Elliot B. Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 Any thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas? e.g. I was thinking of simply buying a piece of hardware and reviewing it. No idea where I'd put the review, though. Neowin? Another website? A YouTube video even? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Dick Montage Subscriber² Posted August 19, 2013 Subscriber² Share Posted August 19, 2013 Dude, glad to see you're doing this. How about this: 1) Start a blog, get it tight and professional. You need the social recommendation features. 2) Make sure it is VERY SEO friendly 3) Learn about how to disseminate your news to other sources 4) Get some guest reviewers 5) Review some existing hardware - no need to spend money yet. Heck review some from the 1980's out of context - find something to make your reviews engaging though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alwaysonacoffebreak Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 For hardware reviews use as many benchmarking software as possible, not just the well known ones. Write out all pros and cons of the said hardware and explain it as simple as you can as most tech sites go into too deep describing things while there are A LOT of regular jacks out there who want to know/learn about new hardware as well. Games, benchmarks, details compared to competitors etc. Also find the same price point products from other manufacturers and find the cons in the one you are reviewing of course the pros as well. Good luck mate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted August 19, 2013 Administrators Share Posted August 19, 2013 A good place to start is submitting it here and we may feature it on the main page https://www.neowin.net/forum/forum/104-reviews-by-members-for-members/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shifts Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 Agreed on the above comments. One thing that I find most struggle with is finding their own voice and style. Sure anyone who;s good with grammar can re-write a 500 PR release into something different but finding your style and presence is key I feel. Look at what you want to achieve by writing reviews. Are you after free stuff, do you feel you can give a pov that people would be interested in 1) Start a blog, get it tight and professional. You need the social recommendation features. Yup. Also consider approaching other sites to see if they would be interested in your work. You could give them a 30 day exclusive or something like that before you post on your own site. Make sure if you can to get a link back. 2) Make sure it is VERY SEO friendly It's very hard to compete with the tech sites believe me. I've my own site called essentialmac.co.uk which is drowned out by similar news stories. Finding the products that are relevant and getting them up in a timely manner is key to a good site 3) Learn about how to disseminate your news to other sources A key point. Relying on google to place your story high enough to get noticed is not enough these days and building up twitter / adn followers is hard work. Im still figuring this bit out myself so if you have any hints let me know. 4) Get some guest reviewers Again a good call. Don't rely on them tho if there's no incentive. People will chip in but keeping them interesting in pushing work your way can lead to more stress. If they are good reviewers see what agreement you can reach to get them semi regular. This takes the pressure away from you to do all the work. 5) Review some existing hardware - no need to spend money yet. Heck review some from the 1980's out of context - find something to make your reviews engaging though. Agreed. Retro reviews, App reviews and all that stuff works. It'll also help you to approach companies for things to review to say hey look what I've done so far. 6) Workflows. Make things easy for yourself. Writing is part of the equasion. Think about pictures and images, how will you grab them, resize them etc. If you are going down a wordpress route make sure to look at image sizes you'll need for the blog. Pictures don't have to be of a pro quality but think about what you'd like to see. Make them relevant. If you want a challenge do some mobile phone case reviews. What sort of things do you want to review? +Dick Montage 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts