Your e-store can capitalize on the growing trend of customer reviews by adding an interactive section to your site. Adding a section devoted to product reviews will accomplish major objectives: increasing traffic while inspiring participation and building a community among your site visitors. Additionally, you can submit your site to search engines and directories using "reviews" as a new keyword.

Reviews should be related to your content in some way. If your e-commerce site acts as a vendor of merchandise, such as electronics, have visitors submit critiques of the particular equipment they have used. If you sell your own merchandise on the site, well, adding reviews could be a little more risky. Realize that negative reviews could impact business so you''ll have to make a judgment call as to whether you want to add this public forum to your site.

The individual reviews could be linked or incorporated into the product description page for shoppers to read before making purchases. Or you may decide to treat the reviews section as a separate entity by giving it it''s own pages.

If you have the time to monitor submissions, you can have the reviews mailed to a separate email address and then manually added to the site. If you are experiencing the same time constraints as most e-business owners, you may want to add a message board that allows consumers to post their own reviews. Be aware, however, that message boards are not entirely maintenance-free. They should be frequently moderated to eliminate inappropriate content.

To find the proper tools to create a consumer review message board, take a look at these resources:
Everyone.net Plug-in Community
Outblaze Forums
HomepageTools UltraBoard

Related article:
No Thumbtacks Needed!