Are you having trouble receiving or sending emails from your WordPress site?
Email deliverability is one of the most important parts of running a website. From password reset emails to order confirmations, having a reliable email service is a must.
In this article, we will show you how to use an SMTP server to send WordPress emails.
The Problem With WordPress Emails
WordPress uses PHP for most of its functions, including sending emails.
Many shared hosting providers do not have the email function configured properly, or they have disabled it entirely to avoid abuse. In either case, this causes your WordPress emails to not be delivered.
The alternative solution is to use a third-party email service to send out your emails. You can use services like Mailgun, Google Workspace, or SendGrid.
You will have to pay for your account, and the cost will vary depending on how many users/accounts you add or the number of emails you send. See our tutorial on how to fix the WordPress not sending email issue.
There is another option, however. You can use SMTP to send emails using the WordPress hosting that you already have.
SMTP, which stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, allows you to use an external mail server to handle email delivery. This ensures higher email deliverability rates and can prevent your emails from landing in the spam folder.
Video Tutorial
For written instructions, just continue reading.
Using Email Accounts by Your Host
Most WordPress hosting providers offer email services for each domain you host with them. This means you can create email accounts with your own domain name, like yourname@yoursite.com.
Using your website’s domain will help you engage your subscribers from your email list and help you stay on-brand by sending messages with your domain name rather than a personal inbox.
First, you will need to create an email account. For the sake of this example, we will show you how to create an email account in cPanel using Hostinger. Your hosting service provider may use some other account management system, but the basic process is the same on most hosting services.
Log into your hosting account and click on ‘Emails’ so that you can create a new email under your domain. Then go ahead and click ‘Manage’ next to your domain.
Then, you’ll need to click on ‘Create email account.’
That way, you can set up a business email under your domain name rather than the default version that WordPress gives you.
This will show you a simple form, where you need to fill out the information required to create your email account.
Since we will be using this account to send WordPress emails, we recommend that you create an email account like wordpress@example.com. Make sure to replace example.com with your own domain name.
Go ahead and enter your email name and password. Then click ‘Create.’
From here, you’ll be asked to configure third-party email services to connect to.
That said, you can choose ‘Other’ if you don’t want to use any of the given services.
Make sure to copy the SMTP Host and Port since you’ll need to add that information to the settings of your WordPress SMTP plugin to start sending emails reliably.
The SMTP Host will allow you to send emails from the email address you’ve just created, and the SMTP Port is for secure login.
Finally, go ahead and click on ‘Complete, I’ve set up my client.’
If you’re using another hosting provider, like Bluehost or SiteGround, you can check the support section on your host’s website for this information. Most likely, there will be an article providing this information. If you don’t find it, then you should contact the hosting support to request this information.
Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t offer built-in native SMTP settings by default. If you want to configure SMTP in WordPress for emails, you must install a SMTP plugin.
Using a WordPress SMTP plugin allows all of your emails to reach the desired destination by connecting to a server made to handle all types of emails. It will replace the default method of sending emails through WordPress, which uses the unreliable PHP mail system.
Using Your Branded Email Address in WordPress
You will now need to install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin.
Used by over 3 million websites, the WP Mail SMTP plugin is the best SMTP plugin for WordPress. It allows you to fix your emails easily by sending them through an email provider, which is a much more reliable way of sending emails than from your web server.
Upon activation, you must visit Settings » Email to configure the plugin settings.
First, you need to enter the email address you just created in the From Email field. After that, you can add a From Name that will be used as the sender name.
Next, you need to choose the mailer. Go ahead and check the box next to Return Path that says, ‘Set the return-path to match the From Email’. After that, you need to check the box next to ‘Return Path’ option.
This option sets the return path to match the sender’s email address. If you leave it unchecked, bounced messages and non-delivery receipts will be lost.
Then, click on the ‘Other SMTP’ option to select it. If you have another mailer service, you can select that instead.
Note: The free version of WP Mail SMTP supports SendLayer, SMTP.com, Brevo, Google Workspace, Mailgun, Postmark, SendGrid, SparkPost, and Other SMTP.
However, the Pro version also supports Amazon SES, Microsoft 365/Outlook, and Zoho Mail in addition to all the free options. Also, with the Pro version, you can turn on Detailed Email Logs and Instant Email Alerts. The email logs allow you to keep records of every email sent out, and the email alerts inform you whenever your site fails to send an email.
Next, you need to set up SMTP options.
First, you need to enter your SMTP host and port that you copied earlier.
You can obtain this information from your hosting provider. Typically, the SMTP host is mail.yourdomain.com (replace yourdomain.com with your own domain name). For SMTP, Port 465 is commonly used.
Depending on your hosting provider, they’ll provide an encryption method when signing up for an email account.
In this case, we are given an SSL encryption method in Hostinger, so we will select that option. However, some hosting services may provide TLS options as well.
Choosing the encryption method is important because it ensures your emails are secure and private. Without it, the content inside the emails could be intercepted and read by unauthorized parties.
After that, turn on the authentication toggle and provide your SMTP username and password. Normally, your email address is also your SMTP username.
Then go ahead and give your SMTP account a password.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Settings’ button to store your changes.
Keep in mind that if you do have another mailer service, you can add that service as a backup connection. That means if an email fails to send using your primary connection, then WP Mail SMTP will automatically try to send the email again using your backup connection.
If you’d like to add another mailer service, just hit the ‘additional connection’ link shown in the screenshot above, and WP Mail SMTP will guide you on how to do it.
Now that you have set up WP Mail SMTP to send emails, let’s test if everything is working fine. Head over to WP Mail SMTP » Tools in the WordPress admin panel.
Under the ‘Email Test’ tab, you need to provide an email address where you would like to receive a test email. This could be any valid email address that you can access.
Go ahead and toggle the HTML button to ‘ON.’ After that, click on the Send Email button to continue.
WP Mail SMTP will now send an email message using the SMTP settings you entered earlier.
Check your inbox, and you should see a success message appear informing you that the email was sent successfully.
Troubleshooting WordPress Email Issues
The most common reason for errors in sending emails using SMTP is an incorrect SMTP host or port.
Make sure that you are entering the correct host and port settings provided by your hosting provider.
Make sure that you select the correct encryption method.
Usually, SSL works on most environments, but we recommend that you check with your web host if your emails are not getting delivered.
Resending Emails Manually
Even if there aren’t any SMTP configuration errors, you may still experience temporary issues.
For example, the recipient’s email server might be causing emails to bounce or the mailer service may place a cap on how many emails you can send per day. If you exceed the allowed number of sent emails in a given time frame, the emails may be rejected.
In that case, you can simply resend it to those specific recipients. All you have to do is head over to WP Mail SMTP » Email Log.
Simply check all of the boxes next to the emails that failed to resend, and under the Bulk Actions dropdown menu, select the ‘Resend’ option and click ‘Apply.’
Then, a pop-up message will appear, asking you to confirm if you want to resend the selected emails.
Go ahead and hit the ‘Yes’ button.
Finally, you’ll receive a confirmation message on the screen that the emails are in the queue and will be resent shortly. Then, click ‘OK.’
There you have it! Now you know how to successfully use an SMTP server to send WordPress emails.
Pros and Cons of Using Your Web Host’s Mail Servers for WordPress Emails
First and foremost, the most obvious advantage of using your web host’s servers for sending emails in WordPress is that you can use your own branded email address.
Another pro is that you have already paid for this service when signing up for your hosting account. You will not need to pay any extra money to send and receive emails.
However, some WordPress hosting providers enforce limitations on outgoing emails. This is why we don’t recommend using WordPress to send newsletter emails and suggest using SMTP for transaction emails alone.
Another common problem with shared hosting providers is that their mail servers can be quite unreliable at times. If you notice delays in email delivery, then you should consider using third-party email services like Google Workspace, Mailgun, or SendGrid.
Do you want to sell your personal training services online?
Luckily, WordPress lets you create a simple payment form or even an entire membership site to sell your personal training services. This will allow clients to ask about your services and schedule training sessions directly through your website, helping you grow your business.
In this article, we will show you how to easily sell personal training services with WordPress, step by step.
Why Sell Personal Training Services Online?
Building a website to sell your personal training services online can act as a base to showcase your experience and promote your training sessions. This expands your reach, helping you attract more clients who may not have heard of your business offline.
If you have a gym website, then adding a training services sign-up form is a good idea. This will make it easier for potential clients to join your gym after viewing your experience and training philosophy on your website.
It will also give your customers a central place for communication and booking, making the process smooth and convenient.
Plus, you can collect important customer information like fitness goals, any injuries or limitations, and preferred training methods. This will let you create personalized training programs for individual clients.
Why Use WordPress to Sell Personal Training Services?
Before you can add a training services form and start making money online, you must first create a website where you can promote your services. We recommend choosing WordPress because it is the best website builder on the market and is used by over 43% of sites on the internet.
However, you must know that there are two types of WordPress. WordPress.com is a blog hosting platform, while WordPress.org is an open-source, self-hosted software. For more details, see our comparison between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
To sell personal training services, we recommend WordPress.org because it is completely free, flexible, and can integrate with plugins to help you sell your services.
Once you have chosen a website builder, you must purchase a hosting plan and domain name to sell your training services. This is where your costs will start adding up.
That is why we recommend opting for Bluehost, which is a WordPress-recommended hosting company.
They offer a generous discount to WPBeginner readers along with a free SSL certificate and domain name. To get up to a 77% discount, just click on the button below.
Method 1: Sell Training Services With WPForms (Easy)
You can easily sell training services in WordPress with WPForms. It is the best contact form plugin on the market that comes with a drag-and-drop builder, 1700+ premade templates, and a premade personal training signup form.
Note: WPForms has a free plan. However, you will need the pro version to unlock the personal trainer form template.
You will also need to install a payment addon to accept payments through PayPal, Stripe, Square, or Authorize.net on your online form.
You can do this by going to the WPForms » Addons page from the WordPress dashboard and clicking the ‘Install Addon’ button under the payment processor you want to use. In our example, we are installing the PayPal standard addon.
You will then need to go to WPForms » Settings and click on ‘Payments’ to set up the payment processor of your choice.
Then, you can visit the WPForms » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard and add a name for your form.
After that, find the ‘Personal Trainer Sign-Up Form’ template and click the ‘Use Template’ button under it.
This will open the WPForms drag-and-drop builder, where you will see a form preview on the right with form fields on the left side of the screen.
From here, you can add, rearrange, and delete fields according to your liking.
Next, you can scroll down and click on the ‘Trainer Preference’ field to open its settings in the left column. You can then change the preference options.
For instance, if you want clients to select trainers based on their experience rather than gender, then you can add those options in the ‘Choices’ field.
Similarly, you can change the days and times you are available for personal training.
Once you do that, you can configure the Desired Packages field to add your personal training session packages in the form.
For example, you might offer a fitness assessment, a single training session, 4 training sessions, and 12 training session packages to your customers.
Next, you have to add a payment field to your form so that users can pay for your training sessions directly.
Scroll down to the ‘Payment Fields’ section in the left column. Next, add the ‘Multiple Choice’ field to the form.
After that, click on the field again to open its settings in the sidebar.
From here, you can add the names and prices for your personal training sessions.
Then, switch to the Settings » Notifications tab from the left column and toggle the ‘Enable Notifications’ switch to on. Now, users will receive an email notification upon submitting the form on your site.
Once you do that, scroll down to the ‘Email Message’ section, where you can type the message that will be sent to potential clients.
If you haven’t added a payment field to your form, then you can tell customers how long it will take to reach out to them for payment details using this message.
You can also edit the subject line and email address from here.
Once you are satisfied, simply click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
Expert Tip: Emails sent directly from WordPress can end up in your users’ spam folders. That’s why we recommend using an SMTP service like WP Mail SMTP. For more details, you can see our guide on how to fix the WordPress not sending emails issue.
Now, open the page or post where you want to add the training services form. Here, click the add block (+) button in the top left corner and add the WPForms block.
Then, go ahead and select the form you just created from the dropdown menu within the block itself.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit your WordPress site to view the personal training services form in action.
With WPForms, you can then view all your form entries right from your dashboard.
To do this, you must visit the WPForms » All Forms page and click the ‘Entries’ link under the training services form you created.
This will take you to a new screen, where you can view the data of all the users who have submitted the form by clicking the ‘View’ link on the right.
You can also delete and edit the entries according to your liking.
Method 2: Sell Training Services With WP Simple Pay (Free)
If you are looking for a free way to add a personal training services form to your website, then this method is for you.
WP Simple Pay is the best WordPress Stripe plugin that allows you to accept online payments without setting up a shopping cart. It comes with a payment form builder, easy setup, secure payment processing, recurring payments, and premade templates.
Overall, it makes it super easy to build a personal training services form with the plugin.
Note: WP Simple Pay has a free plan that you can use for this tutorial. However, we will be using the pro version to unlock more features.
Upon activation, a setup wizard will be launched on the screen, where you must click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
You will then be taken to a new page, where you must enter your license key. This option will only apply to users with a pro plan. You can find this information in your account on the WP Simple Pay website.
Once you have done that, simply click the ‘Activate and Continue’ button.
Next, you will be asked to connect your plugin with Stripe, which is a popular payment gateway that easily accepts online payments.
To do this, click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.
This will direct you to another screen, where you must log in to your Stripe account to connect it with WP Simple Pay. If you don’t have an account yet, then you can create one by visiting the Stripe website.
Upon successful integration, the setup wizard will ask you to configure email settings.
Now, simply enable options to receive email notifications for payment receipts, upcoming invoices, and payment notifications and enter the email address to send them to.
Once that is done, click the ‘Save and Continue’ button.
Next, you must visit the WP Simple Pay » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard to start building a personal training services form.
This will open the ‘Select a Template’ screen, where you will see a list of premade templates.
Since WP Simple Pay does not offer a specific template for training services, you can click the ‘Use Template’ button under the ‘Payment Form’ option.
This will take you to the ‘Add New Payment Form’ page, where you can start by adding a name and description for your personal training services form.
After that, select ‘On-site payment form’ as your form type.
Next, switch to the ‘Payments’ tab and add a label and pricing for the training session that you offer.
If you offer more than one training service package, then you can click the ‘Add Price’ button to add multiple pricing options for different deals.
Once you do that, scroll down to the ‘Payment Methods’ section and check the box next to the payment gateways that you want to add to your form.
With WP Simple Pay, you can add SEPA, Affirm, Klarna, and AfterPay as payment methods as well. However, you will need the pro plan for these options.
If you have the free plan, then you will only be able to add AliPay and debit/credit card as payment methods.
After that, switch to the ‘Form Fields’ page from the left column. Here, the payment form has the email address, price selector, and payment methods as the default fields.
However, if you also want users to submit their name, phone number, and address, then you can select those options from the dropdown menu.
Similarly, if you want to add a custom age or weight field to your form, then you must select the ‘Text’ form field from the dropdown menu.
Once you do that, expand the field settings and add ‘Age’ as a label and placeholder text.
Additionally, you can select the ‘Dropdown’ form field to add custom trainer, day, or timing preference fields.
Here, simply expand the field tab and add a label. Then, you can type all the options that you want to offer your clients into the ‘Options’ field.
For instance, if you want users to be able to select specific days for their personal training, then you can type the available days into the field.
Keep in mind to separate each option with a comma.
Once that is done, switch to the ‘Payment Page’ tab and check the ‘Enable a dedicated payment page’ box.
WP Simple Pay will now create a custom personal training service payment page for you.
You can simply add a URL for the form page in the ‘Permalink’ field and then choose a color scheme, image, and footer text.
Finally, click the ‘Publish’ button on the right to store your settings.
You can then visit your WordPress site to view the personal training services form.
Alternatively, if just want to add the form to an existing page, then you must click the ‘Publish’ button after adding form fields.
After that, visit the page or post where you want to add the form and click the add block (+) button.
Once the block menu opens up, just add the WP Simple Pay block and choose the form from the dropdown menu.
Then, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
Now, you can visit the existing page on your WordPress site to view the personal training services form in action.
Bonus: How to Sell Training Courses and Videos as Downloads
Apart from services, you can also sell training courses and videos on your WordPress site. It is a cost-effective way to earn money online and can motivate users who buy your courses to also sign up for personal training sessions.
You can easily sell training courses with Easy Digital Downloads, which is the best WordPress plugin for selling digital products like PDFs, videos, music, courses, eBooks, and more.
You can easily connect the plugin with multiple payment gateways and create your first digital product by visiting the Downloads » Add New page.
This will open the block editor, where you can add a name and description for the training video or course. Once you do that, scroll down to the ‘Download Files’ option and upload the training video from your computer. Then, add its pricing in the ‘Pricing Options’ field.
You can also set categories, tags, and featured images for your product. Finally, click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
You have now successfully added a training video for sale on your gym website. For more information, you can see our tutorial on how to sell digital downloads on WordPress.
Bonus: How to Start a Coaching Business in WordPress
Other than selling personal training sessions, which are limited by location, you can also start online coaching through your website. This will allow you to work with clients globally and generate more conversions.
With online coaching, you can run sessions at any time of day through pre-recordings, live chat, or video conferencing. You can also organize workshops and group coaching to build a sense of community among different clients.
Plus, online coaching is much more cost-effective than running a physical gym, making it a great option.
You can easily start a coaching business with MemberPress, which is the best membership plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create different subscription levels for your clients and schedule your content release at specific intervals to engage users.
Other than that, you can create an automated onboarding process, add milestone tracking, and use automated reminders to motivate clients to complete their coaching programs.
MemberPress also lets you build premium coaching content that users must purchase for access, making it a great choice. For more details, see our tutorial on how to start an online coaching business.
We hope this article helped you learn how to easily sell personal training services in WordPress. You may also like to see our beginner’s guide on how to start an online store to sell your fitness products or our top picks for the best WordPress theme builders to make your fitness website visually appealing.
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.
Do you want to notify users only on replies to their WordPress comments?
By default, users won’t know that someone has replied to their comment unless they come back to the comment section and see the response. This makes it hard to generate in-depth discussions and debates on your website.
In this article, we will show you how to easily notify users every time someone replies to their WordPress comment.
Why Notify Users on Replies to Their WordPress Comments?
Comments are a great way to build user engagement, create a community, and increase your pageviews in WordPress. A long and interesting comment section can even keep people on your website longer, as they will want to read through all the comments.
However, by default, WordPress doesn’t notify people when their comment gets a reply. Instead, the commenter will need to revisit the WordPress post and check whether anyone has responded.
By notifying users when their comment gets a reply, you can often get them to come back to your site. It’s also a great way to get more comments on your WordPress posts and spark in-depth and interesting discussions.
With that being said, let’s see how you can notify users when someone replies to their comment in WordPress. We will share 2 methods, using a premium plugin like Thrive Comments and also a free plugin.
Simply click the links below to jump ahead to any section:
Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments Using Thrive Comments
The easiest way to notify users when someone replies to their comments in WordPress is by using Thrive Comments.
It is the best WordPress comments plugin and is part of the Thrive Themes plugin suite. With Thrive Comments, you get features to improve engagement with your comments. For instance, it lets you show comment badges, allow upvotes/downvotes, subscribe to comment threads, and more.
To learn more about the plugin suite’s features and benefits, please see our detailed Thrive Themes Suite review.
After signing up for an account, you can go to the account dashboard.
Next, you’ll need to click the ‘Download and install the Thrive Product Manager plugin’ link.
From here, you can install and activate the Thrive Product Manager plugin on your WordPress website. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you can head to the Product Manager page from your WordPress dashboard. Go ahead and click the ‘Log into my account’ button.
Next, you will see the Thrive Product Manager dashboard after logging in.
From the dashboard, simply select the Thrive Comments plugin and click the ‘Install selected products’ button.
You should see a success message saying ‘Ready to use’ when the installation is complete.
After that, you can click the ‘Go to the Thrive Themes Dashboard’ button at the bottom.
In the Thrive Themes dashboard, you will see all your installed plugins in the suite.
Go ahead and click the ‘Thrive Comments’ button.
Next, you will see the Thrive Comments settings.
Simply navigate to the Notifications option and click to expand.
In order to send email notifications, you’ll need to connect to an email delivery service.
