Blogging the Festive Season

It’s that time of year: the silly season is upon us!

The bricks-and-mortar stores have had the Christmas trees and fake Santas up for months … but what’s the blogosphere doing to prepare?

The answer depends on who you talk to. Every blog and every audience is different, after all. Still, we can learn from each other’s ideas and get inspiration from niches outside our own.

Today and tomorrow, we’ll look at a few different blogs, and see how their owners are preparing for the festive season:

Some of the blogs have been around for years, while others are barely 12 months old. Some of the bloggers work full-time on their blogs, but others are part-timers fitting in blogging around their day jobs. We’ll find out:

how they’re planning to optimize festive season sales and promotionshow they’re fitting blogging in around all the other stuff that happens in the lead-up to the end of the yearhow they’re planning to keep in touch with clients, followers, and fans over the New Year breakhow much they’re expecting to work over this period, how much time they’re hoping to spend with family and friends—and what they’ve done to make that possiblewhat they’re doing to make sure they hit the ground running in 2013—and what they’ll focus on then.

I hope you’ll find this series inspiring. To kick off, let me give you a bit of a behind-the-scenes peek into what I’m doing on dPS, a product blog, for the festive season.

It’s a busy time for dPS in the lead-up to the festive season. As well as maintaining our publishing schedule, we’re starting to prepare for our annual 12 days of christmas celebration. It’s always a lot of fun … and a lot of work.

For each of the 12 days leading up to Christmas, we offer a special price on either one of our own products, or that of a hand-picked partner. So there’s a lot of work getting those deals in place, and getting the pages and promotions ready to go ahead of time.

This sale is something that the dPS audience really loves, so we keep trying to improve, and we’re ramping things up again this year. Past experience has shown that the sale should create a lot of additional traffic to the blog, but not just to the sales pages themselves—we’ll start to see increases in the visitors coming to certain tutorials, too. Posts on portraits and family shots are always popular at this time of year, as are more specific topics like photographing fireworks.

And while we do promote the 12 days of Christmas deals as great gift ideas, we also encourage our regular readers to buy a special gift for themselves, too.

I always like to take some time off at Christmas to spend with family and friends, and preparation is the key. I’m fortunate that I can share some of the preparation with my team, but we also plan and schedule content well in advance so that everyone who works on the blog can enjoy the time off.

With all the activity happening in the lead-up to Christmas, I’m pretty busy. In the period between Christmas and New Year, I’ll do check-in from time to time but I do limit that to as little as I can.

Taking time off means I need to prepare for the time when I get back to work in 2013. That preparation’s been going on for a while now—we already have our first new product ready to launch in January, so that will take some of our focus early in the year.

I’ll also start plotting our roadmap for the rest of year in January, with my team, and of course the publishing schedule is an ongoing task.

Understanding seasonality is an important part of maximising the sales of products for those with a product or affiliate-product blog.

The products on dPS are well suited to festive events, so we ensure our campaigns are timed to maximise that potential. But even if you’re products aren’t really relevant to Christmastime, there will be other times during the year when demand will be at its highest.

For those of us who rely on product sales income, it’s important to have a plan in place so you can meet that demand.

At the end of the series, I’ll provide you with a five-point checklist to help you prepared your product—or other—blog for the festive season. But for now, I’m interested to hear your stories. What do you have planned on your blog for the coming weeks? Let me know in the comments.

View the original article here

Free Webinar: 10 Things I Wish I’d Known About Blogging When I Started

It’s time for another ProBlogger webinar, and as part of my 10 days of celebrating my 10 years of blogging, I thought in this next webinar that I’d do some reflecting upon the big things that I wish I’d known when I started blogging.

Register to attend here.

The last ten years has been a pretty amazing journey. I’ve learned a lot about creating content, building an audience, building community, and monetization. Much of what I’ve learned I’ve discovered the hard way through making mistakes and loads of experiments (many of which failed), so this webinar is about trying to communicate some of those lessons learned in the hope that you won’t need to make the mistakes I did.

