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The 11 Best WordPress Review Plugins (Ratings and Schema)

It’s a neverending quest to find ways to boost conversions . But what about a method that puts your customers to work?

We’re talking about customer reviews — those little bits of words and ratings that add social proof to your products and urge your customers to buy your services.

It’s one of the easiest ways to get the word out about your brand, so that’s why we want to show you some of the best WordPress review plugins .

Benefits of Putting Reviews on Your WordPress Site

The benefits of customer reviews somewhat depend on what type of business you’re running. For example, an online clothing store may want direct customer reviews that show up underneath each product. On the other hand, a local hardware store may want to share Google Reviews and show other customers where to post those reviews.

Regardless, there are a handful of common benefits that all companies should know about:

• Reviews serve as free advertising. Whether on Google Reviews or on your product pages, your customers are spreading the word about your company. According to data from Spiegel Research Center , nearly 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase.
• You receive feedback from customers and form a relationship – Some reviews will provide useful information that you can utilize to change things about your business. In addition, people like when you respond to their reviews.
• Social proof – Research shows that consumers are more likely to buy when they see that friends or other people approve of the product or service.
• You improve your SEO. Google can show rich snippets , where are interactive visuals in the search results. They’re often favored by Google. In this case, your search engine listing would have star ratings.
• You start to achieve full transparency. Online reviews can fill in the blanks with information that may not be shown on your website. For instance, you may have missed some specs on your product description, but maybe a helpful customer talks about it in a review.

What To Look for in the Perfect WordPress Review Plugin

Some of the plugins have different functionality, but you can typically find similar standard features in all of them. So, what are some of these features to look for:

• The ability to embed the reviews on your website and provide a form for customers to write their reviews.
• A rating system, such as stars or thumbs up/down.
• Options for uploading more visual content, such as pictures or videos.
• A sorting feature to see bad or good reviews first.
• A search bar so customers can find keywords in certain reviews.
• A clean dashboard for viewing and moderating the comments that come in.
• Options for aggregating your online reviews from places like Google and Yelp.
• Potential for integrating with the WooCommerce plugin . This is great for getting reviews on individual products.
• Several options for displaying reviews on your website, including shortcodes and widgets.
• Settings for customizing fields in the reviews. For instance, some companies may want to have a Pros and Cons area.

The Best WordPress Review Plugins

Now that we understand why customer reviews are so important, keep reading to see some of our favorite WordPress review plugins.

1. Starfish Reviews

If you’re looking to increase your reviews on Google, Trustpilot, Facebook, or any 3rd party reviews platform, Starfish Reviews is the plugin you probably didn’t know you needed.

Starfish Reviews has a very limited free version on WordPress.org, or starts at $47.88 for the “Business” plan that includes many more features, full support, 5 funnels, and installation on one site. A “Marketer” plan is available for 10 sites with 10 funnels on each site, and a “Webmaster” plan for up to 100 sites with unlimited funnels per site.

This awesome plugin takes the fear out of asking customers or followers for reviews. If you ask everyone for a review, you may get people who had a bad experience leaving you negative reviews. By using Starfish Reviews you don’t have to worry anymore. Just send your Starfish-created funnels when you ask for reviews. People with negative experiences will be encouraged to submit their negative feedback directly to you!

At the same time, people who love you, your product, or business, will be taken the “leave a review” form where they can leave you that valuable 5-star rating and helpful review.

What makes this one of the best WordPress review plugins?

• Easy to set up and configure with a familiar WP interface.
• Send the same link to everyone for reviews: all your clients, followers, podcast listeners, ebook readers, etc! No trying to guess what kind of review they might leave.
• Integrate with email marketing platforms like MailChimp and MailPoet for automatic follow-up.
• Use the shortcodes to embed funnels in pages or posts, or design your own funnel layout with page builders such as Divi, Elementor , Beaver Builder, and the Block Editor.
• Analytics for high-level assessment on how you’re doing.
• New features on the way to import and display reviews.

Who Should Consider This to Put Reviews on Their Site?

Any business or personality can use Starfish Reviews to garner more quality reviews for their product, service, podcast , business, etc, on online review platforms. Don’t leave your reviews to chance! Make being proactive easy and automated. Let Starfish sort negative and positive reviews and use each to its highest potential.

2. WordPress Review and Structured Data Schema

The WordPress Review & Structure Data Schema is a review plugin with all you need in a review and structured data schema solution. It hits all the right spots with the feedback, social proof, SEO boost, and free advertising that reviews should bring.

The free version works amazingly well to boost your site’s Google Search Results. It facilitates the display of single or multi-criteria ratings and reviews for your elements. What’s more, the plugin avails an affiliate marketing or product review shortcode to facilitate either of these functions. You can have it generate structured data schema JSON-LD automatically or manually.

This plugin offers more features with its Pro version , whose pricing plans start from a mere $29 yearly charge. This version encompasses products, recipes, courses, job postings, software apps, special announcements, image licenses, and archive pages.