Thrive Comments supports some of the most popular services, like Drip, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, and more.
You can click the ‘+ Add new Connection’ option to continue.
After that, you will need to select an app to connect with Thrive Comments.
Simply click the dropdown menu and choose your email delivery service.
Next, Thrive Comments will require an API key or API token for your selected service.
You can find the API key in your email marketing tools account area or dashboard.
Do note that the steps for accessing the keys might be different for each tool, so we recommend going through the document or reaching out to their customer support for help.
Next, you can customize the comment notifications that users will receive when there is a reply to their comment.
There are 2 types of notifications you can set up in Thrive Comments. The Comment Notification is when users are notified via email when someone replies to their comments. Post Notification is when a user receives an email whenever a new comment or reply is added to that particular post.
Let’s go ahead and customize these notifications.
To edit the Comment Notification, simply hover over it and click the pencil icon.
Next, you can edit the text of the email, change the email subject line, and more.
Thrive Comments also lets you use notification shortcodes to add more details to your email notifications. For example, you can add a site title, comment author, unsubscribe link, and more.
When you’re done, simply click the ‘Save’ button.
Similarly, you can also customize the Post Notifications emails. You can also use shortcodes to add more details to your email text.
After editing the notification, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button.
Now, when a user posts a comment on a blog post and someone replies to it, they’ll automatically get an email notification.
Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments Using a Free Plugin
Another way to notify users about replies to their WordPress comments is by using Subscribe to Comments Reloaded. It is a free plugin that allows users to sign up for email notifications every time someone responds to a comment.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you can configure the plugin’s settings by going to STCR » Comment Form.
Here, you’ll need to find the ‘Advanced subscription’ section and click on the toggle so it shows Yes.
Then, open the ‘Subscription type’ dropdown and choose the ‘Replies to this comment ‘ option.
By default, the plugin shows a few different messages to your users, which you can see in the ‘Messages for your visitors’ section.
You can change any of these messages by typing into the small text editors. However, we recommend keeping all the links, as they give visitors access to pages where they can manage their subscriptions.
Once you have done that, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.
Now, if you visit your WordPress website, then you will see a subscription option beneath the comment section.
By default, this is set to ‘Don’t subscribe,’ but visitors can change this to ‘Replies to my comments’ to get a notification every time someone responds.
Visitors can also subscribe without leaving a comment. In this way, they can follow interesting discussions or debates on your WordPress blog.
To do this, they simply need to click on the ‘Subscribe’ link.
This takes them to the ‘Manage Subscription’ page, where they can type in their email address and create their subscription.
The Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin has more settings that you can use to customize your comment subscriptions. These include a few security options to help combat comment spam and enable reCAPTCHA.
Expert Tip: After setting up these comment notification emails, you will want to make sure they arrive safely in the user’s inbox and not in the spam folder. With that in mind, we also recommend using an SMTP service provider like WP Mail SMTP to improve your email deliverability rate.
Are you looking for the best WooCommerce multi-vendor plugins?
Creating your own online store is great, but you could potentially earn more money by letting other sellers rent a small part of the space. With multi-vendor plugins, you can turn your eCommerce site into a professional-looking marketplace, such as eBay, Amazon, or Etsy.
In this article, we will go over the best WooCommerce multi-vendor plugins so that you can allow other sellers to promote their products on your website.
Why Do You Need a WooCommerce Multi Vendor Plugin?
A WooCommerce multi-vendor plugin allows you to turn your store into a marketplace where vendors can easily sell their products. It adds a feature to your WooCommerce site where other users create their own stores and manage products, payments, and orders.
Rather than trying to tinker with code, WooCommerce multi-vendor plugins are the fastest way to get started.
Creating a marketplace might be useful if your website has a large audience who wants to buy certain products. Maybe you can drive traffic to the marketplace but don’t have the products to sell.
In that case, you can just bring sellers onboard to your marketplace and earn a commission for each sale.
Here are just a few advantages of building your own eCommerce multi-vendor website:
Earn a commission: As mentioned, you can piggyback on the sales generated by vendors on your site. This is similar to dropshipping, where you can make money online without having to deal with the hassle of managing inventory or shipping.
An expanded audience: The more sellers on your eCommerce platform, the more customers you’ll have. Each seller brings their own word-of-mouth contacts, established customer base, and social media presence, which means more visitors to your platform.
Sell a wide range of products: Every seller can add their own unique products or services. This can be either physical or digital products. It’s a win-win for everyone because customers have more products to choose from.
Save on costs: Creating a marketplace usually takes a huge upfront investment, such as hiring developers to code a website that offers multi-vendor functionality.
With all that said, let’s look at the top WordPress multi-vendor plugins available so you can create a beautiful marketplace that attracts both buyers and sellers.
WC Vendors is the best WooCommerce multi-vendor plugin out there, and it has all the features you need to convert your online store into a marketplace and begin selling third-party products online.
You can easily accept registrations from potential vendors. That way, they can hop on board and start selling on your platform. You can require admin approval, or vendor submissions can be approved automatically.
That said, if you require a more comprehensive application process, it’s best to use a dedicated form builder.
For example, WPForms would allow you to create a multi-page user registration form to collect all the information you need. You may want to ask sellers about the types of products they sell, their current revenue, and whether they already have a retail store.
In addition, the plugin offers plenty of customization options. Individual vendors can create their own storefronts, and they have the ability to easily upload products, manage inventory, and fulfill orders.
Best of all, you can set the commission rate to a fixed or percentage rate. You can even set up a tiered system where you reduce commission rates for top sellers to incentivize them to keep selling on your website.
If you are not ready to commit to a paid plan, then WC Vendors offers a free version to help you get started. You can easily allow vendors to register, and you can set up a commission rate for sales. Beyond that, all vendors have the ability to publish products.
That said, if you want more advanced features, such as creating service or digital product marketplaces, offering more SEO compatibility, adding auction capabilities, and creating membership plans, then you need to install the Pro version.
Pros:
With its launch wizard, WC Vendors is easy to set up.
WC Vendors make it easy to accept vendor registrations.
You can accept customer reviews and ratings on each product page.
Cons:
While there is a free version, the best features are paid.
Pricing: Starts at $99.50 per year.
Why We Recommend Using WCVendors: We recommend WC Vendors as the best choice for turning your online store into a highly profitable marketplace. It has all the features needed to sell physical products, handcrafted and second-hand goods, digital products, services, and more. Plus, since the plugin supports many WordPress themes and plugins, you can easily integrate all sorts of marketing apps to boost sales and conversations.
To learn more about its features, check out our complete WC Vendors review.
Trusted by over 60,000+ marketplaces, Dokan is one of the most popular WooCommerce multi-vendor plugins on the market. Like WC Vendors, it lets you create your own online marketplace, similar to Amazon, eBay, or Magneto, in under 30 minutes.
What’s great about Dokan is that each vendor gets their own customizable dashboard on the storefront. They can easily control and navigate each aspect of their store, like creating product listings, managing orders, creating coupons, and viewing sales reports. However, the backend access is restricted to those with admin access only.
Dokan has arguably the most available payment gateways, with over 100+ integrations, including Apple Pay, Stripe Express, Google Pay, Razor Pay, and more. Vendors can enjoy automatic payment distribution, meaning that the plugin automatically calculates and distributes payouts with the commissions already included.
Also, vendors can easily manage shipments as well by selecting their own shipping zones or setting flat-rate shipping. It’s a good idea to have a built-in shipping calculator at the checkout page so customers can view the final price to avoid unexpected surprises.
Pricing: Free to get started with limited features. But if you want a full-featured marketplace with product bulk edits, multiple commission types, and reporting, the plans start at a one-time fee of $559.
Pros:
Dokan has 20+ extensions, allowing you to add a lot of different functionalities to your marketplace.
The plugin has a built-in order tracking system so vendors and customers can see the status of their shipments.
It is an easy-to-use plugin with an intuitive interface.
Cons:
Dokan’s paid plan is more expensive than WC Vendors.
It doesn’t have advanced commission settings like WC Vendors.
Why We Recommend Using Dokan: It’s hard to argue against Dokan, especially with all of its add-ons and integration capabilities. Dokan also provides all the essential features you need, like commission settings, vendor customization, and more.
MultiVendorX is one of the best plugins for creating a niche marketplace. What’s cool about MultiVendorX is that you are not limited to making just an eCommerce marketplace.
You can also add subscriptions, auction features, or even a rental marketplace. Let’s say you wanted only to sell handmade goods, similar to how you would use Etsy. With MultiVendorX, you are in total control.
MultiVendorX gives you a wider range of monetization strategies than other platforms. While you can charge a commission fee, you can also charge subscription fees, listing fees, pay-per-contact, pay-per-action, or a mixed model. Pay-per-contact and pay-per-action would be best suited to a service marketplace.
For example, when a user books a table at a restaurant through your marketplace, you would get paid for that.
MultiVendorX also offers an easy-to-read analytics dashboard so that you can view sales performance. You can filter by vendors, products, product categories, and more.
There’s even a Google Analytics integration that allows you to track your traffic sources. That being said, we recommend using MonsterInsights to get insights from Google Analytics directly in your WordPress dashboard.
Pricing: Free to get started, but if you want advanced features, plans start at $399 per year.
Paid plans are more expensive due to their diverse feature set.
Why We Recommend Using MultiVendorX: If selling products isn’t your main focus, then MultiVendorX might be the perfect solution. It allows you to create niche, subscription-based, and auction marketplaces. So whether you want to be the next eBay or Craigslist, there’s something for everyone. The plugin offers many monetization options, so you are not just limited by charging commissions, either.
WooCommerce Product Vendors is an official plugin from WooCommerce that allows you to turn your store into a powerful marketplace. At its core, the plugin lets you:
Build a diverse community of sellers.
Set a commission rate for each vendor.
Receive detailed earnings and sales.
While vendors don’t have the same level of customization over their storefronts as plugins like WC Vendors or Dokan, they do still have some control. For example, they can manage their shipping rules, view sales performance, control their public profiles, and send customers tracking numbers.
The biggest advantage to using this plugin is that it’s a part of the vast WooCommerce ecosystem. It allows you to sell anything from digital downloads and handmade products to music, themes, photographs, and more. You could even sell services and have customers book appointments using WooCommerce Bookings.
Pricing: It costs $119 per year.
Pros:
You can tailor the appearance of vendor pages to align with your brand.
Woo Product Vendors allows you to onboard new sellers easily with a customizable registration form.
Vendors can manage their product listings, orders, and inventories.
Cons:
Vendors must have PayPal accounts to use the plugin’s automatic payout feature, which can be very limiting for sellers in certain regions.
It doesn’t allow vendors to customize the front end of their store.
Why We Recommend Using Product Vendors: WooCommerce Product Vendors is a simple solution that lets you easily turn your store into a multi-vendor site. You can enable commissions based on a set amount, percentage, store, product, vendor, or individual. Beyond that, you can set payouts to send on a schedule like weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.
YITH WooCommerce Multi Vendor is a beginner-friendly WooCommerce multi-vendor plugin that allows you to create and manage an eCommerce marketplace similar to AliExpress, SHEIN, or Amazon. It comes with both free and paid versions, so you can test the tool before making a commitment.
What’s unique about the YITH WooCommerce Multi Vendor plugin is that you can customize what appears on the vendor side. For example, you can perform actions like setting the seller’s header size and color, customizing the related products section, and more.
You also get instant compatibility with all of the YITH plugins. For instance, if you wanted to add reviews of all products to each listing, then you could connect your site to the YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews plugin.
Pricing: It costs $149.99 per year.
Pros:
You can easily set up your marketplace.
The plugin allows you to customize the registration form and approve or reject vendor applications.
As the marketplace owner, you can set vendor permissions.
Cons:
Vendors don’t have a lot of customization options to personalize their own store.
Why We Recommend Using YITHWooCommerce Multi Vendor: We like the YITH WooCommerce Multi Vendor plugin because it gives the owner a lot of control over what vendors can and can’t do. You can set the commissions and permissions. for instance, you can decide whether you want to allow them to generate coupons, manage reviews, or limit the number of products they can publish.
WCFM Marketplace is a free marketplace plugin from the WordPress repository. It has a lot of the essential features you’d expect, like flexible commissions, vendor registration, bulk product uploads, and more.
Vendors have a lot of control over their shipping rates. They can set them by zone, country, distance, weight, country, and even zip code.
The plugin also gives the marketplace owner a lot of control. For instance, you can set the rules for withdrawals and disbursements. It also supports reverse withdrawals in the event that a customer requests a refund.
You can configure the refund settings for vendors. For instance, you may want refunds to be auto-approved or set up to enforce a threshold number of days for permissible refunds.
But if you want additional features, then the WCFM Marketplace has a wide range of paid add-ons. For example, the WooCommerce Frontend Manager addon allows you to set store hours, store vacations, add reviews, and more.
The Analytics addon gives you the ability to analyze visitors and sales by product category, specific products, traffic sources, etc.
Pricing: Free to get started, but they offer a variety of premium extensions available that range between $19 to $249+.
Pros:
Marketplace owners have a lot of control over setting rules for operating their multi-vendor stores.
It is a relatively affordable plugin with a free plan.
Vendors can configure the store’s SEO by placing appropriate keywords.
Cons:
There are complaints about the quality of customer service.
You need to pay for add-ons to allow vendors to customize and manage the front end of their stores.
Why We Recommend Using WCFM Marketplace: WCFM Marketplace is a good option with a wide range of feature sets for both the marketplace owner and vendors. Plus, unique customizations such as seller verification and badges are available. The verification ensures a seller verifies they are a real person, and the badge will showcase the best vendors on your site.
Easy Digital Downloads is a popular plugin for selling digital products like ebooks, courses, audio, pdf, templates, and more.
While it’s not a WooCommerce plugin, it’s the best choice for people looking to turn their website into a digital product marketplace.
With the Frontend Submissions addon, you can configure your own eCommerce store for selling third-party products. Once configured, you can allow anyone to sell digital products through your store, similar to Etsy or Gumroad.
Note: While there is a free version, you’ll need the Pro plugin to access the Frontend Submissions addon.
On the front end, vendors can register to become sellers in your marketplace. Upon approval, they’ll be given access to a vendor dashboard, where they can create new products, add product pages, manage orders, access revenue stats, and communicate with customers.
What’s also cool about this addon is that it integrates with the Reviews extension. That way, customers can rate and leave reviews on the products they’ve purchased. Vendors get valuable feedback about their products and can leverage these reviews as social proof for more orders.
Everything is drag-and-drop, so vendors can easily build out their product listings without writing code. All they do is add a product description, upload images, and set their pricing.
Vendors can easily create their own storefronts since everything is drag-and-drop.
Vendors have the power to track their stats and communicate with customers.
Cons:
Easy Digital Downloads is geared towards selling digital products, not physical products.
Why We Recommend Using Easy Digital Downloads: If you plan on selling digital products, then Easy Digital Downloads is the perfect choice. While it’s not a WooCommerce plugin, it still works for all WordPress websites. Easy Digital Downloads also comes with a wide range of extensions like multi-currency capabilities, email marketing service and payment gateway integrations, add-to-cart pop-ups, and more.
Other Useful Plugins for WooCommerce Websites
Besides having a WooCommerce multi-vendor plugin to simply create the marketplace, you might want to download a few additional tools to help provide sellers and buyers with a better user experience.
TeraWallet is a free WordPress plugin that lets your customers easily store money in a digital wallet on your multi-vendor marketplace website.
Returning buyers can add money to their wallets using a variety of payment methods and later use it to make purchases. With this plugin installed on the website, customers won’t have to fill in their payment details every time or for every vendor they purchase from.
Beyond the core wallet functionality, TeraWallet has a useful cashback and rewards system that allows you to provide discounts to customers based on their purchases.
For instance, you can set cashback rates for specific categories or products and even provide bonus cashback during special events or seasonal promotions. This is a great way to build customer loyalty and drive more buyers to your marketplace.
Pricing: Free to use
Pros:
The plugin is free to use.
Customers can deposit funds, transfer money to other users, and make purchases with their wallet balance.
Customers can even make partial payments with the balance and the remainder with their credit cards.
Cons:
It’s not a multi-vendor-specific plugin, so it works for regular WooCommerce and online stores, too.
Why We Recommend Using TeraWallet: We like TeraWallet as a plugin to improve the user experience. If you want your customers to keep returning to your website, then it’s a good idea to ensure a seamless checkout experience. With TeraWallet, customers can keep an account balance, and sellers can reward them with cashback.
It helps you add product feeds to your marketing channels, such as Facebook, Google Shopping, Bing Ads, and others. Adding these feeds will help you showcase your top sellers, which help you boost their sales. Best of all, this plugin has an unlimited number of products you can put in your product feeds.
In addition, you can set various filters and rules to show only your vendor’s most profitable products. You can exclude products that are low on stock, have low-profit margins, or only include products on sale.
Pricing: Free to use
Pros:
Free and paid versions are available.
Filter rules so you can show the best products for your marketing campaigns.
100+ templates included for marketplaces and comparison shopping engines.
Cons:
It is not designed explicitly for multi-vendor sites, so each seller does not get their own control set.
Why We Recommend Using Product Feed Pro for WooCommerce: We like Product Feed Pro for WooCommerce because it’s a good way to help advertise your marketplace. Adding product feeds to your Google Shopping campaigns will allow you to showcase some of the most popular products on your website and, in turn, help out your vendors.
How to Choose the Right WooCommerce Multi-Vendor Plugin
Not all WooCommerce multi-vendor plugins are made equal. That’s because you may have specific needs that are different from those of other eCommerce marketplaces.
But still, here are some key features and factors to consider when making your decision.
Vendor Management Tools
At the heart of a successful eCommerce marketplace is the ability to easily manage multiple vendors. So, you’ll want to look for vendor management features such as:
Unlimited product uploads and variations
Inventory management
Sales data and reporting dashboard
Shipping management
Vendor Registration
For instance, WC Vendors provides a full vendor dashboard so you can see all of your orders and shipment status.
The idea is that the plugin should be able to handle all multi-vendor activities, contributing to smoother operation.
Individual Vendor Stores
Your branding plays a vital role in attracting vendors and customers. That means your chosen platform offers a high level of customization.
These customization options may include things like flexible layout designs, adjustable themes, and personalized storefronts for vendors. Each vendor must have its own independent storefront with unique URLs that customers can send.
On top of that, vendors should have the power to add custom dashboard logos, unique headers, and product descriptions.
Commission Structure
Since you are responsible for driving all the traffic to your marketplace, it’s a good idea to have a commission structure in place.
The best multi-vendor plugins offer a flexible commission system. Under this system, you can charge vendors a fixed or percentage fee for every successful sale made through your platform.
For instance, WC Vendors allows you to set multiple commission types. You can even offer tiered commissions based on product price, product sales, or total sales.
Essentially, it allows you to take a small cut to provide the customer base, infrastructure, and platform so that vendors can sell their products or services.
Payment Gateways
Without convenient payment gateway options, there’s a good chance your visitors will abandon their shopping carts.
No matter how many pop-ups, social proof, countdown timers, or other trust badges you add, customers need a reliable payment option they can trust, like Stripe and PayPal.
These are trusted WooCommerce payment gateways available in most countries. They allow you to process credit card payments. Furthermore, customers know they can always contact these payment providers should a problem arise with their order.
Integration and Third-Party Apps
Your multi-vendor plugin is just one part of your entire eCommerce ecosystem. You’ll need other third-party apps such as inventory management systems, email marketing services, accounting software, and help desk plugins.
For example, adding various WooCommerce shipping plugins is probably helpful so that customers can calculate extra fees before checkout and track their orders after making a purchase.
WC Vendors offers integrations with UPS and FedEx shipping plugins, which is helpful for getting accurate shipping costs and handling returns.
Navigation and Search
When customers land on a marketplace site, they expect a smooth shopping experience. Slow website performance or a lack of mobile responsiveness are a few factors that could increase bounce rates.
But beyond that, it’s helpful to have a search bar on your site along with a filter option. For example, WC Vendors provides a sorting feature so users can easily sort through products by rating, price point, and popularity.
They also have an intuitive search functionality so shoppers can find the products they’re looking for without needing to scroll through pages of product listings.
