How it works

Woocommerce is a plugin for the Wordpress CMS that allows for an e-commerce solution to be integrated with the CMS. Our Verified Reviews connector for Woocommerce is available for download on our website or on the marketplace. Once the connector is installed and configured, everything is automatic, Verified Reviews communicates directly with your e-commerce solution.

• Automatic recovery of orders and requests for opinion: The connector communicates directly your latest orders to us. Our platform thus retrieves the orders for which we must send Review requests, and this according to the configuration entered when setting up your account as it will be described in the following document.
• Displaying product reviews on your website: The connector allows you to display your product reviews. It collects them on our platform and displays them directly on your product pages.
• Displaying the Verified Reviews rating widget: You have the option to display a floating widget on your site. This widget displays your average overall Verified Reviews rating to your visitors, reassuring potential customers of the quality of your services.

 

Installation and configuration of the connector

Downloading the connector's archive 

The connector is available to be downloaded from :

 

1/ Marketplace Wordpress

• Log in to the WordPress admin interface and go to the "Plugins" tab.
• Click "Add" next to the title.

• Search "verified reviews" in the search bar

• Click on "Install Now" then "Activate."

 

2/ Your Verified Reviews account customer space

• To access it, simply log in to  http://www.verified-reviews.com/ and click on the "Orders / Our eCommerce Modules" menu.

• Click on the "Download" button to get an archive.
• Once the archive is obtained, log in to your Wordpress site's admin interface and go to the "Plugins > Add Plugins" tab.
• You can import the connector archive (in zip) by clicking on "Upload an extension"

• Select the archive you downloaded previously and click the "Open" button.
• Click on « Install now »
• Once the installation is complete, click "Activate Extension".

 

WooCommerce module configuration

To configure the module in the WooCommerce environment, please go to the 'Verified Reviews' menu via the site's admin interface.

Configuration Section : 

General configuration 

The "CONFIGURATION" section will allow you to activate your module. Just fill in the two fields "Secret Key" and "Website ID" that you can find on your Verified Reviews client space. From the "Config > My Account" menu, copy your integration codes (see image below).

Select "Yes" in "activate Module" to enable the module.

 

Configuration WPML

In the case of multilingual sites, our connector is compatible with the WPML plugin.

The default multilingual configuration follows the following behavior:

• Each platform retrieves orders in the language that corresponds to it, allowing you to send request emails in the language of your customer (e.g. on the ES site, the order will be retrieved from the platform http://opiniones-verificadas.com) and to collect reviews in the languages of the pages. 
• The FR product pages will then display the reviews collected on http://avis-verifies.com, the ES pages will display those from http://opiniones-verificadas.com etc.

For this, you must have Verified Reviews accounts on different platforms and complete the Secret Key and Website ID specific to each account.

Your website is available in French, Spanish, Italian and English. To benefit from the multilingual configuration, you must have an account on each of our platforms.

• http://avis-verifies.com (FR)
• http://opiniones-verificadas.com (ES)
• http://recensioni-verificate.com (IT)
• https://www.verified-reviews.co.uk/  (UK)

If you are using the WPML plugin, please select the "Yes" option to the question "Are you using the WPML Plugin?".

The control panel detects installed languages and automatically adapts. You can then copy the secret key and website ID for each Verified Reviews account into the corresponding fields.

Example :

 

Google Shopping Configuration 

To allow Verified Reviews to retrieve additional data about your products (necessary for sending the product review feed to Google Shopping):

• Please go to the Wordpress back office in the "Verified Reviews" menu.
• In the "Configuration" section you will find the following three fields: Brand, MPN and GTIN.
• Please select from the list the corresponding attribute.

Click on « Save ».

If you don't have the possibility to assign attributes, it means you first have to create them in your back office. To do that, go to the Products > Attributes section:

 

Create each necessary attribute next:

 

The created attributes are displayed in a adjacent list.

 

The created attributes will be displayed in a adjacent list: Then go back to the module configuration page. You should see the list of attributes created when you click on the selection fields.

Select the attribute corresponding to each information: MPN, GTIN, Brand and then click on "Save".

