Updated September 2026
Have you been thinking about starting a review blog? Whether you want to review books, makeup, kids’ toys or even your favourite restaurants there’s nothing stopping you from starting a review blog using these simple steps.
Why Start A Review Blog?
There are lots of great reasons to start a review blog, especially if you love reviewing products and feel like it’s something you could easily write about.
Even if you already have a social presence, such as on Instagram or TikTok, having your own website means you’ll own your content and can still earn money even if any of the social sites’ media go down.
Having a blog allows you to build an email list which means you can contact your followers should anything happen to any of your social accounts.
Starting a review blog can also be a great way to make money from affiliate marketing. People searching for reviews of a product already have the intent to buy, so it can be a great way to create a sales funnel.
Even if you don’t love a product you can still review it. Honest reviews rather than reviews that are there just to sell products will always come across as more authentic.
What Should I Review?
If you’re starting a dedicated review blog then it’s best to review something you feel passionate about, whether that’s books, skincare, candles or something entirely. You could review restaurants, local days out, toys.
It really could be anything! You could also start a more general lifestyle blog and include review as part of that.
You should only ever review items you own and have used or places you should have actually visited.
Ideally you should take your own photographs – never use stock images or images you’ve found on Google unless you have explicit permission from the brand.
How To Choose A Name For Your Review Blog
Before starting your blog, you’ll need to choose a name for it. You may already have a name in mind or already be using a name on socials that you’d like to continue using.
However, there are a few things you’ll need to do first such as checking it’s not trademarked.
Here are some tips for choosing a name for a review blog:
- Try to avoid names that use hyphens or numbers, people won’t remember to use them and might end up on the wrong site. With numbers, people may not remember whether it’s the symbol or the written word.
- This post about unintentionally bad hashtags is a great example of why you need to write your blog name down a few times before making a final decision.
- Avoid unusual spellings or words that have ambiguous meanings.
- If the name you want to use is already taken, it can be tempting to add a ‘the’ or ‘our’ to the front of it, however, it can be difficult to compete with an already established brand or website so I would advise against doing this.
- Should you use your own name? There’s nothing wrong with going for something simple like ‘SarahReviewsRestaurants’ but it could make it harder to sell your blog in the future
- If the name you have chosen has the .com version taken but .co.uk and .net etc are available, personally I would still avoid using it. As above, it could cause confusion with an already established brand.
- Alliterative names are fun and really easy to remember.
When you’ve found a name you like, pop over to Lyrical Host and use their domain name search to see if the name you want is available. You don’t have to buy from here, it’s just to check.
This article has lots of useful naming tips and ideas: 7 Tips For Naming A Lifestyle Blog
Next, use namecheckr to see if the name is already being used on social media anywhere. If your name is longer than 15 characters it won’t show up on X/Twitter as that’s their character limit for names and you’ll need to shorten it.
I know it might sound extreme, but check the name isn’t trademarked in your home country – for the U.K you can do that here.
Even if a domain name is available, the phrase or words contained within could still be trademarked so it’s always worth double-checking this from the start.
I actually had to change the name of one of my websites in 2020 as someone trademarked the name I was using.
You can read more about trademarks, the costs involved and some of the legalities in this post: Should You Trademark Your Blog Name?
How To Find A Web Host For Your Review Blog
When it comes to creating your blog, I always recommend self-hosted WordPress. However, there are some other options which I will cover below.
Blogs can be free, paid or a combination of free hosting with a vanity URL which is probably the cheapest option at around £10 per year.
Whatever you do, do not choose the ‘WordPress Premium’ option at any point as this is not what you’re looking for in a free or self-hosted blog.
Starting Free Review Blog
If you’re new to blogging and aren’t sure whether it’s right for you, a free blog could be the way to go.
Most people choose either WordPress.com or Blogger for this although there are other options like Wix and Squarespace too.
On a free blog, you can choose your blog name but it will have .blogger or .Wordpress after it, for example, https://beautyworkers.wordpress.com/
It’s worth bearing in mind that you can’t typically monetize a free blog, most ad networks, affiliate programs and PRs firms will be looking for someone who is self-hosted.
So while there is a cost involved, it should be more than worth it in the long run.
There are also fewer options for themes and customizations on free a blog and you don’t own your content like you would with a paid blog.
