Do you want to add categories and tags to images in your WordPress media library?
Tags and categories can help you organize media files in a way that makes sense to you. This can make it easier to find images when you need them.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add categories and tags to the WordPress media library.
Why Add Categories and Tags to Images in WordPress Media Library?
WordPress comes with a feature called taxonomies, which allows you to sort your posts into categories and tags or create your own custom organization types for your content.
However, the default category and tag taxonomies are only available for posts. This means that these taxonomies can be added to any WordPress post type, including pages, attachments, or any custom post type you may be using on your blog.
When you add an image to your WordPress posts or pages, it is stored in the WordPress media library as an attachment. This means that it is a post type and can have its own taxonomies, too.
Adding categories and tags to your WordPress images can help you find and sort images easily. Instead of looking through your entire image library, you can just search by category or tag.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily add categories and tags to images in the WordPress media library. We will cover two methods, and you can use the quick links below to jump to the one you want to use:
This plugin works out of the box, and there are no settings for you to configure. Upon activation, the plugin will simply add a Categories tab under the Media menu tab in the WordPress dashboard.
Now, to add new categories for your images, head over to the Media » Categories tab from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Here, you’ll notice that all the categories that you have been using for your posts are displayed in the right column.
You can use these categories for your images. However, if you want to create a new one, then simply type a category name and slug in the ‘Add New Category’ section.
Once you are done, click the ‘Add New Category’ button to store your settings.
Next, visit the Media » Library page from the admin area and click on the ‘Edit’ link under any image where you want to add a category.
This will open the image of your choice on the ‘Edit Media’ page, where you can easily select a category for it from the ‘Categories’ section in the right column.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ button to save your settings.
Once you have added the categories for all the images, you can easily sort them on the ‘Library’ page. To do this, select a category of your choice from the ‘View all categories’ dropdown menu and click the ‘Filter’ button.
Note: Envira Gallery also has a free version. However, you’ll need at least the Plus plan for the plugin to unlock the Tags add-on.
Upon activation, visit the Envira Gallery » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard to enter your license key.
You can get the key from your account on the Envira Gallery website.
After that, visit the Envira Gallery » Addons page from the WordPress dashboard and locate the ‘Tags Addon’.
Once you do that, simply click the ‘Install’ button to unlock the Tags feature.
Upon installation, you’ll also have to toggle the switch to activate the Tags addon.
Next, you can create a new gallery for your WordPress blog or edit an existing one. For this tutorial, we will be creating a new gallery for your WordPress website.
To do this, visit the Envira Gallery » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard. Here, you can start by typing a name for your gallery.
After that, click the ‘Select Files from Other Sources’ button to start adding images from your media library.
To add images from the computer, click the ‘Select Files from Your Computer’ button.
Once you have done that, scroll down to the ‘Currently in your Gallery’ section. From here, you can configure the gallery layout, add a lightbox, create a mobile-responsive gallery, and so much more.
To add tags, simply click on the pencil icon on an image.
This will open the ‘Edit Metadata’ popup on the screen, where you can add a title, alt text, and caption for your image.
You can also add multiple media tags for an image by separating them with a comma. Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Metadata’ button to store your settings.
Just repeat the process to add tags to other images in your gallery.
Then, switch to the ‘Tags’ tab from the left column and check the ‘Enable Tag Filtering?’ box.
This will allow your users to filter all your gallery images using the tags.
By default, Envira Gallery will create a filter for all the tags that you have added to your gallery.
However, if you want to include only specific tags for filtering, then you can also do that by typing those tags in the ‘Tags to include in Filtering’ option.
If you leave this section blank, then all the tags will be filtered. Next, you can also choose the tag position, enable/disable the ‘All’ tags feature, and sort tags according to your liking.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to save your changes.
You and users will now be able to use tags to filter images on your website.
Filtering by Tag in the Media Library
To filter images using tags in the WordPress dashboard, visit the Media » Envira Tags page from the admin sidebar.
Here, you will notice all the tags that you have created are listed on the left, and the number of images with that tag is listed in the ‘Item’ column.
To find the images that have a specific tag, simply click on the ‘Items’ number for that tag.
For example, to find all the images with the tag ‘architecture’, you will have to click the ‘1’ number in the architecture tag row.
This will open all the images with that tag in the media library.
This way, you don’t have to search through all your images to find the ones you are looking for.
Filtering by Tag on the Front End
With Envira Gallery, users visiting your website can also filter images based on their tags.
Keep in mind that this feature will only work if you have checked the ‘Enable Tag Filtering?’ box for the gallery settings.
To enable this feature, you must first add the gallery you created to your website. For this, open the WordPress page/post in the content editor and click the add block ‘+’ button.
Once the block menu opens up, add the Envira Gallery block to the page/post and then select the gallery you created from the dropdown menu in the block itself.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
Now, you can visit your WordPress site to view the image gallery, where you will notice tags for filtering at the top of the images.
Once a user clicks on a tag, only images with that specific tag will be displayed in the gallery.
Bonus: Prevent Image Theft in WordPress
As a photographer or designer, using categories and tags can help you organize and display your images on your WordPress site. However, you may be worried about other people stealing your photos.
This is called image theft, which is the unauthorized use of your images on other websites.
It is a common problem for photographers and graphic designers because even though non-copyrighted image theft is unethical, it is not illegal. This means anyone can copy and sell your images as their own.
However, there are a few tricks that you can use to prevent image theft on your WordPress blog.
The first thing that you should do is disable right-click on your images. This will protect your copyright and prevent users from easily saving your images on their desktops.
You can also add a watermark to your images. Many stock photography websites use this method, which allows you to promote your images while protecting them from being stolen.
To create watermarks for your images, you will have to download the Watermark addon from Envira Gallery.
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.
Do you want to create a video portfolio in WordPress?
Videos are an engaging medium that can display your skills and creativity in a way that static images can’t. By default, you can easily embed videos in WordPress, but you can’t display them in a portfolio-style layout.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create a video portfolio in WordPress without slowing down your website or writing code.
How to Get Started with Your Video Portfolio
First, you will need to start a WordPress blog or a website. If you already have one, then you can move to the next step.
WordPress allows you to easily embed videos in your blog posts and pages. However, it does not let you create a beautiful video portfolio out of the box.
For your portfolio, you will want to display your videos in a nice grid-based layout so that more videos can be viewed without a lot of scrolling.
You also need to make sure that the portfolio works on mobile devices and offers a good user experience. This can help improve your website rankings, as high-quality video content can lead to more organic traffic.
While you can upload a video to your WordPress site, we recommend using a third-party service like YouTube or Vimeo because videos are resource-intensive and can slow down your site.
Note: Envira Gallery also has a free plan. However, you will need a premium plan to unlock the Videos addon.
Upon activation, visit the Envira Gallery » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard to enter your license key. You can get this information from your account on the Envira Gallery website.
Next, you must head to the Envira Gallery » Addons page and locate the ‘Videos’ addon.
Once you do that, click the ‘Install’ button next to it. After that, you need to click ‘Activate’ to start using it on your website.
Now, it’s time for you to start creating your video portfolio. To do this, go to the Envira Gallery » Add New page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Keep in mind that Envira Gallery allows you to create a gallery of your self-hosted videos as well as videos hosted on platforms like YouTube, Wistia, and Vimeo.
However, we recommend using third-party video hosting services to avoid performance issues or problems with your WordPress hosting.
Upon uploading your videos on YouTube or Vimeo, you can add a name for your gallery and then click the ‘Select Files from Other Sources’ button.
This will launch the media library, where you have to switch to the ‘Insert Videos’ tab.
Here, you can add your video’s title, caption, and alt text. Once you do that, just add the video URL in the ‘Video URL’ field.
If you want to upload a video from your computer, then you can click the ‘Upload Media’ button.
You can also add more videos by clicking on the ‘Add Video’ button at the top. Then, repeat the process until you have added all the videos you wanted to show in your portfolio.
Once you are done, simply click the ‘Insert into Gallery’ button.
Envira will now show the thumbnails it fetched from your videos in the ‘Currently in your Gallery’ section.
Here, you can click the pencil icon on top of each thumbnail to change the alt text and captions, video heights, widths, and more.
Once you have done that, just switch to the ‘Configuration’ tab.
You can now choose your gallery layout, add gallery columns, enable lazy loading, change image dimensions, and add captions under the videos.
After that, switch to the ‘Lightbox’ tab from the left column and check the ‘Enable Lightbox’ option. Your videos will now play on the same page in a lightbox popup.
Next, switch to the ‘Videos’ tab and check the box next to the ‘Display play icon over gallery image’ option. That way, users can click on the play button to start watching your videos.
After that, you can scroll down to the ‘Video Lightbox Settings’ section and enable video autoplay, display video controls, add a progress bar or current time, enable video download, and more.
You can then also configure other gallery settings according to your liking. Once you are done, click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
Next, open the WordPress page or post where you want to add your video portfolio. Here, click the ‘+’ add block button to open the block menu and add the Envira Gallery block.
Once you do that, select the video portfolio gallery that you just created from the dropdown menu within the block itself.
Finally, click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit your WordPress site to view the video portfolio. This is what it looked like on our demo WordPress website.
Bonus: Add Your YouTube Feed to Your WordPress Site
Apart from creating a video portfolio, you can also add your entire YouTube feed to your WordPress site to drive traffic to your channel and increase user engagement.
This can also help improve your website rankings and allow you to showcase your skills and creativity within the video feed.
You can easily add a YouTube feed in WordPress with the Smash Balloon YouTube Feed plugin. It is the best WordPress YouTube gallery plugin on the market that comes with multiple feed types, customizable layouts, social sharing, and live stream support.
Upon plugin activation, all you have to do is connect your YouTube channel with WordPress.
Once you do that, your YouTube feed will be launched in the Smash Balloon builder, where you can customize the layout, add a subscribe button, change color schemes, and edit individual elements.
Are you looking for a WordPress content protection plugin for your website?
These plugins can safeguard your website’s content against unauthorized copying, misuse, or distribution. This ensures that your content remains unique and original to your site, which can also boost your SEO rankings.
In this article, we will share our list of the best content protection WordPress plugins.
Why Do You Need a Content Protection WordPress Plugin?
As a website owner, you may come across someone who is stealing your content, including blog posts, images, or videos, and using them on their own website. This can damage your reputation, hurt your search engine optimization (SEO), and reduce website traffic.
Content protection plugins come with a variety of features that help you protect your WordPress site’s content from misuse or theft.
These plugins can disable text selection and copying, add no right-click for images, password-protect your site, prevent blog scraping, and help you build members-only content exclusive to your paying users and subscribers.
For example, if you have a photography website, then you might use a content protection plugin to prevent image theft by disabling right-click, adding watermarks, or making your content exclusive. This allows you to protect your intellectual property while maintaining a great user experience.
Having said that, let’s take a look at our list of the best WordPress content protection plugins that can prevent content theft.
MemberPress is the best WordPress content protection plugin on the market. It is super easy to set up and gives you complete control over restricting any content on your website, including posts, pages, categories, or tags, to specific users and paying members.
It allows you to create a comprehensive membership website and doesn’t have any limitations for membership levels, making it the best membership plugin for WordPress.
Additionally, MemberPress can protect your media files from unauthorized downloads, extend protection to custom post types, restrict widget visibility, protect individual URLs, and more.
It even lets you restrict content to registered users only and create a paywall in WordPress.
Pros
MemberPress comes with a content-dripping feature that lets you show restricted content to members after a certain time. It can come in handy if you are selling online courses.
It allows you to set a content expiration date that forces users to renew their subscription to access the content.
It redirects users who try to access restricted content.
The plugin lets you determine the amount of content visible to each membership level.
MemberPress has a free plan, but it does not include most of the features you will need to restrict content.
Why we recommend MemberPress: Overall, MemberPress is the best WordPress content protection plugin. It gives you complete freedom over content access control, lets you create exclusive content for members only, enables you to add a paywall, and more.
OptinMonster is the best lead generation and conversion optimization tool on the market that comes with a content-locking feature.
This setting prevents users from viewing your page or blog post content by showing a content-locking inline campaign. Users will then only be able to unlock your content once they subscribe to your newsletter, which, in turn, helps you build an email list.
The tool also allows you to configure when and where the popup will appear using the display rules provided by the plugin. For instance, you can set the popup to appear once the user scrolls down to the third paragraph of each post.
This way, users will already be invested in the content when the popup appears and will be more likely to join your email list to unlock the content.
OptinMonster allows you to create banners, sliders, gamified popups, and more.
It comes with a drag-and-drop builder and premade templates for different campaigns.
It has built-in analytics and reports features and smart display triggers like exit intent technology, scroll depth targeting, page targeting, and more.
Why we recommend OptinMonster: It is the ideal plugin if you want to create exclusive content for your subscribers. It allows you to make a popup to prevent users from viewing your content, which they can only unlock upon joining your email list.
The plugin comes with a protection addon that disables right-clicking for images and shows an alert popup to users when they try to copy or save your images.
Other than that, it has a watermarking addon that lets you watermark your images to protect them from copyright infringement.
Pros
Envira has a drag-and-drop builder and premade templates to help you build visually appealing galleries.
It comes with a lightbox feature to better display your images and prevent their theft.
The plugin lets you password-protect your galleries.
Some of its additional features include adding videos to the gallery, importing images as zip files, creating slideshows, using the zoom feature, and more.
Cons
Envira Gallery has a free plan, but you will need the pro version of the plugin to unlock the image protection addons.
The plugin cannot protect any written content on your website.
Why we recommend Envira Gallery: If you are a photographer or building a visual portfolio, then you can use Envira to protect your images from theft, misuse, and unauthorized distribution.
PPWP is one of the best free password protection WordPress plugins that allows you to lock your content by creating unique passwords for each page and post.
The plugin allows you to set different passwords for various user roles. This means that a subscriber’s password may get them access to certain pages while keeping them locked out of the rest.
PPWP can also add passwords to protect specific categories, partial sections of your posts, or your entire WordPress website.
Pros
It prevents password abuse and spam using Google reCAPTCHA v2 or v3.
PPWP uses AJAX to unlock protected content without having to reload the page.
MemberMouse is another powerful membership plugin that allows you to protect your content by granting access to it based on different membership levels.
It lets you protect posts, pages, categories, taxonomies, and even individual sections within your content using smart tags and has drip content scheduling.
This means that you can gradually grant access to your content to different members over time.
Pros
Other than protection, you can also use smart tags to create dynamic and personalized content.
MemberMouse shows excerpts of protected content to users, encouraging them to subscribe to a membership.
It lets you create a dedicated space on your website that is only accessible to members.
The plugin has custom login and password reset pages and limits login attempts to prevent unauthorized access.
Cons
MemberMouse can integrate with a limited number of gateways and does not offer as many integrations as some of the other plugins on this list.
It does not have a free plan.
Why we recommend MemberMouse: If you want to create a membership site that unlocks different content based on membership levels, then MemberMouse is a great choice.
With this tool, you can disable text selection and copying, add no right-click for images, and prevent users from saving your images on their computers.
Other than that, WP Content Protection & No Right Click allows you to enable/disable protection for administrators and lets you select the pages where you want to protect content.
Pros
The plugin disables shortcut keys on your website like Ctrl+A (select all), Ctrl+X (cut), and Ctrl+V (paste).
It displays custom messages to users when they try to copy or save your content, reminding them of copyright protection.
It adds a lightbox feature to images to prevent users from downloading them.
It is free and has an easy-to-use control panel.
Cons
The plugin does not let you create exclusive content for members only.
It disables right-click and text selection, which can frustrate some users who want to highlight text for better readability or save instructions to use later.
Why we recommend WP Content Protection & No Right Click: We recommend this plugin if you have a simple WordPress blog and are looking for a free solution to protect your blog posts and images from theft.
Passster is all in one password-protection plugin that protects your website’s pages, posts, and custom post types.
It restricts access to content by adding password protection and creates password-protected sections within pages using shortcodes and blocks. The plugin can also be used to lock your entire website.
Passster comes with a user-friendly interface and completely customizable password fields. Plus, the tool is AJAX-powered and has cookie-based authentication for a better user experience.
Pros
It lets you set multiple passwords for different areas of your website.
The plugin is completely free.
Passster creates a list of passwords that can be used to unlock content and sets passwords to expire after a certain number of uses, time intervals, or dates.
The plugin generates unique links that unlock protected content for specific users and even lets you monitor how often a password is used to log in.
Cons
Search engines might not be able to crawl and index password-protected content, negatively affecting your SEO rankings.
Passster offers limited control over user role permissions and heavily depends on password management.
Why we recommend Passster: It is a great free plugin if you want to password-protect your content. The plugin even comes with a WooCommerce integration that restricts access to specific products, categories, or your whole store.
WishList Member is another popular content protection WordPress plugin that lets you create members-only content.
It allows you to lock pages, posts, taxonomies, and individual sections within content using shortcodes. Users can then unlock this content once they purchase different membership levels.
Plus, the plugin displays custom messages to the non-members on your site, encouraging them to join in to unlock more content.
Pros
WishList Member offers drip scheduling, content excerpts for non-members, and time limits for content access.
It allows members to access protected content in their RSS feed readers.
The plugin creates protected folders to store downloadable files for specific membership levels.
Cons
It offers a huge amount of features, which can be overwhelming for beginners.
It does not have a free plan.
Why we recommend WishList Member: If you want to set up more complex members-only content, then WishList Member is a good choice because of its drip scheduling, page locks, restricted access in feed readers, and more.
It adds an alert window with a custom warning for users who are trying to copy or save your content. You can easily customize this message to match your website’s theme and design.
Additionally, WP Content Copy Protection with Color Design can protect specific pages or posts and disable keyboard shortcut keys.
Pros
It prevents drag-and-drop image copying on your site.
The plugin extends protection to the print preview page (CTRL+P), preventing users from printing your content directly.
It can exclude logged-in users like administrators or editors from protection measures.
Cons
Disabling right-click, text selection, and keyboard shortcuts can negatively impact the user experience.
The plugin cannot prevent users from capturing content using screenshots.
Why we recommend WP Content Copy Protection with Color Design: If you have just started a small business and are on a shoestring budget, then you can use this plugin to provide plenty of protection for your content, including blog posts and images.
Which Is the Best Content Protection WordPress Plugin?
In our expert opinion, MemberPress is the best WordPress content protection plugin on the market. It gives you complete freedom to restrict any content on your website to members only, prevent unauthorized downloads of your media files, restrict widget visibility, protect individual URLs, and much more.
However, if you are a photographer and just want to protect the images on your site, then you can opt for Envira Gallery instead. It password-protects your images, adds watermarks, offers a lightbox feature, and prevents anyone from saving your images.
Alternatively, if you want to generate leads by unlocking content for users who are subscribing to your email list, then you can use OptinMonster. It lets you build a content-locking campaign where users can only view your content upon signing up for your newsletter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some questions frequently asked by our readers about content protection WordPress plugins.
How do I lock content in WordPress for free?
You can easily lock content in WordPress by using the Passster plugin.
It is completely free and lets you add password protection to any page or post on your WordPress site. It even lets you protect specific areas of your pages that can be unlocked with a password.
Which is the best security plugin for WordPress?
In our expert opinion, Sucuri is the best WordPress security plugin that protects your site from DDOS attacks, adds a firewall, comes with malware scanning, and a Content Delivery Network to improve site performance.
For more information, see our complete Sucuri review.
What are the potential downsides of using a content protection plugin?
There can be some downsides to using a content protection plugin. For example, these plugins can hurt the user experience by creating too many restrictions.
Similarly, passwords, logins, or paywalls can add extra steps for users to navigate, potentially leading to abandonment. Other than that, some plugins can even hurt your SEO rankings.
That being said, content plugins are still essential if you want to protect content scraping on your site.
Do you want to add photo filters like Instagram in WordPress?
If you like to edit your photos using Instagram filters, then you may want to know how to create a similar effect for the images on your WordPress site. This can help your content stand out.
In this article, we will cover how to add Instagram-like photo filters in WordPress.
Why Add Instagram-Like Photo Filters in WordPress?
An Instagram filter is a feature in the social media platform that lets you edit your photo with a single click. You simply choose from a library of pre-set edits for the image, and Instagram automatically applies those changes.
For each photo, you can choose how much of the filter you want to apply to the photo, ranging from 0 to 100%.
So why should you use Instagram filters? Here are a few key reasons:
Edit your photos more easily and quickly: We all want to post beautiful images on our WordPress sites. Unless your photos are already stunning or you are a master of Adobe Photoshop, you probably want an easier way to retouch your photos.
Create a consistent brand image: Branding is everything. It tells a story about the type of company you are and the message you want to send to your audience. Using on-brand filters will increase your website’s visual appeal and create a more cohesive look.
Get creative: Filters can add variety to your content, allowing you to make images stand out. This can be helpful for showcasing products or portfolio items.
That being said, let’s go over how to add Instagram-like photo filters to your WordPress site.
How to Add Instagram Photo Effects With Easy Image Filters
The good news is that you can add image filters in WordPress for free. You don’t need to go through the hassle of using a separate platform like Instagram or photo-editing software to do it.
To get started, you need to install and activate the Easy Image Filters plugin.
Once activated, go ahead and upload the photos you’d like to edit to your WordPress Media library.
To do so, head over to Media » Add New Media File. From there, choose the image files you want to add and select ‘Upload.’
Now, simply upload all the photos you’d like to add filters to.
Next, you must head over to the Media » Library tab and then select the photo you want to edit.
The attachment details of the image should open up, where you’ll see a full preview of the photo.
In the bottom right corner, go ahead and click on ‘Edit more details.’
Under the Description field, you’ll see the ‘Add Image effects’ feature, where you can apply various filters to your selected image.
Click on ‘Add.’
In this screen, you will see the image on the top of the screen, followed by available adjustments and presets you can make.
Some of the important adjustments you can make are changes to the photo include:
Brightness
Contrast
Vibrance
Saturation
Exposure
Hue
And more
You are also given 25 different presets to choose from. A preset is a configuration of settings designed to achieve a certain look. It automatically adjusts certain colors and lighting in the photo so you don’t need to do it manually.
Go ahead and toggle the adjustments, or select any preset that fits your preference.
Once you are happy with the filter enhancements, click on ‘Save.’ Or, if you’d like to revert the image to its original state, you can select ‘Reset’ instead.
Once you’ve saved your edits, the updated image will automatically appear in your Media library.
Just head back to the Media » Library tab, and you will find the updated image with the Instagram-like filter added.
Now, you are able to upload that photo anywhere on your site.
For example, you can add the image to a WordPress page or post and it should look like this.
Adding photo effects to your images is a great way to make them stand out. But in some cases, you might want also to add your filtered pictures to an image gallery.
Here are a few examples where this might be useful:
You are a photographer and want to showcase your portfolio.
You run a real estate company and are looking to highlight photos of your residential homes.
You are a digital agency that wants to show potential clients a preview of the type of work you can do.
But galleries are not limited to these businesses either. Almost any website could use an image gallery to visually showcase their products or services.
To create an image gallery for your filtered photos, you will need to install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin.
Note: You can simply use the free version of Envira Gallery if you are only interested in adding image sliders. But if you want advanced features like more gallery themes, lightboxes, or video sliders, then you should consider using the pro version.
The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin. If you need step-by-step instructions, check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you’ll need to go to the Envira Gallery » AddNew page to create a new gallery. Give it a title so you can easily refer to it later.
Then click on ‘Select Files from Your Computer.’
Then, you need to choose the images from your computer.
Once the photos are uploaded, you can scroll down to see all the images added in the ‘Gallery’ tab.
In the ‘Configurations’ tab, you can choose the gallery layout, image size, image dimensions, and more.
That way you can customize the gallery appearance to fit your needs.
From there, just hit the ‘Publish’ button in the right-side panel.
You can then use the Envira Gallery block to add your gallery to any post or page.
Are you looking to create a photo gallery with albums in WordPress?
With photo albums, your visitors can quickly navigate to the specific set of images they are interested in on your website. That helps to improve the user experience and can even lead to more sales if you sell photography or display product images in your albums.
In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to create a photo gallery with albums in WordPress without writing a single line of code.
Video Tutorial
Why Create a Photo Gallery With Albums?
While image galleries allow you to display multiple photos on a single page, albums let you show multiple galleries on a single page categorized by event, topic, location, and so on.
This is helpful for photographers, restaurants, travel websites, or just about any business that needs to showcase different categories of photos.
Albums help organize your photos into groups. This makes it easier for viewers to navigate through your collection and find specific sets of photos without scrolling through a large, unsorted gallery.
Also, if you want to share a specific set of photos with others, then creating an album makes this easy. Instead of sharing an entire gallery, you can direct people to the specific album that contains the relevant images.
That being said, we will cover step-by-step how to easily add a photo gallery with albums in WordPress.
Adding Photo Gallery With Albums in WordPress
If you want to create clean and organized albums in WordPress, then you will need a plugin. We recommend Envira Gallery since it is the best image gallery plugin for WordPress on the market.
After you have created your image galleries, you need to visit Envira Gallery » Albums and click on the ‘Add New’ button.
Creating an album in Envira is similar to creating a gallery. The only difference is that instead of uploading images, you will drag and drop your galleries.
Start by giving your album a title. Then, you need to drag your galleries into the dotted box.
After adding your galleries, you will see a pencil icon for each gallery.
You can click on that icon to change the gallery title, caption, alt text, and cover image.
Once you’ve made your changes, just hit the ‘Save Metadata’ button.
You can also choose how your albums appear by clicking on the ‘Configuration’ tab in the Envira album settings.
For example, it will show different grid-like displays, and you can choose the layout you like best.
If you want your albums to open directly inside a lightbox, then you can click on the ‘Lightbox’ tab. Then, just check the box that says ‘Enable Lightbox?’
Once the lightbox is enabled, you can change the image size, add transition effects, and toggle on other settings.
The albums are also mobile-responsive, so they will automatically adjust to the mobile screen.
Once you are done configuring your album, simply click on the ‘Publish’ button to store your album settings.
Below that, you should see the ‘Envira Album Code’ section.
Go ahead and copy the shortcode so that you can embed the album anywhere on your WordPress website.
Your album is now ready, and you can add it to a post or page.
Simply create a new post or edit an existing one. Then, click on the ‘+’ icon and then select the Shortcode block.
Now, paste the code into the Shortcode block to embed your album into your page or post.
Finally, click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button up top.
You can visit your website to see your album in action.
Depending on how you’ve configured your gallery and album settings, the album should look something like this.
If you click on each photo, then a lightbox will appear, and you can click on the arrows to navigate through each gallery.
That’s all. You now know how to add a photo gallery with albums in WordPress.
Bonus: Adding a Responsive Slider in WordPress
While photo albums are great for organizing galleries, you may sometimes want to display images in a slider format.
A slideshow will allow you to show images or videos in different slides. Users can then use arrows to navigate between slides, or you can set it up to autoplay so they move between slides automatically.
To do this, you simply need to download the Soliloquy plugin. Soliloquy is the best WordPress slider plugin that allows you to easily create slides using images from your media library.
Once activated, just add a new slider. Then, Soliloquy will allow you to upload your images and videos, along with giving each media item a title, capture, and alt text.
When your slider is uploaded, it should look something like this.
Do you want to display WordPress photos in columns and rows?
By default, WordPress adds images in a vertical column on top of each other. However, if you are adding multiple photos to a blog post, then this doesn’t look very clean and requires a lot of scrolling for your users.
In this article, we will show you how to easily display WordPress photos in columns and rows.
Why You Need WordPress Photos in Columns and Rows
By default, when you add multiple images to a WordPress blog post, they would appear right next to each other or on top of each other.
This doesn’t look very good, and your users must scroll a lot to view multiple images and photos.
You can easily solve this problem by displaying photos in rows and columns using a grid-based layout. This way, images will appear in a compact layout and improve user experience on your website.
If you have a photography website, then you can show your portfolio in a more engaging way. Or you can show more product images on an online store by displaying them in rows and columns.
Having said that, let’s take a look at how to display WordPress photos in columns and rows manually or use a WordPress plugin. Simply click the links below to jump ahead to your preferred section.
1. Display Photos in Columns and Rows without Plugins
This method does not require installing a plugin on your WordPress website. If you don’t add multiple photos too often, then this would work just fine for you.
You can manually add images to a column block or use the default gallery block in WordPress.
Adding Images to a Column Block
First, you need to create a new post or edit an existing one where you want to display your photos. Once you’re in the content editor screen, click the ‘+’ button to add a column block.
Next, you can choose the number of columns you’d like and its layout.
For instance, you can choose a 50/50 ratio, 33/66 ratio, 25/50/25 ratio, and more.
After that, you can add an image block to each column.
Simply click the ‘+’ button and select the ‘Image’ block.
