I am a big fan of review sites. Not all of them, or even most of them. But I do look at a lot of them every week. Review sites are good if you're looking at a product and want to know what people other than the site owners have to say.

For example, about a year ago, I was looking for a treadmill. The one I had was overheating and was getting noisy. I started shopping, and found one that looked good, and was on sale with free shipping.

So I did what I usually do. I did a search for the treadmill I was looking at and saw what others were saying. I decided to buy the treadmill, and it has been working fine for the past year.

That's an example of a physical product, but I do it for most things I come across that interest me. What I have found is that while there are good sites out there, there are also sites that are a copy of other sites I have visited.

When I say copied, I mean the product description, bullet points, and links to the site that is selling the product. Once I landed on a copycat site, I quickly clicked back to find the next site listed.

These sites that just copy the main site's copy and images are useless to me, and I suspect that they aren't getting many sales for the site owners. It is true that they managed to get listed in the first 2 pages of search results, but I doubt that they are there for very long.

So that brings up the question of whether review sites work any more...

From what I have seen over the past several months, review sites can be helpful. I think the key to a review site that gets a good ranking and starts to generate steady traffic is one that is actually helpful.

I get really suspicious of any site that describes a product, and at the end of the review, they can't find one thing that is wrong with the product, nothing that could be improved. That tells me that they aren't being honest, and they probably didn't put a lot of time or research into the review before they posted it.

I believe that review sites are useful, and that because people are searching for reviews, you can generate free traffic if you do a good job. Search engines will reward you with better rankings, rankings that last. Visitors will reward you by clicking on your links. And you'll be rewarded with getting paid for your hard work.

And don't forget to make the most of the visitors to your site. Not everyone will be interested in clicking on your link and going to the sales page. That doesn't mean that they're not interested. Some of them are, of course.

But some of them may be interested, but don't have the time or want to think about it. They may intend to come back. To better your chances of them getting them back to your site and to the sales page, there is one important thing that you can do.

Get them on your list. On your review page, make sure you have an opt-in form so they can subscribe to get more information. If you can come up with a free report that is related to the product, you can use that as an incentive to get them onto your list.

Once they are on your list, you can send them emails related to what you're selling. Make sure to provide value and information that they will find useful. Include a link to the product sales page at the end, but don't beat them over the head with this. You don't want to drive them away.

To get the most out of this list strategy, search for related products. Provide interesting email messages that relate to your market, and introduce new products every so often. This way, you will have a long term subscriber that you can contact and make sales from. It's a winning strategy.

To wrap this up, if you're going to do review sites or review posts, make sure to do a good job. Make the review interesting and try to answer any questions that a potential buyer may have that they could not find on the sales page. Get them on your list. 

After all, that's why they came  to a review site in the first place. To get more information about the product that they are interested in. Be the one to help them, and you will be rewarded.

Till Next Time...

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