product review essay example

The Meta Blog

Yet another blog about blogging

How to Write a Killer Product Review (Examples & Layout)

59% of consumers turn to Google for reviews , edging out Amazon as the most popular channel.

As a blogger and reviewer, you have an incredible opportunity to capture this traffic and bring in a consistent flow of affiliate income.

This guide will provide a framework for writing product reviews that attract eyeballs, add genuine value to your audience, and make sales.

Why you should write product reviews

1. they’re cheap.

Product reviews are cheap to produce once you get the hang of it, especially compared to other content types.

You need a good understanding of your niche, solid processes, and some experience. With that, you can quickly identify the significant benefits and drawbacks of any product.

How expensive is it to run a blog?

Check out our pretty detailed piece about the costs involved in building and running a blog .

2. They’re very effective

A product review typically gets traffic from one keyword and one keyword only—for example, product name + review .

What’s more, 90% of people who search for that query have already decided to buy the product—or at least, strongly considering a purchase. A good portion of these buyers is likely googling this product while the checkout page is open on another tab.

It’s this “intent to purchase” that makes these keywords so lucrative. You have options to redirect traffic to your products or take credit for the conversion as an affiliate.

3. They help build authority

By demonstrating an in-depth understanding of the pros and cons of products in your industry, you show browsers that you’re worth trusting.

Additionally, if you can show you know the landscape of your market inside out, you’ll get on the radar of the brands in your niche.

Whether these potential partners reach out to you or not, don’t be mistaken—they know who you are and what you do—which may lead to future collaborations.

If you’re new on the block, it might be worth, make sure you get your review seen by whomever you’re reviewing by tweeting them, or even sending them a link building email .

Product review template: an example

Above the fold.

The top section of the review (above the fold) should include a summary of the key information of the product. This makes it easy for browsers to understand what the item is about and whether it’s in line with what they need.

Below are some ideas to include in your above the fold content:

• Positioning: In complex or competitive markets, the subtle differences between 2 equivalent products often boil down to a clear claim on the product’s homepage. For less crowded markets, these disparities are more challenging to determine. It comes down to the “built for” claim that aims to communicate which audience this tool is trying to reach. Think, “email marketing tool for bloggers ” or “backpack for skaters ,” or “activewear for tall women .”
• Pros and cons: This is the more detailed analysis of your review. Pros and cons help the reader understand where a product is a lot better or worse than the market average.
• Pricing information: For “self-service” products, mention the existence (or absence) of a free trial/free plan, the “entry price,” and the “full-featured” price. Nobody wants to read a full copy of a product’s pricing plan. Sometimes these products don’t publicly display pricing, and you need to sign up to get a custom quote. Research to see if someone has posted the quoted price range and present that information in your review.
• Customer reviews: It’s hard to write a decent review without any consideration for customer reviews. We like to include reviews from trusted platforms. For software, for example, use websites like Capterra and G2 . For other products, you can use customer reviews from online store product pages to substantiate your points.

It’s in this section that your ability to research and present information is critical. Decide on 4-5 criteria that are essential to evaluate the chosen product.

Then show a grade based on your evaluation and detail in less than 10 words why you’ve made that claim: For example:

• Value for money
• Ease of use
• Customer support
• Feature set

And you can get even more specific. If, for instance, you were reviewing CRM software, your evaluation would include:

• Lead management
• Installation complexity

Summary table

Everyone who’s considering buying a product is seeking validation. Whether they’re on the checkout page and want a bit of reassurance before they enter their credit card information, or they’re just starting their research process and shortlisting options.

Your product review needs to address the most conversion-ready audience immediately. That means including a call to action above the fold.

Then address the slightly less conversion-readers browsers with a thorough table summarising your review.

From our experience, this is the hardest part of your review to execute. Every single word counts as you’ll need to boil down 2,000 words to 100.

Only after you’ve made a powerful first impression can you address each criterion in detail.

Introduction

Keep it simple here and explain who the product is for and when it’s a good option.

H2: Feature set

In this part, go through every core feature of the product in detail. Give personal insights as to how it works and how it compares to the market. This is also an excellent opportunity to build internal links across your content to strengthen your topical authority and SEO.

It might be a good idea to break down this H2 into a few H3s. You’ll want to include a lot of illustrations here, so the paragraphs are longer, and it’s good to bring structure to the review to not confuse readers (and writers).

H2: Custom criterion

If you feel like including this criterion as part of the feature list wouldn’t do it justice, this is what this placeholder is for.

In most cases, the feature set h2 should be enough.

H2: Customer reviews about Product Name

Don’t merely list customer reviews in this section, as it’s unoriginal, and anyone can do it.

Take it up a notch and provide a high-level analysis of customer reviews. For example, curate grades and the number of reviews on the leading platforms and aggregate the data into a table.

Another thing is to give a detailed picture by pointing out the pros and cons of the product according to customers.

As a bit of a test, if you’ve done your research properly, customer review data should approximately match your own pros and cons.

If you’re reviewing a SaaS company, check out reviewflowz’ snapshots to get an instant snapshot of a product’s customer reviews across up to 12 platforms.

H2: Customer support for Product Name (when applicable)

First, list the contact options, e.g., email, phone, tickets, and chat. You can even reach out to customer support and see what kind of answer you get and turnaround time.

Next up, evaluate the help center if they have one. If you’re in a coding-related niche, assess the documentation.

Lastly, review all the content the company behind the product is producing, and ask yourself:

• Is the content helpful?
• Are there YouTube videos that you found useful?
• Do they have some sort of action-driven tutorials?
• Do they have a directory of agencies or specialists that you can call for help?
• Upon onboarding, do they provide personalized support?
• Is the software support integrated into the user interface for easy access?

When doing this exercise, you’re trying to understand whether the company will help you to get the most out of the product.

H2: Product Name integrations

The word “integration” sounds software-specific, but the idea is to see how the product will work for you in real life.

Whether it has to do with your lifestyle, your company’s technical infrastructure, or your cat’s favorite food, it’s the same idea.

H2: Product Name pricing

Don’t list pricing plans or versions of features and benefits in your product review, as we mentioned previously.

These pricing tables are tough to read on the company’s website because they’re afraid of litigation and need to avoid anything that could be held against them.

You don’t. So do the work and explain (in plain English) why it makes sense to go for the premium plan and when the light plan is enough.

How to optimize a product review for SEO?

1. go for the right keyword.

Product name + review: That’s the keyword you’re going for…period.

It’s tempting to go for “Product Name” as it has 40x more impressions. And “Product Name alternatives” sounds like a cool keyword. Oh, and don’t forget “Product Name pricing.” They all sound great. Right?

Let’s break this down:

• Product Name: Folks entering this query don’t want to read a review. They’re generally looking to buy, signup, log in, or find a coupon.
• Product Name alternatives: This is a pretty good keyphrase, but we suggest you only target if the search volume is high enough. Even then, you can’t seriously address that intent with a review post.
• Product Name pricing: It makes sense to target this keyword with a specific post in some very unique cases. These situations are mainly relevant to open-source software. Some people think that open source is free, at least on the surface. However, it’s not free. They don’t come cheap by the time you factor in hosting, setup, maintenance, etc. Pricing is then (and only then) a very opaque topic you can help readers understand better.

2. Work on your title

Write an enticing meta title and description.

If you google your keyword, you’ll notice it’s a pretty crowded space. Your page meta information will help you stand out and drive higher than average CTRs, which in turn will help your rankings.

Engagement is everything on (realistic) single keyword posts.

As a reminder, your meta title can be different from your page title, providing an opportunity to add more relevant keywords across both titles.

3. Use schema.org rich data: review & product objects

Schema provides a consistent method for structuring data online and on web pages. There are specific schema data for reviews and products that you can implement to your post for improved searchability. For instance, the schema will show product ratings, votes, and pricing as rich snippets on the SERPs.

While intimidating at first, it’s quite straightforward to optimize your product post review for schema. A quick google search will show that there are many wordpress plugins built for blogs that handle this all for you.

But don’t skimp on this step, as your CTRs and engagement will drastically improve as a result.

4. Build links to your reviews

Link aggressively to your review within your site. Some bloggers are tempted to add an affiliate link for every mention of the product on the site.

Without context, an affiliate link is rarely clicked. And even then, it won’t convert.

Put an internal link to your review instead and leverage the ranking on a high intent keyword.

We suggest you group a few reviews in a listicle, which you can get external links for. On the list post, be sure to have links to each individual review. This way, you build a “link farm” (listicle) and distribute the authority to “children” (reviews).

5. Great high definition images to visually show the product

In eCommerce, not being able to see and touch a product is the main reason for hesitation. People searching for reviews want to see the product for themselves.

For software products, even with free trials, people also want to see and feel what the UI is like.

If you’re doing reviews for physical products, invest in a solid camera, some photo editing software, and training. Good lighting, whether natural or artificial, is also fundamental.

Commit to improving your visuals over time, as it’s crucial to writing a great review.

Once you have a good process, it becomes way more manageable.

If you’re reviewing software, you’ll need access to the product. For “self-service” SaaS tools, it’s not a problem to get on a trial. For demo-first products, you’ll need to ask or pay for access.

Pro tip: If you sign up for an affiliate program, you’ll get access to the tool in most cases.

Pro tip 2: Affiliate marketing typically works a lot better for self-service software for two reasons:

• Conversion rates are higher, and sales cycles are a lot shorter.
• They’re usually based on marketing growth engines that rely heavily on clean marketing attribution. Tracking what channel a lead comes from is something these brands take very seriously. Conversely, sales growth engines typically rely more on human interaction and value closing the deal rather than tracking the source. So there’s a lot less money and effort invested in finding the right sources of traffic. In other words, they don’t care much for your traffic.

6. Take care of the comments section

Don’t become a problem for your partners. For example, some frustrated users might come to your site to post negative comments about your recommended solution.

While you really shouldn’t filter this feedback out, it’s usually a good idea to reach out to the product team to let them know about this criticism. Odds are, they’re not monitoring your blog, and they can fix the problem if they contact the customers in time.

Otherwise, encourage feedback where you can. Embed a few CTAs on the page to increase your readers’ motivation to write about their experience in the comments section.

Comments also help build authority and trust for your product reviews. Furthermore, you’ll attract regular fresh content to your post, which Google loves.

Wrapping up

• Keep your product review keywords simple
• Use the products you recommend
• Present your points clearly and visually where possible
• Add your unique perspective

When you nail these factors, you’ll start producing exceptional product reviews that cut through the noise and start ranking and converting.

Happy reviewing!

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🏆 How To Write A Product Review (Templates & Examples)

In this coming guide, I will show you  how to write a product review  that does not alienate your readers but can still generate good revenue for your website.

But first, let’s summarise how searching for feedback about a product you are about to buy usually goes…

Step 1:  type “product” + review in Google.

Step 2:  your eyes melt at the number of star ratings and review websites appearing on your screen; half the titles read, “is a scam? Don’t buy before you read this!”

Step 3: Tentatively click on a result that doesn’t seem to be an obvious clickbait and where the domain name looks trustable (i.e, not producthonestreivew.com).

Step 4: Land on a page filled with CTA 100% positive reviews and is obviously completely sold out to the product owner (and, if you’re lucky, some rehashed product descriptions).

Step 5: Close your browser in rage after landing on 3 or 4 such sites, not knowing what to do about buying the product or not.

Does this sound familiar?

It does to me, yet I actually have done that for a while, and if you navigate Health Ambition a bit and look at some of our reviews from a few years ago, you will see we were playing that exact game.

But the truth is, even when they rank, these kinds of product reviews don’t produce nearly as much revenue as they used to.

The truth is, most people are now fairly well educated about sketchy affiliate sites selling this way, and while you can STILL make sales this way, you won’t bank the way you used to.

But with every downturn, there is an opportunity.

In that case, being the honest kid in the block and understanding how to write a product review where you are not afraid to be critical about the product and have the reader’s best interest in mind can have a massive payoff and set you apart from all the crappy online reviews.

We have been experimenting with that in the past 12 months with great success and generated thousands of dollars in affiliate earnings on Authority Hacker.

We have cleared the board, forgotten everything we knew about writing product reviews, and looked around to try and learn from the best. We realized great customer reviews rely on 2 simple things:

• Trust the author
• Bridging features and benefits through real-life examples

While we don’t publish a ton of reviews (and we clearly should release more), we have had great success with them, earning 3 – 5 figures with multiple reviews in the past 12 months.

Here are some of our earnings generated ONLY with reviews.

In this post, we will be sharing the format we use to write those product reviews and earn great commissions on affiliate products.

How to Write a Product Review: 8 Expert Tips

• Create a product review summary box
• Empathize with your readers
• Identify who the product is for
• Introduce the solution with the product
• Explain product features and benefits
• Offer social proof
• List product alternatives
• Use the right formatting for your product review

1 Create a Product Review Summary Box

If you’ve read any of our reviews, you’ve probably noticed a short product summary at the very top of the page.

This summary box is one of the best converting sections on our page.

For example, the summary of our Buzzstream review accounts for nearly 30% of our sales.

The summary box does two things:

• Captures highly motivated buyers  who are just looking for a quick opinion before making a final purchase decision.
• Summarizes the review  and gives readers who are scrolling back up the page another CTA to click on.

An ideal summary should at least have the following six elements:

• A short sentence identifying the product and its intended use.
• Product ratings under different headers. “Value for Money,” “Support,” “Effectiveness,” etc. are some common. Make these visuals by using icons.
• A summary of the product’s pros and cons. Important to throw in the cons otherwise, your review will feel biased.
• A summary of the review. Keep this limited to 1-2 paragraphs.
• A CTA. Use actionable copy on the CTA text.
• The product price, since many of your readers, will decide to buy or not based on this factor alone.

This specific box was built with the elements available out of the box with Thrive Content Builder, you should be able to recreate it quite easily with it.

2 Empathize With Your Readers

For those who are still reading and are here to actually read your content, it’s time to get personal to stand out from the competition.

Have you ever come across a review where the reviewer was more interested in rattling off the product’s features than actually solving your problems?

Such reviews are a dime a dozen online and usually do a miserable job of helping readers.

Understand that buyers read reviews not to see the features; they can do that on the seller’s website.

They want to learn whether the product can solve their problems.

They don’t want to hear about all the cool things the product can do; they want to see how the product performs in real life for someone in the same situation as them.

Therefore, the first step in writing a good product review is to empathize with your readers.

As it turns out, empathy is directly linked with your likability. This, in turn, affects how much people trust and follow your advice.

Empathy And Likability

In the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion , author Robert Cialdini says that likability is one of the six pillars of influence. 

The idea behind this is simple: you are more liable to follow someone you already like.

According to The Likeability Factor , how much you like someone is a function of three things:

• Realness: Whether a person comes across as ‘real’ and ‘authentic.’
• Friendliness: Whether a person has an open, friendly disposition.
• Empathy: Whether the person can relate to you and your problems.

How To Use Empathy In Your Product Reviews

Follow these tactics for empathizing with your review readers and making yourself more likable:

• Friendly voice:  Use first-person voice with a casual, conversational style. You should come across as a friend gently guiding the reader through his/her problems.
• Share your problem:  Before you even mention the product, talk about your problems and how the product helped solve it. Try telling a story about how your life was before and after you used the product.
• Pressure the pain:  Ask rhetorical questions (such as “do you feel you’re wasting hours on social media?”) that pull the reader in and make him silently empathize with your situation.
• Be real:  People empathize more with a person than with a brand. Address the reader directly as “you” and use real pictures to draw the reader in.

Your objective in the first few paragraphs of any review should be to tell the reader that you’re just an ordinary person like them and that the review is your personal experience of using that product.

For an example, take a look at this review of Earn1k course from Ramit Sethi:

The reviewer clearly identifies that he’s just a “university student” stuck in a dead-end job. If you are in the market for Ramit’s course (which usually targets millennials), your eyes would instantly light up –  this guy is just like me!

Another reviewer  had the same approach – he identified his profession, said he was bored, and wanted to make something on the side.

This is a situation many people in the market for Ramit’s course find themselves in as well. By stating this first thing in the post, the reviewer manages to empathize with the reader.

You are a nobody in their eyes anymore, and the narrative makes people want to know what happens in the end, keeping them on your page.

3 Identify Who The Product Is For

Most reviewers miss this — they write reviews for everyone, even if they aren’t the right fit for the product.

The result? Tons of tire kickers who waste your and their own time reading the review.

Therefore, the third step in writing the product review should be to clearly identify the product’s target market.

This is quite straightforward – simply include a section in the review that explains who the product is for.

For example, our Buzzstream review states in no uncertain terms that this isn’t a product for you if you send only 100 or so emails a month.

This does two things:

• It qualifies prospects.  If someone isn’t a good candidate for the product, he/she can simply leave at this point without wasting anybody’s time.
• It builds credibility.  We identify a few free alternatives or tell unqualified people they should not buy the product. This tells readers that we aren’t just after their money but want them to get the best possible product for their needs. You can earn a lot of trust with that.

4 Introduce The Solution With the Product

By now, the reader knows he has a problem, is searching for an answer, and trusts you.

This is where you step in and introduce the solution.

