Interaction with your readers is an integral facet of successful blogging. Not only do you want their readership, but you want their feedback, their expertise, their advice, and their opinions. What better way to achieve all of these things than to have your readers review products that you’ve preselected (affiliate, or not)? Many high PR, successful sites like Kaboodle.com, Amazon.com, and NextTag.com all rely heavily on their user-base to popular their site with credible, quality content – just from their own experiences.

Review sites are also a fantastic way to utilize all the benefits of affiliate marketing. Most review site plugins will allow you to upload entire data feeds, inserting your affiliate link on every product page yielding crazy commissions.

Below you’ll find a finite list of the best plugins for the job.

1. MyReviewPlugin

This is one whopper of a plugin, so be sure you set aside some time to really explore the functionality of MyReviewPlugin. First of all, the plugin not only allows reviews of products, but users can also rate individual reviews for relevancy and helpfulness. It allows you to upload any database you choose, including CSV files and data feeds which are popular with affiliate companies and third-party marketplaces. Depending on the type of review site you’re setting up, you can enable the use of Google Maps (for business directories), or if you choose to review products instead, you can look forward to a built-in comparison function that puts two products into a side-by-side comparison table (which is also fully customizable). For credibility, this plugin offers an “Editor’s Ratings”, which allows your readers to see how you rated the product, and gives an opportunity for interaction and rapport-building.

MyReviewPlugin works with any WordPress theme, but you may select to receive three of their own themes designed specifically to compliment the plugin.

For a single website, MyReviewPlugin costs $90, and for unlimited use, you can expect to pay $130.

2. WPReviewSite

As the “oldest review plugin on the market”, WPReviewSite brings to the table all of your favorite standard functions: review ratings, automatic comparison tables, customizable tables, affiliate support, Google integration… But the real prize with WPReviewSite seems to lay in the support. With your plugin, you receive two free themes, free tech support, lifetime upgrades, and spam control. The plugin’s website features a user gallery of the many well-constructed websites that WPReviewSite has helped to create. The real bonus of this plugin, though, is definitely to the benefit of the blog developers out there. They offer a single site license, an unlimited site license, and – best of all – a developer license, which allows blog developers to use the plugin when building WordPress-based sites for their clients.

The single site license for WPReviewSite is $97, unlimited/multi-site licensing is $199, and the developer’s license is $299.

3. WPReviewEngine

As another powerful plugin, WPReviewEngine gives MyReviewPlugin a run for their money in terms of compatibility and functionality. Aside from the basic reviewing and product import capabilities, WPReviewEngine also pulls thumbnails from the purchasing location and creates a thumbnail for the product page, allowing your readers and visitors to feel comfortable clicking over. Past reviews have suggested that this plugin is slightly more “advanced” than MyReviewPlugin, and may be better suited to veteran WordPress users and developers. They claim that “virtually every element” of this plugin is customizable – from the content to the color scheme. It also comes with a very handy URL cloaking component, which aids in affiliate marketing campaigns. Google Maps can be integrated, as well, if you wish and WPReviewEngine has incorporated a zip code search for business directory sites.

WPReviewEngine is also compatible with any WordPress site.

A single license for this plugin will cost $99.95, and an unlimited site license is $169.95.

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