Creating consumer product review sites is an excellent way to build your reputation as an expert online. It is also a good way to profit from any affiliate program you’re marketing.

The key is to create informative mini-articles on each of the websites you are reviewing. This makes the website look informative rather than advertorial. Visitors will feel you are giving them helpful advice rather than pushing them to buy products.

The way you make money from these review sites is to incorporate your affiliate links in each review. The most common and effective way is to use the right html link tags so that it does not look like a naked affiliate link. Instead, the reader will see an innocent link like “Find Out More Here” underlined and in blue. They will not see: “http://www.MerchantName.html/ affiliate code” which will turn them off. Some visitors may even hijack the link, insert their own code, and buy it from the merchant with a hefty discount for themselves. If this happens, you will be completely cut off from the profit loop. Thus, in your reviews, its always best to cloak your affiliate url.

By creating review websites, you are branding yourself as an expert. Readers will follow your recommendations and click on your suggested links to go to a certain site for more information. When they do, their cookie will be tracked back to your recommendation. You’ll get a commission should they buy.

Your expertise is even more assured if you have had personal experience with the product and can mention some of its chief features and benefits in your review.

On your consumer product review sites, you can also add an author’s resource section if you like. It is not necessary, but it will add to your credibility. The more relevant your experience to the niche, the more it will enhance your status as an expert.

Reviewing certain products or services tells the reader that you are looking out for their interests by having looked at the business on their behalf. You have checked it out for them. You have done the due diligence.

Newspapers and magazines have cinema or restaurant reviews, so establishing yourself as a reviewer of various websites related to your industry is a concept that is not too alien for most people to feel comfortable with. Being an online reviewer of online products or services is an easily acceptable strategy.

The review will convert so long as it is not a blatant advertisement.

By joining several different affiliate programs within the same niche, you can do a comparison between several of them. Even if a reader chooses to buy from one that is not your favorite recommendation, you will still make your commission.

One thing you do not want to add on your review page are banners. If you wish to show some graphics, use screen shots or product pictures, but don’t use graphics that are actually banners. You may think that you are killing two birds with one stone: creating both a graphic and a link with your affiliate code, but research shows that text links are much more effective. Text links have a greater click through rate than banners and flash animation.

Your review site can be either a blog or a website. Both have their advantages from a marketing point of view. The reader is only interested in whether the consumer product review sites are helpful or not.