 

In order for us to retrieve this information automatically when we retrieve orders from your customers, it is necessary for each product sheet to have this information fully completed.

Go to the product page in the Product Data section > Attributes:

 

To add an attribute, click on the selection field that defaults to "Product Custom Attribute". The list of attributes created in Products > Attributes will appear.

 

Choose the first attribute to complete and click "Add":

 

Choose if this attribute should be visible or not on the product page. Click "Add". A pop-up will open asking for the name of the attribute for this product.

 

Complete the information and click "OK". The value will then be displayed in the "Value(s)" frame:

Repeat this process for the other attributes. Once finished, don't forget to save the attributes and update the product record.

 

« Design » Section

Choose the design for the display of stars on product pages

You have 3 choices for the design of the stars at the top of the product cards:

Select a model for the review block on the product page

You have the option to choose between two templates for the review block on your product pages.

Change the color of the stars

Define the number of product reviews displayed

You can set the maximum number of reviews you want to display by default at the bottom of your product pages. The other reviews will be hidden, the visitor just needs to click on “More comments…” to view them.

 

Display the stars on the category pages 

 

 

Add the "Helpful Reviews" option to your reviews

Helpful reviews are displayed by default in the product reviews list.

You can disable them via this button : 

 

Show the photos with the reviews

 

Show reduced version of the product review list 

 

If you want to display the product review header in a condensed form as for the mobile version:

 

CSS customization

You can add custom CSS directly here for a quick customization of the display of the reviews.

However, if your customization is advanced, please modify the source code via your FTP server.

Don't forget to save your configurations once your choices are made!

 « Export manual » Section

Automatic order retrieval only retrieves orders created after the module installation. All orders placed prior to installation, regardless of any subsequent status changes, are considered “not to be retrieved”.

We offer a tool, however, to be able to make a first manual export of orders that will allow you to generate your first reviews quickly by polling the customers of your orders already placed. This tool will allow you to download a CSV file containing the orders and upload it directly to our platform.

Go to the "Verified Reviews" tab in your back office to access the orders export.

 

For the details of the procedure, go to the “First order export“ section of this document.

 

Configuration of module on Verified Reviews

Now that your module is installed and configured on your Wordpress environment, you have one last step to ensure the module communicates properly with our platform.

Go to your Verified Reviews customer space in the menu "Integration > Configure my Woocommerce Module".

 

If the "Configure My Woocommerce Module" tab does not appear, what should I do?

If the "Configure my Woocommerce module" tab does not appear, it means that your Verified Reviews account has not been configured for Woocommerce.

 

To change this, you need to go to Config > My account

Then in the My Attestation > eCommerce Solution box, choose Woocommerce

 

 

Save the change by clicking the "Save" button at the bottom of the page.

 

Retrieving the configuration

This step will allow us to retrieve the configuration of your Wordpress site in order to set up our module according to it.

• Click "Save Website config" to check the connection between Verified Reviews and Wordpress.
• If a "success" message appears and green checkmarks appear in the right section "Module Status", the module is correctly configured. If another message appears, check the previous configurations and if the problem persists, contact Verified Reviews support by going to: "Config> Access Support".

 

Automatic order retrieval

In order to be able to send review requests to your customers, you must configure the "Automatic Order Retrieval" section.

• Activate automation: if 'yes', our engine will come each night to retrieve the orders for which we must survey customers. This is the main condition to start collection of your orders.
• When should we ask for your customers' feedback :
  • When creating the order by selecting "At the Order": in this case ALL orders will be retrieved (including canceled, refunded orders etc.)
  • By clicking on "Change Order Status" you can set a specific order status (or multiple) . If you choose this option, you must select the status(es) from the list of available statuses.

Review Collection 

This step will allow you to configure the review requests. So all you need to do is fill out the form following the instructions. If you have any problems, hover over the "?" to get help.

