How to Customize WooCommerce Product Search Results Page

Set Up Woocommerce

Would you like to customize your WooCommerce product search results page?

By default, WordPress and WooCommerce have limited search capabilities. By customizing your product search results, you’ll be able to increase sales and grow your business.

In this article, we’ll show a few easy ways you can customize your WooCommerce product search results page to provide a better user experience.

How to Customize WooCommerce Product Search Results Page

Why Customize WooCommerce Product Search Results Page?

By default, WooCommerce comes with a built in product search feature. However, it has serious limitations. This could mean that your customers won’t be able to find the products they’re looking for.

As a result, you may be losing potential sales. If your customers can’t find what they’re looking for, then they may not come back to your online store.

How does this happen? The default WooCommerce search only indexes the title, content, and excerpt of posts and pages. It doesn’t consider any content within custom fields while performing a search.

That’s a problem because a great deal of your WooCommerce product data is stored in custom fields. As a result, none of your WooCommerce product categories, tags, reviews, and other special attributes will be indexed.

Luckily, you can solve this problem using a WooCommerce product search plugin.

That being said, let’s take a look at some examples of how you might improve your WooCommerce product search results page.

Here is what you will learn from this guide. You can click the link to skip ahead to the section you’re interested in.

Making WooCommerce Product Data Searchable

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

SearchWP is the best custom search plugin for WordPress, and is used by over 30,000 websites. It’s also one of the best plugins for WooCommerce because it delivers more relevant product results to your customers.

Note: You’ll need at least the Pro plan to access WooCommerce integration.

Upon activation, you need to visit the SearchWP » Settings page and switch to the ‘Support’ tab to enter your license key. You can find it in your account area on the SearchWP site.

Paste Your SearchWP License Key

Next, you need to install and activate the WooCommerce Integration extension.

You can download it from your account area on the SearchWP website and install it as you would install any other WordPress plugin.

Install the WooCommerce Integration Extension

Now you are ready to set up your SearchWP custom search engine.

Simply go to the SearchWP » Settings page and make sure you’re on the ‘Engines’ tab. Once there, you need to click the ‘Sources & Settings’ button.

Click on the 'Sources & Settings' Button

This will bring up a popup where you should make sure the checkbox next to ‘Products’ is checked. This will allow SearchWP to index your WooCommerce products.

WooCommerce product reviews are stored as comments. If you want to make reviews searchable, then you should also check the ‘Comments’ box.

Check the Products and Comments Boxes

Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Done’ button to close the popup.

Now you need to scroll down to the ‘Products’ section. Notice that by default, the plugin will only look at the product title, content (description), slug, and excerpt (short description).

Click the 'Add/Remove Attributes' Button in the Products Section

You can extend SearchWP’s reach by clicking on the ‘Add/Remove Attributes’ button.

This will bring up a popup where you can include specific custom fields and taxonomies in searches. For this tutorial, we’ve added the ‘color’ and ‘size’ custom fields, and the taxonomies ‘product categories’ and ‘product tags’.

Add Custom Fields and Taxonomies to the Search Engine

You can now click the ‘Done’ button, and you should notice that those custom fields and taxonomies have been added to the products section of SearchWP.

After that, you can adjust the weight of each attribute. If you’d like to make a specific attribute more important in search results, then simply move the slider to the right.

Adjust the Importance of Each Attribute

When you’re done, go ahead and click on the ‘Save Engines’ button at the top of the screen to save your settings.

SearchWP will then start rebuilding your search index in the background. After that, the plugin will be ready to start delivering more relevant search results to your WooCommerce store.

Click the 'Save Engine' Button

SearchWP will automatically use any search forms on your online store. However, if you need to add a search form, then see our step by step guide on how to create a custom WordPress search form. This will also teach you how to style the results page using custom CSS.

Now you can go to your WooCommerce store to try out the search feature. We’ll search for the product category ‘hoodies’, and all products in that category will be displayed.

Product Search Results Page Preview

To learn more, see our guide on how to make a smart WooCommerce product search.

Customizing Which Products Will Be Shown on Search Results Pages

By default, SearchWP will include all of the products in your online store in the search results. However, you may wish to specify which products should or should not be displayed.

For example, you can automatically exclude products if they fall under certain conditions, like if they are discontinued or out of stock. Or you might only display products that are on sale or come with free shipping.

