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A few years ago, I never would have imagined all the possible uses for Wordpress we have today. Turning Wordpress into a review site is just one of the new popular uses for everyone’s favorite CMS. The easiest way to do this is with the help of a plugin. Just recently, 2 review plugins for Wordpress have gained some popularity over at Wickedfire; WPReviewEngine and WFReview.

I’ve used WFReview for a handful of my Wordpress based already, and I’ve got to say, I love it! But it would be dumb of me to ignore other options. When the developer of WPReviewEngine created a sales thread on Wickedfire, I figured I’d give it a try. I promised the developer a review many months ago, but wasn’t able to get to it. But I’m happy I didn’t, because just a month ago version 2.0 was released with many features that I find essential for such a plugin.

Important Features

• Add ratings via comments – Essential for user interaction.
• Editor ratings – For affiliate reviews and product reviews in general.
• Custom fields – Required for displaying additional info in posts, and and easy way to add thumbnails into many themes.
• Comparison tables – Largly a feature geared towards landing pages.
• Google Maps Integration – If building a local directory you can not live without this feature.
• Automatically Generated Comments – Great way to make your site look busy and add some credibility to your reviews.
• Import Data from CSV – If you aren’t using review plugins to generate insane amounts of content, you should be, and you’ll need this.
• Sidebar Widgets – If you could just use code to display top rated posts, I’d prefer that, but these graphical widgets are cool too.
• Link Cloaking – There used to be a bunch of plugins for coaking mass links with Wordpress

There are some other features mentioned on WPReviewEngine but they aren’t worth mentioning or are (what should be) standard features.

Advantages

Right off the bat, I get the impressions WPReviewEngine was designed for products rather than directories. This is by no means a bad thing. Comparison tables, widgets, editor ratings, and of course, comment ratings are all important features for a product review site.

Unless you want to spend weeks entering data, or paying someone else to, you better make use to the CSV Import feature. I just imported over 1000 records and now have a full fledged site loaded with content. You can go one step further and generate comments for your posts as well.

What really sets WPReviewEngine apart from the rest is the comment templates feature, making it possible to generate unique, readable, comments on the fly.

Here is the comments generation page. Towards the top you can see how the comment templates work, as well as other auto-gen comment settings.

A good Wordpress Plugin will work with little to no modifcations by the user, and HBZSoftware has done just that. Beyond editing basic settings via the control panel, WPReviewEngine is ready to go right out of the box.

Disadvantages

Although WPReviewEngine does get the job done, there was one lack of a feature that really got to me, sub-category support. WFReview allows you to use data in your CSV to create subcategories, as well as parent categories.

Lastly, WPReviewEngine has a serious lack of documentation. One of the things I really like about WFReview are the support forums. If I have a problem or question I typically get it answered within 24 hours. WPReviewEngine on the other hand does not have a support forum as far as I know. The developer does offer his assistance directly, however. The support page reads:

I will provide assistance to those wishing to integrate WPReivewEngine with a custom WordPress theme using the API instead of the auto-embed feature, or those wishing to modify the internal WPReviewEngine code. I won’t write the code for you, but I’m happy to explain where things are, how they work, and what changes would be necessary to achieve the desired reult.

I haven’t personally requested support so I don’t know how good it is, but I imagine its good based on my minimal experiance thus far. Luckily WP Review Engine is easy to use, even for the Wordpress novice.

Demo: WPReviewEngine Demo | Local Directory Demo
Download: Single License – $79.95 USD | Unlimited License – $149.95

Use the coupon code ‘v2release’ to get 20% off for a limited time.

He released the plugin earlier this week and I’ve been messing with it the past few days. I bothered Nick at least once a week, asking about the release of the plugin, and it is finally here. So far I’m more than satisified. The plugin isn’t over the top and is easy to integrate. But what I really love about this plugin is the easy content generation. I’m building a bunch of local review sites (hotels, bars, restaurants, etc.). With the help of a scraper and Review Plugin for Wordpress I’ll be able to populate my sites with at least 2000 records at a time, and then randomly generate ratings for each post.

The plugin doesn’t require any code modifications, and this simple implementation allows for easy customization of generated posts.

This plugin will play a vital role in the domination of my local SERPS. In my next post, I’ll explain how I’m using this plugin  and other tools to quickly create a bunch of local content and valuable information for my visitors.

Support

There were a few bugs I had to deal with when I first installed Review Plugin for Wordpress. Nick or Ryan the developer were there to answer all my questions in the forums. They even released a few patches in the few days that the plugin has been available.

Possible Uses

There are many uses for such a plugin. I’ll be using the plugin to review local business for the most part, but there’s far more you can do with it.

Just a few:

• Product Reviews: Music, electronics, books, movies, etc – You could build a review oriented site, or just use it from time to time to add to your own reviews.
• Massive Product Review Creation: If an affiliate program allows you to download a CSV of their product catalog you could easily generate thousands of product focused pages.
• Directories: Local businesses, national, niche service directory – Endless possibilites. With a scraper, these sites can be built really fast.
• Landing Pages: If you’re a fan of review landers, this plugin should be able to speed the process up for you.