• Delay before review request is sent: Choose how much time after the chosen event above that the request for review will be sent by Verified Reviews to your customer. This corresponds to the number of days between the moment the order is retrieved by our services and the sending of the review request.
• Email extensions: by default allows you not to sent request to customers of marketplaces. We have already added default extensions (the extension is what comes after the @). You can add more to the end, separated by a semicolon ';'.
• Retrieve reviews on your products: Check "yes" to retrieve product reviews.
• Show product reviews: Check "yes" if you want to show the reviews collected on your product pages.

Configuring rich snippets 

This section concerns Rich Snippets (or enriched snippets) which allow for more information to be provided to search engines, thus improving your SEO. Rich Snippets are structured data that will indicate to search engines that your product has reviews and allow them to know the number of reviews and the average rating.

• If you want to activate product rich snippets: Choose "yes" if you want to add the structured data of your product reviews to your product pages. 
• Does your WordPress/WooCommerce theme already include Rich Snippets: Choose "yes" if your product page already includes the Product tag, we will then only integrate the AggregateRating (rating) and Reviews (reviews) tags. If your product page does not include the Product tag, then choose "no", we will integrate all the tags necessary for Google to detect the product.
• What types of snippets do you want: There are two ways to integrate your rich snippet "Microdata" or "JSON-LD". If you already have rich snippets, make sure to use the same format. Generally, the format used in WordPress is JSON-LD.

Widgets display

You can paste the code corresponding to the floating widget you created. For more details, you can check the section “Display of site reviews” of this document.

Click on "Send this configuration". Our platform communicates directly with the module to save this configuration.

You are now automated, you can track review requests sent to your customers from "Stats > Reporting - Review Requests".

 

First order export

To quickly get your first reviews, the Verified Reviews module integrates an order export function that allows you to generate a properly formatted CSV file that can be directly uploaded via your Verified Reviews acount. The first order export allows you to quickly generate the first reviews by polling customers of your already placed orders.

Go to the back office of your store and go to the "MANUAL EXPORT" section in the connector configuration page.

Options details :

• Since - until : you can retrieve orders up to 12 months (as defined in our Terms of Use).
• Retrieve product reviews: select "Yes" if you want to retrieve product reviews for these orders (essential if you want to survey your products).
• Export orders with status: you can select one or more retrieval statuses.

Once you have retrieved the CSV generated by clicking the "Export" button at the bottom left, you can go directly to the orders download area via the following URL : https://www.avis-verifies.com/index.php?page=mod_upload_commandes.

You must upload the CSV and associate the fields with the columns of the CSV file. Be sure to follow the tutorial and check the information provided before validating the order import.

If you want to retrieve product reviews, the csv id_product column must be associated with the "Product Reference" field. If you do not select the correct column, the collected product reviews will not show up.

Automatic order retrieval

General procedure

We retrieve your orders according to the configuration you set in your Verified Reviews account > Collect reviews > Configure my Woocommerce module. You can track the retrieved orders in your account in Stats > Reporting - Review requests/ Product Reviews / Delayed Product Reviews.

When we also retrieve the product details, the product reference is the product ID (wordpress post ID). If a review is posted about the product, this review will be associated with the product ID in your Verified Reviews account. Then this review will be synchronized to your site and will be displayed on the product page corresponding to this product ID.

Our order retrieval cron runs every 6 hours on your site to check if there are any new orders to retrieve.

Retrieval Hooks

This part of the documentation covers the use of "hooks" and functions of our connector to which they are linked.

In order for our connector to be 100% functional, the following hooks must be present in your theme.

• add_action('woocommerce_thankyou') : This hook is used as the woocommerce_thankyou action to mark orders. It is present in case the woocommerce_thankyou action has not been executed, to avoid missing orders.
• add_action('woocommerce_checkout_order_processed') : This hook is triggered upon confirmation of an order. This allows us to mark the passage of a new order, to retrieve it at a later time according to the configuration previously made, and to trigger the sending of a request for review.

Google Shopping

In order to be able to share your product reviews with Google Shopping, we need the GTIN_EAN (Europe) or GTIN_UPC (US, Canada) which is the most precise data for Google or, if necessary, the brand + MPN pair. It is also necessary to provide brand and MPN even if you have GTINs: the more information we can provide about your products to Google, the easier it will be for Google to associate the reviews with the products.

