How to create a review website: Step-by-step guide

Q: Can you make money with a review website?

In short: yes. You can make money with a review website.However, it can take time. Focus on building a strong website that drives a good amount of traffic. Make sure you are providing your users with accurate reviews that provide genuine insight that will help them decide on whether to purchase a product or not.Once you’re generating consistent monthly traffic, you should start thinking about how you monetise. There are two main ways to monetise your reviews.Through an affiliate network. Sign up for an affiliate account that includes partnerships with products or brands that you write about. You should do a little research to find the right one. If you’re selling physical products, though, your best bet is to start looking at brands like Amazon.With brand partnerships. If you don’t want to use an affiliate network, you might instead get in touch with brands directly to monetise their products. Bear in mind that this approach is more difficult, and you may need to prove that you’re generating a high level of traffic for a brand to consider a one-on-one partnership.

Q: How do review blogs make money?

Review blogs can make money in a few ways.By providing affiliate links to products – when readers follow these links, the review website owner will take a percentage of the sale (if the reader buys the product they’ve been linked to).Through display advertising – a review website might host adverts. These adverts will be seen by the people visiting the site. Typically, the website owner would be paid a fee when a certain number of people view the ad. This can mean that you need a high volume of traffic before display advertising can offer any meaningful revenue.Partner or sponsored content – if your review website is well-known enough or generates enough traffic, partners or brands might contact you to create content on their behalf. This can be an advertorial discussing their product, or a more general piece that includes links to the partner’s services.

Online review websites have become a valuable resource for consumers looking for honest and reliable information on the products, services and experiences they’re interested in.

Starting your reviews website can be an excellent way to build an online business, allowing you to combine your passion for a specific product or topic with an opportunity to make sales online.

In this article, we’ll provide a step-by-step guide to help you launch your review site.

What is a review website and how does it work?

A review site is a website that focuses on reviewing products, services and businesses. They can operate in a number of ways, and can also cover an enormous range of industries and sectors.

One of the most well-known forms of review platforms is the user-generated review website. A user-generated review site will act as the host for other people’s views, opinions and thoughts. Think of sites like Trustpilot or Tripadvisor, where anyone with an account can log in and post their feedback on the product or service they’ve received.

On the other side of the review coin, you have the more editorially-led websites, where journalists and experts review products or services to inform their readers. Sites like Which? or IGN would fall into this category. Typically, these sorts of sites will focus on one specific industry, where their reviews and opinions will carry more weight.

In addition to the types of sites above, in recent years, traditional publishers have also begun creating more and more review content, typically to introduce new revenue streams to their business models. TechRadar and ForbesAdvisor are strong examples of this.

Often, review sites operate to make money. In most cases, they will review products that include links to destinations where users can purchase them. When a user completes their purchase, the review website will take a commission.

Step 1: Choose your niche

The first step in launching a review site is to identify the sort of product you want to review. This could be as broad as selecting an overall hobby that includes a range of products, or as specific as choosing just a single product that you want to focus on.

You might want to consider one of these broad niches:

Consumer electronics
Food and restaurants
Travel destinations
Movies, video games and entertainment
Health and wellness products
Fashion and beauty

Our best advice here is to choose something you’re really interested in. For example, if you do want to review entertainment products, then focus on the areas you care most about.

If you’re not that interested in film, then reviewing movies might soon become tedious; if you love video games though, then your passion will normally make it easier to invest your time, without begrudging the topic.

Step 2: Conduct market research

Once you’ve chosen a niche, you’ll need to understand what your audience is going to look like.

Conduct market research to identify the typical demographics you can expect to search for the products you review. Find out about their preferences, likes and dislikes, as well as the pain points they might have in the current market.

Knowing your audience will help when it comes to creating content and marketing strategies, ensuring that the content you create resonates with the people looking for it.

For example, if you find out that your audience prefers video or audio content over text-based articles, then you’ll want to build that assumption into your planning.

If you want more tips on market research, check out our how to create an online business plan page for more advice.

Step 3: Select a domain name

Your domain name is your website’s identity. You should select a domain name that reflects your niche and is easy to remember. It should be a domain name that will resonate with your audience.

You can use domain registrars like GoDaddy to make sure the name you want is available and to secure it for yourself too.

For more advice, visit our how to choose a domain name page.

Top tips for choosing a review website domain name

Your website domain name is your brand. When you’re trying to find the perfect fit for your review site, you should bear in mind the following tips:

Use words or phrases that your audience will understand or relate to.
Make sure your domain will stand out against competitors already working in the niche you choose.
Make sure the domain you choose is easy to remember and catchy.
Make sure you like the domain name!

Step 4: Choose your web hosting and content management system (CMS)

In order to make your reviews website accessible online, you’ll need both a web hosting service and a content management system (CMS).

