How to Write a Product Review: 4 Golden Rules in Writing Reviews

Affiliate marketing is one of the popular industries you can join to make decent money online nowadays.

There are different job opportunities you can choose from. But if you’re an avid online shopper with a knack for writing, learning how to write a product review is the perfect gig for you.

What is an affiliate product review?

An affiliate-written product review is a type of article that contains honest and educated opinions about a specific product. It highlights all the features, benefits, and other relevant product information that consumers will find helpful in making a smart purchase.

If you’re interested to become an affiliate, you first need to figure out how to find a profitable niche.

Most first-time affiliates target the top trending niches in today’s market.

No one can blame them as these niches are proven to have a solid and high volume of demand. It’s a quick way to boost your income.

Unfortunately, consumers’ needs evolve fast. So, this type of niche doesn’t last for long.

To make sure you will make a stable, long-term income, it’s best to pick evergreen niches. Here are a few of the areas you can target:

• Health and wellness-related products and services
• Digital streaming solutions
• Financial services

Keep on reading and I’ll give you the most important pointers on how to write a product review that your readers would surely love and appreciate.

4 Golden rules in writing the perfect affiliate product review

Write noteworthy affiliate reviews like a pro by following these 4 proven rules.

1. Consider your shopping habits

Once you determine what product you want to review, the next thing you need to figure out is how you can pique your reader’s attention and gain their trust.

Take a moment and think about your shopping habits.

What are the reasons that lead you in purchasing a product? And what makes you stay loyal to a specific brand?

Successfully identifying these factors and incorporating them naturally in your reviews will help you build an authoritative voice for your readers. They will know that you truly understand their needs and offer real solutions to their problems.

This strategy also helps you build transparency and credibility which is beneficial if you’re selling high-priced products like luxury cars or predictive dialing software for example.

It’s known that consumers take more time in making a purchasing decision with expensive products. But if your product reviews provide valuable information and proof of the product’s quality, you can sell anything like hotcakes.

2. Use the product yourself

Consumers nowadays can easily detect deception. So, using puffery words and exaggerated claims will only raise suspicions.

This is why getting a firsthand experience of the product becomes one of the important rules in writing affiliate reviews.

The more you learn the inside and out of the product, the more confident you are in providing a transparent and unique perspective to your readers.

Let’s take VPN software for example since this is one of the high-paying affiliate programs available. Every brand promises to give you a strong and secure connection to protect your online activities and sensitive information.

Having the opportunity to own one, you can easily do the following:

• Identify its strong and weak points
• Explore all its practical applications
• Give handy tips on how your readers can fully utilize the software’s potential
• Cite real scenarios and problems that the software can resolve
• Write an honest and conclusive verdict (state if the brand promised value is delivered or not)

As an affiliate, myself, I’ve found this rule most beneficial in answering the readers’ questions.

What if you don’t have access to the product? Can you still write an affiliate review even without the product on hand?

Yes, you can. This will only require you to do more intensive research to learn about the product.

3. Create an effective product review structure

Just like in every piece of content, your affiliate product review must have a beginning, main body, and conclusion.

Creating an effective structure is important as this will help you achieve the following:

• Organize all the details to discuss
• Ensure consistency
• Make the content visually appealing to the readers

Brevity and clarity also play an important role here in ensuring the content is easy to read.

Remember, the review structure is purely based on how you want to present the product to your consumer. So, you’re free to personalize it to your heart’s content.

If you have no idea where to begin, you can always start with the basic structure template. I’ll break it down into three categories to make it easier to understand.

A. Beginning

The first section of your affiliate product review includes two main points: title and introduction.

The title is the first thing that the readers can see. Make sure to create an on-point and persuasive title to engage them to click it.

I suggest combining the name of the product and its special qualities. The added qualities must be interesting and provide value for the readers to appreciate it.

Let’s take an online lingerie store for example. You can focus the title creation by highlighting the products’ color, design, and material.

Format your title with H1 Headings.

This is helpful for both readers and Google to understand your content.

Granting that your title made an impact on your readers, you now have a chance to create a remarkable first impression.

The introduction is the right place to do that. There are different techniques on how you can create a great piece but the most popular is APP.

APP is the simplest technique you can use to create a compelling introduction. Let’s get to know how it works:

• Agree: This section must contain the common pain points of your target audience. It’s one way for you to make them feel that you understand their problem.
• Promise: Since you’ve stated a specific pain point, the next paragraph should contain a promise that this product really works in resolving your problem. Showing some proof is highly recommended to add.
• Preview: End the introduction with a preview of the topics so they’ll have an idea of what to expect when reaching the end of the review.