During automatic order retrieval, we will automatically fetch Google Shopping information as long as it is correctly filled out in the product pages of the WordPress back-office catalog. For more information about the necessary configuration, please refer to the section Configuration.

 

Display of Website reviews

Updating website widgets

Once you have collected more than three site reviews, you can add our floating widget to your website directly through the module.

Tip: a floating widget will always be visible, regardless of the user's scroll.

• Access your Verified Reviews account and click on My Account. « Display reviews > integrate my widgets ».
• Choose the widget that you prefer, set it as a floating widget then choose the display, the position and the type of opening of the certificate, and finally click on "Create the widget".

You can either combine or separate the widgets, for example a floating widget for Desktop and mobile or one for desktop and a different one for mobile.

A floating widget that will show up on both desktop and mobile.

A floating widget that will show up on desktop

A floating widget that will show up on mobile

• The widget you just created will appear at the top of the page in the "MY WIDGETS" section, click on "Integrate" and copy the code from the first box "Widget code recovery" (unless otherwise stated).

• To add the widget script via the connector, go to the "Integration" section then "Configure my Woocommerce module" and scroll down to the "Widget Display" section.
• Select "Yes" for the question "Do you want to display the floating widget?" and paste the previously copied script into the corresponding box.

If you have created different widgets, e.g. one floating for Desktop and another for mobile, simply copy and paste both scripts one after the other.

To finish, click "Send this configuration".

Check on your site that the widget appears correctly (clear the cache if necessary).

Widgets modification 

To modify an already created widget, go to the "Display reviews> Integrate my widgets > My Widgets" section and make the desired changes to the widget of your choice then click "Update". We have cache on widgets, the changes will not appear immediately on your site.

Integrating the Iframe Widget

Once you have collected more than three website reviews, you can add an iframe to your website that directly displays the website reviews you have collected.

Access your Verified Reviews account and click on "Display reviews > Integrate my widgets" then choose either the "Vertical iFrame Widget" or "Horizontal iFrame Widget" section.

1. Choose the widget you prefer and click on the "Create my Widget" button, then copy the iFrame code and paste it into the location of your site where you want to display it. Unlike the widget, the iframe is not sent in the module configuration.
2. You can customize some features of the iframe with the different options presented under the code, then click the "Update" button.
3. If you want to customize the CSS of the iframe, you can add your CSS rules in the "Custom CSS" block, then click on the "Update" button.

A cache is present on the iframes. It is possible that your customization will not be visible immediately.

 

 Product review display

• On your Verified Reviews account, go to the "Collect reviews" section then "Configure my module".
• In the "Product Options" section, select "Yes" for the following two questions:
  
  • Do you want to get reviews on your products?
  • Do you want to display product reviews on your product pages?
• Cliquez sur « Envoyer cette configuration».

Note: For any new product review published, there is a 24-hour delay for it to appear on your website.

 

 

To check the display of product reviews, go to "Reviews>Product Reviews - Published", choose a review dated more than 24 hours ago and check its display on your website. You can then click on the "small arrow icon" to directly open the product page.

 

Technical recommandations 

This documentation presents the options available in the latest version of the module. It is always recommended to update your module to benefit from new features/bug fixes and to regularly check the connection with your module on our platform.

Module update

If your module has been customized (overrides, module files modified, etc.), make sure to make a copy of the files before updating and to test the update on a staging site before updating on your main site.

 

FAQ

📌 My reviews are not displayed on my website

Native Hooks are missing on your Woocommerce theme

The module is initially designed to hook onto the native hooks of WooCommerce

• Hook 'woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item_title' for displaying stars on category pages.

add_action('woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item_title') : This function is used on category pages, it displays the name and price of the products below the photo. It allows us to add the star block to this location.

• Hook ‘woocommerce_single_product_summary’ for displaying stars on product pages

add_action('woocommerce_single_product_summary') : This function adds information to the top right of the product page. It allows us to include the stars and number of reviews related to your product. It also adds structured data about your products if the option is enabled.

