Is your WordPress export file too large to import into your new website?
WordPress comes with built in import and export functionality that uses the XML file format. Sometimes the exported XML file is larger than your web host’s upload limit.
In this article, we’ll show you how to split large XML files in WordPress.
WordPress allows you to export your entire WordPress website as a single XML file that contains all of your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags.
This is known as a WXR file and stands for WordPress Extended RSS.
However, sometimes you may find that this file size is larger than the upload limit allowed by your WordPress hosting provider. If the file size is too large, then you will see an error message, and you will not be able to import your website data into the new WordPress installation.
This limit can vary, depending on your hosting provider and plan.
While you can ask your web hosting company to temporarily increase the file size limit, most shared hosting companies will not allow it.
So the only other option you have is to split the XML file into smaller files manually which is hard work.
Luckily, there’s an easy free online tool that can help you automatically split large WordPress XML files.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to split large XML files in WordPress.
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How to Split Large XML Files in WordPress
Once you have exported your WordPress site to a single XML file, you need to go to the Free WXR File Splitter Tool website. This is a free online tool that is designed to divide a large WordPress export file into small chunks.
Once there, you can upload your XML file by dragging it onto the area labeled ‘Click or drag a file to this area to upload’. Alternatively, you can click the ‘WXR File’ button and then select the XML file.
After that, you need to move the ‘New file size’ slider to your website’s maximum upload size or smaller. The goal is to create multiple files that are small enough to be uploaded to your host without surpassing the limits.
When you are ready, you need to press the ‘Submit’ button. Your large XML file will be split into smaller files of the correct size.
Finally, you’ll need to press the ‘Download’ button to download the files to the default download location on your computer. The files will be contained in a single file which will need to be unzipped so that you can import them into your new website.
Do you want to create a booking form in WordPress?
Many websites and businesses rely on bookings. If you accept appointments, then a booking form can help you schedule more appointments and boost your profits. It can also remove a lot of the time-consuming admin work that often comes with managing bookings.
In this article, we’ll share three ways to create a booking form in WordPress.
Why Create a Booking Form in WordPress?
Think about all the times you’ve booked an appointment. This can be anything from a doctor’s appointment, to scheduling a callback, reserving a table at your favorite restaurant, or even booking tickets to a concert or movie.
Sometimes, you may have made the booking by calling the business. However, most of the time you’ve likely booked online.
More and more, we expect to book all kinds of appointments online, without ever speaking to a real person.
Your customers and visitors expect this as well.
If your business accepts appointments, then it’s smart to create an online booking form. This is any form that lets visitors book an appointment, buy tickets to an event, or make a reservation online.
With a booking form, you’ll never lose another customer just because you weren’t around to answer the phone.
Booking forms can also automate a lot of the booking process. This includes collecting payments and sending your customers helpful reminder emails. This can improve the quality of the customer experience. It can also save you from lots of annoying admin work.
That said, let’s take a look at how you can create a booking form in WordPress. We’ll show you 3 ways to do this, so simply click the links below to jump to the method you prefer:
Method 1. How to Create a Booking Form Using WPForms (Recommended)
WPForms is the best form builder for WordPress used by over 5 million websites. You can quickly add a booking form to your website using the plugin’s simple drag and drop builder.
There are even ready-made templates that can help you get started. This includes event planning templates, feedback forms, and user registration templates.
Plus, WPForms integrates with all of the top email marketing providers. This makes it easy to send notifications and appointment reminder emails to both your customers, and your staff.
For this post, we’ll be using the WPForms Pro version because it has lots of different templates and powerful addons. If you’re looking for a free form builder plugin, there is also a WPForms Lite version. It just doesn’t include all of the premium templates and integrations.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After activating WPForms, head over to WPForms » Settings in your WordPress dashboard. You can now enter your license key. You’ll find this key in your WPForms Account.
Next, you need to go to WPForms » Add New. To start, give your booking form a name.
WPForms has lots of different templates so you can quickly get started and build all kinds of forms. Since we’re creating a booking form, it makes sense to select the Event Planning category in the sidebar.
Here, you’ll find templates for ordering wedding flowers, booking a school trip, hiring a DJ, and everything in between.
To preview a template, click on its View Demo button. This opens the template in a new tab.
When you find a design that you want to use, click on the orange ‘Use Template’ button. This launches the WPForms drag and drop editor.
In this tutorial, we’re going to use the Online Event Registration RSVP form. This form has fields where customers can type their name and email address.
