Reviews are probably the reason for over 70% of my income in online business. However, everytime I come across a new review site, whatever the niche may be, I know that their conversions will never beat mine. And no, it is not my ego talking. Most of these review sites usually pay someone to write the reviews for them. Worse, neither the reviewer nor the webmaster have personally tried the product. The result? I guess you know what the result is but let me put it words.

Disadvantages of a fake review and advantages of an honest review.

1. Surfer confidence. If you provide honest reviews on your site, you can actually stand behind these reviews and interact with surfers who read you reviews. That means a much better conversion rate. Even better, when the same surfer wants to buy a similar product, he will prefer coming down to your site rather than somewhere else. I actually have surfers surfing my sites for products I don't even deal with! And I'm not talking about an individual case, once in a month, I'm talking about 100s of searches and 10s of emails!
2. Search Engine Traffic. Now this will probably stun you. My best conversions never come from the 1st page SE traffic. Rather from the 2nd, 3rd and probably even 4th page traffic. Understandably, the traffic is lower but even comparitively the conversions are awesome. Why? I only review a product once I have tested it. That means I know it's features in and out and can write about them in my review. If a person is searching for a particular feature (and not the software I reviewed), he usually finds my site listed on the 2nd or 3rd page and ends up buying the software!

I can also add in the 2nd point that more comprehensive your review is, the more targetted visitors you will receive. And indeed that's what every marketing guru has been yelling for ages... niche traffic! Know your niche and review the hell out of it. You are bound to achieve success in spite of the millions of scammers on the net!