For hosting, you should opt for something reliable to make sure you receive the best possible service. Check out our best website hosting providers page for our top picks.

Alternatively, if you want to use as simple a CMS as possible, you might want to go for a website builder. You can check our best website builder page for comparisons if you prefer this route.

Website builders have become an incredibly popular option in the last decade for people who want to launch an online store, but don’t have the development experience that you need for some platforms. They allow you to edit the appearance of your site simply, and provide easy-to-use website management features.

Best website builders for a review site

For a review website, you’ll want to use a website builder with strong content creation options. You may also want to focus on choosing a builder that offers ease-of-use and flexibility so that you can focus on creating the best possible reviews.

When it comes to choosing, you should consider what sort of review format you intend to use. You might want to create reviews in the form of articles, but also opt for videos. Make sure the builder you use is set up to match your needs.

Brand	Plan	Cost
Wix	Lite	£9/month
Squarespace	Personal	£12/month
GoDaddy	Basic	£6.99/month

The table above includes the prices for three basic plans from some of the website builders that might be most suitable for a review website.

Step 5: Design your review website

The design of your website will play a significant role in attracting and retaining visitors.

Select a responsive and visually appealing template that complements your niche and brand. Focus on user-friendly navigation, high-quality images and clear typography.

If you do use a website builder, as mentioned above, this stage can be incredibly simple, with many brands providing a range of professionally designed templates that can be ready to go in as little as a few minutes.

If you want more advice on this stage, you might want to visit our how to start a business website page for a full breakdown of the process.

Step 6: Create high-quality content

Content will be the heart of your website, so you should develop a content strategy that provides everything your audience will want.

This strategy might include:

Product or service reviews
Product comparisons
How-to guides and tutorials
Best-of lists
User-generated reviews and testimonials
Visual content, including images and videos

Consistency is key when it comes to online content. Regularly publish new and valuable content that your audience will want to engage with. Also, make sure to revisit older content to keep it up-to-date and accurate.

When it comes to this stage, we advise you to look back at your market research too. Create content that you know suits your audience, whether that is text-based articles or video content. Making sure it matches the audience’s needs is the best way to succeed.

Review content top tips

When you’re writing reviews, you should aim to provide a robust and fair assessment of the product or service you’re covering.

Follow the steps below:

Follow a consistent review methodology to make sure your product reviews are fair and unbiased.
Try everything. If you’re writing a review, you need to know the product inside out. Often, people want to know the details!
Get other opinions. Your view is useful, but if you can gather feedback from other users, or even from your website audience, it can make a huge difference.

Step 7: Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is essential if you want to attract organic traffic to your reviews. It is the process of improving content so that it matches the ranking criteria of indexes such as Google.

You should conduct keyword research to identify the keywords and phrases people search for when they want to find out about the products you review. Incorporate these terms into your content, headlines and metadata to make sure it’s clear you’re covering those topics.

You can focus both on on-page SEO – improving how your own site appears – and off-page SEI, where you focus on building links and authority to drive awareness of your brand and website.

Step 8: Market your review website

Website marketing is essential if you want to build an initial audience and then retain it for the long term.

You can use social media marketing on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn to share your content and engage with your potential audience.

You also invest in email marketing, to capture email addresses from people that arrive on your site so that you can update them with new content in the future.

Whichever form of marketing you plan to use, there is a range of software and tools available to help get you started.

Step 9: Monetise your review website

Once your review website has started to gain a steady flow of traffic, you might want to explore options for monetisation.

This might include:

Affiliate marketing: where you promote products and earn a commission on sales.
Sponsored content: where brands pay for reviews or articles on your site.
Display advertising: where you display ads on your site using platforms like Google AdSense.
Premium content: where you use a subscription model for certain parts of your site.

Once you’ve built enough traffic, you might also want to consider selling products yourself as an online store. If you think this last option might appeal to you, our best ecommerce website builder page can help you compare the best options to get started.

Whatever route you take to monetise your website, you should always focus on your customers first. Creating a site that makes money but no longer appeals to your target audience can be a quick way to undo all of your progress.

Take a look at the sections below to find out a little more about monetisation option.

Making money through affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing will work best if you review specific products or services that other people can purchase online. If you are reviewing events or restaurants, for example, it will be difficult for you to monetise effectively. However, if you are reviewing a laptop and then directing users directly to it, your chances of earning a commission increase considerably.

For affiliate marketing, you might want to consider partnering with networks such as Awin, ShareASale and Amazon Associates.

Bear in mind that the commission you receive between affiliate networks will vary based on several factors. So, it’s worth exploring and comparing your options to get the best deal you can.

Many affiliate networks also operate with a tight vetting process in place to make sure they are partnering with legitimate sites that can prove their traffic numbers. It’s worth waiting until you have at least a few months of strong, or at least consistent, traffic to prove that you’ll be a valuable partner.

