Even if you do actually try the products you review, it's still just an opinion! Look at Amazon reviews. How is it possible that people buying the same product can review it completely differently?
There is a lot of personal bias involved in reviewing stuff you own. Your (lack of) knowledge on the topic means you may unfairly review it positively or negatively. It could go in either direction!
Perhaps you got a dud, and 99% of other people love it. Perhaps you had low expectations, and don't really understand how this particular thing compares to the industry standard. The opinion of one buyer does not necessarily create an air tight argument to buy or not buy.
ALSO, you must realize that people are different, and may like different things than you. I would give creamy peanut butter a negative review, but for some reason, people keep buying it. Some even prefer it to crunchy! Crazy, I know.
So, there are a few things I hope you learned from this training.
- You can write awesome, helpful reviews, even as a newbie
- Growing your knowledge is part of your job as a website owner
- Good research goes a long way in this industry
- Owning something doesn't make you an authority on it
- Much of what you read online is opinion, not fact. Get an opinion and be comfortable with it.
- If you are uncomfortable recommending things, don't. Present the facts + your opinions, then let people make their own decisions.
- OECC Level 3 Lesson 6
- Bootcamp Phase 2 Lesson 4
- Keyword Research/Rank: Low Hanging Fruit
- Find Product Keywords with Alphabet Soup
IMPORTANT UPDATE
After publishing this training over a year ago, I just wanted to clarify one thing. Please do not rewrite people's content. Rewriting is plagiarism! It's very important that if you use other people's reviews or other websites for research, that you do not simply "mix up" their points and rewrite them on your site.
It's very important to provide your own insight and opinions in order to make a unique review.
As Bruce Lee once said:
"Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own."
As you grow your site, you will start to gain more and more of your own opinions due to your growing based of knowledge. As you start to earn money from your site, I highly encourage you to actually buy and test products yourself, so that you can have original content and ideas that no other website has.
Buying and testing products also provides you with awesome opportunities to do videos for YouTube, have unique screenshots, and personal stories to tell which can engage your audience.
I've been wanting to do a very specific product review site and there is no way in the world I could afford purchasing so many of the varieties of the product.
Now you have given me hope and I will continue my research and give it the green light for a launch when ready with more confidence.
Reply
However, this made the cut and I am finally ready to head otu there and I even decided on a nische already! Thank you so so so much Nathaniell!!
Most sincerely
Robin
Read this through Eddy's (w/a Y) link to your post. Great post indeed. I've learned so much, gave me also the confidence to write a review. I can't go on with my lesson at Bootcamp because I was having doubts if I will be credible enough to write a review but I guess with enough knowledge about a product it is possible.
Thank you very much. You are awesome.
Kind regards,
Arline :)
