Demo Importer

Overview

The Demo Importer is a 3-step wizard that turns a fresh Converto install into a fully populated review site in under a minute. It seeds taxonomy terms, products with realistic data, an optional author, a homepage with a full block stack, theme defaults, and nav menus - all tagged for clean removal later.

Find it under Theme Settings → Demo Setup

When to run it

• First time setup of a new site.
• On a staging site to learn how Converto's data fits together.
• Whenever you want a clean baseline to demo a niche to a client.

You can wipe everything the importer created with one click - see Removing demo data below.

What the importer creates

Running the wizard end-to-end produces:

Item	Quantity
Category term (e.g. Web Hosting, Smartwatches)	1
Rating category terms	up to 5
Feature terms	up to 10
Specification terms	up to 10
Products	1–10 (your choice)
Author CPT	0 or 1 (optional)
Homepage with Product Reviews + Content + Comparison Table + FAQ blocks	1
Primary nav menu (links to each product)	1
First footer nav menu (links to each product)	1
Theme defaults (colors, fonts, socials, affiliate disclosure, footer text)	seeded

Each seeded item is tagged with _converto_seeded post-meta / term-meta so you can clean them up later without touching content you've authored yourself.

Step 1 - Taxonomies

This is the most important step. The taxonomy terms you enter here become the building blocks of every product.

Field	Cap	What to enter
Categories	1	The vertical you're building. Web Hosting, Smartwatches, Mobile Plans.
Rating Categories	5	The dimensions reviewers score on. Performance, Customer support, Pricing.
Features	10	Yes/no capabilities. Free SSL, One-click installer, Daily backups.
Specifications	10	Text-valued attributes - the term is the key/label; you fill the value per product. Storage, Bandwidth, Battery life.

Need ideas?

Here are starter sets for popular verticals:

Web Hosting: Performance · Uptime · Customer support · Pricing · Ease of use · Free SSL · Free domain · Daily backups · One-click installer · Free site migration · Storage · Bandwidth · Number of sites · Server location · Money-back guarantee.

Fitness Smartwatches: Tracking accuracy · Battery life · Build quality · App ecosystem · Value · Built-in GPS · Heart rate monitor · SpO2 sensor · Sleep tracking · Music storage · Battery life · Water resistance · Display type · Weight · Compatibility.

Mobile Plans: Network coverage · Data speed · Pricing · Customer support · Plan flexibility · Unlimited data · 5G access · International roaming · Mobile hotspot · Family discount · Monthly price · Data allowance · Network type · Contract length · Hotspot data cap.

The wizard automatically links each rating/feature/spec term to the category you set, via the applicable_categories term meta. That means when you later create a product in this category, only the relevant rating/feature/spec terms appear in the dropdowns. See Taxonomies for how this scoping works.

Step 2 - Products

• Add Product lets you specify titles like Bluehost, DreamHost, Hostinger. Up to 10.
• Leaving titles blank generates plausible placeholders (Northwind, Ferryhost, etc.) - useful when you just want to see the layout.

Pricing mode

Two mutually-exclusive checkboxes control what kind of pricing data each product gets. Tick one, neither, but not both:

• Seed dummy pricing tiers - subscription-style products (SaaS, VPNs, web hosts). Each product gets 2–3 tier cards with title, price, billing period and feature bullets, and a Pricing block on the product page.
• Seed dummy deal tiers - physical products (watches, electronics, gear). Each product gets 2–4 retailer rows (Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart…) with a current price, an original price, and a Check price CTA wired to the product's affiliate link.

Leave both unchecked if your products don't surface pricing data at all.

What each seeded product receives

• A random global rating (3.5–5.0).
• One score per seeded rating_category, with a one-sentence editor note.
• The full feature set with random is_available flags and editor notes.
• 3–6 spec rows with lorem values.
• 3 pros + 3 cons (lorem sentences).
• A pretty-link affiliate URL pointing at a placeholder.
• A category assignment.
• A block stack on the product page: Verdict → Content (full review) → Ratings → Pros & Cons → Features → (optional Pricing) → Comparison Table.

Featured images and badge images are intentionally left empty - they fall back to the stripe-ph diagonal-stripe placeholder so empty product cards still look intentional.

Step 3 - Author (optional)

Tick Create Author to seed one author CPT and assign it to every seeded product. You'll need:

• Author Name (required when the box is checked) - e.g. Johnatan Wellington.
• Author Label (required) - e.g. Senior Reviewer. Becomes the small uppercase label above the bio.

The seeded author gets:

• A 4-6 sentence lorem bio.
• 3-5 expertise rows with lorem titles.
• 2-4 social links (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, Pinterest) with plausible URLs derived from a slugified version of the author name.

If you don't want an author, just leave the checkbox unchecked.

Running the import

Clicking Complete Setup runs the full pipeline in sequence:

1. Theme defaults - color theme, font pairing, socials, affiliate disclosure copy, layout settings, footer text. Only writes to fields that are currently empty, so existing settings are never overwritten.
2. Author (if requested in step 3).
3. Taxonomy terms (linked to the chosen category via applicable_categories).
4. Products (one by one, with the chosen pricing mode applied).
5. Homepage at Best {Category} with a Product Reviews, Content, Comparison Table and FAQ block stack.
6. Primary nav menu and footer nav menu, both populated with one item per product.

The page reloads with a green success notice. Visit your site root - your new homepage is there.

Removing demo data

When you're ready to delete everything the importer created:

1. Go back to the demo importer screen.
2. Click Delete Demo Data.

The wiper:

• Deletes every post tagged _converto_seeded (across all CPTs, including pages).
• Deletes every term tagged _converto_seeded (across all theme taxonomies).
• Deletes the seeded nav menu terms (theme-location assignments are cleared at the same time).
• Resets the front-page setting to "posts" if it was pointing at the seeded homepage.
• Clears the seeded option fields in Theme Settings.

Hand-authored content, hand-created terms, and your colour/string overrides are not touched.

Re-running the importer

The importer is safe to run multiple times. Each run:

• Adds new terms (existing terms are skipped if the slug matches).
• Creates fresh products (existing seeded products are kept; you'll end up with duplicates).
• Replaces the previously-seeded nav menus (so theme locations don't end up pointing at stale menus).

If you want a totally clean slate, Delete Demo Data first, then run the wizard again.

Troubleshooting

The wizard fails halfway through. Check the WP debug log - usually a permission issue (can't write to media library) or a memory issue (raise PHP memory_limit to 256 MB).

The seeded homepage doesn't show. The wizard sets show_on_front = page and page_on_front = {seeded_id}. If you'd already configured a different front page, the wizard overwrites it - switch back via Settings → Reading.

Pricing or deal rows came out random. That's the seeded behaviour with one of the pricing-mode checkboxes on. Edit the product → Pricing tab → switch the mode (tiers/deals/none) or remove the rows manually.

Homepage is missing the Product Reviews or Comparison Table block. Both blocks pull up to six rows from your seeded feature / specification / rating_category terms. If your term pool is smaller, the blocks still seed - they just render with however many rows are available. If they're missing entirely, check that products were seeded successfully in step 2.

Demo importer menu item is missing. Confirm the licence is active - the importer is a licensed feature.