Rich Snippets add “extra information” to snippets and make you stand out in search results.

You can do this with reviews, recipes, videos, events, user reviews, and other supported data. The easiest way to add rich snippets to WordPress is by installing a rich snippets plugin, using it to markup pages/posts (basically just filling out fields), then testing those URLs in Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. This will increase your clickthrough rates (CTR) and SEO traffic.

What is the best WordPress rich snippets plugin? I use WP Review Pro (they also have a free version) which is the plugin I will feature in this tutorial. I used to use All In One Schema, but’s way too minimal. I also used WP Rich Snippets but the developer abandoned that plugin. WP Review is maintained by MyThemeShop, looks fantastic, loads fast, and is highly customizable.

1. Choose A Rich Snippets Plugin

Option 1: WP Review – the plugin I use myself and recommend. Other rich snippet plugins are either too minimal (All In One Schema lacks customization options) or they’re unreliable (WP Rich Snippets hasn’t been updated for 2 years and isn’t compatible for PHP 7). I love WP Review and the pro version comes with 16 pre-styled designs, plus support.

Why I Use WP Review

• Looks awesome
• The plugin is maintained! Unlike many others.
• Supports reviews, recipes, and most data types.
• Multiple ratings systems (stars, points, percentage).
• No compatibly issues with other plugins or new PHP versions.
• Lightweight (loads fast) and doesn’t affect my GTmetrix report.
• Supports user reviews + unlimited domain usage with pro version.
• Pro version comes with 16 pre-styled designs which look amazing.

Option 2: All In One Schema Rich Snippets – free plugin that “does the job” but has minimal settings and customization options (by little I mean there are only 6 settings to customize how your rich snippets look). This doesn’t cut if for me.

Why I Don’t Use All In One Schema

• Looks boring
• Doesn’t support user reviews
• Limited customization options (literally only has 6 settings for customization)
• Only 1 type of rating (stars) with 1 point intervals (you can’t something a 4.5)

Option 3: WP Rich Snippets – I wanted to love this rich snippets plugin. I even used it for 2 years when it wasn’t updated once. But there came a point where I needed to upgrade from PHP 5.6 to PHP 7, and WP Rich Snippets wasn’t compatible (it broke my site). The developer lists “plugin updates” and “plugin support” on his website, but there is none. I would love to dive into cool features of WP Rich Snippets, but it would be a waste of time. Stay away from it.

Why I Don’t Use WP Rich Snippets

• No support
• No plugin updates (for 2 years!)
• Not compatible with PHP 7 or higher
• Doesn’t support event rich snippets type
• Most add-ons need to be purchased separately
• Each add-ons is an additional plugin that runs on your site

2. Configure Your Plugin Settings

This will obviously be different depending on which rich snippets plugin you choose.

These are the settings for WP Review:

Styling
Below are the main settings where you can choose between their 16 pre-styled designs as well as colors, review box width, and whether you want Google Fonts.

Defaults
Choose the review type (star, point, percent, circle, thumbs up), whether you want the markup before or after the content, and what type of review you’re writing. You can use shortcodes to display markup somewhere in the middle of your content, if you don’t want it before or after.

Embed
Choose if you want to allow users to embed your reviews on their website.

3. Markup Your Content

Edit any page/post you want to add rich snippets to (it must be a review or other data type). Scroll down until you see the “review” sections. Here’s what they look like for WP Review.

Review – review type, item, and author fields are mandatory for Google to show schema.

Review Item – tell people what specific features you like and don’t like about the item, giving each one a score. You can customize the colors of the stars here (and their background color).

Review Links – add your affiliate link and the text you want to use as the link. The plugin will automatically set the link as nofollow so search engines don’t crawl it (which is what you want).

Review Description – your review description can include both text, links, images, and videos.

User Review – choose whether you want visitors to be able to leave a review about the item.

4. Test In Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool

Run the post’s URL through Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to make sure your rich snippets are working. Just look for the green “all good” text and if you see errors, expand the box to see items that need to be fixed. Your rich snippets won’t appear immediately in Google’s search results (it can take a few days to update) but this tool will tell you if something’s wrong.

Common Solutions

1. Add the data Google tells you to in their Structured Data Testing Tool
2. Make sure the data is representative of the content on the page
3. Try adding markup to a few more pages which is suggested by Google
4. Upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, MySQL, and PHP (contact your host)
5. Visit this Google forum which lists common problems and other FAQs
6. Visit the structured data section of your Google Search Console
7. Visit Google’s structured data policies and webmaster guidelines
8. If you still have problems, it might be because you have a low domain authority

Once Google recrawls your site, your rich snippet should appear…