As you can probably tell, the vast majority of our articles discuss and recommend various different pieces of outdoor gear.
As such, I thought it would make sense to go over how we go about choosing and reviewing certain items. While admittedly, it’s virtually impossible to test every piece of gear in house, we do our very very best to do so. If that’s just not possible, we’ll seek the help of others within our community to share their thoughts on certain pieces of gear we wish to discuss.
Right then, what’s our process?
Step 1: Find a Topic/ Piece of Equipment to Discuss
I personally spend a ton of time on various forums and replying to emails regarding different pieces of gear. As such, I’ve got a pretty good idea as to what kind of stuff people are looking for, and where equipment people are finding it hard to decide on.
This is what allows me and my fellow writers to come up with topic ideas that are helpful and relevant.
Step 2: Test, Research & Evaluate
Next up, it’s time to get our hands dirty and do everything we can to find the best outdoor gear in that given category.
If that’s just not possible, we’ve got a few little tricks that we use to get honest and reliable feedback on pieces of equipment we’re thinking of including in our articles. Yes, this takes frickin’ ages, hence why it takes us a fair while to get out our posts, but it’s worth it.
Here’s a few techniques we use (I don’t want to give away too many sources, so I’ll keep it somewhat vague)
- Scour online forums discussing the equipment we’re researching.
- Engage in conversations with people online through various communities. We sometimes offer vouchers in exchange for peoples time if we’re struggling to get anyone to help out for free
- Read every, single, goddam customer review ever written on any website we can find the product. This is no exaggeration, we want to know everything that’s great, and everything that’s awful about the gear we write about. This one step alone has taken me over 5 hours for one particular piece of gear. That said, I’m pretty sure I know every defect that has ever come out of the factory. If I know it, you’ll know it too.
- I’ll share one of our secret sauces that we’ve done a fair few times. Don’t tell our competitors though please. I’ll look on YouTube for video reviews of the product, and get in touch with creator directly. I will then ask if they’re free for a quick Skype chat to discuss the product in return for a credit in the “sources” section of our post. These only tend to take 15-minutes or so, so people are definitely willing to exchange this small amount of time for some credibility.
Step 3: Get That Bad Boy Written Up
Look, I’m no bloody Shakespeare, but I do put my blood, sweat and tears into all the articles I write. With that in mind, please excuse the various typos and just S*$& grammar that you’ll encounter from time to time (every time?) on our site.
With that said, the next step of our reviewing process is combining all the information from hands on tests with the various other sources into one complete, definitive article. The aim is to make our article better than anything else you’ll come across online. Well, that’s the goal at least, I’ll let you be thee judge of that.
Step 4: Post, Monitor & Update
Next up get that thang posted, share it across our various social media channels and keep an eye on it over time. If new products pop up that we feel should be added to the list, then we’ll update the article accordingly.
Well there we have it, our entire reviewing process from start to finish. If you’ve got any questions, or would like for us to review a product of yours, please feel free to get in touch via our contact form.