I'm building a niche review site and need a publishing stack that supports SEO pages and affiliate links

For a niche review site with SEO pages and affiliate links, you want a stack that’s fast, easy to publish, and flexible enough to handle lots of structured content.

Best overall stack

Frontend: Next.js
CMS: Sanity or WordPress (headless or traditional)
Hosting: Vercel or Netlify
Database: Only needed if you add custom features; otherwise not necessary for a simple review site
Search/analytics: Google Search Console + Plausible or GA4
Affiliate management: Custom link tracking + link cloaking plugin/tool if using WordPress

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Recommended options by setup

Option 1: Fastest to launch

WordPress + lightweight SEO theme + affiliate plugin

• Good for: quickest publishing, non-technical teams
• Pros: lots of SEO plugins, easy content editing, affiliate link management, strong ecosystem
• Cons: can get bloated, needs maintenance

Useful plugins:

• Rank Math or Yoast SEO
• Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates
• TablePress for comparison tables
• WP Rocket for speed
• ACF for structured review fields

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Option 2: Best for performance and scalability

Next.js + Sanity/Contentful + Vercel

• Good for: modern SEO site, fast pages, clean architecture
• Pros: very fast, flexible schema for review pages, great Core Web Vitals
• Cons: more setup than WordPress

Why it works well for reviews:

• Create templates for:
  • product reviews
  • comparison pages
  • “best of” listicles
  • category pages
  • FAQ pages
• Add structured data:
  • Review schema
  • FAQ schema
  • Product schema
  • Breadcrumb schema

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Option 3: Best balance of SEO + editing simplicity

WordPress as CMS + Next.js frontend

• Good for: editorial teams that want simple publishing and better performance than standard WP
• Pros: WordPress admin is familiar; frontend is fast and customizable
• Cons: more integration work

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Key features your stack should support

1. SEO-friendly page structure

Make sure your stack supports:

• clean URLs
• XML sitemaps
• meta titles/descriptions
• canonical tags
• schema markup
• internal linking
• image optimization

2. Affiliate link handling

You’ll want:

• centralized link management
• nofollow/sponsored attributes
• click tracking
• geo- or device-based redirects if needed
• link disclosure blocks

3. Review-specific content types

Create content models for:

• product name
• rating
• pros/cons
• price range
• affiliate URL
• featured image
• summary verdict
• comparison features
• FAQs
• update date

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My practical recommendation

If you want the simplest path: WordPress + Rank Math + Pretty Links + a fast theme

If you want the best long-term SEO/performance setup: Next.js + Sanity + Vercel + custom affiliate link system

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Suggested MVP stack

If I were launching this quickly, I’d use:

• WordPress
• Rank Math SEO
• Pretty Links
• Astra or GeneratePress
• WP Rocket
• TablePress
• Cloudflare for caching/security

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a low-cost stack,
2. a best-in-class SEO stack, or
3. a database/schema design for review pages and affiliate links.