A Simple Guide to Product Reviews

A couple of people have asked me lately about product reviews; how you get the product, what you write for the review, etc. So I thought I'd write a little blog post about it.

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The first thing to mention is this post I wrote a while back, the general gist of which is that you should avoid doing too many reviews! Think about it: you've got X number of people who come to your blog every day/week/whenever to read about you and your... whatever it is you blog about. Unless you set up your blog in the first place as somewhere to review products, your readers are not going to keep coming back if it suddenly turns into that.

Any way, on with the show...

How to Get Products 

So you've got your blog, and you've got some readers, and you're loving it... but Twitter is full of people posting links to reviews of really cool stuff, and you want in on it. How do you do that?!

• First things first - only review products that fit your blog. If your blog is about health and fitness, don't write a review of a fast food restaurant. 
• If you're a parent blogger, signing up to Tots 100 can be a good place to start. Not because they necessarily hand out a lot of review opportunities, but because once you have a Tots 100 badge on your blog, you will have a place in their ranking each month. This, along with things like your Klout score, the number of Twitter followers you have etc, can be a good thing to mention if you're requesting products for review.
• Bloggers Required is a great place to start; they post review opportunities for all sorts of different things, and you can "pitch" for things. I've got lots of reviews this way.
• As your blog becomes more established, make sure you have a good About page with details of how to contact you. Keep it updated with relevant information about you, and make sure you mention that you are keen to review products. That way PRs who are looking for someone to review their product are more likely to email you. Similarly, keep your Tots 100 profile and profiles on other sites up to date.
• If someone sends you a product to review, always maintain a good relationship with them. Responding promptly to emails and getting reviews up in good time may well lead to more opportunities from the same person/company.
• Another good thing to do is take a regular look at Twitter hashtags #journorequest and #prrequest. You'll often find people on there looking for bloggers to review their products.
• One thing to bear in mind is that you don't need to be given a free product to review; you can just review something you've bought and is relevant to your blog. This is something Kip Hakes has been doing for years, and I think he's right about people being constantly on the blag for free stuff.
• That said, if you really like the look of a product, and would like a free one to review, there's no harm in contacting the company in question to see if they'll send you one for review. I signed up to do a series of posts on Yahoo Contributor Network before remembering that I didn't own a reliable sports bra... so I contacted a couple of companies to see if they would provide one for review. You'd be surprised at how many companies are open to working in this way nowadays, and really the worst they can say is no!

Testing the Product

I always make sure I test my product as thoroughly as possible. If I'm sent clothes for S, I make sure they've been through the wash etc before I pass comment on them. When I had a new frying pan to review I made sure I'd cooked a few things in it and washed it several times before I wrote about how great it was.

Writing Your Review

• I've seen "reviews" where people have clearly blagged themselves a free product in return for a review, and their post consists of "look, here's X product... I got sent one... you can buy it here" with no information as to what they thought of it, whether it was fit for purpose etc. Although to a certain extent people will be providing you with things just for the link you'll put in your post, also spare a thought for your readers!
• Think about what you would want to know about a product. For me the main things are the cost, and whether it's worth that price. Don't be afraid to say "It costs this much, and I wouldn't pay that for it"  but back that up with a reason as to why you wouldn't pay that much.
• If you got the product through the company's website, mention how easy it was to do that. One of my most-read reviews is this one of Vistaprint photo books,  where I mentioned how many extras they try to get you to buy when you're checking out.
• Always make sure to include a disclaimer, stating the terms of the review. I usually say something like I was provided with this product free of charge in exchange for a review, but this was not dependent on my writing a favourable review. It's important that your readers know you weren't just given this thing in exchange for advertising it. And if that was the case, you need to let them know that your post is an advertisement rather than a review.
• If you're not sure what to write, or how to say something, it's always worth looking at reviews on other blogs to see how they've gone about doing things. Obviously don't copy them, but using other blogs for inspiration is a great way to get those creative juices flowing. Make sure the words and opinions are your own though; if you find that another blogger reviewed the same product and didn't like it, that doesn't mean you shouldn't write a positive review if you did like it!
• Always try to include a good photo of the product. If it's a toy, I also try to include one of the toy being played with, and with clothes I take a photo of S in them rather than just flat on the floor.