• This plugin enables your customers to upload images of the actual products to accompany their reviews.
• It lets you activate single or multiple criteria for the reviews your site receives and displays. It even supports the display of lists of pros and cons.
• With this free plugin, you can showcase products with more than one rating type, such as star and numerical ratings.
• Although it supports WooCommerce, it doesn’t restrict your review and schema freedom to your shop functions; you can use it on your posts, pages, and custom post types too.
• The reCAPTCHA functions of this plugin ensure that all the reviews you collect are from real humans and not bots.
• Its support for multiple pagination is ideal for showcasing long and many reviews.
• The Pro version lets every real reviewer have a purchase badge to verify them as having bought the product.
• With the premium version of the plugin, your users can upload reviews with videos to verify their trustworthiness.

Both the free and paid versions of WordPress Review & Structure Data Schema accommodate different types of website niches and purposes. They are incredible tools for boosting the visibility of your site and reviews with rich snippets. The plugin works just as well with WooCommerce websites as with other site types.

3. Site Reviews

The Site Reviews plugin features a simple yet effective way to collect ratings and reviews on your website. The plugin has several options for displaying your reviews, including shortcodes, widgets, and blocks. Reviews are shown in a default order, but you can customize this by pinning some of the best reviews to go on top.

This is one of the simplest ways to incorporate reviews on your website, so if you like a look of cleanliness and the standard review formatting, this is definitely a plugin to consider. In addition, it’s completely free with no upsells along the way.

• It lets you display your reviews pretty much anywhere on your website. This is done with widgets, blocks, and shortcodes.
• Tag your best reviews to make them appear at the top of the list.
• The plugin integrates with Akismet so you can get rid of spam.
• It comes with a backup and restore feature in case you lose any data.
• Custom notifications are available for when a review is posted.
• Rich snippets show up on your search engine results with ratings and stars.
• Export or import reviews so that they aren’t just stuck on one website.

Site Reviews is a lightweight, clean plugin for those who want the bare essentials. It’s also open source and free so those on a budget can still enjoy customer reviews on their sites.

4. WP Customer Reviews

As another free review plugin, the WP Customer Review plugin is a great solution for accepting reviews anywhere on your website. This is an opensource project, where the only money going to the developers is that of donations. This plugin works in two ways. First of all, you’re able to collect general customer reviews about your business, or you could place the review modules on your individual product pages.

Many people will be happy to know that you don’t have to pay anything to use the WP Customer Reviews plugin. It’s also rather simple to configure, with a basic dashboard for accepting or declining reviews. Along with several options for review box display, the plugin gives you a setting for displaying a certain number of reviews on one page.

• It’s one of the cleanest, no-frills review plugins you can work with.
• Shortcodes are available for you to place your reviews on several areas of your site, including sidebars.
• You can customize all the fields including what you would like to ask for about a product.
• All submissions get moderated in the WordPress dashboard.
• Admins have the ability to respond to all reviews that come in from customers.
• This plugin is constantly being developed and you don’t have to pay anything for it.
• Rich snippets are shown to the search engines to improve your results and give a more visual view of your ratings.
• You can limit the number of reviews shown on each of your pages.

This WordPress review plugin makes sense for companies on a budget or online stores that are just getting started. We also recommend it for those who want a minimalist review section without any complicated features.

5. Ultimate Blocks

Ultimate Blocks is a versatile Gutenberg block plugin. It has dozens of powerful custom blocks to present different types of content on your website in captivating ways. Star Rating and Review are the two most used custom blocks of the plugin.

Using the Star Rating block, you can add star ratings to your products, services, or any other items you want. You can customize the number of stars displayed, star value, color, and size to match the design of your website.

The Review block is more feature-rich than the Star Rating block. You can display a review title, ratings, reviewer name, feature name(s), and a summary of your desired products or services. You may show the rating in star or percent format.

The Review block allows you to add a call-to-action (CTA) button, enable review schema, and create a pros/cons box within the same block. From the stylization tab, you can customize the review block’s background, star, and CTA button color.

• Intuitive and super user-friendly.
• Has a schema with the Review block.
• Easy to create a review section on any post or page without depending on shortcode.
• Has integrations with all the popular WordPress plugins.
• Automatically optimize content for all types of devices and screen sizes.
• Schema increases content visibility organically on search engine result pages.
• Ultimate Blocks has many other useful blocks like Testimonial, Content Toggle (FAQ), Progress Bar, Image Slider , etc.

Who Should Consider This to Put Reviews on Their Site?‌

The Ultimate Blocks plugin is useful for all website content marketers, like bloggers, affiliate marketers, and review writers. The plugin is also helpful for eCommerce, agency, and service-selling websites.

6. Google Reviews Widget

The Google Reviews Widget has a completely different function than many of the other plugins in this article. Instead of letting customers write reviews on your website, this plugin takes all of your current Google business reviews and shows them on your website. It works as a widget, so all of these reviews can be placed in a header, footer, or sidebar.

The plugin is free, but you do have the option to upgrade to the business license which starts at $85 per year.

The free plugin may be useful for some smaller brands, but it limits you to only five Google reviews and three Yelp reviews. Personally, I feel like this is enough for most businesses, but the business plan also supports more platforms such as Facebook. You also get some interesting features such as filters, rich snippets, and the ability to merge certain reviews.

