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How to Write Engaging Product Reviews That Sell

Contents

How to Write Engaging Product Reviews That Generate Sales!

“Every sale has five obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.” – Zig Ziglar

Most experienced affiliate marketers know that persuasive product reviews are one of the cornerstones of a profitable niche site. There’s just no escaping this fact.

Traffic to a site is great, but without product reviews, it’ll be a struggle to indirectly convert visitors into sales. When someone visits your site, they’re usually looking for information.

While providing information, you’ll also want to have links within your content that points to product review posts on your site… or directly to the sales page or store.

There are 2 strategies here when promoting affiliate products on your website.


Strategy #1: Direct linking to the product

For example, let’s assume you’re on an affiliate’s survival website and you’re reading about water purification tablets… this is one of the paragraphs you may come across…

Notice how the words ‘water purification tablets’ are hyperlinked?

If we were to click on it, we’d be taken to this page…

Clearly, that is an affiliate link and the site owner would get a commission if you were to buy the potable water tablets.

This is known as direct linking. While it’s effective, in some cases you’ll want to provide more information about the product, especially if it costs more.

The more costly the product is, the more information the potential buyer will be craving for.


Strategy #2: Linking to your product review page

Let’s assume your site was talking about fireproof safes, and this was one of the safes you were promoting…

It costs $269.99. That’s quite a bit more than the $13.89 Potable Aqua tablets.

Most potential buyers will want to know more about the safe. They’ll want to know the features, pros and cons, benefits and much more.

In times like these, product reviews will help you to presell the visitor and gently nudge them towards viewing the product in a favorable light – which in turn will make them more inclined to purchase it.

This is the key reason why you need product reviews on your site. Your link in the content will take them to a detailed review on your site where they can get more information.

So what does your review need to do?


5 Things Your Product Review Needs to Do:

  1. Educate your visitor

Prior to visiting your site, the visitor may not even know about some of the products out there.

For example, water purification tablets may be foreign to them. But after reading your review, they’ll know what these tablets do and how useful they are.

  1. Build trust

Generally, people are wary of scams on the internet. Your review will need to show that it’s a legitimate product that will work… and they’ll receive their order upon purchase.

  1. Creates a need for the product

Even if there’s no urgency or need for the product, your review will need to create one in the visitors’ minds.

This is just an example, but you get an idea. You must make the visitor feel that the product is something they absolutely need, and too important to pass up on.

  1. Makes them feel like they’re getting a deal

Price can be a deterrent, but usually it’s only if the potential buyer doesn’t see the value in the product.

Your review should make it look like they’re getting more than their money’s worth and it’s a fantastic deal.

  1. Creates a sense of urgency

Scarcity increases conversions tremendously. People tend to want what they can’t have… and if others are buying it, they’ll want it too.

Mentioning that the product sells out fast and they need to get it quickly, will make visitors click on your links with more urgency.

These 5 points are crucial to making your product reviews effective.

But there’s one VERY IMPORTANT POINT that overrules all the rest…

The Most Important ‘Job’ of Your Product Review!

All tricks and tips aside, the most important job or purpose of a product review is to…

Get the click!

That’s really it. Providing information, building trust, creating need and urgency, and everything else that makes up a product review only has one purpose…

To get the visitor to click on your affiliate link and be taken to the store or sales page.

The vendor will do the selling. That’s their job.

Your job (and your product review’s job) is to send them the clicks.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re promoting digital products on ClickBank, or physical products on Amazon or Shareasale.

Once you get the click, either the long form sales page on ClickBank will persuade the visitor to buy… or Amazon’s reputation and the vendor’s product listing will convince the visitor to whip out their credit card.

All you need to do is warm up the visitor enough (with your review) so that they’re already in a ‘buying mood’ when they land on the vendor’s page or product listing.

In order to do that, you’ll need to be an expert at preselling.

Pre-what?

Preselling. Read on…


The Art of Preselling

There are tons of articles online about preselling, but you don’t need to read them all.

What’s most important is that you understand what it is.

Preselling is similar to watching a movie you loved and telling your friends to go see it.

You won’t tell them completely about it because you don’t want to inadvertently give away any spoilers.