Timing

Many PRs or brands will be keen to get your review online as soon as possible; but you need to ensure you have time to actually review the product properly. 

Make sure it's made clear how long you will take to review any product. This is something you can mention on your About page, or discuss on an ad hoc basis as new opportunities come in. 

Do you have any tips to add? If so please do leave a comment below!

How to Write a Great About Page for Your Blog

The "About Me" page is arguably the most important one on your blog. If you look at your stats, you'll see that it actually gets quite a lot of traffic; people want to know about you and who you are. This post is one of a series I have written about blogging tips. The full series can be found here

If you want to work with brands or PRs, it's especially important to have a good "About Me" page, as this is the first place they will look to see whether they want to work with you.

This is the photo from my About page.

Here are a few tips for constructing a good "About Me" page.

• First things first: there is no point whatsoever in writing yourself a lovely About page, publishing it, and then just never looking at it again. You need to regularly review your page and check whether all the information in it is still correct and relevant. If your About page says you're pregnant, but your child is clearly now a toddler, people will be confused as to what's going on.

• Have a look at the About pages of other blogs in your area. See what information they include, but also read the page and see what you think of it. Is it easy to follow? Does it tell you what you want to know about the person? Read as many different About pages as possible to help you decide what you want to include in yours.

• Tell the reader who you are, but also who the main people are in your blog. Unless you want to introduce each member of your family at the beginning of east post, put them in your About page. That way newcomers who aren't familiar with your blog will be able to figure out who you're talking about, how old they are, what position they have in your life. Share as much information as you are comfortable with the reader knowing up-front. 

• This sounds silly, but tell them what your blog is about. What do you write about? Is it just family life, or do you also blog about politics/feminism/mental health/disability/illnesses? Tell people what they can expect from reading your blog.

• If you want people to contact you, whether that be potential guest posters, PRs or companies, tell them how to do that. Provide your email address and state exactly what you will and will not consider.

What do you think? Do you disagree with any of my tips? Do you have any to add? What do you think makes a great About page on a blog? 

Blogging Tips: Successful Blogging & SEO

This is part of a series of blogging tips designed to help you write fantastic posts and increase your blog traffic. Here are some more tips you may find useful, and some notes on SEO as well:

• Encourage interaction. Don't just talk at people, ask them what they think. Encourage debate on the subject across the social media you use. It's fine to disagree with people, so long as you do it politely, and don't make it personal.

• Make commenting on your blog easy. Many sites now offer Captcha or similar to avoid spam bots leaving loads of comments on your blog. They're great for stopping spam, but also great for stopping actual comments. A while back someone politely told me that he had given up trying to comment on my blog because they'd taken a couple of attempts at the Captcha and still couldn't get past it. When I stopped and though about it, I realised that yes, actually I often give up on posting my comment if there's a Captcha on there. I removed that option on my blog, and now I just moderate the comments; I get a lot more comments now!

• Try to be consistent with your posting. If you only post once a week that's fine, but make sure you do post once a week, and at a predictable time. If your regular readers are coming back every Tuesday to read your new post, and then one week you don't post until Thursday, you might lose some readers who assume you've abandoned your blog, or just can't be bothered to keep checking back.

• Join in linky's. These are a great way to get new readers, and also to find new blogs to follow. They often come with a set of rules though, about following the host, the post you can link up, leaving comments etc.

• Run a linky. This can be a great way to get new readers and regular blog traffic - but they also come with their problems. As the host of a linky, it's generally considered common courtesy that you visit every blog that has linked up. That's fine if your linky only attracts 10 or 20 blogs (but then, is it achieving what you had hoped it would?) but if it becomes really successful, and you're getting hundreds of people linking up each time, it can become a major drain on your time to visit and comment on them all.

• Write guest posts for other blogs, and have other bloggers guest post on yours. This is a great way to get both blogs a new audience, as people cross over to see a piece by someone whose work they normally read. Make sure though, that any guest posts you have on your blog are relevant to its usual content, and that you are guest posting on blogs that are similar to yours.

• Promote your posts! The world is not sitting at their computer, checking your blog every 5 minutes to see if you've added any new pearls of wisdom. You need to get out there and shout about it! Use whichever social media you prefer, or all of them. I've already written posts about how to use Facebook and Twitter to promote your posts, but consider also using Google+, Linkedin and Pinterest as well. Also sites like Love All Blogs and Scooptub can prove to be really useful.

