How to Write an Affiliate Product Review

Product reviews are a great way to promote your affiliate links and help your audience learn about certain products. They’re also a great way to earn money from your blog and promote brands that align with your values. Here’s how to write an affiliate product review…

What you’ll Learn

What’s an Affiliate Marketing Product Review?

An affiliate marketing product review is a content piece you create on your blog/website/video/podcast, etc that provides your unbiased, in-depth evaluation of a particular product or service. It could be shoes, furniture, online games, toys, roses, security lighting….the skies the limit!

You’ll give a detailed description of the features and benefits, as well as any potential drawbacks.

By honestly reviewing this product or service you can then link to the product’s website or affiliate network and receive a commission for any sales generated from your review.

Affiliate product reviews are also an easy way to centralize the affiliate links on your site. If you’re just starting with affiliate marketing, it might be difficult to start writing reviews…

However, once you understand the basics, you can create affiliate reviews that sell your readers the products and services you recommend and provide them with valuable content…

Who’s your Customer?

Make sure you know who you’re writing for because you’ll tailor the review for them. If you’re reviewing solar panels then research who buys solar panels.

For example, that might be a homeowner who lives in California (high sun hours), works from home, and wants to save money.

What Makes a Decent Template for a Product Review?

Product reviews are one of the monetizing tools for the online entrepreneur. By this stage, your readers are at the transaction part of the Customer Purchase Lifecycle and ready to buy!

This guide will help you write better reviews, sell more products and services, and build your successful online business.

So what does a good product review template look like?…

1. An Attention-Grabbing Headline

The headline is the first thing readers see when they stumble across your review online. It needs to be very clear about what the review is about so readers know if it’s relevant to them or not.

2. A Short Introduction

A short introduction should give readers a summary of the entire review. It should be punchy and descriptive. This is where you make your case for why people should read your entire review. So, focus on a pain point or a desire, for example:

uncomfortable hiking shoes can ruin the whole adventure – if you’re reviewing hiking shoes
learning the right strategies for affiliate marketing can reward you in months not years – if you’re reviewing the Wealthy Affiliate program

3. Link to the Product and your Call to Action

If you want people to buy your products, you must include affiliate links to those products on your website. You could also include links within each section of your review template — just don’t overdo it!

For the scanners (that’s mostly everyone!) who don’t read everything, create a SUMMARY BOX at the top of the review with a call-to-action button or text link.

4. List of Features/Specifications

This section lists all the relevant specifications and features that people need to know about your product (e.g., materials used, dimensions, weight, etc.) to understand what they’re buying and decide whether it’s right for them.

5. Review of the Product

This is where you write about the benefits of the product and whether you liked or disliked the product.

When writing this section, you should take your time and include sufficient details and examples to back up your opinion of the product. This section should also describe why you wouldn’t recommend this product to others if that’s the case.

6. How to Write an Affiliate Marketing Review – Pros and Cons

A list of pros and cons helps customers weigh up the benefits of a product against its drawbacks. It also lets you highlight some of the product’s best features and put a positive spin on negative ones.

For example, the hiking boot is heavier than I’m used to, but this made it stronger and sturdier for the challenging mountain hikes.

7. Comparison to Other Products in the Category

Don’t just review the product but also compare it to other products in the same category or niche. For example, when reviewing coffee machines, make sure that you mention another coffee maker and explain how your product is different from it.

Don’t forget to add affiliate links to the other products too. This helps you build trust with your audience and makes your reviews more useful.

8. Images and Video

Both images and videos are extremely helpful for making a better impression on visitors. Images directly impact user engagement levels, while videos provide an additional way for customers to consume information about your products.

These don’t have to be videos you’ve made. You can add a helpful video you find on YouTube just like this one…

Watch Income School – Product Reviews that Rank

9. Brief Conclusion

A brief conclusion will summarize your thoughts on the product and encourage readers to take action, for example, buy this product or recommend another product if you don’t recommend this one.

You can add an affiliate link to the product you recommend and the one you don’t!

Why you Should Write Affiliate Reviews?

How to write an affiliate product review pic by Marcus Winkler

Typically people are nearly ready to buy a product or service when they read reviews. If you write super helpful and honest reviews your readers will trust you and buy so you earn affiliate commission!

