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.

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 when you start 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 years to come.
• 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.

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 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 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.

When it comes to starting a review blog, there are several options and I am going to take a look at the main three which all have different costs associated with them.

Blogs can be free, paid or a combination of free hosting with a vanity URL which is probably the cheapest option at around £8 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 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 between £7 – £12 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 £30 a month. I currently pay around £25 but I can host up to 30 websites for that price. If you’re just starting out I can understand the need to opt for something more budget-friendly.

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. Lyrical Host is fully managed hosting which means they will help with setting up your blog, installing themes, and helping 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, in my opinion.

However, if you’re new to blogging and want something 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?

What happens next?

Well once your blog is set up, you’ll want to start with some basic customizations such as adding a logo, links to your social media sites and creating an about me page.

You may also want to play around with different themes until your site is looking how you pictured it.

You can then think about writing your very first post! I always find a new website can look a bit bare until it’s populated with the first ten or so posts.

Creating a blog for the first time can be quite a steep learning curve if it’s not something that you have experience with, so take things slow. I promise you’ll get better (and quicker!) at doing things 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.

Make sure you add your blog address to the bio section!

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?’

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
• Max Bounty
• TradeDoubler

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.