How to : Write an Effective Online Review

We always tell each other before buying a new product or trying out a new service to check the reviews. However, how many of those reviews are actually useful, genuine and objective. Many people are reviewing a product for financial benefits, but what they don't realize is that by leaving out the cons, they are actually doing more harm than good.


Learn how to write an effective online review - 7 tips
*This is not about your experience. You are basically trying to help others out, being as objective as you can so that they can make their decision based on the review. If you had poor service at a restaurant, don't turn it into a rant. You could add that other people may have had better service on a quieter evening, for example.
*List the pros and the cons. Readers may even be suspicious when a review that is completely positive, but more attention is always drawn to the negative review. Your review will seem a lot more genuine if you look at all of the aspects in an objective way. You don't have to go overboard with anger, but you could also think of a validation for the negative feature. In this way you are letting the reader decide.
*Make sure you check your spelling, grammar and punctuation. Plan what you are going to say beforehand and organize your thoughts into logical paragraphs. The review should look professional at the end of the day. You don't want it to look like an email to your best friend with smiley faces and exclamation marks.
*Don't be abusive about certain people that are not going to affect the reader. Again, this is about professionalism and it is not about your episode with a specific person. That may have been a personality clash so you have to see the bigger picture.
*Don't forget about the small details. You may think that at that time, the date or the time of the day is not worth adding, but this is vital. The reason for this is that your review may be outdated in a couple of months. The prices may have changed or the product may even have been taken off the market. People want to see fresh content so make sure you update your reviews on a regular basis.
*Don't make your review too wordy. This is just about the facts. People don't want to spend too long going through a review. Most of the time, they want to know the good, the bad and the ugly and don't want to hear about what the weather was doing at the time, who you went with and how you were feeling. Unless, of course, this is relevant.
*Last, but not least, if you are writing on a website and have been instructed to include some SEO tactics or you feel you need to add certain keywords, make sure you don't go crazy with this. One can definitely see when a review has been written for the sole purpose of SEO and it looks horrible. At the end of the day you will do more harm than good. If you write as naturally as possible for the benefit of your readers you have a much better chance of rising up the ranks.


Carrie D. is a writer for Ukritic.com. If you want to learn what this site is all about, which is making you money, take a look at Ukritic today!