I’ll be pitching this hour-long webinar mainly at the beginner-to-intermediate bloggers, and will be including time for Q&A at the end.

The webinar is scheduled for 8pm US Eastern time on Tuesday 4 December. For our international audience this means it is at:

Pacific Time: 5pm Tuesday 4th DecemberLondon: 1am Wednesday 5th DecemberDelhi: 5.30am Wednesday 5th DecemberSingapore: 9am Wednesday 5th DecemberMelbourne: Noon Wednesday 5th December

If you can’t make it to the live call, I’ll record it and will send out the recording to all who register to attend.

View the original article here

All ProBlogger Ebooks Are $10 for the Next 10 Days Only

Today is my tenth anniversary of starting blogging and to celebrate I’m offering all ProBlogger ebooks at just $10 each—that’s a 50-90% saving on their normal price.

Ten years ago when I hit Publish on my first blog post, I could never imagined how that moment would change my life.

Having read my first blog only minutes before I spontaneously decided to give it a go myself—registered a Blogspot blog and quickly wrote my first post.

In that moment before I hit publish I had mixed feelings:

On one hand I felt excited by the potential of this new medium of blogging and wondered what it would happen.On the other hand, I had many doubts—I had no technical experience, I wasn’t a great writer, I didn’t know if I had anything to say and wondered if anyone would ever read what I did write.

I had every reason not to start that first blog but for some reason felt compelled to hit Publish.

Fast-forward to today, ten years later, and I’m so glad I did!

Blogging has opened up some wonderful opportunities to meet great people, learn so much about the topics I write about and to travel and experience some amazing things.

That it has also become a business and the way that I feed my family is an unexpected bonus!

What’s made the last decade all the more satisfying to me is that I’ve been able to bring others along on the journey of making money through blogging—through starting ProBlogger in 2004.

Over 34 million readers have visited ProBlogger since that time—considerably more than the number of people who live here in Australia.

By no means has everyone of them become a full time blogger but almost every day I hear stories from readers telling me about the opportunities reading the blog posts and eBooks at ProBlogger has helped open up for them.

So to help celebrate my ten-year anniversary of blogging, and to hopefully help you continue to grow in your blogging, I’ve decided to throw a little party on ProBlogger this week and to offer readers the opportunity to pick up ProBlogger ebooks at a price I’ve never gone to before.

It’s been ten years of blogging, so for the next ten days only I’m offering our ebooks at just $10 each.

Given our ebooks are normally priced at between $20 and $100, that’s a 50-90% discount, depending which ebooks you choose.

Buy them individually below or get the full library of eBooks for just $60 USD (a 76% discount).

If you have big dreams for your blog, but have been putting improving it in the “one day” basket, you’re not alone.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog is a downloadable ebook designed to help you revitalize your blog by giving you 31 tasks that will all help to turn it into the pageview powerhouse you’ve always dreamed of.

Each day in the project contains:

A Task: something to do that day.Teaching: each day, you’ll be given great instruction on both the why and how of the task of the day.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog has been downloaded by many thousands of bloggers and has been recently updated into a second edition for 2012—discover more about this best selling ebook here.

This ebook is all about helping bloggers who are in the first weeks of their blogging to get started on the right foot.

Bloggers starting out quickly discover that there’s a lot more to this medium than just setting up a blog and quickly slapping up a post or two. Your first post is just the beginning and you’re then faced with the tasks of finding readers, coming up with more post ideas and thinking about the long-term strategy of your blog.

This ebook is jam-packed with practical activities and exercises to do in your first week to make sure your blog is heading in the right direction.

Broken down into seven days, there are actually a total of 32 achievable tasks that will not only get your blog going, but that will help you develop the skills you need to achieve your potential as a blogger.

Learn more about this exciting new resource at ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging.

This ebook was written for two groups of people:

business owners who wanted to harness the power of blogging to grow their businessthose working for businesses who’ve been given the task of blogging—but don’t know where to start.