You can do this by giving your readers a brief overview of the product. Show them what the product includes, what its capabilities are, and what results users can expect from it.

I like to do it in a video because it makes me more relatable, puts my review on Youtube search, which generates traffic on its own and gives nice multimedia feel to the post.

Essentially, your job in this part is to pre-sell the product.

The Principle Of Pre-Selling

In sales, pre-selling is defined as the process of creating an environment that helps customers choose a product.

By demonstrating the product’s value and answering buyer questions, you can leave such a favorable impression that people buy your product without even being pitched to.

Pre-selling is the process of creating an environment that helps customers choose a product, i.e. sales without selling

Which is to say, pre-sales are sales without the selling.

Pre-sales tactics are very effective in product introductions. It lowers your readers’ guard and demonstrates the product’s usefulness without the added pressure of making a purchase decision. Here are two ways you can pre-sell the product:

• Demonstrate value: Demonstrate how the product can solve problems by showing off your own results.
• Educate: Answer questions and doubts readers might have about the product.

How To Introduce The Product

The best way to introduce the product is to show off your results through screenshots and videos and clear away common doubts they might have about the product.

For example, in our Buzzstream review, we start off by talking about why we don’t have any link-building product recommendations on our website (short answer: they’re mostly crap).

Then we talk about how Buzzstream is different – it’s a relationship-building tool, not just a link-building tool. Then we get people interested by posting a few relevant emails that result in a backlink:

This way, we’ve managed to tell the readers what the product is all about, and how it can help solve their problems.

In our Thrive Leads review, we accomplish the same with a short product walkthrough video:

This demonstrates the product’s value and hooks them in for the rest of the review.

Moreover, it shows them I actually own the products, which pushes trust a little further.

5 Explain The Relationship Between Features And Benefits Through Case Studies

A big part of writing a product review is explaining the product features and benefits. Most reviewers (and vendors) simply list them out one by one.

As you might have guessed, the results from this approach are less than inspiring.

The right way to explain products and features is to actually show how they help solve problems. You can do this by creating a case study inside the review. This accomplishes two things:

• It shows how the product works in a real-world setting.
• It gives value to the reader, builds trust, and they feel compelled to do something in return (buy from your link)

The second part – doing something to get something back – is actually called the principle of reciprocity.

The Principle Of Reciprocity

Robert Cialdini Author of Influence :

“We are human because our ancestors learned to share their food and their skills in an honored network of obligation.”

This is to say: if you do something for someone, they feel obligated to give back. This is the principle of reciprocity in a nutshell.

We’ve seen this principle at play firsthand on Authority Hacker. We give away so much content that we often get comments from readers asking why we’re doing this in the first place.

That’s not all – we’ve even received emails from readers asking us to share our affiliate links. People have read our product reviews and got so much value from them that they feel like they owe us a sale.

This is a powerful concept. Use it in your reviews, and your conversion rates will skyrocket.

How To Create High-Value Product Case Studies

The purpose of a case study inside a review is twofold:

• To demonstrate the product’s features
• To help potential buyers picture themselves using the product and improving their lives by doing so.

The best way to do this is to create a short tutorial that walks readers through a sample use case of the product.

For example, our Buzzstream review shows readers how we used the product to get backlinks for Health Ambition. Not only do we list out the steps we followed, but we also show our results:

For your own reviews, follow these steps:

• Identify core features: These are the features that readers care about the most. Whether they decide to buy the product or not will depend on how well these features actually work.
• Show core features in action: Use a video or screenshot walkthrough to show how the product actually works. For inspiration, take a look at our Buzzstream video review.
• Give value by explaining how to use the product: This is where you can give value and trigger the principle of reciprocity. Your aim should be to walk readers through a short tutorial explaining how to get real results from the product.

In our Buzzstream review, we offered readers a quick overview of the outreach process, then showed them how to use Buzzstream for successful outreach.

We never tried to hard sell the product. Instead, we just focused on helping people with the outreach process. Selling Buzzstream was just an added benefit.

This does not just work with software tools, though; you could do the same with blenders by showcasing some smoothies you have put together with them or showing a case study of how you applied the learnings of a course you are reviewing.

6 Offer Social Proof

Social proof is the third pillar of persuasion, and it can really set you apart from the dumb review sites using spun user-generated content. 

According to Robert Cialdini, quoting results from the  Asch conformity experiments , he shows that people are more likely to follow something that is already popular.

People are more likely to follow something that is already popular .

As you’ll see below, you can use this fact to your advantage while writing product reviews.

How to use social proof in your reviews.

Follow these steps to add social proof of the product’s success to your reviews:

• Add reviews and quotes from other users:  To show how others perceive your product, simply add reviews and quotes from other users. You can easily find such reviews on sites like Amazon, Clickbank, or specialty sites like GSMArena, etc.
• Add reviews from power users:  “Power users” are bloggers, reviewers, and other recognizable online personalities. If they’ve already reviewed the product, use their quotes in your review. This gives readers a nice balance between what lay users and experts think of the product (the same format used by MetaCritic and RottenTomatoes).
• Incentivize comments:  Many comments on a product show that it is popular. You can get people to comment on the review by offering incentives through a contest. Check out our earlier post to see how to run a contest.
• Get more social shares:  Higher social shares = higher popularity. Buy some Facebook or Twitter ads to pump up your reviews’ share count. This subtly shows readers that the review is already popular.
• Use giveaways:  Another tactic to get more social shares is to run a giveaway on the review page. This will pump up the social activity as your social media followers jump in to take the reward.

For example, in this review of the Earn1K course, Dave clearly mentions results from other reviewers:

This was a great try, but something that works even better is to actually quote the other reviews. This way, you both earn more trust and avoid “review shopping” because all the important information of all the major reviews is on your page.

No need to go and read anything else until you make your decision about the product and click the link on that page (your affiliate link) if the answer to “should I buy this?” is yes.

7 List Product Alternatives

This holds particularly true for product reviews where listing alternatives accomplish two objectives:

• Increase sales:  If people are not interested in the reviewed product, they might still be interested in the alternatives. More importantly, it changes the question from  should I buy it to which one should I buy? This is a powerful change in the frame that can profoundly impact sales.
• Show impartiality:  By offering readers multiple alternatives, you subtly tell them that you aren’t partial to any particular product.

Listing alternatives is a rather straightforward process. You can simply include a section titled “Alternatives” or “Competitors” and list out candidates.

The same thing happens With our  Ahrefs Review  and  KWFinder review .

Shane from Activegrowth goes a step further and offers an entire ‘ Do Not Buy ’ list, along with alternatives for each product.

While most people try to shy away from doing that because they’re afraid of not making sales, remember that alternatives may also have affiliate programs , so if you are playing smart, you will make more money doing this, not less.

8 Use The Right Formatting

By now, you have a powerful, persuasive review that gives tons of value to your readers. But before you can hit publish, you also need to format the review for maximum impact.

We have already established the power of formatting in our previous posts.

Follow these formatting guidelines in your review:

Use Plenty Of Pictures And Screenshots And User Generated Images

Pictures are crucial for creating great reviews, especially if you believe in the “show, don’t tell” philosophy. 

Use them generously in your articles, but make sure that you only use real pictures, not stock images lifted from the product creator’s website.

Try to aim for a 3-4:1 ratio between pictures and images. That is, for every three-four paragraphs, include an image.

This gives much-needed visual flow to your review. 

Sites like  Trustedreviews.com  use this tactic with great success, and a study has shown that  user-generated images greatly improve conversions  by a lot.

Divide the Review Into Sub-Sections

Writing a great product review isn’t enough; you also have to make sure that it is easy to navigate.

You can do this by breaking down the review into separate subsections. We do this for most of our long posts.

Try to use both headings and pictures to mark subsections.

I must admit I have skipped that one for Authority Hacker and have had complaints about it, so I will take my own advice and implement those soon!

Use Symbols And Icons

When listing out features, benefits, and ratings, use symbols and icons to add visual flair to the page.

It won’t make a bad review great, but it will make your review easier on the eyes and faster to scan. Use a plugin such as Thrive Content Builder to make this process easier.

Offer Star Ratings

Star ratings or scores out of 5 or 10 are used in almost every product review. Your audience implicitly understands what they mean.

They know that 4/5 stars mean an almost great product, while a 1/5 is universally recognized as a “don’t buy” product.

You can either use star ratings:

Or you can use a score

Both work equally well. You can also add your star rating to your search results with the  all-in-one schema.org WordPress plugin .

Divide Comparisons Into Columns

If you’re offering comparisons (say, a pros-cons list, or a feature list across two products), placing them into separate columns is useful.

This is a simple, visual way to make a comparison.

Users can juxtapose two features/benefits side by side and better understand the product and has been used by magazines forever, it’s a classic visual code.

Use Multiple CTAs

Lastly, make sure to use multiple CTAs throughout the review. You should have at most 3 CTA – one each at the top, middle, and bottom of the post.

Use the simple, value-driven text on the CTA. Don’t write “buy now.” Instead, use something like “Try the [product name] free trial” or “Learn more about [product name].

Don’t go beyond three and maybe a few links inside the content otherwise readers will think that you’re trying too hard to sell.

Make sure that the CTA stands out on the page. Use a bright, bold color that isn’t used heavily elsewhere, and give it a big enough size to attract attention.

I have also noticed that animating the call to action and the call to action alone increased the number of clicks on our affiliate links.

Writing product reviews isn’t quite as easy as getting the specs and stringing together some thoughts. If you want your reviews to sell products (and rank well), you’ll have to do some legwork.

Don’t be like one of those spammers who write fake reviews and get banished from the SERPs every week. 

Instead, offer real value to readers, and they’ll thank you by buying from your link.

Master the art of influence to create reviews that deliver value and sell products.

And lastly, make sure to organize and format your review well — it’s the difference between a review no one will read and one that gets hundreds of shares.

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How to Write a Product Review: a Step-by-Step Guide (With Examples)

Cath andrews.

• October 10, 2019
• Affiliate Marketing , Online Business

UPDATED FOR 2021

Have you heard of the term “fake reviews”? They’re reviews written with the sole purpose of selling a product, whether the product quality is good or not, even if the author has never used it.

This article is about how to write a product review, one that is authentic and offers your customers a solution to a problem, fulfills a need, or meets a desire.

Your product review page is not about selling to a customer. It’s about talking to a friend, offering the best quality information possible.

The process and techniques you’ll learn here apply to any product review: digital and hard products, affiliate products and your own; from the very expensive to the very cheap.

Before you start writing your page, you need to do some preparatory work.

Think of it like this: your customer is on one side of a door. To her, the door looks closed and barred. She has no idea how to get through it.

A good product review starts where your customer is, unlocks the door, and leads her through.

So before you choose the product you’re going to review and sell, you need to focus on what your customers need or want.

Not what you want. Or what you think they want.

Purchases are made for one of three reasons:

• to solve a problem
• to fill a need
• to fulfill a desire.

The impetus to buy is strongest if the issue is a pressing problem for which customers require a solution. It’s simply more acute, generally, than a desire.

So what we’re selling is more than a product or service. It’s

• an experience
• a life-enhancer.

Two important things to understand about purchasing are that:

• it’s emotionally based
• people buy a product for the benefits it has for them — how it will directly improve their lives.

Step 1: Identify Your Customer’s Pain (and Write A Product Review to Solve It)

• What’s the single most pressing problem for your customer?
• If this isn’t about a problem, what’s her single most pressing need or heartfelt desire?
• How does this specific product help solve that problem, meet that need or fulfill that desire?
• What is the one main benefit of your product for the customer? How will it make her feel after she buys it? In what ways will her life be improved?

2. No product in mind at the moment? Even better. Ask yourself the same questions, in a slightly different way:

• What is your customer’s single most pressing problem, need or desire?
• What product can you offer — whether it’s your own or an affiliate’s — that will best solve that problem, meet that need or full that desire?
• What is the one main benefit of your product for the customer? How will it make her feel after she buys it? How will her life be improved?

3. No idea what your customer’s most pressing problem, need or desire is? Or think you may know, but you’re not really sure? Time to find out!

• Ask in your newsletter, questionnaires, social media platforms, forums.
• Social media : what seem to be the most common issues for followers? Which questions are asked most often?
• Your own experiences with the product : what was your major problem when you started out? What would have helped you solve it?

Top Tip: Think Creatively

Think outside the box. Here’s an example.

Product Review Example: Identifying the Problem

I have a site about keeping backyard chickens . One of my most popular (and lucrative) products seems totally unrelated to chickens.

It’s an electronic rat trap. I sell upwards of 15 of them a day, and they cost around $35 each.

Why so popular?

I discovered that one of the most critical problems for chicken keepers is rats. Where there’s grain, there are rodents.

When I looked for solutions, I found many complaints about rats in the chicken run — but no long-lasting solutions.

So I asked for advice from some real live rat-catchers and wrote a series of articles: how to know if you have a problem, how to tell mice from rats, how to get rid of them.

Those pages all link to the product review page.

So, think creatively, particularly if you don’t have a specific product in mind. Find the most pressing problem. Find a solution. Write a product review.

Take some time now to note how you’ll identify the most pressing problem, need or desire for your audience. We’ll come back to this — it’s one of the two most critical parts of this process.

Sign up here to receive the how to write a product review worksheets to use for this exercise. Use it to record what you’ve discovered so far.

Step 2: Find the Right Words to Use When You Write A Product Review

We’ve identified what your potential customer’s problem or need is. Now we need to look at how she’s feeling about it.

Why? Because…

“Feelings + thinking = purchase.”

You’ll sell the product only after you’ve identified the pain point (or need) and let your customer know that you understand it.

So now we need to examine the kind of language she uses when she’s recounting her problems.

Using some of that same language makes your product review more likely to resonate. “This person understands exactly how I feel” is the reaction you’re looking for.

How to do this? Learn to speak the same language as your audience. Aim to foster rapport and credibility.

You already have your own “voice” for your blog or website. This is not about changing that voice. It’s about including some of the language — the specific words — your potential customers use to identify their pain points, and empathizing with them.

• Go wherever potential customers hang out to examine how people in your niche describe their problems, needs and desires.
• What exact words are used repeatedly to describe the problem (or need / desire) and how they’d feel if it were solved for them? What kinds of solutions are they asking for?

Don’t try to second-guess this. Avoid thinking that your customers “must” use the same language you do. The likelihood is, they won’t.

Sign up below to receive the how to write a product review worksheets to use for this exercise. Use it to record what you’ve discovered so far.

You’ll refer to your notes when you start to write a product review.

Product Review Example: Using Emotional Language

Her books are about what to feed children in daycare. She had a sales page that described what the books were about — healthful, easy-to-make recipes, together with a shopping list for each one. If you want your recipes to get found in Google, make sure you are using proper recipe schema.

But the words on her sales page weren’t resonating with her audience.

So we looked for threads related specifically to food in a couple of daycare provider forums.

These are real quotes. Note the “feeling” words the providers use: “panicking”; “driving me crazy”; “at a loss”; “chaos”; “stressed out”…

From the outside, some of it may seem funny, but to those daycare providers, it’s serious stress.

What’s the solution they’re looking for? Could Megan’s books be part of it?

Most of them really don’t know what they need. They’re expressing their feelings.

It’s the way they’re describing the problem that gives us a clue about where they are now and the emotional state they want to be in.

Reflecting these words back to the customer in her product review immediately resonated:

“Are you at a loss to know what to feed your daycare kids?”

“Does lunchtime feel like chaos, every day?”

“Feeling stressed out even trying to decide what to have for lunch?”

The feeling in her potential customer? “Thank goodness — someone who understands exactly how I feel!”

Now look at the flip side. Others in the same forum had a clearer view of how they’d like to feel and what the ideal solution looked like…

Again, notice the language:

“Calm and focused”; “time for discussion / reflection”; “organized.” And there’s the very idea for a product that Megan has already created!

How did we use this?

We put it together with the earlier “problem-focused” language:

“If you wish you could feel organized, calm and focused at mealtimes, if your heart’s desire is to be able to sit down, family style, and eat healthful foods with different tastes while having time for discussion about the afternoon ahead…”

“I have exactly the answer you’ve been looking for!”

This exact process can be followed to help you uncover the right language to infuse your product review with emotional impact.

It doesn’t always work out as clearly as this. Sometimes you have to dig more deeply. But the greater the problem, the more likely you’ll discover words that you can use to good effect.

And maybe you’ll stumble upon ideas for future products in the process.

If so, reassess your thinking about products. You’re matching up problems your audience has with a solution they say they want.

That’s not manipulation. It’s serving your customers. You’re not going to sell them a product they don’t want. You are going to talk about the pros and cons — product drawbacks as well as benefits. You’re not going to deceive them about how the product will change their lives overnight.

You are going to tell them how your product, whatever it may be, can help change their world for the better — a little at a time.

Reminder: You are not writing a review with the primary goal of selling a product. Your goal is offering a solution, meeting a need or fulfilling a desire.

Remember: Your product review is the door through which you lead your customer to the product you’re selling.

You’ll harness this and prove why this product is the one that solves her problem or satisfies her desire as completely as possible.

And your review won’t look anything like the reviews of scammers. It will look and sound like you, helping your customer.

