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WPBeginner» Blog» Beginners Guide» Beginner’s Guide: How to Use Rich Snippets in WordPress

Beginner’s Guide: How to Use Rich Snippets in WordPress

Last updated on December 18th, 2015 by Editorial Staff
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Beginner’s Guide: How to Use Rich Snippets in WordPress

Do you want to add rich snippets on your WordPress site? Not sure what are rich snippets, and why you should use it on your WordPress site? Rich snippets allow you to have custom search listings for special content such as reviews, recipes, events, etc. In this article, we will show you how to use rich snippets on your WordPress site.

Why You Should Use Rich Snippets on Your WordPress Site?

Rich snippets provide site owners another way to communicate with search engines. Structured data allows search engines to see different types of content on your site, and use rich snippets to show additional information in the search results.

A recipe in search results with rich snippets data

This additional information in search results make your listing more noticeable in search, which means more organic traffic for your site.

It also helps you build authority in your niche, as your site becomes more visible in the search.

Rich snippets are not just for reviews or recipes. You can use rich snippets for events, products, people, video, music, apps, articles, blog posts, etc.

Now that you know how beneficial rich snippets can be, let’s take a look at how to add rich snippets in WordPress.

We will show two methods: manually adding rich snippets in WordPress as well as using a rich snippets WordPress plugin.

Adding Rich Snippets in WordPress Using a Plugin

Maintaining rich snippets manually can be difficult even for the most experienced site owners. Luckily, there are several WordPress plugins that will make it super easy for you to add rich snippets in your WordPress posts.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets plugin. Upon activation simply click on the Rich Snippets menu icon in the sidebar to continue.

All in One Schema.org supported content types

You will be able to see different content types that you can create with the plugin. The list includes:

  • Item Review
  • Events
  • Person
  • Product
  • Recipe
  • SoftwareApp
  • Video
  • Article

Clicking on any content type will show you the fields that will be available when a user is writing a post/page or any custom post type.

Now you need to create a new post or edit an existing one. Just below the post editor, you will see a new meta box labeled Configure Rich Snippet. Inside, you will see a drop down menu where you can select content type for the post you are working on.

Choose a content type to add rich snippets to a WordPress post

Selecting a content type will display the rich snippet fields you need to fill. In the screenshot below, we selected the article content type, and it showed us article name, author, short description, and article image fields.

Rich snippets for article content type

You can change it to recipe, event, or whatever content type you are creating and then fill in the fields. You are not required to add all fields but some of the fields are required by Google to display rich snippets.

Don’t forget to save your post to store the rich snippets data.

Adding Rich Snippets Manually in WordPress

Rich snippets or structured data markup can be written into three different vocabularies. These vocabularies are microdata, RDFa, and JSON-LD. You can use any of them on your site. However, most beginners find RDFa to be more beginner friendly.

Here is an example of a user’s about page in WordPress. Normally the text of the page will look something like this:

John Smith
<img src="johnsmith.jpg" alt="Photo of John Smith"/>
Support Technician
342 Acme Inc.
101 Washington Avenue
Eagleton IN 98052
(425) 123-4567
<a href="mailto:johnsmith@example.com">johnsmith@example.com</a>
Website: 
<a href="http://www.example.com">example.com</a>

This can be easily transformed with rich snippets. If you are familiar with HTML, then you can easily understand the following example:

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Person">
  <span property="name">John Smith</span>
  <img src="johnsmith.jpg" property="image" alt="Photo of John Smith"/>
  <span property="jobTitle">Support Technician</span>
  <div property="address"  typeof="PostalAddress">
    <span property="streetAddress">
      342 Acme Inc. 
      101 Washington Avenue
    </span>
    <span property="addressLocality">Eagleton</span>,
    <span property="addressRegion">IN</span>
    <span property="postalCode">46818</span>
  </div>
  <span property="telephone">(425) 123-4567</span>
  <a href="mailto:johnsmith@example.com" property="email">johnsmith@example.com</a>
Website
  <a href="http://example.com" property="url">example.com</a>
</div>

For each content type there are some special properties that need to be defined. Schema.org is the organization that helps maintain the standard for different content types. You will find extensive documentation with examples for each content type on their website.

Here is another example of a recipe with rich snippets.

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Recipe">
  <span property="name">Mom's World Famous Banana Bread</span>
  By <span property="author">John Smith</span>,
    <img property="image" src="bananabread.jpg"
    alt="Banana bread on a plate" />
  <span property="description">This classic banana bread recipe comes
  from my mom -- the walnuts add a nice texture and flavor to the banana
  bread.</span>
  Prep Time: <meta property="prepTime" content="PT15M">15 minutes
  Cook time: <meta property="cookTime" content="PT1H">1 hour
  Yield: <span property="recipeYield">1 loaf</span>
  Ingredients:
  - <span property="recipeIngredient">3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed</span>
  - <span property="recipeIngredient">1 egg</span>
  - <span property="recipeIngredient">3/4 cup of sugar</span>
  ...
  Instructions:
  <span property="recipeInstructions">
  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix in the ingredients in a bowl. Add
  the flour last. Pour the mixture into a loaf pan and bake for one hour.
  </span>
</div>

If you are manually adding rich snippets into your WordPress posts, then you will need to use Text editor so that you can write the required markup. You may also need to refer to Google’s Developer resource on structured data to understand which properties are required for a content type.

