Product Reviews - A Few Tips

To me, the ideal product review is of a product that you have purchased and used for yourself. What if you are not made of money and cannot afford to purchase every product you want to review?

So how do you come up with content for products that you have not purchased or used?

Here's a couple of things I do to come up with content for product reviews:

• Research comments of other users. Amazon reviews is a good place to start but also user reviews on manufacturer website (I tend to think these are mostly positive though) as well as chat rooms.
• I delve deeply into the manuals of the products I review. If there is not a users manual publised on the manufacturer's website, I generally won't review the product. I have chosen a niche with many competing products so I can be a little choosy here.

I read through the entire manual as I would if I had purchased the product and was setting it up. This can be a rich source of helpful information for your readers.

• I try to add content that a new user would benefit from - ease of use, ease of assembly, learning curve, upgradeable, etc
• I compare to other products I have either used or previously reviewed - build off the knowledge you already have. This also gives you a mechanism to link to other posts on your site.
• Youtube is a wonderful source of information. For one product review I actually found a number of training videos posted by the manufacturer that provided a whole bunch of useful info for me to create content for.

What to do if you decide you would not buy a product as you are conducting your research?

I used to think that every product review had to be positive. You want your readers to click and purchase, right?

Well, yes but you also want to be informative and helpful to your readers. If you have determined that a certain product is not something you would recommend, be honest with your readers and say so.

I don't advise being too negative towards the company or product though. Simply state the facts as you understand them, list out the pros and cons, make your 'personal' recommendation and let the reader decide for themselves based on your content.

I also ask for comments from those who have themselves used the product.

Having a negative review also gives another mechanism to link to other content on your site. If you have a product that you would not personally endorse, link your readers to one of your posts for a product you do endorse.

What have I left out? Let us know some of your tips for generating product review content.

Thanks for reading.