But you’ll probably tell them that you truly enjoyed it and they need to see it too!

Your enthusiasm will make them want to watch it. Furthermore, since they know and trust you, they’ll listen to your movie recommendation.

In the same vein, your product review needs to convey your enthusiasm about the product without giving away too much. I

t needs to be slanted in favor of the product without you appearing too salesy.

If you were recommending Top Gun to your friends, you’d probably say…

“The movie is breathtaking with non-stop action. Had me on the edge of my seat. Tom Cruise did a great job. Now if only he wasn’t involved with all that Scientology nonsense. Ah well… I loved the movie anyway. You should watch it too!”

Notice how there’s a little dig there about good ol’ Tom?

That’s just the way people think and speak.

Nothing is perfect… and you should not make the product you’re looking sound like the next best thing since sliced bread.

Even sliced bread can have a hard crust. By downplaying the product a little, you’ll add credibility and legitimacy to your review.

Preselling is about being honest with your audience and making a recommendation without looking too pushy or making them feel like you have a vested interest (though you do).

Never appear too desperate in your product review and avoid hyperbole. Never lie, and do not promote poor quality products just because you’re getting a good commission.

Trust and reputation are everything online. If you recommend rubbish, you’ll lose repeat sales from your audience in the long run.

That sums up preselling in a nutshell.

Now it’s time for some legwork before you create your product review…


What to Do Before Writing Your Review

Doing your research first will help to speed up the review writing process considerably. If you’re writing 2 or more reviews, it’s best to batch your tasks.

For example, signing up for the affiliate programs at one go (if you’re using more than one); creating an Excel list with all your affiliate links for easy reference; creating customer avatars or compiling the pros and cons at one go, etc.

By batching your tasks, you’ll save time and be more productive. It’s also easier.

  1. Choose an Affiliate Marketing Network (or a couple)

Before promoting products, you must be an affiliate first. Below you’ll find a list of reputable affiliate networks you can sign up at.

  1. Read Amazon’s (or any other affiliate marketing network’s) Terms of Service

We mention Amazon because they’re extremely stringent and you can lose your Associates Account overnight if you accidentally flout their rules.

Read Amazon’s Associates Operating Agreement Here

The reason you MUST have a good grasp of the terms is so you don’t accidentally make any mistakes. Ignorance here is not bliss.

If you’re promoting products on other networks like Zazzle or Shareasale, make sure you’re familiar with their terms too.

For example, Amazon does not allow you to mention prices of the products on your site, because prices are subject to fluctuation. This is why you often see ‘Check Price Here’ on most affiliates websites when they’re linking to Amazon products.

You’re also not allowed to use Amazon links in your emails, PDFs, etc. Be aware of all these restrictions.

Do remember to check the agreement every now and then because Amazon updates its terms every now and again and you don’t want to be caught unaware.

  1. Create a customer avatar

Before writing a review, it’ll be a good idea to create a customer avatar so you know whom you’re speaking to.

For example, if you’re in the bodybuilding niche, your audience will generally be males in their late teens all the way up to their fifties, maybe.

They’ll be looking for items such as weighted vests, dumbbells, pullup bars and other equipment that will help them build their body.

Writing a product review for a pink yoga mat will be pointless. You’re not in the female fitness niche. The review will barely convert and your efforts will yield no fruit.

You can learn how to create a customer avatar by watching tutorials on YouTube. It’s all free.

  1. Choosing a product (or 3)

Choose a proven product that people generally like. If you’re promoting an Amazon product, you’ll be able to look at the star rating and the reviews to get an idea about it.

Generally, you’ll want to choose a product with a minimum of 4 stars. Anywhere from 4 to 5 stars is an ideal rating for a product. You don’t want to go lower.

If you’re choosing a product from ClickBank, look at the product’s gravity. If other affiliates are making money with it, then it sells well and is proven to convert.

  1. Research your product

There are only 3 ways you can research a product:

If you needed the product to solve a problem you had and you’ve used it and benefited from it. – you’re in the best position to review it.

For example, if you’ve bought a back brace and it has helped mitigate your back pain – you’ll know exactly how it fits you, how it helps you, what inconveniences come with using it and more.