Documentation and Customer Support
When an issue comes up, getting the error fixed should be the top priority. That’s why you want to look for a multi-vendor plugin with a dedicated support team that you can easily reach.
It should also provide a comprehensive knowledge base with documentation showing you how to perform every single function offered by the platform. Ideally, there should also be a way to submit a support ticket or a live chat feature where you can speak with a customer service representative.
Frequently Asked Questions About WooCommerce Multi Vendor Plugins
What is the best multi-vendor plugin for WooCommerce?
Based on our experience and testing, WC Vendors is the best multi-vendor plugin for WooCommerce. Its combination of user-friendliness, customization, and diverse feature sets makes it the most popular choice for building your own online marketplace.
Why create a multi-vendor marketplace?
Creating your own marketplace allows you to stand out from the pack. You can create niche multi-vendor platforms to serve a specific audience, such as a marketplace for hand-crafted goods or an online booking system for online contractors. The possibilities are endless. By creating a multi-vendor site, you can earn an additional income stream with commissions and serve a niche audience.
With all that in mind, WC Vendors is the best overall multi-vendor plugin for WooCommerce since you can sell physical goods, digital products, services, and subscriptions. That said, MultiVendorX offers multiple monetization methods like charging a subscription model, listing fees, or pay-per-action.
Do you want to add Google Authenticator 2-step verification to your WordPress site?
Passwords alone aren’t enough to ward off hackers and unauthorized users. Luckily, using Google Authenticator 2-step verification can add an extra layer of security to your website.
In this article, we will show you how to add 2-step verification on your WordPress site using the Google Authenticator app.
What Is the Google Authenticator App, and Why Do You Need It for Your WordPress Site?
The Google Authenticator app is a mobile application that adds a second layer of authentication every time you log in to a third-party app or website like WordPress.
Unfortunately, passwords can sometimes be cracked. If you are using the same password on numerous websites, then a security leak on one puts your other accounts in danger. Often, people are lazy, and they don’t change their passwords even after they get an email about a security compromise on a major site.
Well, the 2-step verification is the solution just for that. Even if the hacker knows your WordPress username and password, they will not be able to access your WordPress website unless they have a time-restrained random security code (provided by Google Authenticator).
Because your blog is directly connected to your mobile device, you will be the only person with access to retrieve the unique code for each login. The code expires in a short amount of time for security purposes.
The Google Authenticator app is just one example of a mobile application that provides two-factor authentication (2FA) for various online accounts and services.
It generates time-based one-time passwords (TOTPs) that serve as the second factor for authentication when logging into an account.
After reading that story, we jumped on board with the 2-step authentication for our Google accounts and most other services that offer this feature. If you are as security-conscious as we are and you value your blog, then you should follow this tip to improve your WordPress security.
Note: Google Authenticator only works on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, webOS, PalmOS, and BlackBerry devices. In other words, you will need your smartphone to log in to your website.
To further improve your security, we recommend looking at other methods as well. For example, software like 1Password can help you manage your passwords in one place and ensure they are strong enough to withstand potential hackers.
With that said, let’s jump into the tutorial on how to add Google Authenticator 2-step verification to your WordPress site.
How to Add Google Authenticator in WordPress
The first thing you need to do is install the Google Authenticator app on your phone. We are going to use the iOS terminology for the sake of this tutorial, but the process is similar for other devices as well.
Step 1: Install Google Authenticator App on Your Mobile Device
Visit the App Store, search for ‘Google Authenticator’, and then click on ‘Install’ for the application.
Now, let’s get back to your WordPress dashboard.
Step 2: Install MiniOrange’s Google Authenticator Plugin
This is a free WordPress plugin that helps protect your site from unauthorized access. Every time you log in to WordPress, you’ll be asked to enter the one-time passcode from the Google Authenticator app to verify your identity.
Upon activating the plugin, you’ll be taken to a setup wizard. Just follow the process to set up your Google Authenticator two-factor authentication in WordPress.
Step 3: Complete the Setup Wizard
Start by clicking on the ‘Let’s get started!’ button.
Next, you will be asked whether you want to set up 2FA after your first login or within the plugin dashboard. Either method is fine.
Click ‘Continue Setup.’
The next step is to choose who you’d like the 2FA to apply to. You can either select all users for maximum security, or you can only have it apply to certain user roles.
Then hit ‘Continue Setup.’
Lastly, you’ll be asked whether or not you’d like to directly enforce 2FA immediately or give users a grace period.
If you choose to give users a grace period, then you can select how long that would be in hours and days. Once that is complete, click on ‘All Done.’
Now that you are done with the setup process, you can decide whether you want to set up 2FA for yourself now or later.
Go ahead and hit the ‘Configure 2FA for yourself’ button.
From here, you’ll be asked to enter the method of 2-factor authentication you’d like to add to your WordPress site.
For this tutorial, we will choose ‘Google/Microsoft/Authy Authenticator.’ Then, just hit the ‘Save & Continue’ button.
Next, you’ll be asked to scan the barcode on the screen. That means you’ll have to pull up the Google Authenticator app on your phone and scan the barcode displayed.
In your Google Authenticator app on your mobile device, hit the ‘+’ icon at the bottom and then select ‘Scan a QR code.’ Then, point your phone camera to your computer screen to scan the barcode.
From here, a one-time passcode (OTP) will appear on your mobile device.
Type that into step 2 on your computer. From there, you can click on ‘Save & Continue.’
Now, you should receive a message that says that you’ve successfully configured two-factor authentication.
Simply select ‘Advance Settings.’
Step 4: Add Security Questions
In addition to adding Google Authenticator 2-factor authentication, you probably want to also add security questions as well.
If you can’t access your Google Authenticator app, then you can still log in to your WordPress website if you answer the security questions that you’ve set up for yourself.
You’ll need to head over to the Mini Orange 2-Factor » Two Factor page in your WordPress admin dashboard. Then, in the Setup 2FA For Me tab, find the Security Questions method and click on ‘Reconfigure.’
Keep in mind that you can also set up other types of two-factor authentication methods, such as email verification, OTP over SMS, OTP over email, OTP over Telegram, and even Duo Authenticator.
Next, you’ll be able to select up to three security questions. You can select two of them from a dropdown menu, and the third will be a custom question that you can come up with on your own.
Then, type in the answer for each of them and hit the ‘Save’ button.
Step 5: Test It for Yourself
Once everything is set up, you can test it out yourself.
Simply log out of your WordPress dashboard and try to log back in.
You will now be taken to a page where you can either answer security questions or use the Google Authenticator to enter your one-time passcode.
Go ahead and select the ‘Google Authenticator’ option.
On this screen, you will be asked to enter your OTP from your Google Authenticator app.
Type in the code and then click ‘Validate.’
Now, you will land back into your WordPress admin dashboard, as usual.
Lastly, we recommend that everyone turn on 2-step verification on their Google accounts. You can also configure that with Google Authenticator, as shown in this tutorial.
Are you looking for a points and rewards plugin for your WooCommerce store?
Since there are hundreds of reward system plugins available on the market, choosing the right one for your needs can be intimidating.
To help you easily choose the right one for your site, we tested some of the most popular plugins on the market. While testing, we examined different factors like ease of use, features, and pricing.
In this article, we will show you some of the best WooCommerce points and rewards plugins.
In a hurry? No worries! Here are our top picks so you can quickly choose the best WooCommerce points and rewards plugin for your site.
A WooCommerce points and rewards plugin allows you to offer incentives to customers with points for their purchases and actions. These points can then be redeemed for different rewards like free products, discounts, free shipping, and other benefits.
Picking the right plugin for your WooCommerce store can be tricky because there are hundreds of options. To help you out, we tested and reviewed some of the best WooCommerce rewards plugins on the following criteria:
Hands-on testing – Over the last 16+ years, we’ve tested thousands of WooCommerce plugins. We went through multiple WooCommerce points and rewards plugins and shortlisted the 7 best options.
Easy of Use – When testing the plugins, we considered how easy they were to use and configure. We looked for options that were beginner-friendly, offered a simple setup process, and didn’t require coding.
Features and Other Benefits – In addition to offering a reward system for your WooCommerce store, we also looked for other features and benefits.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, we have over 16 years of experience in WordPress, design, and online marketing. Our team of WordPress experts extensively reviews each plugin that is featured in this article and thoroughly tests them on real websites. To learn more, see our complete editorial process.
That said, let’s look at some of the best WooCommerce rewards and points plugins.
In our testing, the plugin was very easy to set up. The best part is that you can use the default settings out of the box and start a loyalty program within a few minutes.
Advanced Coupons also makes it super simple for customers to keep track of the points they’ve earned. You can add customizable notices to inform customers about their points, how the reward system works, and how they can easily redeem the points at any time.
Another interesting feature we found during our testing was the different ways you can allow customers to earn points. With a click of a button, you can reward customers for purchasing products, leaving a review, commenting on a blog post, and more.
Besides that, Advanced Coupons offers other features like free gift coupons, BOGO deals, shipping discounts, and more. It also lets you set up conditional logic where a coupon can automatically applied based on products in the cart, subtitle, or recently added products.
Pros:
Create a loyalty program within minutes
Select how customers can earn points
Show personalized notices for points earned
Allow customers to easily redeem points
View reports of points earned and redeemed
Cons:
The loyalty program feature isn’t available in the free version
Why We Recommend Advanced Coupons: After testing different points and rewards WooCommerce plugins, Advanced Coupons is the best option for all types of online stores. It is beginner-friendly and offers lots of features compared to other plugins on the list.
Pricing: You’ll need the Advanced Coupons ‘Plugin Bundles’ plan to access the Loyalty Program option, which will cost $119 per year.
FunnelKit Cart (formerly called WooFunnels) is a user-friendly WooCommerce sales funnel builder. It lets you create high-converting lead pages, upsells, and checkout pages, as well as offer rewards to customers to boost sales.
With FunnelKit, you can gamify the shopping experience for customers. When a user adds items to the cart, they can unlock a special gift when the price reaches a certain threshold. Basically, it lets you add milestone-based rewards and incentives to your WooCommerce cart.
For example, if a customer adds items worth $25, they can enjoy free shipping. If they spend $50 or more, they get an additional 10% discount.
When testing the plugin, we found that it offers 3 types of rewards. These include free shipping, a discount coupon, or a gift.
Besides that, FunnelKit offers other features to boost sales on your online store. For example, you get a template library, pre-built automation options, A/B testing, conversion pixel tracking, integrations, and more.
Pros:
Add rewards to your cart
Easily optimize your sales funnel for conversions
Beginner-friendly to use and set up
Seamless integration with other plugins and themes
A/B test your sales funnels
Cons:
Upsell or cross-sell features are not available in the free version
Limited templates in the free version
Why We Recommend FunnelKit Cart: If you’re looking for a WooCommerce plugin that lets you optimize your sales funnel and add a reward system to cart pages, then we highly recommend FunnelKit Cart.
Pricing: FunnelKit Cart prices start from $99.50 per year. There is also a free version you can use to get started.
Our first impression was that the plugin would be complicated to use. However, that’s not the case. It is very easy to use and offers different settings to customize the points system.
For instance, you can automatically assign points for each purchase or manually award points to different customers. There are 4 types of points to choose from, which include assigning a fixed amount of points, setting a percentage amount, setting a fixed amount based on product price, or not assigning any points.
Besides that, YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards offers a bunch of extra points options. You can reward customers when they register, first login, referral link signup, customer’s birthday, and more. The plugin also shows custom banners to encourage users to spend more and collect more points.
Pros:
Automatically award points to customers
Show custom banners to encourage more points
Send email notifications to customers regarding their rewards
Allow customers to view and redeem earned points
Easily track users and the points they’ve earned
Award extra points based on user actions
Cons:
There is no free version
Why We Recommend YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards: It is perfect for anyone who wants to add a reward program to their WooCommerce store. The plugin is very easy to use and offers lots of options to customize the points system.
Pricing: YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards is a premium plugin that will cost you $139.99 per year.
Points and Rewards for WooCommerce is a free plugin that offers almost all the features you’d find in a premium plugin to create a loyalty program for your eCommerce store.
For instance, you can award points to customers based on different actions like signing up, clicking a referral link, spending above a specific amount, purchasing a particular product, and more.
One feature that stood out for us was that store owners could assign points on previous orders that were fulfilled before installing this plugin. It’s a great way to increase customer loyalty and boost sales.
Other than that, the plugin also offers different user levels and badges to customers. It even offers a spin-to-win wheels option where users can win more points.
Pros:
Simple and easy-to-use plugin
Seamless integration with WooCommerce
Assign points on previous orders
Allow customers to redeem points in the cart or at checkout
Membership system for exclusive offers
Cons:
Doesn’t offer personalized banners
Points expiration and product purchase are not available in the free version
Why We Recommend Points and Rewards for WooCommerce: If you want a free plugin for setting up points and rewards in WooCommerce, then this is the best option. It offers great features that you’d find in different premium plugins.
Pricing: The Points and Rewards for WooCommerce plugin is free to use.
WPLoyalty is a powerful WooCommerce rewards and points plugin that allows you to create customized loyalty programs. It offers lots of features and lets you reward customers for multiple actions.
We particularly like the feature of customized campaigns and rewards. The plugin comes with pre-built campaigns that you can use for your WooCommerce store. For example, you can create a campaign for points for purchase, rewards based on spending, writing a review, birthdays, and more.
Besides that, it is very easy to customize each campaign and set the point system. WPLoyalty lets you add different levels to the loyalty program, set an expiration date, send email notifications, and integrate with multi-currency plugins.
The best part is that you can choose from different reward types. These include percentage discounts, free shipping, free products, and more.
Pros:
Create customizable loyalty programs
Choose from pre-built campaigns
Beginner-friendly to use
Set expiration date for campaigns
Reward customers based on multiple actions
Manage customers and points with easy to understand dashboard
Cons:
The free version has limited features
Why We Recommend WPLoyalty: It is a perfect plugin for new WooCommerce websites that want a premium points and rewards plugin. The plugin is packed with features and offers affordable pricing plans along with a free version.
Pricing: WPLoyalty prices start from $9 per month. There is also a free version you can use to get started.
WooCommerce Points and Rewards is a WooCommerce extension that lets you award points for purchases and other actions performed by a user. It is a basic and clean plugin that makes it very easy to set up a loyalty program.
When testing the plugin, we found that you can only redeem the points for discounts. Unlike other WooCommerce points and rewards plugins, there isn’t an option to offer other incentives to customers.
That said, you can define the value of points for each purchase and action. It also lets you control the maximum discount that can be applied to the cart or any product. Plus, the plugin shows a log of all the points earned by customers and lets you manage them from the WordPress dashboard.
Pros:
Clean and beginner-friendly plugin
Offer points that can redeemed for discounts
Easily manage customer points from your dashboard
Award points for different user actions
Control values of points and discounts
Cons:
Lacks features offered by other premium plugins
Expensive pricing plan
Why We Recommend WooCommerce Points and Rewards: The plugin is great for WooCommerce store owners who want to offer points to customers that can only be redeemed as discounts.
Pricing: WooCommerce Points and Rewards will cost you $159 (billed annually).
Gratisfaction is another free WooCommerce loyalty plugin. The plugin lets you award points to users based on actions and allow them to redeem the points for discounts.
The best part about using Gratisfaction is that it offers a wide range of customer actions for awarding points. For example, you can offer points for subscribing to an email list, sharing on social media, watching a video, and more.
Besides that, you get pre-built templates to create multiple types of programs, including loyalty programs, instant win campaigns, contests, giveaways, and purchase-to-win campaigns.
Pros:
Pre-built campaign templates
Reward points based on different actions
Create multiple campaigns
Lightweight and simple plugin
Cons:
Lacks customization options
Offers only discounts as rewards
Why We Recommend Gratisfaction: We recommend this plugin to anyone looking for a free WooCommerce loyalty plugin and who wants to create other types of campaigns to boost sales.
Pricing: Gratisfaction is a free WordPress plugin.
Which Is the Best WooCommerce Points and Rewards Plugin?
It gives you full control over the points you might want to award for different user actions. For instance, users can earn points for purchasing products, leaving comments, reviewing a product, and more.
Plus, you can offer different incentives like free shipping, free products, discounts, BOGO deals, and other rewards to customers for redeeming their points.
With all these features, affordable pricing plans, a free plugin version, and a beginner-friendly interface, Advanced Coupons is the best solution for creating a loyalty program in WooCommerce.
FAQs about WooCommerce Points and Rewards Plugins
Here are some commonly asked questions about points and rewards plugins for WooCommerce.
1. How do I add reward points in WooCommerce?
There are lots of WooCommerce plugins you can use to create a loyalty program and award points to customers. These can be for performing different actions or purchasing products. We recommend using the Advanced Coupons plugin because it offers a lot of features and is very easy to use.
2. How do I increase sales in WooCommerce?
There are different ways to boost sales in WooCommerce, such as providing discounts, running flash sales or giveaways, and offering points to customers that they can redeem for free prizes.
3. Is Shopify better than WooCommerce?
Shopify is considered to be more user-friendly, but WooCommerce offers more flexibility and features. For more details, please see our comparison of WooCommerce vs Shopify.
Best Guides for Your WooCommerce Store
Here are some additional resources you can go through to take your WooCommerce store to the next level:
Do you want to display the most popular tags used on your WordPress site?
Tags and categories are the two default ways that you can use to sort your content in WordPress. However, categories often attract more attention due to their broader scope, leaving tags with less exposure.
In this article, we will show you how to easily display your most popular tags in WordPress.
Why and When Should You Display Most Popular Tags in WordPress?
Categories and tags are the two default taxonomies used to sort your articles in WordPress. Categories are used for broader topics or sections on your website, while tags are well-suited to specific ideas within the context of your articles.
For example, you might use the ‘travel’ category for all your travel-related blog posts, with tags like ‘Europe’, ‘Asia’, and ‘South America’.
Once you start using categories and tags correctly, you’ll likely have more tags on your website than categories. Due to their broader scope, you can put categories in navigation menus, but your tags may remain less explored by your visitors.
One way to display tags on your website is by adding the default Tag Cloud block by visiting the Appearance » Widgets page.
However, you will notice that this block will show all your tags alphabetically. You cannot rearrange their order or limit the number of tags that are displayed.
You can solve this by displaying the most popular or most often used tags on your WordPress blog. This will allow your users to quickly get an idea of the frequently discussed topics on your site. It will also help them discover more content, which means more page views and user engagement.
Additionally, this can improve your website SEO because tags can give search engines a better understanding of the topics your website covers, helping your content rank higher.
Having said that, let’s take a look at how to easily display your most popular tags in WordPress. We will cover different methods, and you can use the quick links below to jump to the one you want to use:
Method 1: Display Most Popular Tags in WordPress Using a Plugin
If you want to use a plugin to display the most popular tags on your website, then this method is for you.
First, you need to install and activate the TaxoPress plugin. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, visit the TaxoPress » Terms Display page from the WordPress dashboard. Here, you need to click on the ‘Edit’ link under the ‘Terms Display’ option.
This will open a new page on the screen, where you can start by choosing a title for displaying tags. After that, make sure that the ‘Tags’ option is selected in the ‘Taxonomy’ dropdown menu.
Then, you can pick if you only want to display tags that are used on your pages, posts, or media separately. Alternatively, you can display popular tags for all the post types.
We recommend using the ‘Posts’ option. This will automatically eliminate any tags that you have used for your pages or images.
Next, switch to the ‘General’ tab from the left column and choose the ‘Counter’ option from the ‘Method for choosing terms from the database’ dropdown menu.
Next, simply select the ‘Descending’ option from the ‘Ordering for choosing term from the database’ menu.
Once you do that, you must pick the ‘Counter’ option again from the ‘Method for choosing terms for display’ dropdown menu and the ‘Descending’ option from the ‘Ordering for choosing terms for display’ dropdown menu.
Now, only the most popular tags on your WordPress site will be displayed.
Once you do that, switch to the ‘Options’ tab from the sidebar.
Here, you can add any text that you want to display before or after your list of popular tags.
After that, switch to the ‘Design’ tab and choose the maximum number of popular tags to display on your website.
