How to write a kick-ass Review

One of the most common blogger questions, particularly from newbies, is how can they get products to review.

When I first started my blog back in 2011 it was done as a diary of our lives and I often reviewed items I bought myself and found useful, which is a really good place to start.

It took me about a year to start getting approaches from PR’s to review anything from baby food to toys, kitchen equipment to days out.

Reviewing products takes time and effort, but the more you put in to it, the more readers and PR companies will trust you and come back to your blog time and time again.

My Top Ten Tips are:

1 – Take good quality, large, clear photo’s of the product being used. I cannot stand reviews that use stock photo’s as you cannot see the product being enjoyed or in use, so how do you know that you actually got it out of the packaging?

2 – Don’t recycle the press release, I can read that anywhere. I want to know ‘YOUR’ opinion.

3 – Don’t copy Amazon reviews………yes, really – I have seen it happen many a time. You will get found out.

4 – Be Honest. If the item doesn’t work, say so, but be constructive about what you would change or why you think it didn’t work for you. If the item was really terrible, tell the PR person before you hit publish.

5 – Think about what you wanted to know before you tried it, because other people will have the same questions.

6 – Add current price and stockists so that people know where to buy it – if you use affiliate links, please make sure these are disclosed.

7 – What is the age recommendation. The toy may be aimed at age 8+ but if your 8 year old struggled with it, tell your readers why

8 – Embed a video of the item in use. If it’s a toy it could be the kids interacting with it, or a simple 10 second clip of it being used. You can embed instagram posts into your blog so now need to faff about with YouTube if you don’t want to.

9 – Send your link to the PR team that sent you the item as very often the brands will share your review too

10 – When you share the review on your social media pages, make sure you tag the brands too. If they share your post, see your reach go through the roof.

So there are my top tips, do you have any to add?