My process for developing a consumer product review for an Authority Review site

I just responded to a question about how to write a review for a consumer product. I just went through this process for my first site http://bestgolfcarrybags.com. After writing the response I thought there might be benefit in sharing it more broadly. (I warn folks I am a little more methodical than some might be.) Essentially I used a 6 step process after I determined my product -- golf carry bags.

1. I started by scanning the golf carry bag offerings of four of the highest volume golf sites -- Amazon, Golf Galaxy, PGA Superstore, Golfsmith. For each site I determined the 50 fastest selling carry bags and separately the 50 bags with the highest customer review scores
2. From those lists of top bags I looked for overlap and was able to reduce the lists to one master list with a few dozens to investigate
3. To expand my knowledge I then read 10 - 12 of my direct competitors websites to define what features makes a good product. I especially focused on their discussion of features
4. Based on my expanded knowledge I developed a Buyer's Guide to create a point of view and a basis for my reviews
5. Once the Buyer's Guide was completed I then went to the websites for the top manufacturers (Titleist, Nike, etc.) and pulled all their data on the bags that I favored
6. And then I began to write reviews based on the criteria I had set out in the Buyer's Guide. Through the process I ended up with 6 carry bags which I thought were best. One from each of the top 6 vendors

• There is one remaining step that I did not do which I think would have been a benefit. I did not formally score and rank each bag in order to say which of the six was truly the best. In part because in narrowing the field all six "winners" were great bags and force ranking felt arbitrary.

Hope this helps people who are stuck on how to write content for a review site.

See you around the virtual hallways,

Brad