120+ Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2022 WordPress Deals – Big Savings

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Looking for the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on your favorite WordPress products?

The next few days are the perfect time to buy premium WordPress plugins, themes, web hosting, and tools to grow your business. As always, to help you find the best deals, we have created the ultimate listed of best WordPress Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for 2022. Some of these are exclusive just for WPBeginner readers.

View our Complete Black Friday and Cyber Monday List for 2022

We will be updating this page on a daily basis to add more deals.

View our Complete Black Friday and Cyber Monday List for 2022

The post 120+ Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2022 WordPress Deals – Big Savings first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Easily Disable the Default WordPress Sitemap

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Do you want to disable the default WordPress sitemap on your website?

The default sitemap feature was introduced in WordPress 5.5, and it enables WordPress to publish XML sitemaps for your website automatically. The challenge is that this feature is lacking advanced WordPress SEO features that you need to rank higher.

In this article, we will show you how to easily disable the WordPress sitemap and improve it with a more powerful solution.

How to Easily Disable the Default WordPress Sitemap

Why Should You Disable WordPress Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all your website content in an XML format, which makes it easy for search engines to discover and index your content.

Sitemaps are very beneficial for your website as they bring more traffic and improve the SEO rankings of your site.

However, numerous WordPress SEO plugins like All in One SEO, Yoast SEO, and Google XML Sitemaps already implement sitemaps on your website, which results in WordPress pages having two sets of sitemaps.

Duplicate sitemaps for the same WordPress page can confuse search engines and can drop your SEO rankings.

If you’re not using a SEO plugin for your sitemap, then you’re missing out on advanced features. For example, many popular WordPress SEO plugins offer features like Video Sitemap, News Sitemap, RSS Sitemap, etc that you need to outrank your competitors in SEO.

With that being said, let’s see how you can easily disable the default WordPress sitemap.

Method 1. Disable WordPress Sitemap Using WordPress SEO Plugin

If you’re using any of the popular WordPress SEO plugins, then they will automatically disable the default WordPress sitemap feature and replace it with a more powerful solution.

For the sake of this tutorial, we will be demonstrating AIOSEO plugin because that’s the plugin we use on WPBeginner.

All in One SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website for search engines and social media platforms. Over 3 million websites use AIOSEO including our own.

By default, All in One SEO will enable their Sitemap feature for you which automatically replaces the basic WordPress sitemaps upon activation.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once activated, you will need to configure the AIOSEO plugin. If you need help, then you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to set up All in One SEO in WordPress correctly.

After that, head over to the All in One SEO » Sitemaps page from the WordPress admin dashboard to review your sitemap settings.

Next, navigate to the ‘General Sitemap’ tab. Here, make sure that the ‘Enable Sitemap’ switch is set to ‘Active’. This will disable the default WordPress sitemap.

AIOSEO sitemap settings

Aside from the General Sitemap, we recommend that you enable the video sitemap, news sitemap, as well as the RSS sitemap on your site to maximize your SEO rankings.

Method 2. Disable WordPress Sitemap Using Code Snippet

You can also easily disable the default WordPress sitemap using code, too. You can add the code snippet in your theme’s functions.php file.

However, the biggest problem in adding code to your functions.php file is that even a tiny mistake can break your website.

That is why we recommend using WPCode to add custom code to WordPress. This free plugin makes it easy to add code snippets in WordPress without having to edit your theme’s functions.php file.

First, you need to install and activate the free WPCode plugin. For further instructions, check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Next, go to the new Code Snippets entry in the left-hand menu of your WordPress dashboard. This will bring you to the ‘All Snippets’ page.

Next, just click on the ‘Add New’ button.

Go to Code Snippets and click on Add New

WPCode will then take you to the ‘Add Snippet’ page where you can choose to add your own custom code or search to find an existing snippet from the WPCode library.

As we have to add custom code, simply hover over ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option and click ‘Use snippet.’