If the free host closes or goes bust, you could lose everything if you’ve not backed it up.
Useful Reading – Free WordPress.com Vs Self Hosted WordPress.org
Self Hosted WordPress Blog
The next option (and in my opinion the best option!) is a paid wordpress.org blog. This allows you to use your own URL (domain name). If you follow any bloggers on social media, this is more than likely what they have for their blog.
Buying your own domain name costs around £15 per year. You may end up paying more if you have a specific name in mind that’s been purchased by someone else and they are now selling it.
The cost of blog hosting can vary hugely anything from a few pounds per month to £20 or even £30 a month, depending on what’s included.
I currently pay around £30 but I can host up to 30 websites for that price.
My personal recommendation for blog hosting is Lyrical Host. They are not cheap (one website is £13.99 a month) but the service is excellent and they help with getting everything set up.
Lyrical Host is fully managed hosting which means they will help with installing themes, and with almost any problems you might find crop up.
If you are worried about the technical side of blogging, having a team behind you that will help any time of day or night is worth paying for.
However, if you’re new to blogging and want something a bit more affordable both stablepoint and 34sp are good budget-friendly options.
Big hosts such as GoDaddy and Siteground may seem tempting but I’ve used both of these in the past and the customer service leaves a lot to be desired, especially if you’re not very experienced at building websites or blogs.
Keep in mind many hosts offer cheap hosting for the first year (GoDaddy are especially known for doing this) and then they double or triple the price of hosting for the second year.
Lyrical Host doesn’t do this, another reason they are my top choice for blog hosting.
Free Blog With Vanity URL
The last option is to use the free blogging platform ‘Blogger’ with the domain name of your choice (also known as a vanity URL), which can be a good way to dip your toes in the blogging world while spending as little as possible.
You can monetize your blog using Blogger and a vanity URL but customization options are quite limited and many bloggers eventually end up switching over to self-hosted WordPress.
Useful Reading – How To Set Up A Custom URL In Blogger
Getting Your Review Blog Set-Up
So, quick checklist time! Are you ready to set up your review blog?
- Chosen a domain name (or vanity URL) and checked that it’s available to purchase.
- Checked the name isn’t trademarked or being used anywhere else on social media.
- Chosen a blog host, such as Lyrical Host, Blogger or Wix.
Once you’ve chosen your domain name, you can go ahead and purchase it, along with a hosting package. Some hosts allow you to pay monthly while others will expect a year’s payment upfront.
You don’t need to buy both hosting and a domain name at the same place, but I do find it’s easier to keep everything together.
Depending on the host you chose, most will help you link your domain name and hosting set up your basic WordPress site. If you’re struggling, it might be worth jumping on live chat or requesting a support ticket.
Many hosts also have detailed videos of what you need to do on YouTube.
What Happens Next?
Setting up a blog can feel like a HUGE learning curve, especially if you’ve never used WordPress before.
It can be challenging initially, but bear with it, you will get there. I’m not going to go into all the ins and outs of setting up WordPress here, as there are plenty of YouTube videos that can help if you get stuck.
If you opt for Lyrical Host (my host of choice), they will set everything up for you, including a theme of your choice. A theme is basically how your blog looks, so this can save you a lot of the initial technical work.
Once your blog is set up, you’ll want to add some basic customisations such as your logo, links to your social media accounts and an About Me page. You can also play around with different themes until your site looks how you want it to.
I always think a new blog looks a bit bare until you’ve got some content on it, so don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect straight away. Initially, I’d focus on making sure your blog is functional and, more importantly, learning how to create review posts.
Once you’ve got your first few posts published, you’ll find that things start to get easier. Creating a blog for the first time can be a steep learning curve, but you’ll get better (and quicker) at it the longer you stick with it.
Submitting Your Blog To Google
An important step in setting up a blog is submitting your blog to Google for indexing. This will help Google to know that your blog exists and to start showing it in search results. This is especially important if you plan to make money from your blog in the long term.
Here is a video that explains how to do it.
Setting Up Your Socials
Another important step is to grab all the big social media channels for your blog name. Even if you never plan to use them, it’s worth knowing they are yours should you ever want to.
How To Write A Review On A Review Blog
People have different levels of experience with writing, so I’m going to break down some of the main things I would do when getting started with writing reviews.