Written by Mark Hayward, a successful business owner, activist, and blogging coach, the guide takes readers step by step through how to set up a blog, thinking through goals for a blog, developing a content strategy, finding readers and growing traffic, establishing and growing a social media footprint, and much more.

Practical tasks at the end of each of the 12 chapters let you implement Mark’s mentoring in a way that suits your business, and your customers.

Learn more about ProBlogger’s Guide to Blogging for Your Business.

If you have a blog and understand the basics but are struggling to find time, motivation, or focus, Blog Wise is for you.

One of the most common obstacles to successful blogging among our readers is simply finding time. So we sat down with nine prolific and successful bloggers to find out how they not only blog successfully, but balance that with busy work, family, and social lives.

Bloggers interviewed include Heather Armstrong from Dooce, Brian Clark from CopyBlogger, Abby Larson from Style Me Pretty, Leo Babauta from Zen Habits, Gretchen Rubin from the Happiness Project, Darren Rowse from ProBlogger and Digital Photography School, and more.

These bloggers juggle a lot, but they get things done and will give you insight into what it takes to run a successful blog but also how to use your time effectively.

Learn More about this powerful ebook here.

This ebook is designed to help you take the content featured on your blog up a notch.

Your blog posts are the cornerstone of your blog and will be the difference between you reaching your goals or not.

This scorecard resource is designed to help you analyze the most important elements of your content to make sure they’re engaging, readable, professional, and optimized for search engines.

It’s the ideal resource for all bloggers who are just starting out and want to learn the basics of SEO or those who’ve been at it a while but want to grow their search engine traffic.

Discover more about the Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers.

This kit is all about helping you to turn your blog into a business.

The Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing—31 Steps to a Profitable Blog is a comprehensive, 31-chapter blueprint for your blog’s ongoing profitability, from the ground up.

Backed by an extensive library of practical templates, printable worksheets, and in-practice example documents, this kit delivers all you need to make your blog turn a profit now, and over the long term.

Discover more about the Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing.

View the original article here

Prepare Your Blog For the Festive Season: a Step-by-step Guide

Over the weekend, we ran a short series of interviews with bloggers of different types, to get a feel for how they’re preparing for the festive season.

Image courtesy stock.xchng user danyba

We spoke to the owners of:

If that series made you realize how underprepared you are for the coming weeks, don’t worry. Today’s post is a checklist for getting ready.

The first thing to do is get out the calendar. Work out when you won’t want to be blogging, and block those days (or weeks!) out.

Now you know how much time you have to work with.

The benefits of setting some goals up front are two-fold.

First, goals will help you set your priorities for the next few weeks. Second, they’ll help you assess your efforts when you come back to your blog in 2013. They might even help you improve on your work when the festive season rolls around again in a year’s time.

Set a few goals. They might be as simple as maintaining regular posting and social media schedules, or as detailed as setting expectations for sales and tracking the sources of traffic that converts.

List the tasks you’ll need to achieve your goals.

If you want to maintain a twice-a-week positing schedule, how much writing time will you need? How much editing time? Will you work any affiliate promotions into those posts? Which ones, and when will they run? When’s the best time to promote those posts?

Make a list of all the things you need to do. Then, schedule them. Think a long time in advance, and get right into the details. Don’t just make a note to curate ten tweets to autopublish over the festive period. Schedule the time you’ll need to find quality content to include in those tweets.

Without taking your plans to this level of granularity, you’ll run the risk of underestimating the time and energy you’ll need to do everything on your list. Which leads me to…

This is an extra step, but one you may well end up doing. You may already have found that your eyes were bigger than your stomach, so to speak, when you set your goals for the period. If you can’t fit everything in, check your top priorities and consider whether you’d be happy if you just achieved those.

This should help you focus as the inevitable distractions and schedule-changes come up in the coming weeks … and you run out of time!