Click on the Use Snippet button

Now you will be directed to the ‘Create Custom Snippet’ page. You can start by typing a name for your code snippet. It can be anything you like.

Then, select a ‘Code Type’ from the dropdown menu to the right. As we will be using a PHP code, simply click on the ‘PHP Snippet’ option.

Type a name for your code snippet and choose PHP as code type

Next, simply copy and paste the following PHP code snippet in the ‘Code Preview’.

add_filter( 'wp_sitemaps_enabled', '__return_false' );

It will look like this when you’ve done so.

Paste your disable sitemap snippet

After pasting the code, scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section where you will find two insert methods.

Simply choose the ‘Auto Insert’ option since you want it to run sitewide.

Choose an Insertion mode

Now, go to the top of the page, toggle the switch from ‘Inactive’ to ‘Active’ at the top right corner, and then click the ‘Save Snippet’ button.

Once, you have saved and activated the code snippet, it will be active and the default WordPress sitemap disabled.

Save your snippet

We hope this article helped you learn how to disable the default WordPress sitemap. You may also want to check out our ultimate WordPress SEO guide to improve your rankings, and see our comparison of the best managed WordPress hosting.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Easily Disable the Default WordPress Sitemap first appeared on WPBeginner.

Full Post vs Summary (Excerpt) in WordPress Archive Pages?

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Are you wondering whether you should use an excerpt instead of full posts in your archive pages?

A summary helps provide a quick glimpse to your visitors about your content. Users can read through the short excerpt and decide if they’d like to view the entire blog. However, using the full post may get more eyes on the content because it doesn’t require extra action on the user’s part. But which is better?

In this article, we will compare full post vs summary (excerpt) in your WordPress archive pages.

Full post vs summary in your WordPress

What is an Excerpt and How to Add It in WordPress?

An excerpt is a short summary of an article that you can display on the archive pages in WordPress. The excerpt also has a link that users can click to read the whole article.

If you have limited space on your WordPress site, then excerpts are great for showing descriptions of your content.

By default, WordPress will use the starting 55 words of a blog post and show it as an excerpt. However, you can also manually add an excerpt.

Adding Excerpts in WordPress Posts

First, you’ll need to add a new post or edit an existing one. Once you’re in the WordPress content editor, you can click the ‘gear’ icon at the top right corner to open the settings panel.

Next, scroll down to the ‘Excerpt’ section and add your text in the ‘Write an excerpt (optional)’ field.

Add an excerpt in WordPress

When you’re done, simply publish or update your blog post.

Adding Excerpts in WordPress Pages

If you need to add a summary to a WordPress page, then you’ll notice that there’s no option to add an excerpt. However, you can simply add the following code to your website:

add_post_type_support( 'page', 'excerpt' );

To add the code, you’ll need to install and activate the WPCode plugin. For more details please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, head to Code Snippets » Add Snippet from your WordPress dashboard, and then select the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option.

WPCode Add new Snippet

Next, you can enter a name for your code snippet.

After that, simply paste the snippet in the ‘Code Preview’ area and select the ‘PHP Snippet’ from the Code Type dropdown menu.

Add code snippet for excerpt pages

From here, you can scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section and select where you’d like to add the snippet on your site.

Next, click on the ‘Location’ dropdown menu and choose the ‘Run Everywhere’ option under ‘PHP Snippets Only.’

Run the snippet everywhere

After entering the code, you can click the toggle at the top to activate the snippet and then click the ‘Save Snippet’ button.

This will add an ‘Excerpt’ meta box in the settings panel in your WordPress editor, where you can easily provide a short summary for your page.

Save and activate code snippet WPCode

Please see our tutorial on how to add excerpts to your pages in WordPress for more information.

That said, let’s see the advantages of using a summary vs a full post in archive pages.

Benefits of Using Summary vs Full Post in Archives

When optimizing your site for a better user experience, choosing between excerpts and full posts in archive pages can play a huge role. You want users to easily browse the website, find what they are looking for, and improve search engine ranking.