- Install Grammarly to help check your spelling and grammar.
- Use plenty of breaks in your paragraphs. This makes your content much easier to read on mobile.
- Use headings to break up the text. No one likes reading a solid wall of words!
- Find a way of working that suits you. I typically get all my words and ideas written down first, then tweak the headings and layout and add all the search engine optimisation stuff later on.
What To Include In A Product Review Blog Post
When you review a product, it’s a good idea to break it down into sections. I usually start with an overview, some general comments and then a few pros and cons.
Are there any other products that work well with it?
Think about what you’d want to know.
One of the best things you can do is cover the questions people might have about the product.
For example, how does it work? Is it easy to use? What are the main features?
Answering these sorts of questions can help your review be more useful to readers and give it a better chance of attracting traffic from search engines.
You should also include your own images wherever possible. Even if you feel like you’re rubbish at photography, it’s much better to use your own images, especially for reviews.
They don’t need to be perfect. Sometimes, readers prefer being able to see that a review is real rather than overly polished.
How I Would Structure A Book Review
- Overview – include the author’s name and the book’s title, and whether it’s part of a series.
- A rough, spoiler-free plot overview – if you do include spoilers, make sure they’re clearly marked.
- Things you liked
- Things you didn’t like
- Would you read other books in the series or by the same author?
- Similar books – these can be useful to readers who enjoyed the book.
- Where to buy it and the price – this is a great place to include affiliate links, such as Amazon.
- Links to other reviews you’ve written – particularly if you’ve reviewed other books by the same author or in the same series.
What About Reviewing A Product, Such As An Air Fryer?
For a product review, such as an air fryer, I might use a structure like this:
- Overview
- How it works
- Who it’s good for – for example, a large-capacity air fryer might be great for families, while a smaller one could be ideal for someone living alone.
- Pros and cons
- Compatible products – such as air fryer liners or recipe books.
- Where to buy it and the price
- Are there better alternatives? – if you’ve tried other products, you could explain how they compare.
Don’t forget to be completely honest, even if the item has been gifted or you’ve been paid to review it. Honesty builds trust in your brand and with your readers.
A Quick Note About Monetising Your Review Blog
A quick note before we get into this section: you absolutely don’t have to monetise a review blog.
If you’re starting one because you enjoy reviewing books, products, hotels, restaurants, days out or anything else, that’s absolutely fine.
The advice from earlier on in this post about choosing a niche, setting up your blog, writing reviews and getting traffic is still relevant.
From this point onwards, though, we’re getting much more into the business side of running a review blog.
The following sections are about getting traffic, being gifted free products, working with brands, paid reviews, affiliate links, tax, disclosures and image rights.
These are really aimed at people who want to turn their review blog into a business, make some money from it or start getting opportunities to review products from brands.
If that’s not what you want to do, you can happily skip this bit!
Can I Get Free Stuff To Review?
To start with, I’d advise review things you already own or places you’ve already been, while you’re getting used to writing and building up traffic and authority.
Once you’ve done this, you might find brands naturally start to get in touch with you to offer products and/or paid reviews.
Where Can I Find Items To Review On My Review Blog?
You could choose to reach out to brands yourself.
Now, influencers do seem to get a reputation for being awful about this. I see influencers get slated for even asking brands to work with them, and I don’t think the pushback is always fair (although sometimes it is).
I think you have to show what you can offer. Audience numbers, traffic and social engagement all matter.
If you review books, for example, a local restaurant probably isn’t going to want to work with you.
However, a brand new author may be more than happy to send you a copy of their latest book for review.
When reaching out to brands, it’s best if you can show previous examples of successful campaigns, sales generated and so on. Essentially, you want to show the brand what you can offer them rather than simply asking for a free product.
I’m going to be honest for a moment I absolutely hate reaching out to brands. I don’t do it often for products and, even then, it’s usually because a contact has shared that the brand is looking for coverage. It’s never really going in cold.
What I do, however, is use sites such as Response Source and Press Loft to share journalistic enquiries.
Note: you cannot ask for payment on these sites, it must be product only
Each year, I put together a gift guide at Christmas on my Lifestyle Blog. I can use these platforms to put out an enquiry explaining that I’m looking to feature certain types of items.
Brands can then choose whether they want to get involved based on the information I’ve shared.
