Importing Content into WooCommerce: Flexibility and Future Developments

by jsendak | Sep 8, 2023 | CyberSEO

Long-Term Implications and Possible Future Developments

This tutorial on importing content into WooCommerce using the CyberSEO Pro plugin highlights the flexibility and power of integrating various content sources with an e-commerce website. By importing product lists from XML feeds, CSV files, JSON feeds, RSS feeds, and HTML web pages, website owners can automate the process of updating and managing their product catalog.

The use of custom fields allows for precise control over the imported data, including product attributes such as pricing, availability, and stock management. The ability to map XML tags, CSV columns, or JSON attributes to WooCommerce custom fields ensures that each imported product is accurately configured within the e-commerce environment.

Furthermore, the addition of artificial intelligence through the OpenAI GPT models offers a unique opportunity to enhance product descriptions with SEO optimization. By generating machine-generated content that reads like human-written text, website owners can improve the uniqueness and engagement of their product descriptions, ultimately leading to improved search engine visibility and customer satisfaction.

In terms of future developments, it is possible to envision further integration with additional e-commerce platforms beyond WooCommerce. By expanding the capabilities of the CyberSEO Pro plugin to support other popular e-commerce platforms such as Shopify or Magento, website owners would have even more options for importing content from various sources.

Additionally, advancements in artificial intelligence and natural language processing could lead to even more sophisticated content generation capabilities. This could include features such as automatic keyword optimization, dynamic pricing based on market trends, or personalized product recommendations based on customer preferences.

Actionable Advice

1. Take advantage of the CyberSEO Pro plugin’s ability to import content from various sources by setting up feeds and mapping custom fields for accurate product configuration.
2. Consider using artificial intelligence through the OpenAI GPT models to enhance product descriptions and make them more engaging and unique.
3. Regularly update and review imported content to ensure accuracy and consistency throughout your e-commerce website.
4. Stay informed about advancements in e-commerce platforms and plugins to take advantage of new features and integrations.
5. Experiment with different strategies for importing and managing content to find the approach that works best for your specific needs and goals.

Important note: Despite the focus on WooCommerce in the title of this tutorial – it will teach you how to import content from various sources such as RSS, XML, JSON, CSV and HTML into WordPress posts of custom types using the CyberSEO Pro plugin – this article should be considered as a basic guide to creating custom fields for WordPress posts and working with CyberSEO Pro HTML post templates. The use of artificial intelligence for content import uniqueness will also be a topic of this article.

• WooCommerce specific custom fields
• Importing from an XML feed
• Importing from a CSV file
• Importing from a JSON feed
• Importing from RSS feeds and HTML Web pages
• Using Artificial Intelligence for SEO-enhanced product descriptions

Introduction

In this article, we’ll explore how to use CyberSEO Pro to import product lists into a WordPress website powered by the WooCommerce plugin. The key point to remember is that all WooCommerce products are essentially regular WordPress posts, but they belong to a specialized custom post type known as “product“. So, the first step in importing your RSS, XML, JSON feed, or CSV file into CyberSEO Pro is to select “product” from the Post type drop-down menu.

Once you’ve chosen the post type, additional “Custom taxonomies” fields specific to that custom post type will appear. For products, WooCommerce defines these taxonomies as “Product categories“, “Product tags“, and “Product shipping classes“. In these fields, you can specify the categories, tags, and shipping classes you wish to assign to the products being imported from your source.

Of course, the product records you import may already contain their own category information. In such cases, you’ll need to import these as standard WordPress post categories. However, to ensure WooCommerce recognizes them as product categories – i.e., posts of type “product” – you’ll need to check the appropriate boxes to convert these standard WordPress post categories and tags into corresponding WooCommerce taxonomies.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<rss xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0" version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Sample Product Feed</title>
    <link>http://www.example.com</link>
    <description>Example product list.</description>
    <item>
      <g:id>001</g:id>
      <g:title>Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker</g:title>
      <g:description>Our Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker lets you enjoy a barista-level experience right in your own kitchen. With its sleek design and advanced features like a programmable timer and built-in grinder, you can effortlessly brew the perfect cup every time.</g:description>
      <g:link>http://www.example.com/product/001</g:link>
      <g:image_link>http://www.example.com/image/001.jpg</g:image_link>
      <g:brand>Example Brand</g:brand>
      <g:condition>new</g:condition>
      <g:availability>in stock</g:availability>
      <g:price>199.99 USD</g:price>
      <g:sale_price>179.99 USD</g:sale_price>
      <g:color>Stainless Steel</g:color>
      <g:size>Standard</g:size>
      <g:material>Stainless Steel</g:material>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

g:link->%link%
g:title->%post_title%
g:price->_regular_price
g:sale_price->_sale_price
g:sale_price->_price