What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Review Plugins?

• The plugin has a basic free version that lets smaller companies share some of their Google and Yelp reviews.
• Whereas many review plugins only look good on light websites, the Google Reviews Widget offers support for darker websites as well.
• Several themes are provided for you to customize the way your reviews appear online.
• Several languages are supported so that you can accept reviews from all over the world.
• Some of the formats include unique elements like sliders , grids, and trust badges.
• You receive access to shortcodes just in case you don’t want to utilize the widget.
• The Google Rich Snippets are there for increasing your SEO effectiveness.
• Three review platforms integrate with the plugin, including Google, Yelp, and Facebook.

The Google Reviews Widget looks nice for smaller companies that only want to post a few reviews from Google or Yelp. The Business plan isn’t that expensive either, so we also like the plugin if you want to pull Facebook reviews.

Finally, we mainly recommend this plugin for people who like working with widgets.

7. Customer Reviews for WooCommerce

Online stores are typically where you see customer reviews. The Customer Reviews for WooCommerce plugin has exactly what you need if your current theme doesn’t have a good-looking review section.  It’s built on the basis of creating social proof for when your customers land on your eCommerce product pages .

Customer Reviews for WooCommerce has a few features that make it particularly appealing. For instance, it sends out notifications to customers who have recently bought but haven’t posted a review on the product yet. It also improves your social proof by verifying reviews when the customer has actually bought the product through your store.

Two plans are available: Free and Pro. The Pro version sells for $49.99 per year and gets you extra features and dedicated support.

• The free version includes several features that are useful to all businesses such as trust badges, review reminders, and the ability to import reviews.
• The customer review reminders offer a way to let customers know that they can come back to your website and write reviews about the product they bought.
• All reviews are authenticated to ensure that real shoppers are writing reviews. This makes the reviews look more trustworthy to future customers.
• You have options to accept content from your customers such as videos and photos.
• Send your customers a one-page review form with fields for several products from your store.
• Include rich snippets on all of your reviews so that your customer ratings are shown on Google.
• Remove spam from your reviews with the help of reCAPTCHA .
• All reviews can be filtered based on ratings and other criteria.
• Share trust badges on certain areas of your store to help your customers feel more confident from the place they’re buying from.
• Integrate your reviews with Google Shopping to reveal star ratings on search results.
• Send out discounts and coupons for those who write reviews on your website.

This review plugin is only meant for online stores. If you run a WooComerce shop we suggest taking a look at this option for reviews. We like it best for those brands that want to accept customer images and videos, along with brands that wouldn’t mind sending out discounts for reviewers.

8. WP Business Reviews

If you’re seeking a serious, powerhouse review plugin, look no further than WP Business Reviews .

WP Business Reviews starts at a price of $99.50 per year, and that includes one site license and basic support. You can jump up to the other plans if you need support for more websites and would like to save a little money. It doesn’t have a free version, but that’s because the WP Business Reviews plugin is filled with a wide range of features that stand out compared to many of the other plugins on this list.

The main benefit behind this plugin is that you technically don’t have to do any work to show customer reviews on your website. All you have to do is install the plugin on your WordPress site and connect platforms such as Yelp, Facebook, and Google.

After that, WP Business Reviews takes over, pulling in any current and new reviews on those platforms. You can also add your own custom reviews and filter out some of the negative reviews that come through.

• WP Business Reviews extracts reviews from some of the most popular review websites such as Yelp, Google, and Facebook. There’s even a connection to a website called Zomato, which is a global restaurant platform where customers post reviews.
• The plugin features the ability to add custom reviews that you collected individually. Customers can also go on your website and share reviews instead of jumping to a site like Google.
• Filter out any reviews or ratings that are below a certain star level. These aren’t completely removed but hidden from the top of your review module.
• Tag your favorite reviews to be shown at the top of the list.
• Customize the type of rating system you use and how it displays on the reviews. For example, you might show a 5.0, or maybe five blue or orange star icons.
• Adjust the styling of your reviews to fit your dark or light website.
• Utilize interesting formats such as lists and galleries.
• Show exactly where all of the reviews come from and highlight customer names and avatars.

Any type of business can take advantage of the WP Business Review tools. It makes sense for those who want to automate their review system and not worry about seeking out reviews from past customers. Chances are people have posted on Facebook and Google, so you get your content from those places.

9. Schema – All In One Schema Rich Snippets

The Schema plugin has one primary function: to reveal rich snippets for your products on search engines. So, if you’re looking for a way to get reviews on your website, this isn’t the plugin you want.

Schema takes a different approach by combining with your current review system and adding visuals for the search engines. For example, you may want to have stars for your rating system or a shortened version of your recipe on Google.

• The Schema plugin is free for all users and doesn’t have any upgrades that you have to worry about.
• It’s a lightweight plugin that doesn’t weigh down your site or take up any space in the back or frontend.
• Several types of schemas are supported. Some of them include reviews, events, people, and recipes. The reviews are what you would focus on most, but a food blog could have elements of the recipe showing up on Google.
• The plugin works so that only the most important and relevant information is shown in the rich snippets.
• The most important and relevant information is also shown when customers attempt to share a link on their Facebook pages .

