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betteredit)
This is a guest post from Robb Sutton, a Blog Mastermind graduate student who blogs at Mountain Biking by 198, which has brought in over $70,000 in review product in its first year. Robb’s just released a new report called Ramped Reviews, which will teach you how to get thousands of dollars worth of free review products thanks to your blog.
******
If you build a good blog eventually you will enjoy the opportunity to review products and services that can generate revenue through direct sales or affiliate promotions. The trick to make this profitable without scaring away your readers, is to write a comprehensive, honest review that still converts casual readers into consumers, who take an action that returns revenue for you.
Before we jump into how to write a review that sells, I believe it is important to spell out the difference between conventional advertising and a review. Both of these mediums are forms of media exposure that have the goal of convincing a person to perform an action, but at their core… they are very different.
The ultimate challenge for a blog review writer is producing a review that is honest, but still converts. When done correctly, you can maintain your credibility as a review writer and still generate revenue on your blog.
Here are some tips to help you draft up your next successful product review.
A well written, successful product review, should answer questions for your readers:
As you can see by these example questions, you are trying to answer all of the questions that a potential reader would ask.
When a search engine visitor or regular reader of your blog reads this review, they are going to ask themselves whether it is a good idea to purchase the product in question for their needs. If you do not answer this relevant question, they will not take action. Your goal should be to answer as many questions as you can in the pursuit of providing a complete product review for your readers.
A review that sells leaves no rock unturned in the search for the truth. As the reviewer, you need to give your readers insight into the product or service that they could not find anywhere else. By using as many examples, pictures and video, you are able to bring the reader closer to the product than any ad spot.
In your search to provide the most comprehensive review possible for your readers, you need to remember one very important trait of every product and service on the market…NOTHING IS PERFECT.
Everything you review has both good and bad points that need to be addressed during the review process. A common mistake I see among bloggers is the temptation to write glorified advertisements as reviews in an attempt to butter up other companies into giving them free product for review purposes.
This trap is easier to get in than many would imagine. Remember…you should be blogging on a subject that you are passionate about, so it is natural to get excited about receiving product that you used to pay top dollar for. Your credibility is everything as a review blogger, so it is more important to portray the truth. Your readers will see right past your excitement if they know you are skipping over negative aspects of products in an attempt to get more free stuff.
Negative reviews (and you will have some that are very negative over time) should be fact based so you leave little argument to your conclusions. You will have readers that disagree, but they will at least respect your opinion.
When you are drafting your reviews to publish on your blog, you need to always keep in mind your typical blog reader. If you have been blogging for any length of time, you have a pretty good understanding of how your readers react to certain language.
On one of my blogs, Mountain Biking by 198, we often receive emails and comments about how we should have gotten more technical with our reviews. While there are a small number of readers that would like to talk about suspension curves and shock dampers, the majority of the readers are either not interested or wouldn’t understand the terminology. The majority of the readers want to have the question “will this bike fit my needs?” answered, and that is what we provide.
Try to take all constructive criticism to heart but at the same time remember who your common reader is while you write your reviews. After all, you want your writing to appeal to your core audience.
If your audience is a bunch of web coders, it is a smart idea to get technical. If your blog readers are looking for ways to shed the pounds but still eat food that tastes good, it is not a good idea to go into the extreme details on how food is processed. Get the idea?
Like it or not, there are two different kinds of readers that are going to read your reviews.
When you draft up a successful product review, you need to make the review work for both types of blog readers. The easiest way to get the scanner to pay attention is by using attention grabbing headlines throughout the review and summarizing your points at the end of the article. If you open any car magazine, you can quickly scan a review article and get quick points and a basic yes or no on the car.
At the end of your product and service reviews, provide a quick summary paragraph and a list of the good and bad points of the product. This summarizes the article for the word for word reader and gives a quick focus point for the scanner.
If you wrote a successful product review, the reader will have determined if they need to take action or not by the facts you presented. At the end of your review, insert your affiliate link with a bold header that clearly explains that the link is for purchasing the product reviewed. Hopefully, all of your hard work paid off and your readers that need a product like that take action.
Your credibility as a review writer is everything. The more your readers take your advice and have a positive experience with the interaction, the more success you will see with your blog and your review writing. Under no circumstances should you ever risk that credibility for something free. Once that trust is broken with your readers, it is very hard to gain back.
