I've been product blogging since 2006 for myself and learned a ton of things on the way. There are a ton of tools I have used that ended up being useless and others that I cannot live without. Here are 3 things that I learned about product blogging and how you can use them to improve your blog, sales and traffic.
1. Understand The Difference Between Reviews And Giveaways
Reviews generate sales while giveaways drive traffic.
If you have a loyal following that comments, shares and tweets your posts then you've gained their trust. When you review products you are potentially more likely to generate sales if you can pre-sell the product well enough and make them want it.
If you are doing a giveaway, people don't normally shop as much because they have a chance to get the product for free. You can however have them like your Facebook page, follow you on Twitter and have 5 other friends do the same. Not only does this drive more traffic and fans, but if your content is good and you can gain the attention of your new readers, you can turn them into loyal fans who will also follow you.
If you are doing giveaways or looking for tools to help with them, Rafflecopter is an amazing way to run your giveaway with no coding or work.
2. Date And Categorize Everything!
One thing that I wish I knew years ago was to date and categorize everything properly. If a Merchant goes out of business and your readers or new readers find the posts and the links are broken, the products aren't available or they redirect to a new site that could offend or anger them, you have now probably lost one of your new readers.
What you need to do is put a date and message by the review or giveaway that is clear and lets your new readers know that the review may no longer be valid since it was from that specific day and time.
For categorizing your posts, make sure you use the Merchants name as a tag or category so you can do a quick search in case you need to replace all links or remove all posts. This will let you find them all extremely fast and replace everything a bit easier. This is something extremely important.
3. Add Dates To Any Deal Or Coupon
Same way, if you have an advertiser who is running a special or a coupon on your site, make sure you put a disclaimer on the post letting your readers know when the deal is good for and when it will expire. This way if someone finds the post after it has expired, they'll know that it wont work and they wont take it out on your site. You could also add to contact you in the disclaimer and provide an email address to get a new coupon which will show your advertiser that you still have interested people and that they should run another ad with you.
Product blogging is a lot of fun and can be extremely profitable. You do have to be careful of products and images breaking because they are no longer available, offers being cancelled and having to replace links and posts quickly to keep your advertisers happy. By using dates and times and also letting your readers know how to reach you, you have a good chance of keeping both your readers and your advertisers happy.
If you liked this, you'll love 5 Steps to Becoming the Top Affiliate for a Product
Great post but as someone doing a lot of prospecting and working with clients who have used reviews and giveaways… that review blog you describe is one I wouldn’t touch with a 10′ pole. Of course the amount of these reviews you have in your Bl profile plays into it…. but word of advice…if their are a ton of reviews on the blog and they are general Ie: no theme or niche…. tread carefully and make sure the content is a cut above…otherwise best to leave it alone….
Wonderful tips. You can target a certain niche that is generating a lot of interest and write product reviews on your blog. You can then earn money through affiliate marketing by sending interested readers to product vendors.
I love when I come across useful tips. These are great tips for anyone starting out with a product review blog. I’ve been reviewing products since 2006 and I couldn’t agree more. 🙂
Thanks Amanda. I wish I knew this too when I started back then.