Building an E-Commerce Blog with Product Reviews

Product Review Posts Are Different

A product review post is not a regular blog post. Readers want quick, scannable signals: a rating, a clear pros-and-cons breakdown, and links to where they can buy. jekcms does not have a dedicated "product review" content type or a shortcode system to generate these elements automatically: you build them with the same rich text editor you use for every other post, and that turns out to be enough.

Rating and Pros/Cons, Written Directly

There is no dedicated rating field or star-widget shortcode in jekcms. In practice that is not a limitation: you write the rating and the pros/cons list as regular content, using headings, bold text, and bullet lists in the editor.

<h3>Rating: 4.5 / 5</h3>
<p>&#9733;&#9733;&#9733;&#9733;&#9734;</p>

<h4>Pros</h4>
<ul>
  <li>Fast setup</li>
  <li>Affordable</li>
</ul>
<h4>Cons</h4>
<ul>
  <li>Limited themes</li>
</ul>

This is plain HTML the editor already produces when you type a heading and a bullet list: no plugin, no custom field, no shortcode syntax to learn.

Schema Markup

jekcms outputs structured data (Article schema: headline, modified date, image, author) automatically for every post through a built-in schema helper. It does not generate Product or Review schema automatically. If you want the star-rating rich snippet Google can show for review content, add that JSON-LD block yourself in a code block in the editor, following Google's documented Product schema format:

{
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "Product Name",
  "review": {
    "@type": "Review",
    "reviewRating": {
      "@type": "Rating",
      "ratingValue": "4.5",
      "bestRating": "5"
    }
  }
}

Affiliate Links

jekcms ships a built-in affiliate link manager (the jek-affiliate plugin): define a link once, get a clean /go/slug cloak URL, and every click is tracked with bots separated out. In-content links get rel="sponsored" automatically (Google requires it), you can rename or repoint a link without touching any post, and a link-health checker flags dead merchant URLs. For review posts this means your buy buttons and product links stay manageable from one panel, and if you also want funnel analytics, GA4/GTM via the jek-google plugin still works alongside it.