Let’s examine the product you’re about to write a product review page for. How can we ensure that it provides a solution and meets your customer’s needs or desires?

Step 3: Choose Products to Review

It’s important that this part — the factual information about the product — links back to the feeling part. That’s where our work lies now.

We’ll split this into two: products you’ve developed yourself, or have owned, used and love, and products you wish you had the money to try but haven’t.

Then we’ll look at smaller products, for which this process may feel like overkill.

Products You Use

Let’s start with your own products or affiliate products you’ve owned and used.

Use the worksheet you downloaded earlier if it’s helpful. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, sign up now!

It will be very important when you write a product review that you have this information at hand. So don’t just think about it — write it down.

Think through the benefits your product has.

If this is a product you’ve created yourself, or an affiliate link to a product you own and use, it’s a fairly straightforward process. You’re giving your personal feedback on the product: not just its features, but authentic information about how it helped you in real life. If you’re new to affiliate marketing, Miles Beckler covers “how to be authentically helpful” in his affiliate marketing crash course .

The worksheet allows for 5 features and their related benefits. If you can only think of 2 or 3, that’s fine.

If there are more, that’s also fine, but bear in mind you don’t want to overload your customer with information. What she’ll want to know most is how this product addresses her most pressing problem, need or desire.

Break this down into small parts.

• Are there other, similar products your customer has likely tried?
• What makes this particular product stand out above the others?
• What are its 3 – 5 best features? How did those features work for you? Are there any cons to this product’s features?
• If your product is a solution to a problem, what specific problem does each feature solve?
• Whether you’re addressing a problem, need or desire, what are the specific benefits of each feature? List them individually.

Your customer is more likely to buy a product if she can see its features as direct solutions to her problem or an exact match for her need or desire.

• How do each of those features meet the overall needs of your customers?
• Do those features meet the emotional needs of your customers?
• Will they help make her life happier, more relaxed — whatever she wants her life to be?

Case Study: Translating Product Features Into Benefits

I have a website about Italy, which is where I live. I sell a lot of electric pasta machines on my Italian site.

But the most obvious, and best, feature of the pasta machine is that it automates the process. Flour, egg and water go in. 35 minutes later, push a button and pasta comes out the other end.

And the greatest benefit is one we can all relate to: a saving of time . A working parent of two toddlers may want to give the family fresh pasta for dinner, but time is against her.

What does she feel about that? Perhaps frustrated. Guilty that she’s not able to be a “perfect parent.” Tired, if she tries to make pasta anyway… Stressed, because (at least in her mind) other parents seem to manage to provide healthful meals every day.

How does she want to be? Relaxed. Happy that she’s providing nutritious meals. Glad that her children are learning about, and eating, food that’s not processed.

What solutions does the pasta machine offer, and how will they help make her feel good?

• The #1 benefit of automating the pasta-making process is that she has more time to spend with her children.

The added, less obvious benefits? Perhaps improved relationships with the children. A more relaxed household.

• A second benefit is that she’s able to feed them nutritious meals that taste good (after tasting really fresh pasta you never want the dried sort again) and have no additives.

The benefit of that is for her entire family: healthier food means healthy children, an improved lifestyle.

Which may mean fewer doctor’s visits, less time off school, less stress…

And then there are lessons for children about preparing food with fresh ingredients…

See how each separate feature can lead to multiple indirect benefits, many of them emotionally based, which all lead back to how our customer wants to be?

Acknowledge the Negatives

Very few products have absolutely no drawbacks at all, and it’s important to acknowledge that when you write a product review.

Why? Because there are too many fake reviews out there that praise products, mentioning no drawbacks. That’s doing a huge disservice to customers — and will dispel any trust you’ve built up.

So, be honest.

If you’re reviewing your own product and it’s already live, look at what your customers are saying. If they’ve not said anything negative, ask them. Questions like “how do you think this product could be improved?” or “what’s the one thing you’d change about it?” are a good starting point.

If it’s an affiliate product and you can’t think of any cons of the product, look at some reviews. Amazon is a rich source of information. Review all the reviews: one or two stars are the obvious ones to read but sometimes reviews of 3 or 4 stars can give more nuanced problems people have come up against.

Are those issues going to stop your customer from getting through that barred door? Are the drawbacks enough to put her off buying the product?

Take some time to think about your product drawbacks. How could you overcome them?

If you draw a blank, look for reviews from people who’ve used the product and found it lacking but have overcome the obstacles. Are their solutions something you could also offer to your customer?

What If You’ve Never Owned the Product or Tried the Service?

Writing about a product we own and love is obviously the best type of review. But we don’t always have the luxury of testing every product we think will meet our customer’s needs. I don’t have the money, the time or the inclination (well — maybe the inclination…) to try out all of Italy’s best hotels to review for my site.

So, what then?

Occasionally we can do this in person. Friends or family may have tried it. Sometimes we can ask our most trusted customers. What can they tell us?

Be careful about this. People’s memories can be selective, and individuals have differing ideas about what’s a necessary feature. Not everyone thinks having six kinds of tea in their hotel room is critical to their enjoyment of Florence.

Sometimes we don’t have either of those options. In that case, our option is to look at other people’s reviews.

This one is tricky. Earlier, I mentioned “fake reviews.” Amazon, Yelp and TripAdvisor have struggled with them for years.

Why? Because reviewers have written reviews not to offer help to prospective customers but to make competitors look worse. It’s particularly prevalent in the hotel and restaurant industry.

Amazon and Expedia have become better at preventing fake reviews. They highlight those from people who have bought the product or stayed at the hotel. They’ve also prosecuted when they’ve found proven fake-ness — but the problem is still there.

So, what should you look for if you’re curating other people’s reviews for your page?

• A phrase like “verified purchase” or “by a verified traveler” is a good place to start.
• This kind of comment may seem honest:

I received this product for free or at a discount in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

The intent may well be genuine, but research shows that even with the best of intentions , people who receive goods in return for a review tend to be less critical and more positive, and they give a higher rating than others. (See, for example, this study ). Be careful of this type of review.

• Look for reviews with personal photos. They usually confirm that the person has used the product, stayed at the hotel, eaten at the restaurant.
• Don’t just look at 5 star or 1 star reviews. Check the middle ground. Very few products have no flaws at all, very few are utterly dreadful.
• Search for reviews that tell a personalized story. Some people relate how their family uses a product, or why their dog hates a particular squeaky toy and goes for slippers instead.

Is This Tantamount to Writing a Fake Review?

Is this a manipulative way of writing a review? Some say it is. Clearly, having personal experience is the ideal.

But this is the real world. Do your research thoroughly and make clear in your review that’s what you’ve done.

Whatever else you do, do not, ever , make things up to suit your needs.

Your customer will trust your ideas, knowledge, passion, technique and understanding to make a difference to her life — to unlock that door and lead her through to a more contented life.

Abuse that trust at your peril.

What About Small Items?

Is it really worth going through all this for a $9.99 ornament from Amazon?

Let’s take another real-life example.

Case Study: How to Review Products with Low Price Points

One of the most successful small affiliate products on my Italian site is a $20 snow globe. I sell dozens as soon as we get to August.

Why so successful? It’s not a problem looking for a solution, after all.

It’s successful because it’s hand-made in Italy. It’s robust enough to become an heirloom. And I know this particular section of my Italian site’s audience: they’re very proud of their Italian roots, and keen to keep those roots alive for their children and grandchildren.

So that’s where my product review page starts: with an appeal to emotional ties to Italy:

Looking for a unique and relatively inexpensive Christmas gift, hand-made in Italy, that can be passed down your family for generations?

Whatever the product you want to review and sell, it all comes back to that same issue: put yourself where your audience’s emotions are. Use language that resonates and find a solution, or an item that satisfies their need or desire.

In terms of how much time to devote to researching and writing about smaller items, give as much or as little as you think your product is going to merit. Your $500 course will need more research than my $20 snow globe.

Let’s Summarize

If you’ve completed the tasks and used the how to write a product review worksheets, you now have the background material to make writing your review a straightforward process.

You have invaluable information about…

• What your potential customer’s pain points, needs or desires are, and the language she uses to express them.
• How your product can become the key that offers a solution, meets a need or fulfills a desire.

And you know that…

• When you write a product review, you’ll concentrate on how its features can bridge the gap between where your customer is now, and where she wants to be

Step 4: Time To Write A Product Review

It’s time to write your product review. Here’s what you’ll do:

• Choose a keyword
• Create a main headline
• Draft subheadings
• Write the content
• Find images, testimonials and ratings to include
• Write the call to action

1. Choose a Keyword

2. Create the Main Headline

8 out of 10 people who click across from search results will read your headline. But only 2 will read the rest.

That’s how important your headline is.

The aim is simple: to get the customer to read the first sentence.

Your headline writing must be compelling, suggesting something the customer will find of great value.

Refer to the information you’ve gathered in your how to write a product review worksheets, because your headline must address your customer’s biggest problem, most desperate need, or most wanted desire.

That’s what will make her read on!

A question (to which you know the answer will be “yes”) is a good way to start. And it doesn’t need to be complicated.

Remember I mentioned that one of my best-selling products is rat traps?

“Got rats?” is all I use for the headline of that product review. It’s all it needs, because people who have the problem instantly react.

Suppose you’re offering a program for your customer to cut down on her sugar intake. If you know that what she’s searching for is “sugar detox” then the question “Been eating too much sugar recently?” will hook her.

3. Draft Subheadings

Your subheadings also need to demand attention and convey value. They have a double imperative: to make clear why the text below is a must-read, and to stop your customer from scrolling endlessly — and leaving the page without buying.

Why are subheadings important?

They break up the text, and make reading much easier. They also help keep your reader’s eye moving down the page.

Specifically, each subheading must relate to one of the benefits you identified for your product.

Remember: this is an outline. You can alter it if the subheadings don’t seem to fit once you start writing.

Creating them now will help keep your product review highly focused.

4. Write the Content

Your First Paragraph

It’s your job to make her not just want, but need , to stay on the page.

So grab your reader’s attention by appealing to her current emotion(s) — noted in your worksheet — and expand on the promise you made in your opening headline.

Once you have her emotional attention, she’ll give you her intellectual attention so that you can lay before her all the benefits of this product that will make her life easier.

Your headline referred to her main problem. Now tell her that you know how she feels, and that you know of something that can help. Start to lead her through that door she thought was locked.

Tell her what’s in the page for her. Give a clue here as to what the product can do to solve her problem or meet her need or desire.

Focus on those people who are likely to buy your product. (That focus will likely put off people who are never likely to buy it.)

So, go back again to your worksheet notes. What’s the biggest benefit you noted? There’s your first sentence.

Here’s an example (Where the headline is “Got Rats?”).

“This electronic rat trap is strong enough to help keep your chicken coop free from rodents — permanently.”

Problem (headline) = rats. Answer (first sentence) = this amazing rat trap. End result: I will help get you, my potential customer, to where you want to be: rat free.

Don’t over-promise . People need more than a rat trap to keep rats away — note the words “help keep.”

See how things fall into place when you’ve done the prep work? Simple, right?!

Refer to your worksheets. Note which words you could use, and the main problem / need / desire you referred to in your worksheet.

Now write your opening section.

• Address your customer’s main problem, need or desire. Focus on the one most important benefit.
• Refer to how she may be feeling. Use the words you discovered that she uses.
• Tell her that you understand where she’s coming from because you’ve been there too ( if you have!).
• Summarize why she would find this product of help. Research has shown that using the word “imagine,” if you can do so without forcing it, helps the customer picture how her world could change. Your aim is to make her imagine how her world could look if she used this product or service. Help her to visualize the experience.

This opening section will lead into the remainder of the page, which will describe the benefits — and possible drawbacks — of the product.

The Rest of the Content

General Tips

• To be effective, your review must focus on your customer, not on you. Seth Godin calls this “the only radio station people care about — “WII-FM,” aka “What’s in it for me?”!
• Do not start your review page with the price of the product. Talk first about the specific benefits, until your customer feels she has no real option but to buy your product.
• Remember: you’re not writing a thesis or a scholarly report. The way you learned to write at school or college is not the best way to connect with people, unless you’re in a scholarly niche.
• Keep sentences short. They’re easier to read and understand, and they improve the rhythm of the page.
• Don’t worry about starting sentences with “and” or “but.” If that’s the way you would talk to the customer if she was sitting in front of you, use it.
• If you want to really draw attention to a particular feature, try adding in individual words. Take an example from Apple’s ad for the iPhone X…

• The Hemingway App is a great free tool to examine your content. Don’t click on the green button, just delete their text from the page and paste in your own. If you’ve never used it before, you’ll be surprised what comes up.

Don’t feel you have to satisfy it completely though — sometimes it can tell you to do weird things. Use your judgment and your knowledge of the style your customers like.

• Write so that the potential customer feels like you completely understand her situation — you’ve been there, done that, found the solution / fulfilled your need or desire. Remember, your overall goal is to make her think “Yes! That’s exactly how I feel! This is exactly what I need!”
• Finally, remember the mantra about not writing a sales page.

Don’t sell to a customer. Talk to a friend.

Your content sections are now more or less written for you, based on the information you gathered in the worksheet.

Write your product reviews when you’re feeling energetic and positive. Those feelings communicate themselves in our writing.

If you feel unwell one day, schedule your review for the next. But do not use this as an excuse to avoid writing at all! Every day you put off writing is a day’s potential income lost. It’s important to develop work habits and regularly make time to sit down and write.

Here’s what you’re aiming for:

• “I feel your pain” — reflecting where your customer is.
• “I understand” — been there, done that, know where you want to be!
• “I bet you’ve tried this” (if you know from your research that she’s likely to have tried other products, which haven’t helped).
• “My solution worked” (or “my / other people’s needs were met”) — a story expressing a belief that your product can help.
• “Here are the benefits of this product and exactly how it can help.”

So: take the worksheet, use some of the vocabulary your potential customers were using — particularly the emotive words — and go through each product benefit you highlighted.

After you’ve written each section, read it and ask yourself…

• Why should anyone read this?
• Am I falling asleep reading this?
• Do I actively want to read on to the next section?

Case Study: How to Write a Product Review Outline

Here’s the outline of my rat trap product review, told in pictures.

And these were the three main (emotional) benefits I told my potential customers they might expect:

What If You Haven’t Tried the Product?

We looked at this issue earlier. The same principles apply in the opening section:

• Refer to the main problem, need or desire.
• Consider how your customer may be feeling.
• Tell your customer that you’ve done research to find out what’s most helped other people.
• Summarize why they found this particular product of help.

5. Find Images, Testimonials and Ratings

Although you’re communicating key messages in your headlines, subheadings and text content, images can help sell a product. They help break up the text, they provide an emotional connection, and they show what the product looks like and how it works.

Be creative! Do you make and sell your own products or provide a service? Take a photo of you painting / quilting / cooking / dancing / counselling / with a patient (don’t want to ask permission? Get your partner to play the patient, sitting with back to the camera so the focus is on you).

Remember: images are not only photos. Research shows that about 90% of customers say that video helps them make purchasing decisions, and roughly 64% say that they’re more likely to buy a product online after they’ve seen a video of it.

Not able to make your own video? Check YouTube for an excellent video of the product in use and embed it in your sales page.

If you don’t have your own image of a product you’re selling from an affiliate, use theirs. If you’re not sure about copyright, write and ask.

What if your product doesn’t lend itself to an image — for example, a Kindle book, or an online course? Share part of the product itself. You can do this by either allowing access to (for example) the first chapter / lesson, or by telling people in detail what it includes.

Testimonials

Testimonials are particularly important if you’re selling your own product, and useful if you’re selling an affiliate product.

Use testimonials to counteract any issues you found in the research stage that may reduce the likelihood of purchase. An example might be that it’s too expensive: find testimonials saying “Yes, expensive — but so worth it!” or “You get what you pay for.”

Many affiliate marketing programs include resources to help you in writing about their products. Take some comments from the “review” section of the affiliate company’s site. State that’s what you’ve done — something like “Here’s what some people who’ve bought [the product] on [Amazon] are saying.”

For your own products, it’s particularly important that you make clear that these testimonials are not made up! Yes, it happens a lot, and potential purchasers are wary of “fake reviews.” Wherever possible, ask customers if you may use their full name and a photo. The more detail you can add, the better.

Companies like Amazon and Expedia give stars when you review their products. It helps potential customers quickly know whether or not you’re recommending the product.

6. Write a Product Review Call to Action

You’ve written all your text, added your images, testimonials and rating, and now you’re ready to publish.

Except… you need a Call to Action.

Tip: Brush up your CTA writing skills with these Call to Action best practices or look at some real life CTA examples that work.

At the end of your review, remind the customer about the benefits she’ll get when she buys and how the pain or inconvenience will go away when she buys, or how amazing she’ll feel when she has that lovely picture hanging on her wall.

Once you’ve done that, ask them explicitly to buy. You don’t have to do a “hard sell.” If it’s your own digital product, invite people to “download now,” for example. If it’s an affiliate product, invite people to click over to the company’s site if they need to see more reviews.

And Finally…

Congrats! Not only have you learned how to write a product review, but you’ve created a product review template that you can use time and again.