It also asks visitors how they heard about your event. This can help you pinpoint the marketing channels and sources that are bringing you the most conversions.
You can use this information to plan your future marketing activities, and drive more people to your booking form. For more information about conversion tracking, see our ultimate guide on conversion tracking in WordPress.
The Online Event Registration RSVP template also lets visitors add multiple people to a single booking. This is perfect for events that often attract group bookings, such as tours, or shows.
Finally, customers can use the dropdown menus to choose the date and time when they want to attend your event.
All of these fields are completely customizable. To edit a field, simply give it a click. The sidebar will then update to display all of the settings for the selected field.
You can also add more fields to your booking form template. If it isn’t already selected, then click on the ‘Add Fields’ tab in the left-hand menu.
Then, simply drag and drop your chosen field into place on your booking form. You also change the order these fields appear in your form using drag and drop.
Once you’ve finished editing your booking form, click on the Save button.
Now that you’ve created your booking form, it’s important to set up some notifications.
Every time someone fills in the booking form, WPForms will send an email to your WordPress admin by default. Sometimes, you may want to send these emails to a different address. You may even want to email multiple people.
This is easy to do using WPForms. To edit your email notifications, click on Settings in the left-hand menu. Then, select Notifications.
On this screen, find the ‘Send To Email Address’ field. By default, this is set to {admin_email}. This is a dynamic value that tells WordPress to use the email address that’s linked to your WordPress admin account.
You can delete this dynamic text and replace it with any other email address. Simply type the new address directly into the ‘Send To Email Address’ field.
If you want to email multiple people, then just separate each address with a comma.
You need to make sure all of the emails sent from your website go to the recipient’s email inbox and not to the spam folder. The best way to do this is by using an SMTP service provider. For more details, see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.
Once you’ve finished building your WordPress booking form, it’s time to publish it. You can either create a new page, or add this form to a page that you’ve already created.
With that said, the process is exactly the same. Simply open the webpage where you want to display your booking form. Then, click on the black + icon.
WPForms has its own block, so start typing ‘WPForms.’
When this block appears, add it to your webpage.
In your new WPForms block, click on the dropdown menu and select the booking form that you just created.
You can now update or publish your page.
That’s it! Visit your website and you should now see your booking form in action.
Method 2. How to Create a Booking Form Using Formidable Forms
Formidable Forms is the most advanced WordPress form plugin in the market. You can use Formidable Form’s drag and drop interface to create a booking form with more advanced features such as calculations.
In this post we’ll be using Formidable Forms Pro because it has a good selection of booking form templates. This makes it easy to create a user-friendly booking form for your WordPress website.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate Formidable Forms Lite, which is the free version of the plugin. Formidable Forms Lite acts as the base for the advanced features of the Pro version. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once you’ve done that, you need to go to Formidable » General Settings. Then, click on the ‘Click to enter a license key manually’ link.
You’ll find your license key in the Downloads section of your Formidable Forms account.
You can now paste your license key into this box and click on the ‘Save License’ button.
After activating your license key, select Formidable Forms from the WordPress menu.
Then, click on the ‘Add New’ button.
You can now pick the template that you want to use. Since we’re building a booking form, you may want to focus on the Event Planning category.
To view all of the templates in this category, start typing ‘Event Planning’ into the search field. When the Event Planning category appears, give it a click.
You can now pick the template that you want to use. We’re using the Travel Booking template in all of our screenshots.
After choosing your template, give it a name and enter a description. Then, click on Create. This launches your template in the Formidable Forms editor.
To edit a field, give it a click. The Formidable Forms sidebar will then display all of the different settings for your chosen field.
This sidebar also has different fields that you can add to your form. You may want to use these fields to collect more information from your visitors or give them choices. For example, you might let them request a room with a sea view, or ask about their dietary requirements.
You can also change where each field appears in your form by using drag and drop.
Once you’re happy with your design, click on Update to save your changes.
If someone completes your booking form, then you’ll want to know about it! Just like WPForms, Formidable Forms sends email to your WordPress admin by default.
If you prefer, then you can tell Formidable Forms to send these emails to any other address. You can even send these emails to multiple accounts.
To customize these default emails, click on the Settings tab. Then, select ‘Actions & Notifications’ from the left-hand menu.
Next, click on Send Email. This adds a new section that has all the settings you need to set up your email notifications. This includes changing the person who gets these emails, or adding more people.
The final step is adding this booking form to your WordPress website.
At the very top of the screen, click on the Embed button. This opens a popup where you can choose to add this form to an existing page, or create a new page.
