How to Start a WordPress Review Blog (in 5 Easy Steps)

If you want to know how to start a WordPress review blog, youre in the right place! In this article, well walk you through the entire process of starting from scratch to ending up with a WordPress website thats ready for you to begin publishing reviews on.If youve ever wanted to know how to create a WordPress review website but werent sure where or how to start, read on for our five-step roadmap:What makes for a good review blog?When it comes to creating a good review blog, publishing high-quality content is key. Your reviews need to be well written, informative, and compelling. If you want your readers to take action after reading one of your reviews whether thats checking out another review on your website or making a purchase youll need to work on hard on perfecting your writing skills.However, before even starting on your first review, youll need to lay the foundations for your new website. Therefore, the elements that you need are:Good web host that can provide you with reliab le performance.A WordPress theme optimized for showcasing reviews in a visually appealing way.Security plugins that will protect your website from malicious attacks.A small set of essential pages to go alongside your reviews (more on this below).Get all this right, and managing your reviews blog will be (relatively) straightforward. Get it wrong, however, and youll be seriously diminishing your chances of creating a successful review blog.In this guide, well cover choosing the best platform for your site, getting the design right, which additional tools to install, and finally, how to publish content and grow your audience.How to start a  WordPress review  blogCreating a new website, no matter what its purpose can be a daunting prospect. However, with the right advice, it neednt be that way. By following this five-step guide to starting a WordPress review blog, youll be well on your way to launching your new website.Step #1: Choose a suitable domain, host, and install WordPressW hen it comes to starting a WordPress review blog, the first step is to choose a company to host your website. There are countless options to choose from, however, after reviewing SiteGround, this web host is our recommended option.Not only does SiteGround offer a high-quality web hosting service, but with plans starting at around $4 per month, theyre also highly affordable. Furthermore, SiteGround will take care of installing WordPress for you, while also providing domain name registration and impressive customer support.With a domain name and a brand new hosted WordPress installation, youre now well on your way to creating a review blog with WordPress. Lets move onto step number two.Step #2: Pick the best WordPress review site themeAn example of a WordPress theme thats optimized for reviews.A fresh installation of WordPress might not be much to look at. However, by installing the right theme, you can quickly transform your basic blog into a stylish reviews website.Now, the topic of your website will play a large part in determining which theme you should choose. However, for a good all round review theme, you cant go wrong with our free ReviewZine WordPress reviews theme.  The design is overall elegant, simple, and theres built-in review functionality.An alternative approach is to choose from a wider library of WordPress themes and then install a reviews plugin on top of it. More on this in the next step.Either way, after choosing a web host, installing WordPress and then picking a suitable theme, youre ready to move onto the next step in our guide to starting a review blog.Step #3: Install the essential WordPress pluginsAlthough your new website is now functional and starting to look pretty good, there are a few more essential steps youll need to take to secure and protect your WordPress website and also enable some reviews-specific functionalities if youre not using a theme that comes with those built in.With this in mind, some other types of plugins you should definitely consider installing on your review blog include:A review box plugin. WP Product Review works great for that. Heres an example review box that this plugin lets you create (basically, the idea is to have boxes like that below your individual reviews; those boxes can be picked up by Google their contents can be displayed alongside your otherwise standard Google listings):A trusted security plugin like WordFence.A robust backup plugin such as the free UpdraftPlus.Theres much more you can do to improve WordPress security. However, installing the above plugins will take you most of the way there.Step #4: Create the essential pagesBefore you start publishing reviews on your new website, there are a few pages you should create first. By taking the time to publish those essential WordPress pages that every website should have, you can help make your blog appear more credible, trustworthy, and relatable to your target audience. After all, if you want your readers to take yo ur reviews seriously and follow your advice, youll need to ensure your website has all the information theyll be expecting to find.By publishing an about page, site map, getting started page, disclaimer page, and contact page on your reviews blog, youll be helping your readers to get to know you better and find all the other information theyll need to enjoy your site.Step #5: Start publishing great content!In just four steps, youve chosen a web host and registered a domain name, created a fresh installation of WordPress, and installed a suitable theme plus some essential plugins. Youve also published the important pages any good website needs. Now its time to get to the fun part – publishing the content that will ensure your website is discovered, grows your audience, and generates revenue.Hopefully, you chose a WordPress theme or plugin that makes it easy to publish professional looking reviews on your website. If so, the features of these tools will take care of the technic al aspects of formatting and presenting your reviews, leaving you to focus on creating the content you feel passionate about.Heres an example of how a review box can be configured with the aforementioned WP Product Review plugin:Other points to consider when creating a WordPress review blogAs well as designing a stylish WordPress review blog thats packed with high-value content, youll also have to take a proactive approach towards promoting and marketing your site and its content. What you do off your site can be just as important and what you do on it.To help you get started with this aspect of running a successful WordPress review blog, here are some tools and tips to consider:Use the Revive Old Post WordPress plugin to automate social media marketing.Implement a blog content strategy to grow your audience through content marketing.Install the best marketing tools for WordPress on your site.This should help you create the content that will drive traffic, promote your website effec tively, and understand your audience better.ConclusionYou now have all the information you need to start a WordPress review blog. All thats left to do is take action and begin publishing reviews on your site, then get out there and promote it! Making any kind of website a success is a long process so dont give up if you dont see results overnight. As Napoleon Hill once said, most people give up three feet from gold, so never stop digging!To recap, in this guide on how to start a WordPress review blog we covered:Choose a professional web host, register a domain, and then install WordPress.Select a suitable WordPress theme.Install the essential WordPress plugins.Create the important pages your site will need.Start publishing great content!Do you have any questions about how to create a WordPress reviews website? Fire away in the comments section below!* This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and then purchase the product, well rec eive a small fee. No worries though, youll still pay the standard amount so theres no cost on your part.