A word on SEO:

I'm not a big fan of SEO, mainly because I'm lazy, and it feels a bit... cynical. That said, there are some simple things you can do to increase the likelihood of your post showing up in search engines:

• I really think SEO won't work on 90% of my blog posts, because I write about personal interest stuff. Nobody is likely to be Googling what my daughter ate for dinner today, so there's no point in my wasting my time looking at SEO for those posts. Choose which posts you use SEO for!

• Choose your keyword, for example you might be writing a post about childbirth or pregnancy. This is the word you want to be picked up by search engines, the main topic of your post.

• Use Google Adwords to search that word, and see if perhaps there's a similar word that might be a better choice (ie, it has more searches associated with it).

• Once you have chosen your keyword, you want to include it as many times as possible in your post: the title, the URL, the opening paragraph, the closing paragraph, any sub-headings you use in the post, the body of the text, the alt tags of the images in the post.

• In Google Adwords, use the drop-down arrow next to your word, and select "Google Insights for search." This will open a new window showing all sorts of wonderful information, including "related terms." Try to include 4-6 of these related terms in your blog post, throughout the body of the text. Don't do this though, if the related searches would not fit comfortably into your piece; otherwise it just looks clunky and it's obvious you've only added them for SEO purposes.

• Include links to related articles - not necessarily on your blog, but across the web. Link to where you got your information from, or other sites that are useful for this sort of thing. This creates "authority" in the eyes of search engines.

So there you have it: some (hopefully) useful tips for blogging, and some more tips for using SEO on your blog. Please do let me know what you think; are these tips useful? Do you disagree with an of them, or do you have anything to add? If you've used something I've recommended and found it useful, or complete rubbish, please do let me know. And if you've enjoyed this post, please do share it with your friends using the buttons below. Thanks for reading!

Blogging Tips: Blog Statistics Are Your Friend!

I've been writing a series on blogging tips lately. These include How to Write an Amazing Blog Post, How to Promote Your Blog using Facebook, and How to Increase Your Blog Traffic Using Twitter. This one might be more... divisive. It's about statistics, and how they can help you with your blog.

When I first started blogging, the advice I got from most people was: don't look at your stats. Don't read the stats. Don't worry about the stats. Stats are meaningless. 

I'm a bit of a geek, though; I like stats. I like graphs and analysing data and knowing what's going on. So I would carry on checking the stats on my blog, feeling like I was breaking the rules somehow. 

Then I spoke to Mark, who blogs at Best Dad I Can Be (and has written a rather funny book). He was the first person to say to me that, if you want your blog to do well, you need to pay attention to the stats.

If you're just blogging for fun, and you're not at all interested in how to get more readers or followers or improve your Tots 100 ranking or your Klout score or whatever else, then fine. Stop reading this post. It's not for you.

If you are interested in how statistics can help you, read on.

• Install Google Analytics on your blog. You can use it to see useful things like how many unique visitors you have each day/week/month. You can compare this week with last week, and see loads of other things besides.

• Look at how people are finding you. Which websites are your main sources of traffic? What words to people search on Google to get to your blog?

• Use your stats to see whether the links you post on Facebook or Twitter are bringing you any more traffic. Did that linky post you linked up with on a whim the other day actually bring you more traffic than all that Tweeting?

• Use Google Analytics to see your traffic sources, and which sites have the highest percentage of new visitors. It's important here to take note of the average time spent on the blog though; quite often you'll get a high percentage of new visitors from sites like Stumbleupon, but the nature of the site means that people may only spend a few seconds there.

• Which are your most popular posts? Look at what's different about these, and why they might be more popular - do they have more useful information, more personal content, more controversial arguments?

• If you have a Facebook page, look at the Insights at the top of the page to see which posts had the most interaction. Do posts made at a particular time of day get more interaction? Is it photos? Links to other pages? Random "I am picking my nose" TMI posts? Try and use this information to better time when and how you posts links to your blog.

• You can use sites like bit.ly to shorten your links - but they will also count how many times that link is clicked on. This can be useful if, for example, you use these links for specific  posts only (at a certain time of day or in a certain place) - you can track exactly how much effect these actions are having.

