Taking The Product Review Blog Format To The Bank.
Everywhere you turn these days there are product review blogs for nearly anything you can imagine. Now, some of these blogs are done well and some are done really, really badly.
I'd like to go over a few things you want to consider if you are thinking of doing a product review site. And it's not a bad thing to consider doing either. Many people are doing quite well with this blog format and some who've struggled to earn any money with other types of blogs are seeing their first real online incomes when they start these little blogs.
- Pick a topic and stick with it! Don't review Smoothie Blenders in one post and Web Hosting in the next post. If you want to write web hosting reviews, then write web hosing reviews and leave the blenders and sweater for someone else to review, or set up another blog to review sweaters.
- Don't load down your header and sidebar with all kinds of advertising. A small amount of advertising, preferably through a program like Project wonderful or widget bucks that lets other bloggers easily ad their ads to your blog. This lets you interact with other bloggers and exposes them to your blog. The real advertising is in the reviews. Those clicks are gold as long as you aren't distracting them with a ton of unrelated ads outside the articles.
- Keep the theme for your review blog simple, clean and light. Don't use a lot of colors, just use it to highlight or accent certain things. The thing that should most stand out are the logos for the companies and products you are reviewing and they should be in the articles you are writing. Also select or code your theme with a view toward giving it a newspaper or news magazine look and feel. This will lend more credibility to your reviews because they are in a familiar, authoritative format.
A Review Blog With All The Right Moves
To see a great example of a blog that embodies all of these principles I'd like you to visit impNERD. I came across this blog the other night through the Entrecard system and was impressed with how the Review Blog format has been implemented here.
Look at how the whole blog feels like you are reading a newsletter. The Project wonderful ads at the top of the sidebar and the Entrecard widget at the bottom of it bring exposure from bloggers who might write about his reviews and link to him.
The side bar is nice and wide, keeping the main content area narrower which makes it much easier to read, and the company logos and ads in the articles invite click-throughs to the programs he recommends. Also notice that all of these reviews are related, but not necessarily competitive. A reader who uses one of these services and likes it, has a good reason to come back to this blog later and find more services that he needs.
That's a beautiful thing.
impNERD really puts it together and should be seeing a lot of success with this format. If you are thinking about doing this, spend some time reading his reviews and seeing how he does things. And be sure to check out some of the products he's reviewing because they will also help you succeed as a niche review blogger.
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Thanks for the kind words
Thanks for the kind words about my blog. I was surprised that my last review of BlogBurst was linked to by the BlogBurst blog... definitely a good link (and it is dofollow too).
Reviews really pay off. They are the #1 way of earning money through targeted ads (especially affiliates). In the case of reviewing BlogBurst I got a great link back. I wasn't even expecting anything from them, it was more of a review for my readers.
Cool Stuff!
Most of the really cool stuff is a side effect that we weren't even expecting.
I'm glad to see things are still going strong for you.
Cool! So that is how you're
Cool! So that is how you're going to do it. You see, I've been into blogging about product reviews lately. I never thought I should consider some things to get right. Thanks for the tips!
Man, I need my own blog. Its
Man, I need my own blog. Its come to that.
Really great article, very
Really great article, very helpful,thanks
I really have thought long
I really have thought long and hard about starting some new blogs along these lines. I tried one once but it failed because as you said at the top of the article.... it was too broad and reviewed anything and everything.
Thanks for the great post.
Your post reminded me that I
Your post reminded me that I really do need to get back to work on my Snailware blog, testing & reviewing software that will run on older, slower computers. I have neglected it far too long.
I used to review blogs and
I used to review blogs and products and now I move on to movies and books..
I have a review blog which I
I have a review blog which I am doing just fine and monetary is not part of it.
A review site sounds good
A review site sounds good but where on earth do they get the things to review - if I want to review digital cameras how can I review them without getting hold of them first ?
i think it could make a few
i think it could make a few dollars. the only problem with review sites is that it's hard to grow. takes a lot of reviews before you start getting visits. but if you set one up right, it'll make a nice addition to your blog portfolio
Hi Dane, Good point that a
Hi Dane,
Good point that a lot of blogs do not stick to is staying on topic and not taking every review available based on price. If you stick to your niche our blog will be better received by the reader and eventually your earning potential will grow as you become an expert in your field.
I don't know about you guys,
I don't know about you guys, but I find it pretty hard to keep up a good review blog, unless you really do work in that area. After all, you want that golden traffic flowing, people being helped and leaving comments, you want to engage the readers. Tell you what : if you don't have access to the latest products in the line, you're as good as zero; people are bound to be interested only in the hottest buzz, maybe in steady-going products, but anyway a review in your spare time about your daddy's phone isn't going to do the trick.
And, after all, if you really feel like reviewing something, why not just do it at some specialized website, where your comment may be more useful, and spare the energy for lucrative purposes?
Wow great tips. I am looking
Wow great tips. I am looking for earning extra income from the product review blog. I was a bit confused how to do it. This post helped me a lot. Thank you.
Some products really sell
Some products really sell better with reviews! Thanks for a great post on this point.
Thank you for the nice post.
Thank you for the nice post. I enjoy reading your post.
I am interested in starting
I am interested in starting a product review site. How do I go about finding products to review? Do I advertise myself and if so how to I go about finding companies to review their products? My interest would be to review earth friendly children, enfant, kids products. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Nice post, thank you.
Nice post, thank you.
Sphunn...
Sphunn...
Some good points to consider
Some good points to consider there, thanks. I agree the format needs to be easy on the eye, clear and uncluttered. It keeps the reader's attention if a page is easy to read and they are more likely to read the whole blog!
You wouldn't be talking
You wouldn't be talking about my Review Site when you said they are popping up everywhere and reviewing everything, would you?
:)
It's funny you write
It's funny you write this...I just came from John Chow's website where he has a review of some restaurant. I'm a firm believer in remaining consistent and true to blog. Although his blog does describe itself as "Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul," I certainly did not expect to see pics of food on his site.
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