Earning a five-star rating is always a great feeling. You work hard for positive customer reviews, so display them proudly!
Customers expect businesses with excellent products or services to highlight their good reviews. Google recognizes this, too, and rewards websites that feature genuine reviews from trusted platforms.
Therefore, showcasing testimonials on your website and striving to collect more is essential. Displaying ratings not only helps customers make purchase decisions faster but also enhances your website’s visibility.
A study found that 58% of people feel positive about choosing a local business with a 5-star rating. So, how do you achieve this?
WordPress star-rating plugins are the solution! In this article, we’ll discuss why you need to use WordPress star-rating plugins and explore the 7 best star-rating plugins to help you find the perfect one for your needs.
A. Why Use a WordPress Star Rating Plugin?
Altering and adding code to your WordPress core files to showcase ratings and customer reviews comes with significant risks—one small mistake can cause your site to malfunction.
This approach is only advisable if you’re an experienced developer. Using a WordPress star rating plugin offers numerous benefits:
1. Enhanced SEO Visibility and Rankings
Showcasing real customer reviews and star ratings on your website can significantly boost your traffic. Reviews often contain keywords and phrases used by potential customers when hunting for products or services, improving your search engine ranking for various keywords, including long-tail keywords.
Google takes into account reviews and ratings from your Google Business profile, third-party rating platforms, and your own website considering factors like quantity, sentiment, recency, and overall rating across various platforms.
2. Improved Chances of Getting Featured in Google’s Rich Snippets
Google’s rich snippets display detailed information about your website and business, such as images, ratings, location, and price range.
A quality WordPress star rating plugin allows you to add review schema markup to your website’s code without needing to code yourself.
This markup data helps Google generate and display rich snippets for your website, increasing your visibility.
3. Establishing Trust with Potential Customers
Displaying user-generated real reviews and ratings from various platforms on your website is an effective way to leverage social proof.
It helps establish and build trust by showing potential customers that you are a legitimate business that values its customers. This also encourages more testimonials from your existing customers.
4. Customization Options and Easy Ratings Management
Star rating plugins enable you to customize the appearance of reviews on your website through customized review badges, filters, and display formats.
This not only enhances the visual appeal of your reviews but also allows you to present them in a style that best matches your website design.
B. Best Star Rating Plugins
1. Reviews Feed Pro
Reviews Feed Pro by Smash Balloon allows you to easily display reviews with star ratings from platforms like Facebook, Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor on your WordPress website.
If you have numerous positive reviews on these platforms, you can effortlessly add them to your site to enhance social proof.
Once this star rating plugin is set up, it automatically fetches your reviews, saving you time and keeping your website up-to-date with the latest star ratings.
This star rating plugin offers multiple layouts, moderation tools to hide specific reviews, an easy-to-use feed editor with customization options, and more.
You can display your starred reviews and testimonials by adding a shortcode anywhere on your site, including pages, posts, and even sidebar and footer widgets.
2. Quick and Easy Testimonials
Quick and Easy Testimonials allows you to enter user testimonials and reviews with star ratings directly from your WordPress dashboard. This is particularly useful if you’re using a plugin like WPForms to collect star ratings.
You can customize each review with various entry options, including star rating, product or service used, person’s name, email, and company role.
The free version offers multiple themes and blocks that are compatible with the block editor of WordPress for displaying your starred reviews. Alternatively, you can use the included shortcode to easily add reviews to your website.
3. WPForms
WPForms is the leading WordPress form plugin, trusted by over 5 million WordPress users. It is exceptionally beginner-friendly and packed with powerful features, including the facility to let users submit ratings through your forms.
Adding a star rating field to any of your forms is simple. Just select the Rating field within the drag-and-drop form builder.
You can also combine star ratings with a testimonial form using the Testimonial Form Template available in the Form Templates Pack addon. This allows you to collect ratings, reviews, and testimonials all in one place.
4. Woocommerce Customer Reviews
Customer Reviews provides WooCommerce websites, regardless of size, with the capability to include verified reviews. It functions by inviting verified customers to contribute their reviews, offering the flexibility to rate various products or services.
