30 Days to a Better Blog: Establish a Review Policy

30 Days to a Better Blog: Establish a Review Policy

Some bloggers are anti-reviews. Some bloggers love them. If you fall into the latter category, or looking into writing product/service reviews – you’re best bet is to establish a review policy up-front and document the details on a static page of your blog.

Things to include in your review policy:

Overview: State the objective for your reviews. Are you looking for the best products for your audience? Are you looking to provide well-rounded reviews for your readers?
What You Look at in a Review: Tell your audience what you look for in the items you’re reviewing, and how you will write the review. Are you looking at content? quality? price? value? other specific factors?
Items You’re Looking to Review: Make a list of the items you are interested in reviewing – and an example of the items you’re not willing to review.
Whether You’re Willing to Accept Samples: A variety of companies look to provide bloggers with a sample that they need to return. Some bloggers are fine with that (this way they can review expensive items), while some find it a pain.
How to Request a Review: Provide contact information for companies looking to send you a review product.
How You Handle a Review: Tell potential companies how you handle the review. If it is a product that you don’t want to pitch to your audience or would review badly – do you still want to include the review? Will you let the company know? Will you send the product back or pass it on to another reviewer?
Disclosure: Bloggers are now legally required to disclose if they received an item as a sample and/or were paid for their review as a way to provide transparency to the reader. You can find several sample disclosure on the web, or I found this interesting website that gives you a way to visually display your level of disclosure.