Before we finish, here are some wrap-up reminders:

• What if you write a great review but get no sales? Test, test, test! Ask your colleagues, family, friends, and your audience in your newsletter or social platforms what they think of the review. Your aim is not to get them to buy, necessarily (although they might!) but to see what they genuinely think.
• When you’ve finished your page, look at it in preview and read it aloud. Does it sound good? Does it flow? Would you be persuaded to buy?
• Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and her problem, need or desire. Have you led her through that door she felt was barred to her forever, to a place where she feels she has genuinely been helped to a happier life?
• Finally, probably the most important question to ask yourself when your article is written is this one: have you sprinkled enough unicorn dust over the content to make it a truly magical experience for your reader? In other words…

When you look at this product review page, are you proud of it?

If your answer is a resounding “yes!” then it’s a big “Congratulations” from me — your product review page is finished.

Learn how to start a business online and earn extra income on the side.

Questions about how to write product reviews as part of your online business? Message one of our friendly Advisors right away

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How to Write a Product Review

Last Updated: May 13, 2024 Approved

This article was co-authored by Marissa Levis . Marissa Levis is an English Teacher in the Morris County Vocational School District. She previously worked as an English director at a tutoring center that caters to students in elementary and middle school. She is an expert in creating a curriculum that helps students advance their skills in secondary-level English, focusing on MLA formatting, reading comprehension, writing skills, editing and proofreading, literary analysis, standardized test preparation, and journalism topics. Marissa received her Master of Arts in Teaching from Fairleigh Dickinson University. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article received 26 testimonials and 100% of readers who voted found it helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 290,776 times.

Writing a product review of an item you have purchased and used can be a great way to share useful information with other shoppers, promote products you love, or just build your writing portfolio. One can review almost any product - from an electric toothbrush to a new hybrid car. However, the internet is inundated with product reviews, many of which offer only glowing praise or bitter criticism and are not useful to the average consumer. A good product review is based on research and knowledge of a product, and a balanced assessment of its benefits and flaws. Continue reading for tips on how to write a helpful product review.

Sample Product Review and Writing Help

Getting to Know the Product

• Read the manufacturer's website, as well as any manufacturer information included with the product you are reviewing. Beware of publicity material released by manufacturers and retailers - readers will often stop reading if they sense that publicity material is being used rather than observations drawn from real-life experience.
• Look into the competition and research the benefits and flaws of products that consumers consider alternatives. This will allow you to compare and contrast the reviewed product with the often numerous alternative products on the market. [1] X Research source [2] X Research source

• If you have a blog and wish to post reviews, contact companies through e-mail, a phone call, or even traditional mail. Make sure to be upfront about the type of blog you write and the traffic it receives, and keep your message short and to the point.
• Larger companies may employ a marketing or sales representative. If this is the case, contact the appropriate representative and pitch your review directly to them. [3] X Research source

• Fake reviews that are full of exaggerated praise or criticism are widespread on the internet, and most people will stop reading a review if they suspect it is written with ulterior motives. A genuine appraisal of a product is the best way to draw a reader's attention. [4] X Research source [5] X Research source
• Providing a photograph or video of your interaction with the product will demonstrate to your readers that you have actually used it, and will lend credibility to the review. [6] X Research source

• Is the product easy to use?
• Is it of high quality?
• Is it geared towards somebody like me?
• Have others had a good experience with the product?
• What are the pros and cons of the product?
• What alternatives are available, and how do they measure up?
• Is the product worth my money? [7] X Research source

Writing a Product Review

• For first-time users, dedicate some space to explaining the functionality of the product in some detail, treating the product as if all the features are new. Teaching new customers about a product is an important aspect of a product review.
• For experienced consumers, focus on the evolution of a product from one model to the next, as well as any common defects or problems users may have encountered in the past. Long-time users of a product will often read reviews for solutions to problems, giving you a chance to demonstrate your knowledge of a product. [8] X Research source

• Make sure to clearly explain how you arrived at your judgments, and specifically address why you believe certain features are beneficial and why you consider other's flaws.
• Most people will be looking for an unbiased review of a product, and thus a clearly explained, balanced review is more likely to be read than a review that focuses too much on the positive or negative aspects of a product (unless warranted, of course).

• This is particularly important for first-time buyers who may require a point of reference before deciding to purchase.

• Points of interest may include how easy or difficult the product is to use, specific features that will appeal to particular audiences, as well as how the product relates to other products readers may have used in the past.

• Allow some time to pass between the release of a product and the publishing of your review. This will allow you time to properly test the product and arrive at an honest evaluation. Readers will more often trust a reviewer who can demonstrate that they have spent some time with a product before offering a review.

Expert Q&A

• Use your own voice. No need to be overly formal. A coherent, conversational tone is just fine. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1
• Do not use a negative review instead of a Bug Report for an app, especially if you are getting something for free. Instead, write a note to developers who can get something fixed without disparaging an otherwise good application. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1

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Expert Interview

Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about writing, check out our in-depth interview with Marissa Levis .

• ↑ http://www.humanproofdesigns.com/real-reporting-how-to-write-a-product-review-when-you-dont-own-the-product/
• ↑ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/04/19/how-to-write-amazing-product-reviews/
• ↑ http://www.incomediary.com/how-to-start-a-review-blog-and-get-free-review-products
• ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fake-reviews-online.html
• ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/technology/for-2-a-star-a-retailer-gets-5-star-reviews.html
• ↑ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2012/11/20/how-to-write-a-must-read-product-review/

About This Article

Before you write a product review, spend time using the product, and make notes about whether the product is easy to use, the pros and cons of the product, and whether it’s worth the purchase price. When you’re writing the product review, explain the functionality of the product and what all of the features are for. Include the brand name, model number, measurements, price, and any other relevant information. To learn how to publish your product review, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to write a powerful product review in 8 simple steps.

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Think about your buying habits for a while.

Normally, the higher the price (or the more crucial to your well-being a given product is), the harder you strive to make sure your choice is the only right decision. To feel confident about the purchase, you look for solid proof of the product’s quality.

And it doesn’t matter what that purchase might be — whether it’s food, books, kitchenware, vacation rentals, or even dog toys - you always check out online reviews .

OK, now switch perspectives. This time you aren’t a buyer but a seller — or, even better — a promoter of a given product. A reviewer, to be specific. Here is a simple fact any marketer (or blogger or website owner) should take to heart:

No matter what you are trying to sell — one of the easiest ways to make money on your blog is by writing great product reviews. The question is: how to write a product review that actually gives people value?

But first: what are product reviews?

A product review is an evaluation of a product that shares the reviewer's opinion about its features, performance, quality, and overall value. The purpose of a product review is to provide potential buyers with a detailed and honest assessment of a product to help them make an informed decision before making a purchase.

A product review can include information such as the product's specifications, its benefits and drawbacks, and comparisons with other similar products in the market. It can also include personal experiences or stories about how the product was used, as well as any issues or concerns that the reviewer encountered while using it.

Product reviews can be found on various platforms such as e-commerce websites, social media, blogs, and review websites. They are often written by consumers who have purchased and used the product, as well as professional reviewers who specialize in testing and evaluating products.

What’s more, reviews often prompt readers to discuss, rate, and comment on products they might have purchased or are thinking about buying.

Recommend products that sell itself

Join our Partner Program, write reviews of our ecommerce products, and earn up to 25% commission for a lifetime!

The role of product reviews

Customers are heavily-dependent on reviews which are often authentic articles written by real users. So, reviews are social proof and help build trust and loyalty .

The more product reviews an item receives, the more transparent it seems and this boosts its credibility. People trust social proofs — especially when the review’s author isn’t related to the brand and isn’t anonymous (i.e., can be addressed by name and their social profile can be looked up).

Consequently, if proof of a product’s or service’s quality gets corroborated by multiple and unrelated sources, this positive vibe resonates across the web. This boosts the odds that a prospective buyer will pick that particular product.

Obviously, writing product reviews is also a great way for affiliate marketers to share their thoughts about the product they affiliate with and share their affiliate link with an audience. For example, you can create a YouTube video about LiveChat and then share your link in the video's description.

Inspire your audience

Spread the word about our products and increase your revenue.

Why do people read product reviews

Why do people read product reviews in the first place? After all, do savvy shoppers buy anything without checking online reviews?

Here’s an example. Imagine you are reviewing Headspace , the meditation app. This is a real-life example because, personally, I’m a Headspace believer and practitioner. :-)

Or we can go with a different example — this time, let’s make it something B2B. For Instance, LiveChat :

So, what should you begin your review with? People want to get to know some practical facts, so:

• Talk about how the product grew on you and share first impressions (and all the consecutive ones!).
• Share your experiences with the product.
• List real pros and cons of the product.
• Tell the readers if a product is aimed at them [who the target users/buyers are].
• Rule if the product is of the highest quality and whether it’s simply worth buying.
• Is it user-friendly?
• Discuss some potential pain points.
• Provide alternatives.

Online reviews should touch on both pros and cons of a product, service, or even a whole brand so that shoppers understand the key selling points as well as its market strengths and weaknesses.

A powerful product review should clearly point out who the product is for. Another reason why people read product reviews is even simpler. Users want to make sure the product is the best of its kind . Take marketing tools — people want to make sure they’re straightforward, user-friendly, and generally easy to handle .

Moreover, people are curious about alternative solutions . Though, to be honest, they just want to make sure that the product they want to buy is the undisputed king of its category. Also, other users’ experiences aren’t meaningless . Readers want to confront as many opinions as possible before making an actual purchase.

So, in short, a product review is a blog post or a video that will help your target audience to make a purchase decision. It describes product features, pricing plans, how a product performs, and your personal recommendations. It should answer questions that highly motivated buyers can have.

What are the benefits of writing product reviews?

First and foremost, people trust product reviews — a whopping 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations . There you go — positive product reviews can bring a substantial rise in sales.

Here’s what you get out of writing reviews:

• Money - you can earn some extra money by reviewing products as an affiliate.
• Authority - you build authority as a reviewer and people will trust your opinion if you play it right.
• Freedom - as an independent reviewer and marketer only you decide what products you want to review, recommend, and write about.
• Traffic - your content helps you gain organic traffic and you can rank your website for strategically chosen keywords.

There are also many other perks (and also drawbacks) of becoming an independent product reviewer. Okay so now, with all those reasons in mind, it’s time to figure out what you can do to craft a genuine product review .

How to write the perfect product review

1. get your hands on the product.

Being an independent marketer and reviewer demands that you get access to products you are going to review. You might just go ahead and buy them or pitch the manufacturers and just ask for access. It’s quite likely that a company’s marketing representative will be happy to give you access to the product at least for the time you’d need to review it.

2. Join the affiliate program

However, the best idea is to become an affiliate partner if it’s an option.

This will come with additional perks like, for instance, a fixed and sometimes even recurring commission paid on each sale you referred. Being an affiliate makes sense because you’re promoting these products anyway, so why shouldn’t you get a cut and generate some passive income on the side?

Becoming an affiliate is a whole other story, however, so here’s where you can learn more about becoming an affiliate with LiveChat.

3. Learn about your product(s)

Once you join affiliate programs or get access to products in any other way, make sure you do your research and study the product. You want to become an expert. Be curious and find out everything about the brand and the product itself. Include competitors in your research and the whole industry as well, before you get started on your reviews.

Remember that reading reviews that are already out there is a must. It will give you an idea of what was important for your competitors. You might also want to take a look at alternative products reviews

4. Be honest. Don’t hype it

Full transparency is key. Eyes on the prize and remember this:

• People will quickly put two and two together, and they’ll notice (and inevitably raise a fuss) if you aren’t honest.
• It’s always better to look at products through the buyer's eyes. It makes no sense to trick your audience into thinking that your product has no flaws. Be balanced instead.
• Honesty wins you credibility and users will become loyal and visit your blog or site anytime they want to make a purchase.

5. Confront other players

Product comparisons are crucial to any good review. They provide your readers with a clearer picture of the whole category. Your readers will know what the options are and will feel more confident about getting the recommended model.

Talking about alternatives will lend you credibility — especially if you can say something more than, “Hey, these are available, too!”

6. Get a discussion going

Anytime you publish any content (not just reviews), ask for feedback and kindle discussion. Let people speak their minds and create a dedicated space for discussion and try to build up a community.

This will invite your readers to leave reviews — and user-generated reviews are tremendously powerful. For instance, millennials, trust user-generated content 50% more than other media.

So, empower users to generate that content!

The more social proof you accumulate below your own review the better. There are also some solid SEO reasons for this. A discussion thread makes a web page longer which helps it index and rank better.

7. End a product review with a take-home message

The last few paragraphs are perfect for expressing your private opinion. This is where you can get slightly subjective and speak your mind freely. Recap all the key points you touched on in the review, disclose the price and tell the reader if there’s a free trial (remember, the word “free” is intoxicating — if applicable, sprinkle it throughout your article and emphasize free options to get people excited. It usually works wonders). Sum everything up and make the final verdict.

8. Implement 5-Star rating and rich snippets

Enable a simple 5-star rating system with CSS and HTML radios on your review page and also add rich snippets that will be visible in the search results. This isn’t all that difficult.

Such a visual rating score in the search results will certainly make your reviews stand out, boosting your CTR and driving more traffic. And don’t forget that the CTR translates to SEO results in the long run!

Also, remember to include affiliate links within your review here and there. Mind their frequency of occurrence, so they don’t overwhelm the reader or dominate your copy. Not sure how to get this right? Read how to use affiliate links correctly .

A product review template

Writing a product review is much easier when using a template, so let me show you one.

Title : [Product Name] Review : [Brief Summary of Your Overall Experience]

Introduction :

• Briefly introduce the product and what it does
• Explain why you decided to use it and what you were hoping to achieve
• List and describe the main features of the product, such as live chat, chatbots, customization options, and integrations
• Explain how each feature works and how it helps you achieve your goals
• Evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of each feature

Ease of use:

• Describe how easy or difficult it was to set up and use the product
• Explain how intuitive the interface is and whether it's easy to navigate
• Evaluate the overall user experience and whether it meets your expectations

Performance :

• Evaluate the speed and reliability of the product
• Explain whether it meets your needs and whether it's able to handle your workload
• Mention any issues or limitations you've encountered while using the product
• Describe the customer support experience and how responsive and helpful the support team was
• Explain how easy or difficult it was to find answers to your questions
• Evaluate the quality of the documentation and resources provided by the product

Value for money:

• Evaluate whether the product provides good value for its price
• Compare it to other similar products and evaluate its pricing relative to its competitors
• Explain whether you would be willing to pay for the product again in the future

Conclusion :

• Summarize your overall experience with the product
• Mention any standout features or benefits of the product
• Explain who you would recommend the product to and why

And now, an example of a filled template.

Title : LiveChat Review : A User-Friendly and Effective Live Chat Solution

Introduction : LiveChat is a software tool that enables businesses to provide real-time customer support through a chat feature on their website. As a customer service representative, I decided to use LiveChat to improve customer satisfaction and engagement.

Features : LiveChat's main feature is the live chat, which allows me to communicate with customers in real-time. Additionally, it has chatbots, ticketing, and reporting features that make it easier to manage customer interactions. It also integrates with other tools such as CRM and social media platforms, which enhances my workflow.

Ease of use : Setting up and using LiveChat was very easy, and the interface is intuitive and user-friendly. Navigating through the software and accessing its features is straightforward, making it easy to engage with customers and provide prompt service.

Performance : LiveChat's performance has been exceptional, with fast and reliable connections even during high-traffic periods. The software's chatbot feature has been particularly helpful in handling routine inquiries, freeing up my time to address more complex customer needs.

Support : LiveChat has an excellent customer support system, with responsive and helpful support teams available through live chat, email, and phone. The software's documentation and resources are also comprehensive and well-written, making it easy to find answers to any questions.

Value for money : LiveChat's pricing is reasonable and competitive, considering its features and functionalities. Compared to other live chat solutions, LiveChat offers a good value for its price. I would definitely pay for the software again in the future.

Conclusion : Overall, LiveChat is a user-friendly and effective live chat solution that has helped me to deliver prompt and high-quality customer service. With its extensive features, fast performance, and responsive support, I would recommend LiveChat to any business owner or customer service representative looking for a reliable live chat solution.

And now, let me leave a quick checklist of what has to be included in every great review:

• core features (or a feature list if there are just a few features),
• real life product photos (or screenshots if your reviewing software products),
• product price,
• description of your experience with the product and your opinion.

Et voilà, now you know how to write a product review!

Online reviews are a great way to monetize your blog, start your affiliate marketing business and get it up and running . It’s a proven method, and we’ve got hard data to back it up. BrightLocal conducted a consumer review survey , an annual exploration of how consumers read and use online reviews.

What are their key findings?

• 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation,
• 7 out of 10 consumers will write a review for a business if they're asked to,
• 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business,
• 54% of people will visit the website after reading positive reviews,
• 73% of consumers think that reviews older than 3 months are no longer relevant,
• 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a business more,
• 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is most important.

Interestingly, according to Econsultancy, even bad reviews improve conversion by 67% . Hope these facts are convincing enough for you. As you can notice, there is a point to creating product reviews.