For example, the AeroPress WooCommerce store lets you search for products with free shipping. This is a great incentive for customers to make a purchase.

AeroPress Product Search Results Page

To get started, you should click the ‘Edit Rules’ button in SearchWP’s Products section.

Click the 'Edit Rules' Button

Right now there are no rules. You can create as many rules as you need.

To create your first rule, you need to click the ‘Add Rule’ button.

Click the 'Add Rule' Button

Now you can specify the conditions for which products should be shown or excluded from search results. For this tutorial, we’ll exclude all out of stock products.

First, you should select ‘Exclude entries if’ from the first drop down menu. Then select the ‘Product visibility’ taxonomy and type ‘outofstock’ in the field next to it.

Creating a Rule to Exclude Out of Stock Products

If you like, you can add additional conditions that should be excluded by clicking the ‘OR’ button. Once you’re finished adding rules, click the ‘Done’ button.

Now all you need to do is press the ‘Save Engines’ button at the top to store your changes.

Click the 'Save Engine' Button

To learn about more ways you can make use of SearchWP’s rules, see our guide on how to exclude specific pages, authors, and more from WordPress search.

Displaying Product Search Results in Live Mode

Live search will improve the search experience on your WooCommerce store by automatically showing search results as your customers type their queries.

For example, Good Dye Young offers live search results on their hair and makeup products.

Relevant products and articles are immediately displayed while the customer types their search query, providing a better user experience.

Good Dye Young Product Search Results Page

To add this to your own store, all you need to do is install and activate the free SearchWP Live Ajax Lite Search plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, your WooCommerce search forms will automatically provide live search.

Live Search Preview

For more details, see our guide on how to add live search to your WordPress site.

Finding Partial Matches and Other Advanced Features

Partial matching will help your customers to find what they are searching for, even if they don’t type the whole word or use the correct spelling.

For example, the Magna-Tiles online store has partial matching enabled. Customers only need to type part of a product name to find it in the search results.

Magna-Tiles Product Search Results Page

To enable partial matching in SearchWP, you should navigate to SearchWP » Settings and click on the Advanced tab.

On this page, you can enable some settings that will make it easier for your users to find what they are looking for.

SearchWP Advanced Settings

Check any of these options that you would like:

  • Partial matches will also display results that don’t quite match the term that is being searched for.
  • Automatic “Did you mean?” corrections will suggest a slightly different search term that will match more products in your online store.
  • Supporting “quoted/phrase searches” will allow your users to use quotes when searching for exact phrases.
  • Highlighting terms in results will make it easier for your customers to find what they are looking for in the search results.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to customize the WooCommerce product search results page. You may also want to learn how to add wholesale pricing in WooCommerce, or check out our list of the best email marketing services.

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 Customize WooCommerce Product Search Results Page first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Move Comments Between WordPress Posts (Easy Method)

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Are you looking for an easy way to move comments between WordPress posts?

You might be writing a new version of a post and plan to redirect it from the original post. Redirects are great for avoiding broken links and preserving your WordPress SEO, but the original comments won’t be moved to the new post.

In this article, we will show you how to easily move comments between WordPress posts.

How to Move Comments Between WordPress Posts

Why Move Comments Between WordPress Posts?

By default, any comments you get on your WordPress site are attached to a specific post or page and can’t be moved.

However, sometimes, you might need to move comments to another post or page.

For example, you might decide to combine several posts together into a new post and then delete the individual ones. Or you may decide that a post would work better recreated as a page or vice versa.

Redirecting those deleted posts is good for your website’s search engine optimization, but it won’t save the comments.

In these scenarios, it would be helpful to move comments from one post or page to a new one instead of losing them or having to recreate them all manually.

How to Move Comments Between WordPress Posts

You can easily move comments between WordPress posts using the free Copy or Move Comments plugin. 

Note: We recommend making a backup of your site before moving the comments since it can’t be reversed. See our expert pick of the best backup plugins for WordPress to get started.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Copy or Move Comments plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, click on Copy/Move Comments in the WordPress sidebar. 

How to move comments between WordPress posts

This WordPress plugin lets you choose between moving or copying comments.

If you choose ‘Copy,’ then it will duplicate all of the original comments and then add them to the new page or post.

When you copy the comments, the original comments won’t be deleted. This means you will end up with duplicate comments on your WordPress blog

If you choose ‘Move’, then the plugin will delete the original ‘source’ comments and then add them to the new ‘target’ page or post. This helps you avoid duplicate content.