Making money through display advertising

If your website reveals a lot of traffic, particularly if that traffic is grouped into easy-to-understand sections, then display advertising might be your best option.

Display advertising is slightly less targeted than affiliate marketing, but can be very effective. Essentially, as the website owner or manager, you’ll allocate slots on your website to display ads. You’ll then sign up for a display network that will begin populating that ad space with links.

With display advertising, you can either partner with specific brands, so that only their ads show on your website. Or you can partner with a network that will automatically generate ads to be shown on your site, based on the users visiting.

Google Ads is probably the best-known display advertising network to join. Other brands, such as Apple Ads also offer monetisation opportunities.

Making money with partners

Many review sites will partner directly with other brands to generate income. This can be done to improve the revenue you earn from either affiliate or display marketing, effectively cutting out the middle-men affiliate networks we mentioned above.

However, you can also contact and work with brands directly to create bespoke content. For example, you might be paid by a tech brand to review their new gadget or software. Often, this sort of content will be biased and in a different format than pure review content.

Step 10: Engage with your audience

If you want to achieve long-term success then engaging with your audience is vital.

Respond to comments, emails and social media messages promptly and professionally. Encourage discussion and foster a sense of community among your readers to drive engagement now and into the future.

How to start a review website: Final thoughts

Starting a review website can be an exciting opportunity to create a business based around a product or hobby that you are passionate about.

By choosing your niche, conducting your market research and then following the steps outlined in this article, you’ll be able to launch a successful site that can become a trusted resource for your audience.

Do remember that building a reputable website of any sort will take time and dedication. Stay committed to delivering high-quality content and reviews, and make sure to engage positively with your audience whenever you can.

Review website FAQs

Can you make money with a review website?

In short: yes. You can make money with a review website.

However, it can take time. Focus on building a strong website that drives a good amount of traffic. Make sure you are providing your users with accurate reviews that provide genuine insight that will help them decide on whether to purchase a product or not.

Once you’re generating consistent monthly traffic, you should start thinking about how you monetise. There are two main ways to monetise your reviews.

Through an affiliate network. Sign up for an affiliate account that includes partnerships with products or brands that you write about. You should do a little research to find the right one. If you’re selling physical products, though, your best bet is to start looking at brands like Amazon.
With brand partnerships. If you don’t want to use an affiliate network, you might instead get in touch with brands directly to monetise their products. Bear in mind that this approach is more difficult, and you may need to prove that you’re generating a high level of traffic for a brand to consider a one-on-one partnership.

How do you grow a review website?

How you grow your review site will depend on various factors.

The first option is to write or create more content. This is especially the case if you know that there are gaps in your library that you can fill.

If you don’t think there are any gaps, then you might instead want to focus on improving the content you already have. This might mean adding new sections to existing pages or adding new styles of media to help them stand out against your competition.

Finally, you might consider diversifying how you attract users to your reviews website. Consider investing time in your social media or email strategies and see if you can start driving new traffic from those channels.

How do review blogs make money?

Review blogs can make money in a few ways.

By providing affiliate links to products – when readers follow these links, the review website owner will take a percentage of the sale (if the reader buys the product they’ve been linked to).
Through display advertising – a review website might host adverts. These adverts will be seen by the people visiting the site. Typically, the website owner would be paid a fee when a certain number of people view the ad. This can mean that you need a high volume of traffic before display advertising can offer any meaningful revenue.
Partner or sponsored content – if your review website is well-known enough or generates enough traffic, partners or brands might contact you to create content on their behalf. This can be an advertorial discussing their product, or a more general piece that includes links to the partner’s services.

Bryn Glover

Bryn is the founder and editor of WebsiteJumpStart. He has worked in the digital field for over a decade and was editor for Startups.co.uk - the UK's leading small business website - and for NerdWallet UK before launching WebsiteJumpStart to help people and businesses get online with ease.

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Table of Contents

What is a review website and how does it work?

Step 1: Choose your niche

Step 2: Conduct market research

Step 3: Select a domain name

Top tips for choosing a review website domain name

Step 4: Choose your web hosting and content management system (CMS)

Best website builders for a review site

Step 5: Design your review website

Step 6: Create high-quality content

Review content top tips

Step 7: Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Step 8: Market your review website

Step 9: Monetise your review website

Making money through affiliate marketing

Making money through display advertising

Making money with partners

Step 10: Engage with your audience

How to start a review website: Final thoughts

Review website FAQs

Bryn Glover

Website launch checklist: Download our guide

How to start a hotel booking website: Step-by-step guide

How to start a real estate website: Step-by-step guide

How to start a sports blog: Step-by-step guide

How to start a fitness website: Step-by-step guide

How to start a travel website: Step-by-step guide