WordPress Rich Snippets

Add Schema Markup to WordPress for Better SEO

WPRichSnippets V 1.4.2 Numerous Bug Fixes and Enhancements

Published:

A couple of days ago, we’ve released an update for WPRichSnippets plugin, this update includes numerous bug fixes and other important enhancements, which prepare the plugin to work with the new coming WooCommerce Reviews add-on.

Version 1.4.2 Changelog

This is a list of changes we’ve made in version 1.4.2

Bug Fixes:

* Fixed Widget filter name.
* Fixed Widget excerpts, a better way is to get row content and trim it.
* Fixed several notices after updating to WordPress 4.6 release.
* Fixed user range slider handle style.
* Fixed wprs_get_image_id function, attachment id did not work with cropped images.
* Fixed rating stars letter spacing style.
* Fixed minimum required version 4.0 of WordPress.

Enhancements:

* Added new post meta field for Product Brand name.
* Added new feature for HTML code embed in post meta, under Display tab.
* Added new filter to override Media output when HTML code is provided.
* Added Brazilian Real currency.
* Added admin notice if WooCommerce is active and Woo add-on is not installed.
* Added new settings for Publisher in plugin general settings.
* Added check to override Publisher markup if set in Schema post meta.
* Added use wp_enqueue_script to load jquery-touch-punch from WordPress library.
* Removed extra user styles file that was not needed, and move styles for main file.
* Removed unused images, this has been replaces with FontAwesome.
* Modified style for rating stars.
* Modified entry image to use wprs-image size, it was set to medium.
* Updated plugin updater class to 1.6.3 update.
* Tested with WordPress 4.6.1 release and pumped up version in ready.txt file.

Version 1.4.1 Changelog

Also, this is the changes we made in WPRichSnippets 1.4.1 release, which we haven’t shared on the site before:

Bug Fixes:

* Fixed styles for All Entries admin page, rating stars was not showing properly.
* Fixed a PHP Fatal error when saving post after adding a video url in media.
* Fixed Schema Types drop box is not showing in Schema post meta box.
* Fixed Box was not showing when WooCommerce plugin is activated.
* Fixed modified date was not displaying on some Themes, removed updated class.

Enhancements:

* Added extra classes for styling editor and user reviews.
* Added new post meta field for more specific Schema for LocalBusiness.
* Added more specific Schema for LocalBusiness to All Entries list if defined.
* Pumped up tested WordPress version.

That is it! Please, update the WPRichSnippets plugin on your site to the latest version to improve your site.

How I Built This WordPress Site With Easy Digital Downloads Plugin

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In this article, I will share with you guys how I built wprichsnippets.com using the awesomeness of Easy Digital Downloads plugin (EDD) and its powerful add-ons, which allowed me to easily manage and sell my WordPress plugins.

So, I am going to:

  • Tell you why I choose Easy Digital Downloads plugin
  • Give you a list of valuable EDD add-ons that we run on the site
  • Mention some of the custom functionality we added
  • Mention a list of other useful plugins we use
  • Share with you some screenshots of the back-end

So, let’s get started!

Why Easy Digital Downloads?

I’ve used some other plugins in the past, but I was always sticking with aMember as a best feature rich solution for several years, it’s a great software, really!

However, working with aMember wasn’t a joyful experience!

I had to come up with my own software licensing bridge with the help of my buddy Andy Bailey of CommentLuv, he was the one who taught me how to make my legacy WP Reviews plugin talk back to its mother site authorhreview.com and get activated for site members.

But since I am using WordPress, I was repeatedly looking for a native solution, something that gives me the power of interacting easily with WordPress and do awesome things.

[bctt tweet=”Awesome things started to happen after I found EDD & Software Licensing add-on” username=”@hishaman”]

It’s super clear that we are selling digital downloads goodies in a form of Software support, so it makes a perfect sense to use a plugin that does this job perfectly.

Easy Digital Downloads was developed for this specific reason on the first place, so that’s the reason why I’ve chosen it to build the site.

List of Installed EDD Add-ons

There are many useful add-ons that has been created for EDD plugin, this makes life more beautiful!

Here is a list of EDD add-ons we are using to empower our site:

1- Software Licenses

This add-on was what drove me to use EDD, it made a great point, so it was an an easy decision since this add-on allowed all our members with an active license to get automatic plugin updates within their site dashboard, hence the Software Licensing add-on has our highest priority.

