Display WordPress Ratings on Your Website

WordPress is the world’s #1 content management system (CMS) and the most popular blogging platform. It was originally started as a simple blogging platform that relied on users to “vote” for posts. As the platform grew in popularity and users found it more useful, they began to see the value in displaying other users’ opinions and whether or not they’re correct. This is where the concept of a “rating” came from. The more people use it, the more it’ll catch on and become an accepted part of the English language. Sorry, I just had to share that with you.

Why Should You Display WordPress Ratings On Your Website?

If you’re looking to build a serious blog, you’ll want to find a way to display your readers’ opinions about your content. Everyone likes to feel like they’re part of a community and that their opinion matters. One of the best ways to make your readers feel involved and engaged is by listening to what they have to say. Giving them the option to rate your content is the simplest and most reliable way to do that.

How Do You Display WordPress Ratings On Your Website?

There are a few different ways to display WordPress ratings on your website. The first thing you should do is to decide in which format you want to present the data. Do you want to use a simple star rating system like most blogging platforms? Or, do you want to go the extra mile by adding in little details like the number of posts each user has published?

The second thing you need to do is pick the right data to aggregate. For my own blog, I use a plugin called “WPRating” which presents simple star ratings in the form of a percentage. This way, I can easily see how my readers feel about my content at a glance.

When Should You Display WordPress Ratings On Your Website?

There are numerous situations where you might want to display WordPress ratings on your website. Some examples include:

• To determine the value and quality of your content
• As a way of motivating your readers to continue on your site
• To establish a benchmark for your content (e.g., how does this blog compare to others in terms of ratings?)
• To determine the relative popularity of your content (e.g., I want to find the most popular blog posts of all time. How do I go about doing this? By looking at the ratings!)
• To establish the general reputation of your website (e.g., if I search for “Chicago restaurants,” your site should come up first under the results. Why? Because you have the most prominent restaurant rating on your site)
• To provide an incentive for your readers to come back (e.g., you’ll give readers the opportunity to earn VIP status by posting regularly)
• To provide a place for your readers to give feedback (e.g., a forum where you can ask questions about blogging or online marketing)

How Do You Aggregate The Data?

The term “aggregate” simply means to collect or gather together. In the case of WordPress ratings, you’ll want to gather together all of the user data that is available to you. You have a couple of options here as well. You can either:

• Create a database of all of the relevant information (e.g., the name of the user, the article/blog post they’ve rated, the date, etc.) and then import it into your own spreadsheet or database. (This is probably the simplest way to do it. Simply create a database table named “ratings” and then enter the required information. Presto, you’ve got a database of WordPress ratings!)
• Or, you can create a simple form on your site that requests users to fill out a simple form with their name, email, and whether or not they’ve rated a particular blog post or article. (I find this method to be the most reliable because you can’t cheat by having users “rate” content that they’ve never even seen before. Everyone must explicitly agree to rate the content before their rating can be included.)

Do You Need To Be Subscribed To Be Able To Use WordPress Ratings?

As a content creator, one of the important things you need to do is establish trust. If you want your readers to continue to engage with your content, you need to give them some assurance that what they’re seeing is legitimate and, more importantly, you have no intention of abusing their trust. (I would recommend avoiding the use of “dark patterns” when doing this online. These are hidden tricks that allow an organization to get something for free without having to comply with the rules or regulations. For example, asking users to fill out a form that will give them access to a hidden area of your site for free. This is often accomplished through the use of persuasive techniques.)

Establishing a legitimate trust relationship with your readers is an incredibly important aspect of your editorial strategy. It is a two-way street and both you and your readers must be committed to walking the walk. To show my readers that what they’re seeing on my site is what I truly believe in and, as a result, they have the opportunity to trust me, I always make sure to disclose whenever I’m offering them something for free. (e.g., “Hey, my friends and I are having a virtual book club where we’ll be reading A Game of Thrones. If you’d like to join us, you can click here to access our site’s private forum where we’ll be providing additional content along with the reading of the book. This is a great opportunity to establish trust with our readers and I hope you’ll take advantage of it.”)

Do You Need To Be Confirmed By An Administrator To Use WordPress Ratings?

Another important thing to consider is whether or not you’ll need to be confirmed by an administrator to use WordPress ratings. Some blogging platforms, like HubSpot, allow anyone with a “creator” role to create and moderate content. However, if you’re going to be asking ordinary users to leave reviews on your site, you’ll want to ensure that they have the permission to do so. Simply ask an administrator to add them individually or, if you’d rather not do that, you can always create a user with special permissions for the sole purpose of moderating and approving reviews.

When it comes to moderating content and approving reviews, an extra set of hands is always a good thing. Even if you do have an administrator dedicated to reviewing content, it never hurts to have another pair of eyes looking at it. You can also utilize software like Revue which allows you to assign reviewers to content and then follow up with them to ensure everything is proceeding according to plan.

The key takeaway from this is to simply try out different methods and see what works and what doesn’t. You don’t want to rush into anything without some initial trial and error. That’s how you develop effective editorial strategies. Good luck out there.