✍️ How to write legit affiliate reviews (and make a LOT more money)

Welcome to Niche Site Digest!

Here’s what you should know:

• ✅ How to keep your Amazon images working (SiteStripe fix)

• ✍️ How to write legit affiliate reviews (and make a LOT more money)

• 📈 33 sites doing well after the recent updates (learn what’s working right now)

Let’s dive in!

✅ How to keep your Amazon images working

In case you missed it, Amazon will be disabling Sitestripe image links.

If you have many product images on your site, you might be scrambling now to figure out what to do.

Luckily, folks at Lasso have made it easy for you to not only keep your images but also to upgrade them to beautiful product boxes (that convert a lot better).

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Sign up for Lasso (using my affiliate link)

2. Tell them Niche Site Digest has referred you

3. Ask about the SiteStripe conversion service

4. They’ll get back to you with what you need to do

5. Sit back, enjoy, and watch your images being better than ever before

📢 Google shares their thoughts on the latest updates

This is a new one.

Google Search Liaison has spoken up and, for the first time, admitted that the search results are not always the best and that Google is not always right.

Is this the beginning of a new era where Google communicated more with publishers?

One can always hope.

✍️ How to write legit affiliate reviews

Google has made one thing painfully clear:

They don’t like thin reviews where writers clearly have never touched the products they are reviewing.

In 2023 and beyond, you need to level up.

That’s why this interview with Derek Hales is so great. He runs 2 sites, in the home and mattresses space.

Despite his sites being low DR, he’s still consistently outperforming much bigger and better sites (and ranking for some highly lucrative affiliate keywords).

How?

Extremely thorough and systematized review process - which he explains in depth in this video.

🔍 Site Spotlight

At a glance:

• Niche: Mattress reviews

• Traffic: 108,000 (Semrush estimates)

• DA: 39

This is one of the websites Derek Hales runs (Authority Hacker interview above).

Considering his website is one of the rare ones that survived and thrived during the latest updates, you’ll want to pay close attention to it.

Here are a few things that stood out to me:

✅ Same, but different.

At first glance, NapLab looks like a typical affiliate website.

You have your roundup reviews, your single product reviews, and your comparison reviews.

Pretty standard stuff.

Now what makes him stand out is that he actually buys and tests every single product he has on the site.

And you can see that from the start - he included a short video at the top of his roundup reviews that shows he actually bought and tested all those mattresses.

Instant win for readers and Google alike.

✅ Provide the answer immediately.

No long intros, no fluff - most of his reviews jump straight into the recommendation, like here:

Then, after telling them his #1 pick, he then goes into the rest of the article.

This is smart because some people just want to know the answer immediately, while others need a ton more information before they commit to a purchase. This structure allows him to satisfy both groups.

✅ Testing and review process designed by a mad scientist (probably).

This is by far the best and most systematized review process I’ve seen in a niche site.

Take for example this page:

Right from the first roundup item, you can see the amount of thought and effort that went into reviewing these products.

And it doesn’t stop there. Each one of those items has a detailed explanation, showing the readers how they calculate the score.

In case the readers want even more information, they have a specific page that explains (in-depth) how they review and test mattresses:

It really doesn’t get much better than this (at least for small publishers).

That’s it - I hope you got at least a few ideas on how you can take your reviews to the next level.

🚀 Featured Snippets

• 📈 33 sites doing well after recent updates: If you want to learn what’s working today in SEO, you need to study sites that are currently ranking. This list is a good start since it provides sites from different industries and business models.

• 🔍 How to do keyword research: 4 niche site experts share their favorite tools and methods to use to find low-competition, profitable keywords you can rank for.

• 🤑 AMA about website flipping: Will bought a blog for $5.5k and sold it for $82,000. In this Twitter thread, he shares his tips for a successful flip.

• 🗒️ Google launches notes experiment: This is an experimental feature where users can leave notes on links in the search results.

• 🗣️ Chiang Mai SEO conference recap: In case you missed the biggest SEO conference in the world, here’s a video quickly recapping what was covered (and what you should pay attention to).

🛠️ Tool of the week

Kadence is one of the better WordPress themes out there.

In some ways, it’s perfect for beginners - customizable, fast, and with plenty of starter templates to make your site beautiful right out of the box.

And they are currently running a Black Friday sale - you can get everything they offer for 40% off.

✅ What To Do Next

That’s all for today!

When you’re ready, here are more ways to level up your niche site game:

• Proven niches database - struggling to find a niche? Not anymore. Check out our database full of vetted, proven niches in all industries.

• How to grow a niche site from 0 to 6 figures - watch this video if you want a step-by-step blueprint on how to build successful niche sites.

• Done-for-you niche sites - prefer a more hands-off approach? This service takes care of everything, from keyword research to content production and even speed optimization.

• Beginner-friendly keyword research - if you’re on a budget, this is the best tool to get you started. Find thousands of low competition keywords within minutes.

• #1 AI writing tool - this is the best AI writing and content creation tool on the market right now (independently tested). Create SEO-optimized content with minimal editing required.

• The go-to link building service - want to rank higher on Google? Then you need links - powerful links. This is how you get DR 80+ links from major media brands.

• Fastest WordPress theme - say hello to the fastest WordPress websites you’ll ever build (perfect for Core Web Vitals).

• My favorite plugin for affiliates - increase your affiliate revenue by up to 88% (without increasing your traffic).

• Premium WordPress hosting - hands down the best hosting company I’ve ever used.

• The only internal linking tool you’ll ever need - cut down your publishing time in half AND get more SEO traffic.