In terms of SEO, it’s more difficult to get your reviews on page one of Google or Bing, but instead, you can leverage your reviews within your blog.

As you write out helpful content on your blog, for example, the How to’s and the ‘Best of’ and the ‘Lists’, keep these free of affiliate links.

Instead, link internally from these posts to your product and service reviews. These centralized affiliate links are also easier to manage.

See how I link to the Wealthy Affiliate Review above.

These reviews offer a solution to the reader’s problem or questions. So you lead the reader from the helpful content where you’ve informed them, to the monetized reviews where you give them even more information and the link to buy.

These are called targeted customers. They’ve moved from the informational to the transactional content on your site and they’re more likely to buy. You’ve helped them do their research!

Read: This is an excellent article on Wealthy Affiliate on ”How to Write a “PERFECT” Product Review & Make Money” (free sign up)

You don’t want to send hundreds of people to an affiliate offer who aren’t fully informed yet. You’ll have lots of clicks but no purchases.

In terms of monetization, choose products and services that have a higher commission. For example, reviewing cat food sounds good but it may not pay much! Whereas solar panels can cost thousands of dollars, so your commission is potentially higher.

Tip 1: Some affiliate programs pay high commissions and even recurring lifetime commissions, so watch out for these!

Tip 2: I’ve also recently learned from the Lasso Team, who help manage affiliate links, that the most targeted traffic from their affiliates comes from ‘How to’ articles so you could experiment with this idea too.

Lasso Share — Lasso – helps manage your affiliate links

How to Write an Affiliate Product Review, Honestly

This will attract more people to your site and help you build a credible reputation in your niche. Here’s how to get started.

Start with the Facts

You should be able to back up any claims you make about the product with proof. If the product’s website claims how quickly it works, find scientific research supporting this claim and include it in your review.

Provide Useful, Constructive Feedback

If there’s something you don’t like about the product, don’t just say it’s bad — explain why it’s not up to par in comparison with its competitors. If a product has many great qualities but one flaw likely to deter customers, you should still mention that flaw.

Think of yourself as a consultant who’s providing custom-tailored advice — your goal should be to help people find exactly the right product for them.

That way, even if someone decides not to purchase that product, they’ll still have a positive experience and hopefully, come back for more reviews in the future.

Do Your Research

To ensure that your review isn’t too promotional, do your research before you start writing it. This means looking at what others have written about the product, reading customer reviews, etc.

Make sure your review is unique – work out ways to make it different from other reviews. Create a helpful table or diagram, do research at your local library, and interview people.

The Income School Team have an example where they went online to see how much RVs cost new and how much they sold second-hand.

They then created a comparison table so readers could see the devaluation figures. This was a totally unique and helpful piece of information that helped their RV review hit page one of Google.

Find products that Align with your Niche

Readers should see you as an expert in your field, so it’s important that any products you promote fit into your established niche.

For example, if you write about personal finance, it would make sense for you to review credit cards or investment accounts. If you write about camping then you could review tents, hiking boots, or camping equipment.

Where to Find Affiliate Links

Travelpayouts – includes links for travel companies, for example, Viator, Booking.com, Wayaway, Discover Cars
Clickbank – includes high commission recurring affiliate opportunities and lots of companies across many niches
ShareASale – categories include insurance, legal, marketing, online dating, real estate, weddings, health, travel, gifts etc. See below…

Shareasale Categories — ShareASale – how to write an affiliate product review

Check out questions that People ask about the Product

You’ll find these in forums, social media, or customer reviews on Amazon or other retail sites. People question whether a certain product is worth buying because they have pain points they want to address with the purchase. It’s up to you to answer those questions honestly and objectively from a consumer standpoint.

Wrapping Up – how to write an affiliate product review

Product Reviews aren’t the only way to make money online. But as a content marketer, you’ll find them an effective way to monetize your site and earn money. Centralize your affiliate links here so you can more easily manage these links.

Create a helpful and informative blog with original content and you’re sure to have visitors return for more of your unique outlook on life.

My final thought here is that you don’t need to be a perfectionist – just take action and start writing those reviews! It’s all about doing and from that comes learning and growing.

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Pics: Photo by Lee Campbell on Unsplash Photo by Yoan n Siloine on Unsplash