How to Add Rich Snippets to WordPress

March 12. 2020

One of the most important things you need to work on with your website is improving your rankings on Google. After all, when was the last time you went to the second page of Google results? No, the goal is to be on the first page! That is why you research keywords, hire WP experts, keep up to date on the latest SEO updates. But even that is not enough. There are other websites on the first page of Google’s results too. So you will definitely have some competition there as well. You need to make your website look more attractive than others on Google search results. And this is why you should add rich snippets to WordPress! They will help your site stand out among other results with some extra information and embellishments.

What are rich snippets?

You’ve probably seen rich snippets before even though you may not be aware that’s what they’re called. You know when you Google something and a result catches your eye because it’s all nice, pretty and informative? Maybe it has a nice 4.5-star review under the title or it’s a recipe with all the most important information about calories and prep time listed or there’s a list of specs about the new phone that are just what you’re looking for. Those interesting and eye-catching snippets with just that little bit of extra information are rich snippets (or sometimes rich results).

Different types of snippets

As you’ve probably already figured out, rich snippets come in a variety of forms. Among the most common ones are those that include a review or rating stars, recipe information, price or product specification. If you run a business that has great reviews, you will want to brag about that so adding the rating stars to your description on Google results can be very helpful and attract more customers. If you write recipes, putting important information like prep time or calorie count into your snippet can make people decide to use your recipe over all others. When you’re in the business of selling, and especially selling new technology, specifications and prices are among the most important things people will want to know so adding them to your description is always a smart move to attract users.

Why does it matter?

When you are running a website, your goal is usually to get as many people to visit and use it as possible. Of course, there are certain times when you should discourage search engines from indexing your pages, but those are exceptions rather than the rule. In the vast majority of cases, you’ll want your website on the first page of Google and you’ll want people clicking on your link. But competition is fierce so you should take any advantage you can get! Rich snippets are that advantage. They make your website stand out and attract more visitors. And, as you are about to find out, adding rich snippets to your WP website doesn’t have to be hard. So what have you got to lose?

How can you add rich snippets to WordPress?

So you’ve decided you want to add rich snippets to WordPress! Now, what do you need to do? The good news is that you don’t have to design or create anything when it comes to rich snippets – it’s the search engines that do this. What you need to do is provide them with something called structured data, a type of code that provides information about the page. Google uses structured data to better understand what your page is about and design your snippet accordingly. Google Search supports three different formats of structured data:

• JSON-LD
• Microdata
• RDFa

Google recommends that you use JSON-LD if possible. This can be useful information when choosing a plugin for rich snippets. However, all three are accepted.

Add rich snippets to WordPress with a plugin

The easiest way to add rich snippets to WordPress is with a plugin. Plugins are great because using the best plugins for WP makes running a WP website so much easier. And this is certainly true if you want to have rich snippets but aren’t very familiar with coding. Luckily, there are a number of plugins you can use for this. Among the most popular ones are Schema Pro and All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets plugins. First, you’ll need to install and activate your chosen plugin like you would any other plugin you use. Then navigate to the configuration page from your WP dashboard. The exact steps you follow next will depend on the plugin you’ve decided to use.

We will use All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets plugin for this example. On the configuration page, you’ll see the different types of content you can create with this plugin and the information the plugin will need for each of them in order to create the structured data for a rich snippet. You don’t need to change anything on this page. Instead, when you’re creating a new post, you’ll see an extra box under it where you can select the post type for a rich snippet and fill in the necessary information. Then just save your post as usual and let the plugin work its magic!

Add rich snippets to WordPress manually

You can also add rich snippets to your WP website manually, without a plugin. This can be tricky if you have no previous experience with coding. If you rely on professional website maintenance, be sure to ask for help from experts. Otherwise, you’ll probably need to do some research before you start.

First, you will need to choose between the three vocabularies for structured data. Despite Google’s suggestion (JSON-LD), we would recommend RDFa for complete beginners. Based on HTML, this is the easiest vocabulary to master. You will need to use the Text Editor in order to write the markup into the text. The coding is standardized for all the different types of rich snippets. Schema.org is the organization that maintains this standard. They have extensive documentation on what content needs to be marked up and how as well as examples you can use to learn more about what to do.

Don’t forget to test your rich snippets!

After you add rich snippets to WordPress, you’ll want to check if everything is working as it should. Luckily, this is very easy: Google has a structured data testing tool that you can use for this purpose. You can test your rich snippet by pasting your markup into a toolbox or importing a link of your post. Simply click on “Validate” and you’ll see how well you did on adding your rich snippets!