• I find it useful to keep my own spreadsheet of how many unique visitors I have, and the average visit duration each month. This can show you at a glance whether what you're doing to promote your blog is paying off.

• I also keep track of the number of visitors my blog has had in the last rolling month. As a rule you want this number to go up, or at least stay the same - if it starts to go down then you know you need to have a look at where you are losing readers.

So there is my list of ways you can use statistics to help with your blogging. Do you agree with these? Do you have any to add? Please do share your thoughts in the comments.

Ways to Promote your Blog Using Facebook

It's a great idea to set up a Facebook page for your blog. Facebook is the original social network, and still has the largest number of active users. Having a page for your blog allows you to promote the blog on Facebook, without spamming up the newsfeeds of all your regular Facebook friends for whom your blog might not be relevant. This post follows on from this one about using Twitter to promote your blog, and this one about how to write a good blog post.

• Use Facebook to post links to your blog, but not just that. Post pictures, share content from other pages, links to relevant articles or websites. 

• Think about what makes you click "like" on a Facebook page. You want more than just your personal friends to follow your Facebook page, so try to make it appealing. Fill in the "about" section as thoroughly as possible, so that people know what they're signing up to.

• Be polite! If someone comments on your Facebook page, or sends you a private message, always try to respond. Always thank anyone who shares your content. People will not continue to interact with someone who does not respond to them.

• It's not a clever idea to have your Twitter update your Facebook page (I often tweet several times an hour, especially if attending a Twitter party, and your friends will get sick of it). You can, instead, have your blog Facebook page update your Twitter.

• In the top right-hand corner of the Facebook screen, there's a star symbol. By clicking on this image, you can select to "use Facebook as..." your blog page, rather than your personal account. Use this mode to "like" pages with similar subject matter to yours. Comment on posts by these pages using your blog page, rather than your personal account. By interacting with people using your blog page, you can encourage people to take a look at your page.

• If someone else posts a link or status that is relevant to a blog post you have written, comment with a link, using your Facebook page rather than your personal account. You need to be careful about doing this - don't do it too often on the same pages, and don't post a link without a comment to go with it. That's just rude.

• Design a cover photo that shows what your blog is about. Consider having it in the same colours or using the same photos as on your blog, so as to keep things consistent.

• Think about who you are trying to attract to your blog, and aim your Facebook posts at that person. Save your other witty observations for your personal Facebook account.

• Depending on the type of images you post, consider setting your Instagram settings to post your pictures to your blog Facebook page rather than your personal one.

• Try to give your readers value for money. If everything you post on Facebook is exactly the same as your Twitter feed, there's no point in their following you on both. Post photos etc on Facebook that aren't on Twitter, and vice versa.

• When you post photos on your blog, consider posting that photo on Facebook later on, with a link to the post in the title. This will eventually give you a large photo album of (hopefully) good photos that people may want to look at, with links back to your blog.

• This one sounds a bit silly, but if you "like" a post on your blog page, from your personal page, your personal friends will see it. They'll be more likely, then, to come and look at your blog page to see what it is you've been liking! 

• It's also possible to link Klout to your blog Facebook page, rather than your personal one. This means Klout will be judging you based on your interactions on the blog, not personal interactions.

• This post by Joanne Dewberry has some very useful tips for using Facebook to promote your blog/business.

And of course, now that you've read this, I really think you should go and "like" my fan page on Facebook!

If you decide to try any of these tips, do come back and let me know how you get on.

Have you seen your blog traffic increase since setting up a Facebook page? Have you figured out a clever way to get more "likes" on your Facebook page? Have you written a similar post on your blog about using Facebook to promote your blog? Let me know in the comments!

Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic With Twitter

Here are some ways you can promote your blog using Twitter.

Twitter is an amazing way of using social media to increase interest in your blog and widen your audience.

This post is one of a series I am writing about blogging tips. There is also one about How to write an amazing blog post, and one about how to promote your blog using Facebook.

• Twitter is your best friend when it comes to promoting your blog. Most of my blog traffic these days comes from Twitter.

• Don't only tweet links to your blog - nobody wants to read or interact with that. Try to tweet interesting, useful content, to ask questions and to engage with others.

