Credit: @sachyn xchng

One of the best ways to provide value to your readers on your blog is by writing honest, informative product reviews. No matter what niche you are blogging about, there are products that your audience could be interested in. By giving them the opportunity to pick up the best products to address their needs, you can not only build trust but also keep them coming back for more.

There are several reasons why you want to put product reviews on your blog. Sometimes, product manufacturers get in touch with you and ask you for a review of their product. In some other cases, you may want to write a review on an affiliate product to make some money on your blog. In that case, you may be inclined to write a positive review on your blog. There is nothing wrong about liking a certain product, but not everyone knows how to write a decent product review.

How To Write a Product Review

Reviewing a product is more than just providing a general set of information to your readers. Think about it. Your readers come to your blog to get value out of it. If you just grab product descriptions from Amazon and other sites and put them on your blog, you are not providing any unique value to your readers. Let’s not forget about dishonest marketers who endorse products just to make money in the process. Sometimes you can get lucky and the product you have lied about can turn out to be very good. But if you are not taking time to test products yourself, you are putting your blog’s credibility in risk.

Write a Review Not a Testimonial

This is the main problem when reviewing an affiliate product. You do want to write a review that encourages people to buy products using your affiliate links. But you don’t want to lie in your reviews. It always pays to test affiliate products and promote only the ones that are high quality. Not all affiliate programs are willing to provide you with a demo, but there is no reason to ask for a review unit (if you are reviewing a physical product).

Your Experience With The Product

Nobody wants to hear what you think others’ experience has been with the product you are reviewing on your blog. I have seen so many bloggers who use Amazon.com reviews to make judgment about a product. Some actually quote other people’s reviews on their blogs. There is nothing wrong with that if you take time to share your experience with the product you are planning to review.

Add Rich Content

Many bloggers use images that are available on Amazon or through their affiliate programs in their reviews. While there is nothing wrong with that, showing people the pictures you have taken yourself can add more credibility to your review. If you add a short video review to your post, that would be even better.

Listen and Address Issues

Everytime I review a product on my blogs, I take time to ask my readers what they think about the product and how their experience has been with it. No product is perfect, and there are always issues that owners have to deal with. If you take time to write a review on a product, you better be ready to get feedback (sometimes nasty) from your audience. Don’t take it personally. Work with your audience to address common issues. It also never hurts if you can get product makers to provide answers to questions on your blog.

Writing a review is not as straight forward as some want it to be. Sure. It’s so easy to write a positive review about a product and be dishonest about the whole process. That’s not only unethical, but it could cost you considering the latest guidelines provided by the FTC. If you are a serious blogger, you would never post a fake or incomplete review to your blog. Would you?

I recently had a chance to read Arianna Huffington’s most recent book on blogging. I have a read a lot of blogging books in my time, and I don’t quite get impressed by just any book. But I found the book to be an easy read and very inspirational, especially if you are planning to start your blog. I keep saying that you should start your blog now but I guess it works better if you hear it from someone like Arianna.

The Internet is full of information that can help you get started with blogging. The problem, as I have found out, is not the lack of desire, but rather the uncertainty involved with starting a new blog. You don’t know how many blogs you should post weekly, how to get noticed, or how to build a community. The Hufftington Post Complete Guide To Blogging (aff) tackles these very issues.

I would say that finding your voice is the biggest challenge with any new blog. There is just no formula or certain way to do it. You have got to do it for yourself. Until you have found your voice, you are going to struggle attracting visitors and building your community. But many bloggers find their voice after a few months of blogging, so I strongly encourage you to get started today!

Overall, the Huffington Post’s Complete Guide To Blogging is a great motivational book. I highly recommend this book as one to read when you feel discouraged or unwilling to do what you need to do to succeed with your blog.

Blog monetization is one of the hottest topics out there today. So there is no surprise that there are many products out there that claim to be the holy grail to million dollar blogging. The thing about most digital products is that they provide little or no value to most people. You read all these colorful salesletters that talk about how you can do this and that, but at the end of the day, the product does not live up to your expectations. So I decided to take a look around and find out whether the most popular make-money-with-your-blog product is any good.

Blogging To The Bank 3.0 Review:

Blogging to the bank has been around for a while now. It is simply one of the most popular blogging products on the Internet. The creator of this product claims to be making $35K a month from his blogging efforts, which is decent enough money for most of us. There are really to aspects to this product:

1. How To Master the art of blogging
2. How To Drive Traffic To your Blog

For the first part, you learn how to set up a blog, find a good web host, and choose the right platform for your blog. A lot of this you can find on the internet for free, but I did like the blogging blue-print a lot as it helps you have a plan and stick to it. The keyword research plan was also valuable in my opinion (if you are a newbie), but I think most advanced bloggers know how to do keyword research through tools such as WordTracker.

The traffic section of this course was interesting as the author went over Web 2.0 techniques that you can use to drive traffic to your blog. Now, I do like to mention these services in public, but I think the product owner would be extremely mad if I spilled his secrets. Having said that, there are Web 2.0 sites out there that are authority sites and can help you get ranked for keywords much more quickly.

But I think the single powerful concept in this course that makes it worthwhile is the outsourcing blueprint that is offered with this course. Sure the couple of bonuses are interesting and the free articles that you get with your purchase are useful too, but at the end of the day, one man can’t expect to make a million by himself these days. There is just so much work to do and so little time. In fact, the one major deciding difference between those who make hundreds from their blogs and those who make tens of thousands is outsourcing. If you hire 5 people who manage your blogs for you on a daily basis, you can reach heights that is simply not possible if you are on your own.

I think Blogging to the bank is a very good course for those who are new to blogging and want to monetize their blogs. I bet you have heard of at least 50% of tactics that are offered in this course. Having said that, there are a few sneaky tactics here and there that can give you an edge over fellow bloggers. I did like the bonuses too (the slides, the free articles, the blog announcer, and article analyzer software). I personally do not like to recommend a product as a must have as it all depends on where you are in your blogging journey. Having said that, I do strongly recommend you check out Blogging To The Bank 3.0 and see if it interests you. What I can tell you is it was worth the money unlike 90% off digital products that you find on the Internet.