Roresishms

A Virtual World of Live Pictures.

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 trustworthy.

The “model” is very simple: provide a legitimate resource through which people can identify products they may want/need to buy. The premise of a “review” 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 keywords “buy” (“buy product X UK” / “buy product X Texas”), conversion rates used to be very high (because most of the traffic was people who had already made the decision to buy the product). ).

Even if you had a website with top 5 “Google” rankings for a number of products, you could still expect ~20 visitors per day for each of them. These visitors may not have been many in number, but it is likely 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 make the most of the online “review” opportunity, you’d basically be tied to getting Google rankings. While this worked well, additional competition, changes to Google’s algorithm, and the rise of “mega” e-commerce stores like Amazon, led to the “review” model declining over the past 5+ years.

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

What are review sites?

As explained, “review” websites are sites dedicated to “reviewing” 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 myriad “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 moved into 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 real 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 “stiff”/”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 must 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 happened in 2007), the site loses its value. Therefore, to measure 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.)
  • Direct (people writing 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 “traffic sources” above do not provide visitors of equal value, hence the idea that the “model” is dead (which is not true).

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 any depth, the point is that if you are looking to “make money online”, one of the safest ways to do so 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 Advance

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

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

If you’re looking for a more sustainable model to grow traffic and revenue, you WILL NEED to grow 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 at another time; essentially, you need to provide a core SERVICE with the site. The service must go DEEPER than 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 who want to deal with you, the more traffic you will receive through the various “social” channels open to us today.

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