Do you want to create an online reviews site? Writing reviews of your favorite products allow you to help others in making a purchase decision while also earning referral fees, known as affiliate commissions. In this article, we will show you how to create a niche review site in WordPress like a Pro, so you can earn money from it.
Why Create a Reviews Site?
What’s the first thing that you do when you’re looking to buy something online? If you’re like most of us, then you check the online reviews of that product to see what others are saying about it.
This is why a popular online review site, TripAdvisor, is worth roughly $12 billion dollars.
Now while everyone cannot be as big as TripAdvisor, we know several folks that are earning anywhere from few hundreds to few thousand dollars a month from running a niche review site.
There are two popular ways of creating a reviews site. The first is to add a reviews section on your existing blog. The second is to create a completely independent online reviews site.
Regardless of the direction you choose, it’s important that don’t pick a highly competitive niche.
For example: there are tons of sites talking about digital camera reviews, but not as many that are talking about camera accessory reviews.
The secret to building a successful review site is to finding the right niche. A perfect niche has low competition, and it should be something that you’re passionate about.
Here are few factors to think about:
- What resources can you offer to build traffic?
- Can you easily attract advertisers? (i.e are there people selling paid products)
- Are there affiliate programs available?
- Are other people making money in this niche?
- What is the competition like?
You can use tools like SEMRush, BuzzSumo, and Google Keyword Planner to help with research.
Once you have picked your niche, let’s take a look at how you can create a reviews site.
Step 0. Before You Start
To get started with WordPress, the first thing you would need is a good WordPress hosting and your own domain name. We highly recommend Bluehost because they will give you a free domain and 50% off their hosting plan (special for WPBeginner users). Bluehost is also an officially recommended hosting provider of WordPress.
If you want a Bluehost alternative, then take a look at Siteground who also offer the same special offer to WPBeginner users.
Once you have signed up for WordPress hosting and set up your domain name, the next step is to install WordPress on your hosting account. We have a step by step guide on how to make a WordPress website.
If you already have a WordPress site, then just move to step 2.
Step 1. Choosing the Perfect WordPress “Review” Theme
The first step after setting up your WordPress site is to select a perfect WordPress theme.
When you look around for WordPress themes, you will probably find tons of articles about the best WordPress review themes, stay away from those.
You don’t need a WordPress review site template. Most of those WordPress review themes are bloated and will lock you into use them forever.
That’s why it’s better to use a WordPress reviews plugin because plugins will work with any theme / design that you choose.
You will have the flexibility to change your themes in the future without having to hire a developer.
We have an article that will help you find the perfect theme and install it in WordPress.
Basically pick a theme that you like in terms of look and feel. We will show you how to add the reviews functionality in the next step.
Step 2. Installing the best WordPress Reviews Plugin
First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Product Review plugin.
The base plugin is free, and does not lack features that would hold you back. However, for additional functionality you will need to buy their premium addons package.
The WP Review Pro Addons package costs around $75. WPBeginner users get an extra 20% off the regular price. Visit ThemeIsle coupon code to claim the discount.
WP Product Review plugin is easy to use and it helps you stand out in search engines by adding schema markup on your review.
In plain English, it adds those star ratings next to your reviews in Google to help you stand out.
So go ahead and install this plugin.
Upon activation, you will notice a new menu item labeled ‘Product Review’ in your WordPress admin menu. Clicking on it will take you to plugin’s settings page.
The settings page is divided into different sections. First you need to set up the general settings.
Start by selecting where you want to display the review box. There are three options to choose from. You can show the review box after or before the content, or you can manually add it using the shortcode.
The next option is to choose whether you want to allow users to add their reviews as comments. If you allow this, then you also need to select how much influence user reviews will have on the actual review.
After that you need to choose how many number of options, pros, and cons you want to be displayed. By default the plugin will allow you to add 5 of each. You can adjust that if you need.
Now move on to the rating colors tab in settings. This is where you can define the default colors used by the plugin for ratings. WP Product review uses different colors for excellent, good, not bad, and weak ratings.
You can change the rating colors to match with your theme.
Next, click on the ‘Typography’ tab in the settings. This is where you can choose the default text for pros and cons columns. You can also change the text colors for different sections.
The final tab on the settings page is the buy button. On this tab, you can select the colors you want to use for the buy button.
Buy button will also have your affiliate link, so it is important that you choose a color that encourages more users to click.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save All Changes’ button to store your settings.
Step 3: Adding a Review in WordPress
Adding a review using WP Product Review plugin is quite easy. Simply edit or create a new post in WordPress.
You will write your main review, like you would write any other post in WordPress.
On the post edit screen, scroll down to the bottom, and you will find the ‘Product review extra settings’ meta box. Click on ‘Yes’ next to the option ‘Is this a review post?’.
This will expand the meta box and you will now see the additional settings for your review.
First you need to provide product details like images, buy now button text, product or affiliate link, and product price.
After that you need to add your options. These are like different aspects of the product and how you grade it for those qualities. You can add a number from 0 to 100, where 100 is the highest grade and 0 is the lowest.
Next you will add the pros and cons lists. Add the best features of the product in the pros list and the features it lacked in the cons list.
Once you are done, simply save or publish your post.
You can now visit the post to see the review box in action.
Step 4. Displaying Your Reviews in Sidebar
WP Product Review allows you to show your review posts in the sidebar and other widget-ready areas. Visit Appearance » Widgets page, and you will find the top products widget and the latest products widget in a list of available widgets.
