There are two things that a consumer is looking for, online, before they purchase a product, or utilise a service. Firstly they want to see a price comparison, where possible. Are they being charged the lowest price for a particular item, and if not, where can they get it cheaper? Secondly, and importantly, they want to know what other people think about that particular product or service.
They will therefore look for reviews from those who have previously been customers or clients. The more reviews that a company has on the web, the more your brand will be seen and talked about by those wanting to buy the products you sell, or use the services that you supply.
For obvious reasons as long as you have good reviews, and I am not going to add to the length of this post discussing the merits of reputation management, you will have useful references around the internet selling your business.
For any companies, big or small, that are looking to take search engine optimisation seriously post Panda and Penguin, reviews are essential, in my opinion. My strategy for using them is simple. Contact a relevant Authority site to your business niche, (as you would to do a guest post for a blog), and offer to write them a 500+ word review. This review should be optimised, with a title, H tags, alt tagged images etc.
That review can then be posted on the company’s blog, home page or wherever they think it will be useful to them. As it will be optimised, it will also be ranked by the search engines with regards to its keyword content. Reviews like this are beneficial to both the recipient and the provider of the review. I will split the post into two to look at how both sides benefit in more detail.
Benefits To The Review Recipient.
They will get a free in depth review, of at least 500 words. Because it will be optimised and ranked, potential customers and clients searching for reviews around their niche, have a good chance of coming across a very in depth and analytical review of their business. This review could well earn them clients and customers, who we know will most likely be looking for review information regarding the recipient’s niche. It will also be free publicity, and another piece of valuable content for their website, that is not just another guest blog post.
We all know the value of useful and informative content nowadays! The combination of a quality review, containing a decent amount of content for FREE, should be enough to tempt most site owners into wanting to have one done for them. I currently have an 80% success rate in getting sites to take my reviews, and as we all know 80% is perfect.
Benefits To The Provider
Here is where the seo agency really earns its money, and praises. You will attach a link, as you would to a blog post, to the review, because you will be giving details of who has written this piece. You will obviously explain what you have to do with the review recipients industry, as this adds credibility to the finished piece.
This means you are actually writing a very niche related piece of content that is reviewing a niche related website, and also introducing yourself, whilst gaining a link from it. Google loves links from niche related content on niche related and authority websites. If you cannot see the value of a link like this, then I think it is time for you to get out of search engine marketing altogether. These are a lot easier to sell to other blog sites, and indeed normal business sites, than guest posts, because they are offering a lot more “obvious value”, to the recipient. Who doesn’t want positive reviews about their business circulating the internet? They will be free of charge as well. The thing to remember is not to over use the idea.
It is not much use having a large number of links all from the same place and the same type of content, hitting yours or your client’s site. Much as website owners may want you to do a lot of these reviews, I would not do more than four or five a month for every website you are linking back to. No link source should ever be abused nowadays, and should be part of a profile containing as many link varieties as possible. The diversity value alone makes this a great linking strategy, and the publicity for your own site, from the review, is also incredibly valuable.
How Long Will Links Like This Work?
Can these sorts of links be spammed by unscrupulous marketers? I don’t know how they could be. They would have to write content that would be accepted by other authority and niche related website owners. What website owners would accept a spun and poorly constructed piece of content for their website, about their business, anyway?
These sites have no problems turning away poor quality guest posts and other forms of poor content. For this to be of value to them, the writing of the review has to be of a high standard because they will want people to read it, and actually take positive action once doing so. Due to all these reasons I can’t see this not working as a form of promotion, and a great link building technique, for a long time yet. The “spammers” will have to get with the programme. Quality content and useful information is key to ranking highly nowadays, and there is no way of taking shortcuts to get it, certainly not with this strategy.
Daniel Vassiliou is CEO of Endurance Seo and has 12 years of experience working in sales and marketing. If you have any questions regarding this post, or anything seo related you can contact him by clicking here . Daniel promotes P.C.P, (Proper Company Promotion), to all his clients, and looks to help other seo agencies to offer their clients the best promotional strategies, knowing that things like links will come naturally once the proper groundwork has been done.
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