How to Add a Like or Dislike Feature to Comments in WordPress

The WordPress comments section is one of the most engaging sections of any website. It allows for visitors to discuss the content and leave feedback to the creator. You can make it even more engaging by giving visitors the ability to like or dislike others’ comments. This will allow direct engagement between visitors as well as additional engagement with the content creator.

Adding a like or dislike feature to comments in WordPress is very easy and can be accomplished by using plugins. Doing this has many advantages, including creating a higher level of engagement, providing a way to find and share popular comments on social media, and making it easier to track spam comments if there is a large number of dislikes. Today I am going to demonstrate how to use the Comments Like Dislike plugin to add a like or dislike feature to your WordPress website.

How Adding a Like or Dislike Feature Can Help Your Website

The most obvious advantage of adding a like or dislike feature is the engagement aspect. Many visitors do not leave comments for many reasons, but there are generally more likes and dislikes than there are comments. This indicates that a portion of visitors will engage with the comments section by liking or disliking other visitors’ comments.  Adding a like or dislike feature to the comments section will keep that portion of the community more engaged and further enhance the engagement of the people that do leave comments.

Social media is one of the strongest forms of engagement a website can take part in. Many bloggers and content creators will share their comments on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. How are these comments chosen? Most content creators probably don’t just randomly pick comments to share. They use the likes from their community to make the selection. If you had a comment that had 1000 likes, wouldn’t you want to share it as well? It shows the community that you are paying attention to the comments section and that you value their thoughts.

Likes indicate the great feedback and comments left by visitors, but dislike represents the opposite. This is important because it allows moderators to quickly and easily spot abusive, disruptive and spam related comments on their websites. This is great because it allows the community to work for you. Any spam bots that make it past your security plugins will be identified by your active visitors.

The like and dislike feature is widely used and has many advantages. Both the like and dislike portion will benefit your website. Today I will demonstrate how you can use the Comments Like Dislike plugin to take full advantage of these features on your WordPress website.

How to Install and Use the Comments Like Dislike Plugin

Let’s start by going to the plugin area of WordPress and click on the “Add New” button.

Search for the Comments Like Dislike plugin in the available search box. This will pull up similar plugins that you may find useful.

Scroll down until you find the Comments Like Dislike plugin. Click the “Install Now” button and activate the plugin for use.

On the left-hand admin panel select the Comments Like Dislike option under the comments section.

The Status check box will indicate if Comments Like Dislike is on or not. Check the status check box to enable the plugin.

The Like Dislike Position will determine where you see the like and dislike options. You may choose either after the comment or before the comment. Select the best option for your website.

The Like Dislike Display will allow you to choose if Like and Dislike are both present, or Like is only present, or Dislike is only present. Select the best option for your website.

The Like Dislike Restriction will allow you to pick Cookie Restriction, IP Restriction, and No Restriction. Select the best option for your website.

The Like Dislike Order will allow you to pick if visitors will see the Like first or the Dislike first. Select the best option for your website.

The final two options will allow you to customize what the Like and Dislike will appear as. For example, you could make your Like option be “Great Comment” and the same treatment can be used on the Dislike option.  Fill out these text boxes.

Once you have made all of your selections click on the “Save Settings” button. This will apply to all of your websites comment sections.

Congratulations, you have successfully added a Like or Dislike feature to your WordPress website. Remember you can always change the settings of the Comments Like Dislike plugin at any time. Don’t be afraid to test out new settings and see what works best for your website.

Additional Like or Dislike Plugins

There are many other Like or Dislike plugins available on WordPress that function similarly to the Comments Like Dislike plugin. Here are a few additional plugins I can recommend trying.

Like Button Rating

Like Button Rating is a great plugin when you want to add Like Dislike features for comments in WordPress. It has a plethora of customization options that include over 80 parameters, 28 themes, and 37 languages. This plugin is great if you want to customize the way the like or dislike feature looks on your website.

WP ULike

WP ULike is another great plugin to try when you want to add a like or dislike feature to your comments section. It offers many customization options, full statistic tools with many widgets, and visitors do not need to register or log in to use the Like Button. This plugin is very comprehensive and will meet all of your needs.

Multi Rating

Multi Rating allows for you to add a like or dislike feature by using a 5-star system. It is different from the rest of the plugins in this respect. This may better suit the design of your website instead of a normal like or dislike feature. It is important to know that to add the rating system to your comments section you must upgrade to the Multi Rating Pro version. This plugin will allow users to better demonstrate what visitors think of another comment and it is worth trying.

Keep Your Website Engaging

The final goal of every website should be to create an engaging website that visitors will find great content on. The comments section is one of the most popular parts of some blogs and it can be further enhanced by adding a like or dislike feature on every comment. This will heighten the engagement within the community you have built.

On top of engaging those who leave comments, there is a portion of your community that will only interact in the comments section by liking or disliking other comments. It is important to make your site engaging to each visitor and adding a like feature for comments in WordPress can accomplish this.

Do you notice and interact with your most popular comments? Do you notice more likes and dislikes than comments? How have you chosen to display your like or dislike feature?