Only opt for this plugin if you would like to improve your reviews with rich snippets. You may want to boost your search engine rankings, or maybe you just noticed that your WordPress theme doesn’t have the ability to show rich snippets. It’s also great if you want unique content snippets like video or recipes.

10. Photo Review for WooCommerce

This is one of the most powerful review plugins you can find for WooCommerce . As you may know, it’s become a bit of a trend to allow customers to post images on their product reviews. This is the primary purpose of this plugin so that all your customers have to do is upload a quick picture of the item they bought and publish it to your website.

This is bound to improve your social proof and open up a new form of marketing where your customers share more information about your products than you do.

There’s a free version of the plugin that has the majority of features you would need. The premium version sells for $26 and includes a fairly long list of additional features such as a masonry pop-ups, multilingual capabilities, and options for sending out coupons for reviews.

• It offers a free version which includes some rather advanced tools such as email design and coupons for photo reviews.
• You can specify that all customer reviews must include a photo. This feature can also be turned off.
• Reveal ratings and allow your customers to compare ratings on your website.
• Give people the option to filter your reviews based on verified purchases, ratings, and much more.
• The Pro version has an option to only give out a coupon if the review is being written by a verified purchaser.
• You can also import reviews from AliExpress.
• The Pro version offers a tool for adding reviews from the admin panel.

The WooCommerce Photo Reviews plugin comes in handy if you run an online store and would like to have photos in your customer reviews. It’s also great for those who would like to start sending out coupons to people in exchange for a review.

11. Taqyeem

Although it has the strangest name on this list, the Taqyeem plugin is no slouch when it comes to displaying reviews online. The main focus with the plugin is to offer unlimited customization options so that you can match your website branding exactly the way you want. So, you might have a bar rating system, where people specify a number from 1 to 10. On the other hand, you could go with a star rating system, with a one through five scale.

Many formats are possible with the Taqyeem plugin. The $29 price tag is only a one-time fee unless you plan on upgrading your customer support for the next year. It’s sold on the CodeCanyon marketplace, so you can also check out some of the user reviews for this developer.

• It’s one of the few online review plugins that has support for unlimited colors and unlimited review criteria.
• The typography and web fonts collection is more than enough for just about every business to find formatting that fits their own brand.
• The Taqyeem plugin shows Google Rich Snippets for potential customers that are viewing your listings through a search engine.
• Percentages can also be used for when your customers make reviews.
• Your review modules can be placed on several areas of your website such as posts and pages.

We enjoy the Taqyeem plugin for companies that need to get the branding of their review module as close to the website as possible. The unlimited amount of colors should help you get there. In addition, the plugin lets you have different rating systems to stand out.

Which of the WordPress Review Plugins Is Best for You?

That’s a lot to take in, so here’s a quick round up of our final suggestions:

• Site Reviews – Consider this plugin for a free and feature-rich review module.
• WP Customer Reviews – Go with this one if you like free and clean.
• Google Reviews Widget – This is your choice if you want to automatically pull reviews from Google and Yelp.
• Customer Reviews for WooCommerce – Try this plugin if you have an online store and want to accept photos in the reviews.
• WP Business Reviews – A good choice for automating reviews from Google and Facebook.
• Schema – All In One Schema Rich Snippets – Only use this if you want unique schema rich snippets.
• Photo Review for WooCommerce – Perfect for getting photo reviews and for sending out coupons.
• Taqyeem – Consider this plugin for the ultimate customization.

That’s all we have for you now! If you have any questions about the best WordPress review plugins, let us know in the comments.

Head of Content at Kinsta and Content Marketing Consultant for WordPress plugin developers. Connect with Matteo on Twitter .

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Hi guys. Have you come across a review or schema plugin that allows you to enter overall review information for curated or aggregated reviews (like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic)?

For example, I want the schema to display something along the lines of: “Rating: 85% based on 15 reviews”. However, I have been unable to find a plugin that allows me to manually enter the number of reviews.

Hey Stuart, what about MyThemeShop’s WP Review https://mythemeshop.com/plugins/wordpress-review/ ? Have you tried it? I think it might be a good option to test out.

Btw: I think Brian uses it on one of his sites but I’m not 100% sure.

Keep us posted!

BNE Creative’s WordPress Testimonials (Pro) is my favorite review plugin. I add a review “badge” in the footer that sounds like what you are looking for. I don’t know if the free version has this feature or not. I purchase the pro version to support the Dev.

Plugin: https://www.bnecreative.com/products/testimonials-wordpress-pro/ Example badge (scroll to footer): https://www.dc-acupuncture.com/

Review stars do show in organic search results except of course for the home page, which Google doesn’t seem to do for anyone.

Cheers! jules

A very useful plugin for WooCommerce is Better Reviews For WooCommerce. https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-reviews-for-woocommerce/

WP Review Pro – Is GARBAGE! I can’t limit Google Reviews. You always get 5. I can’t eliminate negative reviews. AND what’s worse is their Support is only Support until you purchase the item, than all you here is CRICKETS!