Your review will be convincing and detailed.

If you didn’t need the product, but you bought it to check it out so you could leave a credible review, you’ll know the material used, the quality of the product and if it delivers what it says on the tin. You’ll also be able to see if it has any downsides.

For digital products (like what you’d find on ClickBank), you can always contact the vendor and ask for a review copy.

Ideally, you should have a completed website that you can show them and mention how you plan to promote their product.

This will persuade them to send you a copy because you’re an affiliate who is walking the talk, and not some freebie seeker.

If you’ve never used, bought or seen the product, all you’ll have to go on is the details in the product listing and/or the sales page.

Most affiliate sites reviewing products have not seen/used the products. Yet, the reviews are persuasive and provide value.

It may seem unethical, but it’s not. If you were reviewing generators, you couldn’t possibly buy all the different generators to test them out. It’s cost-prohibitive.

You don’t want to go bankrupt before you’ve made your first affiliate sale.

And how many generators does one home need anyway?

So you’ll write your review based on the information you can find online. You’ll still do a good job… and this report will show you how.

  1. Install the Pretty Links plugin on your website

When you install Pretty Links, you’ll be able to create custom affiliate links that can be edited easily site-wide with just one change.

If you were to use the affiliate link provided by the network in all your posts, should the product get discontinued, you’d have to go back and change all the links individually.

With Pretty Links, all you need to do is edit the link you generated, and you could point all the affected links to a new product. Very fast. Very easy.

Do note: Amazon does not like its links being cloaked or shortened unless you use their proprietary link shortener.

While they’ve mentioned nothing about Pretty Links (and other website owners may be using it), it’s imperative that you err on the side of caution.

Do NOT use Pretty Links for your Amazon affiliate links.

  1. Choose 3 products (for Amazon)

If your review is about a product on Amazon, choose 2 other similar products to compare it with. This will work very well with a plugin we’ll be mentioning later… and it gives the visitor more choices.

  1. Check the competition

While you can get internal traffic from those already on your site, it will help immensely if your review ranks in the search engines.

To know if you’ll rank, you’ll need to do some competition analysis.

For example, if you’re promoting The Ex Factor from ClickBank, you’d do a Google Search for “Ex Factor Review”. These are some of the results that would show up…

From the results, you can see that there’s a LinkedIn and a Quora result. With some work, you could beat these pages and your product review would rank too.

Quick Tip: If you installed the free Keywords Everywhere extension, you’d be able to see data such as the organic traffic, keywords the URL ranks for and more.

Another outstanding tool you must get is SEMRush.

With it, you’ll be able to analyze your competitors’ websites in detail and get tons of relevant data.

Armed with this data, you’ll know what keywords to rank for, how many backlinks you need, and much.

Knowledge is power and SEMRush will give you the info you need and the edge to win in the search engine results. Definitely a must-have!

  1. Compile the Data

In this stage, you’ll study the product’s listing and note down the different features and benefits.

You’ll also look at the reviews left by customers – and make a list of their compliments and criticism. These are all pros and cons that you’ll be using in your review later.

Let’s do one quick one now. Here’s the product…

Just from the product listing, we can tell that the product is:

  • Weather resistant
  • Comfortable for the dog
  • Has a sun shield
  • Is sturdy
  • Weighs 5.95 pound
  • Has a fleece liner
  • Made of rattan
  • Brown in color
  • Machine washable
  • Great for both cats and dogs
  • Can hold pets up to 13 lb

All of these points will be used in your product review.

If you scrolled further down the product listing, you’d see the product details. You can get more info here.

If you looked at the reviews…

You can see that it has received lots of 5-star ratings. You can find a list of benefits from here. Let’s look at 3 reviews!

Just from these reviews, you’ll know that the PetSafe basket:

All these are features mixed in with benefits. We’ll look at this in greater detail later.

Now, let’s look at a few downsides of this product. All you’ll need to do is look at the 3-star reviews which are generally fair.

From these reviews, we can tell that the basket may look cheap to some people. The hooks may also break after some use – but you can always get replacement hooks.

