coming from. If I’m going to buy a product, I want to know all about it – Every.Last.Detail. This post definitely forced a paradigm shift for me. I’m just getting started. Very glad to have this information on the front end. :)
I wish we had known about this when we first started. We wouldn’t have spent hundreds of hours writing poor quality reviews for starters plus we probably would have been making money sooner.
Actually as I just wrote that paragraph I realized that we did know about it. We were students of James Martell and he did say to write long articles but we didn’t really listen. I think we thought we knew better. It took us quite a number of years to realize that he was right all along.
Hi Paula/Wanda
I learn so much from your posts on this website and even more from reading the comments/questions that readers post together with your replies.
And most times I have questions of my own – some of which are already answered by the time I have read the comments and some are not.
The question I have for you today, is that while I believe everything I hear and read from you about review sites, I am still experimenting. I only have one review site so far (in that the other sites contain small reviews of 300 words or less, or are simply product catalogue sites only). The review site I have is for the same product niche as a site I have which I built using WPZonBuilder (which you have referred to yourself on this website in the past).
Anyway, in the two months that I have had the two sites – both of which rank near the bottom of page 1 on google.co.uk (normally 7th and 8th or 8th and 9th place) I have found that the product review site gets more traffic and converts better regarding the % of click through to Amazon, but the WPZonBuilder site is the one that is generating income. i.e. Review site has a CTR to Amazon of 15% but an Amazon conversion rate of only 2%. The WPZonBuilder site has a CTR of 11% but an Amazon conversion rate of 12%.
I would appreciate your thoughts as to why this might be. Because I am stumped.
My analysis of these two sites can be found in the following graphic: http://www.amazonaffiliateprofits.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/review-versus-wpzonbuilder.gif
Thanks
Richard
Are you talking about one page on each of the sites or multiple pages? If you really want to do a comparison you need to be looking at just one single page that is about the exact same product on each of the sites because there are too many variables to consider if you are talking about the sites as a whole.
People often ask us about conversion rates etc for our sites but I never look at the sites as a whole when I do that. For one thing I am too lazy to go and find all of that stuff out but really its because when I look at stats I look at individual pages only. If I look at the sites as a whole the stats are skewed because we have good pages on those sites and bad pages.
What you might want to consider is the keywords your readers are using to get to your two sites. Are they coming in to both sites using the same keyword phrases? For instance, if your site is about digital cameras and for the review site most of the traffic comes in to a page about the Canon S95 camera using keywords like ‘digital camera info’ and ‘best digital camera’ and for your WPZon site your visitors come in to your Canon S95 page using keywords like ‘buy canon s95’ and ‘shop for canon s95’ then obviously you are going to get better sales from the WPZon site because people are specifically ready to buy the camera.
Also your traffic numbers are not that big yet so it’s difficult to draw conclusions from those numbers. When you get ten times that amount come back and let us know how it’s going. It’s always good to see how other people are testing things out like this.
And sometimes we just shouldn’t think too much about things. If the WPZonBuilder site is working for you then go for it. We’ve always said that most methods of making money online work – it’s just that most people don’t give them enough time.
Thanks Paula
I agree that it is difficult to get any real picture with low numbers, but I will keep monitoring.
I will also check what keywords peoiple are using to get to the two different sites. What you are saying could be right.
Thanks again
Richard
This was a great post for me to read. I have written reviews before just as described before you changed your methods and get the same less than good results. I believe now I can write better reviews due to your tips!
Hope it helps Ken.
Hi guys,
Just finished Stephen Kings book ‘on writing’ and he gives some powerful techniques for making your words count.
His best tip is to have an ‘ideal reader’ pictured in your head while writing and write just for her. Lots of writing reads like a speech delivered to many. Writing for one makes your words more personal and likely to ‘connect’ with your reader.
We all read books that are difficult to put down; that is this ‘connection’ at work, a meeting of writer and reader on the page.