2- Recurring Payments

We’ve switched our pricing to a subscription model that has a recurring yearly payments to allow members with active subscription to receive plugin updates and support without go through renewing it manually.

The Recurring Payments add-on made this possible, and easy!

3- Stripe Payment Gateway

We accept payments in several ways, most of sales comes from PayPal, but we use Stripe as our payment gateway to process card payments.

[bctt tweet=”This actually proven to increase sales since some do not use or have a PayPal account” username=”hishaman”]

4- Auto Register

The EDD – Auto Register add-on, a very useful add-on that allowed us to create new accounts for new members who just made a purchase, account creation is done automatically, so this makes the circle complete the circle, we have an account which we can hook the license to.

5- Manual Purchases

If you are migrating from another system, you may want to look at the Manual Purchases add-on for EDD, this one we’ve used to create manual purchases for active members we’ve moved from an older site and system.

6- Invoices

It’s a good idea to send an invoice right after a new purchase had made. The EDD Invoices add-on is a great addition for any site that offer products or downloads online.

7- HelpScout Integration

Since I launched wprichsnippets.com more than a year ago, I managed to use HelpScout for all communications, presale questions, and to handle support tickets.

I must say that,HelpScout was an excellent choice, I am very satisfied with it.

8- Download Column Thumbnail

EDD downloads page

EDD Download Column Thumbnail – This simple EDD add-on adds a thumbnail image to the downloads list page, it makes easier to find what you are looking for, especially when you have a fair number of items under your downloads list page.

9 – Other useful EDD add-ons

We’ve got some promotional add-ons, example:

  1. Sale Price
  2. Free Link
  3. Coming Soon
  4. Related Downloads

Other EDD add-ons we use for testing downloads, example:

We do have a couple of downloads created mainly for testing, those downloads we don’t wish to show them in our marketplace, we also want clean things up after testing, right?

  1. Hide Downloads
  2. Remove Purchases

Theme related EDD add-on

We are using Genesis Framework, so Genesis Connect add-on for EDD is what we’ve got installed and activated on our site. I had to build a custom child theme especially for wprichsnippets.com and use some useful EDD functions and filters to get things done that way I want it to be.

EDD Custom Functionality

Since we are working with familiar code, we were able to add some useful custom functions to extend Easy Digital Downloads’ functionality.

Mainly these functions are made for making it easier to get data about sites that run WPRichSnippets plugin, which helps a lot in providing support and enhancing the plugin.

  1. Tracking
  2. Tracking Stats

1) Tracking: Plugin Activation & Diagnostic Data

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s happening on a site without enough data, so I had to collect a few useful functions and modify them to allow users to enable usage tracking from within the WordPress admin area.

WPRichSnippets Diagnostic Data

It does the following:

  1. Record site activation event.
  2. Tracking plugin usage, happen for only users that have opted in.
No personal information is tracked, email and license key are used to authenticate the request.

WPRichSnippets Easy Digital Downloads Tracking

As you can see in the screenshot above, we store plugin activations and site details in a custom post type, each site has a specific entry, each entry gets updated whenever the plugin is activated/deactivated.

Diagnostic data is stored in post meta for each site, this makes it easy for us to pull it whenever we receive a support ticket for a specific site.

Want to help make WPRichSnippets even more awesome? Allow us to collect non-sensitive diagnostic data and usage information, which help us to fix issues and provide a better support.

2) Tracking Stats: Statistics and Charts

These are another useful set of functions I’ve made to demonstrate store performance in chart and visual elements, so I made some useful admin dashboard widgets for this purpose.

I’ve came up with 6 different admin dashboard widgets, here is how each widget looks like:

1- EDD Sales Earnings Dashboard Widget

WPRS EDD Sales

The Sales dashboard widget show a chart of Sales VS Refunds in a period of time.

2- EDD Sales Count Dashboard Widget

WPRichSnippets Easy Digital Downloads Sales Count

The Easy Digital Downloads Sales Count dashboard widget gives us a quick view of sales count in a period of time, as you can see in the screenshot above.

It can actually differentiate between different types of Downloads statuses, example: complete, pending, refunded…etc.

3- EDD Recent Payments Dashboard Widget

WPRichSnippets Easy digital Downloads Recent Payments

I’ve extended the Recent Payment dashboard widget that is built-in Easy Digital Downloads plugin, so now I’ve got  more details showing in the widget, example the status of each payment.