You can also choose a font size and colors for your tags. Then, go ahead and click the ‘Save Terms Display’ button on the right.
Add Popular Tags to the WordPress Sidebar
Now, head to the Appearance » Widgets page from the WordPress admin sidebar and click the ‘Add Block’ (+) button.
Note: If you are using a block theme, then this method won’t work because the TaxoPress plugin doesn’t offer the ‘Terms Display’ block in the full site editor. In this case, you can use our second method.
This will open the block menu, where you can add the Terms Display block to your website sidebar.
Once you do that, just select the term display that you created for your tags from the dropdown menu within the block itself.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, you can visit your WordPress site to view the list of popular tags in action.
Method 2: Display Most Popular WordPress Tags Using Code (Recommended)
If you are using a block theme or prefer to use code, then this method is for you.
You can display the most popular tags in WordPress by adding custom code to your theme’s functions.php file. However, the smallest error when typing the code can make your website inaccessible.
That is why we recommend using WPCode. It is the best WordPress code snippets plugin on the market that makes it safe and easy to add code to your website.
First, you need to install and activate the WPCode plugin. For more information, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: WPCode has a free plan that you can use for this tutorial. However, upgrading to the paid plan will unlock more features like conditional logic, CSS snippets, a code snippets cloud library, and more.
Upon activation, head to the Code Snippets » + Add Snippet page from the WordPress dashboard.
Here, click the ‘Use Snippet’ button under the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option.
This will direct you to the ‘Create Custom Snippet’ page, where you can start by adding a name for the snippet.
Next, choose the ‘PHP Snippet’ option as the Code Type from the dropdown menu on the right.
After that, copy and paste the following custom code into the ‘Code Preview’ box:
function wpb_tag_cloud() {
$tags = get_tags();
$args = array(
'smallest' => 10,
'largest' => 22,
'unit' => 'px',
'number' => 10,
'format' => 'flat',
'separator' => " ",
'orderby' => 'count',
'order' => 'DESC',
'show_count' => 1,
'echo' => false
);
$tag_string = wp_generate_tag_cloud( $tags, $args );
return $tag_string;
}
// Add a shortcode so that we can use it in widgets, posts, and pages
add_shortcode('wpb_popular_tags', 'wpb_tag_cloud');
// Enable shortcode execution in text widget
add_filter ('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
This code simply generates the top 10 tags from your website in a cloud with the number of posts in each tag. After that, it creates a shortcodewpb_popular_tags and enables a shortcode in the text widget.
Now, you have to scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section and choose the ‘Auto Insert’ mode. The code will be automatically executed once you add the built-in shortcode to your website.
Once you do that, scroll back to the top and toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch to ‘Active’.
Finally, click the ‘Save Snippet’ button to store your settings.
Add Most Popular Tags in the WordPress Full Site Editor
If you are using a block theme, then head to the Appearance » Editor page from the WordPress dashboard.
This will open the full site editor, where you have to click the ‘+’ button to open the block menu. From here, add the Shortcode block to the page.
Next, you must add the following shortcode to the block itself:
[wpb_popular_tags]
Finally, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, just visit your website to see the popular tags in action.
Add Most Popular Tags in the WordPress Widget Area
If you are using a classic theme on your website, then you can add popular tags by visiting the Appearance » Widgets page from the WordPress dashboard.
Here, click the ‘Add Block’ (+) button to open the block menu and add the Shortcode block to your preferred widget area.
Next, add the following shortcode into the block:
[wpb_popular_tags]
Then, click the ‘Update’ button to store your settings.
Now, go ahead and visit your WordPress site to see the popular tags.
Bonus: Style the Tags on Your WordPress Website
Now that you have added the most popular tags to your WordPress website, it is also important to customize them for the theme that you are using. This will make your tags visually appealing and help grab the user’s attention immediately.
Plus, by using different sizes, fonts, and colors for your tags, you make it easier for visitors to scan and find the tags they are interested in. This can help increase engagement and click-through rates.
For example, if a user is only interested in reading about your articles related to travel, then they can click on that tag to open a list of travel-related articles.
You can style your tags by adding custom CSS to change the spacing between them, add background colors, change the alignment, and much more.
Have you seen rumors on the internet that WordPress is outdated?
WordPress is the most popular website builder on the market, powering about 43% of the websites. With its large market share, flexibility, and regular updates, it is safe to say that WordPress is not outdated at all.
However, you may have seen some blog posts or threads on the internet convincing you not to build a website on the platform.
In this article, we will discuss if WordPress is outdated and shed some light on the good, bad, and ugly side of the platform.
Is WordPress Really Outdated?
WordPress is an open-source software that is completely free, flexible, and easy to use.
WordPress is also highly popular. It holds over 64% of the CMS market share, and about 36% of the top 10,000 websites are powered by WordPress, showing that it is the best website builder on the market.
Plus, many big-name brands like Sony Music, CNN, and Disney Books have also used WordPress to build their websites.
So, if WordPress was outdated, then why would some of the most popular brands in the world use it to power their websites?
The answer is that WordPress is updated regularly, is secure, and cost-effective, along with plenty of customization options for all kinds of website owners and small businesses.
In short, the blog posts that you may have seen on the internet about WordPress dying are untrue. These rumors are usually promoted by people who use other alternatives and are convinced that those platforms are better than WordPress.
Having said that, let’s look at WordPress’s good, bad, and ugly sides to determine if the platform is outdated. You can use the quick links below to jump to the different parts of our discussion:
First, let’s take a look at some of the advantages of using WordPress as a website builder to prove that it isn’t outdated at all.
1. Regular Updates
WordPress has around 2-3 major releases each year. These updates normally introduce new features and improvements, along with measures to minimize security vulnerabilities.
Additionally, WordPress also gets some minor updates every few weeks that focus on bug issues, boosting performance, and any minor security problems.
Since WordPress is open source, it is maintained by developers all over the world who also fix errors and even add new features that are then released in major updates throughout the year.
Another benefit of WordPress is that it is automatically updated every time there is a minor release, so you won’t have to waste time doing it yourself.
We recommend always using the latest version of WordPress to add new features, improve performance, and stay updated with the latest industry standards.
WordPress is super popular due to its ease of use and flexibility. This means you don’t need any coding knowledge to build a website on the platform.
That is why there are almost 4 million WordPress blogs and websites in the USA alone.
The platform has a clean and user-friendly interface with a very straightforward menu on the left side of the screen. This makes it easy for beginners to manage their websites right from the dashboard.
WordPress also offers the block editor, where you can use different blocks from the panel, including image, heading, video, quote, column, or group blocks to create posts and pages.
Additionally, it is flexible and allows you to add all kinds of customizations using WordPress themes and plugins.
For example, you could use a theme like Astra or a theme builder like SeedProd to build an attractive site.
Similarly, you can also add contact forms, build online stores, add social media icons, create lead generation campaigns, and so much more using the 59,000 plugins available in the WordPress.org directory.
WordPress is SEO-friendly and up-to-date with the latest SEO standards because it uses clean and semantic code, which is easy to understand for search engines like Google.
Plus, it allows you to customize your permalink structure, easily add titles and meta descriptions, and comes with built-in taxonomies in the form of categories and tags.
This makes it easier for users to organize their content and improve their search engine rankings.
All these settings are available in WordPress by default and can easily be configured right from your dashboard. You can also use some plugins and tools to optimize your content further.
It allows you to add titles and meta descriptions and comes with features like a broken link assistant, XML sitemaps, on-page SEO analysis, a robots.txt editor, social media cards, a redirection manager, and more.
Plus, it has schema markup for articles, products, FAQs, and recipes that can boost your rankings and organic click-through rate.
A lot of users on the internet believe that WordPress is overly vulnerable to hackers, malware, and bugs.
However, that is an over-exaggeration.
WordPress is a secure platform that is monitored by security experts worldwide. Since it is open source, its source code is always available for developers to study and debug security issues.
You can even add an extra layer of security to your WordPress site by using popular security plugins like Sucuri. This tool adds a firewall that prevents bad traffic, hackers, and malware from reaching your server.
Plus, Sucuri uses a content delivery network (CDN), which can boost your website’s performance and speed.
Apart from WordPress, all the themes and plugins that you are using are also secure because most premium plugins pay security experts to audit their code. This means that even if malware is found in a theme or plugin, it is patched up pretty quickly.
Plus, plugins submitted to the free WordPress plugin repository must meet certain security and coding standards.
Still, we recommend using security plugins, site backups, strong passwords, and regular updates to make your WordPress site completely secure. For more details, please take a look at our WordPress security guide.
5. Community
WordPress is not outdated because it’s still wildly popular. It boasts a huge community of individuals, including bloggers, developers, and designers, who regularly contribute to the platform.
The WordPress community is known for its inclusivity. It generates a wealth of resources such as forums, blogs, documentation, tutorials, and video guides to help beginners learn and grow their websites.
For example, the WordPress translation community has fully translated the CMS into over 50 languages and partially translated more than 200.
Individuals and teams all over the world also organize WordCamps and meetups each year to promote global collaboration and share their love of WordPress.
The WordPress community also allows you to contribute your skills to different projects, access support, and provide opportunities to learn from other members of the community.
You can even post job listings for writers, developers, or designers on the WordPress.org website.
Overall, the community is an integral part of WordPress and can be a valuable resource for beginners who are just starting with the platform.
6. Scalable
WordPress isn’t an outdated option because it can be used for all sizes of websites and online businesses, meaning that you can grow from within the platform.
WordPress can be highly scalable if you use the right tools on your website. A lot of WordPress sites on the internet have very high traffic volume and perform exceptionally well.
For example, there are plenty of reliable WordPress hosting services that can handle a high level of traffic without hurting your site’s speed.
While we think WordPress is a great option for all kinds of websites, there are some potential downsides to using the platform. Here are some cons of using WordPress as your website builder.
1. Reliance on WordPress Plugins
The WordPress.org directory offers more than 59,000 free WordPress plugins. This guarantees that you can find pretty much any tool you need to add new functionality to your website.
While that is a huge benefit, it also means that your website could be heavily reliant on different plugins to add features.
WordPress plugins may sometimes conflict with other plugins or WordPress’s latest software version, which can cause unexpected issues. For example, if you use two plugins that offer the same functionality, then that can lead to some errors.
Not all free plugins receive ongoing support, either. You may install a plugin on your website, only for it to be abandoned by the developer later and become outdated. This can introduce security vulnerabilities or cause WordPress errors.
However, it is important to remember that WordPress plugins go through quite a bit of testing before they are added to the plugin directory. Most of them work nicely, and some may even improve site performance. Still, it is important to be mindful of the potential downsides of using outdated plugins.
WordPress is super easy to navigate, but you can sometimes run into some common errors that can sound scary or even prevent you from accessing your site.
For example, you may come across the Internal Server Error when you are trying to visit your website because the server has run into a problem that it cannot recognize.
In that case, it will be up to you to identify and fix the error. To do this, you can try clearing your browser cache, reuploading core files, increasing the PHP memory limit, or deactivating all your WordPress plugins.
Other than that, you may also see other WordPress errors like the 504 gateway timeout, password reset, RSS feed error, or WordPress not sending email errors. While they might sound scary, you can easily fix them using the resources available on the internet and WordPress community forums.
WordPress.org is completely free because it is an open-source platform.
However, the cost starts adding up when you need to purchase a domain name and web hosting for your website. A domain name is your website’s name on the internet, like www.wpbeginner.com,and can cost up to $14.99/year.
On the other hand, a hosting plan typically starts from $7.99/month. This can be expensive if you have just started and are on a shoestring budget.
Fortunately, you can get around this by choosing a cheap WordPress hosting provider like Bluehost, which is one of the largest hosting companies on the market. Essentially, you can get started for $2.75 per month.
Some people claim that WordPress is outdated because some WordPress websites are slow-loading and have performance issues.
Although WordPress is a scalable platform, that doesn’t mean that your website will automatically be fast. It can still suffer from performance issues that can hurt the user experience and search engine rankings.
Some of the common reasons for slow website speed can be a poor hosting plan, large image sizes, excessive plugins, unoptimized code, or database issues.
Most importantly, you should ensure that you are using a WordPress caching plugin like WP Rocket. This ensures that your website can handle more traffic without slowing down your server.
WordPress isn’t perfect, so here are some more serious disadvantages to consider if you start using it for your website.
1. Needs Regular Maintenance
Even though WordPress is a great website builder, you will still have to perform some regular maintenance tasks to keep your site secure and fast.
For example, we recommend always updating your WordPress to the latest version.
Next, you must create regular WordPress backups, optimize your database, and run performance tests. You should also try changing your site password now and then because it is the first defense against hackers trying to access your website.
While these tasks are necessary, they can be frustrating and time-consuming. Plus, not doing them can hurt your site’s performance and expose it to security vulnerabilities.
However, if doing these tasks feels like too much work, then you can opt for Seahawk Media Services instead. They are the best WordPress services provider that can perform regular maintenance tasks for you so that you don’t need to worry about anything.
Other than that, Seahawk Media also offers speed optimization, SEO optimization, site migration, hacked site repair, website rebuilding, content writing, and so many other services.
Alternatively, you could choose a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine. Their plans start at $20 per month and include VIP hosting services like managed updates, advanced WordPress security, daily and on-demand backups, and a built-in activity log.
2. Bloated Code
WordPress is sometimes accused of being outdated and having bloated code because it has a lot of built-in features for a wide range of websites. However, a lot of these settings are optional and may not be needed by all sites.
These features can add extra code to your pages, which can slow down load times. That being said, the easiest way to get rid of bloated code is to disable all the settings that you don’t want to use on your website.
For example, you can disable the pingback feature that notifies other blogs when you link to them. This functionality is not necessary for all kinds of websites and adds unnecessary bloat to your database.
You can also disable emojis, default themes, and unused plugins to make your site faster. However, we recommend carefully considering features before disabling them, especially if you are new to WordPress.
What Is the Future of WordPress?
After looking at the good, bad, and ugly sides of WordPress, we have concluded that WordPress is not outdated at all and its future is bright.
It is a robust platform that performs regular updates and is SEO-friendly, scalable, and secure, making it the perfect choice to build a website.
Plus, its popularity and community are growing, and it’s even a highly popular platform for online stores, with over 5 million websites powered by WooCommerce alone.
We also expect Artificial Intelligence (AI) to become an integral part of WordPress in the future, and we believe the platform will continue to grow and evolve in the coming years.
If you would like some more information, then you can see our guide on the future of WordPress and what to expect.
Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress
Here are some questions that are frequently asked by our readers about WordPress:
Is WordPress still relevant in 2024?
The answer is yes. WordPress is still relevant in 2024, considering that it powers over 43% of all websites globally.
It is open-source, free, user-friendly, and offers a vast library of plugins and themes that extend WordPress’s functionality, making it the preferred choice for building a website for many users.
Are WordPress sites outdated?
WordPress itself is regularly maintained and updated with new features and security patches. This means that all the websites using the latest WordPress version can be quite modern.
However, some websites on the internet may be using an outdated theme or plugins or a very old version of WordPress, which can lead to a hack.
If you keep your core software, themes, and plugins updated, your WordPress site can be just as modern and secure as one built on a different platform.
Is WordPress losing popularity?
WordPress is still a super popular website builder and holds a 64% share of the Content Management System (CMS) market.
It also boasts a huge community that organizes WordCamps worldwide and promotes global inclusivity. Plus, the community offers extensive plugin support, has translated the platform into over 50 languages, and has forums to help you with your WordPress problems.
Is WordPress really that bad?
No, WordPress is actually a very user-friendly platform where you can build a website without any coding knowledge. It is used by some of the top companies in the world and is super scalable.
We hope this article helped you learn if WordPress is outdated, with an overview of its good, bad, and ugly sides. You may also want to see our complete WordPress review and our guide on why you should use WordPress.
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.
WordPress comments encourage discussions around your blog post content. However, you may find that comments that are very brief or overly long are not very helpful.
In this article, we will show you how to easily limit comment length in WordPress.
Why Limit Comment Length in WordPress?
An active comment area is a great way to build a community around your WordPress blog. Visitors can give feedback, ask questions, and offer their own points of view on the topic.
However, not all comments are helpful.
We’ve been moderating WordPress comments for well over a decade. In our experience, we’ve found that the most helpful comments are above 60 characters and below 5000 characters in length.
One-word comments are usually not very helpful. In most cases, they are spam comments where the author just wants a backlink from your site.
On the other hand, long comments above 5,000 characters are often rants or complaints. Sometimes, they are not even relevant to the article.
Setting comment length limits in WordPress can improve the overall quality of your comments and discourage spam comments. However, there is no built-in way of doing this in WordPress.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to control comment length in WordPress by setting minimum and maximum limits.
How to Limit Comment Length in WordPress
You can limit comment length in WordPress by adding code to your functions.php file. However, keep in mind that the smallest error while entering the code can break your site and make it inaccessible.
That’s why we recommend always using WPCode to insert code snippets into your WordPress site. It is the best WordPress code snippets plugin on the market that makes it safe and easy to add custom code.
First, you need to install and activate the WPCode plugin. For detailed instructions, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: WPCode also has a free version that you can use for this tutorial. However, upgrading to the paid plan will give you access to more features like a larger code snippets library, conditional logic, and more.
Upon activation, visit the Code Snippets » + Add Snippet page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Here, click the ‘Use Snippet’ button under the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option.
This will take you to the ‘Create Custom Snippet’ page, where you can start by adding a title for your code snippet. This name won’t be displayed on the website front end and can be anything you like.
Next, choose the ‘PHP Snippet’ option as the Code Type from the dropdown menu in the right corner of the screen.
Once you have done that, simply copy and paste the following code snippet into the ‘Code Preview’ box:
add_filter( 'preprocess_comment', 'wpb_preprocess_comment' );
function wpb_preprocess_comment($comment) {
if ( strlen( $comment['comment_content'] ) > 5000 ) {
wp_die('Comment is too long. Please keep your comment under 5000 characters.');
}
if ( strlen( $comment['comment_content'] ) < 60 ) {
wp_die('Comment is too short. Please use at least 60 characters.');
}
return $comment;
}
This code snippet works by adding a filter hook to preprocess_comment. This filter is run before WordPress saves any comments to the database or performs any pre-processing on submitted comments.
It checks the comment length and displays an error message if it is too short or too long. By default, the comment limit is set to a minimum of 60 characters and a maximum of 5,000 characters in this snippet.
However, to set your own comment limit, just replace the number 5,000 in the code with your maximum limit number.
Similarly, you can replace the number 60 in the code to set a different minimum comment limit on your WordPress website.
You can also change the message that will be displayed on your website when a user exceeds or falls short of the comment limit. Simply type the sentence you want to display after the wp_die lines in the code.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section and choose the ‘Auto Insert’ mode.
The custom code will be automatically executed on your website upon activation.
If you only want to limit comment length on specific website pages, then you can also do that.
Simply scroll down to the ‘Conditional Logic’ section and toggle the ‘Enable Logic’ switch.
After that, choose the ‘Show’ option from the ‘Conditions’ dropdown menu and click the ‘+ Add new group’ button.
This will open a new tab where you must select the ‘Page URL’ option from the dropdown menu on the left.
Next, type the URL of the page where you want to limit the comment length in the field on the right.
Now, the code snippet will only be activated on the page with the URL you have just entered.
Scroll back to the top of the page and toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch to ‘Active’.
Finally, click the ‘Save Snippet’ button to store your settings.
Now, when a user types a comment that falls short of your minimum comment length, this message will be displayed on their screens.
Users won’t be able to post a comment until it is at least the minimum length you chose.
Similarly, when a user types a comment that exceeds your maximum limit, this message will be show on their screens.
This will help reduce rants and spam comments on your website.
Bonus: Improve Comment Engagement on Your WordPress Site
Controlling comment length is just one way to increase engagement in your WordPress comments section. This is great for keeping visitors on your site for longer and can even benefit your site’s SEO when users’ comments contain relevant keywords and add context to your content.
You can also easily further improve the comments section on your website using Thrive Comments.
It is the best WordPress comments plugin that comes with a dedicated moderation board, lets you lazy load comments, allows users to leave comments with their social media profiles, and more.
Plus, the tool enables you to add an upvote/downvote functionality to reduce spam and encourage interesting comments on your website.
Thrive Comments even lets you feature encouraging comments at the top and bury offensive or irrelevant comments at the bottom of the discussion section.
This allows you to reward users who are adding the most value to the discussion while politely discouraging other users from leaving unhelpful comments.
Are you struggling with WordPress local SEO and getting your site noticed in local searches?
SEO can be tricky, and local SEO has its own set of challenges. But here’s the good news: we’ve been helping small business owners win at SEO for years. We know what it takes to rank in the search results and get more traffic to your website.
Local SEO is more than just using the right keywords. It’s about attracting potential customers who live right around the corner.
In this article, we will show you the ultimate WordPress local SEO guide to get your website noticed by your local customers.
For example, if you run a pizza place in your area, then local SEO can make your business appear at the top of relevant search engine results pages (SERPs).
Search engines use algorithms to understand a user’s location and offer relevant local search results. They look at the person’s IP address, the search query, and business listings to associate businesses with specific locations.
With this information, search engines can then show results that are most relevant to the person’s location and needs.
Optimizing your online presence for local searches can help you drive more organic traffic and attract potential customers in your area. This is why local SEO is an important digital marketing strategy for small businesses.
What Are Local SEO Ranking Factors?
Local SEO ranking factors are what search engines look at when they are deciding which local businesses should appear at the top of search results.
Here are some key factors that influence local rankings:
Google Business listing – This free Google tool allows businesses to manage their online presence across Search and Maps. Having your company listed here will make it easier for users to find you.
Reviews – Comments from customers are like social proof. They can influence local search rankings because they show potential buyers that other people have had a good experience with your business.
NAP consistency – Short for Name, Address, and Phone number, it’s important that these details are consistent across all your online platforms to avoid confusion.
Proximity to the searcher – This refers to how close your business is to the person doing the search. Search engines often rank businesses closer to the searcher.
Other standard search ranking factors, such as website performance, high-quality content, and user experience, can also affect where your web pages rank on search engine results pages.
Now, let’s look at some of the best WordPress SEO practices to rank for local searches. You can use the quick links below to navigate through our tutorial:
A Google Business Profile, also known as Google My Business, is a free and powerful tool that can help your business appear in local organic searches.
It acts like a digital storefront that appears on Google Maps and Search results when people look for businesses like yours in their area.
Here’s an example:
By claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile, you can provide potential customers with key information about your business, like your address, phone number, WordPress website, and opening hours.
To create a Google Business profile, head over to https://www.google.com/business/ and click ‘Manage now.’ Then, sign in with your Google account.
Once signed in, you can start by entering your business name. Google will then search for existing listings.
If yours doesn’t appear, then you can select ‘Create a business with this name’ to continue.
The next step is to choose one of these business types: online retail, local store, or service business. The onboarding steps for each business type may look a bit different from one another.
Once you have made your choice, click ‘Next’.
If you picked ‘online retail’ in the previous step, then you will now enter the web address of your online store.
You can skip this step if you have not made an eCommerce site yet.
Now, it’s time to choose a business category. Simply type in what type of product or service you offer in the field, and some options will start appearing.
Then, click ‘Next’.
At this stage, you can enter your business address.
To complete this step, fill out your country/region, street address, city, state/province, and zip code. Then, hit the ‘Next’ button.
Based on the address you enter, Google may suggest some business listings that are already in their directory but have yet to be claimed.
If you don’t see any listings related to your business, select ‘None of these’ and continue to the next step.
Now, a map will appear. Here, you will have to drag the pin onto your business location. This will help users find your business with Google Maps.
Once done, click ‘Next.’
The next step is to enter your contact phone number.
If you don’t have one yet, then just skip this step. You can also read our expert pick of the best business phone services if you need some recommendations.
You have now successfully created a business listing on Google.
To go ahead with updating your business details, click ‘Continue’ on the screen below.
First, you must verify that you actually own and manage the business. Google automatically determines the verification method based on the business information you’ve provided so far.
If you want to verify your business at another time, just click ‘Verify Later.’
Now, depending on your business type and category, you will have to enter additional information in the next onboarding steps.
For example, if you run a restaurant, then you will have to specify your business hours and dining modes and add photos of your establishment.
Once you have completed all that information, you will see an option to claim a $500 Google Ads credit. With this, you can advertise your business so that it appears at the very top of local searches (above organic search results).
You will also see an option to sign up for Google Workspace, which is a software kit that includes professional Google Mail, Drive, Calendar, and other Google products.
And that’s it. If you decide to verify your business right away, then Google will review your business profile integrity within 7 days of your verification. After that, your business listing will be visible on Google.
Pro Tip: Besides Google Maps, Apple Maps is another popular mapping platform people use to find local businesses. Our guide on how to optimize your site’s SEO for DuckDuckGo includes a handy tutorial on how to add your business to Apple Maps.
2. Install a WordPress SEO Plugin With Local SEO Features
Having a Google Business Profile is a great first step, but it’s not the only tool in your local SEO toolbox. A WordPress plugin with local SEO features can also help your website rank better in Google search results.
While Google My Business focuses on your business listing, SEO tools and plugins can help optimize your website content for local searches.
Many plugins offer features specifically designed to improve your local ranking, like adding schema markup to your website. Also called structured data, schema markup gives search engines more information about your business in a clear and organized way.
By adding schema markup, you are not just helping search engines crawl, index, and rank your website. You are also making the information about your business in search results clearer and more interesting.
This can make your website stand out more in search results, which can improve your website’s click-through rates.
Here’s an example of a snippet you may find when looking for ‘Joe’s pizza NYC’:
There are many SEO plugins for WordPress websites, but our favorite is All in One SEO (AIOSEO).
This WordPress plugin makes it easy to set up your local business schema without using code.
For more information about using AIOSEO’s local SEO features, you can read our guides below:
This doesn’t mean that adding Google Maps to your website will suddenly put your site at the top of search results. But it can increase your chances significantly in a few ways:
Local SEO signals – Embedding a Google Map on your website strengthens local SEO signals to search engines. It tells search engines your business has a physical location, which is crucial for local searches.
User experience – Having a map on your website improves the user experience by allowing people to easily see your location and plan their visit. This can keep visitors engaged on your site for longer.
Social proof – Google Maps reviews can serve as social proof, showing potential customers that others have had positive experiences with your business. This can increase trust and encourage more people to visit your website.
Alternatively, you can check out our guide on how to embed a Google Map in a contact form. This tutorial can be useful if you want to include the map in your contact information page.
Before you jump into creating content, it’s essential to understand what people in your area are actually searching for online. Local keyword research is an important SEO strategy that can help you achieve this.
Unlike regular keyword research that focuses on global search terms, local SEO targets specific keywords with a local focus, like ‘best pizza near me’ or ‘pizza delivery [your city].’
To get started with local keyword research, you don’t need to be an expert. There are many keyword research tools available, like WPBeginner’s Keyword Generator Tool.
All you need to do is enter a keyword, like your business category and your location. After that, the tool will come up with keyword ideas that you can include in your content later. Here’s an example using ‘pet sitters Seattle’:
We see that the tool has suggested ‘best pet sitters Seattle.’ You can use this keyword when you create the copy for your homepage or other pages so that they show up for those search terms.
You can also include details like pet sitting rates or certification because, based on the keyword ideas, people are interested in this information.
If you want to use a more advanced tool, then check out Semrush. This tool helps you discover relevant keywords and their search volume and shows you their ranking difficulty based on location.
Here’s an example when you type ‘pet sitters’ into Semrush and limit the location to Seattle, WA:
You can see that Semrush gives you information about how easy it is to rank for the keyword in its ‘Keyword Difficulty’ section.
If you scroll down, then you will also see keyword ideas that you can use in your website content.
For example, you can use ‘trusted pet sitters’ or ‘in-home pet sitters’ to make your website appear on those local search queries if that’s what your target audience uses.
Just read these guides for more detailed information:
Creating website content for local search means writing articles specifically for your local audience. This goes beyond just mentioning your location on every web page of your WordPress blog.
Imagine you run a pet store. In addition to listing your products on your website, you could create a blog post on ‘Top Dog Parks in [Your City]’ or ‘Common Dog Walking Mistakes in [Your City].’
This type of content positions you as a helpful resource for locals and strengthens your connection with the community.
There are many benefits to creating local content. First, it attracts potential customers who are already searching for related topics. Second, it lets you showcase your expertise and build trust with your target audience.
You can then optimize these blog posts using on-page SEO techniques like including relevant keywords in your title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text.
This increases your chances of ranking higher in local search results when people search for those keywords.
If you use AIOSEO, then you can use the TruSEO On-Page Analysis to see whether you have used enough relevant keywords in your content, title tags, and meta descriptions for your page to rank for your target keywords.
You can also use the Headline Analyzer to see if your article’s headline is enticing enough for people to click and read the content.
Here’s an example:
If you want to learn more about content optimization, then you can read these articles below:
6. List Your Business in Local Business Directories
Listing your company in local business directories is a very important step for local SEO. It involves registering your business with various platforms that are recognized in your local area, making it more visible online.
This visibility can lead to increased traffic to your website, higher engagement, and ultimately, more leads and sales.
Doing this can also improve your search engine rankings for local searches.
This is because directories often provide a link to your website, which acts as a form of link-building. Search engines view high-quality backlinks from relevant websites as a sign of trustworthiness.
There are general directories like Yelp and Google Business that every business should be on. That said, you should also consider your local industry associations or review platforms because they can put you in front of potential customers in your area.
Additionally, local newspapers and websites sometimes feature establishments in articles like ‘Best [Your Industry] in [Your City]’ or guides to your area. Try contacting them to see if they’d be interested in writing about your business.
If you are curious to see if there are any sites that already link to your business website, then you can use a backlink checker tool to do that.
Also, ensure that your business’s name, address, and phone number are the same across your website and all of the other directories you list in. Inconsistencies can confuse search engines and customers, potentially leading to a loss of trust and visibility.
For instance, if your business name is ‘Baker’s Delight’ on your website but ‘Bakers Delight Bakery’ on your Google Business Profile, then search engines might not recognize them as the same entity.
7. Get Customers to Leave Online Reviews
Besides getting listed on local directories or review sites, you should also encourage your customers to leave online reviews on those platforms.
Customer reviews are digital word-of-mouth recommendations. They can improve your local SEO by increasing the number of mentions of your business online. This way, search engines and other potential customers see your company as trustworthy.
At the very least, you should get customers to rate and review your business on Google. When people search for things like ‘best cafe in Seattle,’ Google often shows businesses with high review ratings in the local results.
Reviews on Yelp, Trustpilot, TripAdvisor, and other sites are valuable, too. These platforms attract people who are really interested in your industry, so your business gets seen by potential customers who are a good fit.
Social media reviews on Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram can also help your local SEO as people often look there for recommendations.
Once you have collected some customer reviews, we recommend displaying them on your website with the Smash Balloon Reviews Feed plugin.
This way, people who find your site through search will see great feedback from others, making your business seem more reliable and trustworthy.
You can check out these guides on displaying customer reviews for more information:
Even with strong local SEO, a user-friendly website is key to converting visitors into customers. Here are some ways to improve your website’s experience:
Clear and easy navigation –Make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for. A clear navigation menu with simple categories and relevant internal links helps people navigate your site quickly.
Mobile-friendly design–Most people search on their phones, so you need to ensure your website looks good and functions well on all desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Fast loading speeds – Nobody likes a slow website. Best practices like optimizing your images and code can significantly boost your WordPress site’s performance.
Relevant and up-to-date content – Keep your website content fresh and informative. Include valuable information about your services, pricing, and frequently asked questions (FAQs).
Strong calls to action – Tell visitors what you want them to do on your website. Clear call-to-action buttons like ‘Book Now’ or ‘Contact Us’ can boost conversions.
Technical SEO– At the very least, your website needs to have an SEO-friendly URL structure, an XML sitemap, an SSL certificate, and a proper canonical URL in its header to avoid duplicate content issues.
9. Track Your Website Performance Regularly
Just like any marketing strategy, local SEO needs progress monitoring. Tracking key website metrics helps you see how your SEO efforts are performing and identify areas for improvement.
Here are a few key metrics to track for local SEO:
Website traffic– See how many people are visiting your website and how much is coming from organic search.
Local search rankings– Monitor your rankings for relevant keywords in local searches. Tools like Google Search Console can show you where you appear in local search results.
Conversion rates– Track how many visitors take desired actions on your website, like contacting you or booking an appointment. This helps you measure the effectiveness of your website in converting visitors into customers.
User engagement– Track how visitors interact with your website. Look at metrics like bounce rate (how many people leave right away) and average time spent on site. Low engagement suggests your website content is not informative enough.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking these metrics. However, its reports are very detailed and can get confusing.
If you want to use Google Analytics for WordPress sites, then we recommend installing MonsterInsights.
This analytics plugin can integrate Google Analytics with WordPress, making it easier to monitor your website’s performance directly from your dashboard.
For example, you can track how many visitors come from Google Search, how they interact with your site, and which pages they visit most.
Furthermore, if you connect Google Analytics with Google Search Console, then you can check out the Search Console report to see your top 50 search terms right in WordPress.
This way, you won’t have to switch between platforms to check your SEO analytics.
For more information on SEO analytics, check out these guides:
Now that we have covered some local SEO best practices, let’s answer a few frequently asked questions about the topic:
How long does local SEO take to work?
Local SEO can start showing results within a few weeks to a few months, depending on factors like the competitiveness of your local market and the quality of your SEO efforts.
Local SEO is beneficial for businesses that operate in a specific geographic area, such as restaurants, plumbers, or local retailers. It’s also suitable for businesses that want to attract customers from a certain region.
Which is better: local SEO or paid search?
Local SEO is cost-effective and builds a long-term online presence, while paid search ads can provide immediate visibility and targeted results. Ideally, it’s best to use both for a strong online presence.
Does blogginghelp local SEO?
Yes, blogging about relevant local content can improve your website’s rankings and establish you as an expert in your industry.
Is local SEO still relevant?
Absolutely. More and more people search online before buying locally to make informed decisions and choose the best business for their needs. Local SEO helps people find you by making your online presence more visible to your target audience.
We hope this article helped you learn about WordPress local SEO tips and tricks you can use to boost rankings. You may also be interested in our ultimate WooCommerce SEO guide and our expert pick of the best WordPress hosting providers to host your business website.
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.
Are you looking for the best technical documentation software for WordPress?
Technical documentation software helps you easily write, edit, and manage documentation inside WordPress. This enables users to get the information they need without asking for support and helps you reduce support queries.
In this article, we’ll show the best technical documentation software for WordPress that you can use for your business.
Why Use Technical Documentation Software for WordPress?
According to Harvard Business Review, over 81% of customers try to take care of issues themselves before contacting a support representative.
If customers cannot find quick answers to their basic questions, they are likelier to leave a negative review, ask for a refund, or find an alternative.
By using technical documentation software, you can provide your customers with the information they need without reaching out for technical support via contact form or phone support.
The following are some of the top reasons for using technical documentation software for your business:
1. Saves You Time + Money: With a handy documentation section, your support team spends less time answering the same questions repeatedly. Many customers find answers before even opening a support ticket. By being more efficient, you can keep your support team small and save money.
2. Improves Customer Satisfaction: Getting quick answers makes your customers happy. It also gives them the satisfaction that they can find reliable information when needed.
3. Builds Trust and Brand Loyalty: Satisfied customers are likelier to leave positive reviews about your business and recommend it to others. This trust leads them to buy more products from your business in the future.
4. Adds a 24/7 Support Rockstar to Your Team: Think of technical documentation as a support team member who works 24/7 at no additional cost to your business. It is always available, other team members can use it frequently, and you can always add new information to it.
How to Add Technical Documentation in WordPress
A WordPress website comes with two common content types: posts and pages.
Posts are published in reverse chronological order, making them less than ideal candidates for technical documentation articles. Pages are standalone content types and can be used to create technical documentation.
However, ideally, they are best suited for your business pages (services, storefront, about page, landing pages, and more).
This is where technical documentation software for WordPress comes in handy.
These tools are separate plugins or themes that add a Knowledge Base or Documentation content type to your WordPress website.
Among these tools, you can choose from several excellent options.
That being said, let’s look at the best technical documentation software you can use in WordPress.
Heroic Knowledge Base is the best WordPress technical documentation software on the market.
It allows you to easily add technical documentation in WordPress and sort it into categories and tags. There is no complicated setup involved.
The front end displays your documentation in an easy-to-browse layout with a prominent search bar at the top. You don’t need to write any code to get it working on your website.
The live search feature uses Ajax to show answers when users start typing. This helps your customers get to the answers much faster.
Most importantly, it works with any WordPress theme and will use its own custom templates to display the knowledge base area. This is perfect if you want to use it on your business website.
Heroic Knowledge Base also comes with a support assistant bot, which appears across your website and provides instant answers when users click it.
Want to know what your customers are struggling with? Heroic Knowledge base comes with analytics to help you gain insights into user behavior.
Pros of Using Heroic Knowledge Base
Easy to use without any complicated setup.
It works with any WordPress theme and can be used on an existing WordPress website.
The live search feature helps users find articles more quickly.
Built-in analytics allow you to track which parts of the documentation are accessed by more users, providing insights into improving your products.
Includes a support assistant bot to help users quickly find answers
Cons of Using Heroic Knowledge Base
It is a paid plugin with no free version. However, they do offer a 14-day risk-free money-back guarantee.
License renews at regular pricing, which is a bit high. However, you can choose to cancel your subscription and keep the plugin.
Why We Chose Heroic Knowledge Base: Heroic Knowledgebase is the most comprehensive and easy-to-use technical documentation software for WordPress. It works with any WordPress theme, which means it can be easily used on your existing WordPress website.
We already use it for the documentation hub on the WPForms website, and our documentation team loves it.
Groove is a powerful customer support platform that combines a knowledge base, a help desk, and live chat into one solution.
It is easy to use, and you can use it under your own domain name.
It comes with an easy design tool that allows you to choose your brand colors and upload a logo. Plus, the knowledge base pages look great on all devices and screen sizes.
Groove Knowledge Base also provides valuable insights such as article performance metrics, most searched terms, and most viewed articles. It can even make article suggestions.
Pros of Using Groove
Easy to use and manage.
Requires no special skills.
It can be used alongside Goove’s customer support platform with shared inboxes, live chat, and help desk software.
Help icon on every page, allowing users to quickly search the knowledge base and seamlessly transition to customer support.
Customizable mobile-friendly themes.
Cons of Using Groove
It can be a little more expensive than some software on the list.
Data is stored on Groove servers instead of your WordPress website.
Why We Chose Groove: Technical documentation is where a customer’s support interaction begins, and they may need further help. This is where Groove can help you seamlessly transfer customers to support inboxes or live chat.
In our experience with Groove, we like its ease of use, simple interface, and self-serve widget, and how it easily integrates into every page of your website.
KnowAll is the best WordPress knowledge base theme on the market. It comes with the best WordPress technical documentation plugin called Heroic Knowledgebase.
It is the perfect solution if you are building a separate website to handle support for your business. In that case, you can use KnowAll to set up a fully functional documentation center instantly.
Pros of Using KnowAll
Suitable if you want to make a separate website for support and documentation.
You can customize it like any other WordPress theme.
As a classic theme, it supports the Theme Customizer, widgets, and navigation menus.
Comes with Heroic Knowledgebase blocks, which you can use anywhere on your site.
Cons of Using KnowAll
It is a WordPress theme, so it wouldn’t be a good solution on a site where you are already using a different theme.
Why We Chose KnowAll: Some businesses may want to set up a separate WordPress site for support documentation. In that case, KnowAll is a ready-to-go solution that provides everything they need. Plus, it comes free with the Heroic Knowledge Base plugin, which, as mentioned, is the best technical documentation software for WordPress.
BetterDocs stands out as a reliable WordPress knowledge base plugin, offering a blend of user-friendliness and extensive features.
It comes with pre-designed knowledge base templates tailored to work with any WordPress theme. It also integrates with popular WordPress page builders through additional widgets.
Pros of using BetterDocs
A simple and easy-to-use technical documentation plugin for WordPress, suitable for beginners and experts alike.
Includes pre-designed templates to work with any WordPress theme.
It comes with additional widgets that can be used with page builder plugins.
Cons of using BetterDocs
Using it with your existing WordPress theme may require some additional tweaks.
Why We Chose BetterDocs: We found BetterDocs to be a great tool for creating technical documentation in WordPress. It is easy to use and makes it easy for your users to find the answers using an excellent live search feature.
Pricing: Starting from $55 for a single site license.
weDocs is another powerful solution for creating technical documentation in WordPress. It is easy to use and allows you to add a docs section to your existing website or a separate support website.
It includes a search feature and allows you to organize documentation in a hierarchical format. You can also use tags to sort articles into topics and subtopics. You can also sort articles with a drag-and-drop interface.
Pros of Using weDocs
It works with existing WordPress websites and can also be used on a standalone support website.
It lets you organize documentation in a hierarchical format. Plus, you can use tags to sort articles into topics.
It has a drag-and-drop interface to organize documentation pages.
Comes with an AI assistant built with ChatGPT to show relevant information automatically.
Cons of Using weDocs
It does not come with a separate theme but has built-in templates to work with any WordPress theme. This may require a little bit of tweaking, but nothing too tricky.
Why We Chose weDocs: It is a good option if you want to organize documentation in hierarchical pages. The drag-and-drop organizer allows you to easily set up documentation architecture.
Pricing: The base plugin is available for free. Pro plans start at $47 / year.
Echo Knowledge Base makes creating and managing documentation, FAQs, and articles easy and organized.
It has a user-friendly interface, and you can easily add, edit, and organize your content without technical know-how.
Pros of Using Echo Knowledge Base
Allows you to organize support articles with categories and tags.
You can use AI assistance to help write and answer questions.
It includes multiple layout styles and shortcodes to add FAQs and support content across your website.
Cons of Using Echo Knowledge Base
A little less beginner-friendly than other solutions on the list.
The base free plugin doesn’t have good search experience. You’ll need to buy a paid add-on separately to add advanced search.
Why We Chose Echo Knowledge Base: If you are looking for a free solution, then Echo Knowledge Base can be a good option. It provides a good base to add documentation and you can always purchase a bundle to add more features if needed.
Pricing: The base plugin is free. You can buy add-on packs starting from $46 / year.
BasePress is another simpler and easy-to-use plugin that helps you create professional-looking documentation pages and a knowledge base for your website.
It has three customizable themes, allowing you to create a visually appealing support center with minimal effort.
The advanced instant search bar helps users find answers quickly, while the drag-and-drop interface makes organizing articles into sections, categories, and tags easy.
Pros of Using BasePress
It allows you to create multiple knowledge bases.
Comes with article voting and analytics.
Content restriction lets you choose who has access to documentation.
Instant search lets users find answers quickly, you can add the search bar anywhere on your site using a shortcode.
Cons of Using BasePress
The built-in templates may require some tweaking to work alongside your existing WordPress theme.
Features like article voting, an advanced search bar, table of contents, etc. are available under paid plans.
Why We Chose BasePress: If you are looking for a basic free technical documentation plugin, then BasePress could be a good solution. However, if you need the features available in its premium version, you should compare it with other paid solutions on this list.
Pricing: The lite plugin is free. Pro plans start at $79 / year.
HelpCrunch is a multi-purpose WordPress technical documentation plugin that allows you to easily create a support website for your customers.
It allows you to organize your help documents into categories and tags easily. It also has a more accessible customizer that lets you choose the theme and background colors for your docs section.
Pros of Using HelpCrunch
Offers a multi-channel customer support software with chat, email, and technical docs.
Supports popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram to chat with customers.
AI-powered live chat assistant helps customers find answers more quickly.
Cons of Using HelpCrunch
It is a multi-channel, full-fledged customer support platform with email marketing, live chat support, and a knowledge base. If you are just looking for technical documentation software, this might be overkill.
A bit pricier than other solutions on the list.
Why We Chose HelpCrunch: If you are looking for a knowledge base with built-in live chat support, then HelpCrunch can be a good solution for your business. It offers multiple ways for customers to seek help, which ensures customers can get the information they need.
Pricing: Starting from $12 monthly for each team member without emails.
It does not come with its own knowledge base content type but can be used with any other content type, like posts or pages.
Pros of Using VS Knowledge Base
Extremely simple and straightforward solution to create technical documentation in WordPress.
Use shortcodes or VS Knowledge Base widget to display documentation.
Works with any WordPress theme.
Cons of Using VS Knowledge Base
Since it does not use a separate content type for knowledge base articles, it will not be easy to use on an existing WordPress website.
It lacks advanced features that many other solutions on this list offer.
Why We Chose VS Knowledge Base: For businesses that want to set up a separate WordPress install on a dedicated support site, VS Knowledge Base can be a very basic and simple solution.
BSF Docs is a lightweight WordPress documentation plugin. It comes with a Docs content type for adding technical documentation articles.
It offers a very basic set of features which makes it quite easy to use. There is not much for you to customize, and you can just start adding your documentation.
Pros of Using BSF Docs
A lightweight technical documentation plugin that is super simplistic by design.
Comes with a basic template to display technical documentation sorted by categories.
You can create documentation articles using the Docs content type or posts/pages.
Cons of Using BSF Docs
Lacks many of the features that are available in some other solutions on this list.
The default templating works with most WordPress themes, but you may still need some customization.
Why We Chose BSF Docs: If you need a free plugin to create and manage your technical documentation, BSF Docs is a good solution. It includes a very helpful live search feature and works quite well with any WordPress theme.
Pricing: Free.
Bonus Tools
Adding technical documentation alone would help reduce support requests. However, you may need additional tools to ensure your customers get the best support possible.
Combining your documentation with the following tools will help you create a robust customer support system.
Heroic Inbox is a WordPress helpdesk and customer support plugin from the makers of KnowAll and Heroic Knowledge Base plugins.
It allows you to manage all customer support emails and tickets inside WordPress. You can create multiple mailboxes for support, sales, partnerships, and more from the same dashboard.
With built-in user management, you can assign different mailboxes to different team members and route customer emails to the right team.
Team members can add notes only visible to your team to share information and coordinate responses.
It also pulls all customer information in the sidebar next to a conversation. You can see past support requests and customer activity when answering a ticket.
Pricing: Starts at $199.50 for the standalone plugin. However, the real value comes with their bundle package, starting at $299.50, and includes Heroic Knowledge Base.
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder on the market. It allows you to create forms in WordPress, including customer support forms, feedback forms, survey polls, and more.
WPForms lets you easily allow your customers various options to contact and provide feedback. This helps you make data-driven decisions, leading to more customer satisfaction.
WPForms is a no-code solution and comes with a drag-and-drop form builder. It includes over 1600 templates for all kinds of forms your small business might need.
Pricing: Starting from $49.50. There is also a free version that you can try.
Nextiva is the best business phone service provider for small businesses. Adding a business phone number to your website gives your business credibility and gives customers an extra channel to reach out if they need help.
Nextiva allows you to share a number on multiple devices. It includes intelligent routing features to send calls to the available team members automatically.
Plus, you can choose phone numbers in different states or regions or even get a toll-free number for business.
A recent study by Kayako showed that more than 41% of customers prefer live chat to reach out for support.
LiveChat allows you to add live chat support to your WordPress website easily. It offers easy integration with any knowledge base software you are using.
Plus, it helps you capture leads on your website, which you can then convert into paying customers.
Pricing: Starting from $20 per month per agent.
Which Is the Best Technical Documentation Software for WordPress?
Heroic Knowledge Base is the best technical documentation software for WordPress. It is easy to use, does not require writing any code, and can be used with your existing WordPress website or WooCommerce store.
Plus, it gives you access to the KnowAll theme, which makes it even easier to create a customer support website without any modifications to your existing WordPress theme.
Not to mention that the same company offers Heroic Inbox, which lets you manage customer support right there in WordPress instead of paying third-party companies to handle email support tickets.
Frequently Asked Questions About Technical Documentation Software
1. Which software should you use to write technical documentation?
You can write technical documentation using software like Heroic Knowledge Base. This allows you to create, edit, organize, and update technical documentation easily.
2. What are some good examples of technical documentation?
You can look at the technical documentation at WPForms as an excellent example. You may also find examples in your industry or business niche and see how your competitors or similar businesses have managed their documentation and resources.
Do you want to add a recent comments page to your WordPress website?
Displaying all of your most recent comments on one page is a great way to highlight the discussion happening on your website. With WordPress, creating a page like this is easy, thanks to the Latest Comments block.
In this guide, we will show you how to create a recent comments page in WordPress.
Why Make a Recent Comments Page?
Comments play an important role in building a community around your WordPress website. They allow readers to participate in discussions and interact with you.
With a recent comments page, new and returning visitors can see the ongoing discussions and keep up with them across your site.
Comments are also a great engagement signal and social proof for new visitors. Through the recent comments page, users can see that you have an active and passionate community. This can encourage them to stay longer on your website and perhaps even join the conversation.
Many WordPress blogs choose to display their most recent comments in a widget area, like the sidebar. However, the recent comments widget can be a bit narrow and difficult to read.
That’s why we recommend creating a recent comments page. If you want, you can even link this page at the bottom of the recent comments widget on the sidebar. This way, visitors can read the comments in more detail.
In this step-by-step guide, we will show you how to create the recent comments page using two methods: WordPress’ built-in Latest Comments block and SeedProd, the best WordPress page builder on the market.
You can use the quick links below to navigate through this tutorial:
After that, you need to add a title to the page. You can use something like “See the latest discussion on our blog” or “Read our most recent comments.”
Once that’s done, just click the ‘+’ add block button below the title or in the top left corner and locate the Latest Comments block. You can drag and drop it wherever you want on your page.
By default, the block editor will display the comment author’s name, the comment excerpt, the comment date, the commenter’s gravatar, and a link to the post where the comment is.
Here’s what it looks like:
If you want to customize the block’s appearance, then you can click the ‘Align’ button in the block toolbar. This button lets you adjust the block’s alignment settings.
You can choose between using no alignment, wide width, full width, or aligning the block to the left, center, or right.
Additionally, you can click the ‘Settings’ button in the top right corner and switch to the ‘Block’ tab.
Here, you can choose to display or disable the gravatar, the comment date, and the comment excerpt. You can also select how many comments you’d like to display on your page.
If you open the block’s ‘Styles’ tab, you can edit the block’s Typography, which controls the fonts being used in the block. You can also modify the Dimensions, which control the block’s padding and margin.
Feel free to play around with these settings to make the comments more readable and attractive with your WordPress theme.
Once you are done, you can click the ‘Preview’ button in the top right corner to see what the page looks like on a desktop, mobile, or tablet device.
Then, click ‘Save draft’ to save the page without publishing it. Or you can click ‘Publish’ if you want to make the page publicly available right away.
And that’s it! You’ve successfully created a recent comments page in WordPress.
Method 2: Create a Custom Recent Comments Page With SeedProd
If you are looking to create a completely custom recent comments page in WordPress, then we recommend using a page builder plugin like SeedProd.
SeedProd comes with tons of customization options that the built-in block editor doesn’t have, like animated effects. That’s why we recommend this method if you want to make your recent comments page truly unique and stand out.
Note: For this tutorial, you can use the premium SeedProd version or the free SeedProd version if you are on a budget. We will use the first one because it comes with more templates and page blocks to customize the page.
Next, you want to go to SeedProd »Landing Pages. After that, click the ‘+ Add New Landing Page’ button.
On the next screen, you can choose a landing page template for your recent comments page.
In this case, we will use the ‘Video Squeeze Page.’
Now, go ahead and give your new landing page a name and URL.
We have named our landing page ‘See Our Latest Comments’ and given it the URL ‘/latest-comments’ to keep it simple. Once you’ve completed this step, just click the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button.
You will now arrive at the page builder interface. Before you add the latest comments, you may want to customize how the page looks overall first.
Here, we have deleted some of the elements from the original landing page template and adjusted the copy to suit the purpose of this guide.
Now, in the left-side block panel, look for the ‘Recent Comments’ widget and drag and drop it wherever is appropriate.
After you drag and drop the widget to the page builder, go ahead and click on the widget itself. The left-hand panel will then show you some settings to modify how the widget looks.
In the ‘Content’ tab, you can change the title of the widget and how many comments to show. Once you are happy with it, click ‘Apply.’
If you switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab, you’ll see more settings for the block’s typography, spacing, CSS attributes, device visibility, and animation effects.
At the top, we’ve adjusted the heading’s font size for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. This way, the text looks good no matter where it’s viewed.
Tips to Optimize Your Recent Comments Page in WordPress
We’ve shown you how to display the latest comments from your WordPress posts on a separate page. Now, let’s discuss how to make your comments section even better.
One method to always moderate your comments. Remember that the Latest Comments block and the Recent Comments widget will automatically display any new comment that gets approved.
Let’s say you don’t moderate these comments, and the block unintentionally shows a harmful message sent by a user. That comment can negatively impact your brand and community.
The purpose of comment moderation is to make sure that no inappropriate or spammy comments are displayed. This way, your comment section can always be a safe space for users to share their thoughts with each other.
Another thing you can do is use a WordPress comment plugin. It can boost your comment engagement and make users explore more of your content.
For this, we recommend using Thrive Comments, which is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin that can improve your comment section. It comes with features to encourage quality comments and manage discussions, like comment upvotes/downvotes and likes/dislikes.
Additionally, Thrive Comments lets you add a post-comment action. After users leave a comment text, you can show them a related post, encourage them to share the blog post, or ask them to fill out a lead-generation form.
Here are some guides showing how you can use Thrive Comments in your comments section:
HubSpot is a popular customer relationship management (CRM) software that offers popular solutions for all your marketing and sales needs. However, it can be very expensive to use as your business grows.
In this article, we will share some of the best HubSpot alternatives for your website.
Why Do You Need a HubSpot Alternative?
HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM software that offers powerful tools for your marketing, sales, customer service, and content management needs.
However, one of the biggest drawbacks of using HubSpot is its price. The premium plans can get very expensive very fast.
Plus, there are multiple packages, which can be overwhelming and confusing for many users. For instance, there are separate prices for their marketing and sales tools, content management system (CMS), operations features, and others.
While HubSpot offers free versions of its tools and the Starter plan for individuals and small teams starts from $20 per month, most of its powerful features are locked away in the higher-priced plans.
For example, you’ll need at least a Professional plan if you want to use omnichannel marketing automation, custom reporting, A/B testing, dynamic personalization, and blog creation.
This will set you back $890 per month (billed annually). Not to mention, there is also a one-time Professional Onboarding fee of $3,000 that you’ll have to pay if you subscribe to the Professional plan.
HubSpot is great for large organizations, but higher pricing rules out smaller businesses. That said, let’s look at some of the best HubSpot alternatives that are cheaper and more reliable.
Constant Contact is one of the best all-in-one digital and email marketing services. It is a perfect HubSpot alternative because it offers a wide range of tools at lower prices.
For instance, Constant Contact offers a drag-and-drop email builder, marketing CRM, social media marketing tool, marketing automation, landing page builder, A/B testing, SMS marketing, and more.
Pros:
Use drag-and-drop email campaign builder
Choose from hundreds of email templates
Set up marketing automation
Conduct A/B testing
Get detailed analytics and reports
Seamless integration with 300+ apps
Cons:
There is no free version
Why We Choose Constant Contact: It is ideal for startups, small businesses, and individual marketers who want all the features of HubSpot but at affordable prices.
Pricing: Constant Contact prices start from $12 per month, and you get a 14-day free trial.
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is the next HubSpot alternative on our list. It is a CRM suite that offers basic features that you’ll also find in HubSpot. You get a marketing platform that helps set up email marketing, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns, marketing automation, and more.
Besides that, Brevo comes with a sales platform that comes with automated deal tracking, call recordings, pipeline management, and sales reporting. With Brevo, you can also improve custom support. It lets you add live chat, chatbot, phone calls, and more using its platform.
The marketing automation feature is not as powerful as HubSpot
Lacks a CMS solution that’s available in HubSpot
Why We Choose Brevo: If you’re looking for a HubSpot alternative that’s easy to use, offers basic CRM and marketing automation features, and isn’t expensive, then Brevo is for you.
Pricing: Brevo offers a free version that lets you send 300 emails per day. Its premium plans start from $25 per month.
Omnisend is a great HubSpot alternative for eCommerce store owners. It lets you create engaging newsletters, automate emails, create landing pages and popups, set up SMS marketing, segment your customers, and more.
What sets Omnisend apart from HubSpot is the email marketing features it offers. With solutions built with eCommerce businesses in mind, it makes it very easy to promote your products.
Pros:
User-friendly omnichannel marketing platform
Use drag and drop email editor and landing page builder
Limited social media marketing features compared to HubSpot
HubSpot offers more CRM capabilities
Why We Choose Omnisend: In our experience, there are not many beginner-friendly email marketing services focused on eCommerce users. Omnisend is the best HubSpot alternative if you have an online store and send transactional messages.
Pricing: Omnisend offers a free plan that lets you send 500 emails per month and store 250 contacts. However, if you want more features and higher email and contact limits, then there are premium plans that start from $16 per month.
OptinMonster is the best lead generation and conversion optimization software in the world. It helps you grow your email list, get more leads, and boost sales.
You can use OptinMonster as a HubSpot alternative for creating personalized messages and targeting the right audience. OptinMonster comes with a drag-and-drop builder for creating stunning optin forms. Plus, it offers powerful display rules that display your campaigns based on user behavior.
Pros:
Drag and drop campaign builder
Choose from pre-built templates and campaign types
Powerful display rules
Seamless integration with email marketing tools and plugins
Get detailed analytics
A/B test your optin forms
Cons:
Focuses on creating popups and optin forms
Why We Choose OptinMonster: We highly recommend OptinMonster to anyone looking to create personalized campaigns for their audience. It is super easy to use and helps increase conversions.
Pricing: OptinMonster pricing plans start from $9 per month (billed annually). There is also a free version of OptinMonster that you can use to get started.
Zoho is a powerful marketing platform, just like HubSpot. It offers all the popular features for marketing, sales, customer service, emails, and project management.
Zoho goes a step further than HubSpot and even offers tools for finance and accounting, human resource, legal, security and IT management, and more. With all these features, what makes Zoho a great alternative to HubSpot is its price.
Pros:
Complete marketing platform
Easily integrates with third-party apps, plugins, and tools
More affordable pricing plans compared to HubSpot
Powerful filters to segment users, tasks, and other activities
Generate different reports and custom dashboards
Cons:
Limited customer support options (no live chat support)
Why We Choose Zoho: If you’re looking for a like-for-like replacement or HubSpot alternative, then Zoho is the closest option in the market. It offers a complete CRM and lots of features for every department at affordable prices.
Pricing: Zoho prices each tool differently. For instance, its CRM prices start from $14 per user per month. Plus, there is also a free trial you can use to try the software.
ActiveCampaign is another HubSpot alternative that offers powerful features. Just like HubSpot, you get marketing automation, email marketing, eCommerce marketing, and CRM tools. Plus, it easily integrates with over 900 apps, WordPress plugins, and other platforms.
Pros:
Easily automate email and marketing tasks
Create forms, landing pages, popups, and more
AI-powered predictive sending feature
Set up split automation
Conduct A/B testing
24/7 chat and email support
Custom reporting option
Cons:
There is no free version
It can be difficult for beginners to navigate and use ActiveCampaign
Why We Choose ActiveCampaign: What makes ActiveCampaign different from others is its AI-power predictive sending feature and superior reporting features. It uses AI to send emails when users are most likely to engage. Besides that, most of the features it offers are cheaper than HubSpot.
Pricing: ActiveCampaign premium plans start from $29 per month (billed annually). If you want the Predictive Sending feature and advanced reporting options, then you can upgrade to higher pricing plans.
Drip is a popular email marketing platform that allows you to create automated email sequences and release them based on users’ actions. It offers pre-built templates and a visual builder. Plus, it integrates with over 200 tools. Plus, you can create different segments in your contact list.