Another option is adding this form to a widget. This can be an easy way to display your booking form in your theme’s sidebar, or header.
If you want to add your form to a widget, click on Insert Manually. Formidable Forms will then display a shortcode. You can now copy this code and paste it into any Shortcode block.
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WordPress themes are designed for generic website niches. For instance, there are themes for different types of small business websites, photographers, bloggers, and more.
After picking a theme, you’ll need to customize it to your own requirements.
For instance, you may want to use your own custom logo, brand colors, tweak the layout a little bit, change font sizes, use your own images, and more.
Some of these customizations are necessary to make a website that truly represents your business and brand, and doesn’t just look like everyone else’s.
Depending on which WordPress theme you choose, these options may vary a lot from one theme to another.
For instance, some themes may give you an option to move the sidebar from right to left while others may not even have a sidebar in their layout.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily customize your WordPress theme without writing any code, and take it to the next level without breaking your website.
Using the Default Theme Customizer
WordPress came out with a full-site editing experience in WordPress 5.9.
There are currently not very many themes on the market with full support for the new full-site editing feature.
However, we’ll show you how to use it to customize your WordPress theme. We’ll also show you how to use the legacy theme customizer as well as the complete WordPress site builder tool that we recommend for beginners.
Using the Full Site Editor in WordPress to Customize a Theme
If your WordPress theme supports full site editor, then you’ll see the Editor menu under the Appearance option in the WordPress admin sidebar.
Clicking on it will launch the full site editor.
This editor is just like the block editor you use to write WordPress posts and pages.
You can add new elements to your templates by adding blocks. Apart from regular blocks, you can also use site-wide blocks like navigation, logo, post query loops, and more.
Each block comes with its own settings, where you can style it differently and change colors, typography, and other options.
Your WordPress theme may also provide additional patterns that you can use to quickly create different sections.
You can find these under the Patterns tab.
You can edit different areas of your website by clicking on the template name at the top and choosing a different template to edit.
To view more templates, you can click on ‘Browse all templates’ at the bottom.
This will show you a list of templates available in your theme that you can edit.
Simply click on a template name to open it in the editor.
The template will open in the same block editor.
From here, you can edit it any way you want.
Once you are satisfied with the changes you made to your theme, simply click on the Save button at the top to apply your changes.
The full site editor is a powerful and flexible way to customize your WordPress theme.
However, it is a brand new feature and many WordPress themes don’t support it at the moment.
Using Legacy Theme Customizer in WordPress
If your WordPress theme doesn’t support the full site editor yet, then it will use the legacy theme customizer feature in WordPress.
In that case, you can customize your theme by going to the Appearance » Customize page.
Clicking on it will launch the Theme Customizer.
You’ll see customization settings on the left side of your screen, and the live preview of your website to the right.
The editable areas of your website will be highlighted with a pencil icon on the live preview.
You can also expand each option on the left panel to change its settings.
The number of options in the left panel will vary from one theme to another.
However, most themes will support the basics like your site’s tagline, widgets, homepage settings, menus, and Additional CSS settings.
The default WordPress theme customization options depend on which WordPress theme you are using.
If your theme supports a feature, you may be able to customize it using customizer or full site editor. This limits your ability to customize a WordPress theme.
What if you want to further customize or even create a custom WordPress theme for your website?
It is the best WordPress website builder on the market. You can use it to create beautiful website layouts and even create a custom theme without writing any code.
Upon activation, you need to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the SeedProd website.
After that, you need to choose whether you want to create a custom WordPress theme or create individual pages for your website.
SeedProd can do both and we’ll show you both approaches.
Customize Individual WordPress Pages with SeedProd
This approach is quite flexible and allows you to easily create on-demand page layouts.
For instance, you can design a custom landing page for a product or marketing campaign, or create a thank you page to send visitors after they sign up for your email list.
Simply head over to SeedProd » Landing Pages page and then click on the Add New Landing Page button.
Next, you need to choose template for your page.
This template is used as an starting point, so you can change everything inside it later on. Alternatively, you can start with a blank canvas.
Simply click on a template to continue.
SeedProd will then ask you to provide a title for your page and choose a URL.
After entering the required information,. click on the Save and Start Editing the Page button.
This will launch the SeedProd page builder interface. This is a drag and drop design tool.
To your left, you’ll see blocks and sections that you can add to your page layout with a live editable preview of the page to the right.
You can simply point and click on any element of your page to edit it.
You can also add new blocks and even complete sections to your layout from the left column.