What I’d like to see in the future…

Google Maps
I still haven’t found an easy way to add maps to my posts, but I’m sure Ryan or someone else from the forums will come up with a solution soon.

Code Examples
I’d like to see some creatives uses of this plugin. So far I haven’t found a way to display my “top rated [whatevers]” in my sidebar for example. I don’t even know if this is possible yet with this plugin.

Open Source
I’m sure Nick wants to protect his investment, but at this point you have to rely on Nick and Ryan for support and improvements. This isn’t really a big deal since they are quick to respond to support questions, but I could do without the ioncube encoding.

Luckily for me the recently added a “web careers” associates degree, although the courses give me the impression that they are a bit behind the times (go figure!). Not only will this help gain clients, but it will greatly improve my efficiency in all areas of my work. After I get my associates, I may go for the bachelors, but I find it HIGHLY unlikely. The only good state school (University of Maryland) is still way too expensive for skills I don’t think I will be making use of anyway.

This segment of 20/20 pretty much cemented my goal of getting my associates degree, and nothing else:

This semester for example, I will be taking “COMP GRAPHICS: ART & ILLUS I” :

Creative use of the computer as a design tool and illustrative medium. Topics include elementary computer graphics techniques; aesthetics; and principles of design, color, composition, and spatial relationships. Students will create a series of illustrations involving freehand drawing, geometry, logo and product design, presentations, rendering, and fine art composition. (ARTD) (G and R only) Two hours lecture, four hours laboratory each week.

The first class is likely dedicated to the explination of “RGB”. I actually took this class about 3 years ago. It was too low pace for me so I once again didn’t put much effort into passing. If I remember correctly they use Photoshop and Illustrator, both of which I’m not all that talented with. I’m actually quite horrible with Illustrator.

One thing for sure, taking a lab and lecture beats working a 9-5 or retail job any day.

I also have a Local SEO post almost completed and will have it up this week.

2008 in Review

2008 was an interesting year for myself, and the world as a whole. We elected the first black President of the United States, and even though I was not a supporter of Obama, I am extremely exited for this new “change” and can’t wait to see how our nation will perform over the next 4 (8?) years. In addition, we suffered the greatest economic crisis my generation has seen, despite the fact that some saw it from a mile away.

I too had my own economic crisis. I was convinced once again to pursue a dead end job in retail management around April, and moved back to Gaithersburg, MD, where I was transferred. Needless to say, it was a far from successful venture. For about 4 months I spent 50-70 hours per week on my feet in order to earn $300 in commission from the minimal traffic our store saw. This was far too little to support my brother and me. Long story short, I wound up with a bunch of debt.

I could go on and on about how miserable of a summer this was, as I love to rant, but I’ll spare you the sob story, and get to the point. As horrible as it was living in a small apartment with 3 other guys, working from sunrise to sunset for minimal pay, and accumulating way more debt than I ever thought I could handle; I’ve experienced more, grew more, and made more mistakes this year than ever before. I also partied like an ‘effin broke rockstar, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. The past 12 months have made me a better person.

The Future

I, like everyone else, get motivated to change certain aspects of my life when the new year rolls around. I, also like everyone else, stick to very few of my resolutions. This is why I won’t be stating my resolutions in full here. It would be a waste of your time, as well as mine. I will however tell you what you can expect from this blog.

• More Focus On Local SEO/SEM – As I spend more time on local projects, my interest in this area of SEO grows. In turn, I will have more strategies, tips, and theories to share with you. In fact, my next post is likely to be in regard to local seo. On the same note, I am likely to start a blog focusing on SEM for small business.
• Less Content Writing, More Focus On Long Term Profits – The past 12 months I’ve spent writing have kept me afloat, but now that I’m largely debt-free I can put freelance writing on the back burner, and focus on more profitable ventures. As a result, I am likely to expand the scope of this blog to other areas of internet marketing. Affiliate marketing and PPC are likely to be a big part of this blog in 2009. As you can see, I removed the “content services” page. If you would like some work done, feel free to contact me.
• Blog Style Format – Nick at Elegant Themes made updates to many of his themes, one of which included an update to the theme used here. I can now use the blog format which makes much more sense for a small blog such as this one. I can’t emphasize enough how awesome Nick from Elegent Themes is, keep up the good work, it is much appreciated.
• Regular Useful Content – I realize that many of my posts aren’t much more than rants and personal ramblings. In 2009, I hope to bring you more intriguing, actionable content.

The sun is now rising, and I’m getting dumber by the second. It is time for me to sign off. To all my Wickedfire peeps in Vegas – have an amazing time, try not to get too drunk, and don’t blow too much of your hard-earned cash.

The basic concept of the book is to teach you to perform like a big guy, even if you are on the smallest of budgets. As somebody that fits this description, I found the book rather informative.

The books is quite good overall. It has a lot of interesting points for the novice, as well as the advanced internet marketer. However, some sections of the book were so basic that I wasn’t even able to finish reading them. The perfect example of this is a section in Chapter 3 titled “Choosing your Domain Name and Hosting Company”. This book definitely seems more geared towards the brick and mortar business looking to take their marketing efforts online.

