Don’t you wish you could learn more about the work that went into manufacturing this product? Who exactly designed it? Why did they design it in the way they did? What was their thought process? What obstacles did they face? Were there any funny turns and twists in the process of manufacturing this product?

This information isn’t only cool to know for a product you already own. You could probably get curious about those things with a product that you’re considering buying.

So, what if there were a website that collects this information on products? Here’s what this website would be like

The website is a catalog of products. The catalog is arranged by category: electronics, jewelry, shoes, watches, etc. Each product has it’s own page. The page has a calm appearance. It consists of text, images, and videos about one thing only: the design and manufacturing of the product. At the very least, the page should contain some-500-words article about the design of the product.

That’s really all there is to the idea. But it could make that who has the means to implement it very rich…

Content is King

What do typical Internet marketing or affiliate marketing websites try to do to make money?

They try to create product-related commercial content and publish it. The content is some times made of product reviews and other times it is simply made of the technical specs and a collection of snippets of reviews from around the web.

Needless to say, this is neither interesting nor valuable because every one is doing it. To get attention, you need to be unique, different, and new. You’d need to shine a different light on products. Talk about an aspect of those products that no one else talks about. For instance, talk about the story behind the product or…the design and manufacturing philosophy of the product! That’s one way you create content that is king.

Can it Be Monetized?

There is more than a dozen ways I could think of to monetize a website like this. After all, it’s a highly commercial website. It is about products that are being marketed and sold! So, of course it can be monetized. Here are a few ways to monetize this website:

• Affiliate links for the products in the catalog
• Traditional banner advertising
• Provide additional exposure to products of sponsors (Read: featured products)

What Would it Take to Start this Website?

Ideally, the designers of the products should be the ones who contribute to creating the content of the website. That way the content is interesting and authentic. But why should professional designers want to create content and give it to you?!

I would guess that it’ll be very hard to get authentic content from designers initially. Alternatively, you can research products yourself. Find out who the designer is, what their design philosophy was, and discover the stories behind products. Do that for a 100 or so products, build readership and an audience, and then finally contributions from professional designers may start trickling in…

This is obviously time consuming. That’s why I personally wouldn’t take it up. That’s why I wanted to share it here…perhaps this idea will inspire someone out there…

Avangate

Avangate is an affiliate network and an ecommerce management company helping connect affiliates and vendors.

For vendors, Avangate offers an ecommerce platform where they help increase the website visibility, process payments and software delivery. When a vendor signs up with Avangate, they get access to Avangate registered affiliates and resellers.

For affiliates, Avangate offers high quality software with generous commissions.

Visit Avangate

share-it!

share-it! is very similar to Avangate in the services they offer to vendors and affiliates. I, however, found commissions on share-it! to be lower than Avangate.

Visit share-it!

Commission Junction

Commission Junction is the biggest global affiliate network. It doesn’t specialize in software, so I don’t think they help software vendors setup their ecommerce process. But if you have an ecommerce process in place, you can probably integrate it with Commission Junction.

As an affiliate, you don’t have a big selection of software to choose from. At the time of this writing, there is approximately 130 items listed on Commission Junction under the Computer Software category.

Visit Commission Junction

ClickBank

ClickBank is another huge global network of affiliates. Getting registered with ClickBank as a vendor or affiliate is extremely easy. ClickBank doesn’t offer ecommerce services. Though, by registering with ClickBank, a software vendor could get access to a huge network of very competitive affiliates.

If you’re an affiliate marketer and looking for software to promote, you can find plenty of high quality software in ClickBank’s marketplace. But at the time of this writing, ClickBank’s marketplace doesn’t have a “software” category. In January of ’10, though, they will launch a new marketplace that has a dedicated software category.

Visit ClickBank

Other Software Vendors with In-House Affiliate Programs

Not all software vendors register with an affiliate management network. Some manage their affiliates in-house. If you’re an affiliate, you should not neglect these kinds of vendors. Finding them is quite easy. Here are a few tips on finding these kinds of affiliate programs:

Search Google

Simply search Google for software.

