In the Affiliate Review Sites: An Introduction post, you saw my recommendations for creating a well-rounded, useful affiliate review site. I also mentioned that automating the format layout of a review is a good idea (but automating the content itself is not). You can certainly create your own little design template that you copy/paste into each review if you want. I’ve done that a few million times in the past. But if you want to be consistent with layout, and enable users to rate products, compare products, etc., you’re better off using a product designed to handle all of that for you.

By now you know I’m pretty partial to WordPress, as many of you probably are too. That’s why I often showcase WordPress plugins and themes that help accomplish certain goals. Today’s post is showcasing a WordPress plugin that helps you easily create an affiliate review site right within WordPress. And yes, it not only gives you a nice review layout, but all the extra bells and whistles like star ratings as well.

WP Review Site is a WordPress plugin (plus themes) that lets you create review sites with the ease of using a plugin. Your visitors can comment on your post to not only review a product, but also give it a star rating, right in the comment form. The plugin also lets you create Top 10 comparison tables that are based on the ratings you assigned in your review posts as well as the user star ratings.

More features of WP Review Site include:

• Want to only add ratings to certain categories in the blog? No problem, the plugin handles that as well.
• Reviewing local businesses, such as restaurants? The plugin can automatically add a Google map for the business being reviewed.
• Includes support for the hReview microformat. This is a great feature. Google now highlights review information pulled from hReviews microformats if a web page includes it (most don’t). This means your reviews have a good chance of being highlighted in Google search results with a special format. You can pretty much count on lots more search traffic if your pages get highlighted this way.
• Includes two sidebar widgets: a top-rated list, and a recent reviews list

This is the kind of tool that makes your job easier because WP Review Site takes care of presentation and scripting, letting you focus on creating informative, useful review content. It’s not free, but the cost will likely be recouped pretty quickly.