Simply add the widget to a sidebar and configure its options. You can select the number of products you want to display, product title and image display settings. Once you are done, click on the save button to store your widget settings.
Now go ahead and visit your website to see the reviews widget in action. It will show the latest reviews with ratings and product image.
We hope this article helped you create a beautiful reviews site with WordPress. You may also want to see our list of 10 best affiliate marketing tools and plugins for WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Hey, can I create a review site under a sub-domain?
Hi Deba,
Yes, you can. However, you will need to install a seperate WordPress instance in a subdomain. However, it will be quite complicated to integrate both your root WordPress install and the subdomain install to look like they are the same website.
This is a good how-to-create guide, but what options are there to monetize this type of website?
Hi Chris,
There are several ways to monetize. You can add paid reviews, affiliate marketing, or monetize using ads on your website.
Wow! This is just great! Saved me a lot of time. I love the plugin and it looks nice when reviewing a single product. I’m not sure about using it for a top 10 list though. Is it possible? All the same, I LOVE it.
Hello, great article! i think this plugin you mentioned is good for product reviews only, I started a new Reviews WordPress site to review all gold investment sites, i can’t find a plugin to help with creating this, i am doing it with just pages and posts like any other site, please if you have any idea what plugin to use for this let me know.
I even searched Fiverr to find someone who know how to do this but couldn’t find any.
I appreciate your help
Thank you
Don
Hi there, great article. Hope you can help with some Qs:
1. Can this widget collate review results by the logged in reviewer’s data, i.e. to show users with x trait gave it 4/5 and users with y trait gave it 2/5?
2. And would it be possible (or how) to be able to have a database system on the back end where you can hit add product, upload the pic and info, then it gets added to the front end, with an automatically generated page showing the products by category, then when a reviewer goes to the product page they can hit a review button and rate it?
Kinda like an online shopping site but with the complicated review system. Any help is hugely appreciated, thanks heaps!
Hi WP Beginner Support,
I have reached out to the WP Product Review plugin team and they indicated right now the plugin doesn’t allow visitors to create reviews from scratch, but that once the admin has created a review than visitors can then add their own review.
Is there another WordPress plugin or theme that allows users to create reviews prior to the admin initially creating their own review?
Hi Will,
Actually there are several plugins. For example, if your reviews are a custom post type, then you can use WPForms to accept reviews from users. You will need WPForms with their User Submitted Posts addon.
Well, that’s a critical fail. I can see where the plugin might assume that the site owner would be posting all reviews, but the power in reviews is the public aspect: sign-in, write a review as on Google, Yelp, Amazon, etc. Without that, I don’t see the point.
Nice piece of information, you have saved my day. I am wondering if you suggest some themes for reviewing website.
Thanks a lot.
@wpbeginners editorial staff please let me know is it possible for me to start a review website where people who has used the product can write reviews themselves.if yes , is there anyway WordPress can help me with.Or your team can do any favour to answer or help with that .
I shall remain obliged .Thanks
Hi Zaoul,
We are not exactly sure what kind of scenario you are facing. However, yes you can have customers leave reviews of the products they have used.
This is very insightful article.Thanks for sharing
I want to do 5-7 product reviews in one page by this plugin. Is it possible?
How would I go about setting up a single page, on an existing website, that shows reviews and can take reviews (form at top or bottom I suppose)?
How can I let everyone contribute to the rating, like Amazon books? I want them able to rate without even writing a comment. I want the final rate comes from the user, not the author, every one has the same weight of influnce to the rating.
Hi,
Great article.
I am wondering, do you have another article teaching how to creating a rating/review site that I will not be doing the review but individual user/general public can write review and put ratings on something? Is it possible to achieve it with wordpress plugin?
Thank you.
Hi,
Did you get a response to this question? I am also interested in the same thing.
Thanks
Great post. Because of the capabilities, WordPress has been a great enterprise web content management services that allows users to develop sites effortlessly. The built-in tools like themes, modules and plugins are extremely easy to install and use which takes WordPress ahead of other platforms like Sitefinity CMS, Drupal and others.
It is important to identify right SET of tools, and with that it means each tool must complement each other. Make sure that tools are used optimistically and use only if that is utmost necessary. Regular reviews help site owner to get insights about web performance and help to further nurture the site for better results.
Very good article. Now how about a WordPress plugin (or theme) that does the same thing, but in the reverse. I mean how about allowing the site visitor (instead of the author) to grade several different options of a product. This would be equal to a site that is essentially guest-contributed, just like Tripadvisor or Yelp.
Really, very useful article and i would sat Got an Idea!
WPBeginner is one of the best site, After reading this article I found some important things to do in my review niche blog. Thank you for sharing such a useful article.
Hi,
Great Post and very informative. I am considering starting a review site and I am still fairly new at this so I hope you don’t consider this a stupid question. Having a review site wouldn’t you have to purchase and personally review each item you put on your site or would you just be relying on what other say about it and pulling reviews in from say Amazon for example.
That’s up to you. Obviously it would be better and more ethical if you reviewed the products that you have used or trust.
its a useful post thanks for sharing with us
I just love this site. Everything is useful. I also run a product niche site and I am earning several hundred dollars per month. But yes thanks for providing the useful plugin like wp product review about which I didn’t knew. Definitely will use it in the coming times inshallah.