How to Gain Trust and Cred­i­bil­ity with Af­fil­i­ate Prod­uct Reviews

Tran­scen­dent val­ues like trust and in­tegrity lit­er­ally trans­late into rev­enue, prof­its and prosperity.

Pa­tri­cia Abur­dene said this, the Au­thor of Mega­trends 2010

She wasn’t talk­ing about prod­uct re­views. Yet, it’s easy to see how trust and in­tegrity spell the dif­fer­ence be­tween a prod­uct re­view that sucks, and one that’s worth the ‘re­view’ title.

2 days ago I spent my Sun­day af­ter­noon on a comfy Starbuck’s couch read­ing Tiffany Dow’s lat­est e-book ‘Guide to Cash­ing in on Shiny New Ob­ject Syndrome.’

It’s a book about af­fil­i­ate prod­uct re­views, with a twist. This post was meant to be a re­view for the book, but it turned out to be some­thing very different.

• The ba­sic idea about af­fil­i­ate prod­uct re­views is that you pub­lish a prod­uct re­view on your web site with the goal of mak­ing your read­ers buy the product.
• For every sale you re­ceive a commission.

It’s one of the most com­mon ways to mon­e­tize a website.

Writ­ing great re­views, though, can do much more for you than earn­ing a com­mis­sion. With the right prin­ci­ples in mind, you can use re­views for brand­ing, for po­si­tion­ing, and to build your reputation.

With the right prin­ci­ples in mind, you can build your cred­i­bil­ity and be­come known as a trust­wor­thy per­son – a per­son worth do­ing busi­ness with. Busi­ness be­yond click­ing the af­fil­i­ate link.

Wouldn’t that be great? If –in­stead of merely hunt­ing for com­mis­sions – you could use re­views as pil­lars for a stel­lar rep­u­ta­tion in your niche market?

But how to do it? The an­swer lies in the omi­nous ‘right prin­ci­ples’ men­tioned twice above.

Keep read­ing to dis­cover 4 prin­ci­ples for build­ing cred­i­bil­ity, and how to use them in your af­fil­i­ate prod­uct reviews.

The sub ti­tle of Tiffany’s new e-book is

“A Sys­tem that Forces You to Take Ac­tion, Gain Trust, and Be­come an All-Star Info Prod­uct Affiliate!”

Like in Aberdeen’s quote, there’s ‘trust’ again.

I’m not a fre­quent re­view writer, but a fre­quent re­view reader. So, when think­ing about writ­ing re­views to earn af­fil­i­ate com­mis­sions, it makes to­tal sense to look at the reader’s point of view first.

Af­ter all, the reader of your re­view is the one to shell out the cash and buy the re­viewed product.

Look­ing at re­views as a reader I have to say, and you’ll very likely agree with me:

The ma­jor­ity of prod­uct re­views, es­pe­cially in the make-money-on­­line in­dus­try or in­­ter­net-mar­ket­ing in­dus­try, is any­thing but a review. 

To me, the gazil­lions of prod­uct re­views on the in­ter­net look like this:

The 5 Types of Re­views You Meet in Hyperspace

1. Most re­views on the web are not af­fil­i­ate re­views. They are gen­uine re­views from peo­ple who en­joy or feel com­pelled to voice their en­thu­si­asm, or ut­ter spite, for a prod­uct. You’ll find them on per­sonal blogs, in fo­rums, on Amazon.com, Rottentomatoes.com, and many more. These re­views are not writ­ten with the in­ten­tion of mak­ing money. Most of all, they aren’t writ­ten with search en­gine op­ti­miza­tion in mind.

The re­views, which of­ten pop up in search re­sults, be­long to pro­fes­sional re­view sites. They are prod­uct re­views writ­ten by peo­ple who ei­ther earn af­fil­i­ate com­mis­sions, or earn money from ad­ver­tis­ing on their web­site. These re­views are search en­gine op­ti­mized; they are the ones that show up when you search for a re­view for a spe­cific product.

They rarely de­serve to be called a review.

2. Lots of re­view sites are built with au­to­mated tools, not giv­ing a re­view, but merely pulling prod­uct names and de­scrip­tions from shop­ping sites with af­fil­i­ate pro­grams, like Click­Bank, Com­mis­sion Junc­tion, or EBay.

3. Re­views writ­ten by hu­mans are of­ten noth­ing but a short­ened, re-worded ver­sion of the sales let­ter. No re­view at all. Usu­ally, for this type of re­view, the au­thor hasn’t even seen or used the ac­tual prod­uct, ever. These re­views are writ­ten by hired free­lance writ­ers, who mass pro­duce web­site con­tent with low quality.

4. Prod­uct re­views which de­serve the name give you some ‘pros and cons’ of the prod­uct, but more of­ten than not they aren’t en­tirely hon­est. In­stead of be­ing hon­est, they try to please – not the reader, but the prod­uct and the prod­uct cre­ator. Tiffany goes into this in more de­tail in her book.

Pro­fes­sional af­fil­i­ate re­view­ers fol­low pre-de­ter­mined for­mu­las (re­view tem­plates) to make you be­lieve you’re read­ing an hon­est re­view. There’s even the ad­vice to ‘add a bit of neg­a­tiv­ity’ to cre­ate the false im­pres­sion of giv­ing an ‘hon­est, un­bi­ased’ re­view. In truth, it’s a dis­guised prod­uct advertisement.

Is all hope lost for humanity?

I think not.

5. There are still a few (one or two, maybe) gen­uine re­view­ers who

• Use or read the product/book be­fore re­view­ing it.
• Care more about giv­ing an hon­est re­view to their read­ers than squeez­ing the af­fil­i­ate commission.

And, if you’re an hon­est re­viewer, it doesn’t even have to hurt your commissions.

What if you be­come known to your read­ers as a trusted source of hon­est, use­ful prod­uct reviews?

• Would read­er­ship for your re­views in­crease or decrease?
• Would the like­li­hood of peo­ple act­ing on your ad­vice (=buy­ing the prod­uct) in­crease or decrease?

Rhetor­i­cal questions.

Read­ers know they are scammed left and right on the in­ter­net. Read­ers crave trust­wor­thy sources of in­for­ma­tion, trust­wor­thy web­sites, and trust­wor­thy people.

With spon­sored prod­uct re­views and glow­ing en­dorse­ments the in­ter­net is a low-trust world.

This is where I be­lieve you can set your­self apart. By writ­ing cred­i­ble, trust­wor­thy re­views you can stand out from the pack and be­come the go-to re­source in your market.

But how is it ac­com­plished? What are the prac­ti­cal el­e­ments of an ab­stract word like ‘cred­i­bil­ity’ or ‘trust?’

What are the 4 prin­ci­ples of credibility?

As a pro­fes­sional prod­uct re­viewer, how do you earn and de­serve your reader’s trust?

Stephen M.R. Covey de­vel­oped a 4-part frame­work for cre­at­ing trust.

He’s the son of Dr. Stephen R. Covey (au­thor of the fa­mous book ‘7 Prin­ci­ples of Highly Ef­fec­tive Peo­ple’). His book The Speed of Trust (Ama­zon Link) isn’t nearly as well-known as his father’s The 7 Prin­ci­ples of Highly Ef­fec­tive Peo­ple – but it’s one of my all-time-fa­vorite busi­ness books.

It’s a book that can trans­form how you do business.

Stephen M.R. Covey writes about cre­at­ing trust:

Con­trary to what most peo­ple be­lieve, trust is not some elu­sive qual­ity that you ei­ther have or you don’t; rather, trust is a prag­matic, tan­gi­ble, ac­tion­able as­set that you can cre­ate much faster than you prob­a­bly think possible.

 

Ac­cord­ing to him, trust is gained when 4 com­po­nents come to­gether. If this is true, then your af­fil­i­ate prod­uct re­views will gain trust and cred­i­bil­ity by adding those 4 components.

YOU will gain trust and creditability.

What are those 4 com­po­nents? And how can you prac­ti­cally use them in your reviews?

Cred­i­bil­ity Prin­ci­ple #1: Be a Per­son of Integrity

In­tegrity is a buzz word. Glossy biz brochures use it. CEOs use it. Self-help gu­rus use it. Yet, it’s also one of the most highly val­ued char­ac­ter traits.

In­tegrity in life means hon­esty. Walk­ing your talk. Act­ing in ac­cor­dance to your de­clared val­ues and be­liefs. Peo­ple who speak dif­fer­ent than how they act lack in­tegrity, and lack of in­tegrity is one of the most de­spised, crit­i­cized, and mocked char­ac­ter traits in the his­tory of mankind.

In­tegrity is one of the most im­por­tant qual­i­ties you can de­velop as a busi­ness per­son; and as a like­able hu­man be­ing too, of course.

How to add in­tegrity to your af­fil­i­ate prod­uct reviews

First of all: be hon­est. Let your writ­ing match your re­al­ity. Say it as it is.

• Re­view in writ­ing only what you have ac­tu­ally re­viewed in real life. Re­view books only, if you’ve ac­tu­ally read them from start to fin­ish. Re­view on­line courses only if you’ve ac­tu­ally taken them. Re­view nu­tri­tional sup­ple­ments only if you have ac­tu­ally eaten them for a long enough time to be able to make an evaluation.
• Don’t en­dorse a prod­uct only for the pur­pose of pleas­ing a guru or JV partner.
• Don’t call mere fea­ture list­ings a ‘re­view.’ This doesn’t mean you can’t in­tro­duce a prod­uct on your site that you haven’t tested. You can, and should. Just make it clear that you haven’t used it.