Robb Sutton
If you want more advice from Robb on how to get free stuff to review on your blog, grab a copy of his new report called Ramped Reviews
Get your bonus copy of my book
"How To Start An Internet Business
& Make Your First $1,000 Online"
Download Here
deponti)I went to the Cypress College Theater to attend the arangEtram (first stage performance) of my niece, and on one of the stage doors, what do I see but this..
Reminds me of
this poem
that I read long ago...
Well, the Depontis of the world, however they may spell their names, are the movers and shakers!
I had a small adventure on the flight returning to St Louis, too...more about that anon...I have been sleeping my head off, must find it and attach it firmly to my neck now! :)
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bangalorekingsly)Anyone know of a skating rink near Cooke Town ?
(The one in Coles Park is apparently for children under 12 years.)
blogthings)
factoryjoeblog)
I suppose every now and then you run up against some kind of technological experience and think, “Wow, that’s amazing.”
This doesn’t happen to me all that often. I’m so enmeshed in technology and the web that by the time some technology is deployed deep enough in the wild that I randomly encounter it, it’s already passé — old news — and entirely unsurprising. Rare is the moment when I think, “Wow, this really changes things.”
However, I had one of those experiences today, and it’s particularly compelling for two reasons: the realization of the alignment of so many different contemporary “advances” (technological, cultural and social) and the coincidence of a particular news story which I’ll turn to momentarily.
So what happened?
Well, Brynn and I went to a physical OfficeMax store, determined to buy some kind of corkboard or dry-erase board for our new home office (which we’ve dubbed “The War Room”). Simple enough, and you’d think that a place like OfficeMax would be able to help.
Apparently we were wrong. Between the shoddy made-in-some-third-world-country quality of the products to the clerks whose eyes screamed “I’m going to kill myself with a ballpoint pen in the eye if you ask me a question”, OfficeMax was at once the most depressing and hapless places I have ever shopped. Even worse than KB Toys. Yes, it was that bad.
Ultimately we found what we were looking for, except that every single board was damaged in some way. When we reluctantly asked the clerk if there were any more in storage, he seemed to shrug absentmindedly, as though such damage was par for the course.
Frustrated, I decided to take a picture of our discovery to see what Amazon might later offer us. I didn’t just use my iPhone’s Camera app — no no! — instead I launched the Amazon.com app and used a feature called “Amazon Remembers” — a clever little twist on their Wish List feature that lets you take a photo of something to remember it later.
And then the magic began.
You see, once you take a photo and save it, it’s automatically compressed and uploaded to Amazon. It’s saved for you to retrieve later, but lo, they also ship off a copy to Mechanical Turk, so some busybody on the interwebs can come along and complete what’s known as a HIT (or “Human Intelligence Tasks”) and identify the product that you’ve snapped, sending you a link to the product on Amazon.com. Within minutes.
Of course you can imagine who’s getting my business in this situation.
But let’s think about this for a moment!
What I find so incredible about this experience is how commonplace it feels — how downright banal it seems to me to be able to take a photo of a product (with a cell phone), upload it over a cellular network (EDGE no less!), have it be put into a queue where humans are waiting to do something to the photo (at pennies on the dollar, mind you), whose output — in a fraction of the time it might have taken me to perform the same task — will be returned to me in the form of a hyperlinked product that I can add to my cart and have shipped directly to my doorstep — free with Amazon Prime.
The cynical among us might call this the ultimate in instant gratification; others might think of this as merely modern convenience in a globally-connected, cloudy world. Frankly, it’s a bit of both. But I also think of it as the best example of what I’ve called “connected commerce” — with a splash of Web 2.0’s “networks get better the more people use them” adage thrown in for good measure.
So, let’s turn to that piece of news that I mentioned.
As it happened, on our drive over to OfficeMax, I heard a rather disturbing segment on the BBC that announced that Australia and the US have decided to jointly launch a contest to fund the development of autonomous military robots for fighting in tight, urban environments.
As the announcer put it: “the winning design must demonstrate the ability to neutralize the enemy.” Or as Zack de la Rocha said it best: And neutralize them. And neutralize them. And neutralize them.
I mean, we’ve seen this movie before, right? Did these guys not get the memo or something? (Or did they?!)
In any case, here is this personal encounter that I had— exemplified by leveraged social media against the commercial experience — starkly juxtaposed against a much more ominous, darkly situation — where robots fight in place of humans — doing the so-called “dirty work” — in situations where it is presumably becoming increasingly expedient to use non-human agents to neutralize human dissenters! What if such technology were brought to bear in China or Iran? What would the Twitterverse have to say then?