SeedProd comes with all the popular web design elements that you’ll need to make your website. It includes contact forms, optin forms, login forms, testimonials, progress bars, accordions, navigation menus, icon box, and a ton more.
It also includes complete support for WooCommerce. You can use WooCommerce blocks to display products anywhere on your website, create a custom check out page, or design a cart page for your online store.
Once you are satisfied with your page design and layout, you can click on the Save button at the top right.
From here, you can also choose to publish the page or save it as a template.
That’s it! You can repeat this process to create more custom pages on your website.
Creating a Custom Theme in WordPress with SeedProd
This approach is highly recommended if you want to create a truly unique design for your blog, business website, or eCommerce store.
With this method, you’ll be designing your own custom WordPress theme from scratch using the same drag and drop page builder.
The best part is that your SeedProd custom theme will work no matter what theme you have installed on your site. That means you don’t need to worry about customizing a standard WordPress theme, but will have total freedom in creating your design.
To get started, simply head over to SeedProd » Theme Bulder page and click on the Themes button.
SeedProd will now now show you a bunch of starter themes to choose from.
You can completely modify every Aspect of these themes.
Once you have chosen a theme, SeedProd will generate all the theme templates.
Simply click on the Edit Design link below a template file to edit it.
You’ll see a live preview of the template in the right column with an editing panel in the left column.
Simply point and click to edit any item or drop elements from the left column.
SeedProd also comes with blocks specific to site-wide editing.
These are dynamic blocks that you can use to display content loop (for blog posts), post title, featured image, and more.
Once you are done making changes to a theme, don’t forget to Save your changes.
Repeat the process to edit other templates to your own liking.
Once you are finished, go to the SeedProd » Theme Builder page and toggle the switch next to the ‘Enable SeedProd Theme’ option to ‘Yes’.
SeedProd will now replace your WordPress theme with the custom theme you just created.
To learn more about SeedProd WordPress theme builder, see our tutorial on how to create a custom WordPress theme without writing code.
We hope this article helped you learn how to customize your WordPress theme to your own liking.
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Do you need to regenerate or flush your WordPress permalinks?
If you are not able to view your website content, then neither can your visitors. Broken links and 404 errors can damage the user experience, and your position in SEO rankings.
In this article, we will show you how to fix these dead URLs by regenerating your permalinks in WordPress. We will also talk about what causes this error, and how to spot broken links, before your visitors do.
Why Do I Need to Regenerate Permalinks in WordPress?
Most of the time, the URLs on your WordPress site are permanent and won’t cause any problems. They just work.
However, sometimes you may click on a link and get a 404 error. You might even get a 404 when trying to access your entire WordPress website.
This sometimes happens after moving your WordPress site to a new host or server. It could also happen after you install a new plugin. This is because some plugins edit your site’s .htaccess file without your knowledge. This can affect your site in lots of different ways, including damaging your URLs.
Note: For this tutorial, you’ll need to be able to log in to the WordPress dashboard. If you can’t access your WordPress admin page, then see our step by step guide on what to do when you are locked out of WordPress admin.
Often, regenerating your permalinks can be a quick and easy fix for those issues. Let’s take a look at how to do that.
How to Regenerate Your Permalinks in WordPress
When you regenerate your links, you’re rebuilding and repairing the WordPress permalink structure. This may sound complicated, but don’t worry. You simply need to click on a button, and WordPress will handle the rest.
To get started, head over to Settings » Permalinks from your WordPress admin menu.
This will take you to the WordPress Permalinks Settings page. Here, you’ll see the permalink structure that you’re currently using.
WordPress supports several options for permalinks. You can see our guide on how to create custom permalinks in WordPress for step by step instructions on how to customize them.
To regenerate your permalinks, just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the ‘Save Changes’ button.
After a few moments, you should see a message confirming that WordPress has updated your permalink structure.
That’s it! WordPress has now regenerated your permalinks.
To make sure it worked, head over to your site and try clicking on a few different links.
Are You Still Seeing Permalink Errors After Regenerating?
If this doesn’t fix the problem, then think about what happened right before you started seeing these 404 messages. If you’d just installed or updated a plugin, then this might have affected your links. You can try disabling this plugin, to see whether this removes the 404 error.
If this doesn’t work, then you can try deactivating all plugins to see whether this fixes your broken links.
This is a bit of a drastic step, so it’s smart to put your site into maintenance mode first. This will keep visitors informed while you test your plugins, giving a better impression than seeing a broken website.
If deactivating all of your plugins solves the problem, then you’ll know that at least one plugin is affecting your URLs. In this case, reactivate each plugin individually and then test how this impacts your links.