Date in the above screenshot is real, however I had to remove customer names and gravatar image to protect their privacy.

4- EDD Best Selling Dashboard Widget

WPRichSnippets Easy Digital Downloads Best Selling

The Best Selling dashboard widget provide us with a very useful view, which is a breakdown, this chart tells us about which of our licenses packages or items is selling best.

5- EDD Payments Gateways Dashboard Widget

WPRichSnippets Easy Digital Downloads Payments Gateways Dashboard

Payment Gateways dashboard widget shows us quick comparison of payment gateways percentage share.

Notice the Manual Payments, these payments have been generated manually when we moved our active members from the older site.

6- EDD Tracking Stats Dashboard Widget

WPRichSnippets Easy Digital Downloads Stats

The Tracking Stats dashboard widget for sites activations let us know how many new members opt-in to send us site diagnostic data in a period of time.

Other Useful and Recommended Plugins

These are some other useful plugin that isn’t really made specifically for Easy digital Downloads, but it completes the set of plugins that makes life easier and more awesome, if you know what I mean!

  1. AffiliateWP: our choice of WordPress affiliates management plugin.
  2. Remove Dashboard Access: Used to limit Dashboard access to only admins.
  3. User Switching: Use for instant switching to user accounts, helpful to investigate member accounts issues.
  4. WPRichSnippets: Used to allow user star rating and replace EDD’s schema.org markup.
  5. WPRS Software Specs: Extended schema.org markup for Software.

What Else?

I am always looking for ways to enhance wprichsnippets.com site, plugins mentioned in this article help in a way or another to make it function.

I am looking forward to use EDD in future projects, you too should do so.

Update: WPRS WooCommerce Reviews Integration Add-on Development

Published:

I’ve published a post a few months ago sharing the new about the new WooCommerce integration add-on that is in the making. I wanted to give you an update about the add-on and let you know it will launched in about 1-2 weeks from now.

The WooCommerce add-on will work as an integration with a few extra important features that will help you get your site ready, and with less effort. So, practically there is not much work to do, the add-on will take care of many things and extend WooCommerce reviews functionality and schema.org markup output as well.

How it works?

Once you install and activate the WPRS WooCommerce add-on, it will gives you some extra tools in the plugin settings:

WPRichSnippets WooCommerce Integration Add-on

These new features will allow you to update all of your Product pages at once, so if you have a WooCommerce store with 1000s of products, you will not have to go through each product to edit manually, you won’t have to do this painful process.

By using the add-on, you are only one click far away.

However, you will have to follow a few simple steps to enable most of WPRichSnippets reviews and markup features on your online store, this will only take a few minutes though.

Supported Reviews Types

The WooCommerce Reviews Integration add-on supports two types of reviews, you can check them out on the demo site, here is a couple of direct demo links:

In addition, you will get support for criteria reviews:

WPRichSnippets WooCommerce Reviews Integration Add-on Demo

Note: you can view the WooCommerce reviews integration add-on documentation page to learn more about it.

Also, view the live demo site to see it in action.

Stay tuned, we will announce the release of this add-on pretty soon!

WPRichSnippets V 1.4 New Reviews Widget Update

Published:

In this release of WPRichSnippets plugin, version 1.4 includes big enhancements to its Widget, we are introducing a new Reviews Widget, and other enhancements.

New Reviews Widget

WPRichSnippets comes with a WordPress Widget to display recent or top rated reviews, but it was a very light widget with minimal features, it used to work only for Reviews type > Rating, which is made for only Editors reviews. So, this Widget wasn’t able to display user aggregate reviews, this made it very limited.

Reviews list used to have one simple layout, it used to look like this:

WP Rich Snippets Entries Widget

In WPRS version 1.4, we’ve included a new whole Reviews Widget to empower your sidebars with several ways of displaying reviews.

Here is how the Widget settings panel looks like in version 1.4 release:

Reviews Widget

And, you can display with different styles as these examples below:

Reviews Widget Demo

Reviews Widget Demo

You can see a demo of the sidebar widget on our demo site.

Version 1.4 Changelog

Here is a list of changes we’ve made to the plugin in this release.

Bug Fixes:

* Fixed errors on WooCommerce product pages.
* Fixed video thumb is not been used as widget thumb.