Next, you will need to add an image to the block.
You can click the ‘Upload’ button to add an image from your computer or select the ‘Media Library’ option to use an existing picture.
Once the media library opens, simply select your preferred image and click the ‘Select’ button.
One of the image optimization best practices is to add an alt-text to your image. This allows search engine bots to understand your picture and show it in image search results.
You should now see your image in one of the column blocks.
Now, you can do the same for other blocks in the column and add more images.
Adding Images in a Gallery Block
WordPress also offers a default gallery block that you can use to display images in columns and rows.
To start, click the ‘+’ button and add a Gallery block in the content editor.
Next, you’ll need to upload images or choose from the media library.
For this tutorial, we’ll choose the ‘Media Library option.
From, simply select the images you’d like to add to your gallery and display them in rows and columns.
Once you choose the images, click the ‘Create a new gallery’ button.
Next, WordPress will ask you to enter captions for each image and rearrange the order of the pictures.
After doing that, simply click the ‘Insert gallery’ button.
You should now see your images in the gallery block.
You can adjust the number of rows by clicking the slider in the Settings panel on the right.
Once you’re done, simply publish your post to view images in columns and rows.
Simply visit your site to see them in action.
This method would work for most beginners. However, if you run a photography blog or often share photos on your website, then this method lacks several important features.
For example, the appearance of photos relies on your WordPress theme and you are limited to that one particular layout and style.
Your images will not open in a lightbox popup and users will have to load them as a new page and then hit the back button to return to the original page.
For a more professional and beautiful user experience, you should try the plugin method.
2. Display Photos in Columns and Rows Using a Plugin
The best plugin to add photos in columns and rows is Envira Gallery. It is the most popular WordPress gallery plugin that is super easy to use and offers lots of features.
First, you must install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit the Envira Gallery » Settings page to enter your license key. You can get this key from your account on the Envira Gallery website.
Now, you are ready to create beautiful image galleries.
Simply head over to Envira Gallery » Add New from the WordPress dashboard to create your first gallery.
First, you’ll need to enter a name for your gallery at the top. From here, you can select and upload files from your computer, or you can select from the WordPress media library.
After uploading your photos, you’ll see them appear in the gallery settings box below.
Next, you need to click on the ‘Configuration’ tab to customize how you want to display your photos.
Envira Gallery lets you choose different gallery layouts. To show images in rows and columns, you can select the grid, mason, and square layouts.
After selecting the layout, you can click the ‘Number of Gallery Columns’ dropdown menu and choose how many columns you’d like to show.
If you scroll down, then you’ll see more options to customize your gallery. For instance, there are settings to edit the dimensions and size of your gallery.
After that, you can click the ‘Publish’ button to make your photo gallery ready to be added to your WordPress site.
Now, you need to edit a post or create a new one. Once you’re in the content editor, simply click the ‘+’ button to add the ‘Envira Gallery’ block.
From here, you can click the dropdown menu and select the gallery you created earlier.
You can now save your post and preview it to see your photos in columns and rows in a beautiful mobile-responsive photo gallery.
Now when your users click on a photo thumbnail it will open up in a beautiful popup. They will also be able to browse images without leaving the page.
Bonus: Create a Custom Theme with Image Columns & Rows
You can also create custom WordPress themes that have a placeholder for adding images in columns and rows.
The best way to create a custom theme is by using a SeedProd. It is the best drag-and-drop website builder that offers prebuilt themes and lots of customization options.
You can add a column block to your landing page designs using SeedProd and add images to rows and columns. SeedProd even comes with a built-in Gallery block that you can use for this.
Did you come across annoying things in WordPress and now looking for ways to fix them?
Like most things in life, WordPress also has its fair share of annoying things. Dealing with these annoyances is very easy with the right system and processes.
In this article, we will show you the 15 most annoying things about WordPress and how to fix them.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is an open-source website builder and content management system (CMS). It was created by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little in 2003.
Over 43% of the websites on the internet are powered by WordPress. You can create all kinds of websites using WordPress. For instance, you can create a blog, start an online store, build a membership community, sell online courses, make a small business site, and more.
Do note that there is a difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The latter is a website and blog hosting platform, while WordPress.org is an open-source software used by millions of people (including WPBeginner).
To get started with a WordPress website, you’ll need a domain name and website hosting. A domain name is like the address to your house, while web hosting is where your website lives, like a building.
With all its popularity, WordPress isn’t perfect. There are a few quirks and shortcomings that can be frustrating for users.
That said, let’s look at some of the most annoying things about WordPress and how you can easily fix them. You can click the links below to jump ahead to any section:
WordPress does not come with a built-in backup system. You are supposed to create your own backups instead of relying on your WordPress hosting company.
Having a regular backup saves you the frustration when something bad happens to your website. You can easily restore your website from a backup in case something fails or there is a security breach.
There are several ways to backup a WordPress site. The easiest way is by using a plugin. There are plenty of free and paid backup solutions available for WordPress. See our comparison of the 7 best WordPress backup plugins.
For instance, you can use Duplicator to create a complete backup of your site’s important files, databases, folders, and more. The plugin is very easy to use and also lets you schedule regular website backups.
Besides that, you can also your web hosting provider’s cPanel or manually backup databases and other content on your website.
WordPress comes with two built-in taxonomies, they are called categories and tags. By default, each new post you create is filed into a built-in category titled Uncategorized.
If you forget to assign the post to a category, then it will be filed under Uncategorized. This looks unprofessional, but you can easily fix it.
First, WordPress lets you rename the categories on your website. Simply head to Post Categories from the WordPress dashboard and then click the ‘Edit’ link under the Uncategorized category.
From here, you can rename the category to anything you want.
If you have other categories created on your website, then WordPress lets you change the default settings and use another category instead.
Simply navigate to Settings » Writing from the WordPress admin panel and click the ‘Default Post Category’ dropdown menu. Next, you can change it from Uncategorized to any other category.
