Be Careful – Not All Online Product Reviews Are Reliable
A day doesn\’t go by that I don\’t use the web. The internet is one of my favorite activities for being entertained and developing my businesses.
Can you even remember what it was like not having the web? Computers? Not me; it\’s utterly woven its way and become significant in every facet of our existence.
The web is primarily important to organizations in today\’s economy. More revenues come from customers the internet than ever before.
Others in my profession are doing the same. Page one of Google is getting very competitive in our industry. Google\’s top spot is very valuable in not only my industry, but practically all industries.
Therefore, any service or expert that can assist a enterprise get a top search engine ranking is a great resource. In fact, over recent years many excellent and terrible products and services touting improved search engine marketing have hit the market.
My problem as business owner is picking the good SEM products and not getting suckered with the lousy ones. Few are great, some are good, plenty are useless.
It\’s impossible to determine a service\’s effectiveness by reading the sales page or squeeze page. Those sales pages promise the world.
Luckily there are reviews on just about anything available for sale. Like I said at the beginning of this article; if you require information, go the internet.
I find product and service reviews exceptionally valuable. Thanks to many bloggers and niche website publishers, there are reviews on any service and product you can envisage.
In fact I don\’t buy anything without checking out a review. Those reviews I find on the web. My rule for reviewing before buying specifically applies to all the SEO software tools I buy.
That said, read reviews with a bit of a dubious eye. Why? Because many reviews are just hype so that they get an affiliate sale.
It\’s true, many reviews are there purely for the money received after a sale. You need to look for reviews that neutrally present the facts.
Reviews that are based on fact may have an opinion, but the opinion is secondary. The heart of the review are the facts, details, and specifics leaving you knowledgeable for your purchase.
11 suggestions distinguishing the good from the bad when reading internet reviews
1. What\’s the language tone? Is full of selling and hype? Too good to be true? Then not a good review.
2. Is it only trying to persuade you to buy? If so, avoid it.
3. Is the rest of the site persuasive and hype? If so, not good.
4. Are there disclosure statements indicating affiliations? Affiliations are bad all the time; it\’s good to know what it is you\’re reading.
5. What\’s your opinion of other reviews and articles on the site?
6. Did you learn anything about your product or service reading the review?
7. Did the author use, demo, or buy the product or service?
8. Check out other reviews and compare.
9. Did you access the review through a sponsored link or organic link? Sponsored links are paid links. Again, sponsored links doesn\’t mean it\’s a low-quality review; it\’s just something to be aware of.
10. Just because it\’s a prominent newspaper or magazine doesn\’t mean it\’s not biased or a paid ad.
11. Look for reviews that set out both advantages and disadvantages of the product or service.
A factual review writes (or is video footage explaining) both the positive and negative elements of whatever is being reviewed. It also doesn\’t try to persuade; it merely informs. There\’s a difference.
I\’m not saying affiliate marketing is awful. On the contrary, affiliate marketers offer a constructive service; but only those that take their job seriously. Their job in my opinion is informing and sharing information.
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© 2010, Peter Lawlor. All rights reserved.
Tags: affiliate marketing, computers, internet, internet marketing, marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, SEM, SEO, technology, traffic generation, web marketing
affiliate marketing | Peter Lawlor | 
February 8, 2010 6:36 pm
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