Review Site Plugin Update Coming

Award Winning Hosts

FeedLines has sold 7 copies so far, Award Winning Hosts is racking in the ever-rising web host affiliate commissions, and the plugin that powers its ratings is one of this blog’s most popular pages.

It only makes sense that I should eventually do two things: Update the aging plugin, and charge for copies of it. Amidst other projects, I’ve started rewriting it from scratch, using AWH as the test blog again. Within the next few days I should have something easier to install, nicer to look at, and more compatible with WP 2.5+ than the original.

The top plugin users to date have been affiliate marketers building sites like AWH, so I expect there might be an actual market here, unlike most plugins targeted to average bloggers. Even if not a single person buys it, though, the work will pay for itself since AWH needs an update anyway.

Posted on August 2, 2008 in Programming

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  • http://nickohrn.com Nick Ohrn

    There is definitely a market for a premium version of this plugin. I know this because I was contacted a month or two ago to build a plugin very similar to yours that was more compatible with the new versions of WordPress with some extra features.

    Make sure you charge a decent price for it. The quote I had for development of a single copy of an updated version for a client was pretty high because it is a very involved plugin.

    Best of luck.

  • Ryan

    How much would you charge for the plugin though? I’m interested in the update…

  • Steve

    Dan,

    I just sent you an email asking you about your review site template BEFORE I saw your post here saying that you will be updating this template. Cool. Anyway, I am very interested in this theme and am looking forward to using it immediately.

    I have a few suggestions please…

    1) Keep the top header image as thin as possible so the bulk of the review pages information can be seen on the top fold.

    2) Include clear, simple, easy to understand instructions so we php challenged and non-techie types (like me!) can quickly and easily change the following ourselves so our review sites don’t look the same as everyone elses: the header image, background color/image, the color/image of the page margin background, the color of the product links, etc.

    3) A way for site owners/administrators to be able to add our own review comments of the products we are featuring. I’m not talking about adding fake comments, but where we can copy and paste snippets of real user comments from other sources (Amazon, etc.) and add them to the comments pages ourselves. That way future visitors will be more likely to add their own comments when they see others have done the same. Its just a way to get the comment process going.

    4) A space on each individual review page where we can add an image or screenshot of the products home page. And of course we will want to make that image/screen shot a link with our affiliate link.

    5) At the top and bottom of EVERY review page, I would like a space to put an affiliate linked banner for my “Best Reviewed” product.

    6) For some sites, we will want to build a mailing list by offering a free report. So being able to have a space near the top right of each page where we can offer a “Free Report” or whatever, with an optin form for our aweber or getresponse account would be great too.

    7) Can we create a site map for this theme? I’m not talking about a google site map here, but rather a “normal” site map showing all the pages on our site that we want to include in the site map. I will want to put a link to this site map in the footer of every page of my site.

    8) We will need to be able to add these ESSENTIAL WP plugins:
    All in One SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps, SEO Meta Editor Advanced, Add to Any: Subscribe Button, Angsuman’s Feed Copyrighter, Comment to Email, Header-Footer, Ozh’ Absolute Comments, WordPress Thread Comment, Tell a Friend.

    Dan, I realize some or most of these suggestions are probably no-brainers for you since you are an expert at PHP, but I’m not and really don’t want to be. I’ve built many sites with my html editor but only one blog/site using WordPress so far…and that was with a basic off the shelf WP theme. I’m into internet marketing and not the tech stuff and I need a WP review theme that works and is user friendly enough to make small modifications.

    Thanks for reading this!
    Steve

  • http://www.dangrossman.info Dan

    @Steve: You don’t need someone to write a plugin or theme for you to do any of those things. WordPress is a customizable CMS out of the box.

    1) This is your site’s design, not plugin code
    2) This is just HTML and CSS editing (header.php, style.css)
    3) You can add your own reviews by typing it in the body of the post
    4) You can put an image on the page by typing it in the body of the post
    5) This is just HTML editing (single.php, single post template)
    6) Add it to your header.php or sidebar.php
    7) Edit footer.php, and type the links into a WordPress page

    You don’t need to edit or write any PHP to accomplish any of this :)

  • Steve

    Thanks for your quick response Dan!

    Have you heard any feedback from others if your review site plugin will work with WP 2.6?

    Thanks again.
    Steve

  • http://www.dangrossman.info Dan

    No, I honestly have never tried to run it on anything newer than WP 1.5. The new Award Winning Hosts is running the new version of the plugin. What’s left now is to create the site to sell it, which is in progress.

  • Will

    I would definitely pay for this! I’m in the process of putting together a new affiliate review blog and your 2.5+ compatible version of the plugin would be a godsend. Any news on when you’ll have the updated version ready? Any chance it’ll be done before the weekend?

  • http://www.dangrossman.info Dan

    @Will: The plugin is ready, I just have three things left — finish the code to install the plugin (add its database table and such) on activation, create the website to sell it, and hopefully find a template I can bundle with the plugin that has it installed already. It is not unlikely I will have it done by this weekend.

  • Dan

    Hello, looks awesome but I have a few questions. When someone enters a review, is there any type of protection from spambots available, such as CAPTCHA, etc? Sorry if it seems like a dumb question but I’ve never used WordPress before. Also, is there a way to enter some custom fields that function similar to the star ratings? I’m building a restaurant review site and I want the reviewers to include additional info about the restaurant such as price, atmosphere, good for kids, etc. I was thinking that for this function, it would be similar to the stars feature, except it would be an average rating of inputted info (maybe a 1-4 dollar signs depending on the price, or a yes/no depending on if it’s good for kids, etc.) Hmmm… I had another question, but I forget what it as. :) Oh well, any info would be apprecaited. Thanks!

  • http://www.dangrossman.info Dan

    WordPress comes with Akismet, a spam filtering plugin, and there are many others you can add to deal with spam in other ways, like adding CAPTCHAs. Ratings attached to comments that are marked as spam, either by a plugin like Akismet or by hand, are not counted towards average ratings for a post/page.

    As for the rest of your things, custom fields sounds like a good idea for that, along with a little code in your theme files to turn the values they into into dollar signs or whatever you wanted. You could also write your own plugin to add a box to the write/edit post page to collect that info from them. But WP Review Site won’t help with any of that.

  • http://www.amgadget.com Matt

    Dan about when will it come out and what will be the pricing? Question everyone whats to know..

  • http://www.dangrossman.info Dan

    Matt: It came out days ago, read the blog! :P