Tip: Consider making your own checklist for every one of the tasks you need to do, so that you can avoid waking up in a panic because you forgot to find images for a post, or to encode your affiliate links in that email you’re autosending.

Getting ready for the festive season isn’t just about getting through to January 1, 2013. It’s also about hitting the ground running when you get back to your desk.

The lead-up to the break, at a time when you’ve just set all these goals, is to write a to-do list for Day 1, 2013. Include:

checking emails, stats, and social listening to find out what you missed while you were offline (assuming you were offline!)goal-setting for the new year (if you haven’t done that during the break)reconnecting with others who you can help—and can be helped by—in the coming 12 months.

This is the basic checklist I use to make sure I’m on track through the festive season and beyond. What about you? Share your tips and advice for keeping your blog going through the silly season below.

View the original article here

Blogging On the Go: Are Mobile Apps Up To It?

This guest post is by Barry Cooke of Badoo.com.

With the rise of mobile technology and citizen journalism, being able to blog while on the move is increasingly important.

Unfortunately, many blogging apps are limited, clunky, and make updating from your mobile smartphone or tablet inefficient.

Here we take a look at the main direct blogging apps, as well as a few additional ones that can improve the process, to see if they’re up to the challenge.

The interface and functionality of this app is very stripped down. Your main and most important features are still intact—you can upload photos and videos into your post, but they have to be saved on to your device prior to posting, which means you can’t upload from YouTube, Vimeo, or any other video hosting site.

Typing into this app is cramped but bearable, similar to sending a text or an email from your phone. If you’re using a tablet, then there’s obviously a lot more room for manoeuvre.

So, if your aim is just a simple, predominantly text-based post possibly involving a picture or linked video, then Blogger’s mobile app is perfectly adequate, however it’s not capable of posts that are much more complicated than that.

One of the most proficient mobile blogging apps is available from one of the most proficient blogging platforms available.

The WordPress app is detailed, with a multitude of features including the accessible dashboard user interface, which gives you one-tap access to every blogging feature you need, from posting and creating new pages, to comments and checking statistics.

The quick action bar makes it easy to switch between which of your blogs you want to update, refresh the content, or return to the dashboard. Posting is a joy, with the formatting toolbar allowing you to perfect your text, post links, and embed photos and video. With the latter two, you can also change alignments and alter their sizes quickly and easily.

This micro-blogging site lends itself well to remote blogging on smaller handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets by its very nature. It’s fast and simple to post to, with a clean, minimal mobile interface, making it potentially the most attractive out of the major three blog platofrms.

The recently updated user interface makes it easy to check the other blogs you follow, update your own, and manage multiple posts on a range of blogs. The new and improved navigation bar is more intuitive than the 1.0 version, so bloggers can do more than just post from the dashboard—we can now reply to messages, switch between posts and imbed photos, videos and links with just a few taps.

There are also some fantastic third-party apps available that integrate with all the above platforms, as well as photo and video editing software. So if you’re often including rich media in your posts, these are essential additions.

This is, by far, one of the most capable blogging applications on the market. It integrates excellently with other third-party apps like YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, and Picasa, meaning embedding photos and videos into your post is as easy as drag and drop.

It also supports Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr, so if you’ve got several blogs on different platforms, you can use Blogsy to update all of them, and switch between each with just a few taps of your touchscreen.

The integrated browser means linking out is also a seamless affair. The unfortunate thing is it’s only available on the iPad, so those with smartphones won’t be able to take advantage of its myriad features for blogging on the go.

However, if you’re frequently uploading videos, photos and other sticky media to your blog, then investing in an iPad should be considered as it makes the whole process and far enjoyable and rewarding experience. And at just £2.99, Blogsy is well worth the pennies.

Of the numerous photo editing apps available, Snapseed is the most capable and most user-friendly, with an accessible interface that’s easily navigable even for first timers.

It offers good colour control, allowing you to alter the hue and saturation of your photographs, as well as the standard cropping, image enhancement, and scaling options you would expect.