Go ahead, become a LiveChat affiliate and start reviewing our product, making a solid profit. Don’t limit yourself to just us — feel free to review brands and products from other industries to fully harness the power of your site.

Become our Partner

Spread the word about our products and increase your revenue

That’s all for now on writing a powerful product review. Once something new comes around, I’m going to supplement and update this write-up.

Congrats, you're ready to write reviews!

Share it with the world

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What Makes a Product Review Good? Tips & Examples for eCommerce Websites

For all the time and effort you spend crafting meticulous marketing materials for your products, your customers can make or break your success in just 30 seconds with a simple review.

In the digital age, online reviews are the most valuable social proof out there. In fact, 9 out of 10 customers want to read reviews before they purchase a product, making your review strategy an integral part of your sales and marketing efforts.

So, what can you do to ensure you get great product reviews — ones that will spread positive word-of-mouth about your brand and convince your customers to spend their hard-earned cash at your eCommerce store?

In this article, we’ll show you how by covering:

• What recent Google product review updates mean for your website
• What makes a good product review (including screenshots of good examples)
• What strategies you can use to gather better ones for your eCommerce brand

Recent Google Product Review Updates

You’ve probably noticed more and more content related to product reviews appearing in the search results over the years. It makes sense; Google wants to provide top-quality results to users’ search queries, and oftentimes, product reviews are a crucial part of shoppers’ decision-making process.

Unfortunately, because of this trend, the web has been inundated with sub-par roundups and review articles over the last decade. 

Because product reviews, buying guides , round-ups, and similar content rank so well, it’s been easy for content producers to game the algorithm. With a clever SEO strategy, websites have been able to rank highly in the SERPs — even if they’ve never even used the products they’re writing about! 

To combat the frustrations caused by this mountain of disappointing content, Google has rolled out a series of new algorithmic updates over the last year, aimed at helping customers more easily find the value-forward testimonials they’re looking for.

While Google won’t give marketers all of the in-depth details, we do know that Google’s new updates are intended to reward those with high-quality content, meaning content with:

• Proof that an actual product test or usage has occurred 
• Honest feedback by the reviewer
• Unique copy (not just reiterated content from the product page of the brand’s website)
• Unique product photos (not manufacturer’s photos from another website)

For a full timeline of the update rollouts, check out Search Engine Land’s coverage here .

Should Your eCommerce Business Be Worried?

When many eCommerce marketers hear the words “product review update,” they worry that their sites may be affected by this algorithmic change.

The good news is that most eCommerce websites won’t be impacted by these updates. In fact, none of our clients have seen an impact on their organic performance so far.

That said, if you produce “Best of” lists, buying guides, or FAQs from customers, or if you work with affiliates/bloggers for marketing your products, you may want to pay special attention to these algorithm changes.

Pay special attention to E.A.T. principles — expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness — as you’re publishing to your online store. Using unique content and images, demonstrating the author’s experience and know-how, and even giving them a well-built author page can go a long way in creating high-quality content for your audience.

When it comes to external review sites, it’s in your best interest to know which sites are linking back to yours — and how high-quality they are. If a review site gets penalized for poor-quality reviews, your eCommerce website may lose authority tangentially if its content links to your products in those reviews. 

Therefore, be sure to encourage high-quality reviews from any affiliate marketing company you choose to loop into your overall strategy.

If you think that these updates have affected your eCommerce website, start with our step-by-step guide to pinpoint any potentially impacted areas.

Regardless of whether or not your business is directly affected by these algorithm updates, you should still be actively gathering high-quality reviews from your customers. In addition to improving your eCommerce SEO and conversion rate optimization (CRO), they’ll provide your customers with a much better shopping experience. 

In the rest of this guide, we’ll show you how to do so.

What Makes a Good Product Review?

When it comes to collecting top-tier online reviews for eCommerce sites, there are a few key elements we encourage our clients to focus on. 

• Star ratings
• Detailed descriptions
• Photos/videos
• Size/fit feedback options

Below, we’ll go over each of these in detail (and provide examples of good product reviews that include them) to give you more clarity on what to look for and encourage in your customer feedback. 

Remember: Above all else, you want to collect high-quality reviews that benefit your customers. The right content will heighten your trustworthiness and provide a host of other UX, SEO, and CRO benefits. 

In short, any user-generated content that adds value is going to help not only shoppers but also your rankings. 

1. Star Ratings

Star ratings are one of the easiest ways to communicate customer satisfaction — and one of the first things people notice when browsing your store. 

If shoppers can see in an easy visual what other customers thought of your products (including which are the most popular on your site), it helps them narrow down their final selection from the very start, giving them more confidence in their purchase journey.

In the example above, you can easily see how many customers have reviewed the products and what the average level of satisfaction was. This proves to potential customers that the products themselves have merit and are worth looking into more deeply.

Product reviews also provide an SEO bonus. By using schema markup to show the star ratings of your products, you can potentially take up more real estate in the search results pages.

You can go one step further with the star rating system by breaking it up into different elements. By asking customers for an overall star rating and additional star ratings for both “Quality of Product” and “Value of Product,” you can diversify and capitalize on customer feedback. 

Adding these elements to your product page design can have a big influence on your users’ experience.

But how exactly do you acquire more (and higher) star ratings in your customer product reviews?

We recommend using post-purchase emails, account notifications, and other touchpoints to remind and encourage your shoppers to share their thoughts.

If you make it easy for your customers to leave a review — such as letting them leave a star rating without requiring additional feedback or giving them ample space to share their experience if they feel so inclined — you’ll be more likely to collect the kind of reviews you’re looking for. 

(We’ll dive deeper into this later.)

2. Detailed Descriptions

Ideally, the reviews you collect from your customers will provide high-quality, crawlable content for search engine bots. The more detailed the reviews are, the more context Google has when serving up your website in the search results.

Today’s customers want to know all of the ins and outs of a specific product before they choose to buy it. Reading the experience of a peer who has purchased and used your goods will give a new customer more confidence and peace of mind. 

Here is a good product review example that shows the impact of detailed descriptions for shoppers:

Hearing about the product from a customer’s viewpoint will also provide more natural, valuable keywords to your product pages. The words that a customer uses in their reviews could differ from the copy you’ve carefully selected for the product description, which will also help Google provide more accurate search results to potential new customers.

When you’re sending post-purchase emails, be sure to ask open-ended questions to generate thoughtful responses from your customers. You can also give them examples of good product reviews to elicit higher-quality feedback.

3. Photos & Videos

Good product reviews are not just about the things that customers write in their feedback. As the age-old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

Your customers know that your branded photos are meant to show your products in their best light. Seeing candid, realistic photos of your product in their peers’ homes is a great way to share the reality of your offerings.

In the following product review examples, you can see real-life usage, which gives customers a better idea of how that product might function in their own homes:

In its ongoing effort to provide high-quality content, Google is beginning to favor original photo and video content in reviews over any found on creative commons. Therefore, including as many user-generated photos and videos as possible can boost your eCommerce product page SEO .

You can encourage your customers to leave reviews with photos by making an “add photo/video” option prominent in the review submission process.

4. Size/Fit Feedback Options

One of the most annoying parts of online shopping? Receiving an item that doesn’t fit quite right. Even with detailed schematics and ample measurement information, a garment’s true fit is nearly impossible to predict.

So, make the customer experience more enjoyable for your shoppers by letting previous buyers share how they feel garments fit.

Some brands run large, others run small, and some run true-to-size. All bodies are shaped differently, and each country has its own sizing systems in place. For these reasons, it’s far more informative to see how other users feel apparel fits than to rely on professionally modeled photos alone. 

To get feedback from customers on their subjective fit opinions, add this capability into the review process. 

The more fit options you give buyers to choose from, the more accurate a representation you’ll have to share with future customers. For example, a brand that offers “Runs Small,” “True to Size,” and “Runs Large” will have fewer data points than a brand that adds in options between those: “Runs Very Small,” “Runs a Little Small,” “True to Size,” “Runs a Little Large,” “Runs Very Large.”

Other Strategies to Gather Good Customer Reviews

The elements outlined above are great ways to make sure that the reviews you receive are high-quality. However, enticing customers to take the time to leave such a review can be a challenge. 

So, below, we’ll share four of our top tips for gathering these good product reviews on your eCommerce site.

1. Reward your customers.

People want to feel appreciated. Offering your customers a token of thanks for leaving high-quality reviews can go a long way in building your collection!

Of course, you can’t “pay” customers for positive reviews, but you could offer them other incentives to spend a few minutes of their time sharing their experiences. Some such rewards may include a discount on their next purchase, a sneak peek at future items, or some other creative, insider deal.

Another option is to create an ambassador program wherein the more products a customer reviews, the better coupons or special offers they will get. This kind of incentive can build a sense of exclusivity and camaraderie amongst your most loyal fans .

Note: If you do run a review-gathering campaign and give people free or discounted products in return for reviews, make sure that customers are including that information in their reviews on your/their site.

2. Follow up with buyers.

Every eCommerce site should have a post-purchase email flow to remind customers of their purchases and solicit feedback and reviews.

Depending on your brand strategy, you may want to send only one or two emails. Other eCommerce companies can get away with sending more.

If you’re going to send more than two emails asking for a review, consider including additional rewards as the number of follow-ups increases. 

3. Make it as easy as possible.

Unless they’re angry, customers don’t want to spend more than a few minutes writing a review. It’s in your best interest to streamline the process in every way you can.

Automate leaving feedback with a template on the review page that includes pre-suggested star ratings, fit scales, and photo uploads. Including a form without a character minimum will encourage written feedback at whatever depth the customer feels is appropriate.

By requiring as few elements to be addressed as possible, you make leaving a review easier for shoppers, which is always the goal. And, with added elements that aren’t required but are encouraged, you’re more likely to collect additional information from motivated users.

In short: The more quickly your customers can get on with their day, the more likely they will be to leave more reviews for additional products in the future. 

4. Use syndicated reviews.

Another way you can collect feedback for products on your site is to use a syndication service to gather reviews left on other platforms. 

Syndicated reviews are those that have been submitted to other sites, like the manufacturer’s website, other retail sites, Amazon, Yelp, or social media platforms. 

Even the happiest of customers are unlikely to leave reviews in multiple places. If you’re selling products that are available elsewhere on the internet, you can “borrow” those reviews for your own purposes to demonstrate the quality of a product.

That said, syndication shouldn’t be your only source of product reviews. While Google can usually identify the difference between syndication and duplicate content , unique content will always be best.

For that reason, you’ll want to put more effort into gathering your own unique reviews than relying on syndicated ones. However, syndication can be a great way to augment if you’re just starting your review-gathering campaigns.

Create Your Product Review Strategy Now

It goes without saying that product reviews are so important to eCommerce success. 

As the digital version of word-of-mouth marketing, they build valuable trust with your customers. Positive and negative reviews/testimonials can not only support your customers with their purchasing decisions but can also enhance your SEO and CRO efforts and help your brand bring in more revenue.

By setting a high standard for reviews and showing customers what will make a review helpful for others, you can acquire added details that benefit both shoppers and your company. For more examples of elements to include, review Wirecutter’s industry-leading standards .

Many of our clients employ the use of product review software to help them collect reviews from their customers. If you want a more in-depth, personalized strategy, you can also work with an agency to build a more customized approach for your brand’s goals.

Want help developing an effective product reviews strategy for your online business? Contact our team anytime to get started.

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About The Author

Lindsay Haskell

Lindsay grew up near Philly before heading off to the west coast for college. She studied English at UCLA and then moved to Raleigh, N.C., where she lived for a few years before moving to Denver. Her career began in content editing, writing, and project management before she discovered marketing. She specialized in content marketing before moving toward technical SEO.

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How to Write a Good Product Review

A quality review is an informative piece of content that gives a trusted account of a customer experience. And they don’t just inform purchase decisions. Online reviewers are part of a community that shape innovation, improve standards and help businesses grow.

Why Are Product Reviews Important?

Verified product reviews are a form of social proof. When we read good quality reviews from various independent sources, we gain real insight into what we’re buying, and evidence the company we’re dealing with can be trusted.

And that’s not all. By leaving product reviews, we’re communicating with the business, highlighting issues, informing product development, and helping them improve services.

As new review trends emerge, both consumers and businesses are getting greater insight. UGC like video review content shows products in action - how they fit into customers lives and the joy they bring. We can also leave feedback on specific features like quality, fit and comfort through review attributes .

All of this combined gives product reviews real power. And as the customer, the power is in your hands.  

I pre-ordered the hot tub and it arrived exactly on the date Wave said it would. I’ve placed orders for every type of chemical and for filters. — Great service and a great hot tub! It has made a real difference for my children too who love it, especially during lockdown. Thanks Wave.

‍ Verified Buyer Wave Spas product review

Benefits of Writing Product Reviews

You’ll get a better experience.

We’re all shopping online now more than ever before, and we expect more from the businesses we buy from. By leaving product reviews, you’re letting brands know what you need, and if they’re smart enough to listen, they’ll deliver.

You’ll be helping others

88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. You’ve likely used them yourself. So why not pay it back and help others make the right decisions?

You’ll be supporting the brands you love

Online retail is competitive, and without loyal customers, a brand can soon disappear. By leaving product reviews for the brands you love, you’ll help them get seen, attract new customers, and grow as a business.

First time I have ordered clothing from this site and I would for sure order again! Parcel arrived so quickly and the quality of the dress is just amazing! Fits like a glove :) x

‍ Lindsay H Abbott Lyon product review

1. Talk About Your Experience As A Whole

The more detailed your review, the more helpful it is, so try and cover everything you think is important. The focus of a product review is, of course, the product itself, but also consider things like customer service. Your experience - good or bad - will help customers decide if a product and its provider are good fit for them.

2. Be Honest

Transparency is key to a good review. Remember, the point is to give an unbiased opinion. You might think you’re helping a business by spinning a few white lies (or maybe even damaging it, depending on your intention), but other customers will see straight through you. Ultimately, you’re helping no one.

3. Never Include Personal Details

If you’ve had a particularly good experience, or indeed an awful one, you may want to include the names of those involved, but as your review will be publicly visible, you need to keep privacy rights in mind. Leave out specific names, and never include personal emails or direct telephone numbers. If you have a serious complaint about an individual, it’s better to contact the business privately.

4. Update Your Review

Sometimes, it might be necessary to update your review as your experience changes. You may have initially left negative feedback, but your issue has since been resolved and your opinion altered. Or it may be that you discover something about a product at a later date. In such cases, revise your review to keep consumers in the picture.

5. Proofread Your Content

Before you publish, make sure you’ve included everything you think necessary, that your review reads well and is free from errors. Also take the time to consider your tone. Even if you’re making a complaint, your language needs to be polite, and your statements free from unfounded accusations. No one expects professional writing skills, but your review will carry more credibility if it’s checked over.  

When a business invites you to leave a product review, it’s giving you the opportunity to help shape the world of online retail. You’re helping people just like you buy good products from good sellers and giving businesses valuable feedback so they can better serve you in future. So when you respond to that invitation, make sure you do it with a quality review.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 9,000+ brands rely on REVIEWS.io to scale further & faster

Download pdf survey, 2023 state of reviews, changes in consumer buying behaviour, similar posts.

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How to Write an Impactful Product Review

Table of contents

With a hike in e-commerce, a quarter of the sales are expected to be made online globally by 2025. In this digital world, don’t we all prefer shopping from the comfort of our homes? But what helps you pick the best from a sea of online options? 

Product reviews.

Product reviews are like your shopping buddies helping you make the right choices. Most people use these to evaluate the quality and make a comparison within the products. And when you’re being paid to write a review, you owe your readers research, honestly, and a deep dive. Your product review must be valuable and informative.

While endless reviews exist for a single product, how do you make yours stand out? Let’s explore the pro tips to write a compelling review. 

Why do I Need to Learn Writing for a Product Review?

Product reviews act as voices to your experience and hold the power to inform and influence buyers to make the right decision. 

You must learn to write a compelling product review to convey honest feedback. With the flourishing of online shopping, picking the right product doesn’t come easy. While the internet offers hundreds of choices for a single product, the product review helps buyers make an informed decision.

A product review needs to offer a holistic picture of the product that goes beyond a brief description. From its strengths to weaknesses, the review must present each aspect. It’s all about being a reliable and honest friend to your audience. 

Questions to Ask Before Writing a Product Review

With buyers relying on you to invest in a product, you can’t compromise the quality of product review, right? Here’s how to get started with writing.

1. What is my Product?

The first step is to pick a product and understand it. While any item picked off a shelf might not captivate you much, you prefer choosing products that align with your interests. Not only does it help you explain the product better, but it will also make the process enjoyable.

Understand the product, what it is about, and how your experience will help the potential buyers.

2. Who is My Audience?

You need to know your audience and comprehensively understand the product. What does the audience need? What are the trending preferences? 

Analyze the audience’s interests, challenges, problems, and demographics. The chosen product must be relevant to the readers to grab their attention. While you can’t always pick your favorite products, ensure that the review is helpful for the audience.

3. Do I have a Personal Story to Share?

Don’t we all love reading personal experiences while shopping for a product online? Personalized stories help catch the reader’s attention and interest and exhibit your honesty. Rather than hyping the product, be transparent about every aspect.

