How to generate Structured Data for the Events Manager Plugin

From time to time, customers ask me how to correctly create Structured Data for the Event Manager Plugin that is freely available on WordPress.org. In this post I’m going over all the properties that you’ll need.

What schema type do I need?

Of course that would be the Event schema.

Which properties do I need?

As always, check back with the official reference for an Event. Especially the part where it lists all the required properties is important. Add them one-by-one in your Global Snippet / Schema template. At the time of publication of this article these were the following properties:

  • location
  • location.address
  • location.url
  • name
  • startDate

Of course there were some optional properties, too:

  • description
  • endDate
  • eventAttendanceMode
  • eventStatus
  • image
  • location.name
  • offers
  • offers.availability
  • offers.price
  • offers.priceCurrency
  • offers.validFrom
  • offers.url
  • organizer
  • organizer.name
  • organizer.url
  • performer.name
  • previousStartDate

Not all properties are needed at all times. It’s important to read and understand the reference and what each property means and how it can be used. In the following I’ll describe how to fill all the fields that are provided by the Events Manager Plugin.

How to match the fields from Event Manager to SNIP

Because the Event Manager Plugin does not store a lot of information in the format that is needed by Google. Some custom code is needed.

So to add the other properties, you need to download the Bridge Plugin from here (as a ZIP file). Upload it to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder and then go to Plugins and activate the plugin that I’ve called SNIP bridge to the Events Manager Plugin. Please note that the plugin is free software, you can use it but there is no warranty. Use it at your own risk.

Then add the following properties. Note that the bridge plugin must be activated first!

PropertyMatch with …
namePost title
descriptionPost excerpt (or another field that fits better)
imagePost thumbnail url
locationEvents Manager: Location.
Will automatically use VirtualLocation or Place according to the settings.
startDateEvents Manager: Start date and time
endDateEvents Manager: End date and time

All the other properties are either not available by the Events Manager plugin (at least in the free version) or are not required.