When mentioning the cons of a product, you want them to be mild and NOT deal breakers… like this review…

The review is saying that the basket ‘WILL break’.

This is wrong because it may have happened to them… but it could be an exception – and the exception does not make the rule.

Furthermore, the user claims to have had the basket for 5 years. There’s also a hypothetical scenario about going down a hill. Too much fearmongering.

These types of reviews will not help your cause. Mentioning that the basket may break and suddenly ‘kill’ your dog is NOT a con.

It’ll only sound the death knell for your review.

A note about 1-star reviews: These are often left by people who are furious, dissatisfied, and generally hard to please.

You might find a point or two here and there… but your impression of the product will be skewed if you read too many unhappy 1-star reviews.

Remember, you must believe in the product you’re promoting.

Too much negativity will make you skeptical about the quality of the product. Since the majority of ratings are from satisfied customers, this is a winning product.

But what if I’m promoting ClickBank products?

The principle is the same. Source for data on the sales page and extrapolate from there.

For example, if you were promoting GlucoTrust, this is what the sales page will show…

From here, you just need to go into detail about the different herbs and how they prevent a multitude of health problems.

The product is manufactured to high standards using organic ingredients. It’s a bestseller. The more bottles you buy, the cheaper it gets. There’s a money back guarantee. There are bonuses.

All these are features and benefits. You have to be observant and be able to spin features into benefits.

Now let’s get to the interesting part…

How to Write Your Product Review!


Step 1: Create a Compelling Headline

Your headline is EVERYTHING when it comes to getting the visitors to click on your review.

The best way to learn how to write a headline will be to spend time doing searches on Google for different product reviews and see what shows up.

This will tell you what is working in Google.

For example, if we did a search for “best dog collar” …

These are some of the titles that show up:

  • The 9 Best Dog Collars of 2022
  • The Ultimate Guide To 2022’s Best Dog Collars
  • The 10 Best Dog Collars for Pups of All Sizes
  • 10 Best Dog Collars in 2022 – Reviews & Top Picks
  • The 10 Best Dog Collars To Buy Right Now, in Every Style
  • The Best 6 Dog Collars Rated and Reviewed
  • 2022 Dog Collars Guide: How to Choose the Right Dog Collar
  • The Very Best Dog Leashes
  • If Your Dog Has a Sensitive Neck, Try These 4 Collars
  • What is the Best Dog Collar?

You could use these titles for other products too!

For example, this title – The 9 Best Dog Collars of 2022… can be used to create…

New title: The Best 7 Water Filters of 2022

Is that good?

Of course, it is.

Another title: The Best 6 Dog Collars Rated and Reviewed

This is without a doubt the best way to build a list of headline swipes that you can always refer to when creating a headline.

Don’t try to be too creative or reinvent the wheel. Just follow what’s working.

Try searching for “(Product X) + Reviews” or “Product X + Vs.” … or “Best + Product X” on Google daily and add 5 new headlines to your swipe list daily.

In 20 days, you’ll have 100 cool headlines you could tweak in seconds to fit the products you’re reviewing.

Let’s do one more for baby wipes just so it’s clear. We’ll search for “Baby Wipes Reviews”.

One of the titles even has a location in it – 10 of the Best Baby Wipes in Australia in 2022.

Numbers in your title will grab attention… and the year (2022) will make your review seem new and updated.

We could easily use this title for clothes steamers – 10 of the Best Clothes Steamers in Canada in 2022.

What? Clothes steamers? Does anyone even buy those?

You bet they do. It’s a bestseller on Amazon with over 76,000 ratings.

And if we did a search for “Best Steamers” … we’d see this in the results, which is a headline waiting for you to swipe.

Can we use that for another product?

Yes, we can.

  • 13 Best Bed Pillows for Banishing Insomnia
  • 7 Best Insecticides for Banishing Pests in Your Garden
  • 5 Best ‘No Soliciting’ Signs to Banish Unwelcome People

We’re almost tempted to buy the last one.

Your takeaway here: You can find all the headlines/titles you need just by doing research and compiling a list.

Titles are not copyright-protected. A few tweaks here and there, and you’re good to go.


Step 2: Writing the Introduction

There’s a formula for the introduction. You should always introduce a problem… then agitate it… and finally present a solution.

