How to make money by writing product reviews?

The internet is flooded by information on how to make money online. Most people try to find content writing jobs or survey filling jobs but many aren’t aware of writing product reviews. This is a genuine way of making money online by working in your spare time. Some people have even made a career out of product review writing as today’s marketing and businesses are mostly conducted online. A friend of mine who is an engineer started writing reviews for products in his domain viz, software and electronics some time ago. He is now a renowned product reviewer and is sought after by many firms.

Skills and Knowledge: No specialized qualification is required for a product reviewer. But he/she must possess thorough knowledge of the product he/she is reviewing. In some cases technical knowledge of the domain is required. In other cases, thorough knowledge of the product is required. For example, if you are reviewing food supplements, you should have thorough indepth knowledge of the subject- pros and cons of taking food supplements, content of the product, its quality when compared to its competitors etc. If you don’t have knowledge of a product, you can slowly built by researching the product on the internet and gaining substantial knowledge over a period of time.

Investment: One need not invest or buy anything to become a product review. Many folks wonder if the product reviewer should buy the product first. In reality, if you have good knowledge of the product and the subject domain, it’s more than enough. In some cases, the company itself will provide the products to the reviewer for free. For example, Amazon Vine program offers products to the product reviewer to test and review them.

A product review should be attractive to the viewer/user and should provide a fair idea of the product. It’s not necessary that reviews should always be positive. Companies will accept negative reviews as well. So it’s not that you will be sidelined if you provide an honest review of a product. In most cases, the company seeking product product reviews are e-commerce stores and the product may be supplied by a vendor. So the company will make sure that the vendor supplies the right product. If they sell a sub-standard product it will be harmful to their reputation. Hence they seek product reviewers.

A product review must enlighten the below:

1. Pros and cons of a product
2. If the particular product is suitable for the prospective customer
3. Quality of the product and its ease of use.
4. Alternatives in the market
5. Your final review of the product. Whether it’s a worthy buy or not

Well, it all depends on the time and effort you are willing to put in. You may have to work hard in the beginning. But once you establish yourself as a renowned writer/reviewer, then you can make some good money. Many people make over $1000 per month.

There are many ways of generating revenue. One way is to become a reviewer for a particular company and make money through their affiliate program. eBay, Amazon etc offer such programs. Secondly, some companies directly pay product reviewers based on the number of reviews they write each month.

The best method is to create your own website or blog and write product reviews. This way you can bring maximum number of people to your site. Over a period of time, people will identify you as an established reviewer. If a new product is launched, people will flock to your website to find a genuine review of the product.

Some reviewers use blogs and free social networking sites like blogger, Hubpages etc to write product review blogs. Wordpress.com is a better option as it provides more functionality and pages can be custom built. Web traffic is also better with wordpress.