How to Add Star Ratings to a WordPress Business Directory

Want to add star ratings to a WordPress business directory site? With the Business Directory Plugin, ratings and reviews are mere clicks away!

Running a business directory without ratings and reviews? Let's put an end to that madness right away! All you need is the right directory listings plugin and you'll be seeing stars!

So which WordPress directory plugin so you go with? Why not the top choice for 30,000+ users? The original business directory plugin for WordPress: the aptly named Business Directory Plugin.

Full disclosure – the Business Directory plugin is indeed our plugin. But as of late 2020, we've reworked our ratings module and we simply must brag about it. All you'll need to get started is our Basic plan, which includes ratings and reviews.

In this tutorial, we'll take you on a brief tour of the ratings module to show you how to add star ratings to your business directory. And if you aren't ready to take the plunge with our paid plugin, we have a free plugin that can take for a spin first. Our free version is still one of the most powerful plugins to add listings to any WordPress site!

One more thing: although we don't offer a free trial, we do have a full 14-day money-back guarantee for all our paid plans. So if you have a business listings site, you can skip the dedicated ratings plugin and handle WordPress reviews with a plugin that does it all.

Introducing the Ratings Module

We can't think of a single prominent business listings site that doesn't have ratings, comments, and reviews as a feature. Displaying the average rating of an establishment is something that website users have come to rely on. In fact, they expect it!

Ratings and reviews are so important that they are even featured in search engine results routinely. In the Business Directory Plugin, they are also displayed in search results. And why not? They help users stay engaged on your site.

And if you optimize your directory for SEO, our ratings module will help you there too. As we mentioned, ratings and reviews are often found in search engine results. How does that work? Glad you asked! It works through some code called structured data and rich snippets.

Guess what? Business Directory Plugin includes all the rich snippets needed for you to look great in any search engine – even the coveted Google. And as of December 2020, we've updated to Ratings v5.2 which includes the following features and fixes:

• Updated the rating stars for style and accessibility
• Cut down on overhead by replacing images with SVG, excluding the javascript, and minimizing CSS
• Combine the separate admin and front end javascript (less javascript makes your site faster)
• The ratings form now match the form styling to the listing form by default
• Updates and fixes for security issues
• Hide the ratings field setting to hide for admins in the listing form (this streamlines things since it's always hidden for admins).

Note: requires Business Directory 5.8+ to function properly.

Adding star ratings to your directory

Adding star ratings and reviews to your directory is actually something you can do in just one easy step. The installation process is detailed in our ratings module documentation.

Once you've installed the required modules, all that's left is to configure the settings via the ratings administration screen. To edit the settings for ratings, go to Directory → Settings → Ratings.

There are two main sections in the Ratings settings. General Settings and E-mail Settings.

General Settings

First, let's dig into the general settings. Here's what they look like in the Business Directory Plugin backend:

• Enable ratings: Check this box in the settings to enable ratings on your listings… how easy was that?!
• Ratings threshold
• Allow unregistered users to post reviews?
• Require email to unregistered users for posting reviews?
• Allow (some) HTML in the Rating comments?
• Rating Comments
• Admin must approve reviews?

As you can see from the above settings, you'll have a lot of control over how your ratings and reviews behave on your directory site. The above settings allow for several different combinations, meaning you'll never be restricted in how you set up your directory.

E-mail Settings

Next, let's take a quick look at what's possible in the e-mail settings:

• Notify Listing owner of new ratings?
• Notify site admin of approved/submitted ratings?
• New Rating Posted email message
• Rating pending approval email message

Sometimes it's nice to edit e-mail notifications as they relate to a specific form, in this case, the ratings form. The e-mail settings here allow you to take care of both users and listers… not to mention you'll have no trouble administrating everything.

Wrapping up

So there you have it! Adding star ratings and reviews doesn't require a dedicated plugin at all. Just use the best WordPress directory plugin out there – Business Directory Plugin.

If you haven't tried Business Directory Plugin yet, what are you waiting for? Remember, there's a 14-day money-back guarantee on all our premium plans. What's more, you can dig into many of our features with our free WordPress plugin. Get started today!