For me, this is a much more positive way to go about it. I’m not randomly emailing brands asking for free products; I’m telling them what I’m working on and giving them the opportunity to decide whether it’s something they’d like to be part of.
I’ve had several brands happy to be featured year after year, so it can definitely work.
Working With Brands
When you’ve built some authority with your blog, you may start to get offered things to review for free from brands or PRs.
While this sounds fantastic (and it can be!), there are some things you need to keep in mind.
What About Brand Ambassadors?
Many smaller brands offer brand ambassadorships. This usually involves the blogger being offered free products and perhaps a discount code for their audience, while the brand gets to use some of the images or content you’ve created on their social media and website.
I can see why these sorts of opportunities are particularly appealing to newer bloggers and influences.
When you’re just starting out, getting a brand to work with you can feel like a huge achievement, and having products sent to you to review can help you build up your portfolio and show other brands that you’re already working with businesses.
It can also be a way of building relationships with smaller brands and getting some experience of working on campaigns before you start looking for paid opportunities.
While I can see why small businesses go down this route, it can also seem quite exploitative. The brand isn’t paying a photographer, but the ambassador isn’t necessarily being paid either.
A brand sharing your review post about them is one thing, as long as they’re not asking for additional rights to your images or content.
Of course, this isn’t always the case. Bigger brands do offer paid ambassadorships with much more favourable terms, so it really depends on the brand and what they’re offering.
Be Careful With Image Rights
So, a bit more on image rights and reviews.
Typically, it’s not something I’d expect a brand to ask for as part of a straightforward review campaign, especially if you’re simply being sent a product to review.
A paid campaign can be different, and a brand may want to purchase additional usage rights for your photographs. If that’s the case, this is something you should be charging for.
The brand isn’t just getting a review at that point. They’re potentially getting professional photography that they can use on their own website, social media or marketing materials.
A professional photographer could cost a brand thousands, so if they’re getting photographs that they can use commercially as part of your campaign, don’t just give those rights away without thinking about what they’re worth.
Always check exactly what a brand wants to do with your images before agreeing to a campaign.
Your review and your photography are two separate things, and it’s worth treating them that way.
Gifted Items And Tax
If you receive products from brands in exchange for coverage, there can be tax implications, so it’s important to understand what you need to declare to HMRC.
If you’re new to blogging and don’t have any other declarable earnings from taxable side hustles, you may fall within the £1,000 trading allowance, but there are rules around how this works and what counts as trading income. Things like selling your old clothes on Vinted aren’t automatically treated in the same way as income from running a blog.
Some brands are very generous with their gifting. I reviewed around £1,000 worth of items from one brand last year, for example. I did need to consider the potential tax liability on those items, but as they were things I wanted and would have spent money on anyway, I was happy to go ahead.
Don’t forget that if you later sell items you’ve been gifted, there can be tax implications there too.
More information:
Additional Income Advice – HMRC
NOT TAX ADVICE – Please do your own research and, if you’re unsure, get advice from a qualified professional.
Disclosures
If you’ve been sent an item for free in exchange for a review, you’ll need to make this clear to your readers. The same applies to social media posts, and you’ll also need an affiliate disclosure if you’re using affiliate links.
If you’re an Amazon affiliate, they have their own disclosure requirements that you’ll need to follow as well.
There are lots of different ways you can word a disclosure, but you could use something simple such as:
- Ad – this covers a lot of bases
- Item gifted for review – all opinions are my own
- #Gifted
- Advertisement
The important thing is that readers shouldn’t have to guess whether you’ve received something for free or have a commercial relationship with the brand.
Value Your Time
Some reviewers choose not to accept low-value items to review.
This is because they don’t feel that the time involved in liaising with the PR, receiving and photographing the product, writing the review and promoting it on social media is worth the value of the item, especially once you take any potential tax liability into account.
There can also be deadlines to stick to, which makes it quite different from simply writing what you want, when you want.
Honesty Matters on A Review Blog
When reviewing an item, you need to be honest. It’s worth being clear from the outset with the brand that a good review isn’t guaranteed.
If you’ve tried something and your review is likely to be scathing, you may want to contact the brand before publishing. They might ask you not to publish the review at all, depending on what was agreed.
Before getting started with any PR work, it’s also worth putting together your own set of T&Cs that clearly outlines the expectations for both sides. This can help avoid any awkward conversations later on about what the brand thought they were getting and what you actually agreed to provide.