<div class="product-wrapper">
    <img class="product-image" src="%xml_tags[g:image_link]%" alt="%post_title%"/>
    <div class="product-details">
        <h2>Product Details</h2>
        <p>%xml_tags[g:description]%</p>
    </div>
    <ul class="product-attributes">
        <li><strong>Condition:</strong> %xml_tags[g:condition]%</li>
        <li><strong>Color:</strong> %xml_tags[g:color]%</li>
        <li><strong>Size:</strong> %xml_tags[g:size]%</li>
    </ul>
    <div class="product-pricing">
        <p>
            <span class="original-price"><s>%xml_tags[g:price]%</s></span>
            <span class="sale-price"><strong>%xml_tags[g:sale_price]%</strong></span>
        </p>
    </div>
    <div class="product-link">
        <a href="%link%" target="_blank">View Product</a>
    </div>
</div>

ProductID,Title,Description,Link,ImageLink,Brand,Condition,Availability,PriceCurrency,PriceAmount,SalePriceCurrency,SalePriceAmount,Color,Size,Material
001,Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker,"Our Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker lets you enjoy a barista-level experience right in your own kitchen. With its sleek design and advanced features like a programmable timer and built-in grinder, you can effortlessly brew the perfect cup every time.",http://www.example.com/product/001,http://www.example.com/image/001.jpg,Example Brand,new,in stock,USD,199.99,USD,179.99,Stainless Steel,Standard,Stainless Steel

Before importing the URL of this file, tick the Treat as CSV checkbox and click “Syndicate »“. In the “Preview mode: XML Structure” text box, you’ll see its converted XML structure.

Here is how your Custom fields rules should look:

Link->%link%
Title->%post_title%
PriceAmount->_regular_price
SalePriceAmount->_sale_price
SalePriceAmount->_price

And your HTML post template should be something like this:

<div class="product-wrapper">
    <img class="product-image" src="%xml_tags[ImageLink]%" alt="%post_title%"/>
    <div class="product-details">
        <h2>Product Details</h2>
        <p>%xml_tags[Description]%</p>
    </div>
    <ul class="product-attributes">
        <li><strong>Condition:</strong> %xml_tags[Condition]%</li>
        <li><strong>Brand:</strong> %xml_tags[Brand]%</li>
        <li><strong>Color:</strong> %xml_tags[Color]%</li>
        <li><strong>Size:</strong> %xml_tags[Size]%</li>
        <li><strong>Material:</strong> %xml_tags[Material]%</li>
    </ul>
    <div class="product-pricing">
        <p>
            <span class="original-price"><s>%xml_tags[PriceAmount]%</s></span>
            <span class="sale-price"><strong>%xml_tags[SalePriceAmount]%</strong></span>
        </p>
    </div>
    <div class="product-link">
        <a href="%link%" target="_blank">View Product</a>
    </div>
</div>

As you can see, the process remains straightforward, and I’ve just added the ‘Brand’ and ‘Material’ attributes to provide a more complete view of the product.

Importing from a JSON feed

Importing JSON feeds of any internal structure is as easy as importing CSV files. Just add a link to the JSON feed in CyberSEO Pro Syndicator. For example, your feed has the following structure:

{
  "products": [
    {
      "product_id": "001",
      "title": "Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker",
      "description": "Our Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker lets you enjoy a barista-level experience right in your own kitchen. With its sleek design and advanced features like a programmable timer and built-in grinder, you can effortlessly brew the perfect cup every time.",
      "link": "http://www.example.com/product/001",
      "image_link": "http://www.example.com/image/001.jpg",
      "brand": "Example Brand",
      "condition": "new",
      "availability": "in stock",
      "price": "199.99",
      "sale_price": "179.99",
      "color": "Stainless Steel",
      "size": "Standard",
      "material": "Stainless Steel"
    }
  ]
}

In the “Preview mode: XML Structure” text box, you’ll see its converted XML structure like follows.

Responsively your Custom fields settings should be as follows:

link->%link%
title->%post_title%
price->_regular_price
sale_price->_sale_price
sale_price->_price

And your HTML post template should be something like this:

<div class="product-wrapper">
    <img class="product-image" src="%xml_tags[image_link]%" alt="%post_title%"/>
    <div class="product-details">
        <h2>Product Details</h2>
        <p>%xml_tags[description]%</p>
    </div>
    <ul class="product-attributes">
        <li><strong>Condition:</strong> %xml_tags[condition]%</li>
        <li><strong>Brand:</strong> %xml_tags[brand]%</li>
        <li><strong>Color:</strong> %xml_tags[color]%</li>
        <li><strong>Size:</strong> %xml_tags[size]%</li>
        <li><strong>Material:</strong> %xml_tags[material]%</li>
    </ul>
    <div class="product-pricing">
        <p>
            <span class="original-price"><s>%xml_tags[price]%</s></span>
            <span class="sale-price"><strong>%xml_tags[sale_price]%</strong></span>
        </p>
    </div>
    <div class="product-link">
        <a href="%link%" target="_blank">View Product</a>
    </div>
</div>

As you can see above, importing any content source supported by CyberSEO Pro plugin is always the same. If you have learned how to import XML, you already know how to import CSV, JSON and even content from social networks. The algorithm of your actions, as well as the settings and tools at your disposal, always remain the same and unchanged.