Enhancements:

* Enhanced video thumb, now loaded as attachment and save url in post meta.
* Enhanced widget, added support for review types.
* Enhanced widget, added support for video thumbnail.
* Enhanced widget, added new fields for thumbnail width, height, and alignment.
* Enhanced widget, added new fields for excerpt length and a read more link.
* enhanced widget, added two styles for reviews display.
* Enhanced widget styles to avoid conflicts with themes and other plugins.
* Enhanced styles for rating to avoid conflict with themes and other plugins.
* Added new class to resize images when calling it on the widget.

Download this update?

If you are already a member and have a valid plugin license, you will receive a notification in your WordPress Dashboard for the new update soon. Otherwise, you can renew it, or get license to receive this update.

WPRichSnippets V 1.3.9 Schema Fixes and More

Published:

Hi everyone! Another update for the WPRichSnippets plugin in coming your way, this release of the plugin includes many bug fixes and a few enhancements.

The most noticeable addition in the last couple of updates is adding support for schema type VideoObject when used an embedded video url. So, now WPRS can pull video details and use those details in the content markups.

WPRichSnippets media VideoObject

Changelog of version 1.3.9

Bug Fixes:

* Fixed an error in markup when rating equal 0, no more markup output if this happen.
* Fixed an error caused when class WP_oEmbed when it is not defined.
* Fixed incorrect post meta keys in VideoObject.
* Fixed missing itemprop=video in VideoObject.
* Fixed admin notice when $embed variable is not defined.
* Fixed front-end notice on 404 pages.
* Fixed 505 error when loading FontAwesome styles file in post edit page.
* Fixed position of select field in Schema post meta box.
* Modified Box templates, replaced h4 tags with b.
* Modified sub admin news page to parse post from wprichsnippets.com blog feed.
* Pumped tested up to WordPress 4.5.3 release.

Enhancements:

* Modified entries list all page, changed Post to read Post Type.
* Enhanced some variable names in the core functions to make it more readable.

What abut version 1.3.8 ?

We’ve skipped version 1.3.8 in our post updates, so here is the change log of that release:

Bug Fixes:

* None in version 1.3.8 release.

Enhancements:

* Added support for Schema VideoObject when used an Embedded video url.
* Enhanced the media output function, now it supports several oEmbed providers.
* Added new post meta fields for Embed.
* Removed the Youtube post meta field, used Embed instead.

Make sure to always keep your WPRichSnippets plugin up to date, this will guarantee everything works properly, and eliminate issues and errors on your site content markups.

To your success!

Independence Day Deal 30% WPRichSnippets Plugin License (2016)

Published:

We, at WPRichSnippets.com wish you a Happy 4th of July and would love to celebrate with you and the WordPress community this year. So, we are offering a great discount of WPRichSnippets license and all of our plugin add-ons.

Get 30% OFF

This offer is valid for Personal, Plus, and Professional licenses, including all plugin add-ons in our marketplace.

Discount code: 4THOFJULY30

Get it now!

Offer ends

This offer ends on July 7, so hurry up!

WPRichSnippets V 1.3.7 Ships With Schema for Recipes

Published:

We are super excited to announce this update of WPRichSnippets plugin, which includes an important addition to the Schema types supported by the plugin. We’ve added Schema for Recipes in version 1.3.7 release and followed Google guidelines for Recipes Rich Snippets to make sure our plugin provide a valid markups.

So, if you blog about food and recipes, get this update now.

Schema for Recipes

Now, with WPRichSnippets plugin; you can mark up your recipe content with structured data to provide rich cards and host-specific lists for your recipes, such as reviewer ratings, cooking and preparation times, and nutrition information.

Schema Post Meta

We’ve updated WPRS’ Schema post meta box to allow you insert your recipe details and directions in an easy way.

wprs-schema-recipe-post-meta

Box Template

We’ve also added new Box template for Recipes to allow you to display your sweet dishes recipes in an elegant and clean way.

Schema Recipe template layout example

 

Demo examples:

Tip: Try testing the demo pages in the Structured Data Testing Tool to see how it validates.

Changelog for version 1.3.7

Bug Fixes:

* Fixed a notices was showing on archives.
* Fixed an error happened when adding aggregate review and criteria field not set.

Enhancements:

* Added new Schema type Recipe.
* Added new template for votes and aggregate user reviews to work with Recipe.
* Added new fields to the Rich Snippets meta box for Recipe.
* Added new styles for the Recipe Box tempalte.
* Added several new functions and variables to the wprs_template array.
* Added new function to display user aggregate rating with minimal layout.
* Cleaned some part of the code to make it more readable.