There are a variety of filters you can apply, with very similar aesthetic choices to Instagram, including vintage and black-and-white effects. It’s also possible to integrate it with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr so sharing your perfected photos is easy. Priced at £2.99, it won’t break the bank.

For video editing, this app is your best bet. Its clean navigation and easy drag-and-drop interaction makes splicing your video clips uncomplicated and a lot of fun. There are options to add text and titles to your finished videos if you want to give a little contextual explanation. And uploading it to YouTube can be done with a couple of taps.

Unfortunately the controls are quite small, so this application isn’t compatible with smartphones and even if it was, it would be impossible to use. If you’ve got an iPad then the interface isn’t so bad, but many bloggers recommend getting a touch pen or stylus if you do a lot of video editing on the move as it makes the process considerably easier.

Which mobile blogging application you choose will largely depend on the nature of your blogging, how advanced your posts are, and which media you will be uploading.

What is undeniable is the fact that if you’re embedding a lot of photographic and video content, and you’re doing it frequently while on the move, then it’s well worth investing in a tablet. The simple fact that it’s bigger makes the blogging process more efficient and far more enjoyable.

What mobile blogging apps do you use? Share them with us in the comments.

This article was written by Barry Cooke. Barry is a respected mobile usability consultant who has been working in the mobile market for over 15 years in a number of different sectors from online dating apps to finance and travel.

View the original article here

How to Establish the Right Priorities to Grow Your Blog and Profits

This guest post is by Nathalie Lussier of The Website Checkup Tool.

Here’s a harsh nugget of truth for you.

Once you get this, your blog will not only take off, it will become way more profitable. Are you ready for it?

Here it is: You don’t need more how-to’s or to-do’s… You need priorities.

As bloggers and business owners, we’re constantly introduced to cool new tricks, strategies, and techniques to grow. There’s just so much information, much of it competing, about what you need to do to make it big online.

Think webinars, SEO, social media, magic beans, WordPress plugins, guest posting, YouTube videos, list building, product launches, silver bullets, Facebook ads, Pinterest, contests, joint ventures… The list is endless.

You know you have a ton of options when it comes to growing your blog and making more money online. You just don’t have enough hours in the day to implement all of them. Not to mention that some of these tactics are likely to work better for some markets, some personalities, and some stages of development than others.

The answer you’ve been looking for is not another silver bullet, or another cool marketing strategy. It’s simple, it’s free, and it works.

It’s priorities.

Okay, priorities. That sounds good, but unless you’ve built a successful blog before you might not know how to set them properly.

It’s easy to model another business owner or famous blogger and just try to do what they do, because it seems to be working for them. But you need to remember that we’re all on different paths, with different experiences, and different blogs.

Unique blogs and businesses require unique priorities and strategies to be wildly profitable.

My aim here is to help you figure out what you need to do, in what order of importance, so that you’re not putting the cart before the horse.

The first step to figuring out your priorities is to take a quick assessment of where your blog and business are currently.

Let’s look at a few questions that you can quickly jot down an answer to:

Do you have a blog or website that you’re proud to send people to?Are there enough people visiting your blog on a regular basis?Do people join your email list on a consistent basis?Are you blogging on a regular schedule that feels comfortable for you?Have you built a network of likeminded bloggers that you can support and be supported by?Does your blog employ SEO and/or are the right people finding your blog?Do you have a social media presence that engages your audience and spreads your influence?

Alright, so these questions might be pushing your buttons, but they’re not meant to make you feel bad if you don’t have all of these items in place.

On the contrary, it’s important to know what you are doing and what you still haven’t gotten to, because this will inform what your priorities and schedule looks like.

I’m often asked by my clients and readers what should come first when you’re starting up a blog or online business. Do you get the website up, look for clients and customers, guest post, set up social media profiles..? I mean, it’s all so overwhelming, so how can you get it all done?

It might feel like you need to have all of these things done simultaneously, preferrably last week. But it is possible to grow a blog by taking it one step at a time. In fact, it is the only way to grow a blog.