Once you have made your decision, open the Action dropdown. You can now select either ‘Copy’ or ‘Move’.

Choosing whether to copy or move comments between WordPress posts

Your next task is choosing the Source. This is the location from where you want to copy your comments.

To get started, click on the ‘Source’ dropdown. 

You can now choose the post type. For example, if you wanted to copy comments from a specific WordPress post, then you would choose ‘post’.

Choosing a source page or post

Next, click on the ‘Select Post’ dropdown. Depending on your selection, this will show all of your pages or all of your posts. 

You can now simply click to select the page or post that you want to use as your source. 

Selecting a source WordPress page or post

The next step is opening the ‘Select Comment Type’ dropdown.

You can choose whether you want to see comments that have replies or ‘Single’ comments. These are comments that have no replies.

How to choose a WordPress comment type

The plugin will show all of the comments that fit your criteria.

Now, you can simply click to select every comment that you want to move or copy. If you want to move all of the comments, then you can click on the checkbox at the top of the column to select them all at once.

A list of WordPress comments

Your next task is to tell the plugin where it should move these comments to.

To do this, scroll down to the Target section at the bottom. After that, open the ‘Select Post Type’ dropdown and choose the destination’s post type. 

How to choose a target WordPress post

Next, click on the ‘Select Post’ dropdown. 

Here, you can choose your target, which is the post or page where you want to move these comments to. 

How to move comments between WordPress posts

After choosing your target, just click on the ‘Perform Action’ button. 

The plugin will now move or copy all of the selected comments to this page.

If you check out the target page or post, you will see that all of your comments have been added to this page.

It’s also worth checking the source page or post. If you chose ‘Copy’, then you should still see all of your original comments. However, if you chose ‘Move’, then all of the original comments should have vanished from this page or post. 

After moving your comments, you may want to change the order in which WordPress displays these comments. By showing newer comments first, you can keep the conversation fresh and get more comments on your WordPress blog.

You can learn how to do this in our step-by-step guide on how to display the most recent comments first in WordPress.

Bonus: Improve WordPress Comments Using Thrive Comments

Now that you know how to move comments to a different post, you might be wondering how to improve your comments section in other ways. The best way to do that is with Thrive Comments, which is a powerful and easy-to-use WordPress comments plugin.

It can save your team time with its flexible comment moderation features. Besides being able to approve comments or mark them as spam, you can also feature positive comments and even mark them as testimonials that can be displayed somewhere else on your website.

Feature comment from dropdown menu

You can show appreciation to your commenters by displaying a message or redirecting them to a Thank You page. You can also award your commenters badges when they reach certain milestones.

Another benefit of this plugin is that you let your users upvote comments by clicking Like and Dislike buttons. This can create a sense of community and increase user engagement without users needing to leave a comment of their own.

We hope this article helped you learn how to move comments between WordPress posts. You may also want to see our guide on how to allow user registration on your WordPress website or our expert pick of the best WordPress comments plugins.

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 Move Comments Between WordPress Posts (Easy Method) first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Split Large XML Files in WordPress (Free Tool)

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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.

How to Split Large XML Files in WordPress

Why Split Large XML Files in WordPress?

When moving your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org or moving content from a self-hosted WordPress website to a to a new host or server, you will need to export your WordPress content.

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.

You Can Export Your Website to an XML File

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.

There Is a Limit to the Size of XML File That Can Be Imported

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.

Upload the XML File to the Free WXR File Splitter Tool

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.

Download the Split Files in a Zip File to Your Computer

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.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to split large XML files in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to create a free business email, or check out our list of the best drag and drop WordPress page builder plugins.

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 Split Large XML Files in WordPress (Free Tool) first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Create a Booking Form in WordPress

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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.

How 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.

An example booking form created using WPForms

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. 

WPForms website

There are even ready-made templates that can help you get started. This includes event planning templates, feedback forms, and user registration templates.

You can even use these ready-made forms to collect donations for your nonprofit site, or arrange Zoom meetings with potential new customers.

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.

The WPForms template library.

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.

WPForms' online RSVP template.

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.

Editing a field in WPForms.

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.

Customizing the WPForms email and notification settings.

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.

The WPForms form building plugin.

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.’

Adding a WPForms block to a WordPress post.

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.

The WPForms block.

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.

