The Best Plugins for Reviews and Testimonials in WordPress

There are many types of content that you can publish on your WordPress blog. However, if you want to drive sales, one of the best things you can do is write in-depth reviews for the products or services you’re promoting.

You can easily write and format reviews using the WordPress Block Editor. However, there are also a lot of handy plugins you can use to make your online reviews more engaging. For example, you can add star ratings, include side-by-side table comparisons, and more.

In this article, we will introduce you to five of the best review plugins for WordPress. We’ll talk about what makes each of them special and help you pick which one to use. Let’s get to it!

Widget vs. Plugin

Before we get started, some of you might confuse a widget with a plugin. In WordPress terms, what is the difference between a widget and a plugin? A widget displays small blocks of content on either the left or right side of the page. A plugin, on the other hand, adds more features to the site. Both are preprogrammed, which saves site owners time and effort from developing and coding the functions they want on their site. Like plugins, there are different kinds of widgets, such as a review widget.

Plugin 1: WP Product Review Lite

Out of all the WordPress review plugins out there, this is one of our favorites when it comes to style. By using WP Product Review Lite, you can easily add review ‘boxes’ to any of your WordPress posts. These can include ratings for specific elements, an overall score, and pros and cons lists.

Using this reviewer plugin is also remarkably simple. It adds a box labeled “Is this post a review?” to the Block Editor. When you check that box, you’ll get access to a collection of options that you can fill out to populate the review box. As far as WordPress testimonial plugins go, this one is perfect for beginners, and is a top option if you’re concerned with style.

Plugin 2: WP Review

For a rating plugin, WP Review is one of the most popular WordPress review plugins around, and it’s easy to see why. Just like our previous pick, this one enables you to rate different aspects of any product using a star system, and uses those numbers to generate an overall score.

However, WP Review goes a step further. This reviews plugin also enables you to summarize your review, highlight key features, and provide a user review section. That means your site’s visitors can also score whatever items you review, giving other readers or customers more information to work with.

The only downside to this plugin is that it doesn’t include dedicated pros and cons sections, but that’s something we’re willing to overlook. Plus, WP Review happens to be highly customizable making it a perfect option for developers.

Plugin 3: Rich Reviews

This is the user review plugin on our list. This plugin takes a different approach than our previous two entries. Instead of enabling you to add review sections to your pages, it lets users leave their testimonials throughout your website.

With the Rich Reviews plugin activated, visitors can review your pages, posts, and products. You can configure what parts of your website users can leave testimonials on, of course, as well as approve them before they go live.

What’s more, this WP review plugin also generates a rich snippet from your reviews. That means rating information will be included in your pages’ search results, making them more visually attractive and more likely to attract clicks. It is worth noting that Rich Reviews hasn’t been updated in a while, though, so you’ll want to test it carefully to ensure that it works on your site.

Plugin 4: Site Reviews

Site Reviews is similar to Rich Reviews in terms of functionality. It enables your site’s visitors to leave reviews, which you can publish using a block, shortcode, and widget. However, the overall style is more reminiscent of sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp.

Along with enabling users to leave reviews, you have full control over which ones to display and where they’ll go. You can even add CAPTCHAs to your review submission forms, in order to avoid spam. Overall, this WP review plugin is particularly user-friendly. It’s a top option for service websites, where testimonials and reviews are particularly important.

Plugin 5: Customer Reviews for WooCommerce

Ratings and reviews offer you a great way to quickly convey the quality of a particular product. That makes them perfect for eCommerce websites since customers tend to look for highly-rated products.

Out of the box, WooCommerce already includes working review functionality. However, the Customer Reviews for WooCommerce extension takes things a step further, by automating reminders for recent customers. In other words, whenever someone purchases on your site, they’ll get a quick message asking them to leave a customer review.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because a lot of top eCommerce sites also use this technique, and it works very well. The more reviews your products get, the more you can increase sales – as long as those reviews are largely positive, of course.

How to Create a Testimonial Section in WordPress

Aside from using a WordPress review plugin, another way to instill confidence in your products or services is by including customer testimonials.

Here’s how to create your own testimonial section.

Step 1: Gather Testimonials

Before you can show off your glowing reviews, you’ll need to collect them through a contact form. A contact form plugin will work well. Alternatively, you may receive testimonials through email or in writing.

Step 2: Install a Testimonial Plugin and Start Inputting Data

You could display your testimonials as text posts, but the easiest way to create a testimonial section is to use a plugin. Depending on your needs, you can choose from options like Strong Testimonials, Testimonials Widget, or Easy Testimonials. If you don’t approve of any of these choices, there are other plugins that are more customizable, such as having custom fields, review forms, and other useful features.

Once downloaded, your WordPress dashboard will show a section called “Testimonials” (or the plugin’s name). From there, you’ll input new testimonials and potentially include information such as names, emails, and star ratings.

Step 3: Display The Testimonials

Displaying your testimonials generally involves adding a block to your WordPress site, though sometimes you’ll use a shortcode or a widget—research your chosen plugin to learn the specifics. Most sites display testimonials as either a grid or a slider.

How to Create a Testimonial Slider

A testimonial slider is a rotating carousel of customer testimonials. Once again, sliders are easy to create using plugins. Simply install your chosen plugin, then access it from the WP admin dashboard and click to create a new slider, rotator, or carousel (these all mean the same thing).

Every plugin offers different capabilities and settings, but some of the best testimonial slider plugins include:

• Strong Testimonials – This plugin can display one to three posts simultaneously, and it integrates seamlessly with your WordPress theme. Conveniently, Strong Testimonials works as a testimonial and review plugin.
• Testimonial – Testimonial allows you to exhibit unlimited quotes as a slider, grid, or list on any page or widget. With features like AutoPlay, star ratings, and “stop-on-hover,” it’s infinitely customizable. It’s also schema markup ready to help with your SEO.
• Testimonial Slider – Sometimes, simplicity is best. Testimonial Slider boasts a clean, minimalist design and lets you choose from a range of primary colors. Best of all, the plugin is mobile-friendly, and a lifetime pro license is only $79.

Important Tips for Including Review Plugins

Whichever review plugin you use, it’s important to keep a few things in mind if you want to get the most out of it:

• Give honest ratings to the products you’re reviewing, in order to build trust with your audience.
• Be as detailed as possible in your reviews, but also summarize key points for ‘skim readers’.
• Make sure to filter out spam reviews, to keep your review sections clean.
• If you enable review submissions, don’t only accept positive ones.

Ultimately, online reviews are all about building trust. Visitors will rely on your judgment and that of your site’s other users to make informed decisions.

After all, not everyone has time to read multiple in-depth online reviews for every product or service they want to purchase. If visitors know that they can trust your product reviews, this can help you drive a lot more conversions.

Improve the Customer Experience With a WordPress Review Plugin

If you want your reviews to be a hit with your audience, you can’t rely on boring walls of text to get the job done. What people really like are images, comparison lists, and other types of engaging elements. Fortunately, you can easily add those and other review features to your WordPress website by using plugins.

However, if you want to provide the best possible customer experience, you’ll also need to use a reliable web host that can handle your site’s traffic and all that extra functionality. That’s where we come in, so feel free to check out our plans! We can assist with all your WordPress needs, from how to create a landing page in WordPress, how to set up a WordPress knowledge base, to even how to use MailChimp with WordPress. You can count on us.