Affiliate marketing using product review sites is one of the most cost effective ways to start to make money online. One of the biggest hurdles to getting started is the expense of either buying products or have them created. One of the best ways to get started economically as an affiliate marketer is to create product review sites. Read on to find the method and process involved.

Many purchase decisions start with a search on the Internet, either for the particular product or for a review of that product.

Amazon is one of the biggest online retailers and has an affiliate program in place for each and every product that sells. The commission rate is low at 4%, but the range of products is endless and the Amazon site itself is so well-organized and arranged and informative that most of the work is already done for you.

The biggest benefit of using the system is that it’s not necessary to spend time and/or money trying to create a product. They are all there.

What you do have to do is: • Purchase a domain name • Arrange Web hosting • Choose a website design. • Do keyword research and write the content. (see below)

The best option is to use Wordpress as the platform for a Website. Find a theme either specifically designed for a review site or adapt one to suit this purpose. It's probably best to purchase a ready made theme, but if that’s too expensive, a free theme can be adapted.

There are many advantages of using a Wordpress review theme. They will not be covered in this article. However, if you are not familiar with Wordpress and how to use, it’s high time to take a look at it. It’s a skill which every affiliate marketer should have.

1. Become an Amazon affiliate.

The first thing to do is visit Amazon and set up an affiliate account with them. Once that has been done, there will be a toolbar across the top of each page you visit in Amazon with the ability to copy your unique affiliate link to that product. `

2. Do your keyword research.

Choosing your Product. For ideas about what products you might want to promote, it's best to stick to household and a garden items like appliances, cookware, barbeques, and so on. Get ideas by just looking around any household or just wandering through retail stores.

You will want to review about five products on a review site, so do a check for each idea you have, to see if those products are sold on Amazon.

Choose products which sell for $100 or more for two reasons. 1. The amount of commission you get. 2. Buyers are much more likely to search for reviews on products they expect to pay $100 or more for.

Lets suppose the site was about coffee makers.

Finding keywords. The first step would be to go to the Google Adwords keyword tool and search for “coffee makers” and some associated terms like “coffee maker reviews” or “best coffee makers” etc.

There will be brand names listed amongst the results, so make a note of those, then check across on Amazon to see what coffee makers they sell. Use the “exact match” search and look for keyword phrases which meet the minimums listed below.

The main or category keyword would be “coffee maker reviews”. This keyword term should have a minimum of 1000 exact global searches per month.

Next choose 5 brand or model keywords e.g. Brand or Model1 Coffee Maker Brand or Model2 Coffee Maker Brand or Model3 Coffee Maker Brand or Model4 Coffee Maker Brand or Model5 Coffee Maker

Each of these keywords should have more than 250 exact global searches per month.

3. Research your products on Amazon

With your keyword research in hand, find coffee makers on Amazon which meet the following criteria;

• Sell for in excess of $100. • Have a star rating of four or better. • Have more than 10 customer reviews.

Now, to Writing content. Well, the product description page on Amazon is where the “seed” content comes from. Use the product images, descriptions, specifications and of course the user reviews to form the basis of each of the product reviews.

Of course, it will be necessary to do some rewriting of content to make it unique, with all the information on the Amazon product page, it becomes easier.

There are several techniques which can be used in the review of the product, but try to engage readers by giving them as much information as possible about the product, its features, what customers found good about it, and what customers found not so good about it..

4. Buy a Domain Name and arrange Hosting.

Once the products any keywords have been determined, try to buy a domain which includes your main keyword. It might be necessary to add words or spaces to a keyword rich domain name, but try to obtain either a dot com or dot org extension. Finally, the site will have to be hosted somewhere How to do that is not covered in this article.

5. Choose a suitable WordPress theme for the review site.

There are plenty of examples of review sites created with WordPress across the Internet. To find a suitable theme just Google “Wordpress review theme”. While you're on Google, look around at some existing review sites to get a feel of how the reviews are written. Each of the reviews will have some kind of call to action, and your affiliate link to the Amazon product in question.