• Follow other people who post about similar things. You can find them by searching for key words. For example, my blog is about being a single mother, so I searched "single mother" and found people to follow.

• Follow Brit Mums, Tots100, Bloggers Bunch and any other accounts which are relevant to the content of your blog. You're not following them just to get them to RT (re-tweet) your stuff to their followers; you want to interact with them, and read the posts they tweet; a great way of meeting like-minded people.

• Follow, follow, follow; interact, interact, interact. On Twitter, you can follow anyone whose account isn't private, and you can reply to their tweets. It doesn't matter if you don't know them, or you've never spoken to them before. If they tweet a question about something, and you have information/advice/an opinion that is relevant, then respond. This is the beauty of Twitter.

• Use hashtags. Not just random ones like #IDontKnowWhyIBother or something, but key words that are relevant to what you're posting. Just recently I wrote a post about Clare's Law, and used hashtags such as #domesticabuse and #dv in my tweets. This meant that anyone with an interest in those topics would be more likely to see my post. That week, my blog got twice as many hits as the rest of the month.

• Don't be afraid to tweet your links to relevant people or organisations - but only if it's relevant! With my Clare's Law post, I sent it to domestic violence charities and asked them to RT it if they felt it was useful. 

• If you don't have the time or inclination to be on Twitter all day (apparently those people do exist), you can set up scheduled tweets using something like Future Tweets to promote your posts while you're out having a life - or watching box sets. 

• It's all very well following celebrities and seeing their photos of their cats, but don't expect much interaction with them. They get hundreds, perhaps thousands of replies to each tweet they send, so yours is likely to be lost in the crowd. You're better off following people who have similar interests to you, have a blog you read, or you know personally.

• Join in Twitter parties. If you're a parent blogger, there's #pbloggers on a Sunday evening. I live in Salisbury, so I often join in #SalisburyHour on a Wednesday evening. There's also #babyhour, #buybritishbrands and hundreds more. Tots100 and Brit Mums often have their own, one-off Twitter parties. Tots 100 have #WillyNilly on a Friday, where you tweet them any post you've done this week using that hashtag, and they'll RT it to their followers. I also set up #ArchiveDay on a Saturday, where bloggers tweet a link to an old post from their blog with the tag, and then RT others. This can be a great way of getting your content seen by others, but also of finding new blogs to read.

• Don't be afraid to ask your followers to RT your links. Not every single link you post; that's just rude. But every now and then, if you have a link you think might be helpful to a wider audience, ask them. It can't hurt! Do always thank people for RTing your tweets though - be polite!

• Twitter is a great way to get blog traffic, and  great way to boost your Klout score, but don't use it just for that. If you're only using Twitter for those reasons, it will be obvious and people won't want to interact with you. It's much better to use Twitter as a place to meet like-minded people, and post your links there etc as a secondary use.

Do you have any other tips for using Twitter to promote your blog? Are there any on this list that you've used that did or didn't work? Do you prefer to use a different social media to promote your blog? Let me know in the comments!

How to Write an Amazing Blog Post.

A few people have asked me questions about blogging and blog posts lately, so I thought I'd publish some posts about what I've found that has worked for me. First up is how to write a great blog post.

Other posts in this series are about how to promote your blog using Facebook and Twitter.

This is by no means an exhaustive list; it's just a list of the things I've found that have helped me.

Posts:

• Pick an awesome title. Think of what would grab your attention if you were flicking through links on the internet; what would make you stop and read?

• Think about what makes you read a blog post or article. Once you've written your post, try to look at it from a stranger's perspective, and judge whether you would find it appealing. 

• Try to break the text up as much as possible. Use shorter paragraphs, and consider using bold headings. Think reading the Sun rather than the Times here. People reading articles on the internet often have other pulls on their attention (kids, TV, radio, people, work), and if they keep losing their place while reading, eventually they'll give up.

• Lists are always handy - an easy way to get information across, and easy to read without losing your place.

• Pay attention to spelling, punctuation and grammar. The person reading your post doesn't know you; they don't know how you usually speak or construct a sentence. There are so many blogs out there with good content but poor punctuation and grammar. If you don't use punctuation properly, your message can be lost. If you aren't very good at these things, consider getting someone to proof read it for you. 

• If you are referring to an old blog post, or another site, always link to it. Don't leave your readers thinking "well what's s/he on about here?" Use the opportunity to show off your other great posts!