Pros:
Easy-to-use email automation tool
Use pre-built templates and visual builder to customize emails
Lacks other features offered by HubSpot like a CRM, marketing and sales platform, and more
Why We Choose Drip: If you’re looking for a HubSpot alternative that’s great for email marketing automation, then Drip is the best option. It’s very easy to use, and you can create automated workflows with ease. Plus, there are different email templates and customization options to choose from.
Pricing: Drip will cost you $39 per month, and you get a 14-day free trial.
GrooveHQ is the best help desk plugin for WordPress and small businesses. It is a great HubSpot alternative for customer service and offers features like shared inboxes, live chat, knowledge base, and more. GrooveHQ also integrates with popular CRMs, apps, and payment platforms.
Pros:
Complete customer support solution
Add live chat and email support to your site
Receive support requests in shared inboxes
Manage your customers from a beginner-friendly dashboard
Cons:
Lacks other CRM and marketing automation features
There is no free version
Why We Choose GrooveHQ: If you’re looking for a HubSpot alternative just for your customer support tasks, then GrooveHQ is for you. It streamlines your support workflow and offers robust features at affordable prices.
Pricing: GrooveHQ pricing plans start from $4.80 per user per month.
Freshsales by Freshworks is a sales-focused CRM that is another HubSpot alternative you can consider. It is beginner-friendly to use and offers features like live chat, email, phone, social media management, marketing and email automation, custom reports, and multiple AI-powered tools.
Pros:
Easily manage and organize contacts
Send personalized messages across multiple channels
Use built-in chat, email, and phone to connect with customers
Create custom reports and dashboards
AI-powered contact scoring
Get insights and the next best action through AI
AI-powered forecasting
Cons:
The free version doesn’t offer reporting features
You get more features with HubSpot’s CRM, even in the free plan
Why We Choose Freshsales CRM: After going through multiple HubSpot alternatives, Freshsales is great for sales teams. It offers affordable pricing plans and basic features.
Pricing: Freshsales CRM is available for free. There are premium plans starting from $15 per user per month that offer more features.
FunnelKit Automations is one of the best marketing automation plugins for WooCommerce stores. It helps you create automated workflows, launch email and SMS campaigns, create drip sequences, and more. You can use it to reduce abandoned carts, nurture leads, send automated coupons, and more.
Pros:
Use drag and drop builder to create campaigns
Set up automated email workflows
Send personalized emails and SMS messages to your audience
Segment customers into different lists or categories
Conduct A/B tests with different variants
View detailed analytics and improve campaign performance
Cons:
Limited customer support options
The free plugin offers basic features compared to HubSpot
Premium plans can be expensive for small businesses
Why We Choose FunnelKit Automations: It is the best marketing and email automation solution for WooCommerce store owners. All its features are designed specifically for WooCommerce, which makes it easy to increase retention and boost sales.
Pricing: FunnelKit prices start from $99.50 per year. There is also a free FunnelKit WordPress plugin you can use to get started.
Pipedrive CRM is the next HubSpot alternative on our list, and one of the most affordable. It is a sales-driven CRM solution that helps manage your sales pipeline, set up sales reporting, track activity, sales forecasting, and more. Pipedrive also easily integrates with email marketing services and other WordPress plugins.
Pros:
Simple and easy-to-use interface
Easily monitor your sales activities and communications
Set up marketing automation
Get metrics customized for your business
400+ integrations with tools, plugins, and apps
Affordable pricing plans
Cons:
There is no free version
Lacks advanced reporting and automation features
Why We Choose Pipedrive CRM: If you’re looking for an affordable CRM for your sales needs, then Pipedrive CRM is the best HubSpot alternative.
Pricing: Pipedrive offers 5 different pricing plans that start from $9 per user per month.
FluentCRM is a self-hosted CRM and email automation plugin for WordPress. What makes it different from HubSpot is that all the data is stored in your WordPress database instead of a cloud service. Plus, it offers features like email campaign management, email sequencing, and more.
Pros:
Beginner friendly interface
Store your data in the WordPress database
Set up email automation
Create email drip campaigns
Get in-depth reports
Easily integrates with eCommerce WordPress plugins
Cons:
The free plugin offers limited features compared to HubSpot
Lacks social media and CMS features
Why We Choose FluentCRM: It is a great HubSpot alternative if you have a WordPress site and want to manage customers, email campaigns, and automated workflows from your WordPress dashboard. Plus, it keeps your data secure and doesn’t rely on a third-party cloud service.
EngageBay is a powerful all-in-one platform for your marketing, sales, and customer support needs. It is a great replacement for HubSpot, as you get almost similar features even in the free version. For instance, you can create email broadcasts, access CRM, helpdesk, live chat, and more.
Pros:
Store and manage contacts in CRM
Set up marketing automation
Use email builder and choose pre-built email templates
Why We Choose EngageBay: EngageBay is a like-for-like alternative to HubSpot. The free version offers similar features, and even its paid plans are more affordable than HubSpot.
Pricing: You can get started with EngageBay for free. Its paid pricing plans start from $12.74 per user per month.
Which HubSpot Alternative Should You Use?
After testing multiple software and plugins, we believe that Constant Contact is the best HubSpot alternative.
It is a complete marketing and email automation solution that offers powerful features at affordable prices compared to HubSpot. You can easily create email campaigns, conduct A/B tests, get a marketing CRM, manage social media, set up SMS marketing, build landing pages, and more.
On the other hand, you may also want to check out Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) and Omnisend. Both of them offer similar features as HubSpot, but in lower prices.
We hope this article helped you learn about the best HubSpot alternatives. You may also want to see our ultimate guide to WordPress SEO and the best WooCommerce 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.
Are you looking for a way to create a sticky floating footer bar in WordPress?
A sticky floating footer bar stays visible on your website even when users scroll down on your page. It can help you promote discount offers or social media handles, which can reduce the bounce rate and get more conversions.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create a sticky floating footer bar in WordPress, step by step.
What Is a Floating Footer Bar in WordPress?
A sticky floating footer bar allows you to prominently display important content and news to users.
This bar remains visible to visitors at all times, so they are more likely to click on it and discover more useful content.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily create a sticky floating footer bar in WordPress. We will show you two methods in this tutorial, and you can use the links below to jump to the method of your choice:
Method 1: Create a Sticky Floating Footer Bar With OptinMonster (Recommended)
You can easily create a sticky floating footer bar with OptinMonster. It is the best lead generation and conversion optimization tool on the market that makes it super easy to convert your website visitors into subscribers.
OptinMonster comes with a drag-and-drop builder and premade templates that allow you to create a floating footer bar, slide-in popups, and banners without using any code.
We recommend this method because OptinMonster is super easy to use and offers more customization options than the free plugin method.
Step 1: Install OptinMonster on Your Website
First, you will need to sign up on the OptinMonster website by clicking on the ‘Get OptinMonster Now’ button.
Upon activation, the OptinMonster setup wizard will open up on your screen, where you have to click the ‘Connect Your Existing Account’ button. This will connect your WordPress site with your OptinMonster account.
Once you do that, a new window will open up on your screen.
Here, click the ‘Connect to WordPress’ button to move ahead.
Step 2: Create And Customize the Floating Sticky Footer Bar
Now that you have connected OptinMonster with your website, it’s time to create a sticky floating footer bar.
To do this, you need to visit the OptinMonster » Templates page from the WordPress admin sidebar and select ‘Floating Bar’ as the campaign type.
Once you do that, all the premade templates for the floating bar will load on the screen. From here, you can click the ‘Use Template’ button on the one you want to use.
This will open the ‘Create Campaign’ prompt on the screen, where you can add a name for the floating footer bar that you are about to create. It can be anything you like, as the name won’t be displayed to your visitors.
After that, just click the ‘Start Building’ button.
OptinMonster’s drag-and-drop builder will now be launched on your screen, where you can start customizing your floating footer bar. Here, you will notice a floating bar preview on the right with blocks in the left column.
For example, you can use a countdown timer block if your floating footer bar is promoting a discount offer. This will help create a sense of urgency among users and encourage them to take action.
You can also add a CTA, video, or social media block to the footer bar. For detailed instructions, you can see our tutorial on how to create an alert bar in WordPress.
You can also edit text on the footer bar by clicking on it. This will open the block settings in the left column, where you can adjust them according to your liking.
For example, if you want to change the discount offer in the template, then you can change the button text. After that, you can select the ‘Redirect to a URL’ option and add the page link that you want users to be directed to upon clicking on the button.
Step 3: Configure The Display Rules For Your Floating Footer Bar
Once you are satisfied with your footer bar’s customization, just switch to the ‘Display Rules’ tab from the top.
Here, you can configure when to display the bar on your page. If you want to display the floating footer bar at all times, then you must select the ‘time on page’ option from the left dropdown menu.
After that, choose the ‘is immediate’ option from the dropdown menu on the right.
However, to display the floating footer bar on a specific page, you must select the ‘Page Targeting’ option from the right dropdown menu.
After that, choose the ‘exactly matches’ option from the dropdown menu in the middle and then add a page URL. Once you do that, the floating footer bar will only displayed on the page you chose.
Additionally, you can select the ‘Exit Intent’ option to show the sticky floating footer bar when the user is about to leave your site. You can then configure the exit intent sensitivity and choose the devices where the footer bar will be displayed. This can be handy if you want to reduce your bounce rate.
You can even select the ‘Visitor’s Device’ option if you only want to display the floating footer bar to desktop visitors.
You can also configure the display rules according to the date, time, or scroll distance by selecting the ‘When’ option from the left column.
Method 2: Create a Sticky Floating Footer Bar With a Free Plugin
If you are looking for a free way to create a sticky floating footer bar, then this method is for you. However, keep in mind that you will have limited customization options compared to OptinMonster.
Upon activation, visit the Firebox » Campaigns page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘+ New Campaign’ button.
This will open the Firebox campaign library, where you can search for sticky floating bar premade templates.
Next, simply click the ‘Insert’ link under the floating footer bar that you like. Keep in mind that if you select a header bar, then you won’t be able to change its position. You must ensure the template you select is for a footer bar.
The block editor will now open up on your screen, where you can start by adding a name for your floating bar.
After that, you can edit the text in the footer by clicking on it and add new blocks by clicking the ‘+’ button. This will open the block menu, where you can add images, headings, paragraphs, videos, quotes, or list blocks.
For instance, if you want to add social media handles, then you can choose the Social Icons block. After that, you can add social media accounts and links using the block panel.
You can also change the text in the button block and add a link to the page where you want to direct users by clicking on the link icon in the block toolbar.
After that, type in the URL of your choice and press ‘Enter’.
Next, you can scroll down to the ‘Firebox Settings’ section.
Here, you can change the background color, text color, alignment, size, padding, and margin for the floating footer bar.
After that, switch to the ‘Behaviour’ tab from the left column and select ‘Page Load’ as the floating bar trigger point.
Then, use the ‘Delay’ slider to choose a delay timing for the floating bar. For example, if you drag the slider to 15 seconds, then the floating footer bar will be displayed once the user has spent 15 seconds on your site.
If you want the sticky floating footer bar to be displayed immediately, then you can keep the slider at 0.
Next, you can leave other settings as they are or configure them according to your liking.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ button at the top.
Now visit your WordPress site to view the sticky floating footer bar in action.
This is what it looked like on our demo site.
Bonus: Create a Sticky Floating Navigation Menu in WordPress
Apart from adding a sticky footer bar, you might also like to create a sticky floating navigation menu on your WordPress site.
A navigation menu contains links to the most important pages on your WordPress blog and acts as an organizational structure for your website.
If you make this menu sticky, then it will remain visible on your page at all times, even as the user scrolls down on your screen. This can increase engagement and make your website easier to navigate.
Upon activation, visit the Settings » Sticky Menu page from the WordPress dashboard and type #main-navigation next to the ‘Sticky Element (required)’ option.
After that, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings. You have now successfully created a sticky floating navigation menu.
Are you looking to customize the Minecraft game setup or add players to your fantasy world? If this is the case, you’ll need a Minecraft server hosting provider. However, due…
Are you looking for the best WordPress caching plugin for your website?
Caching essentially stores a copy of your WordPress site on your server. When users open your website again, the server can simply pull up the copy so that visitors won’t have to reload your site from scratch again.
Since there are so many different WordPress cache plugins, it can feel overwhelming to pick the right option.
To help you pick the best plugin, we tested some of the best options on the market. While testing, we focused on a bunch of factors like ease of use, caching options, and price.
In this guide, we will show you the best WordPress caching plugins to improve your site speed.
In a hurry? No worries! Take a look at our top picks so you can quickly choose the right WordPress cache plugin for your site.
Using a WordPress caching plugin is one of the easiest ways to increase your website speed. When installed, the caching plugin will store parts of your site (like static HTML files, CSS files, JavaScript files, and so on) on your server.
Every time someone visits your site, they are served the cached version of the site instead of having to wait for your server to load the web pages from the beginning.
By storing cached pages of your site, a caching plugin drastically reduces the amount of processing required to serve those pages. Some cache content at the server level and others leverage browser caching. This leads to:
A faster website and better WordPress SEO. Search engines give a significant SEO advantage to fast web pages, which helps you rank higher in search results.
More power to handle larger amounts of traffic without slowing down your site performance or affecting your uptime. This is important if you run an eCommerce website.
Plus, caching can create a better user experience. Users who visit your site will experience faster page loading times, making it less likely for them to bounce from your site.
The probability of bounce increases 32% as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds.
How We Tested and Reviewed WordPress Caching Plugins
We used them on our websites: Throughout the years, we have used different WordPress cache plugins on our websites to improve our site performance.
We tested the most popular plugins: We tested some of the most popular caching plugins on the market to see if they are worth the hype. We analyzed those plugins based on the following factors: ease of use, features, types of caching, and pricing.
We categorized them based on your needs: Not every website will benefit from the same caching plugin. That’s why we analyzed all the features to help you decide which tool fits your needs.
Why Trust WPBeginner
At WPBeginner, we are a dedicated team of people with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, design, and online marketing. Our WordPress experts extensively review each plugin or tool that is featured here and thoroughly test them on real websites. To learn more, you can see our complete editorial process.
After trying out different plugins from this list, we found WP Rocket to be the overall best WordPress caching plugin. It is the easiest and most beginner-friendly option, which is a big help if you are new to this topic.
With WP Rocket, WordPress users can instantly cache their website with just one click. Once the plugin is activated, its crawler automatically fetches the WordPress pages to build up the cache.
The plugin then automatically turns on the recommended WordPress caching settings. These include page caching, cache preloading, Gzip compression, browser caching, and mobile device caching.
WP Rocket also offers optional features to configure to improve your website performance further. These include lazy loading images, CDN (content delivery network) support, minification, and more.
Pros of WP Rocket:
User-friendly plugin interface for beginners.
Essential caching functions are available out of the box, from page caching and browser caching to mobile device caching.
Advanced features like database optimization, multisite support, and cache exclusions based on URLs or cookies.
Supports caching for dynamic content, including WooCommerce cart items.
Cons of WP Rocket:
Unfortunately, there is no free version, but WP Rocket does offer a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Pricing: Starting from $59 per year for one website, product updates, and support.
Why we chose WP Rocket: We have reviewed WP Rocket before at WPBeginner, and we strongly recommend it as the best WordPress caching plugin on the market. While there is no free version, its prices are quite affordable compared to other paid options.
WP Super Cache is a popular, free caching plugin created by Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com.
This WordPress caching plugin has 2 caching settings: Expert and Simple. The first one is a much faster option than the other because it doesn’t execute any PHP scripts, but it does require you to edit your .htaccess file.
The second is a happy medium between fast site loading speed and ease of use. We recommend choosing this method instead if you are not confident editing your own .htaccess file.
Other than that, WP Super Cache includes other speed optimization features like cache preloading. This setting will generate cached files of your pages, posts, categories, and tags that are ready to load as soon as someone accesses the content for the first time.
Pros of WP Super Cache:
Completely free of charge.
Advanced caching settings are available, such as expert caching that can handle high traffic and custom caching options to control how the plugin works.
Cache garbage collection to delete old cache pages and keep your website updated.
Basic CDN support that will rewrite your website content URLs so that they are loaded with CDN.
Cons of WP Super Cache:
While the interface is pretty user-friendly, it uses technical terms designed for advanced users that may confuse beginners.
Pricing: Free plugin.
Why we chose WP Super Cache: If you are looking for a free caching plugin to speed up your website loading time, then WP Super Cache is a great choice.
For beginners, we recommend taking the time to explore the plugin and understand some of the more technical terms so that you can make the most of it. See our article on how to install and set up WP Super Cache for detailed instructions.
If you want to use a WordPress caching plugin with tons of optimization features, then check out W3 Total Cache.
Firstly, W3 Total Cache offers various types of caching besides page caching and browser caching. It also has object caching and database caching, both of which can speed up the execution of dynamic parts of your site (the ones that change frequently), not just the static ones.
Secondly, it has a Google PageSpeed Insights integration. During our testing, we liked that this feature lets you test your website speed without leaving your WordPress admin area, so it’s very user-friendly.
Other than that, you can find other speed enhancement features like CSS and JS file minification, lazy loading, and an image converter from other formats to WebP for better performance.
Pros of W3 Total Cache:
Multiple caching options are available for free: page caching, browser caching, opcode caching, database query caching, and object caching.
Google PageSpeed Insights integration to test website speed.
Pro features in the premium version, like CDN support for the entire website and fragment caching for plugins and themes using the WordPress Transient API.
Cons of W3 Total Cache:
The feature set is comprehensive but can seem intimidating for beginners.
Unlike other plugins on the list, the preloading feature is not available out of the box.
Pricing: Free plugin available. The premium version’s plans start from $99 per year for one website license.
Why we chose W3 Total Cache: The free version of W3 Total Cache offers many caching options that you may not find in other plugins on the list, especially not in the free versions.
That said, the sheer range of features can feel overwhelming for beginners. For detailed setup instructions, see our article on how to install and set up the W3 Total Cache plugin.
Sucuri is technically a WordPress firewall plugin, but it has built-in caching options to speed up your website in just a few clicks. We used to use Sucuri on WPBeginner, so we are very familiar with this plugin.
If you run an online store or a membership site, Sucuri recommends using Site Caching, which will keep your cache for up to 180 minutes. Meanwhile, blogs or news portals can use Minimal Caching, which will only cache your pages for up to 8 minutes before they are refreshed.
If you make significant changes to your site, then you can clear your old cache in one click. Sucuri also lets you clear the cache for a file or folder instead of the whole site. This allows you to optimize specific parts of your site without affecting its entirety.
Additionally, Sucuri supports Brotli, a data compression algorithm by Google that is faster than Gzip compression. It’s effective for compressing large files and reducing bandwidth usage. This means people with slow internet can visit your website quicker.
Pros of Sucuri:
Easy-to-use caching features that can be enabled in a few clicks.
User-friendly cache-clearing functions for the entire website and specific files or folders.
Support for compression algorithms, like the more popular Gzip, and a newer option like Brotli.
Reliable CDN service with worldwide network coverage, a great feature for websites with a global audience.
Top-notch security features like a web application firewall, malware removal, and DDoS protection.
Cons of Sucuri:
If you are just looking for a plugin with caching functionality, then Sucuri may seem like overkill.
Pricing: Comes in two types of subscription plans: Website Security Platform and Firewall with CDN. The first starts from $199.99 per year and includes the complete Sucuri security kit. The second starts from $9.99 per month and only comes with a firewall and CDN.
Why we chose Sucuri: If you are looking for a security plugin that doubles as an optimization plugin, then Sucuri is the perfect solution. Besides offering user-friendly caching features, you can get great protection without installing other plugins.
When we first activated the plugin, the plugin page looked rather simple. In reality, it’s quite powerful on its own. You can customize how long cached files last to suit your website needs instead of choosing a time period that’s been set for you.
There are also many cache-clearing settings that you can enable. For example, you can automatically clear the cache when a post type has been published, updated, or trashed so that your blog content stays up-to-date.
Pros of Cache Enabler:
Simple-to-use plugin page interface that’s easy to understand for beginners.
Custom post types support, which is great for portfolios, online stores, membership sites, and so on.
A real-time display of your website’s cache size in the WordPress dashboard helps you keep track of how much space your cache is taking on your server.