Testing Your Rich Snippets

Google and other search engines may not immediately pickup your rich snippets or show it in search results. How do you know that you are using rich snippets correctly on your site?

You need to simply visit Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. You can either paste your markup in the tool box or click on the Fetch URL link to enter a URL. Click on the Validate button and the tool will review your markup.

Testing your rich snippet markup

We hope this article helped you learn how to use rich snippets on your WordPress site. You may also want to checkout our list of the 9 best WordPress SEO plugins and tools that you should use.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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30 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Anu says:
    Sep 28, 2020 at 2:22 am

    Thanks for sharing this article, this is really helpful for me.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Sep 28, 2020 at 11:10 am

      You’re welcome, glad our guide was helpful :)

      Reply
  2. Mike Jagger says:
    Jun 22, 2019 at 11:17 pm

    this is a great share, thanks.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 24, 2019 at 11:52 am

      You’re welcome, glad you like our tutorial :)

      Reply
  3. mike says:
    Jun 22, 2019 at 11:17 pm

    been looking for something like this. thought would have hire a developer initially :)
    thanks.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 24, 2019 at 11:51 am

      You’re welcome, glad our content could be helpful :)

      Reply
  4. Stine Mari says:
    Oct 2, 2018 at 10:40 am

    So many great tips, I have a few things to improve on now.

    Reply
  5. Purnendu Mukherjee says:
    Mar 7, 2018 at 11:47 am

    Hi, is this plugin can be used with Yoast SEO Plugin or it is also a substitute of Yoast?

    Reply
  6. charles finni says:
    Feb 19, 2018 at 3:16 am

    Hey I am trying to do google’s sitelink in my website can you please help with that

    Reply
  7. Prajakta Patil says:
    Jan 2, 2018 at 3:11 am

    Hi,
    I added rich snippet plugin into my website
    It is a recipe website. I have installed the plugin and activated. I filled all the boxes. When i tested it in google, i got warning to fill ratings. I looked upon the rating option and didn’t find anything for recipe
    What should i do in this case?
    Thanks in advance.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 2, 2018 at 7:15 pm

      Hi Prajakta,

      You can try WordPress post ratings plugin or you can try reaching out to plugin author and see if they have a solution.

      Reply
  8. Harman says:
    Jun 19, 2017 at 8:14 pm

    Hello,

    Is this plugin compatible with SEO Yoast Premium and Newspaper Theme?

    Thanks

    Reply
  9. Antje says:
    Jun 12, 2017 at 6:36 am

    I programmed it without plugin. After acualisation and switching between visuell and text(Code) view my code was gone.
    Do you have any suggestions?

    Reply
  10. Rahul says:
    Apr 26, 2017 at 8:06 am

    How i get Google rating in Google Search?

    Reply
  11. Matus says:
    Feb 28, 2017 at 4:28 pm

    Why aren’t you using this on your website? Is it not recommended anymore?

    Reply
  12. Ringo says:
    Jun 17, 2016 at 2:08 am

    I see that Google add highligher in Google search console, are they the same thing?

    Reply
  13. Sergey says:
    Jun 4, 2016 at 6:31 pm

    Tell me please, is it necessary first to clean the old structured data, which are available on my website, and then install the plugin All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets?
    Or can I install the plugin All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets on top of structured data, which are now on my website?

    Reply
  14. Sergey says:
    Jun 4, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    Hello! I have the plugin All In One Seo Pack on my site. Please tell me, could this be the conflict All In One Seo Pack with All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets? Could it be that both plugins are used on the website?

    Thank you.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 4, 2016 at 6:18 pm

      Both plugins should work well together.

      Reply
      • Sergey says:
        Jun 4, 2016 at 6:32 pm

        Thank you!

        Reply
  15. John C says:
    May 27, 2016 at 11:59 am

    Is there anyway to get rid of the box it creates on the page?

    Reply
    • kiran says:
      Aug 28, 2017 at 11:58 am

      There is way to remove the box but it will harm your google ranking.
      You should rather use your child theme style.css to make it look good on your page.
      or use chile theme functions.php to place it in correct place.

      Reply
  16. Pravin Nath.K says:
    Apr 4, 2016 at 8:26 am

    can i add rich snippets using yoast seo plugin?

    Reply
  17. Ambily says:
    Feb 16, 2016 at 2:37 am

    As others above are complaining, I don’t want anyone to see this box

    Reply
  18. Raj says:
    Jan 24, 2016 at 11:12 am

    How to add rich snippets without this plugin??? I used this plugin but it leaves that box below the content which is visible for the traffic and I don’t want anyone to see this box… I’m really looking forward for your answer

    Reply
    • Adriano says:
      Feb 10, 2016 at 11:04 am

      I don’t want that box neither, did you find a solution?

      Reply
  19. Brian says:
    Dec 27, 2015 at 7:24 pm

    One problem. The recommended plug in has not been updated for a year. Just an FYI.

    Brian

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 6, 2016 at 12:25 am

      It is now updated and compatible with the latest WordPress version.

      Reply
  20. shamsher khan says:
    Dec 19, 2015 at 12:45 pm

    Informative Article i m going to install this plugin on my domain

    Reply
  21. Marcelo says:
    Dec 18, 2015 at 6:42 am

    And… will it work well “teaming” with any other SEO plugins like Yoast’s? I can recall Yoast plugins add plenty of mata tags but still don’t add Rich Snippets.

    Reply

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