How to Mark a Product as Featured in WooCommerce: A Complete Guide
Introduction:
In the competitive world of e-commerce, highlighting your best products is crucial for driving sales and capturing customer attention. WooCommerce, the leading e-commerce platform for WordPress, provides a simple yet powerful way to do this: marking products as “featured.” These featured products typically appear in prominent locations on your website, such as the homepage or category pages, increasing their visibility and encouraging customers to purchase them. This article will walk you through the process of how to mark a product as featured in WooCommerce, covering different methods and providing practical tips for maximizing their impact.
Main Part: Marking Products as Featured in WooCommerce
There are a few different ways to mark products as featured in WooCommerce. We’ll cover the two most common:
1. Marking a Product as Featured from the Product Edit Screen
This is perhaps the simplest and most direct method. It allows you to quickly set a product as featured while you’re already editing it.
Steps:
1. Navigate to Products: From your WordPress dashboard, go to “Products” -> “All Products”.
2. Edit the Product: Find the product you want to feature and click the “Edit” link.
3. Locate the “Publish” Panel: Look for the “Publish” panel on the right-hand side of the screen.
4. Find Learn more about How To Add More Filed In Customers List In Woocommerce the “Catalog visibility” option: Click on the “Edit” link next to “Catalog visibility”. A modal window will appear.
5. Check the “This is a featured product” box: You should see a checkbox labeled “This is a featured product”. Tick this box.
6. Update the Product: Click the “OK” button on modal window and then click the “Update” button at the top of the product edit screen.
That’s it! The product is now marked as featured.
2. Quick Editing Products in the Product List
If you need to mark several products as featured at once, the “Quick Edit” feature is much faster. This avoids having to open and edit each product individually.
Steps:
1. Navigate to Products: Go to “Products” -> “All Products” from your WordPress dashboard.
2. Use Quick Edit: Hover over the product you want to feature. You’ll see several options appear beneath the product title, including “Edit”, “Quick Edit”, “Trash”, and “View”. Click on “Quick Edit”.
3. Check the “Featured” Box: In the Quick Edit options, you’ll see a checkbox labeled “Featured”. Tick this box.
4. Update the Product: Click the “Update” button.
Repeat steps 2-4 for all the products you want to feature. This is significantly faster when dealing with multiple products.
3. Programmatically Marking Products as Featured (for Developers)
For more advanced users or developers who want to automate the process, you can use code to mark products as featured. This can be useful for importing products or performing bulk updates.
<?php /**
- Marks a product as featured.
- * @param int $product_id The ID of the product to mark as featured. */ function mark_product_as_featured( $product_id ) { if ( ! is_numeric( $product_id ) ) { return; // Invalid product ID }
- The `mark_product_as_featured()` function takes the product ID as an argument.
- It first checks if the ID is numeric and if the product exists.
- It then uses `wc_update_product` function or `update_post_meta` to set the `_featured` meta field to `yes`.
- Always test code snippets in a staging environment before implementing them on your live website.
- Back up your database before making any changes.
- Consider using a child theme to avoid modifying the core WooCommerce files directly.
- Using `wc_update_product()` function is recommended method.
- WooCommerce Shortcodes: Use the `[featured_products]` shortcode to display featured products on any page or post. You can customize the shortcode to control the number of products displayed, the number of columns, and the order. For example: `[featured_products columns=”4″ limit=”8″]` will display 8 featured products in 4 columns.
- WooCommerce Widgets: The “WooCommerce Featured Products” widget allows you to display a single featured product (or a random selection of featured products) in a sidebar or other widget area.
- Theme Customization: Many WooCommerce themes have built-in options to display featured products on the homepage or other key pages. Check your theme’s documentation for details.
- Plugins: There are numerous WooCommerce plugins available that offer advanced features for showcasing featured products, such as sliders, carousels, and grid layouts.
$product = wc_get_product( $product_id );
if ( ! $product ) {
return; // Product does not exist
}
wc_update_product( $product_id, array(‘featured’ => ‘yes’) );
//or
update_post_meta( $product_id, ‘_featured’, ‘yes’ );
}
// Example usage: Mark product with ID 123 as featured.
mark_product_as_featured( 123 );
?>
Explanation:
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Important Notes When Using Code:
Displaying Featured Products on Your Website
Marking products as featured is only half the battle. You also need to display them prominently on your website. WooCommerce provides several ways to do this:
Conclusion:
Marking products as featured in WooCommerce is a simple yet effective way to boost sales and highlight your best offerings. By using the methods outlined in this article and strategically placing your featured products on your website, you can increase their visibility, attract more customers, and ultimately drive more revenue for your online store. Remember to choose high-quality product images and write compelling descriptions to further enhance the appeal of your featured products. Always monitor their performance to see if they are contributing effectively to your conversion goals.