Cons of Cache Enabler:
Compared to other caching plugins on the list, the features of Cache Enabler can seem pretty limited.
Pricing: Free plugin. However, if you choose to get KeyCDN as well, then the prices start from $0.04 per GB per month for the first 10 TB (for North America/Europe region). The cost varies by region, but you can use its pricing calculator to get estimates.
Why we chose Cache Enabler: As a free caching plugin, Cache Enabler is great at being easy to use yet packed with the most essential caching features. It can be a good option if you just need a simple caching solution.
Bonus Tip: Use Built-in Caching Features From Hosting Providers
These days, many WordPress hosting companies offer their own built-in caching solutions.
The benefit of using these built-in caching settings is that you won’t have to find or install a plugin yourself. Plus, the caching functionality is readily optimized for your hosting, so you may experience fewer errors.
The downside is that the feature set widely varies. Some may only include basic page caching, while others may have more advanced options. Depending on your website, you may not be able to rely solely on these built-in options.
That being said, we still think these hosting caching settings are worth talking about because they are very easy to enable. Let’s look at the caching features offered by some of the most popular web hosting providers on the market.
Bluehost is one of the biggest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider. Their hosting plans include built-in caching that you can enable from your hosting dashboard.
You can select one of these caching levels:
Assets Only – For eCommerce and sites that update frequently or display real-time information, you can use this level to cache your site’s static assets for 5 minutes.
Assets & Web Pages – If you have a WordPress blog, an educational site, or a website that updates at least once a week, consider using this level to cache static assets for 6 hours and other web pages for 5 minutes.
Assets & Web Pages – Extended – For portfolios or websites that update every month or less frequently, you can choose this option to cache static assets for 1 week and web pages for 5 minutes.
If you compare Bluehost’s caching options to the other plugins on the list, they may seem basic. But they also offer a Cloudflare CDN integration to boost your website performance further.
We use SiteGround to power WPBeginner and have seen many performance improvements since we switched. If you are curious, then you can check out our article on why we switched to SiteGround for more information.
By default, SiteGround offers 3 caching solutions: Nginx Direct Delivery for static content, Dynamic Cache, and Memcached (optional).
The last two are caching modules that not many WordPress hosting offers by default, which is what makes SiteGround so powerful. In fact, they can improve your website speed anywhere from 50% to 500%.
For WordPress sites, SiteGround recommends installing their Speed Optimizer plugin to speed up your website by 20%. The plugin can also compress image sizes by up to 85% without losing quality.
Overall, if you use SiteGround, you really won’t need any caching plugins like WP Rocket or others.
Hostinger is one of the fastest-growing WordPress hosting providers in recent years. They are powered by the LiteSpeed Web Server, so their caching settings also come from LiteSpeed.
From the get-go, Hostinger offers two types of caching modules: the LiteSpeed Cache plugin and the Object Cache.
The LiteSpeed Cache plugin is included in all plans and offers page caching, cache preloading, and image compression for your website. By default, Hostinger will update your cache every 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, the Object Cache will cache your database queries and is only available for Business plan users or above. It has been said to improve website speed by up to 3 times.
WP Engine is a managed WordPress hosting company, which means they will take care of most of your back-end maintenance tasks as much as possible. As a result, you won’t have to handle them as much.
Since WP Engine is a more premium hosting service, it comes with tons of caching features by default. These include page caching, CDN caching, object caching, and local browser caching.
You can also set exclusion rules for dynamic content, like shopping cart, checkout, or login pages. If you need to clear your cache, then you can just log in to your user portal and click a few buttons.
What Is the Best Cache Plugin for WordPress?
After comparing the different options on the list, we found that the best WordPress caching plugin is hands down WP Rocket. It has a great balance between being beginner-friendly and powerful to elevate your website performance.
If you are looking for a free caching plugin, then we recommend W3 Total Cache. It has plenty of caching features out of the box, from basic to advanced.
We also recommend checking out the caching modules that hosting providers like Bluehost have to offer. These may already be good enough to speed up your website, and they are already customized to suit your hosting needs.
Best WordPress Caching Plugins: FAQs Answered
Now that we’ve covered the list of best WordPress caching plugins, let’s answer some frequently asked questions.
Do I need a caching plugin?
Yes, we strongly recommend installing a WordPress caching plugin, as it can significantly improve your WordPress site’s speed.
Caching can reduce server load, improve the user experience by reducing load times, and potentially boost your site’s SEO rankings due to improved speed.
However, if your hosting provider offers built-in caching solutions like SiteGround, then you might not need to install a separate caching plugin.
Should I use multiple cache plugins in WordPress?
Using multiple caching plugins simultaneously can lead to conflicts and potential issues with your site. We generally recommend using only one caching plugin to avoid these problems.
However, if you need to use multiple caching tools for specific purposes, make sure they can complement each other and do not result in the same action being performed twice.
Which is better: WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache?
Both WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache are highly-rated WordPress caching plugins. However, the choice between the two depends on your specific needs and preferences.
WP Super Cache is a free plugin with some basic and advanced caching features. But some settings require some technical knowledge, so we don’t recommend it if you are a complete beginner.
W3 Total Cache is a freemium plugin with a comprehensive set of caching settings. The abundance of features may intimidate beginners, but the ease of use is generally much better than WP Super Cache.
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Disclaimer: We also looked at other WordPress cache plugins and solutions for this article, including WP Fastest Cache, Hummingbird, and WP-Optimize. However, we picked only the very best WordPress caching plugins to help you avoid choice paralysis.
Users have often asked us if they can use content syndication to get website backlinks or content.
Most WordPress blogs use content syndication, which is a built-in WordPress feature that makes it easier to share content using RSS feeds.
This feature allows users to subscribe to your website using news reader software. It also enables other websites to automatically share your content on different platforms.
In this article, we will discuss content syndication and how to do it properly in WordPress as a blogger or content curator.
What Is Content Syndication, and Why Use it?
Content syndication is when content creators and bloggers make their published work available for other interested parties to republish and share on their own platforms.
For instance, if you have a blog, then you can make your articles available for other people to publish and share on their platforms.
Similarly, if you want to curate content from different blogs on specific topics, then you can do so by fetching their syndicated content and publishing it on your site.
Why Use Content Syndication as a Blogger?
Now, you may be wondering why anyone would want to allow others to share their content on their websites and platforms.
There are several benefits to making your content available for syndication:
Wider Audience – If you are a new blog, then syndication helps you promote your content on different platforms and find new audiences to visit your blog or website.
Build Partnerships – You can discuss and negotiate terms with other platforms using your content in a way that helps you promote and establish your brand using their existing traffic.
SEO and Backlinks – More websites citing your original content with a link back to the source helps with search engine optimization (SEO). Some of these backlinks can be useful, depending on the website’s reputation and how they share your content. At the same time, websites with poor reputations and spam won’t be beneficial, and you can request that they not share your content.
Increased Social Reach – A good content curator will promote the content that they are sharing on their website using their social media accounts. If they appropriately attribute it to your socials, then this could help you gain new followers.
Why Publish Syndicated Content as a Curator?
The following are some of the benefits of publishing syndicated content as a curator:
Building Topical Authority – Citing quality content from various sources on a specific topic helps you build authority and credibility around that subject. This allows users to find better content and helps search engines understand your platform’s focus on that niche.
Save Time and Resources – Writing high-quality content takes time. Even with the help of AI writing tools, you will still need to edit, rewrite, and publish all your articles. Curating content helps you save some time by sharing similar content from other well-established sources.
Networking and Partnerships – Instead of fetching syndicated content without permission, you can contact the sources and ask for approval to share their content. They might request that you share their content in specific ways, and respecting those requests will help you win partners and network within your industry.
That being said, let’s look at content syndication in WordPress and how to do it properly.
How Does Content Syndication Work in WordPress?
WordPress has built-in support for syndication using RSS (Really Simple Syndication).
RSS feeds work by publishing your latest content in a structured XML document. This feed contains your full articles or the summary, along with metadata for each item, like the date, author, category, and so on.
This RSS feed can be found by adding /feed/ at the end of any WordPress website’s URL. For instance:
https://www.example.com/feed/
Users can subscribe to an RSS feed using a feed reader app like Feedly. Other websites can also use these apps to get updates and publish them on their own blogs or websites.
That being said, let’s dig in a little deeper and learn how to syndicate content properly so that you get the maximum benefit as a publisher. Later, we will also discuss how to ethically source syndicated content as a curator.
How to Share Syndicated Content as a Publisher / Blogger
As a publisher and blogger, you will want users to visit your blog or website to view your content.
Now, if other websites started publishing your content, then why would users come to your website?
And wouldn’t search engines count it as duplicate content?
How do you ensure that your articles rank before the sources that are republishing your content?
Let’s eliminate all those risks to ensure that your content and website don’t lose out on traffic, SEO, or reputation.
1. Only Syndicate Summaries Instead of Full Content
Instead of giving your entire articles to other websites, you can restrict WordPress only to sharing a short summary of the content in the RSS feed.
To do this, you need to go to the Settings » Reading page in the WordPress admin area and scroll down to the ‘For each post in a feed, include’ option.
From here, select ‘Excerpt’ and click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.
Your WordPress syndication feed will now only show a summary or excerpt of your article. You can also customize WordPress excerpts for your articles to make them more engaging, like a teaser to grab the audience’s attention.
2. Add a Link Back to Your Original Article in RSS Feed
Content curators often use auto-blogging software to fetch blog feeds and publish them on their websites automatically.
This doesn’t give you proper credit, and for some low-ranking keywords, those content scrapers could even outrank you.
Canonical URLs ensure search engines aren’t confused when different URLs point to the same content.
By default, your WordPress content may appear across your website on category, tag, author, and other archive pages.
Plus, sometimes, you may intentionally publish the same content across different URLs for marketing purposes. For example, you might do this when making landing pages for different ad campaigns and promotions.
Or let’s say you have a blog post about selling your SEO services and another page on your website listing those services with very similar or identical content.
When an external website syndicates your content, they will share the information from your post. But as you want search engines to prioritize your content over the third-party website, you can add a canonical link to the services page.
WordPress automatically adds canonical URL tags to your articles to ensure that search engines can understand which URL gets preference.
If you need to have two URLs for the same content, then you can add the canonical URL using All in One SEO for WordPress.
Simply edit the secondary post/page that you don’t want to be indexed, and then scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings box below the post editor.
From here, switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab and add the preferred URL into the ‘Canonical URL’ field.
Don’t forget to save your post or page to store the new settings.
Search engines also recommend adding an RSS sitemap to your site.
An RSS sitemap contains your recent articles. It is a smaller file, and search engines can access it more frequently to discover new content.
By using an RSS sitemap, your content gets indexed before it is found on other websites. This helps search engines understand which source appeared first and should be considered original.
To add an RSS sitemap, go to All in One SEO » Sitemap and then click on the ‘RSS Sitemap’ tab.
You can see that the ‘Enable Sitemap’ toggle in the ‘RSS Sitemap’ box is already enabled.
You can click on the ‘Open RSS Sitemap’ button to view and copy the URL of your site’s RSS sitemap.
Tracking your website analytics helps you analyze the sources sending the most traffic to your website. More importantly, it also enables you to monitor any drops in traffic and take immediate action.
The easiest way to track analytics in WordPress is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress that allows you to monitor your website traffic directly from the WordPress dashboard.
Note: There is also a free version of MonsterInsights. However, we recommend upgrading to the premium version to unlock the plugin’s full potential.
Upon activation, the plugin will walk you through the setup process. Need help? You can also follow our tutorial on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress for complete setup instructions.
Once set up, you can see regular website traffic reports by visiting the Insights » Reports page.
The reporting page gives you quick information in human-readable format, with a graph at the top showing your website’s traffic performance.
You can review and further drill down website traffic reports to understand where your traffic is coming from and look for any signs of traffic loss.
As a curator, you can use syndicated content to build an engaging experience for your users.
However, what is the appropriate way to do that without being taken down for copyright violation or penalized by search engines for duplicate content?
Here are some expert tips on sharing syndicated content as a curator.
1. Finding Syndicated Content
Finding the right content for syndication helps you provide your audience with unique perspectives. It also helps you avoid content duplication penalties from search engines.
For instance, most popular blogs are already shared across many platforms. Curating content from only the top sources in your industry would make your website look quite similar to other curated platforms.
Instead, you can pick a variety of sources based on quality to ensure that your curated list offers a different mix of content.
2. Ask Permission to Share
Having an RSS feed does not mean that a website has given you permission to share its content on your website automatically.
You can share an excerpt or blurb from their website under fair use. However, website owners may not feel your sharing qualifies for fair usage.
To avoid potential problems, you should always seek permission from original publishers. This will not only allow you to network, but you may also be able to build business partnerships beyond sharing content.
3. Use Auto-blogging Software
There are a ton of auto-blogging software options that you can use to curate content on your website.
We recommend using Feedzy. It allows you to fetch RSS feeds and publish content on your website automatically.
It also lets you choose which content qualifies for publication. For instance, you might only publish content that matches specific keywords.
Feedzy includes an integration with ChatGPT and other AI software, allowing you to paraphrase content before publishing it. However, you must be mindful of how to do that ethically and legally without infringing on copyright.
As a content curator, sharing articles from other sources makes your website vulnerable to copyright notices and DMCA takedown requests.
If a creator is unhappy about you sharing some part of their syndicated content, then they may want to ask you to remove it.
You need to make it easy for them to make such requests by adding a contact form to your website.
If you don’t make it easy, then those creators may file their take-down requests directly with search engines, who can then penalize your website. Even worse, they may ask your website hosting provider to take it down, making your website inaccessible.
The easiest way to set up a “Request content removal” form is by using WPForms. It is the best WordPress contact form plugin that allows you to create all kinds of forms for your website.
Note: There is also a free version of WPForms, which is good enough to add a simple contact form. However, we recommend using the paid plugin with more features and templates.
WPForms has 1500+ powerful templates and a simple drag-and-drop form builder to create your form.
Afterward, you can easily embed that form anywhere on your website using the WPForms block.
Do you want to automatically add a watermark to your images in WordPress?
You can use watermarks to increase brand awareness and prevent image theft and misuse. If you are a photographer, then adding a watermark to images can also create a sense of professionalism.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add watermarks to images in WordPress.
Why Add a Watermark to Images in WordPress?
A watermark is a semi-transparent logo, text, or pattern that is overlaid on top of your images. It is designed in a noticeable but subtle way so that users can view your photos without being distracted, but they won’t be able to download and use the files without buying them.
If you have a photography website or are creating a visual portfolio, then we recommend adding a watermark to your images.
This can prevent image theft by making it difficult for someone to use your images without permission.
Additionally, you can use your website’s logo, URL, or tagline as a watermark to enhance brand awareness and make it more likely for users to remember where they saw the image.
Similarly, if you sell photos online, then you can use a watermark for all the images that are downloaded for free. This means that if a user wants to use your image without a watermark, then they will have to buy it.
Having said that, let’s see how to automatically add a watermark to your images in WordPress. We will cover different methods, and you can use the quick links below to jump to the one you want to use:
It allows you to create beautiful and mobile-friendly image galleries on your WordPress site and offers a drag-and-drop builder, gallery templates, tags, audio, social sharing, and a lightbox effect.
Note: Envira Gallery also has a free plan. However, you will need the premium version of the plugin to unlock the Watermarking addon.
Upon activation, visit the Envira Gallery » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard to enter the license key.
You can find this information in your account on the Envira Gallery website.
Once you do that, head to the Envira Gallery » Addons page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Here, scroll down to locate the Watermarking Addon, and then click the ‘Install’ button next to it.
You are now ready to add your images to responsive galleries with a watermark.
To do this, visit the Envira Gallery » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard and type a name for your gallery.
Once you do that, you need to scroll down to the ‘Currently in your Gallery’ section and switch to the ‘Watermarking’ tab from the left column. After that, check the box next to the ‘Enable Watermarking?’ option.
You can now click the ‘Choose Watermark’ button. This will open the media library, where you can choose an image that you want to use as a watermark.
We recommend adding an image of about 150 x 150, as it is the ideal size for a watermark. After that, you can also select the position and margin for your image.
Once you have done that, scroll to the top of the page and click the ‘Select Files from Your Computer’ button to upload images. If you want to add images from the media library, then you can click the ‘Select Files from Other Sources’ button.
However, keep in mind that you can only upload one image from the media library at a time.
Next, you can configure the lightbox settings, add alt text to images, make your gallery mobile responsive, and customize the gallery according to your liking.
Once you are satisfied, just click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, it is time for you to add this image gallery to a WordPress post or page.
To do this, simply open a post or page and click the ‘+’ add block button in the top left corner. This will open the block menu, where you must click on the Envira Gallery block.
Once you do that, select the image gallery that you just created from the dropdown menu within the block.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit your WordPress website to view the image gallery with watermarks.
Method 2: Adding Watermark to Images in WordPress Using Easy Watermark (Free)
If you are looking for a free solution to add watermarks, then this method is for you.
Upon activation, visit the Tools » Easy Watermark page from the WordPress dashboard and switch to the ‘Watermarks’ tab.
Then, you need to click the ‘Add New Watermark’ button.
This will take you to another screen where you can start by adding a name for the watermark. After that, select your watermark type as image or text. For this tutorial, we will be adding text as a watermark.
Next, simply type a phrase that you want to use under the ‘Watermark’ option.
Then, scroll down to the ‘Text Options’ section, where you can select the font size, color, angle, and opacity.
After that, you can go to the ‘Alignment’ section and choose the place where you want to display your watermark.
Next, you can head to the ‘Applying Rules’ section to select the WordPress image sizes where the watermark will be applied.
For example, if you want to enable watermarks for all the thumbnails on your site, then you can check that option.
After that, check the ‘Auto Watermark’ option to automatically add watermarks to images upon upload.
You can then also choose the image and post types where the watermark is applicable.
For example, if you only want to add watermarks to the images uploaded to your posts, then you can uncheck the ‘Pages’ and ‘Unattached Images’ options in the ‘Post Types’ section.
Finally, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your changes. Now, all the new images that you upload will automatically be watermarked.
However, if you also want to watermark the already uploaded images, then you must visit the Tools » Easy Watermark page again and switch to the ‘Tools’ tab.
Note: Once your images are all watermarked, you cannot remove the watermark for each image automatically. That is why we recommend creating a backup of your WordPress site, particularly your media uploads directory.
Then, you must select the watermark you just saved from the dropdown menu in the ‘Bulk Watermark’ section. Once you do that, click the ‘Start’ button.
All the images on your website will now be automatically watermarked.
If you want to restore the images, then you can do that by visiting the Tools » Easy Watermark page from the WordPress dashboard and switching to the ‘Tools’ tab.
From here, click the ‘Restore’ button to remove watermarks from all images that have them.
Adding Watermark to Images Manually
If you don’t want to automatically add a watermark to all uploaded images, then Easy Watermark gives you the manual option as well.
First, you will have to switch to the ‘Watermark’ tab and click the ‘Edit’ link under the watermark that you just created.
Once you are on the Edit screen, scroll down to the ‘Auto Watermark’ section and uncheck the ‘Automatically apply this watermark during image upload’ option.
After that, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
Next, visit the Media » Library page and select the images where you want to add the watermark.
Once you do that, select the ‘Watermark’ option from the dropdown menu in the top left corner of the screen.
Next, choose the watermark that you created from the dropdown menu that will appear on the left.
Finally, click the ‘Apply’ button to store your settings. Now, the watermark will only be added to the images that you selected.
Bonus: Add No Right Click on Your WordPress Images
Apart from watermarking, you can also disable right-clicking on your images to prevent users from saving and using them on their websites.
Even if you have a simple WordPress blog, some users can still scrape your blog content and use your personal photos as part of online scams like fake ads or reviews.
Adding no right-click to your images can help with copyright protection and reduce image theft on your website.
Upon activation, the plugin will automatically disable right-clicking for your images. However, to configure further settings, you can visit the Settings » No Right Click Images page from the WordPress dashboard.
Here, you will be able to disable dragging images, touch events, gesture events, and any other loophole that people might use to get around the no right-click protection.