Any way you slice it, it is clear that the technology that we create — and are engaged in creating — remains ambivalent about the fate of humankind.
How we, as individuals, choose to apply the technology still makes all the difference. The consequences of our decisions resonate. Just like those who originally investigated, researched and developed the technology that made nuclear weapons possible — those of us who make possible robotics, neural networks, smart, geo-positioned social networks and sentient, sensing computing apparati will someday be faced with a similar dilemma: do we continue to doggedly pursue the modern, human-benefitting conveniences that many people increasingly and blindly rely upon? Are they worth seeing through to their logical, amoral conclusions — regardless of outcome on civil society — or do we, at some point, say STOP!, and leave well enough alone?
It should come as no surprise that my presumption is we are past the point of stopping — that Daniel Quinn wasn’t wrong — he just didn’t capture the spirit broadly. The rules change over time. More importantly, we will be forced to cope with what we have wrought — as part of the unconscious effort to realize the full potential of social and commercial technology.
Of course this alarms me greatly, but it’s nothing I didn’t already know.
In the meantime, I’m tickled pink to outfit “The War Room” with a new magnetic, dry-erase whiteboard, shipped in pristine condition and scheduled to arrive no later than Thursday of this week. I can’t even begin to imagine all the great ideas I’ll come up with on the thing.
chaddickerson)
swatisani)
Straight
Bought the “Straight” DVD for Sunday afternoon viewing as the cast looked promising . I did not have any expectations from the movie but it surprised me with some real good editing and direction techniques. One technique I particularly liked was dropping of a truck in front of the moving car to show the transition between London to India…
The movie is not really racy, but its a light flick -so it serves the purpose. Subject of the move is bold/controversial/taboo which speaks for the A certificate from censor board..
Vinay Pathak as Pinu, the protagonist has done some good work – but then he is a fine actor and nothing less can be expected of him. Gul Panag looks ravishing, the dimples on her cheeks particularly cute, has done a great job of her somewhat limited role. She has lovely husky voice that sounds very sincere as she delivers her dialogues.
Pinu Patel (Vinay Pathak) is a London based restaurateur and owns Gaylord, which serves Indian cuisine. A simple man with tiny complexities in life such as being a virgin and his to be wife running away from the marriage pendal (he goes to India to get married) makes him doubt his self worth. An introvert, he has a nagging aunt, an uncle and a cousin (Rajat) who is a friend. He returns from India and lies about his marital status and tells everyone that his wife will join him later.
Originally published at Swati Sani. Please leave any comments there.
tariquesani)
Alfred Hitchcock
I picked up the box of Alfred Hitchcock Collection because
Well actually the box, marketed by moserbaer in India, is priced INR549/- but if you have good contacts with your neighborhood video store you get upto 10% discount on almost every thing. Of the six movies at least four appear to have been digitally remastered / cleaned up and an absolute treat to watch.
If you don’t know anything about Rebbeca here is a small something to whet your appetite
Originally published at http://tariquesani.net/blog/. Please leave any comments there.
punsschmonday)Man does everyone really hate zombies. They most likely haven't even met one, the bigots. I don't know how meeting a zombie would go, but at least I'm open minded about the situation.
1pi00te005)
Try playing this cricket game on orkut and if you can get more than 50 then send me a challenge!
http://www.orkut.com/Main#AppInfo.a
jokesjlc20thmaine)Kids' Ideas About Science
Most of these quotations were gleaned from classroom discussions in 5th and 6th grade science classes.
----------------------------------------
"One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second."
"You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it, you got hit, so never mind."
"Talc is found on rocks and on babies."
"Isn't inertia when something is moving, then it stops moving and keeps moving?"
"The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down."
"When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions."
"When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting."
"Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand."
"While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating."
"Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction."
"South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage."
"Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees between north and south."
"A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go."
"There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be discovered. Finding them all means living forever."
"There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth because of so much population stomping around up there these days."
"Lime is a green-tasting rock."
"Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils, while others preferred to be oil."
"Genetics explain why you look like your father, and if you don't why you should."
"Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there."
"Some oxygen molecules help fires burn, while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother."
"Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers."
"We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on."
"To most people, solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists, solutions are things that are still all mixed up."
"In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's."
"Clouds are high flying fogs."
"I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing."
"Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do."
"Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does."