I’ve screenshotted one of Awesomex‘s posts to give you an example of how you can use this technique.

Make it easy to navigate as well by adding a table of content. You can place it before the call-to-action phrase.

B. Main Body

The main body is where the nitty-gritty of product review happens.

Here, you will lay out all the important details of the product and explain each in the simplest way possible.

The topics you can discuss vary on the type of product you’re reviewing. For physical and digital products, you can discuss topic such as:

• First impressions – if the actual product live up to your expectation
• Customer feedback and ratings
• Evaluate the brand’s promised value and determine if it turned out to be exactly as advertised
• Cost – Is it worth purchasing?
• Identify the specific audience group that will benefit from it
• Highlight its strongest features and areas that require improvement
• List down all its advantages and disadvantages over its competitors (best viewed in a comparison table)
• Breakdown subscription pricing plans, including all the features included for each plan (digital products and services)

For professional services, it’s advisable to also include their specialization and unique offerings.

No matter what product or services you are reviewing, you must always do in-depth research to verify all the information before you write them.

Writing all this information in one post and you will end up with a wall of text. Boost its readability by breaking it up using the following elements:

I. Subheading formats

Subheadings are the simplest way to organize your content and separate one key point from another.

Its format ranges from H1 to H9 where each has large, bold-style text. Their size is also a bit smaller compared to the others.

The heading 1 is automatically given to the title. So, if you create a subheading after the title, you must format it in heading 2 and everything else will follow.

To give you a clear picture, here’s an example of a product review for project management software.

Subheadings are created with a purpose. Therefore, only use them if you are planning to have a long discussion per one key point.

II. Lists

If you only intend to highlight key features, pros and cons, and other interesting facts about your product, the list is the formatting elements you can add.

Use bulleted points if the details you need to itemize are in random order. But if hierarchy is required, use the numbered list instead.

III. Images

Now let’s get more creative, shall we?

Images are one of the visual storytelling elements you can add to your affiliate review. Not only it makes your content visually appealing but also helps you tickle the reader’s imagination.

Normally, you can place relevant images under the title and primary subheadings. But you can add it to any part of your content as long as it looks natural.

Companies use images in different ways. Let’s take a home renovation company for example.

This company uses images to showcase its past successful projects. This is their way to let their readers know what they can do for them.

There are also some companies, such as this law firm marketing agency, that use images to share important data.

Other types of images you can add are the following:

• Product screenshots
• Meme-related images
• Professionally-designed infographics
• Quote and seasonal-oriented images

IV. Quiz

Images are indeed effective in keeping your product review interesting. But if you wish to drive more engagement, you need to make it interactive.

You can do it by adding quiz forms.

This type of image works best for product comparisons.

For example, you have two teams of experts that specialize in air conditioning repair. By showing their side-by-side comparison to your readers, you’ll allow them to choose which one they are likely to purchase.

In creating the quiz form, you can also add a comment section so you’ll also know their reasons.

C. Conclusion

As you reach the end of your product review, you need to give your final verdict. You should always remember to be as honest and unbiased as possible.

Also, stay consistent with the facts you’ve mentioned. Successfully doing so will turn your readers into loyal visitors.

In giving your conclusion, you must present all the good and bad points of the product such as:

• Whether the product’s value is delivered as promised or not
• Point out real scenarios where the product’s features are proven effective and useful
• If you’ve encountered issues, discuss them in a clear and concise manner
• Lastly, if the product is worth its cost

You can also give its best alternatives to provide readers other options that are more suitable to their budget or needs.

If your affiliate review is a comparison of two similar products, your conclusion must provide a clear winner. For example, you’re reviewing two of the best online educational platforms.

The screenshot above pointed out that both online course providers. But Coursera remains to be the winner because it offers more useful features.

It’s recommended to create a reliable scoring system to help your readers visualize which one is the much better choice.

4. Affiliate Link Placement

An affiliate product review wouldn’t be completed without adding relevant links.

The only question is, where should you put the affiliate links?

The good news is, you can place it naturally in any part of your content. But as a good rule of thumb, it’s recommended to place your affiliate link in the first paragraph of your introduction.

Other great places you can add your links are in the sidebar banner ads and call-to-action phrases.

Final Thoughts

Now that you’ve learned the golden rules on how to write a product review, it’s time for you to practice it.

Don’t hesitate to experiment with your content design and structure. This is an excellent method to discover what works best for you, your audience, and your blog/website.

Also, don’t forget to add powerful SEO strategies.

Properly applying its best practices to your content will help you secure a better ranking at Google. Not to mention, it will build a stronger relationship with your target audience.