Also, changes in version 1.3.6

Note: we haven’t published about this update, so we thought to mentioned the changelog here.

Bug Fixes:

* Fixed a notice when deciding by zero in user aggregate pagination.
* Fixed FontAwesome up arrows in post Schema meta box was not showing.
* Fixed a schema error in user aggregate reviews by removing applicationCategory when when schema type is not SoftwareApplication.
* Fixed warning on aggregate user reviews.

Enhancements:

* Respect WooCommerce schema if plugin is active and enabled on entry.
* Added required notice to a couple of required fields in schema type Article.
* Added itemprop to images in user aggregate reviews list.
* Modified some of the styles to clear unwanted empty spaces.
* Use Schema template array values for SoftwareApplication.
* Recoded a few functions to enhance plugin performance in admin pages.
* Pumped tested up to 4.5.2 version of WordPress.

We hope you will enjoy this release.

Getting Ready to Release WooCommerce Integration Add-on

Published:

Great news for all WooCommerce plugin users, we are working hard to integrate our WPRichSnippets (WPRS) plugin with the WooCommerce to provide better experience and help you even sell more.

Due to the way how WooCommerce and our WPRS plugin works, some conflict happen and leads to a broken Product pages layout, so using our plugin wasn’t a good option for Woo users.

Well, this has been changed, once we release our new WooCommerce add-on, you will be able to perfectly enable WPRS features to work along with WooCommerce and enjoy advanced reviews and ratings features.

We are on the process of preparing our add-on files to get it ready for release. We don’t have an estimate time, but I can say it’s only a matter of a few days.

Why you should use our WooCommerce add-on?

WooCommerce has a built-in user reviews functionality, it’s simple and clean, you can pretty much use it. However, many of our members were asking us to make WPRS work nicely with Woo so they can have these features enabled of their sites:

  • User reviews with Criteria fields
  • User Votes

So, we’ve made this possible, and it take only a couple of clicks.

We’ve tried to make things work out of the box, and with less effort from your side. This because we know that many sites out there are having hundreds and sometimes thousands of products, and no one want to be involved in the process of going across these pages and enable reviews manually.

Demo Site

We’ve got a new WooCommerce demo site to show off the features you can add with WPRS + WooCommerce add-on, here is a couple of links that you can view:

Screenshots

View screenshots of reviews demo:

I hope this gives you a clear view on how the WooCommerce add-on will work. We are open for any feedback or questions, so add a comment and don’t be shy!

WPRichSnippets V 1.3.5 Bug Fixes and Enhancements Release

Published:

Once again, we got several bugs fixed in WPRichSnippets core plugin. This update bring WPRS plugin to almost 100% compatibility with WordPress 4.5 as we removed all depreciated functions we found in the plugin, also includes a fixe for Article schema layout when set to non-rating, along with a few other little fixes here and there.

Version 1.3.5 changelog:

Bug Fixes:

* Fixed wprs_media_to_mageObject function to process on all schema types.
* Fixed errors in schema for Article by adding missing meta.
* Fixed description been displayed when has no value, lead to unwanted HTML tags.
* Fixed button links been displayed when it has no value, lead to unwanted HTML tags.
* Fixed missing HTML divs in Article template, lead to break page layout.
* Fixed deprecated function, use wp_get_current_user.

Enhancements:

* Added aggregate reviews pagination numbers with links.

Till the next update, enjoy!

Purchase Model, Renewals and Terms Update

Updated:    

We have been working on updating our purchase model, we’ve moved a way from one time payments to a yearly recurring payments and updated our purchase terms according to these changes. You can read our full terms page.

Automatic License Renewals

These changes shall be a win-win for both, our members and us. For our members; it will take away the pain of renewing multiple licenses, so it means a better experience with license renewals. To us, we will be able to get more insights about our business and certainly this will help us to provide a better service.

Member’s active licenses won’t be changed, it will remain the same. The renewal will not start unless members process it manually within their accounts. Once renewed, the renewal purchase will set a recurring payment for the next renewals.

Product Upgrade Path

We’ve also added another modification to members accounts and our products, now members can upgrade from a license level to another and pay only the difference in price with a few clicks.

We hope these changes bring more business to you, and to us.

To your success.

Requirements

WPRichSnippets plugin requires a minimum of WordPress version 4.0+, MySQL 5+ and PHP 5.4+ in order to function properly.