Everyone’s blogging journey is going to be different, but here is my recommendation for establishing your priorities.

The very first thing you need to focus on when you’re building a blog is setting up your web foundation or hub. That means your blog and website, and I recommend that you get your own domain name and hosting. Then get yourself a WordPress installation and theme.

Do not spend thousands on a design quite yet, because your blog’s direction may change as you evolve.

Next, it’s time to start honing your voice by writing or creating video for your blog. I don’t recommend overcommitting to creating a ton of content just yet. Especially since your blog might not have the audience to warrant spending a ton of time in creation mode. Once you do reach a certain audience size, then it makes sense to commit to a consistent blogging schedule.

Finally, outreach comes next. Once you have your blog as a hub, you’ve practiced writing and have a bit of content on your site, it’s time to bring people into your sphere.

The outreach part is definitely where things can get hairy, so I suggest picking one or two things that you will get really good at and focusing on those.

Take, for example, two strategies that you might want to focus on: guest posting and SEO. Another set of strategies might be social media and webinars. Yet another might be joint ventures and advertising.

Just pick two!

Doing more than two types of outreach will not only burn you out, but will have you spread so thin you won’t be getting the results you’re looking for.

Now that you have all three steps handled, it’s time to iterate. The more people who come into your world and read your blog, the more clarity you will have around your topic and direction, which will inform your site’s design. This in turn will shift your writing and voice, and help you decide where to spend more time in outreach—whether that’s specific sites or strategies.

Rinse and repeat, and keep those priorities tight.

Now that you know what steps to take to really grow your blog’s online presence, you need to write out your priorities. If you don’t have your plan and priorities down in digital ink then you might as well go back to throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Keep your priorities front and center as you go about your daily tasks. If something falls into a non-priority activity list, then it’s time to take it off your todo list. If a cool new system or marketing tool comes out, ask yourself if it fits in your priorities.

I guarantee you will go much further by mastering just two outreach strategies, focusing on your home base on the web, and getting your voice honed.

Do this prioritizing exercise right now! Don’t let another week, month, or year go by without having focused priorities in your blogging career.

Let me know in the comments below what your top priority is, and what stage you’re in (building your hub, honing your voice, or outreach).

Nathalie Lussier is a digital strategist who combines original ideals with forward-thinking marketing expertise, and delivers competitive results in the online space. She helps you get techy with your business, and she’s the creator of The Website Checkup Tool.

View the original article here

How to Write a Must-read Product Review

This guest post is by Karol K.

Reviews are one of the more common types of content on the internet. I’m sure you’ve looked for a review of a given product yourself once or twice. However, being on the receiving end of a review, so to speak, is a completely different ball game than actually writing one.

First of all, some people mistake reviews for sales messages. Some indications that you’re dealing with a disguised sales message, rather than a review, are: too big a focus on glorifying the product, the presence of numerous affiliate links, and a lack of actual information about the usage of the product or service being reviewed (only promotional speech).

So how can you be the good guy or girl and actually craft a proper review? This post presents the essential techniques you should use, but first…

A good review is not intended just to make some affiliate sales … at least, it shouldn’t be.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against affiliate sales, it’s just that if making money is your only goal, this makes it impossible to present an unbiased opinion of the product or service. You still can include an affiliate link at the end of your review, but treat it as an extra opportunity, not the goal in itself.

So what’s a better purpose than affiliate sales for a review? To answer that question, take a look at why people read reviews. If you decide to cater to that need exactly, you will create a truly valuable review.

In my opinion, the most common reasons why people look for product reviews are:

to learn the pros and cons of a given productto find out if the product is meant for themto find out if the product is of high quality and easy to useto find out about alternative solutionsto find out about other users’ experiences with the productto ultimately learn if the product is worth buying.

With those needs in mind, let’s look at what you can do to craft a truly valuable review.