Before writing a review, put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. It’ll help you write a balanced review with your personal story and what the audience would be looking at.

4. What is my Take-home Message for the Audience?

Designate the last paragraph of the product review to your opinion. Freely express your thoughts on the product for readers to get a take-home message about whether they must invest in it. Try giving a brief overview of the key points discussed in the review, then come to the final decision.

Before putting pen to paper, ask yourself: How did the product find its way into your life? Who will benefit most from your insights? Are there any unique experiences with the product that could add depth to your review?

10 Insightful Tips to Write Effective Product Reviews

Before you put the pen to paper, ask yourself: How did I hear about the product? Whom will the insights help? Do I have a unique story to add depth to the product review?

Once you’re clear, begin writing the review while considering these tips.

1. Don’t write a high school essay

Let’s be honest: nobody likes to read high school essays. And right from the introduction paragraph, you can set a tone for the review. You need to write it from a perspective that every word must be helpful to the reader. For example, if you’re writing about a blanket, never introduce how blankets are essential for bedrooms. Instead, it must start with how that particular blanket is valuable — i.e., it improves sleep, has weight, and is soft to the touch.

It helps build initial trust and keeps your readers engaged. 

2. Explain your testing methodology

You need to give readers a reason to trust your review over others. One of your best bets is transparency. Be open and honest about how you tested the product and how you would rate it.

Not every reader knows you personally, and these are a few of the questions that’ll pop up in their minds as they come across your review:

• Who is the reviewer?
• Did they test the product well?
• What was their approach or method of testing?
• Shall I trust the mentioned conclusions and take a call?

Write your review with this perspective to keep the readers reading. 

3. Format to State the Facts

Suppose you come across two different product reviews– one with lengthy paragraphs and another one with a few bullet points stating facts. What would you prefer? The latter, correct? As nobody likes reading through paragraphs —breaking the information into key points keeps readers engaged.

Opt for formatting that offers concise and scannable takeaways. You can further write explanations under subheadings for those who like to know every minute detail before investing in a product. 

Do you have multiple points in your mind but are unsure how to present the key takeaways as pointers? Don’t worry. Write with Wordtune to form crisper points from lengthy descriptions. Here’s an example of how it works.

To concisely put it into the points, all you need to do is give Wordtune your brief, and the task is done. One of the advantages of using Wordtune is that it offers multiple suggestions, even for a minute task. 

4. Focus on the Pain Points

A person invests in a product to solve a problem.  Ensure your review highlights how the product solves specific challenges or changes the reader’s lifestyle.

Consider reviewing a candle:  our biggest pain point is when the wax melts and ruins the surface. For a unique design featuring a candle holder, you can tell your readers how it helps keep the surfaces clean and enhances aesthetics. 

5. Pros and Cons: Does the Job

Do you know what reveals honesty in a product review? When you highlight the advantages of investing in a product and are honest about its cons. It establishes trust amongst the readers.

You can designate a paragraph to highlight these pros and cons. Either opt for a standard approach by adding the sub-headings ‘pros and cons’ or twist it and frame the sub-headings like ‘why investing in this product helps’ or ‘why this product isn’t for you.’ 

Let’s consider an example of a product review of a suitcase. Overall the product is acceptable in terms of its quality and material but let’s say that the colour is dull and its size is small. To present the information effectively, you can seek Wordtune’s assistance.

All you need to do is add your description and ask Wordtune to compile it into a list of pros and cons.

It simply puts the information in the form of a list to help readers weigh their decision.  

6. Who must Invest, and who shouldn’t?

As you write product reviews, you start understanding the audience better. Along with highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of the product, it also offers insights to the readers on who will love it and who won’t.

For example, in a vintage table design, you can clearly state that it’s made for all retro lovers, and those with a modern taste won’t like the product, or it won’t fit in their current designs. It keeps the reader confident about whether they’re making the right decision. 

7. Give them an Alternative Product

It’s often off-putting to read a detailed product review just to discover that it’s not the right fit for us. But not every product is made for everyone, so suggest an alternative product that might cater to their needs.

You can pick an alternative by function or comparative price. 

8. Pictures– The Proof of Honesty

How do you trust that a product review is authentic in this digital world? Photographs Always share the product pictures and the written review review. Post every shot for the audience to visualize it well and share it with friends to seek advice.

While pictures work for a physical product, post screenshots for software reviews to give an idea of the user interface and key features.

9. Highlight the Details

Dig into the specifications of the product. Tell the readers about the material, usage, key features, and pricing. You can even talk about the different models and variations within them.

It is critical to explain the price structure, especially for digital products, as it is complex to understand otherwise. Break it into simple language to guide users in the right direction. 

10. Conclude it Well

Once you’ve covered the key points, conclude the review. Highlight the key features you discussed and then lead the audience to a conclusion on whether you recommend investing in that product. 

Do you know who can help you write a conclusion for your product review? Wordtune. And here’s how.

Write the product review on Wordtune, and it will suggest multiple prompts to enhance the content. Opt for the option of summing up the paragraph, and your conclusion will be ready.

The smart tool concludes the review well and offers readers action-based recommendations.

Always give a CTA to direct visitors to make the purchase or give them an alternative option. 

Product Review Template

From a tiny needle to a luxury car, there’s no limit to writing a product review. You can write it for almost everything that exists to guide the readers toward what is meant for them and what is not. Irrespective of the product you’re writing about, consider putting it into a strategic template that engages readers.

Here’s an intelligent template to express your opinions. 

Introduction

Imagine reading a lengthy paragraph just to discover that it wasn’t the product you were looking at. Disappointing, right? 

You wouldn’t want to disappoint your readers, so it’s essential to introduce the product in the first paragraph. It offers a clear picture to the audience before they start investing their time.

Description 

After introducing the product, feed your readers with the basic information. Which brand is it? What is the model number, dimensions, price, material, etc?

To keep this paragraph engaging, collaborate with Wordtune . It will keep the readers engaged to read more and, at the same time, convey the critical details. Here is an example of how Wordtune lets you present boring descriptions with a fun twist.

All you need to do is feed the information to Wordtune about the product’s primary features and describe the tonality and information you need to cover in the description.

In addition to highlighting the characteristics, Wordtune also mentions how the features enhance the current design.

Compare Products

The audience always lands on product reviews when they need clarification on two products. This is why you need to compare similar products to guide your audience in the right direction. It exhibits your knowledge and demonstrates comprehensive research that helps build trust with the readers. 

Specify the Audience

Suppose you’re writing a review on measuring scoops; it’ll be primarily targeted to all the cuisine connoisseurs, right? Begin the product review by mentioning a catchy hook line like ‘To all the cuisine connoisseurs’ or ‘A must-have tool for all the chefs’ to target the specific audience.

It’s essential to specify your audience so that the readers know whether the product is made for them. 

Once you’ve talked about the product in-depth, it’s time to conclude it with all its pros and cons. The last paragraph is used to evaluate whether it’s worth investing in the product or not.

Have you written the review? Did you proofread it? Let's publish now.

Pick an appropriate forum to post the review to reach potential buyers at the right time. 

Review while Collaborating

For writing the most compelling product review, you need a writing assistant. This is where Wordtune comes into the picture. It helps in enhancing the overall content and keeping the critical takeaway clear.

From rephrasing the sentences to easing the readability, there’s no limit to the powering tools offered at Wordtune. Whether you’re looking for a formal tonality or a casual tone, this platform helps you refine the content per your desired style and tone. 

Selling Words that Buy Reads

Your words can be the real decision-maker for the potential audience to invest in a product. This is why it's essential to be honest while writing a review. Inject a little quirk, keep it personalized, and craft the most impactful, informative, and entertaining reviews. 

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How to Write a Product Review: A Step-by-Step Guide

This blog explains How to Write a Product Review in detail, keeping in mind the format, pattern and benefits of writing a Review. Read this blog to learn How to Write a Product Review to attract readers' attention and promote a Product or service. Delve in to learn more!

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Many people feel confident in their purchasing decisions if they have a Product Review to look up to. These are amazing resources for the buyers to learn more about their purchasing options and study the advantages and disadvantages of the Product. Thus, learning How to Write a Product Review can help you to promote your product more effectively. 

So, Product Reviewers looking to build a career online must not wait anymore. Read this blog to learn more about How to Write Product Reviews and their benefits. Also, gain insights into how writing amazing reviews can help you build a good brand image online. 

Table of Contents: 

1) What is a Product Review 

2) Steps to Write a Product Review 

    a) Product introduction 

    b) Build an emotional connection with audience 

    c) Identifying target audience 

    d) Detailing advantages and disadvantages 

    e) Provide additional social proof 

    f) Conclude the evaluation 

    g) Share your review 

3) Benefits of a writing a Product Review 

4) Conclusion 

What is a Product Review? 

A Product Review is an assessment of a product that shares the reviewer's judgement on its features, performance, quality, and usability. A Product Review is written to provide potential buyers with a detailed and un-biased evaluation of the product to help them make an informed decision before purchasing. 

A Product Review includes information like the Product's specifications, its advantages and disadvantages, and how it compares to other similar products on the market. It also has personal experiences of how the Product has been used, and any issues or problems the Reviewer faced while using it. 

Product Reviews can be found on numerous platforms like e-commerce websites, social media, blogs and Review websites. They are often written by consumers who have purchased and used the Product, and professional reviewers who test and evaluate the products on their own.  

Steps to write a Product Review 

The niche audience, goals and even the writers of a Product Review may be different, but the process to Write a Product Review is same for most parts. Take a look at this step-by-step guide to learn How to Write Product Reviews:  

a) Product introduction 

The Product Review should begin with a short one or two liner introductions of the product. A brief introduction of the product will help attract the attention of potential buyers. You can use catchy and engaging phrases and sentences to help readers choose your review from a bunch of other customer opinions. 

You can also give a brief overview of the contents of the review in your introduction part. This should mostly be under two paragraphs that provide a description of the various characteristics of the product or service. 

b) Build an emotional connection with the audience 

You can set your review apart by connecting with your readers/viewers on a personal level and empathising with their needs. Instead of using your review just to list the features of a product or service, provide useful information about how the product or service can solve problems for your readers. 

You can tell them why they should consider buying the product and explain how the features could solve their real-life problems or add value to their experience. To make your readers feel empathy you can use the following in your review: 

1) A relatable tone: You should mostly use sentences with first-person language and a friendly, gentle tone to write your Review. This will help convey relatability and friendliness through your writings 

2) Rhetorical questions: Ask rhetorical questions which could relate to the reader's lifestyles to attach their issues with the solution provided via the Products or services and show empathy through shared experiences. 

3) Humanness: Often, clients shape more potent connections with humans than manufacturers or businesses. Try to apply language that feels authentic and relatable to sell trust. 

c) Identifying target audience 

When writing a powerful Product Review, sincerely cope with your goal audience. You can do that with the aid of using a quick and direct assertion defining who may also benefit the maximum from the usage of the product or service. 

For clients who're perfect for the product or service, this summary can be sufficient to assist them in deciding whether or not to buy. For clients who do not think they're a good fit, think of including different products to guarantee your reader that you care about matching them with their perfect purchasing option. 

d) Detailing advantages and disadvantages 

You can outline the details of product advantages and characteristics in a manner that enables the reader to visualise the usage and benefits from the Product or service. Offering this kind of personal insight may help readers understand how a product or service could be perfect for their situation. When you describe advantages and characteristics, you can also include the following content: 

1) Main characteristics: These features are the ones that can solve most of the readers' issues. Describe and write each primary characteristic in one or two liners to give an exact idea of the functionality. 

2) Actions: Give a brief description of the functions of the products. Keep your description to one or two liners for each function while explaining about it accurately. 

3) Applications: Next, apply these functions to real life situations. Explain how the features will help the reader solve their problem in about two sentences. 

e) Provide additional social proof 

To supply extra verification, consider advertising testimonials or reviews for your readers to reference. You can do this by citing other customers, connecting to other websites or counting Reviews of influential clients like bloggers, industry experts or specialists. You can moreover offer a commenting choice on your survey so that others can share their own encounters with the Products or service. 

f) Conclude the evaluation 

Conclude your survey with a short summary. Repeat your conclusion of the product and emphasise the key notes of your Reviews. Clearly unveil whether you trust the product or service and if it can benefit others. 

In your conclusion, you can talk about the cost of the products to demonstrate whether it offers great value for the purchasers. The conclusion of your review gives your final decision on the Product or service to assist the readers’ buying choices. 

g) Share your review 

When you have wrapped up your Review, you can decide when and where you need to publish it. You can publish your survey in a straightforward manner on the organisation’s website to reach the niche and potential audiences and clients. Other alternatives are to publish them on Review sites, blogs or social media. Make it a point to format your content before publishing it. Some websites may allow you to include a star rating or upload pictures along with your Review.  

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Benefits of writing a Product Review 

The advantages or benefits of writing an elaborate Product Review importantly depends on the writer, the niche of the Product, target audience and the intention of the Review. A Review can majorly have these benefits:  

Authority 

Greater authority comes with greater responsibilities thus when you establish a name in the field of Review writing, you have to make sure to give out unbiased opinion. These Reviews are trusted by numerous people and so you will have to make it a point to play it right. People will down right trust your Reviews if you have the needed authority. 

Money 

When you collaborate with different brands, they will pay you handsome amount to Review their Products. Being a collaborator along with a Product Reviewer will help you earn some extra money and make you financially stable.  

Freedom 

If you are an independent Reviewer, you have the complete freedom to choose your niche Product and write about it. You can also recommend the best Products that you like and share them through your blogs websites or YouTube channels. You will also have the freedom to work at your own time and pace and not in any pressure from your seniors as you will be your own boss. 

Traffic 

If the content is carefully crafted using the right words and sentences, it will help you gain traffic organically and your website will be ranked for including chosen keywords. This will help drive more and more audience to your channel or website and increase the number of your followers subsequently. Choosing the right keywords and backlinking while writing the Review is the key to better traffic. 

Building trust 

The more unbiased your Product Review will be, the more chances are that the readers will trust your Review that influences their purchase decisions.  While buying a Product or using a service, the customers tend to look through the Reviews before making a decision. Be it negative or positive Reviews, the honesty in the Reviews is what matters and that will make the buyers trust you more. 

Promoting awareness 

Customers often suggest Products and services that they feel confident about to their friends and acquaintances. Product Reviews can help assure customers of the quality of a Product, and they may be more likely to share their experiences with others. The sharing of customer testimonies is a great way to increase awareness of your brand, Product or service. 

Knowledge sharing 

You can share valuable knowledge when writing a Review after you buy a Product or use the service with others who would consider buying the same Product or service. Product Review writing is a great medium to promote a Product or service that you found worthy. You can also recommend alternatives to a Product which did not perform up to expectations when writing the Review and tips to maximise their benefits. 

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Conclusion 

In conclusion, learning How to Write a Product Review not only makes you a prominent voice for the online audience, but also brings you a number of benefits. Your well written Reviews contribute to making informed choices for a customer, establish you as a trusted source of knowledge, and bring you numerous other opportunities.  

So, when you are listing down the advantages and disadvantages, functionality, usability and credibility of a Product, remember the Review is trusted by many thus the information must be valid. It's a valuable contribution to the world of consumer choices and purchasing decisions made by the customer.  

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Frequently Asked Questions

You can write good Reviews by being completely honest and unbiased in your opinions. Use the Product yourself for some time and document your true experiences with it and share it with the audience. This way you will put out better content that will help the customers in their purchasing decisions. 

You can write a good Product Review like this: 

1) Start with a short Product summary at the very top of the page. 

2) Empathise with your readers. 

3) Identify who the Product is for. 

4) Introduce the solution. 

5) Explain the relationship between features and benefits through case studies. 

6) Offer social proof. 

7) Include a title that stands out and gets clicks. 

8) Establish authority and build rapport in the writing 

Including these broad points in your Review will ensure that it makes the desired impact.   