Your introduction must grab attention. Empathy will always win here.

Look for a problem for every product you want to promote. Here are 5 quick examples…

You can find a problem very easily just by looking at the product listing or even doing a Google search.

If we looked at the ice cube maker listing, we’d see that one of the benefits is that it can make 9 ice cubes in 6 minutes.

This benefit can be turned into a problem → most ice cube makers are too slow.

When you need ice for your whisky while drinking, by the time those ice cube makers are done, you’re already sober. Too long! It was a tiresome problem to have…

Until you found the Silonn ice maker! Wonderful!

So you’ve presented a problem and offered them a hint about the solution.

If you’re struggling to come up with ideas, do a search.

For example, with the copy printer paper, what could possibly go wrong?

Most people will scratch their heads to find a problem with white paper. Well, let’s look at the product listing on Amazon.

Voila! A whole list of problems.

Paper that can jam, is acidic, tends to yellow, doesn’t let ink dry quickly, is too rough, not bright enough, colors don’t show up vividly, etc.

You didn’t see that coming, did you?

Not unless you work in an office and spend half the day making copies. All you need to do is look at the benefits and ask yourself, “What’s the opposite of these benefits?”

These are the problems

In summary, find a few common problems people face in regards to the product you’re about to promote, and mention them in your introduction.

Add your personality, empathy, a story or a few hilarious incidents and then… we move on to the body of the review.


Step 3: Writing the Body

When writing the body, there are a few key points you must get right.

Firstly, every feature must be turned into a benefit… and every benefit, must be turned into an outcome.

If we used the ice cube maker example…

One of the features is that it has an ultra-efficiency compressor. This is the feature. Most people don’t care about it, though some do.

What’s the benefit?

The benefit is that it makes ice cubes FAST! You can have 9 cubes in 6 minutes and 26 lbs of ice in 24 hours. That’s awesome.

Now this is a benefit!

But it’s not enough.

The most important question… What is the outcome?

You need to sell the outcome.

In this case, the outcome is that you’ll always have ice ready and waiting for you. If guests were to suddenly arrive, you’ll have ice in minutes to serve them with their drinks.

The infrared sensor (feature) will mean that ice does not overflow (benefit)… which in turn means that it’s hassle-free and you’ll not need to worry about the ice cube maker while it works on autopilot (outcome).

Do you see it now?

Don’t just sell the problem the product solves… sell the outcome. People buy based on emotions… and future outcomes.

Get this right and it’s half the battle won.

For the rest of the review, you’ll mention the pros and cons that you collected earlier.

Turn every feature into a benefit – as shown in the earlier example.

What? You need more examples?

Ok… one more…

The Lifestraw’s features are:

  • Removes bacteria and parasites
  • Removes microplastics
  • Created after rigorous testing
  • Long lifetime

The benefits…

  • Makes water safe for you to drink. If you run out of water while hiking or in a survival situation, you can drink out of puddles, streams and rivers without worry.
  • It’s extremely safe to use and you can rest assured that you’ll not get sick, because this is a tested and proven product.
  • You’ll save money because it’s durable and will last a long time.

Always ask yourself what is the reason for the feature… and you’ll discover the benefit.

Then ask yourself how the benefit will improve your life – and you’ll have your outcome.

That’s really all there is to it.

Quick Tip: When writing a review for a product, see if you can find related products that will complement it.

You can drop a few more links in your review. Remember, your review’s job is to get the click.

You never know which product mentioned in the article will pique the reader’s curiosity.

For example, if you’re promoting the Lifestraw, just by mentioning that the Lifestraw Water filter bag is better if one is camping out with their family, may get the visitor to click on that link.

He/she may end up buying one or both products… but what matters is that they landed on Amazon after clicking on your link.

Now it doesn’t matter if they buy a LifeStraw or a ukulele – you’ll still get a commission. People are unpredictable.

If you’re wondering where to find products to cross-promote, just look at the section below the listing and you’ll find several other products.

Click on different product listings and see what else shows up.

You could even mention bug out bags, Potable Aqua tablets, and other items that are relevant to the product review. Link as and when you can – but do so sparingly.

