How to Make Money from Affiliate Marketing Product Reviews

Alright, you’ve got your blog set up. You know you want to do some affiliate marketing. But, you aren’t sure how to make money from a blog post.

The truth is, it’s not as complicated as you think.

I’ve been making money off affiliate marketing posts for the best part of a decade now. So, I’m going to walk you through my process for writing an affiliate product review post using some examples from my cocktail site, Slightly Pretentious.

The first thing we’re going to focus on is this Masterclass Review.

Here’s a bit of the backstory…

One of my bucket list quests is to visit the top 100 cocktail bars in the world. Once you get into these lists the name Ryan Chetiyawardana, aka Mr. Lyan pops up again and again as one of the best bartenders in the world.

So when I saw that Mr. Lyan was hosting a full Masterclass course on mixology with Lynnette Marrero, I was super excited to dig in. And, it worked out perfectly, since I’d recently gotten an All-Access pass, I can watch any of their courses.

This one, however, was absolutely perfect to review for Slightly Pretentious. So, here we are.

Ok, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s dig into it.

How to Make Money From Affiliate Marketing with Product Reviews

The problem with a lot of niche sites out there is they feel a bit, well, scammy.

Now that’s not to say the person behind the site isn’t genuinely trying it’s just that when the focus drifts away from making it personal and valuable and into links, links, links you can get into trouble.

Here are a few of my top suggestions for making sure your niche site stands out from the crowd and your readers trust your opinion.

Tip #1: Make it Personal and Build Trust

The last thing someone wants when they come to your site is just a huge list of affiliate posts. Then it just looks like you’re trying to make money and you don’t care about the products or the reader.

That’s a fast way to turn a reader off and ensure they won’t buy from you.

So building trust is really key, especially at the start.

If you look at Slightly Pretentious, there’s a lot more than affiliate links. You’ll find cocktail recipes, bar reviews, books, and so on. Out of all of the posts on the site to date, only a handful are focused on selling affiliate links.

There’s one reason why I tell people it’s usually a good idea to start building an affiliate site based on something you already enjoy. That’s because it’s easy to let that passion show through.

The best way to show that is only showcasing products you’ve actually used. When you’ve spent time with a product, held it in your hands, tried it out, you’ll get a much more authentic feel for it. That’s so much more personal versus just making it up as you go along or worse, writing what you think other people want to year.

Now, jumping back into my Masterclass review post you can see that I really dug into it. I made a few of the cocktails and took photos.

Going through the post, you can see I was really excited to dig into these because I know Mr. Lyan’s bars and I’ve traveled all over the world to see them.

You can’t make up that sort of passion!

Tip #2: Highlight the Positive and the Negative

Look, no product on Earth that is 100% perfect. So it’s ok to say you love a product and still wish there were some things that could be better.

In the case of this mixology course, there weren’t a ton of negatives, in my opinion. But, I still made sure to highlight some of the things I would have liked to see.

That doesn’t take away from all the great things I really liked about the course, it’s just being honest.

And that’s important for your posts too. Now if you hate a product, it’s ok to tell your readers. But if you are pretty happy with something and have constructive feedback that’s great honest stuff you can include in your post.

It shows you’ve really gone through the product and thought about it. Plus, stuff like that really helps build trust with your audience. You’re giving them a full picture of a product, not just the good stuff.

Tip #3: Link to Other Content on Your Site

Interlinking is important for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. When you can, for every affiliate product review post you have on your site you want to link to other related posts.

The key here is related posts. That helps not just for SEO but it helps you establish yourself as an expert on that particular topic.

In the mixology post example, I linked to my Best Cocktail Books post, conveniently it features one of Mr. Lyan’s books. I also linked to some recipes of my favorite drinks, many of which are featured in the course.

So just a few of those related posts help highlight that I know a thing or two about cocktails and I have the subject matter expertise to review this Masterclass.

Keep that in mind when you create other posts in the future too. There might be people who haven’t seen your review but are reading some post you created months from now, link back to that review so readers know it’s there.

And when you write a new review make sure you go back to old posts and add links where it’s appropriate.

Tip #4: Use as Much Multimedia as Possible

A great product review post often showcases a lot more than just text.

You really want to get in there and show off what you’re reviewing. So that means taking a lot of photos and even videos of the product in action.

You don’t need a fancy camera set up to do this. Set up some good lighting and take pictures or videos with your phone. You can even use the camera on your computer to give a review of the product while holding it or highlighting some special features.

It’s ok to also take screenshots from the product’s site too.

This is something else that helps with your SEO too. You can add those keywords to your photos and videos which can help Google find your site.

Tip #5: Use a WordPress Review Plugin or Theme

This is one of the best ways to visually set yourself apart, and help your search results in the process.

There are review plugins that allow you to make easy pro/cons lists, rank products, and score them.

But the best part about these is that Google can pick up meta data from them, and use it in search results.

Here’s an example of what that looks like from one of my Breaking Eighty reviews:

If you’re just starting your site, I’d recommend finding a theme that has built in review capabilities. That’s what I do with Breaking Eighty. Here’s an example of what the review content looks like on the site:

But if you already have an existing site, there are plenty of good review plugins to choose from.

Tip #6: Keep an Eye on Trends

Since your affiliate marketing site is probably around a topic you already care about you are up on the latest news in that niche. Use that to your advantage when creating posts.

For example, I discovered the Mixology Masterclass right after it came out – before there were many reviews on it. This allowed me to get my review out quickly, and capture a lot of early sales because I was the only one who’d done a review on it.

So while of course keyword research is important (check out my SEMRush review for that) knowing some of the trends can help you find some potential good finds.

Think about new programs, books, and products in your niche and see if you can do reviews early and grab those searches.

One More Thing About Choosing Your Reviews Wisely

You have to make sure the product is actually a good fit for your audience.

It can be really tempting to do a review or push a product that has a really high affiliate commission, but has nothing to do with your site.

For instance, had I tried to review WP Engine hosting on Slightly Pretentious? No one would care, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the audience.

So don’t get tempted by some huge commission percentage. Only focus on things directly beneficial to your audience.

Ready to Give it a Try?

I’ve given you my best tips to get your first affiliate marketing review blog post up and running. Just go through these tips and check out examples on Slightly Pretentious to get a feel for how you can create solid posts that have the potential to bring in affiliate income.

Want to get more serious with your niche site and affiliate marketing? Check out our free niche site starter guide.

Sean Ogle

Sean Ogle is the Founder of Location Rebel where he has spent the last 12+ years teaching people how to build online businesses that give them the freedom to do more of the things they like to do in life. When he’s not in the coffee shops of Portland, or the beaches of Bali, he’s probably sneaking into some other high-class establishment where he most certainly doesn’t belong.