With summaries, you can provide an improved user experience. It helps users find the content they want to read. Plus, it keeps your page organized and allows you to display multiple posts on a page. This would be very difficult if you show full posts in archives.

That said, here’s a closer look at why we recommend using summary (excerpts) vs full posts on your WordPress site’s archive pages.

1. Improves Page Load Time

Did you know Google now uses your site speed as a ranking factor? The search engine will rank fast-loading websites higher than the ones that take a lot of time to load fully.

By using excerpts on your archive pages, you significantly improve the page load time.

Imagine an archive page that shows 10 posts per page. If each of those 10 pages is 500+ words long with 5 images each, then your user has a lot to scroll through. The page will also load slower than normal.

By using excerpts, you can significantly improve the user experience.

Here’s a preview of how a short summary appears on WPBeginner when you view the archive pages.

Preview summary on WPBeginner

Users can load and browse through our category, tags, date, and other archive pages quickly and easily. As for search engines, you will see a boost in rankings for archive pages and improvement in WordPress SEO with faster page load times.

2. Prevents Duplicate Content

By showing excerpts on your archive pages, you can prevent being flagged for duplicate content in search engines.

For example, WordPress by default has category, tags, date, and author archives. Publishing full posts in archives will make each article appear at full length on several different pages on your site.

Even though search engines are quite smart in finding canonical URLs for each post, they can still flag the site for duplicate content which will affect your search engine rankings.

3. Increases Pageviews and Reduces Bounce rate

Using summaries or excerpts can reduce the bounce rate and increase pageviews. Users can click through to the full post in order to read the entire article.

If you just have full posts displayed in the archive pages, then people will not see any other elements that are on the blog page itself, such as a popular posts widget inside the post or page content.

By displaying the full post, users might just leave your site after looking at a single page instead of clicking around.

A summary makes your archive page more engaging and allows your readers to see find more content easily.

Disadvantages of Using Summary vs Full Post in Archives

1. Short Excerpts Provide Poor User Experience

If you don’t set an excerpt for blog posts, then WordPress will automatically create a summary using the first 55 words in the article. This is too short, and sometimes your sentences will be cut in half, resulting in a poor user experience.

You can always change the excerpt length in a WordPress theme, but that doesn’t fix the problem entirely.

One solution is to write a custom excerpt in the content editor before publication. Another solution is to write short, catchy introductions that will most likely make the user interested and can easily work as excerpts.

2. Hidden Content

Some users prefer to read everything on one page rather than having to go to a different page to read the entire article. This is useful if you have short blog posts that don’t contain many images.

These users are likely to stay on your site longer, even if they don’t click on any other pages, which is also a metric that Google uses to determine search engine rankings.

Should You Use Full Post or Summary in Archive Pages?

If your articles are short and do not contain a lot of images, then you can get away with displaying full posts on your archive pages.

However, in most cases, we always recommend using a summary or excerpts for your archive pages. Most WordPress themes come with a built-in option that allows you to choose between full posts vs excerpts from the settings.

Excerpts provide a better user experience and make your site look clean and organized. You can boost user engagement, increase pageviews, and show multiple articles on your archive pages.

We hope that this article answered the question of whether you should use a full post or summary in your WordPress archive pages. You may also want to see our guide on how to move a WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS and WooCommerce made simple.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Full Post vs Summary (Excerpt) in WordPress Archive Pages? first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Add a Login Form in Your WordPress Sidebar

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Do you want to add a login form to your WordPress sidebar?

A login form in the WordPress sidebar allows users to quickly log in from anywhere on your website. Having easy access to a login form can increase sales for ecommerce sites, boost retention for online courses, and more.

In this article, we will show you how to easily add a custom login form to your WordPress sidebar.

How to add a login form in your WordPress

When and Why Do You Need a Custom Login Form in WordPress?