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• Essay Database >
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• Essay on Internet

Product Review Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Internet , Music , Money , Apple , Telephone , Iphone , Wireless Technology , Mobile Phones

Published: 02/11/2020

ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS

The iPhone 5 is the fanciest smart phone in the market currently. The iPhone is assembled with great care and caution so as to successful meets the evolving customer needs. In order to demonstrate Apple’s commitment to meeting the needs of its consumers, this paper provides a product review of the IPhone 5. First of all, the IPhone 5 has a beautiful design. Many customers are concerned about how their phone looks. Unlike other phones that do not address this need, IPhone has an aesthetic feel. The IPhone 5 is also lighter compared to many other phone models (McFedries 15). This means that the phone is easy to carry both in the pocket and by hand. The weight of the phone matters because in many cases, heavier phones face the risk of dropping to the floor in case one is multitasking while handling the phone. In addition, it is sometimes uncomfortable to carry a heavy phone in the pocket because it often wears off the pocket due to the heavy weight. In addition to the light weight that characterizes the iPhone 5, it is important to understand that the phone has a higher speed in terms of internet connection and detection compared to other phones and the IPhone 4 model. This means that consumers can be able to enjoy fast internet as they surf the internet. Considering the growing need for accessing the internet in daily activities such the social media, iPhone 5 is an ideal phone tom possess. In addition, to faster internet and Wi-Fi the iPhone 5 has a great GPS and location service (Cohen 31).This means that there is no need for purchasing a GPS if one possesses an iPhone 5. This shows that the iPhone5 is cost effective because one can save money for gadgets such as a GPS because the iPhone5 provides the same service. In addition to the GPS, the iPhone 5 can store large quantities of data especially music. With and iPhone 5 one does not have to purchase an iPod for the purposes of listening to music. One can either save music directly on the iPhone5 or use a memory card to save music. In addition to music, the iPhone 5 has an excellent camera. The neatness of the pictures taken using the iPhone 5 is greater than other phones such as Android models and the iPhone 4. It is also important to note that the iPhone 5 provides a wide range of photo editing software compared to other phones in the market. Therefore, in addition to saving money that would be used to buy a GPS, one can also save money that could be used to buy a camera. The iPhone 5 also comes with excellent ringtones that can be assigned to each caller in the phone contacts. This is a characteristic that is not available in many phone models and those phones that have the service do not have nice ringtones. In addition to the software component of the iPhone 5, it is important to note that this phone has the battery of this phone is long-lasting (Kelby & White 29). This means that the iPhone 5 can be able to stay charged for a longer time compared to many other phone models. For example, Android phones are known to drain their charge in a short period. Therefore, if one is looking for a phone that has a long battery life, the iPhone 5 is the ideal phone to purchase.

Works Cited

Cohen, Dennis R., and Michael E. Cohen. IPhone 5 kickstart. Berkeley, California: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print. Kelby, Scott, and Terry White. The iPhone book how to do the most important, useful & fun stuff with your iPhone. 6th ed. Berkeley, California: Peachpit, 2013. Print. McFedries, Paul. iPhone 5 portable genius. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. Print.

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Home » Blog » How to write a product review to drive more sales

• September 17, 2020

How to write a product review to drive more sales

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It’s rare these days for a consumer to buy a product without doing any prior research. Before you make a reservation at a new-to-you restaurant, you might ask a friend if they’ve been. If they’re effusive, you’ll make that reservation. If they tell you the shrimp gave them food poisoning, we’re sure you’d find somewhere else – or at least avoid the seafood starter!

Similarly, when buying products or services online, consumers like to know what other people think of it before committing. According to BrightLocal, 82% of consumers read online reviews before buying. It’s clear that product reviews are crucial to a business. They help consumers make important decisions. A brand’s reputation can be improved by good reviews. The customer can gain insight into the product’s usability before purchasing.

So now you know that they’re so important, you’re probably wondering how to write a product review. Well, it depends on what type you want to go for! We’ve rounded up an example product review article (or four!) to show you how to write a product review that will mean more converted customers and sales.

But first, what are some product review examples?

These are the main types of product reviews you’re likely to find online:

• Professional reviews from industry experts
• Buyer’s guides (independent reviews for the consume)
• Blogger reviews
• Affiliate reviews
• Customer reviews

We’ll take a look at each type to demonstrate how to write a product review in each case. Except, of course, customer reviews.

If you own a business, please do not try and play the system by writing your own ‘customer reviews’. This year there has been a huge crack down on fake reviews on eBay and Facebook. Not only is it bad practice, but it can damage your business’ reputation.

Instead, try sending out reminder emails to customers who have recently bought one of your products. A gentle nudge asking them to leave a review often works, especially if you remind them how crucial reviews are for small businesses.

Now, let’s move onto some examples of how to write a product review.

1. Professional reviews

Technology is one of those industries where people rely heavily on expert reviews. Tech products and services are often expensive, so making the wrong choice is not an option for many consumers. Asking friends and family isn’t really that helpful here either. Unless they happen to be a tech expert, it’s likely they can’t give you a very in depth review.

Thankfully there are websites such as Software Informer to make a client’s decision-making easier. Software Informer covers a huge range of programmes and software and provides comprehensive reviews.

The first thing you’ll notice about the above screenshot is how organised it is, with tags and clearly delineated boxes. This is crucial on a site where there are an overwhelming number of reviews.

The star rating system makes it easy for customers to see at a glance whether they’re interested. Once you click into a review, they give you the essential facts of the product at the top:

You can see that this example product review article is very straight-forward, mainly sticking to the properties of the software. It’s not effusive or overly complimentary, as the site needs to maintain its professionalism.

2. Buyer’s Guides

Buyer’s guides provide a similar round-up of reviews, but usually they are not in one specific niche. Websites such as Which? are independently run, meaning they can be completely unbiased. They cover a huge range of products, bringing together reviews from many different sectors.

These websites use a slightly more informal tone than the professional review sites. They feel more like they’re on the customer’s side. For example, let’s look at how to write a product review article for a buyer’s guide using this Nespresso-compatible Pods article .

They set out exactly what the article is going to do in the introduction – note the friendly tone of the writing.

As Which? is funded by customers, you need an account to see the details, but you can still see below the clear, informative way they lay out their facts:

They include the essential information at the top, and then the review underneath in an easy-to-read manner. This format makes it easy for the consumer to scan the list and glean the information they most need – such as price.

3. Affiliate Reviews

You can find reviews for products and services on all sorts of websites, not just ones designated solely to reviews. Niche websites everywhere make the most out of affiliate marketing by creating round-up posts which contain affiliate links . If you own an e-commerce store selling products you don’t manufacture yourself, reviews are important here too.

Round-up posts are one of the most popular, as they are easy to read and give the buyer a lot of options to consider. Let’s take a look at an example for how to write a product review in listicle format .

Creative Bloq is an arts and design inspiration website with a vast array of articles. They cover everything from industry news to product reviews. Check out this listicle featuring the best office chairs (and note the pertinent theme too, as more people are working from home).

Keep the title short and to the point. Don’t jump straight into the list either – write out a nice introduction so the reader knows what to expect. These types of posts are also great for increasing social media traffic – you’ll notice the social media buttons at the top.

The list itself follows the same format all the way through.

There’s always a picture so that the customer can see exactly what the product looks like. Then all the essential information is listed in an easily scannable list at the top. The website keeps the review fair and balanced, listing both pros and cons of each chair. Then the body of text expands on the product’s key selling points.

Of course, at the side, you’ve got direct links to the products at various sites. This is handy for both the reader and the website, as they’ll earn commissions when someone buys something via that link.

Blogger Reviews

Although blogger’s are also likely to make use of affiliate links on their sites, their reviews are often a lot more in-depth and personal than affiliate reviews or professional reviews. They might have been gifted the product in exchange for an honest review, which is something you can do if you own a business.

Bloggers are known for their friendly tones and personal approach. They often tell stories with their posts, rather than simply trying to sell a product (which still might happen!).

There are thousands of examples of excellent blogger product reviews out there. Take this double roller blinds installation review from The Carpenter’s Daughter , or this one of a greenhouse from Down To Earth . You’ll notice straight away that these reviews are so much more in-depth than the round-ups. Often the product is the sole focus of the blog post. This allows for more room for photos and getting into the particulars.

Product reviews such as these allow the reader to see exactly how the product might function in their own homes (or gardens). They’re incredibly valuable to a business, as they often have a trusting relationship with their readers!

Still don’t know how to write a product review? Call in the experts!

Not sure how to put together that converting product review for your website? If you need a helping hand when it comes to writing product reviews, let us help you! We can help you increase customer conversions on your site with our product review writing service . Get in touch today to see how we can help.

Abbie Walker

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How to Write a Product Review With 10 Tips and a Template

Want to make your product reviews stand out from the crowd?

Writing a quality product review takes time. So if you’re going to put in the time, you want to get the best results, right?

Thankfully, there are some tried-and-true tactics that you can start implementing in your reviews to help make them more effective.

Not only will learning how to write a product review make your reviews more helpful to your readers, but these tips will also help you increase your reviews’ conversion rates, which is important to your bottom line if you’re monetizing your site with affiliate marketing .

In this article:

1. Avoid the “High School Essay” Introduction

2. showcase your expertise and how you tested the product, 3. format your review to make it scannable, 4. highlight real use cases or solved pain points, 5. include pros and cons, 6. tell people who the product is for (and also who it’s not for), 7. recommend alternative products, 8. include real product pictures or screenshots, 9. highlight important purchase details (pricing, variations, etc.), 10. recap important conclusions at the end, copy and paste this product review template, another tip to improve your product reviews, start writing better product reviews today, how to write a product review: 10 tips to follow.

Here are 10 tips you can implement today to start writing more helpful and effective product reviews. 

At the end of this post, we’ll also include a product review template that you can use as a rough guideline for your reviews.

As with any blog post, your review’s introduction is one of the most important elements because it’s what convinces readers to engage with the rest of your review.

However, it’s easy to fall back on the introduction style that you were taught in school, AKA the high school paper introduction .

Let’s say you’re writing a review of a mattress.

The high school essay introduction would go something like this:

“Mattresses are a very important part of every bedroom. Everyone needs a mattress to sleep on and there are a lot of options to choose from. What’s more, mattresses can be expensive, so it’s a big decision to make. No one likes wasting money, so you’ll probably want to do some research before you choose your mattress. You’ll also want to make sure your chosen mattress fits your sleeping style…”

None of that content is wrong – it’s just not really helpful to the person who’s reading a product review.

Someone who’s reading a review of a mattress already knows that choosing the right mattress is important – that’s why they’re reading a review instead of just purchasing the first mattress they come across!

A better introduction would get straight to the point with something like this:

“Is the CoolMattressCompany Model X mattress the best value mattress in 2022? To help you decide, we purchased this mattress and ran our own set of 20 hands-on tests.

In general, this mattress makes a great option for side sleepers who sleep hot, but back and stomach sleepers will probably want to stay away.

To learn where our conclusions came from and see all of our hands-on testing data, keep reading our full CoolMattressCompany Model X review”.

In a few sentences, this introduction builds trust, shows readers you actually tested the product, and shares some key conclusions so that readers start getting value from the post right away.

If you want people to trust your opinion, you need to give them a reason to.

Some of the people reading your review might already be fans of your website, in which case they’ll inherently trust your opinions because they know who you are.

However, a lot of people will also find your review from Google search , so they won’t have any preexisting reason to trust you when they start reading.

When they first land on your review, they’ll be asking themselves questions such as the following:

• Who is this person?
• Does this person know what they’re talking about?
• Did this person actually test the product?
• Why should I trust this person’s conclusions?

Ideally, you’ll want to showcase some expertise near the beginning of the review, as this can help convince visitors to keep reading.

The Sleep Foundation does a great job at this, with a summary box at the top that lists the review’s author qualifications and testing methodology. Readers can also click on the author or methodology to see more information in a popup.

For high-value products, you might want to go further and explain your actual testing methodology. That is, how you tested the product, what objective tests (if any) you ran, and so on.

For an example of a more in-depth methodology section, Wirecutter also does a great job of building trust by including an entire “How we tested” section that showcases the full testing methodology, along with real pictures from the testing ( more on that a bit later ).

When you write a product review, you need to satisfy two very different types of readers:

• “Just give me the facts”-type people who just want the conclusions and don’t care about all of the details.
• “I need to know every single detail to make my decision”-type people who want to read all of the details and see all the test results.

While these might sound like two polar opposite objectives that are impossible to satisfy in the same review, you can cover both scenarios – you just need to focus on formatting.

The basic idea is that you want to use formatting to offer short, scannable conclusions for people who just want the high-level details, and then detailed explanations and data for people who want more information.

For example, consider another mattress review from Sleep Foundation – it offers a scannable information box at the top to quickly communicate the key details and then deeper explanations in paragraph format right below:

RTINGS.com is also one of the best here, with a tabbed summary box that includes pretty much all the information that “just give me the facts”-type readers will want. People who want more depth can keep reading to see where all of the conclusions come from, which RTINGS.com also includes below the summary.

If you’re using WordPress, you can use blocks to easily create custom callouts and summary sections.

When you’re writing a review, it’s important to highlight a product’s features. However, features aren’t really what people care about.

Instead, readers are more concerned with how those features help them in the real world and solve any potential pain points that they’re dealing with.

For example, here’s a feature:

“Mattress A offers high-density Corelite foam”

Now, if that weren’t a made-up technology that was created just for this example, people who were really into mattresses might already know why “high-density Corelite foam” is important.

However, most of your readers who are just looking to replace their mattresses won’t have a firm idea of why they might want such a mattress.

For that reason, you want to go further and also explain why/how that feature will make the reader’s life better/easier.

Here’s an example:

“Do you ever wake up sweating in the middle of the night? Mattress A offers high-density Corelite foam which means the mattress actively moves heat away from your body. This helps keep the mattress cool to the touch all night long and lets you avoid those mid-sleep sweats”.

Now, the reader knows about the feature and how that feature will actually improve their life if they purchase the product.

If you want to write a quality product review, you can’t just focus on the good parts of a product – you also need to cover the bad parts.

There are two big reasons to include positives and negatives:

• It demonstrates authenticity to your human readers and helps them make better decisions. Most products are not perfect and there are always trade-offs, even if they’re minor. Highlighting those tradeoffs will help people be more confident that the product is still right for them (or that an alternative might be better – more on that later).
• Google has emphasized its desire to see pros and cons in its various Product Review updates , which means that not adding any information on a product’s downsides could make your review less likely to rank in Google.

However, you are free to play around with your “framing”, depending on how you prefer to approach your reviews.

The “standard” approach for product reviews is to use “pros” and “cons”, which will be universally understood by your readers.

If you want a more aggressive framing, you could do something like “what the product does well” and “what the product does poorly”.

And if you want a softer framing, you could do something like “what the product does well” and “where the product could improve”.

There’s no right or wrong here – it really just depends on your website’s tone of voice.

When writing product reviews, it’s easy to focus on telling readers how they will benefit from the product. And that’s important – it was tip #4 on this list!

However, it’s just as important to highlight the scenarios in which a person won’t benefit from the product (or at least where the product isn’t optimized for that scenario).

This is similar to the idea of pros and cons, but it’s about taking the “cons” and applying them to real-world use cases that the reader might be considering.

Highlighting use cases where the product is not a good fit serves two purposes:

First, the obvious purpose is that if the person does fit in one of the scenarios where the product isn’t a good fit, it will help them make a better purchase decision.

However, the slightly less obvious purpose is that it also makes people more confident in purchasing the product that you reviewed if they don’t fit into one of those scenarios.

For example, consider the conclusion of our review of the Gravity Forms plugin for WordPress . A user who only needs a simple contact form would know that maybe there are better options for them, while a user who wants to create more advanced types of forms would be even more confident that Gravity Forms is the right option for them.

For another example, here’s a different mattress review from a site named Sleepopolis that does a great job of highlighting both types of recommendations. Better yet, it also uses the “who it’s not for” section as a place to direct readers to products that might better fit their needs, which leads to the next point…

It’s rare (almost impossible) for the product that you review to be the best option for literally every single person reading your post.

As we’ve discussed already, trying to position a product as being the perfect option for every person in the world will rightfully feel inauthentic to your readers.

Instead, be upfront that other products might be better in certain situations. Then, include those products and when the reader might want to choose them over the product that you reviewed (along with their drawbacks).

“While we think that Mattress A is the best option for side sleepers, back sleepers might not find it quite as comfortable. If you exclusively sleep on your back, you might want to consider Mattress B instead as it offers better support and comfort for back sleepers.”

Price is also a common reason for searching out alternatives, and it’s always a good idea to recommend some cheaper alternatives. If you highlight the drawbacks of these alternatives, they can even serve as a foil to highlight the advantages of the product that you reviewed.

The Wirecutter does a good job of always recommending a budget pick and also explaining the tradeoffs of going with a cheaper option.

Beyond being helpful for human readers, Google also looks to see alternative product recommendations as part of its Product Review algorithm updates.

Sadly, the online product review space is not always a pillar of honesty and it’s common for some sites to “review” products that the writer hasn’t personally used.

Typically, these writers will just read existing reviews for the product and then summarize that information.

This causes two big issues if you want to make people take your reviews seriously:

• Savvy readers will be on the lookout for red flags, and a lack of original imagery is one of the biggest red flags there is.
• Google has been trying to target and de-rank these types of reviews with its many Product Review search algorithm updates. To help do that, original images are one of the factors that Google looks at when ranking review posts.

While showcasing your expertise and testing methodology is one way to assure visitors that your review is legitimate, another good strategy is to make sure to take your own unique product pictures and screenshots.

For physical products, it’s easy to display unique pictures because every shot you take will have its own unique background and framing.

If you’re reviewing software products, though, it can be a little trickier to highlight that your images are unique because every user experiences the same interface (more or less).

To address this, try to make use of any user input fields to show that you’ve really tested the product. You can then make sure to include that information in your screenshot.

For example, in our review of the Gravity Forms plugin , you can see how we used the form title and description to show that we really are using our own version of Gravity Forms for the review:

This tip won’t apply to all products…

However, some products, especially digital software products, can have more complex pricing and licensing options.

For example, a piece of software might have different licenses that affect usage limits, features, support policies, and so on.

In these cases, it can be helpful to explain those different options to readers and guide them towards the variant/license that best fits their needs.

