Update: After posting this article, Alex contacted me about the reviewspress theme, giving me a link to the warriorforum where this theme (or better said, the plugin you get with it) was being discussed:

“I believe reviewPress is illegal as the SB Review plugin he copied (didn’t even rename the files or functions but deleted the author’s attributions from the top of the files) is Creative Commons ShareAlike licensed. It’s open source and can’t be taken and sold.” http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/11732-good-options-creating-review-sites.html

Keep this information in mind when reading the rest of this post and make your own decision on whether you could use this plugin on your sites or not. I for one have taken it off of my site and am now looking for yet another solution to building a review site.

If you have ever thought of building a review site but always felt just the idea of having to code yourself was just too daunting, you´ll be happy to know there are actually easy options to build a wordpress review site that take out all the guess work.

I have already build several websites, blogs and what not to promote all sorts of products and have been on the look-out for a good review theme that included a review plugin so that not just me, but also my visitors could rate the products I was reviewing.

So why should you build a review site anyways?

If you are in the affiliate marketing business you will have noticed that there are several ways to make commissions. When surfing around, you will notice a lot of different opinions, some say that affiliate marketing is preselling a product and then sending your visitor to the sales pages, others will say that you are not doing any selling at all, just getting targeted traffic to the product page. I will go into that subject a bit more in the future, but let´s go back to review sites for now.

There are many ways to build a review site. You can just write your own review on one product and make it look like it is the best around, maybe add a few “lower quality” products to compare so that your visitors think the one you are trying to sell is actually the best, and then send them off to the salespage you are promoting.

While this can be a very effective way of affiliate marketing, I have been having doubts lately as to whether this tactic is the most effective so I started thinking what to do in order to make my campaigns more productive and give my visitors a better experience while on my websites.

One thing I always keep in mind is that I should offer real value. Good quality content, honest reviews and for as far as possible, indepth information about the different products on one page. Which actually got me on the path of wordpress review sites. Yes, I am a wordpress lover and are finding it easier to manage each day, so my number one requirement for a review theme was that it had to work on WP.

The other thing I wanted is to have several options and offer the possibility to my visitors to rate the variety of products on my site themselves. Because if you come to think of it, people are more likely to look around a bit before buying and if they see other peoples personal positive experiences with the products they are interested in, they are more likely to buy them, right?

So this last week, while not being “visibly online” I have been testing out 2 different wordpress review sites myself.

One that I won´t recommend (if you want to have the name of it you can contact me in private) actually set me back $150 seeing that I bought it with the idea in mind of setting up several wp review sites, looked really splended. Very attractive theme, with all bells and whistles, different plugins to do all sorts of things and after having some initial problems actually setting up the theme it felt just too bothersome.

Granted, the creator of the theme and plugins did reply to me when the theme wasn´t showing up correctly once downloaded, but problems I encountered were not really dealt with and I actually managed sorting the first problem right before he got back to me with the solution. Another problem was the sidebar showing up in the wrong places all of a sudden and the theme looking like it started falling apart. I got a “that is a bug I will have to look into” answer but after a day or two it still wasn´t working.

I don´t know about you, but $150 is enough of an investment to expect a little bit better support, right?

So I tested out another review theme, the ReviewsPress, quite a bit less expensive, the cheapest option is only $19.95 including the plugin to make it all work. After having another startup problem and having contacted the customer support, they actually replied pretty fast and sorted out the problem for me, very effectively. They actually gave me the kind of support I would have expected from the more expensive option (which I why I choose that expensive option in the first place, to ensure myself of good support during the initial process of learning to work with a new theme).

Apart from the themes you can choose from (there are several options, from $19.95 for the most basic version to $89.95 for a bundle of 5 different themes and headers so you are completely set to go) you get a plugin that fully integrates with the theme plus a very clear guide on how to go about setting up your review site, using the plugin etc. The plugin also creates 2 different widgets for the sidebar so that your reviews are automatically listed in order of appreciation.

People can leave their comments on the product and add their own ratings to the different options you can easily set yourself, so this theme is valid for any kind of niche.

So far for building a wordpress review site

On to the reason of writing this post…

I was “kindly” named the Buz Killer by Caleb a few weeks ago and from that came an idea… He called me the buzz killer because of my latests posts, kicking against “belief systems” and bloggers putting too much importance on creating buzz on socializing. The idea I got from this joking around was to actually build a review site where fellow bloggers and affiliate marketers could share their ideas and experiences with the different types of money making programs online and as we speak, I am in the process of setting up such a website which I will share it with you guys in the near future.

If you are trying to make money online, you probably don´t want to miss that post, seeing that you can save yourself time and money with the reviews on those different programs and actually find the ones that really work, without hype, without buzz, just real programs that will make you money…. so sign up for my rss feed if you haven´t already and you will be notified once it is online!

So that is one part of why I decided to write about review sites. The other reason is because I will shortly start another case study, this time working with Unique Article Wizard. I have been working with Unique Article Wizard in the past and saw some interesting things happen, which I would like to share with your.

For the whole month of May, this blog will be dedicated to article marketing and article marketing alone. How to write them articles, how to write author boxes, different article directories and their ups and downs, different article marketing software and services and of course the Unique Article Wizard Study Case which I will tell you more about before the beginning of May.

I am gonna use the rest of this month to set up a few new review sites, not just the buzz killing review site, but also a few additions to the One Week Marketing Plan projects that could do very well with linking to a specific review site, again offering people more choice and personal experiences.

See, I had problems with entering Squidoo, and even though I still feel that the OWM is very sound to begin with, the author also recommends to build on your existing work and create sites you own. That makes so much sense to me, especially after this period of not entering any of my squidoo accounts at all. More sites … more work, but aren´t we having fun?!  ROFL

Why am I putting myself on the spot?

Well, easy really, when looking around at different websites I just can´t shake the feeling of so many people working hard at the wrong things …putting in a lot of effort and time but not really getting anywhere. I talked a little bit about that with Alex, how weird it is to me that some blogs are having an incredible amount of followers when it is obvious that the information on those blogs is CRAP. Crap in the meaning of content, crappy content, crappy advice and obviously crappy earnings for the blogger.

Not going into calling any names but if you have been around you will find they are easy to spot.

And then there blogs of really knowledgeable people, offering sound and excellent detailed advice on how to earn a living online and eventhough they do have a few thousand followers, they haven´t gotten as many as they really should. Maybe it is because people like to be entertained or whatever instead of really want to learn how to do it, maybe because they feel $100- $1000 a month earnings a month is all they are after, I don´t know…

Anyways, the changes I have made recently regarding my style of posting, content and case studies is to make people think, hopefully. Make them think about why they are following their favorite bloggers and make them think about the methods explained all over the internet on how to make money.

Should you take my word for granted? Absolutely not. What works for me, might not work for you. It might not be your style, you might prefer to do a lot of socializing or like the feeling of branding your own name. You might already have tried many things but given up before actually giving it a real shot and then gone on to the next thing. Who knows….

All I am asking is that you think about what you are reading, think about what you are doing and be honest with yourself about the time you put into your online business, that is, if you are after earning your living online ;)

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