When the 404 error reappears, you’ve found the plugin that’s causing the issue. You can then delete this plugin from your site or ask the developer for support.
How to Track and Avoid Broken Permalinks in WordPress
Broken links are bad news for visitors, conversions, and your search engine rankings. Over time, dead URLs can impact where you appear in the search engine rankings. This means less traffic to your website.
With so much at stake, you’ll want to know about any dead links as soon as possible.
The easiest way to track and fix broken links on your WordPress website is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin for WordPress. Over 3 million website owners use AIOSEO including us here at WPBeginner.
AIOSEO allows you to easily find broken links and fix them with just a few clicks using their powerful redirection manager. For more details, please see our guide on how to track 404 pages and redirect them in WordPress.
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Do you need to add nofollow links in your WordPress navigation menus?
Many website owners prefer to add a nofollow tag to external links, but beginners may find this tricky when adding a custom link to a menu.
In this article, we’ll show you how to add nofollow links in WordPress navigation menus.
Why Add Nofollow Links in WordPress Navigation Menus?
If you are running a WordPress website, then you may want to add a nofollow tag when creating external links. This lets search engines know not to pass any link authority from your page to the other website that you’re linking to.
When you link to an external website, search engines consider that as a ranking signal, and they will pass a small portion of your authority to the other website. As a general SEO best practice, you should add nofollow to all external websites that you don’t trust.
You do that by adding the rel="nofollow" attribute to the link like this:
In this article, we will show you how to add nofollow links in WordPress navigation menus. We’ll cover two methods, and the second method is for those using WordPress 5.9 or higher and a theme that’s compatible with the new theme editor.
Method 1: Adding Nofollow Links Using the WordPress Menu Editor
To get started, simply visit Appearance » Menus in your WordPress admin area.
First, you need to add the external link to your WordPress navigation menu just like you would add any custom link.
To do that, you need to click on the ‘Custom Links’ tab so you can see the URL and Link Text options. Simply enter the URL and link text of the website you are linking to.
After that, you should click the ‘Add to Menu’ button and the link will be added to the ‘Menu structure’ column.
To add the nofollow attribute to the link, you need to click the downward arrow on the right of the menu entry, as pictured in the screenshot above. You can now see the details of the external link you just added, including the URL and navigation label.
If you don’t see the Link Target and Link Relationship options, then you will have to add them.
To show those options, you need to click the ‘Screen Options’ button at the top right corner of the screen. Then check the boxes next to the Link Target and Link Relationship (XFN) options.
Now you can scroll back down to your expanded menu item, and you will notice two new options. Next, simply enter nofollow in the link relationship field.
We recommend that you also click the ‘Open link in a new tab’ checkbox when adding an external link. This is a great way to improve engagement and keep your visitors from leaving your website.
Lastly, click the ‘Save Menu’ button to store your changes.
You can now preview your site to see the new nofollow menu entry.
Let’s make sure that a nofollow attribute has been added to the link.
Simply right click the new link and select ‘Inspect’. Your browser window will split into two windows. In the bottom window, you will be able to see the HTML source for your link. It will display the nofollow attribute with your link.
Method 2: Adding Nofollow Links Using the WordPress Theme Editor
This method is for those who are using WordPress 5.9 or later and have a theme that supports the new WordPress theme editor. In that case, the Appearance » Menus page will not be available to you.
Instead, you should navigate to Appearance » Editor in your WordPress dashboard. This will open the WordPress theme editor.
Adding a New Link to the Navigation Menu
If you need to add a new menu item, then you’ll have to click the blue Block Inserter icon in the top left corner. Next, you should scroll down until you locate the Custom Link block and then drag it onto your navigation menu.
You can now type or paste the URL. If you want, you can also toggle the ‘Open in new tab’ option to the on position. After that, make sure you click the Submit icon at the top right of the popup so that the menu item’s settings are stored.
The link URL will be added to the menu, but you’ll normally want something more descriptive, such as the name of the website. Simply start typing to rename the menu item.
Adding the Nofollow Attribute to a Link
To add the nofollow attribute to a menu item, simply click it and a toolbar will appear.
Next you need to click the link icon on that toolbar. In the settings pane on the right, you need to enter nofollow in the link relationship (‘Link rel’) field.
If you like, you can also add a description and title for the link, and reorder the menu items using the arrow icons on the toolbar.
When you’ve finished, click the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen. The new custom link will be added and you can visit your website to see how your navigation menu looks now.
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