Have you seen those reviews with the star ratings in your Google search results and wondered how to get them to show up for your own posts? Maybe you’ve heard of “schema”, “rich snippets” or “microdata” and figured you should start using in on your website, but didn’t really know where to start. Perhaps you tried to start and and were so confused by all the precise requirements and lack of explanation that you gave up? Well, there is a plugin to help you get up to speed and help you start using structured data so that Google can better understand what your site is all about and display your posts in the search results in a way that attracts more clicks.
Whether you are talking about people, products, events, organizations, movies, books, reviews, or recipes, you will want to use Google’s secret code of rich snippets to give your site that extra edge. Schema Creator by Raven makes that simple to do.
The plugin places an icon above the rich text editor (next to the Add Media icon), so adding schema is easy. The plugin uses shortcode so you can easily edit the schema after you create it.
So, for my site, I do a lot of reviews, so I would simply select the icon, and then choose “Review” from the dropdown.
For each choice in the dropdown, there is different information to fill out. Here is the shortcode that it inserts. You can see that it is set up so that it is easy to edit.
[schema type="review" url="https://wpdecoder.com/plugins/better-search-results-with-the-schema-creator-plugin/" name="Better Search Results with Schema Creator Plugin by Raven" description="Review for Schema Creator plugin" rev_name="Schema Creator by Raven" rev_body="This plugin is a must if your site contains events, recipes, reviews, etc. It organizes everything neatly and consistently and makes your search results stand out better." author="Laura Hartwig" pubdate="2014-02-02" user_review="5" min_review="1" max_review="5" ]
Here is what that shortcode produces:
[schema type=”review” url=”https://wpdecoder.com/plugins/better-search-results-with-the-schema-creator-plugin/” name=”Better Search Results with Schema Creator Plugin by Raven” description=”Review for Schema Creator plugin” rev_name=”Schema Creator by Raven” rev_body=”This plugin is a must if your site contains events, recipes, reviews, etc. It organizes everything neatly and consistently and makes your search results stand out better.” author=”Laura Hartwig” pubdate=”2014-02-02″ user_review=”5″ min_review=”1″ max_review=”5″ ]
Once you set up your post, you can test it with Google’s Rich Snippet Testing Tool.
Using Rich Snippets will allow your postings to make a better impact in the Google search results. Besides setting things up just the way Google likes them, this plugin will help keep your site listings consistent across your own website and across other similar websites, making the information easier for viewers to read – which means happier viewers who will come back. I highly recommend that you give Schema Creator by Raven a try.
Here is how this post appears in the search results using this plugin. You can see that the stars show up for the rating.
Special note: If you are looking for your picture to come up next to your posts, you will need to set up Google Authorship (a must-have if you are a blogger). Find out more about that here: https://plus.google.com/authorship
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