Importing from RSS feeds and HTML Web pages

Let’s assume that the HTML document you are importing, which describes a product, has the following structure:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker</title>
</head>
<body>
    <div class="main" id="product-123">
        <h1 class="product-title">Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker</h1>
        <div class="product-description">
            <p>Experience the perfect brew every morning with our Deluxe Stainless Steel Coffee Maker. With its state-of-the-art technology and sleek design, it's the ideal addition to any kitchen.</p>
        </div>
        <div class="product-images">
            <img src="http://www.example.com/image/image1.jpg" alt="Front view">
            <img src="http://www.example.com/image/image2.jpg" alt="Side view">
            <img src="http://www.example.com/image/image3.jpg" alt="Top view">
        </div>
        <div class="product-specs">
            <ul>
                <li>Brand: Example Brand</li>
                <li>Condition: New</li>
                <li>Color: Stainless Steel</li>
                <li>Size: Standard</li>
                <li>Material: Stainless Steel</li>
            </ul>
        </div>
        <div class="product-pricing" id="main-price">
            <p>Regular Price: <span class="old-price">$199.99</span></p>
            <p>Sale Price: <span class="new-price">$179.99</span></p>
        </div>
        <div class="product-action">
            <button class="buy-button">Buy Now</button>
        </div>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

Importing such a website with CyberSEO Pro is easy. But how do you pass the price information of the product to WooCommerce? This becomes a bit tricky because the price is embedded in the HTML text and not offered as a separate XML tag in the imported feed. Thus, unlike XML, JSON feeds or CSV files, the product’s HTML page doesn’t easily expose the price information.

In these scenarios, your webmaster skills come into play – you need to understand HTML. If you’re adept at it, you’ll notice that the pricing information (both the original price and the sale price) is contained in these specific lines of HTML code:

<p>Regular Price: <span class="old-price">$199.99</span></p>
<p>Sale Price: <span class="new-price">$179.99</span></p>

All that’s needed is to extract these prices from the HTML code and store their values in the appropriate WooCommerce custom fields. CyberSEO Pro offers you two methods to generate WordPress post custom fields based on data extracted from the imported HTML document. The first approach uses regular expressions, and the second involves searching the content of the outer HTML element. Let’s explore both options.

If you prefer using regular expressions, your rules for the Custom fields would look like this:

regex:Regular Price: <span class="old-price">$(.*?)</span>->_regular_price
regex:Sale Price: <span class="new-price">$(.*?)</span>->_sale_price
regex:Sale Price: <span class="new-price">$(.*?)</span>->_price

Alternatively, if you favor extracting content by searching the outer HTML element’s content, the “Custom fields” box should contain:

span {"class": "old-price"}->_regular_price
span {"class": "new-price"}->_sale_price
span {"class": "new-price"}->_price

Note that in our HTML example, both methods are applicable. However, there might be instances where the HTML markup doesn’t allow content extraction via the outer HTML element’s content search. In such cases, you would have to rely solely on regular expressions.

Using Artificial Intelligence for SEO-enhanced product descriptions

Since the CyberSEO Pro plugin is fully integrated with all OpenAI GPT models, why not take advantage of this feature to make your imported product descriptions unique? You’ll need to use the [openai_gpt] shortcode for this (see documentation for more details).

To make your imported product descriptions unique and more engaging, all you need to do is replace the following line in your HTML post template:

<p>%xml_tags[g:description]%</p>

With something like this (the GPT prompt is just an example, and you’re free to experiment with it as you wish):

<p>[openai_gpt model="gpt-4" prompt="Write an ad for the product below. Write this ad with creativity and flair, making sure it reads like a human-written text and incorporates keywords in the best way for SEO optimization, be natural: %post_title% - %xml_tags[g:description]%" max_tokens="3500" temperature="0.7"]</p>

Incorporating machine-generated content with an SEO focus can not only make your descriptions unique, but also add a kind of dynamism that a simple import may lack. With features like max tokens and temperature, you can control the length and creativity of the generated text, optimizing it for better search engine visibility. It’s an excellent way to make your WooCommerce store stand out from the crowd, while making the shopping experience more engaging for your visitors.

WordPress custom taxonomies