Tailored to the requisites of eCommerce enterprises, this review plugin emphasizes sales, SEO, engagement, and customer loyalty. It facilitates the utilization of schema markup to enhance your rankings.
5. Rate My Post
Rate My Post is a distinctive plugin that enables your visitors to submit star ratings to your posts and pages. This feature provides valuable feedback on your writing, helping you improve your content.
When a customer submits a star rating, they can also provide private feedback about their rating. The plugin offers the option to display the star review before your post, serving as social proof for future readers.
Additionally, it includes a detailed stats section, allowing you to track which posts your readers prefer. You can even utilize the provided top posts widget to showcase the posts with the highest star rating in your sidebar.
6. Site Reviews
Site Reviews allows your visitors to submit star ratings ranging from 1 to 5 stars. This plugin enables you to highlight your top reviews at the top of your site, ensuring that visitors see them first.
With a built-in approval system, you can moderate ratings before they are published on your site, preventing spam and unfair reviews from affecting your business negatively. Moreover, you can choose to require users to log in before they can post a star rating.
This plugin facilitates quick responses to reviews, displays reviews and star ratings throughout your website, and offers additional features to enhance your review management experience.
7. All in One SEO (AIOSEO)
All-in-One SEO (AIOSEO) stands out as the premier SEO plugin for WordPress, trusted by over 3 million websites. It provides the most extensive SEO toolkit to effortlessly enhance your rankings.
Featuring a setup wizard, AIOSEO automatically assists you in selecting the optimal SEO settings for your website.
Additionally, AIOSEO incorporates product review schema markup, enabling you to incorporate star ratings that appear in search results.
By displaying rich snippets, you can enhance your presence on search engines and attract more traffic to your website.
C. Tips for Displaying Star Ratings on Your WordPress Website
Maximizing the impact of your ratings involves effectively utilizing WordPress plugins and following some expert tips. Here are our top recommendations:
- Place Reviews Where They Are Most Visible
Strategic placement is key. Ensure your reviews are prominently displayed without being obstructed by banners or popups. Positioning them above the fold can be effective, but make sure the layout remains clean and uncluttered.
- Monitor Activity on Your Site
Regularly monitor how your settings impact site performance. While auto-updates are useful, you should also track site activity to feature positive testimonials and maintain an optimized user interface for your rating widget.
- Leverage Review Management System
Consider using a star rating plugin, which offers a robust review management system. Key features include:
– Moderating spam reviews
– Receiving notifications for both positive and negative testimonials
- Use Form Logic
If you incorporate forms, apply form logic. For instance, configure your forms so that low-rating reviewers are not immediately prompted to share their feedback on social media. This way, only positive reviewers are encouraged to share their experiences publicly.
D. Summarizing The Best Star Rating Plugins for Winning Customer Trust
Most WordPress website and blog owners seek free plugins to boost their efficiency and productivity.
Here are the best WordPress rating plugins that make it easy to collect customer feedback, suggestions, and comments, helping you elevate your business quickly.
The star rating plugins would provide instant feedback on the quality of a product or service, thus serving a vital purpose in online shopping.
With the many WordPress plugins at one’s disposal, one will need to pick a suitable one that fits the requirements of a website and also the needs of customers.
This article shows the best star-rating plugins to be easily included in your WordPress site so you can build trust with your audience and convert more visitors into loyal customers.
Suggested read: Market Segmentation: Knowing Your Customer Base
E. Common FAQs on The Best Star Rating Plugins for Winning Customer Trust
Are star rating plugins compatible with all WordPress themes?
Most star-rating plugins are designed to be compatible with a varied range of WordPress themes. However, it’s always a good idea to check the plugin’s documentation or test it on a staging site to ensure compatibility.
How can I encourage customers to leave ratings and reviews?
Encourage customers to leave ratings by sending follow-up emails, offering incentives like discounts, and making the rating process simple and user-friendly. Displaying existing positive reviews prominently can also motivate new customers to share their feedback.
Can star rating plugins affect my website’s performance?
While most star-rating plugins are optimized for performance, activating too many plugins can slow down your site. Choose a lightweight plugin and regularly monitor your website’s speed and performance.