During WordPress installation or at the time of user creation, you can choose a username for the account.
However, the problem is that there’s no easy way to change the username once it’s created. This can be extremely annoying.
One of the ways to fix this is by deleting the user and creating a new user with the updated username. Another way to resolve this is by using a WordPress plugin or manually updating the username from the WordPress database.
4. Adding More Formatting Options to the Content Editor
Before the introduction of Gutenberg or block editor, WordPress had limited formatting options. You’d have to play around with HTML and CSS to edit the appearance of your blog posts and pages.
However, the WordPress content editor now offers a lot of customization options. You can format your content more easily and don’t have to rely on coding.
While new features are introduced with every new version of WordPress, many users may feel frustrated if they don’t find a formatting option.
For instance, you might want to use a specific font for your content but can’t find it in WordPress. To fix this, you can use different plugins to add custom fonts.
Another annoying thing you might face in WordPress is the white screen of death. The worst part about the error is that there is no message, and you’re locked out of WordPress.
Most of the time, the error occurs because a script on your site exhausted the memory limit. When the unresponsive script gets killed by the WordPress hosting server or times out, you’ll see this error.
There are different ways to fix the white screen of death error. For instance, you can check whether the issue is occurring on other websites of yours. You can also try to increase the memory limit, disable all the plugins, clear the cache, and more.
Sometimes you may end up locking yourself out of the WordPress admin area. Either you forgot your password and were unable to recover it, or something broke when you were adding code or a plugin.
Or there was an error establishing a connection between the database, there was an internal server error, or your site was hacked.
To help you resolve this issue, we have created a handy guide on what to do when you are locked out of the WordPress admin area. It will help you learn how to fix this in different scenarios.
7. Deactivating All WordPress Plugins without Admin Access
When troubleshooting some problems on your WordPress site, you will be advised to deactivate all WordPress plugins. You can just go to the plugins page and deactivate all plugins.
However, what if you don’t have access to the WordPress admin area?
You can deactivate plugins by using an FTP client. Simply access the /wp-content/ folder to view all the plugins and then deactivate them.
If you have access to the web hosting service’s cPanel, then you can also deactivate plugins from the phpMyAdmin settings.
WordPress comes with a slight learning curve, and you get to learn things as you go along. Some things are easier to learn than others. The most frustrating and annoying thing for beginners is the number of common WordPress errors they may come across.
For instance, you might see a syntax error, your posts might be returning a 404 error, there can be an issue when uploading images, and more.
9. Setting up Automatic Updates for WordPress Plugins
All good WordPress plugins are regularly updated. If you are using the best WordPress plugins on your website, then chances are that you will be installing updates quite often.
Installing updates takes only a few seconds, but it can be distracting to log in and find new updates.
To resolve this, you can simply head to Plugins » Installed Plugins from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Enable auto-updates’ for critical plugins.
While you can create galleries in the default WordPress installation, it’s not as useful because it lacks features like Albums, tagging, light boxes, and more.
Many WordPress landing pages and theme builders like SeedProd also offer options to add image galleries to your website.
11. WordPress Plugins Can Conflict with Each Other
WordPress plugins are great for adding additional functionality and features to your website.
However, some plugins can conflict with one another, causing serious problems. For instance, they might not work properly like they’re intended to work or would end up breaking your site.
Having too many plugins can also lead to conflicts. You should deactivate and delete plugins that are not in use. This will help solve conflicts, strengthen WordPress security, and boost page load time.
12. Customizing WordPress Excerpts
By default, WordPress displays full posts on the homepage, archives, and category pages.
This not only creates duplicate content on your site, but it also makes navigation more frustrating and discourages users from viewing the full post and leaving comments.
By displaying excerpts on these pages, you can increase your pageviews and user engagement. It shows a short summary and tells users what the content is about.
WordPress also shows your full articles in the RSS Feed. This means users reading your posts in a feed reader will have no reason to visit your website.
You can easily change this from the WordPress admin area. Go to Settings » Reading page and scroll down to ‘For each article in a feed, include’ option and select Excerpt.
Next, click on the save changes button to store your settings.
14. Dealing with Comment Spam
Spam comments are one of the most annoying things on the internet. WordPress comes with built-in comment moderation to deal with spam comments. However, comment spam can quickly grow, and before you know it, you will be spending more time moderating comments.
The first thing you need to do is start using Akismet. It will catch most spam comments and keep them away from your moderation queue.
WordPress comes with a built-in search feature, but it’s not very good. If a search is important for your website, then you will need to replace the default search with something better.
To improve WordPress search, you can use plugins like SearchWP. It helps you customize the search algorithm and include tables, custom fields, documents, taxonomies, and more in the search process.
Do you want to add multiple image galleries to your WordPress posts and pages?
With multiple image galleries, you can show off different types of content on your website and improve your SEO and user experience. However, the default WordPress Gallery block lacks certain features.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add multiple galleries in your WordPress posts, pages, and sidebar.
Why Add Multiple Galleries in WordPress?
WordPress is used by thousands of photographers, artists, and designers to share their work with the world. Many website owners also use images and photo galleries to show the products in their online stores or make their content more visually interesting.
Many WordPress websites want to display their photos in different ways, including adding multiple galleries in a single post, adding galleries into sidebars, creating slideshows, and so on.
For example, if you have a food blog, then you may want to create separate image galleries for your recipes and restaurant reviews.
Similarly, if you run a fashion blog, then you can use multiple galleries to display your fall, winter, or spring collections separately.
WordPress comes with a built-in gallery feature that you can use to make and show image galleries.
However, these galleries lack functionality like opening images in a lightbox, browsing images without leaving the page, adding tags, creating albums, and more.
Most importantly, your galleries are not stored separately. This means that if you want to reuse a gallery in another post, then you will need to make it all over again.
That being said, let’s take a look at the best way to add multiple galleries in WordPress posts and pages.