This is the first rule to writing a review! Sometimes I’m really amazed at how many people continue writing reviews without even owning the product they’re reviewing.

I mean, it’s doable if you just want to make a few affiliate sales, but if your goal is to provide value, then it’s absolutely crucial for you to have the product in your hands (or on your computer).

Now, there are a range of ways you can get the product. The best way is to simply ask the product owner to give you a copy for free (just mention that you’re writing a review).

If this doesn’t work, you can sign up as an affiliate and buy the product through your affiliate link. This will allow you to get up to 90% off the retail price, depending on the affiliate commission you’ll earn. Be aware, though, that some affiliate programs don’t allow you to buy through your own link—check the terms and conditions of the arrangement before you do this.

As I said briefly a couple of paragraphs above, I’m not against affiliates. As a matter of fact, I’m an affiliate for plenty of products.

To put it simply, if there is an affiliate program available for the product you’re reviewing, by all means do sign up. Just don’t make affiliate sales your main goal when writing the review.

Why am I calling it a problem? The problem is that not every product is a quality one.

Every once in a while, you’ll stumble upon a product that is simply garbage. And the problem here is that people (including you, I hope) are naturally nice. So we don’t want to hurt anyone by publishing negative reviews of their products.

And this is where the problem of honesty arises. A natural approach here is to simply omit some negative experiences from your review—to not say anything about them. I really don’t advise you to do this.

Always try to fight the natural resistance and mention every negative aspect you’ve stumbled upon. This will strengthen your brand and also ensure your readers know that you’re an honest source of information.

Setting all the issues with purpose and honesty aside, now let’s focus on the core contents of your review.

Make sure you provide information on:

Features: Cover information on what the product does.Target group: Include information on who the average user of the product is, and why they would want to use it.The main benefit: There are always some benefits a given product has to offer, and listing them is usually the biggest value a review brings. Just to define the idea of a benefit briefly: it’s what the features of the product mean to the users, and how those features improve their lives.Practical details: Cover things like the price, where to get the product (you can include your affiliate link here), what the guarantee is, how long customers have to wait for the delivery, and so on.

This is optional. You can do this, but it’s not a mandatory element of a good review. Besides, sometimes there simply aren’t many alternatives to a really specific product.

Even if there are, there’s often no point in listing them. For example, when you’re reviewing a novel, even if there are other novels in the same area, it’s not likely to provide much value if you list them as alternatives.

The pros and cons section is a feature of every good review. Listing the pros is usually easy, as the product creators always try to make them clearly visible, but cons are a completely different story.

The first thing you need to realize is that there are always some cons, no matter how good the product seems at first. Your job as the reviewer is to bring them to the surface.

One more tip. Please don’t list cons that aren’t really cons. This is one of the tricks used by affiliate reviewers. For instance, when dealing with digital products, affiliates tend to mention the fact that the package takes a long time to download as a downside. It isn’t.

Cons are only significant if they somehow make the product less usable in some way. Focus on those.

If you take a look at Amazon, you’ll find loads of customer reviews for every product. They’re not there just for the sake of it. People are simply very interested in other people’s opinions.

If you have access to reliable customer reviews or opinions that you can legally use, by all means include them in your review. Try to find both positive and negative ones.

Finally, share your personal opinion about the product. Mention whether the product is worth buying or not, and what your overall experience of it was.

Don’t be afraid of speaking your mind freely here. If you love the product, say that you do. If you hate it, people should know about this, too.

Also, include your affiliate link if you want to recommend the product to your readers. You don’t have to make it look overly promotional—a big Buy Here button might be too much. Simply hooking up your affiliate URL to the product name is usually enough.

That’s it for my advice on writing a proper product review, but feel free to share your own thoughts and ideas. Do you write a lot of reviews? Have you experienced any difficulties getting products? I’d love to hear your tips, too.

Karol K. is a freelance blogger and writer. Currently, he’s all about providing blogging advice to real estate business owners, and getting the word out about las colinas real estate.

View the original article here