Originally from: http://zacjohnson.com/how-to-create-a-niche-review-blog/
Are you planning to start a review blog in 2019? There are hundreds of niches that you can proceed with. For the sake of simplicity, this article will focus on one of the most lucrative niches at the moment – consumer electronics.
The reason is, consumer electronics products have turned into an essential part of consumers’ daily life routines. And whether it is a smartphone, laptop, digital camera or smart TV, people like to read online reviews before buying any product. It’s also a great industry to start making money with affiliate marketing.
It’s not just about selling digital products or reaching your target audience, it’s also about streamlining the process to create content, promote it, and monetize your audience in the process. With some dedicated time and focus, this is something that can be fully outsourced.
Even several studies and researches claim that online reviews influence a purchasing decision to a great extent. According to Search Engine Land, 84% of the people trust online reviews as much as friends. It simply shows that if you create an electronics niche review blog you can make a good amount of money.
This blog will guide you on how you can set up a review blog, what resources you will be required and what options you have to monetize your blog. But before that, let’s have a look at the growth rate of the consumer electronics market over the years. It will give you an idea of whether or not you should go with this niche for blogging.
Electronics Industry Over The Year
Today, the consumer electronics industry has reached to the peak. And according to different market researches, it is going to retain its dominance in the coming decades.
According to very popular market research and business intelligence portal Statista, the growth rate of the consumers’ electronics industry in the United States is projected to grow by 3.9 percent from 2018 to 2019. It will reach approximately 398 billion USD in retail revenue.
This research shows that in the coming years more and more people are going to invest in consumer electronics. If you can come with genuine reviews for consumer electronics, you can see your electronics niche review blog successful.
5 Steps to Create an Electronics Niche Review Blog with WordPress
Why WordPress? Your blog will require a lot content. According to W3techs, WordPress holds roughly 60% market share of the whole CMS market and it is best known platform for blogging. The industry around WordPress is mature. Whether it is themes, plugins, hosting or other tools – you will find more options to choose from than with any other platform.
1. Choose the Right Domain, Host, & Install WordPress
When it comes to starting an electronics niche review blog, the first step is to choose a reliable hosting company. There are a number of options to choose from. However, it is recommended that you read their reviews before making the final decision.
Hostinger, inMotion, SiteGround Bluehost, A2Hosting, etc. are a few popular names in the industry that are serving thousands of people across the globe. According to your needs, you may go with any of them.
Speaking of a domain name, it will be beneficial if you buy your domain name from your hosting provider. Some hosting providers offer free domain name with their hosting plan. When buying a domain also take care of domain age, domain authority, extension, etc.
Nowadays, most hosting providers offer a single-click installation option for WordPress. You just need to log into the control panel of your provider, and search for “WordPress”, select the domain name you want to install into and hit the “Install” button. It is as simple as that.
2. Pick A Review Site Theme
The entire appearance of your site depends on the theme you choose. Therefore, you should be extra careful when making the selection. Feel free to explore Google by searching ‘best themes for review websites’. As stated previously, there are A LOT WordPress themes to choose from.
Don’t worry, most of the review themes are easily customizable. So, anytime you can make changes to them according to your needs. With most review themes, you will be able to transform your simple blog into a stylish electronic niche review website.
If you don’t like above-mentioned themes, you can choose from a free WordPress theme repository. Make sure the theme you chose better represents your blog’s niche and is optimized for search engines.
Installing a WordPress theme is like a piece of cake. You simply need to go to your WordPress dashboard. There click on the option Appearance->Themes-> Add New. Next, click on the option “Upload” (available at the top of the screen) and then “Browse”. Now, you will be able to select your downloaded themes’ .zip file extension.
For in-depth information on WordPress theme manual installation, you may go through their official documentation.
3. Installation of the Essential WordPress Plugins
After installing a relevant theme your blog might be looking pretty now. But there are a few more important steps you will have to take to make your electronics niche review blog a fully functional, feature-rich and protected. And this can be done by installing essential plugins.
Some of the popular plugins you should definitely consider installing on your review blog include:
The plugin comes with a setting section which allows you to choose how you want to manage and display reviews on your site. WP plugins make it easy to add a product review. You just need to choose the “Product Review” option when writing a blog. The plugin will automatically show you all the settings to write your review.
All in One Schema Rich Snippets
If you want your review posts to rank in search engine results, you should ensure that all your posts are in a proper SEO-friendly format. All in One Schema Rich Snippets plugin helps you write posts using the rich snippets format.
It is a free plugin that lets you add reviews of your own products, services, and website. Moreover, you can also ask your users to submit reviews. The plugins use shortcodes to display reviews – you can display your reviews anywhere on your site including on pages, posts, and sidebar.
Installing a plugin is as simple as installing a theme, you will hardly have an issue when installing these plugins.
4. Create the Essential Pages
There are a few essential pages you should create before you start publishing your reviews. Pages like About Us, Contact Page, Disclaimer, Getting Started etc. help you make your blog more trustworthy to your target audience.