They have poor documentation and 10 year old videos displaying their product. It’s worthless.

One interesting variable in this article would have been considerations for page speed, and control of structured data / schema markup.

“Pages using LocalBusiness or any other type of Organization structured data are ineligible for star review feature if the entity being reviewed controls the reviews about itself. For example, a review about entity A is placed on the website of entity A, either directly in their structured data or through an embedded third-party widget.”

Google announced this in a Webmasters Central Blog post in September, 2019. Searching for local businesses within Google at the time of this comment, however, you will still see rich snippets displayed for LocalBusiness types in violation of this guideline.

Another interesting addition would be the ability to populate critic reviews:

“You can provide standalone critic review objects, which are suitable for sites that perform no direct function for the business being reviewed, such as news sites.” developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/critic-review

Currently looking for a substitute for Everest Google Places Reviews, as page speed improvements for mobile users (PageSpeed Insights) were not insignificant disabling the plugin. Having not tested any of the plugins on this list for this metric, however, and not to be unfair, this could be the tax you pay for integrating reviews onsite.

Hey Christopher, Noted!

Your feedback makes it the case for an updated version of this blog post. Thanks for sharing 🙂

Any plugin that allows for multiple GMB locations for the same business?

Also, I tested Elfsight Apps and I got 5 stars under the SERP snippet in 10 days (maybe earlier but I noticed 10 days later) They charge per view. They say they allow multiple locations but cannot test it on the free version. What do you think about it?

Is there a way to get Google Reviews for each page rather than just the Place Id?

A very good plugin is this one https://wordpress.org/plugins/yet-another-stars-rating/

Spolier: I’m the developer :)

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13 Best WordPress Review Plugins of 2024

Updated: January 01, 2024

Published: October 18, 2019

Thinking about trying a WordPress review plugin? Here's a stat for you: Consumers want to hear from other consumers before doing business with a brand. According to BrightLocal , the average consumer reads 10 reviews before feeling able to trust a local business.

Plus, we don't necessarily have to know the person to trust their recommendation. According to the same study by BrightLocal, 76% of consumers trust customer reviews and testimonials as much as personal recommendations.

Providing potential customers with this valuable information on your WordPress website is easy. Thanks to WordPress plugins, you can add customer reviews to your site without needing to code or create a template from scratch. Let's look at your best options below.

What are WordPress review plugins?

Why should you use wordpress review plugins, best wordpress review plugins.

WordPress review plugins are plugins that help you collect and/or display reviews on your website. These could be your own reviews that you're writing about products, or they could be reviews from customers about your own business.

Many review plugins focus on helping you collect and display customer reviews. These plugins could add review forms to your own site. They could also help you import reviews from other platforms like Google My Business, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more.

11. PowerPack for Elementor

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Create a Niche Review Website That Makes Money in 7 Easy Steps

Want to start a niche review website, but you don’t know how? You’re in good hands!

After trying, failing, and then succeeding at multiple niche review websites, we have seen a general pattern of what works, what doesn’t, and some of the best practices for creating niche websites.

By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear picture of what goes into building a niche review website from scratch, the different ways to monetize it, and how you can get started with a site of your own!

What Is a Niche Review Website and Should You Start One?

A niche review site is a website dedicated to reviewing products and services related to a very specific topic or niche.

It can be anything from starting a dog treat business to beauty supplies or even something broader like kitchenware.

The main focus of the website is to provide reviews of products and services, which can then be linked to an affiliate program .

You then make a little money if someone buys one of the products through your link. Additionally, you can embed Google Reviews to boost the credibility of your reviews.

There are hundreds of thousands of websites reviewing different kinds of products and services. Should you start a niche review website?

The answer is a resounding “Yes!”

Competition is not a reason to stop yourself from jumping into an industry. Having competition validates the fact that there’s money to be made in that niche.

There is a caveat though. When there are a lot of people reviewing similar products, you need to perform even better market research and understand the needs of the market that aren’t being met.

This takes a lot of time and once you figure this out, you are in for a long and successful ride! Additionally, considering the use of a template for project planning can ensure meticulous tracking of every step involved in creating your niche review website.

How can you start your own niche review site in WordPress?

Let’s start with some prerequisites.

What You Need to Start a Niche Review Website

Before getting started, we need a few things in place. Let’s look at the prerequisites for your niche review websites and then you can jump into creating your own niche site!

1. Choose a Niche

The most important step in starting a niche review website is to have a niche. This involves a lot of research and many beginners will skip this step.

You may be fortunate and already know your niche. You may have particular expertise in a subject or unique skills you can utilize within your niche.

Or, you may need to find one. Either way, selecting a niche and becoming expert in it should be your first task.

If you don’t already know your niche, don’t worry. We’ll show you how to come up with one in a little while.

Starting out with complete knowledge of your market will help you serve the niche in a much better fashion.

When you have a niche, you specialize in a topic and grab an audience of enthusiasts that work within that topic.

Instead of writing about everything under the sun, niche review websites focus on one subject.

For instance, scuba diving.

When you niche into this topic, you go deeper than other competitors who are writing general reviews on every product.

And because of this, people who visit your website and are interested in scuba diving will stick to it and look for your website the next time they need a review.

When your niche gets more specific, it’s called a micro-niche.

If you find there’s too much competition within your niche, you can start with a micro-niche and broaden your website further up into the niche.

2. Domain and Hosting

Your domain name is your brand identity . After you have selected a niche, take the time to pick a good, brandable domain name.

You could choose a domain that includes part of your target keywords like the word “scuba” or “diving” considering our previous example.

It might be better to go with a brandable name if you want to be in the game for the long term.

Brandable names like Apple, Google and others give you scope to expand into other niches later in your journey. So choose a domain based on your goals. If you’re struggling to come up with a brandable domain name, you can use a brand name generator to help you get started. There are many different brand name generators available online, and they can be a great way to generate creative and unique domain name ideas..

You’ll also need good hosting to get your site up and running.

When you’re starting out and don’t have a lot of traffic, you can start off with a shared host like A2Hosting or SiteGround .

As the number of visitors increases, you’ll need to move over to cloud or dedicated hosting for your website .

3. WordPress

We’ll use WordPress as it’s the most popular content management system (CMS) for blogging.

It’s also one of the easiest to set up irrespective of the type of website you are looking to build.

WordPress is great for beginners! Here are some of the benefits of using WordPress:

• It is very easy to learn
• Hundreds of thousands of plugins to extend your website functionality with zero coding knowledge required
• Great for SEO as it automatically includes a majority of the elements by default
• Fully-responsive on devices of all sizes
• Open-source so you can always hire a developer to add features to your website where a plugin does not work

While WordPress is great for most use-cases, there are a few things that you need to consider:

• It lets you customize every aspect of your website which can be overwhelming when you are just starting out
• While it’s optimized to be fast by default, WordPress can slow down if you add too many plugins or add badly optimized themes.
• Updates may cause few issues with older plugins

While these are issues you need to keep in mind, they’d not hamper your progress in starting up a niche review site. You can continue to learn more about website customization and get used to the multitude of customization options available.

Also, keep your website fully optimized by removing all unnecessary plugins, using themes that are built to be fast like Astra , and do not install any unknown or unofficial plugins.

And lastly, since WordPress plugins are developed by independent developers, a major update to WordPress can cause issues with them. As such, it’s always recommended to check for compatibility of your existing plugins before updating WordPress.

If this sounds difficult to you, WordPress has a plugin called Plugin Detective to save you from any compatibility issues that may arise. When you’re starting out, keep it installed while you learn and get used to managing WordPress to prevent any mishaps!

4. Versatile WordPress Theme

A WordPress theme gives your niche website its look and feel. It’s an incredibly important part of building a website .

You need a theme that’s versatile, and highly configurable so it’s easy to live with and to tweak to your personal taste.

In this tutorial, we’ll be using Astra .

It’s a modern, fast, and lightweight WordPress theme that’s perfect for creating any type of website.

It comes with a ton of features and options, so you can easily customize it to match your needs.

Plus, it’s fully responsive, so it looks great on any device!

5. Unique Selling Point

To build niche review sites, you need a unique selling point. This can be anything from the angle of your review site, the type of products you review, or the way you present your information.

When you have something that makes your site stand out from the rest, you’ll be able to attract more visitors and keep them coming back for more.

6. Plugins and Tools

Plugins add features to WordPress. They can either improve existing features or add new ones.

Either way, plugins are an integral part of building a website and one of the most powerful features of WordPress.

Here are a few tools that you should consider for your niche review website:

• A keyword research tool like ahrefs , SEMRush
• Convert Pro to capture email leads on your website
• Review plugin like Starfish Reviews

You’ll need to change or expand your selection of plugins as your website grows, but these should be enough to begin with.

Building a Niche Review Site Step by Step

Let’s now jump into building a niche review site in WordPress.

Step 1: Pick a Niche

The general perception of working within a niche is that it limits what you cover on your website.

While that’s partially correct, there’s more to it.

A niche also helps you know exactly who your audience is. When you work within a niche, you’re better able to become a genuine expert in the subject. That will come across in everything you do, which helps you serve the market and turn readers into fans!

How Do You Pick a Niche?

We suggest beginning with things you already enjoy reading or are passionate about.

But, you can’t choose any product or service to review. You need a balance between things you like, and things many other people also like.

And that’s where research comes in.

Here’s a quick brief of how you can pick a niche for your niche review site:

• Step 1: Create a list of topics that you regularly read about on the internet or are passionate or knowledgeable. You can even check for the topics that are recommended by Google News.
• Step 2: Sort the topics between hobby, business, and personal projects.
• Step 3: Pick 1-2 of your favorite topics from each category and search for communities on Reddit. For example, I enjoy music, eCommerce, and freelance writing. So, I take a plunge and look for Reddit communities for each. Sort them by the member count.
• Step 4: Now you have a really good list of topics that you like, but are also liked by a group of people. With over 52 million monthly active users, Reddit has all the communities you can think of. In fact, it’s a goldmine of communities and niches to explore.
• Step 5: Pick the top 2 topics you think you could write a lot about.
• Step 6: You can then dive deeper into this research and look for Google Trends for each of the topics as well. Perform basic keyword research on each topic to see the potential search volumes. We recommend tools like SEMRush to get estimates on search volumes and ad spends for each topic.

With this, you’ll have a couple of topics that you love and also have a community around them.

If you also look at the ad spends, you can find the business potential for each topic.

Find the one that’s the most lucrative and interesting to you and you can move to the next step!

Step 2: Get a Domain Name

Onto the second most important part – your domain. Your domain is your brand identity.

Spend a little time finding the right name for your business. You can get your domain name from NameSilo or NameCheap to pay a fixed annual charge and avoid the unnecessary fees that many other domain name providers charge.

What do we mean by a good domain name?

A good domain name is brandable. Something that conveys the message you’re trying to convey, without being too over the top in terms of keywords.

For example – bestkitchenappliances.com cannot be called a brandable domain name. But domain names like Google, CartFlows, Elementor, Astra are brandable domains.

You can find a good domain name by either combining multiple words from your niche into one like CartFlows – a combination of eCommerce carts and checkout flows.

So, find a domain that works for your niche and you’ll be good to go!

Step 3: Web Hosting

Web hosting is where your website data is stored and made accessible to visitors. You connect your domain name to your hosting provider and that’s how people who type in your domain name can see your website.

To begin with, sign up with a hosting company of your choice.

There are hundreds of hosting providers and types of hosting on the market.

To make things easier, we’d suggest you start with Hostinger or SiteGround , both of which are low-cost shared hosting companies.

Once you sign up, you will need to set up the name servers of your domain. For domains purchased from NameCheap , here’s a quick tutorial .

You need to set up custom nameservers based on which hosting you choose.

Hostinger’s nameservers are:

• ns1.dns-parking.com
• ns2.dns-parking.com.

SiteGround’s nameservers are:

• ns1.siteground.net
• ns2.siteground.net

Once you have set the nameservers, wait for a few hours for the DNS settings to get updated. Use whatsmydns.me to check whether those changes are updated globally or not.

After that, you should be able to visit your domain and see the default page for your hosting provider.

Step 4: Setup Your WordPress Blog

This section is where things get more technical. But with the easy setup shared hosting platforms available, setting up a WordPress blog has become very simple.

We’ve extensively covered how to create a blog in this article , so we’ll just give you an overview of the steps to set up your WordPress blog here.

Sign in to your hosting account. You should be presented with the domain that you connected to it when you registered.

Click Manage for the domain where you want to install WordPress.

Here’s what the page will look like on SiteGround and Hostinger.

Once you click manage, you’ll be taken to the cPanel interface.

For Hostinger, go to Website > Auto Installer > WordPress > Select.

For SiteGround, look for Softaculous One-Click Installer > Install WordPress.

Setup your username and password, and you’d be good to go!

Step 5: Install the Necessary Plugins for the Website

Now, log in to WordPress with the username and password you just created.

1. Go to your WordPress Dashboard

2. Click on Appearance > Themes

3. Click on Add New

4. Type “ Astra ” in the search bar and hit enter

5. Click on Install and then click Activate

Your theme will now be ready to go.

Next, we’ll install the required plugins for our website.

To install Convert Pro , go to its website and sign up for one of the plans that suit your needs. You can then log in and download the Convert Pro zip file to install.

To install your plugin as a zip file, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload .

This will give you an option to choose a zip file that is installed as a regular plugin.

For other plugins like Starfish reviews, Litespeed cache, and others, you can go to Plugins > Add New and search for it in the search bar.

You can now add any of the plugins we suggested before, or any others you like.

Step 6: Writing Your First Review Blog for a Product

When it comes to writing a review, there are some simple steps that you can take to make the process much easier.

First, you need a product . If you’re reviewing SaaS products, getting your hands on the product will be as simple as signing up for the trial. For physical products, you can get in touch with the manufacturer of the product and ask for samples to review. Many would not be interested when you’re just starting out but you can review those who do send you samples. Take the time to craft your cold approach skills in this case. You might need to send a lot of outreach emails, in which case it’s recommended to use the  best cold email software , which helps you personalize your outreach at scale.

Second , gather as much information as possible about the product or service. This will help you to provide a comprehensive review that covers all of the important aspects.

A little hack here – read through 50-60 reviews of the product including the 5 star ratings, 4 star ratings, and 1 star ratings. These will give you a complete perspective of what’s great with the product, what needs improvement and what’s really bad.

Lastly , when writing your review, be sure to focus on the positive and negative aspects of the product or service. This will help to give readers a balanced view of the product. Be sure to explain why you feel the way you do, and back up your points with concrete evidence.

Here’s a simple structure for your review blog:

• Introduce the product or service that you are reviewing.
• Add a quick summary of your review at the top in the form of a table or a small section that’s highlighted differently from the rest of the post.
• Next, talk about your experience with the product or service. This should include information on how well it worked for you and any problems you may have had
• Source reviews from Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and other eCommerce sites where the product is listed and add them to your blog.
• Link out to the product at regular intervals within the blog post so users who are convinced can go ahead with the purchase using your affiliate link.
• Finally, add a conclusion that summarizes your experience and gives a final verdict for who the product is good for and who should try a different one. This will help your readers make a decision.

Getting access to the product or service for free will be difficult when you start out. But as your site gains authority within a niche , businesses would approach you for reviews and that’s when you can begin charging them.

Let’s write our first review on our niche review website!

• Now, click on Posts and then click the Add New button

• You can also directly add a new post by clicking the + New option available in the header menu on the top.
• To start off, enter the title of your post.

Hit enter and begin writing.

That’s a Paragraph block right where you began typing. It’s the default block when you don’t manually choose one.

Start adding your articles here and you’ll be ready to start marketing your review website!

Step 8: Marketing Your Website Through SEO and Social Media

Once you have created a website , it is important to market it in order to increase traffic and improve your ranking in search engines. This can be done through SEO (search engine optimization) and social media.

SEO involves improving the visibility of your website by optimizing its content and structure for search engines.

While this is a completely different topic and will require multiple blogs by itself, you can get started with simple tips :

• Write long-form content that answers questions that your users have asked on other social forums.
• Present your content clearly and concisely so users want to read it. A simple way to do this is by utilizing a paraphrasing tool – that will quickly paraphrase the given content simply and concisely without changing the original meaning
• Break your articles into multiple headings so people can skim through and get the concepts .
• Add relevant links to other sources and pages on your website.

Social media is a great way to promote your website and reach a wider audience. You can share links to your website content on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

You can also use social media to build relationships with potential customers and influencers.

To get started with social media, the simplest way is to create an account on every platform with your brand name.

Then, begin by following all the relevant communities within the niche.

As you see questions that relate to your website’s topic, start answering them. Your brand will pop in front of multiple people across the board and you’ll start seeing people visiting your website through profile links.

While this does not increase traffic significantly when you start out, the efforts compound slowly.

By using SEO and social media, you can increase traffic to your website and improve your ranking in search engines.

This will help you attract more customers and grow your business.

Monetizing a Review Website – The Easiest Ways

You have a review website and have started getting traffic to it. So, how can you earn money from it?

Let’s explore the different, easy ways to monetize your niche review website!

There are a few ways you can monetize your website. The one that will work best for you depends on the type of website you have, the audience you are targeting, and how much traffic you are getting.

1. Display Ads

Ads are a great way to make money from a review website. If you have good traffic and a loyal audience, you can sell advertising space to companies who want to reach your audience.

If you do not want to go through the constant negotiation with advertisers, you can also use Google Adsense or any other ad network.

They will automatically place ads on your website that are relevant to your audience and you can continue to make a profit from your website on auto-pilot!

2. Affiliate Marketing

Another way to make money from a review website is by becoming an affiliate for companies.

An affiliate program is a program through which you promote a company’s products and earn a commission on sales that you generate.

There are many different affiliate programs out there, so be sure to find one that offers products that your audience is interested in.

3. Sponsored Posts

Many bloggers make a lot of money from sponsored posts. Sponsored posts are when you write about a product or company and they pay you to do so.

Some bloggers make over $1,000 per sponsored post. If you are interested in making money like this, there are a few things you need to know:

• First, you need to have a large audience. Sponsors want to work with bloggers who have a lot of followers.
• Second, you need to be able to write high-quality content. Sponsors will not work with you if your blog is not high quality.
• Finally, you must negotiate. Sponsors will often offer you a low payout and you need to stand ground if you’ve set a specific rate for your sponsored posts.

4. Selling a Product Directly on Your Website

Once you’ve gone beyond affiliate marketing and sponsored posting, it’s time to create digital product solutions for your website.

This is by far the most profitable method of monetizing a niche review website. But, mind you, this is also the most difficult to get right. You can spend a lot of time and fail in creating a successful online product too.

Also, you need to focus on conversion optimization, digital fulfillment, landing pages, and so much more!

But there are benefits to selling your own products. You set your own prices and control your own profits here. There are no middlemen involved and you’re in complete control.

Also, once you’ve created a digital product, there are no additional costs of sourcing the product or maintaining it. It continues to sell as long as it is relevant to your niche!

So go ahead and try this out if you’ve exhausted all your options.

The best way to make money from a review website will vary depending on the website itself, so be sure to explore all of your options and find the method that works best for you.

By monetizing your website in one of these ways, you can start generating some extra income from your hard work.

High-quality niche review websites are even more relevant today! With new products coming out on a regular basis, more and more people are searching for reviews. And it’s harder for large websites to review all newly launched products and services.

Reviewing products or services within a niche not only help you achieve success much quicker, but also help your audience get the information they need to make important purchase decisions!

So, there you have it! You are equipped with all the information you’d need to start your very own niche review website. All that’s left is to put what you’ve learned into practice and get started. Remember to focus on quality content and providing value for your readers, and you should be well on your way to success.

What method did you follow to find your niche? Do you have any ideas on building your niche website that we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below!

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