On the other hand, if you’re reviewing, say, a blender…you probably don’t need to spend much time on the purchase details because there’s only one option that people can purchase. 

Instead, you can just link out to some of the best shops and call it a day.

To conclude your review, you’ll want to summarize all the important information from the previous sections and then end with a call to action.

You can start with a recap of the product’s pros and cons, along with the real-world use cases that it handles well (and poorly).

Then, you can finish with a CTA to purchase the product if it fits the user’s needs, along with some recommendations for alternative products that do a better job at handling the reviewed product’s weak spots.

The idea is that both you and the reader benefit whether or not the product is a good fit for them:

• If the product does fit their needs, the CTA will encourage visitors to go to the store and make their purchase ( which might earn you a commission if you’re using affiliate marketing ).
• If the product doesn’t meet their needs, the reader will have recommendations and links to other products that better match what they’re looking for ( and those products also could contain your affiliate links if that’s part of your monetization strategy ).

Before writing your next review, copy and paste this template into a document, and keep it on file. By following each of these steps, you can ensure every review you write covers everything your reader needs to know:

• Straight To The Point Intro that builds trust, shows readers you actually tested the product, and shares some key conclusions so that readers start getting value from the post right away
• Author Summary that shows the expertise and credentials of the reviewer
• How You Tested methodology / summary to build trust
• Quick Scan Ratings / Summary for “give me the facts” visitors
• In-Depth Details for “tell me everything” visitors
• Highlight Real Use Cases to show how it solves actual pain points
• Present Pros and Cons to verify authenticity
• Show Who It Is For and Who It Is Not For to help people make the right decision
• Recommend Alternative Products for the “this is not the right fit” crowd
• Include Product Photos or Screenshots that you personally took to verify authenticity
• Highlight Important Purchase Details for More Complex Products such as pricing plans, licensing terms, and so on
• Summary / Recap with Calls To Action (CTAs) to purchase this product as well as the recommended alternatives

Beyond following the product review template from the previous section, another great way to improve your product reviews is to, well, read a lot of product reviews!

More importantly, read product reviews from successful sites in competitive areas.

If you noticed above, we included a lot of examples from websites reviewing mattresses. 

There’s a reason for that – the mattress/sleep space is one of the most competitive spaces when it comes to product reviews, so a lot of the successful sites go above and beyond when it comes to structuring/formatting their reviews in an optimal way, testing their products (and showcasing their methodologies), highlighting the authority of their writers, and more.

Another example of a competitive niche would be headphone reviews. Sites like RTINGS.com also go above and beyond when it comes to showcasing their testing methodology and formatting their reviews.

While you might not be able to set up a full testing lab like RTINGS.com or some of the mattress review sites, reading reviews from these types of sites with a discerning eye can help you discover all types of strategies that you can take and apply to your own product reviews.

If you want to write helpful, effective product reviews, you need to go beyond just surface-level praise for a product.

First, you need to get the reader to trust you. You can get this trust by writing a strong introduction, showcasing your expertise, explaining your testing methodology, and including real images of the product.

From there, you want to highlight both the good and the bad of the product. More importantly, you want to connect those pros and cons to real-world scenarios and paint points.

You also want to explain any potentially confusing areas, such as pricing policies for software products.

Remember that you’ll have different types of readers. Some of them will want to read all 3,000 words of a detailed review, while others will just want the high points. To that end, try to add callouts and summary boxes that provide quick access to key information.

Finally, end with a recap of all the important information and clear calls to action that guide readers toward the best products for their situations.

If you’re ready to start publishing your own product reviews , WordPress.com offers an easy way to get started.

You can be up and running with a working website in just a few minutes and WordPress.com gives you all the tools you need to format your reviews in an optimal way, including summary boxes, buttons, and more.

To get started, create your WordPress.com account today . You can use the free plan to begin and then consider upgrading to the WordPress.com Business plan to access tons of useful plugins to improve your product reviews.

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About the author, colin newcomer.

Colin Newcomer is an expert WordPress writer who has been using the platform for over a decade. He's on a mission to test every single plugin at WordPress.org.

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Home ➔ How to Write an Essay ➔ Review Essay

Review Essay Guide

Review essays are fundamental to academic and professional fields, offering more than just summaries of existing literature. They provide critical analysis, synthesize various viewpoints, and evaluate the contributions of scholarly works to a particular field. In this introductory section, we’ll outline what review essays are, their purpose, and their importance:

• Definition : Review essays are analytical writings that go beyond summarizing existing research. They involve a comprehensive assessment of scholarly works, discussing their strengths, weaknesses, and contributions to a particular field of study.
• Purpose : In academic settings, review essays are crucial for fostering deep engagement with subject matter, developing critical thinking, and enhancing scholarly discourse. Professionally, they can influence policy decisions, guide research directions, and impact industry practices.

We aim to provide a thorough guide on crafting effective review essays. This includes understanding their key elements, exploring various approaches, and offering practical advice for writing, structuring, and refining your work.

This guide will serve as a comprehensive resource, whether you’re a student, researcher, or professional, offering insights into the art of writing impactful review essays.

Key Elements of a Review Essay

When crafting a review essay, understanding its key components is crucial. A well-structured review essay not only showcases the writer’s comprehension of the subject but also provides valuable insights into the field of study. Below are the essential elements that should be included in a review essay:

• The essay should demonstrate a deep understanding of the topic under review. This includes grasping the core issues, problems, or debates that the subject encompasses.
• A critical part of the review essay is briefly summarizing the main arguments and conclusions of the sources under review. This summary should capture the essence of the authors’ viewpoints and findings.
• An effective review essay goes beyond summarizing by critically analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the reviewed material. This analysis evaluates the arguments’ validity, the evidence’s sufficiency, and the conclusions’ soundness.
• The essay should also discuss how the reviewed works contribute to the broader field of study. This involves analyzing the significance of the research, its impact on existing knowledge, and potential implications for future research.

To further clarify these elements, the following table provides a breakdown of each component and its significance:

By incorporating these elements, a review essay provides a comprehensive, analytical, and insightful look into the subject matter, offering both a summary and a critical evaluation of the existing literature.

Approaches to Writing a Review Essay

Selecting the right approach is pivotal when writing a review essay. The approach you choose should align with your essay’s objective and the nature of the subject matter. Here are some of the common approaches to writing a review essay and guidelines on how to choose the most suitable one:

• State of the Art Review : This approach focuses on the most current research in a given area. It’s ideal when your objective is to offer new perspectives or highlight areas needing further research in rapidly evolving fields.
• Historical Review : A historical review explores the development of a particular field of study over time. This approach suits essays aiming to provide context, trace the evolution of thought, or understand the historical progression of a subject.
• Comparison of Perspectives Review : This method contrasts different viewpoints on a topic. It’s particularly effective when there’s a debate or various perspectives on the subject matter. It helps in illustrating contrasting research and introducing new viewpoints by comparison.
• Synthesis of Two Fields Review : Useful when different fields intersect on a common problem or topic, this approach brings together literature from multiple disciplines, providing a comprehensive view and uncovering insights that might not be apparent within a single field.
• Theoretical Model Building Review : Involves examining literature to develop new theoretical assumptions or models. This is apt for essays that propose new theories or conceptual frameworks based on existing research.

Choosing the Right Approach

The choice of approach largely depends on your essay’s objective and the subject matter’s nature. Consider the following when deciding:

• Purpose of the Essay : Are you aiming to provide a comprehensive overview, challenge existing theories, introduce new perspectives, or trace historical developments? Your purpose will guide the choice of approach.
• Nature of the Subject Matter : Some subjects might be better suited to particular approaches. For instance, rapidly advancing scientific fields might benefit more from a state of the art review.
• Available Literature : The amount and type of literature available on your topic can also influence your approach. A rich historical body of work lends itself to a historical review, while a topic with diverse viewpoints might be better suited for comparing perspectives.
• Your Expertise and Interest : Your academic background and interests can also guide your choice. An area you are more familiar with might lend itself to a more complex approach, like theoretical model building.

By thoughtfully selecting the appropriate approach, your review essay can effectively achieve its objectives and make a meaningful contribution to understanding the topic.

Preparation for Writing

Adequate preparation is crucial for writing a well-organized review essay. This involves thorough reading of the primary sources and engaging critically with the material. Here are key steps and strategies for preparing to write a review essay:

• Reading and Understanding Primary Sources : Begin with a comprehensive reading of your primary sources. This includes not just the main content but also supplementary sections like prefaces, introductions, and conclusions, which often provide valuable insights into the author’s intentions and the scope of the work.
• Engaging in Critical Thinking : As you read, engage in critical thinking. Ask yourself questions about the author’s arguments, the evidence presented, and the overall coherence of the work. This critical engagement will help in forming a deeper understanding of the material.
• Formulating Questions During Reading : Develop questions as you read through the material. These questions can range from inquiries about the author’s perspective to the implications of their arguments. This practice helps identify gaps, contradictions, or areas that need further exploration.
• Read Prefaces and Introductions : These sections often set the tone of the work and provide a roadmap of the content.
• Review Each Chapter : After reading each chapter, take a moment to summarize the major points in your own words.
• Engage with the Author’s Ideas : Imagine having a conversation with the author. This can help in critically analyzing the text and formulating your own viewpoints.

The following table provides a summary of these strategies:

By following these steps, you will be well-prepared to write a review essay that is insightful, well-informed, and critically engaging.

Structuring the Review Essay

The structure of a review essay is fundamental to its effectiveness and clarity. A well-structured essay not only guides the reader through your arguments but also enhances the impact of your analysis. To achieve this, a review essay should be clear, concise, focused, and analytical.

• Clear and Concise Communication : The hallmark of a good review essay is its clarity. Complex ideas should be conveyed in an understandable manner, making the essay accessible to a broad audience. Avoid unnecessary jargon or overly complex sentences. Conciseness is equally important. Your essay should be direct and to the point, providing enough detail to support your arguments without becoming verbose.
• Defining Terms and Providing Evidence : A crucial step in structuring your essay is defining key terms central to your argument. This clarifies your position and ensures your reader is not lost in specialized terminology. Equally important is backing up your claims with appropriate examples and evidence . This could range from quotations and data to specific instances or case studies that illustrate your points.
• Maintaining an Informative and Focused Approach : Your essay should have a clear and narrow focus. This focus allows you to delve deeply into your topic and provide detailed insights. Every part of the essay should serve the purpose of reinforcing your main argument or thesis. This focused approach ensures that your essay remains informative and relevant to your topic.
• Beyond Summarization – Analysis, Synthesis, and Interpretation : A review essay should not merely summarize the existing literature. Instead, it should add to the conversation through analysis, synthesis , and interpretation. Analyze the material to identify patterns, contradictions, or gaps. Synthesize different viewpoints to create a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Interpret the findings in a way that provides new insights or perspectives, thereby contributing to the academic discussion on the subject.

Structuring your review essay with clarity, conciseness, focus, and analytical depth is essential. This approach makes your essay more engaging and informative and demonstrates your ability to critically engage with and contribute to the academic discourse.

Academic Rigor and Documentation

A key aspect of writing a review essay is maintaining academic rigor and ensuring proper documentation. This not only reinforces the credibility of your essay but also upholds the ethical standards of academic writing.

• Utilizing Academic Sources : The backbone of a review essay is the sources it draws upon. Prioritize using academic sources, including peer-reviewed journals, scholarly books, and authoritative research articles. These sources provide reliable, vetted information that forms a strong foundation for your arguments and analyses. Using academic sources enhances your essay’s validity and shows your engagement with the scholarly community.
• The Imperative of Proper Documentation : Accurate and consistent documentation is crucial in a review essay. It serves a dual purpose – preventing plagiarism and directing readers to the original sources. Whether you are paraphrasing or quoting directly , each instance of sourced information must be properly cited according to the appropriate academic style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). This practice is not just about avoiding plagiarism; it is about contributing to an ongoing scholarly conversation by acknowledging the work of others.
• Quoting with Precision and Purpose : When it comes to quoting sources, less is often more. Over-reliance on direct quotations can overshadow your own voice and analytical insights. Use quotes sparingly and ensure they are directly relevant to your argument. When you do quote, integrate the quotation seamlessly into your essay, maintaining the flow and coherence of your writing. Paraphrasing is another effective way to reference ideas from your sources while maintaining your unique voice and perspective. Remember that proper citation is non-negotiable regardless of whether you quote directly or paraphrase.

Incorporating these practices in your review essay not only upholds academic integrity but also strengthens your arguments, ensuring that your essay is both credible and ethically sound.

Writing the Review

Writing a review essay involves a series of actionable steps to ensure clarity, depth, and coherence in your work. Here’s a detailed guide to help you navigate through the process:

Step 1: Define Your Thesis or Research Question

Begin by clearly stating the thesis or main research question of your essay. This statement should be concise and articulate the central theme or argument you intend to explore. It will guide your writing process, ensuring that all your analysis and critical discussion are relevant and focused.

Step 2: Organize Your Research

Gather and organize your research materials. Create an outline based on the themes, methodologies, or chronological order of the sources. This outline will help structure your essay and ensure you cover all the necessary points in a logical sequence.

Step 3: Critical Reading and Note-Taking

As you read through your sources, engage in critical thinking. Take notes on key arguments, methodologies, findings, and how these relate to your thesis. Look for patterns, contradictions, and gaps in the literature. This step is crucial for understanding the broader context of your topic and for forming your own perspective.

Step 4: Develop Your Argument

Using your outline and notes, start developing your argument. Ensure each paragraph or section clearly addresses a part of your thesis. Use evidence from your sources to support your points, and explain how this evidence relates to your overall argument.

Step 5: Address Controversies and Debates

Identify and discuss any controversies or major debates present in the literature. Present these objectively, showing how they relate to your thesis. Use these discussions to demonstrate research gaps or pose new questions that could be explored in further studies.

Step 6: Synthesize and Analyze

Go beyond summarizing your sources. Synthesize the information to draw new insights and critically analyze the texts to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Your analysis should add to the existing literature by providing a unique perspective or interpretation.

Step 7: Write the Introduction and Conclusion

Craft your introduction to set the context for your essay and present your thesis. Your conclusion should summarize the key points of your analysis and reiterate how they support your thesis. It should also suggest implications, future research directions, or final thoughts on the subject.

Step 8: Review and Refine

Review your essay for clarity and coherence. Check if each section transitions smoothly and contributes to your overall argument. Look for areas that need more development or clarification. Proofread to correct grammatical errors and ensure consistency in style and formatting.

Step 9: Proper Documentation

Throughout your essay, ensure that all sources are properly cited. This includes both in-text citations and a comprehensive bibliography. Proper documentation is crucial to establish credibility and to allow readers to follow up on your sources.

Step 10: Seek Feedback

Before finalizing your essay, consider getting feedback from peers, mentors, or advisors. They can provide valuable insights, point out areas that need improvement, and help refine your argument.

By following these steps, you can systematically approach writing your review essay, ensuring that it is well-researched, coherent, and critically engaging. Each step is designed to build upon the last, culminating in a comprehensive and insightful piece of academic writing.

In this guide, we have explored the essential steps and strategies for writing a successful review essay. To recap, here are the key points to remember:

• Define Your Thesis : Clearly state the central argument or research question of your essay.
• Organize and Analyze Your Research : Gather your sources, create an organized outline, and engage in critical reading and analysis.
• Develop a Coherent Argument : Build your essay around your thesis, using evidence from your research to support your points.
• Address Controversies and Debates : Objectively discuss any debates or controversies in the literature, using them to enrich your analysis.
• Synthesize Information : Go beyond summarizing sources to draw new insights and perspectives.
• Write Clearly and Concisely : Ensure that your essay is well-structured, with clear transitions and a logical flow of ideas.
• Review and Refine : Revise your essay for clarity, coherence, and grammatical accuracy.
• Proper Documentation : Cite your sources correctly to avoid plagiarism and provide references for further reading.
• Seek Feedback : Get input from peers or mentors to refine your argument and writing.

The table below provides a quick reference to these key steps:

We encourage you to apply these guidelines in your own review essay writing. These steps, when followed diligently, can help you craft an insightful and impactful essay.

Further Resources

To deepen your understanding of writing review essays, consider exploring the following resources:

• Books on Academic Writing : Look for books that specifically focus on academic writing skills, including essay structure, argument development, and effective communication.
• Online Writing Workshops : Many universities offer online workshops or webinars on academic writing, which can provide practical tips and interactive guidance.
• Writing Centers : Utilize the resources available at your institution’s writing center. They often offer one-on-one consultations, workshops, and writing guides.
• Scholarly Journals : Read review essays published in academic journals to get a sense of different writing styles and approaches.
• Style Guides : Familiarize yourself with style guides like APA, MLA, or Chicago, which provide detailed instructions on citation and formatting.
• Research Methodology Books : These can help you understand how to analyze and synthesize research effectively.
• Peer-Review Platforms : Engage with platforms where you can submit your work for peer review or review others’ essays to gain different perspectives.

These resources can provide additional guidance and support as you refine your skills in writing review essays. Remember, writing is a skill that improves with practice, so continue to seek out opportunities to learn and grow as a writer.

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