What Are Rich Snippet Plugins? A Complete Beginner’s Guide!

Rich snippets are a more advanced form of snippets that also contain other elements such as rating stars, links, images, prices, and other forms of information.

They increase your website’s overall appeal and look and lure people to click on your posts over your competitors’.

How? By offering extra information to search engines about the content on your website.

At present, your site or pages show up in a search engine with their title, URL, and meta description. Rich snippet plugins can change this appearance by providing the opportunity to share additional and relevant details about your website. This includes star rating, user review, or extra information that informs users more about what to expect from your website.

So how can you enhance your WordPress website display with rich snippet plugins? The ideal way is to use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.

Google Structured Data Markup allows you to scrap a section of code from your website’s backend. Then you mark it up by defining different factors in a dropdown menu. The tool then generates a markup code (which is also known as structured data or schema code) that you can later add to your website’s header.

However, it is easier said than done. The ‘add the markup code to the site’s header’ part is actually very tricky. When not done properly, you may mess up your theme if you do not know where to put the markup. This is why we recommend that you use a WordPress-rich snippet plugin for the same.

WordPress-rich snippet plugins can generate schema markup codes for your complete website. Some of them even allow you to manually edit the markup. This way, you do not have to install any code in the header of your site. All you need to do is install the correct plugin.

There are several rich snippet plugins available for WordPress. For it to work well on your website and generate the required results, you need to first understand what they are and then choose wisely. But first, let us discuss the benefits of using rich snippets.

Benefits of rich snippet plugins for WordPress Website

Apart from increasing the appeal of your website in search engine listings, rich snippets provide the following benefits:

Improve online visibility

When you add structured data to your website, it helps search engines better understanding the context of your webpages. This increased understanding of rich snippet plugins allows them to display your content in a relevant and useful way. This is important because search engines aim to match the search context of their users. So, when you create schema markup for your website, you improve search engines’ confidence in your webpages. This in turn increases your chance of being recommended in search. Coupled with effective search engine optimization, this will help your webpages rank higher in searches.

Increase eCommerce sales

If you sell products through a WordPress website, with the help of WooCommerce or some other similar platform, rich snippet plugins can help you increase visitors to your product pages. Details like item availability and price range will also help you improve your clickthrough rate.

Help visitors see whether your site responds to your query

Rich snippet plugins remove the guesswork for search engine users as they provide additional information. If your product listings feature-rich snippets, the users can find out what you offer and even see social proofs like ratings inside the snippet. In simple terms, the more details you provide, the better are your chances of attracting and converting users.

Are rich snippets the same as featured snippets?

Often, rich snippet plugins are confused with featured snippets. So, let’s discuss and clarify the difference between the two.

In simple terms, a featured snippet is a solution to a search query that comes up at the top of a search engine result. It is often accompanied by images, textual links, and videos. When your website is SEO optimized and you have been successful in answering people’s queries, some of your webpages may appear as a featured snippet.

In contrast, rich snippet plugins will not take your website above organic listings and paid ads on search engine pages. However, they can generate more clicks by offering useful information to search engine users with search engine marketing. Also, Google shows multiple rich snippets on each page.

Additionally, rich snippets are less difficult to obtain. When you use a rich snippet plugin, your webpages will start showing relevant data in search engines after a certain period. However, it is not easy to get featured snippets. For that, you need to have perfect on-page SEO and high DA mentions to be considered as a reputed source of answers.

Final Thoughts

Rich snippet plugins can help you stand out in search engine results and get more clicks. But remember that the structured data behind them is part of something much bigger. Moreover, the structure of the snippets plays an important role in determining the click rate of a search result. The usage of rich snippets is especially noticeable with regular search results and can help the snippet being clicked more often. Advanced digital marketing techniques will help you acquire these snippets to give you a better appearance on search engines.