Other bland sections are dedicated to proper site navigation, different types of pages/sites, RSS, and basic SEO. There is also a whole chapter dedicated to “Web 2.0″ which consists of definitions of web2.0 terms like tags and open source, not really a web2.0 thing, but whatever. A lot of this book is for complete noobs. But it wasn’t all bad. In fact, there actually is a lot of good information for intermediate/advanced internet marketers.

By far the most intriguing part of this book were the chapters covering media (video/audio). They give you just about everything you need to know to get started recording audio and video and how to make the most of it. I will be applying a lot of the concepts in this chapter to my local efforts. It should be no surprise that people would prefer watching a video over reading. Using these mediums makes it much easier to connect with potential clients compared to text.

Autoresponders are also a big part of this book. Included is a basic workflow and displays the transition of a passerby to a returning customer. If autoresponders are something you aren’t all that familiar with, there is definately a lot to be learned.

Other things I liked:

• Perfect for the noob trying to grasp basic concepts.
• Plenty of reminders of things seasoned marketers and affiliates should be doing.
• Podcasting, audio, and video production. Bannerblindness.com should read this section.
• Lots of information regarding writing sales copy. Though nothing you can’t learn on Copyblogger.

Not so good:

• They provide links for all kinds of different resources, I have a pretty good feeling these are links to their own affiliate sites. Though I guess the book is all about getting the best returns for the smallest costs. So I guess I can’t blame em.
• The affiliate program section isn’t all that great. Though if you are starting your own affiliate program, a chapter can’t even begin to cover it.
• The sections covering outsourcing and building a “virtual team” need a lot of work. For a more detailed guide read 4 Hour Work Week.

It only lasts through Friday though!

Free Incorporation & LLCs

The goal is to become a local topix editor this will give you freedom to publish whatever the hell you want, but of course we will be posting our own links. There is a small catch though, you need to be approved. My guess is that larger cities will be a little more difficult to get approved as an editor for. But you never know till you give it a try. I’m going to be venturing into a larger city for my local projects soon, and hopefully I get approved.

The traffic however, isn’t so great, at least not in smaller cities. I’ve posted 2 local stories in the last couple days and I’ve got only a small handful of visitors. But better than nothing I suppose. Again, bigger cities will probably give you better results.

I’ll also be posting an update to the Local SEO series in coming days.

As for me, I’ve just missed the 50% mark by less than 1,000 words. But I’m not too upset about it. This has been one of my most productive months by far. And this will be a good point to gauge my productivity by. My goal is to beat my previous months word count each month.

I was very productive the first couple weeks, then I kinda got burnt out, then got sick, and really lost motivation. But even at 24k words, I’ve gotten more unique content up, than I have in a long time. I’ve really learned a lot this month, some grew fantastic moustaches, and I can’t wait to participate next year.

Please don’t judge me on my Photoshop skills. Thank you.

Update: The Blind Ape posted a WebWriMo update, and another snazzy graph.

Just the fact that we were able to afford a computer and internet connection at one point, so we could start our own businesses online, is far more than a lot of families have, not just in the US, but worldwide.

Take the time to donate to your local food bank, a little money goes a very long way. It’s too late to help people get food on the table today, but you could make a trip to a food bank or soup kitchen and really touch the lives of a lot of people.

Black Friday

In a few short hours, I’ll be stuffing my face with turkey, numerous high carb foods, and dessert. I’ll probably fall asleep well before 10PM (I won’t have my computer around to keep me up). Well before the butt crack of dawn, most of my family will be out in the cold waiting for some deal of some sort. I on the other hand will be waking up in the afternoon, and will hit the online retailers in the comfort of my own home. Suckers… I’ll probably just pick up a 22″ LCD monitor, but who knows.

I’ve never really looked into the traffic on Black Friday, but I assume it could go either way. Monday, no doubt, will be a high traffic day. I’ve recently hired a well qualified local writer to ease the work load, and I’ll be launching a content generation promo for Cyber Monday.

Anyway guys, once again, have a great Thanksgiving. Spend plenty of time with the family, and maybe try to get away from the computer for a little bit.

Oh and if you don’t like sweet potatos with marshmallows, you’re freakin’ insane.

November 11th emp posted an update on Blind Ape SEO, with a fancy graph. Go check it out in all its fanciness.

Glowleaf is way ahead, with Greg in second with a baller moustache for the month of Movember. However, assuming that nobody has written much in the last few days, my new word count would put me in second. I’m sure an update, is gonna put be back at least into 3rd. Ballinnnnn…

GaithersburgLocal is coming along nicely, the links from this blog got it indexed almost instantly. But as it turns out, there isn’t a whole lot happening in Gaithersburg, so finding content has been tough. I’ll be making an update about my progress in an upcoming post, as well as some ideas I have for promotion and monetization.

In other news, I’m selling a Pomegranate site on DP, as of now the bidding has reached only $25, with a BIN of $75, a damn good deal if you ask me…