Back in February WP Mayor published a review of version 3 of the WP All Import plugin for WordPress. The plugin was given a glowing appraisal, with it being described as the best option for importing large CSV files into WordPress.

Whether you are creating affiliate sites, eCommerce stores, directories, or any other type of site that requires the import of large amounts of records or other data that you don’t want to create manually, the WP All Import plugin comes highly recommended. This plugin also aims to be the number one choice for those building and managing affiliate stores using merchant datafeeds.

However, since the review of version 3 a few new features have been added to the plugin, alongside a number of add-ons for WP All Import that enhance its functionality and aim to make it an even more indispensable tool for anyone who wants to save themselves lots of time when setting up and maintaining their site by importing the data, rather than entering it manually.

In this review of WP All Import and its add-ons we will be taking a look at some of its functionality in order to show you how you could drastically speed up your website content creation capabilities. If you are interested in importing items such as post content, products, images, files, users and more, keep reading to find out if this is the tool for you.

Features

As covered in the previously published in-depth review and video guide to WP All Import, the pro version of this plugin can be used to import data into WordPress for use in the following ways:

• Import to regular and custom post types
• Import to custom taxonomies
• Import to custom fields
• Import images to the media gallery
• Import files

By using this plugin in conjunction with the optional add-ons available for it, you now also do the following:

• Import products for a WooCommerce-powered online store
• Cloak affiliate and external links created from an import
• Import data into custom fields using the Advanced Custom Fields plugin
• Import multilingual versions of posts or products using the WPML plugin
• Import user data, including additional user fields such as membership details

We will take a look at the above add-ons in more detail shortly, but first it is worth pointing out how the data files are imported into WordPress when using this plugin. While the plugin works with XML and CSV files that contain the data to be imported, the files can be imported in a number of ways, including:

• Upload a file from your computer
• Use an already uploaded file
• Enter the URL of a file
• From a file on a FTP server

While uploading the file for an import manually will probably be the most familiar option for WordPress users, the other options give you lots of flexibility for working with the import files, especially those provided by third parties and are stored externally to your WordPress site.

If you need to import data from a source on an on-going basis WP All Import has a great feature for enabling scheduled recurring imports. This allows you to automatically run an import and the content it creates periodically.

This allows you to update the existing posts on your site that contain data from the import file if the contents of the source XML or CSV data file changes. As well as updating those user or post details, the recurring imports can also add new records, or delete existing records based on the changes to the source data.

This can really help put your data import workflow on auto-pilot and allow you to keep a fully updated and in sync site that contains only the latest product information or other types of content.

If you want to see a walkthrough of how to run an import on your WordPress site, visit this WP All Import post for a detailed guide and video.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKZnx_vikBI[/youtube]

WP All Import Add-ons

As previously mentioned there are now a number of add-ons available for this plugin. The type of site you are working on will determine which add-ons are of interest to you. However, if you are importing products for a WooCommerce-powered online store or affiliate site, or are working with large numbers of users, such as a membership site, then a few of these add-ons can really help increase the efficiency of your involvement with the site. Anyone wanting to import multilingual content, such as posts or product descriptions in more than one language can also benefit from these add-ons.

WooCommerce Add-on

One of the most interesting add-ons for WP All Import, at least from an eCommerce or affiliate store building perspective, is the WooCommerce add-on. This add-on allows you to import products from an XML or CSV file and create them as the product post type in a WooCommerce powered eCommerce store.

Whether you are getting the product data from the manufacturers and distributors, or having it supplied via an affiliate network, you can quickly import that data and populate your site with the product details. This has many advantages for both online retailers and affiliate marketers, as your site can be effortlessly setup and populated with the individual product posts. As well as removing the need to create each item individually, this approach can also help ensure that the correct data, such as product details and pricing is ported over to your store.

As WP All Import can be setup to check the source file at scheduled intervals, you can minimise the risk of your site displaying out of date product information or items that are no longer available. By using the periodic updates feature, product information is changed automatically and products are removed from the site if the source file has been changed due to them no longer being available.

This add-on comes highly recommended by the WP Mayor team and you can find out more about it in this in-depth review with accompanying video that was recently published here on the site.

Link Cloaking Add-on

If you are promoting products and services as an affiliate then you might want to cloak your links in order to make it less obvious that are you linking out to an external site, as opposed to offering the product directly from your own site.

This add-on does just that and it also works with the WooCommerce add-on to cloak the links to external products in your WooCommerce store, as well as cloaking regular external affiliate links.