Another technique you can use is to mention different products for different needs.

The image below will make it clear…

By recommending products according to the visitors’ needs, they’re able to promote multiple products.

If you’re willing to review more products within one review, you could use this method.

Or maybe just limit it to 3 – value for money, best overall and most easy to use.

It’s up to you how you do it.

Different marketers will have different ways of writing reviews. There’s no one size fits all template here… which is why this report is not giving you a template.

As long as you get the fundamentals right (mentioned in this report), your review will be good.

Once you’ve written your report, it’s time to format it so that it reads well.

Formatting your product review

Most people skim read content online. They have short attention spans and are impatient.

You should make your review detailed and also easy to skim read – so you appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

For example, you should go into detail about the pros and cons of the product. The visitor who wants to know more, will read the full review.

The less patient visitor who prefers to skim read needs a quick table he/she can refer to. (See image below)

The home security website gives a quick table of pros and cons that makes it easy to see at a glance what they feel about the product.

You MUST have a pros and cons table on your product review.

Another technique to make your review easier to read is to use images on the pages. Images will break up the text and make the review more attractive and engaging.

You can even use Canva to design unique images for your featured image.

You’ll also want to use headings, subheadings, lists, bullet points, a clear font, lots of white space and a contrasting font color to make your text easier to read.


Here’s a secret tool the top Amazon affiliates are using!

If you’ve seen product reviews with cool tables featuring the products, features and the ‘check price’ button, you may have wondered how they do that.

Simple. They are using a plugin.

There are several plugins that will help you create these tables. However, pulling in data from Amazon is tricky. If you’re using the wrong plugin, your account can get shut down.

The best plugin that we’ve found is called AAWP (Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin).

Not the most imaginative name, but it sure does the job!

This is just one of the comparison tables you could create with it…

Notice how it populates the table with the features of the product?

That’s exactly what you need. The plugin will display the features so that you don’t need to.

All you need to do is mention the benefits and outcomes.

For visitors who want to know about the technical details, they can just refer to the comparison table.

If they want to know even more, they’ll just click on the ‘Buy On Amazon’ link.

Voila! Again… you’ve gotten the click… again.

Unfortunately, this plugin only works with Amazon. If you’re promoting products on other networks, you’ll have to create the tables yourself.


A Few Other Tips:

For your reviews to rank, your site and the pages need to load fast. Use a good theme like Astra which is lean and not bloated with code.

You’ll also want to take a look at Nitro Pack and use it to put your site on steroids. Your site will load faster than you ever thought possible.

One of the key ranking factors that Google looks at is the links going to your product review.

To increase internal links to your product review, you can use Link Whisper to automate the process.

To build external links, you may wish to hire a few professionals on Legiit to help you get the job done.

Remember, only use the proven sellers (with good reviews) – and do NOT overdo it.

Less is more. Take your time to build your links. Too many too soon and Google will flag your site and that will be the end of it. Be very cautious.

We’re almost done…

Final words

The best way to create persuasive product reviews will be to apply the pointers mentioned in this report and practice writing as many reviews as you can.

The first one will always be the toughest and your worst work. The good news is that you can only get better… and the more you do it, the more adept you’ll become.

Over time, you’ll discover your writing voice and your reviews will be so good that visitors don’t just read them – they feel them.

When you reach this level, your reviews’ conversion rate will skyrocket because you’re speaking the same conversation that’s in the visitor’s head.

They’ll be on the same page as you and be much more likely to click on the links in your review.

Finally, spend 30 minutes to an hour a day doing Google searches for “Product X + review”.

Look at all the different reviews that show up and study how they’re laid out.

There’s so much to learn just by analyzing and reverse engineering the reviews that show up on the first two pages of Google.

There are hundreds of thousands of reviews for a ton of products online. You’ll never run short of reviews and techniques to study, model and experiment with.

Put in the virtual sweat equity and practice until every review you write makes you sales. It can be done, and you’ll get there with practice.

Start today!

Val GVal Galvan: Your friendly nerdy dad helping out other solopreneur dads and moms out there in the online hustle. Here's how he grew a page to more than a million followers... and the secret sauce he used.