"Humidity is the experience of looking for air and finding water."
"We keep track of the humidity in the air so we won't drown when we breathe."
"Rain is often known as soft water, oppositely known as hail."
"Rain is saved up in cloud banks."
"In some rocks you can find the fossil footprints of fishes."
"Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dog's tongue will kill the strongest man."
"The wind is like the air, only pushier."
"A blizzard is when it snows sideways."
"A hurricane is a breeze of a bigly size."
"A monsoon is a French gentleman."
"Thunder is a rich source of loudness."
"Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound."
"It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other places."
"Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime."
f1nyc_55david)
So I have asked in the past about the motorsport forum called TBK light, and got a link for it not too long ago, but now I have tried to go to it and it's not working again? Has this site been moved or completely disabled? I would love to download videos from the German Grand Prix which are a lot better than we got here in Australia
f1anantj)From http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorspo
From the article:
"It's a very unusual thing for a driver to say," he said.
"In his defence, he was very hot and bothered, having just stepped out of the car and maybe his judgement deserted him for a few moments.
"I would swallow my pride, have a wee word and try to make him think differently - but it couldn't be tolerated again.
"He'd certainly get a severe dressing down, but that's all."
vaibhav)
It has been a while that I have posted a real entry on the blog feeds.
Past two months have been a blur, mostly because of dealing with the various things going wrong around me. Checked with a few friends and it seems that has been the case around the general circle of contacts.
Just so that I can get it out of my system, here are a few -
Europe Trip Extension
I was supposed to be in Europe for two weeks and in India for 3 days. Thanks to various vendors being vendors, language issues, customs problems, shipping delays and what now, I had to extend that to 4 weeks. That trip taught me a lot about dealing with international vendors and the issues around them but it affected my health enough for me to notice it.
While I was gone
We had moved into the new house just a week before I had to leave on the work trip. The water heater at home had water leakage issues and Pooja was trying to deal with them. After the initial few fixes, I asked her to just let it be as I was going to be back in just two weeks and will take care of it then. 
Double HDD failures on a RAID 5
Just after I got back, one fine wednesday morning, got the news that our SAN volume back in the east which had 12+ production virtual servers had just crashed with a double HDD failure. Not a big deal when you have backups but restoring from a backup when your main storage has failed is not a task for the faint hearted.
It took me three days, hours and hours on the phone with Dell storage support and a lot of swearing at myself to get things back in shape. I had to fly down to New York to finally get things done. While moving the machines to local storage on individual vmware esx servers, we realized that even those servers had hardware issues and spent another two days trying to move things over.
The Dell engineers were surprised at the double HDD failure and I decided NEVER to touch Dell storage products, ever again. In the end, it turned out to be a bad controller. Well, that too we don’t know yet because we had to isolate it and use other storage mediums for the time being.
Falling parts at home
So a few days back, we walked back home after a shopping spree and heard a loud noise in the kitchen. Walked in to discover that a piece of the microwave oven had fallen down with a cracked screw hole. Took me a while to figure out how to put it back safely.
Car Dent
Last week, Pooja and mom were out for a shopping trip to the mall. On the way back, she was taking a left turn out from the lot and did not see a random piece of metal pole lying around. No one could have seen that in that position. The car hit from the right side and put a big dent into it. Pooja was not very happy about it. I was just glad she was OK.
News from Friends
Just heard about this colleague at work. His father had just had by-pass surgery. He was ready to come back when he heard of his cousin brother + pregnant wife + young kid being killed in a car accident. A few days later, his wife lost a cousin to the same fate.
WTH is going on?
Originally posted at http://vsharma.net/578.
A duck hunter was out enjoying a nice morning on the marsh when he decided to take a pee. He walked over to a tree and propped up his gun. Just then a gust of wind blew, the gun fell over and discharged, shooting him in the genitals.
Several hours later, lying in a hospital bed, he was approached by his doctor. "Well sir, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you are going to be OK. The damage was local to your groin, there was very little internal damage, and we were able to remove all of the birdshot."
"What’s the bad news?" asked the hunter.
"The bad news is that there was some pretty extensive birdshot damage done to your penis. I'm going to have to refer you to my sister."
"Well, I guess that isn't too bad," the hunter replied. "Is your sister a plastic surgeon?"
"Not exactly," answered the doctor. "She's a flute player in the Green Bay Symphony. She's going to teach you where to put your fingers so you don't piss in your eye."