Formidable Forms also works great with other tools that you may already be using like MemberPress, WooCommerce, or your email service provider

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.

A booking form, created using Formidable Forms.

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. 

Formidable Forms license key

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.

Enter Formidable Forms license key

After activating your license key, select Formidable Forms from the WordPress menu.

Then, click on the ‘Add New’ button.

Creating a new form using Formidable Forms.

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.

The Event Planning template library.

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.

The Formidable Forms drag and drop 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.

Configuring the booking form notifications.

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.

How to add a booking form to your WordPress website.

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

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a booking form in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to create a free business email address, or check out our list of the must-have WordPress plugins for business websites

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 Create a Booking Form in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Customize Your WordPress Theme (Beginner’s Guide)

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Are you looking to learn how to customize your WordPress theme design?

Many WordPress themes come with built-in options to easily customize the design and layout. You can also add more customization options using plugins.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily customize your WordPress theme and make it your own.

Customizing a WordPress theme for beginners

Following is a list of topics we’ll cover in this guide:

Ready? Let’s get started.

Why Customize Your WordPress Theme

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.

Launch new full site editor in WordPress

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.

Full site editor

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.

Block settings

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.

Add patterns to your layouts

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.

Borwse templates

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.

Select a template to edit

The template will open in the same block editor.

From here, you can edit it any way you want.

Editing posts template

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.

Save changes to your theme

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.

Launching WordPress theme customizer

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.

WordPress theme customizer

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.

expanded option in theme customizer

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.

For more details, view our guide on how to use the WordPress theme customizer to edit your theme.

Customize Your WordPress Theme with Full Control

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?

This is where SeedProd comes in.

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.

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

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.

Add new landing page

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.

Select a template

Simply click on a template to continue.

SeedProd will then ask you to provide a title for your page and choose a URL.

Page name and 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.

Editing a page layout in SeedProd

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.

Point and click to edit any element

You can also add new blocks and even complete sections to your layout from the left column.

Add new blocks

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.

WooCommerce blocks

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.

Save or publish a page

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.

Create SeedProd theme

SeedProd will now now show you a bunch of starter themes to choose from.

You can completely modify every Aspect of these themes.

Choose theme template

Once you have chosen a theme, SeedProd will generate all the theme templates.

Editing a theme template

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.

Add new block to your template

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.

Add template tag blocks

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’.

Enable SeedProd theme

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.

You may also want to see our guide on how to create an email newsletter, or see our WordPress SEO guide to optimize your website for more search traffic.

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 Customize Your WordPress Theme (Beginner’s Guide) first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Regenerate Your Permalinks in WordPress

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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. 

How to Regenerate Your Permalinks in WordPress

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.

The WordPress Permalink settings.

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. 

WordPress' 'Permalink structure updated' notification.

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 you’re still getting 404 errors, then you may have to clear your browser cache. For more details, see our guide on how to clear your browser cache in all major browsers.

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.

The Plugin settings, as seen in the WordPress dashboard.

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.

Your site should now be error-free and running smoothly. If not, then check our list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them

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.

The All in One SEO (AIOSEO) WordPress plugins.

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.

We hope this article helped you learn how to regenerate your permalinks in WordPress. You can also go through our guide on how to choose the best website builder, or our expert pick of the best domain registrars.

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 Regenerate Your Permalinks in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Add Nofollow Links in WordPress Navigation Menus

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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.

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:

<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">Example</a>

You can learn more in our beginner’s guide on how to add nofollow links in WordPress. However, adding nofollow links to navigation menu items is a little different and can be confusing for beginners.

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.

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.

Enter the URL and Link Text and Click on 'Add to Menu' Button

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.

Click on Screen Options at the Top of the Screen

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.

Check Link Relationships and Link Target in Screen 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.

Type nofollow in Link Relationship

Lastly, click the ‘Save Menu’ button to store your changes.

You can now preview your site to see the new nofollow menu entry.

Preview of Nofollow Link in Navigation Menu

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.

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.

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.

Drag a Custom Link Block Onto the 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.

Type nofollow in the 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.

Preview of Nofollow Link in Navigation Menu

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to add nofollow links in WordPress navigation menus. You may also want to learn how to create automated workflows in WordPress with Uncanny Automator, or check out our list of tips to speed up WordPress performance.

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 Nofollow Links in WordPress Navigation Menus first appeared on WPBeginner.