There isn’t much to do when using this add-on, with the options simply giving you a choice of which type of links to cloak for each import.

If you want to obscure the fact that you are linking to external products, then this add-on enables you to do so during an import without any real effort on your part.

Link Cloaking Add-on

Advanced Custom Fields Add-On

With this add-on you can import data held in XML and CSV files to create and populate any custom fields you are using with your WordPress posts. The add-on works in conjunction with the free Advanced Custom Fields plugin, a tool which allows you to visually work with custom fields for WordPress posts.

Whatever type of custom fields you want to use with your posts, you can do so with this add-on, including:

• Text
• Repeater fields
• Email
• WYSIWYG editor
• Image
• Gravity forms
• Google map
• Plus many more

By using this add-on you won’t have to worry about getting data into the custom fields you need to use for your site.

Advanced Custom Fields Add-on

WPML Add-on

If you are working on a multilingual site then the WPML add-on will be of interest to you. This add-on allows you to import multilingual content into WordPress while working together with the WPML plugin for WordPress.

As well as importing regular post content in more than one language into WordPress, the WPML add-on for WP All Import can also be used to import products and their descriptions in multiple languages. The add-on uses the record ID or SKU in the CSV or XML file in order to make the connection between the different language versions of the same product or any other type of content. This makes it easy to organise your data before it is imported as, provided you give each language version of the record a matching ID, the add-on will take care of the rest of the work for you.

WPML Add-on

User Import Add-on

As the name suggests, this add-on allows you to import users into your site. The user data can be stored in an XML or CSV file before being imported into your site.

One useful feature of this add-on is that it doesn’t just allow you to import the standard user data used by WordPress, but it can also import any additional user fields and information used by third-party plugins. If you are using a plugin to enhance the author box for the users on your site, then this add-on gives you the ability to import data to be held in the additional fields used by an author box plugin.

Another example of this add-on’s ability to import additional data about a user is one cited by the plugin developers. This allows you to import data about each user for a membership site, such as join date, membership level, etc., if you are using WordPress and a membership plugin to create such a site.

With this add-on you get a lot of options for determining how the imported data is handled, including using the data to create new users, update existing records, or delete users no longer included in the import file.

As you can see you can do a lot with this add-on so if you are creating a new site with a large number of users to import, or are migrating to a new site, then this tool can save you a lot of time. The ability to also update records means that this add-on can provide on-going value as you can easily update the user data for multiple accounts with ease.

User Import Add-on

To find out more about these add-ons, and discover if any new additions have been made available, visit the add-ons page on the developer’s website.

Pricing

This plugin is available on a number of pricing options. For the last three years WP All Import has been available with unlimited site usage and lifetime upgrades on all plans. However from May 1^st this is due to change to a subscription based model.  The current pricing options are as follows:

• WP All Import: $89
• WP All Import + WooCommerce Add-on: $129
• WP All Import Elite Bundle: $199

With the pro version of WP All Import currently available from $89, and the optional add-ons starting from $34, this isn’t the cheapest premium plugin out there. However, if you consider the time saving abilities of this plugin, then it’s easy to justify the cost, especially if you are using it to create a revenue generating site such as a membership site, or an eCommerce or affiliate store.

There is also a 30 day money back guarantee on offer if the plugin doesn’t live up to your expectations, making purchasing WP All Import a risk free prospect.

View the latest pricing plans for WP All Import.

Support and Documentation

There is a lot of great documentation on the WP All Import website which means you aren’t left to your own devices when purchasing and starting to use this plugin. While implementing some of the more powerful features of this plugin might be a little advanced for some users, the written and video documentation, including a YouTube channel, will walk you through the setup processes for many of the features.

For additional support not covered by the documentation, the support team can be contacted by opening a ticket on the website, or by sending an email directly to the team.

Final Conclusion and Recommendations

It’s hard to do this plugin justice due to the sheer number of uses for it. However, if you’ve ever wanted to import data into WordPress in order to create and populate posts, custom fields, products, the media library, user records, or many other types of data and content then WP All Import is sure to be of use to you.

With a free version available to allow you to test out the interface and basic functionality of the plugin before investing in the pro version and the available add-ons, trying out WP All Import is highly recommended if you feel any of the features can reduce your workload and create a more efficient workflow for your site.

As the previously published WP Mayor review and guide to using WP All Import found, this is still the best CSV and XML import plugin for WordPress.

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