• Don't ever use acronyms without explaining what they mean the first time you use them. Even if you think it's common knowledge and everyone should know it, you can guarantee there's at least one person out there who doesn't know it. For example, in a post about tax you would put "HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) provide your employer with a tax code; if you believe this to be incorrect, you must speak to HMRC and ask them to amend it." 

• Don't waffle to fill space. If your post is short, it really doesn't matter so long as you get your point across.

• If another person's post has inspired you to write your own, that's fine; put a link to their post at the top of yours and say "this post over here inspired me to write..." Don't just steal a person's idea though. That's not very polite, and nobody will thank you for it.

• I always find it useful to preview my post before publishing it. Doing this helps me to check that the post looks good and like something I'd like to read.

• Stay on-topic. If you've decided to write a post about breastfeeding, don't go off on a tangent to discuss why you don't formula feed or when you're planning to wean. Put those into their own posts.

• Similarly, if you have a lot to say consider splitting it out into a series of posts - like I did with my Birth Story, and the posts I wrote about my breakdown. You can put a link at the bottom of each post to point to the next one.

• Try to maintain a certain amount of uniformity. Think about the font you use, whether you justify your text or have it centred etc. This will make your blog look nice, but will also mean your blog posts are instantly recognisable as yours.

Photos:

• Photos are always useful. They break up the text, and tend to pull a visitor in. Also if there's a photo on your post, you and your readers can use it to pin to a Pinterest board, where more people will see it.

• Don't steal photos. If you're going to use someone else's image, credit them for it. 

• You can use programs like Picasa, or sites like PicMonkey and Fotor to edit your pictures, crop them and group several into one file. You can also put a caption, watermark or link onto them if you wish.

• Don't post your photo without at least cropping it. A photo that has been cropped and edited slightly looks more professional than something you just snapped quickly with your camera phone.

• You really can just use the camera on your phone.You don't need some fancy singing-and-dancing contraption. Every photo I've posted on this blog was taken on my phone. And my phone is monumentally crap.

• Make use of Alt Tags. If you don't know what an Alt Tag is... well I can't really explain terribly well. But basically, if you use the "properties" tab on a photo in Blogger (sorry, I've no idea for Wordpress but it's bound to be there somewhere), there are two boxes into which you can type a description of your photo. This makes your photos more searchable on Google Images. And if someone finds a cool photo you've posted, they might stick around and read your blog.

So, there you have my tips for how to write a great blog post. Do you have anything to add? Have you tried anything on this list that did or didn't work for you? If you disagree with anything I've written, or you have your own tips to add, please do comment!

Why I Don't Follow Your Blog

Just lately, I've been trying to broaden my horizons by reading more blogs. I've actually started using Bloglovin for the first time since I set it up months ago, and actually reading all the blogs whose Bloglovin buttons I've clicked on.

One thing I was struck by is how many reviews and sponsored posts there are. I mean, there are a lot.

I get enough of this crap through my door; I don't want it on my screen!

That's a good thing, in that I'm more likely to buy a product if a blogger whose opinion I trust has said it's good.

And it's nice to see fellow bloggers doing well and getting to try out nice stuff.

But there is a danger that your blog, which presumably was originally made popular by your words, your posts about your family, your life... is now basically a review site with the odd sponsored post or photo of your child.

Just lately, this blog has been doing pretty well. I've been lucky enough to be approached to review a few products. I decided that, in order to maintain my "credibility" (lawks, what a pretentious word), I would not post more than one review a week; people would just have to wait to hear what I thought of this particular thing. I didn't want to bore people with review posts, because I worried that the readership I'd worked so hard to build up might walk away if all they saw was product placement.

I was surprised then, to find that a lot of other blogs seem to have become very popular - presumably by posting original content - and have now become just a place to review the latest thing the blogger has been sent.

Of course, there's no problem with that - by all means, get given free stuff and review it. But change the description at the top of your blog to reflect that. I don't want to subscribe to read a blog about you and your quirky family and all the fun you have... and then find my feed full of posts about this website or that baby potty.

Am I missing something here? Is this just how things work? Am I being too much of an idealist?
Seriously, if I'm speaking out of turn here then please someone tell me to shut up.

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