He also said to avoid adverbs, especially words ending in ‘ly’. Short is powerful sentence wise. Of course if you cut out all the ‘flowery’ prose you have to do more work to provide longer reviews but they will be all the more powerful for it.
I don’t read Kings stories, but keep an eye open for his memoirs about his trade in ‘On writing’, I certainly learned a thing or two.
Stay well
p.s. I even went through this comment and cut out quite a few unnecessary words lol!
I like the ‘ideal reader’ tip.
This is the book that Ian is referring to if anyone is interested:
On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft
I found you via a different website which just mentioned Paula and Wanda. You two are great and a great inspiration. All I can say is thank you.
Thanks for visiting Marike. Hope you can get some value out of this blog.
Hi Paula:
With all the recent Google changes have you modified the way you choose keywords? That is – do you now do it differently than what you have described in Amazonian Profit Plan?
Thanks
Stephanie
No, not at all. I don’t think keywords are the issue with the latest Google update. It was more to do with duplicate content and poor quality content.
Great article! Something I found useful as well, though this might be beyond some. When I got APP, I had one site that was already making me some money on Amazon and I’ve revamped it to have longer and more detailed reviews. Having said that, the product being sold on that page was not really anything I was passionate about.
So I decided to go back to my roots, make a new page, connect it to the personal homesteading blog I’ve been running for three years to give it some authenticity, and have now got two reviews up about products that I use myself and am very passionate about. It makes it MILLIONS times easier to write conversational, personal sounding reviews when you actually HAVE got the product.
Naturally I wouldn’t tell everyone to start over, but I think for those of us who come in to learning about Amazonian Profit Plan and don’t already have tons of work sunk in to pages already, it might be a good idea to do a new one with a topic we’re passionate about. I know it also made it tons easier to write the reviews – I remember the first site I have, I was so annoyed with it by the time I was done writing, because I wasn’t interested in the subject matter.
This is so true Bethany. When you own the product you can write a much better review. When any of our reviews are making money we go out and buy the product and add to the review with more personal thoughts and opinions. It makes the review so much better.
Another great benefit of owning the product is that you can add your own photos, highlighting any features you think are noteworthy.
I don’t think that a review using the stock photos borrowed from Amazon, carries the same weight as one full of unique photos from someone who actually owns the product and is writing from experience.
I am a new blogger and have just started promoting some products on my blog. I am waiting for some results as i haven’t made a single sale from the last 5-6 months when i started my new blog. Hope this all help me a lot. Thanks for the really helpful post.
If you are getting a decent amount of traffic and no sales then you need to start looking into why they aren’t converting. There could be lots of reasons but you really need to look at what people are typing in to get to your pages first of all. If your product review is about cordless drills but people are coming into your site after searching for cordless chain saws then you aren’t going to convert.
There are lots of other reasons why you may not be converting but too many to add here. I think I will make it a priority to write a blog post about it.
Since purchasing the Amazonian Profit Plan I have followed Paula and Wanda’s advice and techniques in all of my product reviews. It has paid off 100 fold. My sales doubled every month since implementing the strategies in the APP.
Thanks, Ken
That’s fantastic to hear Ken. I’m so glad we could help.
It would be more helpful if you could give us a live demo of one of your website or only the review that you have wriiten.
Thank you for sharing your tips, need to re-think the strategy.
You might want to read this post:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/08/07/can-i-see-an-example-of-your-website/
I like this post but I think your Some final tips… part is very informative for me. Thanks Paula
Glad we could help.
This tips alone improved my awarness of how to review content from now on. Thank you guys you are great! :)
Sometimes just a couple of little tips can make all the difference.
Hi Ladies,
I have a request. Is there any possibility that this site might have a testimonials section? I think it would be extremely motivating to showcase the success stories of people who have followed the Amazonian Profit Plan and had significant success because of it. I know these things take time but thought it would be great if you could consider it. Thanks so much.