If you run membership websites, online stores, or sell online courses, then you likely need your users to login to perform certain actions.

Since the sidebar appears throughout a website, it makes the login form more noticeable and easily accessible from every page on the site.

Adding a login form to your WordPress sidebar makes it easy for users to sign in to their accounts quickly. This boosts engagement, provides a better user experience, and increases form conversions.

That said, let’s look at how to add a login form to your WordPress sidebar easily. We’ll show you how to add the default login form in the sidebar and create a custom login form.

You can click the links below to jump ahead to your preferred section.

Method 1: Adding Default WordPress Login Form in Sidebar

You can show the default WordPress login form in the sidebar of your website. This makes it super easy for users to enter their username and password to access the WordPress admin area.

For this tutorial, we’ll use the Astra theme. Do note that the options may vary depending on the WordPress theme you’re using.

To start, you need to go to Appearance » Widgets from your WordPress dashboard.

From here, you can click the ‘+’ button and scroll under the ‘Theme’ heading and click on the ‘Login/out’ widget block to add it to your sidebar.

Add a login out widget block

Next, you’ll see the ‘Login/out’ block in your widgets area. You can then enable the options to display login as a form.

When you’ve made the changes, click the ‘Update’ button at the top.

See a logout option and update widgets area

After that, you can visit your website to see the default WordPress login form in action.

Do note that you’ll be logged in if you immediately go check the form. Simply log out of your site to see how the form will appear to your members.

Default login form preview

Method 2: Adding a Custom Login Form Using WPForms Plugin

The default WordPress login form only offers a username and password field. However, you can create a custom user registration form with more fields and customization options.

The best way to do that is by using WPForms. It is the most popular WordPress form plugin, and the premium version of WPForms allows you to easily create WordPress login and registration forms with custom fields.

WPBeginner users can use the WPForms Coupon: SAVE50 to get 50% off on their purchases.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can get your license key from your WPForms account on their website.

Entering the WPForms license key

After verification, you need to go to WPForms » Addons page.

From here, you need to scroll down to the ‘User Registration Addon’ and click on the ‘Install Addon’ button.

The WPForms user registration addon

The addon will now automatically install and activate on your website.

You are now ready to create a custom WordPress login form. Simply visit WPForms » Add New page to launch the WPForms builder.

First, you need to enter a form name at the top and then select the built-in ‘User Login Form’ template. Simply hover over it and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

Select the user login form template

It will display the login fields pre-loaded in your form. You can click on a field to edit it or add new fields from the left column.

WPForms offers multiple form fields you can add using the drag-and-drop builder. For example, you can add a name or CAPTCHA form fields to the login form.

Customize your user login form

Afterward, head to the ‘Settings’ tab and click on the Confirmation section.

This is where you need to define what to do once a user successfully logs in to your site.

Go to confirmation settings

The options include a message, a custom page, or a redirect URL to any page on your site.

Ideally, you would want to redirect users to a page once they are logged in. This could be your homepage, WordPress admin panel, or any other page on your website such as their membership dashboard or client portal.

Next, you can click the ‘Save’ button at the top and exit the form builder.

Your login form is now ready. From here, you can add it to your WordPress sidebar.

Simply visit the Appearance » Widgets page in your WordPress admin area. On this page, add the ‘WPForms’ widget block in the sidebar widget area of your site.

Add WPForms widget block

Next, you can select your user login form from the dropdown menu.

You can view more options in the settings panel on your right. For instance, there are options to show the form title and description.

Edit form settings and update

Don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ button when you’re done.

You can now visit your website to see the custom login form.

Custom login form preview

You can also use WPForms to create a custom user registration form with anti-spam features.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add a login form in your WordPress sidebar. You may also want to see our step-by-step guide on how to start a WordPress blog and the best email marketing services for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add a Login Form in Your WordPress Sidebar first appeared on WPBeginner.