Trustie makes it easy to work with existing content — whether you’re switching from another testimonial plugin, already have testimonials in a custom post type, or need to clean up WooCommerce review data.
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Reviews vs Testimonials
Before diving into the tools, it’s worth understanding the difference — because they’re stored differently and imported differently.
Reviews are about specific products. A customer buys your Blue Widget, uses it, and leaves a 5-star review saying “This changed my life!” Reviews live on product pages and help other shoppers decide whether to buy. Behind the scenes, WooCommerce stores product reviews as a special type of comment in your WordPress database.
Testimonials are about your business as a whole. Think of them as quotes for your homepage or about page: “Working with Acme Co. was an absolute dream!” They’re not tied to any specific product. Testimonials are stored as a custom post type (or “CPT” — a type of content in WordPress, like posts and pages but designed for a specific purpose). Trustie has its own testimonial post type built in, but it can also work with one you already have from your theme or another plugin.
This distinction matters because:
- Reviews need WooCommerce (they’re about products, which WooCommerce provides)
- Testimonials work on any WordPress site, with or without WooCommerce
- Reviews are displayed with star ratings on product pages
- Testimonials are displayed in grids, sliders, or lists wherever you place them
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Using an Existing Testimonial Post Type
If your theme or another plugin already stores testimonials, you don’t need to import anything. Trustie can read directly from your existing content — no duplication, no migration.
This is the recommended approach if you already have testimonials stored somewhere. Trustie displays them using its own templates and styling, but the data stays where it is.
How to Set It Up
- Go to Trustie > Settings > Testimonials
- Under Testimonial Storage, select Use Existing Post Type
- Choose your testimonial post type from the dropdown
- Fill in the Field Mapping — tell Trustie which meta keys your post type uses for each field
Field Mapping
Your existing testimonials probably store extra information — like the customer’s name, company, and star rating — in custom fields. Custom fields are pieces of data attached to a post, each identified by a name (called a “field name” or “key”). For example, a testimonial might store the customer’s name under a field called client_name.
Trustie needs to know which field names your testimonials use, so it can find the right data:
| Trustie Field | What to Enter | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Name | The field name for the customer’s name | client_name |
| The field name for their email | client_email | |
| Company | The field name for their company | company_name |
| Role/Title | The field name for their job title | client_title |
| Rating | The field name for their star rating | rating |
| Content | The field name for the testimonial text (leave empty if it’s the main content) | (usually leave empty) |
How to find the field names: Open one of your existing testimonials in the WordPress editor. Click Screen Options (top-right corner of the page) and tick Custom Fields. Scroll down and you’ll see a list of field names and their values. Those names are what you enter in the mapping table above. Alternatively, check the documentation for the plugin or theme that created the testimonials.
Tip: Most testimonial plugins store the testimonial text in the main editor area (the big text box), not in a custom field. If that’s the case, leave the Content field empty — Trustie will use the main content automatically.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Once configured, Trustie treats your external post type exactly like its own testimonials:
[trustie_testimonials]displays them in a grid, list, or masonry layout[trustie_testimonial_slider]shows them in a carousel- The floating widget includes them alongside reviews and Google reviews
- The reviews page shows them in the testimonials tab
- Your Designer colours and styling are applied automatically
No data is copied or moved. If you add a new testimonial in the original post type, Trustie picks it up immediately.
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Importing Testimonials from Other Plugins
If you’d rather migrate your testimonials into Trustie’s own post type (instead of using CPT mapping), Trustie can detect and import from these plugins:
- Strong Testimonials
- Easy Testimonials
- Starter Templates
How to Import
- Make sure the source plugin is still active (Trustie needs it installed to detect the testimonials)
- Go to Trustie > Settings > Testimonials
- Under Testimonial Storage, select Use Trustie Testimonials
- Scroll down to the Import Testimonials section
- You’ll see each detected plugin with a count of testimonials found
- Choose whether to keep the originals after importing
- Click Import Testimonials
Trustie creates its own copy of each testimonial, mapping fields like name, company, rating, and photo into its format. After verifying the import, you can deactivate the old plugin.
Note: This section only appears when “Use Trustie Testimonials” is selected. If you’re using CPT mapping, there’s nothing to import — Trustie reads from the existing post type directly.
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Converting Comments to Reviews
If your WooCommerce products have regular WordPress comments from before WooCommerce reviews were enabled, Trustie can convert them into proper star-rated reviews.
This is useful if you enabled WooCommerce reviews after your store had been running for a while — those older comments are plain text with no star ratings.
How to Convert
- Go to Trustie > Settings > Product Reviews
- If convertible comments exist, you’ll see a Convert Comments to Reviews section with the count
- Choose a default star rating (5, 4, or 3 stars) to assign to the converted comments
- Click Convert Comments to Reviews
What Happens
- Each comment’s type is changed from a plain comment to a WooCommerce review
- The default star rating you chose is added to each converted comment
- Only approved comments on products are converted (not comments on posts or pages)
- The original comment text, author, and date are preserved
You can edit individual review ratings afterwards in WooCommerce > Reviews.
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Syncing Product Ratings
WooCommerce caches an average rating and review count for each product. If these numbers get out of sync — after converting comments, importing reviews, or cleaning up spam — you can recalculate them.
- Go to Trustie > Settings > Product Reviews
- Scroll to Sync Product Ratings
- Click Sync All Product Ratings
Trustie recalculates the average star rating and review count for every product based on current approved reviews.
When to Use This
- After converting comments to reviews
- After bulk deleting spam reviews
- If product ratings look wrong or show zero when reviews exist
- After any database-level review changes
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More Resources
- Settings & Configuration — all settings in one place
- Shortcode Reference — display your testimonials and reviews
- Frequently Asked Questions — answers to common questions