I’ll bring it up with Wanda at our next meeting. In the meantime you might want to take a look at our Staying Motivated page as we have been adding success stories to that page.
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/staying-motivated/
Hi Paula
So do you also put other suppliers links for price comparisons (and join their networks) for customer choice as surely they will click around for the best price if not?
Also do you also provide many pages on your review sites with different aspects of the product/related information, or just one page along with contact, privacy etc?
Many thanks
Steve
Sometimes we will do price comparisons but more often than not we will just stick with Amazon as the merchant. Most people trust Amazon and they know that in most cases Amazon will have the best price anyway.
We don’t have any websites with just one product review. All of our sites have at least 5 product reviews for different but related products. We also add information type articles to those sites that aren’t product reviews. These types of articles help to build up the site.
Thanks for your reply Paula
The sites you say about adding articles but not amazon reviews – what are they for? do you monetize them with other products then.
I’ve read a lot of your information on your site for tips etc and the download, but could you also point to one of your amazon sites and one of the non amazon sites maybe, so i can see an actual working example to fill in the gaps and give me a rough idea on layouts etc – that would be great.
Or send links via my email if you prefer
Many thanks
Steve
Just to clarify, I didn’t actually say that we have sites where we add articles but not Amazon reviews. What I said was that we have sites with Amazon reviews and we also add informational articles to those sites. So those sites have both Amazon reviews and information articles.
And you might want to read this post:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/08/07/can-i-see-an-example-of-your-website/
Paula
That definately makes more sense to have articles on the product review sites.
I appreciate your comments in your post about examples and it’s a shame about people outright copying and making duplicate content online and also not going through any learning at all. I was simply really interested in your style of writing reviews as it’s been said ‘yours’ are so different to most and as I have tried a few and failed – wanted to see where/how to improve, but guess I will attempt the approach of simply forgetting the sales side when writing and see if it helps.
Regards
Steve
Hi Paula and Wanda,
My question is how do you recognize spam when people make comments on your sites? I don’t mean this one necessarily, I mean your product review sites. Some comments are obviously spam but sometimes it’s hard for a newbie to know what is a real comment and not just someone trying to get a link to their site. Is there a rule or method that you follow or is it just your gut instinct that tells you whether to approve a comment?
Thanks so much.
I think it is a bit of a gut instinct. Over the years after thousands of spam comments you kind of get a feel for what is spam and what isn’t.
First of all we always have Askimet installed because that is brilliant for stopping a lot of spam. But for those that get through you can usually pick the spam comments because they are usually very generic and have nothing to do with what’s on the page. The other thing to look for is if they have used a keyword in the name field.
If the comment adds value to your blog then it is a good comment even if the persons primary goal is to get a backlink.
Thanks so much, that is very helpful.
I concur. Putting yourself in the shoes of the reader can really bring out a best review. Also, I think you cannot say something or make a review about the product if you haven’t used it personally, or it will be lying. I also agree with long reviews so that the reader will not anymore seek another resources to know more about the product.
It’s not lying Veronica. You can write a review if you haven’t used the product. The key is research and you have to do lots of it. You have to know the product inside and out. You can read this post here for more info on writing product reviews when you don’t own the product:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/06/22/how-to-write-a-product-review-when-you-dont-own-the-product/
Thanks ladies,
Great overview and guiding principles to keep us on track. I have wrestled sometimes with clients who believe in short vs. long copy, and even following some things that some very successful ad copywriters have said over the years (such as Claude Hopkins and Ken McCarthy), that long copy almost always outsells short simply because you can give positive appeals and cover more objections or skepticisms. Any way, did you know that if you print out Amazons’ kindle sales page it is over 18 feet long printed on 8.5 x 11 paper? This is an example I use when coaching client about sales copy and really making sure to cover every angle possible because you may only have 1 shot.
Thanks again for keeping us up to date. I have some reviews to go back through for improvement!
Aaron
Long copy definitely does work. It works so well I wouldn’t even consider writing a review that is any less than 1000 words.