If you want your readers to take your review posts seriously and follow your advice, your blog must have all the information your readers expecting to find. By providing essential pages on your site, you help your readers to get to know more about you and your website.
5. Start Publishing Relevant & Valuable Content
Always try to come with relevant and quality content for your audience. If you want to demonstrate to your readers that reviews you have presented are reliable, conduct as much research as possible before you start writing.
Good knowledge of the product, its features, evolution, and competition, help you write an approachable and expert review.
Here are some tips to create an effective review post for an electronics niche blog.
- Read out the manufacturer’s website of product you are reviewing.
- Conduct good research about the pros and cons of products. If possible compare them with their competitors.
- Since people are looking for genuine experience with a product, it would be better if you can personally use that product.
Make sure your review posts are covering most of the concern of users. Common questions most people would like answered are:
- Is the product user-friendly?
- Is it of good quality?
- Have other users a good experience with the product?
- Is the product worth my money?
Try to write a review blog includes answers to these questions. Bonus tip – Google the brand or model that you will be reviewing and carefully check what other websites are talking about. First positions on organic Google are usually there for a reason. Check your competitors’ headings in the text. These are usually juicy keywords that users are searching for.
Top Ways to Monetize Your Electronics Niche
Once you have set up your electronics niche review blog, you need to find a convenient way to monetize it. Well, there are plenty of options out there that can get you a good amount of money. Some of the popular ones are mentioned below. You can choose anyone you find ideal.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money through blogging. Indeed, it is a kind of marketing in which you refer your readers to products and when your readers buy those products based on your recommendation, you get a commission.
Look for an affiliate program in your niche. You would definitely find so many consumer electronics firms that will be willing to pay you to review their products.
Google AdSense
If you don’t find a convenient affiliate program, you can go for this second option. Google AdSense is a program from Google that lets publishers display text, image, and video-based ads on their blog and in lieu they get a commission when a user goes through those ads.
There are two ways you can start earning money from Google AdSense:
Based on the Impression: In this type, revenue depends on page views. For example, for every 1000 page views, you earn a fixed amount.
Based on Click: When a user clicks on the ad on your site, you get a certain cut of the ad revenue. It may range anywhere from $0.01 to a couple of dollars.
Sponsored Reviews & Banner Option
If your blog receives a decent amount of traffic, consumer electronics companies may approach you to promote their products. You may get two types of requests in this case.
Banner Ads: These ads are just they sound like. You will have to place a product banner ad in your relevant review post. The business sponsoring the ad will pay you for keeping the ad up on your site.
Sponsored Reviews: When a business sends you their product and pays you to write a review about it, it is called sponsored reviews. Just don’t forget to follow Google Webmaster guidelines!
In addition to these primary methods to monetize an electronics niche review blog, you can look for other options as well.
What Makes a Good Review Blog
Creating a review blog and monetizing is not sufficient. If you want to beat your competition and make your blog popular, then you really need to make some efforts. Here are some tips that can help you create a good electronics niche review blog. You can also take a look at any of these top technology sites and see how they are creating valuable content for their audiences.
Know Your Targeted Product’s Features Inside and Out
Before you start writing a review, take your time to research every feature of the products. Try to explain to your users why these features are great.
Add Both Positive & Negative Reactions
A pros and cons section is an important feature of any good review blog. A review which is only positive or only negative may alert your audience and give them a wrong impression. Always be honest with your reviews.
Talk to the Manufacturers
If you want to stay one step ahead of your competition, don’t hesitate to talk to the manufacturers. It can be a good way to know more about a product. Sometimes, it can be difficult to contact manufacturers. In that case, you can refer their press releases on their product launch.
Put Yourself in Your Readers’ Shoes
Most bloggers make this mistake. It is good to present your own perspective when reviewing a product, you should think about your readership as well. Remember that, all your readers are not the same, they may have different points of views. So, always take this into account when you write a product review.
Tips to Promote Your Blog
Lack of right promotion is one of the reasons most blogs fail. Have a look at below tips to do it rightly.
Focus On SEO
From the day you start writing a review post, you should make sure you’re optimizing your content for search engines. Along with designing good content, you should focus on embedding the relevant keywords. However, you shouldn’t overdo it. Similarly, you should choose the relevant title for your blog that gives an idea to your audience what they are going to read.
Take Advantage of Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. can be a good source to get traffic on your blog. Share your posts on these platforms regularly.
It will be more beneficial if you can create a community of people who are particularly interested in your niche. For example, on Facebook, you can look for a group/page where people talks about consumer goods. Those people will be more interested in reading your posts.
Niche Bookmarking Websites
When you share your content in niche-specific sites, your blog generates more relevant shares and traffic. Reddit, Slashdot, Digg, Pinterest are a few bookmarking websites that you may find useful.
In addition to these methods, there are numerous other ways that you can try out. Conduct deep research and find out the one that is relevant for you.
Final Words
So, here is what you need to make your electronics niche blog successful. Remember that, it may take some time to get good earnings out of your blog. You will need to continue writing good content and promoting it on the right platform.
The post How to Create an Electronics Niche Review Blog in 5 Steps: A Complete Guide appeared first on Zac Johnson.