Simple Review Template

My keyword for this post is "Rare Beer Club Review". You can see the live page here.

Section 1: Post Title & URL

The post title is the "main idea" of your article, and it's the first thing someone sees. This is what people will see in Google results, and it's also what they'll see at the top of the page on your website.

It's important to get your keyword in the title and the URL of your article for search engine optimization, but also so people are clear that they landed on the right page!

WordPress will make the URL will automatically match exactly what the title of the post is, but you can also modify this to remove unnecessary words.

In this case, I made my URL /rare-beer-club-review instead of /the-rare-beer-club-review-will-i-keep-my-membership

Keyword In The URL And Title

You Can Change The URL or "Permalink" Inside WordPress

Section 2: Title Image

A title image helps start off your readers with something easy to digest and interesting. It should visually represent your topic. I like to use Canva to create Pinterest-friendly images. (Pinterest is very powerful and shouldn't be ignored!)

Name your image the same as your main keyword. Once you upload your image, give it an alt text that describes the image. Don't just repeat your main keyword, but if you can fit it in naturally, that's best.

The purpose of alt text is to describe the image so Google can understand what the image is about, but also for visually impaired readers who are using text-to-speach programs.

Add An Attractive Title Image

Keyword As Image Name & Alt Text

Section 3: Introduction

This will be a short introduction to your post. The first few sentences are your opporunity to "hook" people into your article so they keep reading. You don't have to get super in-depth here, but there should be some sort of interesting reason why people should keep reading, or why they should read carefully instead of just skimming.

A typical tactic, which is kind of dated and annoying now, was when "viral lists" would say something like "These 10 puppies are super cute, but what's wrong with #8?". This way the reader looks through the whole list, but are really searching for a specfic piece of information.

Without being corny, for a product review you could say something like, "I'd give this product a 10/10 rating, but there was one problem I just couldn't get over." Another one could be, "I was just going to return this and get my money back, but then I found something that changed my mind, and now I'm using this thing every day."

You can also use the introduction to add things like review summaries, star ratings, CTAs, and product comparison tables.

In terms of SEO, make sure to get your target keyword in the first paragraph! In this case, I wasn't able to get the exact keyword to fit naturally, and that's OK.

I always cringe when I see someone write, "Welcome to my product X review!". Surprisingly, that tactic actually works, but it doesn't sound natural to the reader so I avoid it.

Keyword In The First Paragraph

Section 4: h2 Title

This next part is simple. I create an h2 title which basically repeats the meaning of the main title, but in a new way. This reminds the reader what the intent of the post is, and in my opinion, gets the reader to think, "OK, now it's time to get to the meat of the article"

Keyword in h2 Title

Section 5: Table of Contents

You can use manual code, or a plugin to create a table of contents, and there are any number of designs you could use to make it look nice. I go simple with a bulleted list and manual code. A plugin will probably be easier for newbies to create and make look uniform across all reviews.

The TOC is good for readers to get an overview of the main concepts you plan to cover in the content. I also like to create jump links so they can skip to the section they want to read, but these are optional.

The added benefit of jump links is that you can get them shown in search engines, increasing your chance of getting clicks because you now have 4+ links on page one of Google instead of just one!

Table Of Contents With Jump Links

Section 6: Write A Natural Article With h3/h4 Titles

Now it's time to write your content! Most of the technical SEO work is done by now, so just write something that is interesting and helpful to your readers.

Yes, that's a vague way to put it, but there are literally infinite ways you could write about a single subject, so you do need to use your own creativity and style to craft your content. Your voice matters!

The main direction I have for you here is to use small paragraphs so your article is more readable on mobile devices (2-3 sentences per paragraph), and use h3 or h4 titles for "sections" on the page.

h3 would be a main section, and h4 would be a subsection. This helps people skim the page easier, and breaks up the monotony of reading.

h3 & h4 Titles

So that's the product review template in a nutshell. You can expand and change this template as you get more comfortable with in.

In the next lesson, I'm going to introduce you to the Top 10 List Template.