Cred­i­bil­ity Prin­ci­ple #2: Make a Con­scious Choice about Your Agenda

When earn­ing com­mis­sions, there’s al­ways a con­flict of in­ter­est. Your reader will worry: Do you have the reader’s best in­ter­est in mind, or do you have your com­mis­sion in mind? As Ma­hatma Gandhi said:

“The mo­ment there is sus­pi­cion about a person’s mo­tives, every­thing he does be­comes tainted.” Ma­hatma Gandhi

With a prod­uct re­view the con­flict­ing agen­das are:

• I want to give the best pos­si­ble rec­om­men­da­tion to my readers.
• I want to earn the biggest pos­si­ble af­fil­i­ate commission.

Some­times it’s easy to get both. The prod­uct is great, it’s worth rec­om­mend­ing. The com­mis­sion is great, it’s worth pro­mot­ing. It’s a win-win sit­u­a­tion for a great af­fil­i­ate review.

Some­times the best rec­om­men­da­tion is NOT for the prod­uct with the best com­mis­sions. Then you’ll have to choose sides. Will you sell your reader out to get the big­ger com­mis­sion? Will you fol­low Anakin and join the dark side?

For your goal of build­ing an in­cred­i­ble rep­u­ta­tion, the ob­vi­ous choice is to pri­or­i­tize your reader higher than max­i­miz­ing your com­mis­sion. You may lose a few bucks in the mo­ment, but gain much more in the long run.

Cred­i­bil­ity Prin­ci­ple #3: Build Your Qualification

This is a big­gie. Are you ca­pa­ble of re­view­ing the prod­uct? Do you have the knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence to eval­u­ate the product?

• I’ve seen peo­ple, who haven’t built a web­site in their life, pro­mote auto blog­ging products.
• I’ve seen peo­ple, who haven’t earned $100 on­line, pro­mot­ing ‘make money on­line’ products.
• I’ve seen mas­sively over­weight, smok­ing, red nosed peo­ple pro­mot­ing ‘get in shape’ products.

(Side note: Did you ever won­der about those self-help gu­rus? Why isn’t their ad­vice work­ing in their own life? Why aren’t they demon­strat­ing what they teach?)

The prob­lem is: when you have zero knowl­edge in a given area, you can hardly give a use­ful eval­u­a­tion of the prod­uct. You don’t have the com­pe­tence to eval­u­ate whether the prod­uct is ac­cu­rate and useful.

The only ex­cep­tion to that is a re­view from a new­­bie-point-of-view. In that case you ex­plic­itly say that you’re a noob and you tell your read­ers how the prod­uct ed­u­cates and helps you with the topic.

The prin­ci­ple of com­pe­tence has sig­nif­i­cant im­pact for af­fil­i­ate businesses.

It means to be cred­i­ble peo­ple have to stop ‘niche whor­ing’ and in­stead be­come real ex­perts in one area! Or, stop writ­ing re­views and stop giv­ing in­com­pe­tent advice!

If you’re ar­ti­cles on ezinearticles.com are across 25 niches, you’re not cred­i­ble. If you re­view the lat­est ‘make money on­line’ pro­gram to­day and the lat­est high tech de­vice for brain surgery to­mor­row, you’re not credible.

2 strate­gies for cred­i­bil­ity based on competence:

• Stay within your area of expertise.
• Re­view from newbie-point-of-view.

Cred­i­bil­ity Prin­ci­ple #4: Show Your Results

Knowl­edge is great, but only ap­plied knowl­edge gives re­sults. Re­sults are the off­spring of ap­plied knowledge.

It’s what your read­ers are af­ter, they’re af­ter the re­sults. They don’t need a nice prod­uct re­view or even a nice prod­uct. They need the re­sults from the product.

You will gain a lot of cred­i­bil­ity if peo­ple see you ac­tu­ally im­ple­ment­ing the things you talk about.

• You’re known for your 6 fig­ure sub­scriber list, and you rec­om­mend your fa­vorite list build­ing course to me? Great!
• You’re a su­per af­fil­i­ate telling me about how im­por­tant build­ing a sub­scriber list is … but when I look at your own site, it doesn’t even have an optin form or a squeeze page? Not so great!

There’s no faster way to cred­i­bil­ity and rep­u­ta­tion than results.

For af­fil­i­ate re­views the ques­tion is: which prod­ucts to re­view in the first place? Don’t make your choice randomly.

Make your re­views about the prod­ucts you’re ac­tu­ally us­ing to cre­ate re­sults in your busi­ness and live!

Give ex­am­ples on what you did, and what re­sults you achieved. Show them links to your sites, pic­tures of your pounds lost.

They’re you have it – the 4 prin­ci­ples of cred­i­ble af­fil­i­ate reviews!

They’re not a How-to. For a tep-by-step how to write a re­view check out Tiffany’s Guide to Cash­ing in on Shiny New Ob­ject Syndrome.

The 4 cores are time­less prin­ci­ples of cred­i­bil­ity. Keep them in mind, even be­fore you ac­tu­ally start writ­ing your next af­fil­i­ate review!