Business

make money with review sites online

Review websites have been a standard way to make money online for the last 20+ years.

Not only do they give users the ability to determine which products/services/solutions are best for them, but they also give you the ability to list the various vendors that are most trusted.

The “blueprint” is very simple: provide a legitimate resource through which people can identify the products they may want/need to purchase. The premise of a “reviews” site is that it removes all corporate bias and instead provides an objective resource for people to identify the best way to get what they want.

The way the “model” worked was, in the past, to hit Google ranks.

For the “buy” keywords (“buy product X UK” / “buy X product Texas”), the conversion rates used to be very high (because most of the traffic was people who had already made the decision to buy). buy the product). ).

Even if you had a website with top 5 “Google” rankings for a number of products, you could expect ~20 visitors per day for each of them. These visitors may not have been many in number, but the chances are that a large proportion of them would eventually buy based on your recommendations (if they were good).

This meant that if you were looking to take full advantage of the “review” opportunity online, you would basically be tied to getting Google rankings. While this worked well, additional competition, Google algorithm changes, and the rise of e-commerce “mega” stores like Amazon, led the “review” model to decline over the past 5+ years.

That’s not to say that “review” sites are dead; Like most things in the world of trading, when one opportunity fades, another arises. This is what has happened to “review” websites…

What are review sites?

As explained, “review” websites are sites dedicated to the “review” of different products. They earn money as commissions for the sales they refer to the different companies on their pages.

The goal of such websites is to provide unbiased references for different markets. In fact, we see this quite often in the “personal finance” space, with a myriad of “comparison” websites for insurance, loans, and banking services.

While I wouldn’t recommend getting involved with finance (unless you have a genuine desire to), the bottom line is that the “review” model still exists, but has shifted to a very different structure.

The classic “review” website is basically made up of several different elements:

  • Main “home” page (where review summaries are kept)
  • 5+ review pages (the actual reviews of different products)
  • More than 10 pages of content (this works like a cross between a blog and a tutorial site) – the content on these pages is generally very “rigid”/”static”
  • Blog (opinions on industry news, etc.)
  • About/Contact/Legal Pages

These are populated with content to give users the ability to determine which products are the best, etc.

The most important thing to understand here is that for these sites to have any value, they need to be seen and used. This can only happen if you can promote them effectively, which is why most people rely on Google rankings to make them viable.

The problem with this, as mentioned, is that if Google decides to launch the site (which it did in 2007), the site loses its value. Therefore, to gauge the true value of the strategy, you need to be able to determine the best ways to drive traffic to it.

How review sites *really* make money

“Online”, there are several ways to attract traffic to an offer…

  • References (from other websites, including article directories, news sites, etc.)
  • Straight (people who write your site directly)
  • Search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.)
  • markets (Amazon, eBay, Envato, Fiverr, etc.)
  • Social (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube)

The level at which your audience connects with you depends on how many of the above communities you are dealing with. As mentioned, most people just wanted their sites to be listed on the first page of Google (which would normally work for Yahoo and Bing as well), but as you can see, this was not a bulletproof strategy.

Today, many marketers have dedicated themselves to providing a more in-depth approach to site promotion. Also, many of the above “traffic sources” do not provide visitors of equal value, hence the idea that the “model” is dead (which it is not).

Ultimately, the key to the modern web is authenticity. Traffic is attracted by the authenticity of an offer. Using your real name, face and likeness are part of this. Without going into depth, the point is that if you are looking to “make money online”, one of the safest ways to do it is by showing off your work through the various mediums mentioned above.

The point is that if you’re building a site like one to showcase multiple products, you need to be sure how you’re going to drive traffic.

Modern review sites and the opportunity to move forward

As mentioned, the most important thing to appreciate with review sites is that they will need to drive traffic through the door.

The most effective (and leveraged) way to achieve this (today) is by using the power of social media. Social media is simply any type of website that requires you to use your own identity to engage with others. This is not just limited to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram (although they are obviously some of the most popular).

Gaming websites, creative websites, and other communities are also considered “social” media. Point is, if you rely on traffic from Google etc, you’ll typically build a website around that intent (boring, static pages).

If you’re looking for a more sustainable model to cultivate traffic and revenue, you’re going to NEED to cultivate real branding and other essentials. This is where “social” plays such a vital role: it drives the need for a much more authentic marketing strategy.

To this end, you really need to appreciate what makes a modern “review” site feasible and effective. I’ll cover this in depth another time; essentially, you have to provide a central SERVICE with the site. The service must go DEEPER than the direct products: it must offer an underlying result for the buyer. The more lucid this result is, the more people will actually want to deal with you. The more people want to deal with you, the more traffic you will receive through the various “social” channels open to us today.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *