We all know that link building is an important step in any search engine optimization campaign, so in this post I’m going to show you how product reviews can help build extra links to your website.

If you’re planning on launching a new product (or want some exposure for an existing one) getting reviews about your product can be a great way to build new links. The best part is that review links are often deep links to individual product pages on your website which can be quite tricky to get.

The first step to getting your product reviewed is to reach out to people who are active in the blogging community or own a website related to your industry. One of the best ways to find people is through twitter, as it allows you to reach out to these people without the “spam” label you might get if the same communication was sent over email. When contacting new users, don’t talk about links right off the bat, try and discuss their company, website, an event or something else they might be interested in.

After you’ve developed a relationship with the person, there are a couple of angles you can use to give your product exposure.

1. Ask if they have any upcoming events which you can ask to sponsor.
2. Offer to send them a free sample of your product to review on their website/blog.
3. Enter or sponsor any competitions they are running. You can suggest for your product to be included in the competitions prize pool.

It’s also important to remember that aside from providing links to your website, positive reviews will actually help to improve your conversion rates.

One of the possible drawbacks to this method is that your product might receive a negative review. For this reason it is important to use this strategy carefully on products that you feel are leaders in the marketplace for one reason or another.

If you would like to read more about product reviews, search engine land has a good article with some examples of how this has worked for one online retailer.

Related posts:

• How to Respond to Negative Online Reviews of Your Business
• 5 Alternative Ways to Get Customer Reviews & Testimonials
• How to Optimize Existing Links for Maximum SEO Benefit
• Checking Inbound Links with Yahoo! Site Explorer
• SEOVideo: What Kind of Links Do You Need?