Can I Get Paid To Review Items?
Yes, you can.
Some brands will offer payment for your time alongside the product itself. This income is taxable, along with any relevant value attached to gifted items, so make sure you keep good records of what you’re receiving.
Don’t assume that because something is gifted, your time doesn’t have value. You’re still providing your writing, photography, audience and potentially social media promotion to the brand.
23 Ways To Say I Don’t Work For Free
How To Monetize A Review Blog
There are lots of different ways you can monetise a review blog.
These include:
Paid Reviews
Get paid by brands to review their products. This could be payment for the review itself, or payment alongside a gifted product.
Affiliate Links
You earn a small commission when someone clicks your affiliate link and goes on to purchase a product.
Amazon is probably the most obvious example, but there are lots of other affiliate programmes and networks available too.
Applying For Affiliate Programmes
Once your blog is a little bit more established and getting some Google traffic, you may want to think about applying for some affiliate programmes.
Here are some of the most popular:
- Amazon Affiliate Programme
- Awin (previously Affiliate Window)
- CJ Affiliates
- TradeDoubler
In-Content Ads
These are ads that appear within your content, usually between paragraphs or sections of your post.
Examples of ad networks include Google AdSense and Mediavine. Typically, to make a reasonable amount of money from display advertising, you’ll need a decent amount of traffic.
Paid Social Media Campaigns
If you have social media accounts alongside your review blog, you could also take on paid campaigns here.
A brand might pay you to create a post, video or other content featuring one of their products. Just remember that this is separate from your blog and should be treated as paid work in its own right.
How To Get Traffic To A Review Blog
Getting traffic to any blog, especially a new one, can be quite a big a challenge and can take time.
If you’re setting up a review blog purely to make money, please be aware that it could take a couple of years before you start seeing significant results.
If you’re just starting out, here are some of the main things I would do:
- Write useful, in-depth content. I tend to aim for a minimum of around 600 words, although there’s no magic word count. The important thing is that you’ve actually answered the questions your reader has.
- Keep your URLs simple. I prefer to remove dates from URLs and keep them descriptive, for example
tower-air-fryer-review. - Use internal links. If you’re writing a book review, link to other book reviews you’ve written. If you’re reviewing an air fryer, link to other relevant reviews or related content on your blog.
- Include relevant external links. This could be a link to where the product can be bought or to a complementary product. As long as it’s relevant and useful to the reader, there’s no reason not to link out.
- Answer questions about the product. Think about the things someone might want to know before buying it and make sure you cover them. Use the product name naturally throughout the post so it’s clear what you’re reviewing.
- Use an SEO plugin if you’re using WordPress. Plugins such as Yoast or Rank Math can help you with things like headings, meta descriptions and the general structure of your posts.
Don’t expect traffic to appear overnight. Building a blog takes time, particularly when you’re starting from scratch, but every useful review you publish gives your site another opportunity to be found.
Learning SEO
SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is writing posts in a way that appeals to the Google search gods. It can be quite a complex subject but it is worth learning some of the basics if you plan to eventually earn money from your website.
If you have a WordPress site then I recommend installing either Yoast or RankMath. These plugins will help you to start getting the basics of SEO right.
This in turn helps your site rank better on Google, get more views and in turn earn more money from affiliates or ads.
Keyword Research
Another great tool that I personally use is Keysearch. Keysearch can help you see what people are searching for online and you can use this to create content.
Keysearch lets you search terms and then tells you how hard it would be to rank for those terms in Google against other websites. It also tells you roughly how many people search that term each month.
Keywords are important in ensuring people are finding your website and reading your posts, which in turn can help you to create revenue.
For example, let’s say you want to review your new Air Fryer.
‘Air Fryer Review’ is probably a bit vague to rank well on Google, and ‘Instant Vortex 6-quart Air Fryer Review’ is probably a bit too specific for people to actually search for.
‘Vortex Airfryer Review’ is probably the best keyword to use here. But Keysearch will help you to include other relevant terms such as ‘Is A Vortex Airfryer Any Good?’
I really hope this post has helped you with all the steps you need to consider when starting a review blog. Please feel free to get in touch if you have any other questions as I’m always happy to help new bloggers get set up.