• Hook ‘woocommerce_product_tabs’ for displaying the list of reviews in a tab

add_filter('woocommerce_product_tabs') : This function adds tabs (e.g. description) to your product sheets. It allows you to add the "Reviews" tab and display your reviews.

 

If these hooks are already integrated into your theme, then the stars and review block should appear automatically.

If the stars or the review block do not appear after clearing the cache, you can either:

Manually add our specific hooks into your theme

• Display stars for category pages ⇒ do_action('netreviews_category_rating');
• Show stars for product pages ⇒ do_action('netreviews_product_rating');
• Show the list of reviews for a product ⇒ do_action('netreviews_product_reviews');

Insert our shortcodes into your theme builder/editor.

• Show the star ratings on the category pages ⇒ [netreviews_loop_product_rating]
• Show stars for product pages ⇒ [netreviews_product_rating]
• Show the list of reviews for a product ⇒ [netreviews_product_reviews]

Product Reference Checks

As previously detailed, the connector uses the product ID (WordPress post-id) as the product reference. You can check in your Veririfed Reviews account that your reviews are properly attached to IDs.

To do this, you can go to Collect reviews > Reporting - Products review requests. You will then see the number of reviews per product reference. If the product references indicated do not correspond to IDs (for example, these are SKUs that contain letters), then you will need to make a reference change.

Contact our support team, who can accompany you in this operation. Following this change of references, we will resynchronize all your product reviews to your website.

First manual synchronization

If it's a module installation and you already have product reviews, ask Verified Reviews support for a manual synchronization.

Automatic publication of new product reviews 

A product review with the satus published in your Verified Reviews account is automatically synced to your site the next day.

 

📌 I want to modify the display of my reviews

The display offered by our module is standard. Our support does not provide display customization as long as all standard features are present and do not lead to conflicts in product sheets.

In the case that you need to customize the display, you can directly modify the module files present in the folder \wp-content\plugins\netreviews\

• For the product reviews list (two different designs):
  • includes\templates\templateV1.php
  • includes\templates\templateV2.php
• For the star pages categories and stars on the product pages:
  
  • netreviews.php

Warning, if you update the module, you will lose these changes since the files will be overwritten. You must make a copy of your customizations before performing the update, then reintegrate the changes on the module's files.

You also have the option to customize the CSS directly from the plugin settings page in the WordPress back-end.

 

📌 My orders are not retrieved

1. Check the connection between our platform and your website (Verified Reviews Account > Collection Reviews> Configure my Module, you can click on "Test Connection" button or "Send Configuration" button). If you get a fail message, please contact our support team.
2. Check if automation is activated in Verified Reviews account > Collection Reviews > Configure my module
3. Verify that the orders you are retrieving have the same status as the one(s) you selected on your Verified Reviews account in the module's configuration page.
4. If you get a connection, then automation has been properly activated, and statuses are correct, please contact our support team.

 

📌The website widget is broken

When the widget is inserted multiple times on the same site, the stars of the widget disappear or appear broken.

In this case, please check in your files that you have not inserted the widget code directly, in addition to having sent it from the module configuration page on the Verified Reviews account. Generally, when it is inserted directly into the files, it is inserted into the header or footer files.

 

📌 How can I check that my rich snippets have been integrated correctly?

Google provides a testing tool to check if a web page is eligible for rich snippets, available here  https://search.google.com/test/rich-results?utm_campaign=sdtt&utm_medium=url

Just enter the URL of a product page with reviews. Google will return any errors present in the rich snippets integration or indicates that the page is eligible for enhanced snippets by presenting a preview of the result.

Note: Our module is responsible for adding the AggregateRating and Reviews tags and obtaining an effective preview on Google's testing tool, but cannot completely guarantee the return of rich snippets in browser search results, given that Google considers many other factors (content quality, etc.)

 

Annexes

Tracking Review Requests

If you are now automated, you can track the review requests sent to your customers from "Collect reviews > Reporting - Review Requests".

You can do a specific search using the filters at the top of the page.

Tracking Reviews

You can track your published, moderated, and rejected reviews in the "Review management" menu.

You can do a specific search using the filters at the top of the page.