When you find a software that you’re interested in promoting, find out if the vendor offers an affiliate program by entering the following in Google:

(affiliates OR associates OR partners OR referral) site:domainname.com

Search Software Web Directories

There are some very well-maintained web directories that host hundreds of great software. For example, if you want to promote Web software, you can find lots on HotScripts.com. Or if you want to promote smart phone software, you can find plenty on Handango.com.

Many vendors in these directories have an affiliate program that you can sign up for.

Do you know Any Other Networks?

If you know other great networks that offer software as one of their categories, let us know in the comments!

Happy promoting and selling!

Do any of these posts interest you, too?

1. Squeezing the SEO Juice Out of Your Affiliates

To turn your WordPress website into a review site, you’ll have to use 3rd party  plugins. There are a few different choices, but after much investigation and exploration, I have found the best solution to be: WPReviewEngine. The other commercial plugins and solutions just don’t compare.

So, I’ll show you here how to use WP Review Engine to smoothly setup a great WordPress review site.

Here goes…

Order and Download

To download the plugin, go to this page.

As you can see on the website, there are two options.

• Lifetime License ($99.95)
• Unlimited License ($169.95)

I really recommend that you get the Unlimited License because with it, you can setup unlimited number of review and comparison sites. With the other license, you can only setup a single site.

The great thing about ordering WPReviewEngine is that you don’t have to worry about the software not working for you after you’ve purchased it. The makers provide a solid, no-questions-asked, refund policy.

So, go ahead. Order and download the software.

Installation

Installing this review site plugin is almost as easy as installing regular WordPress plugins. However, you must read the accompanied instructions.

After you have ordered the software, you’ll be able to login as a client and access client resources. In the client resources area, you’ll find WPReviewEngine Documentation, which is an HTML document that contains installation instructions as well as other operating instructions.

Following the instructions is really simple, but if you want the programmer to install the software for you, he’ll do that for free! In the order page, simply check the box which says “Free Addon: Installation”.

How it Works

The way this review plugin works is simple, yet, very powerful.

This plugin changes the way WordPress works. WordPress is a blogging platform, but this plugin completely turns it into a product review platform!

Creating a Product Review Page

With this plugin, each WordPress post becomes a product-specific review page. Therefore, posts will have new options and settings. Below is a screenshot of the new boxes that are added to the post editing page of WordPress.

Some of the Options that WP Review Engine Adds to WordPress Posts

These options allow you to easily embed an image of the product or service that you’re reviewing, add your affiliate links, add the categories by which you want to evaluate the product, and more.

The review plugin will use this information to generate a page that looks like this:

Product Page Screenshot (Click to Enlarge)

Of course, your actual results may vary depending on the theme that you’ll use. Which brings me to the next section of this guide: themes.

WordPress Review Site Themes

Two free themes come bundled with WP Review Engine. These themes are very customizable. However, if you have your own theme that you would like to use, this plugin let’s you do that as well — out of the box.

Product Review Tables in WordPress

The great thing about this review plugin is that it could automatically grab all the product reviews that you’ve created and create a nice looking comparison table that’s very attractive to visitors. Here’s how the product comparison table looks like:

Comparison Table Screenshot (Click to Enlarge)

Using this review plugin, a product comparison table like the one shown above can be embedded to the top of your homepage or any category page. It is also highly configurable. You can choose the items or the categories that you’d like to show, and you can adjust its appearance.

Other Helpful Features

WP Review Engine has other features to help you automate and outsource your review site creation process. Consider this scenario:

You can hire someone to write reviews, collect product images, rate the products, and put all of that information in an Excel sheet. Using this plugin, you can then simply take that Excel sheet and import all of the data to your WordPress based review site. The plugin will format the content in the Excel sheet and make it look like a proper review site.

Examples of WordPress Based Review Sites

Here are a few sample websites that were setup using this WordPress review site plugin:

• Top Hosts
• Golf in Ventura
• Outstanding Registry Cleaners

Using this plugin, you can create review sites like these and even better.

Get Started Today

I hope to have covered all the essentials in this guide. It’s time for you to get started.

Download WordPress Review Site Plugin Here