How to Add Multiple Image Galleries in WordPress
You can easily add multiple image galleries to WordPress posts and pages using Envira Gallery.
It is the best WordPress gallery plugin on the market that allows you to create beautiful image galleries on your WordPress site.
With Envira Gallery, your users can view your images in a lightbox popup. They can also browse images without leaving the page, and you can even reuse your galleries in other posts and pages.
Note: Envira Gallery also has a free version that you can use for this tutorial.
Upon activation, you need to visit the Envira Gallery » Add New page from the WordPress admin sidebar to start creating a gallery for your website.
From here, you can start by typing a name for your gallery.
Next, click the ‘Select Files from Your Computer’ button to upload gallery images from the computer.
If you want to add images from the WordPress media library, then click the ‘Select Files from Other Sources’ button instead. Keep in mind that if you use this option, then you can only upload a single image at a time from the media library.
Once you have done that, scroll down to the ‘Currently in your Gallery’ section.
Here, you will see a preview of all the images that you have uploaded to your Envira gallery.
Now, you can click on the pencil icon at the top of each image to open the ‘Edit Metadata’ prompt on the screen.
Once you are happy, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Metadata’ button to store your settings.
Next, you can switch to the ‘Configuration’ tab from the left sidebar to change your gallery layout, including choosing the number of columns, image lazy loading, size, title and caption positioning, margins, heights, and more.
You can also switch to the ‘Lightbox’ tab to check the ‘Enable Lightbox’ option. This will allow users to enlarge images and browse them without ever leaving the page.
After that, you can also configure other settings, including videos, social sharing, tags, pagination, and more.
Finally, click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
Once you have done that, just repeat the process to create another image gallery for your WordPress blog. You can create as many image galleries with Envira Gallery as you want.
Adding Galleries to WordPress Posts or Pages
Now that you have created multiple image galleries, it’s time to add them to your WordPress posts and pages.
To do this, just open a page/post of your liking in the WordPress content editor.
Once you are there, click the ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the screen to open the block menu. From here, find and add the Envira Gallery block to the page or post.
Next, you need to select one of the galleries that you created from the dropdown menu in the block itself.
After that, open the block menu once again and add the ‘Envira Gallery’ block to select a different gallery.
Once you have done that, you can change the gallery layout, enable the lightbox, or set the row height from the block panel as well.
You can even upload new images to your gallery by clicking the ‘Upload’ or ‘Media Library’ button under each gallery.
Finally, click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, you can visit your WordPress site to view the multiple image galleries in action.
Adding Multiple Galleries in WordPress Sidebars
Envira Gallery makes it super easy to add your galleries to sidebars and other widget-ready areas.
First, you need to visit the Appearance » Widgets page from the WordPress dashboard.
Note: If you are using a block theme, then you won’t be able to see the widgets menu. Instead, you can jump to our next method, where we show you how to insert multiple galleries using the full site editor.
Once you are there, just click the ‘+’ button at the top left corner to open the block menu and add the Envira Gallery block to the sidebar.
Upon adding it, you must select an image gallery from the dropdown menu within the block itself.
Next, simply repeat the process to add another image gallery to the WordPress sidebar.
Once you have done that, you can further configure the layout for each gallery from the block panel on the right side of the screen.
You can also click on the pencil icon in the block toolbar to launch the gallery edit screen.
Once you are happy with your image galleries, click the ‘Update’ button at the top to save your changes.
Now, go ahead and visit your WordPress site to view multiple image galleries in your sidebar.
Adding Multiple Galleries in WordPress Full Site Editor
If you are using a block theme, then the ‘Widgets’ menu tab won’t be available for you.
Instead, you need to visit the Appearance » Editor page from the WordPress dashboard and select the ‘Templates’ option from the left column.
This will open a list of all the pages on your website in the left column. From here, select the page where you want to add the galleries.
This will open the page in the WordPress full site editor.
From here, click the ‘+’ add block button to open the block menu and select the ‘Envira Gallery’ block. After that, you need to pick the gallery that you created from the dropdown menu within the block.
Next, just repeat the process again to add another gallery.
After that, you can configure the gallery settings from the block panel.
Alternatively, you can click the pencil icon in the block toolbar to launch the gallery edit screen.
Finally, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, visit your WordPress site to view the multiple image galleries.
Bonus: Add Video Galleries to Your WordPress Site
With Envira Gallery, you can also add a video gallery to your WordPress blog using the Envira Videos Addon. This can help you show off your filmography, products, or informational video clips on your website.
This can help improve your site’s SEO, showcase your expertise, and increase user engagement.
Envira Gallery is also one of the best YouTube video gallery plugins for WordPress. This is because it allows you to create a YouTube gallery on your site simply using the URL for each video. It also lets you adjust the playback sound, use video autoplay, use fullscreen by default, hide the playback controls, and much more.
Do you want to add a gallery in WordPress with a lightbox effect?
Adding the lightbox effect will allow users to view your images in a distraction-free environment without leaving your website. However, the default WordPress gallery block does not support lightboxes.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add a gallery in WordPress with a lightbox effect, step by step.
Why Add the Lightbox Effect in WordPress Galleries?
By adding the lightbox effect to the galleries on your WordPress website, you can show off your images in a more professional way.
This effect allows you to display your images in a pop-up window on your website when a user clicks on them.
Lightboxes help create a more immersive viewing experience for your visitors and even make it easier for them to share your images on social media or download them on their computers.
If you have a photography website, then adding a lightbox effect will enable users to view your high-resolution images in a distraction-free mode, increasing engagement.
Similarly, if you have a WooCommerce store, then adding a lightbox effect to your product galleries can also help customers view the product up close and make an informed decision.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily add a WordPress gallery with a lightbox effect, step by step.
How to Add a WordPress Gallery With a Lightbox Effect
You can easily add a WordPress gallery with a lightbox effect using Envira Gallery.
It is the best WordPress gallery plugin that allows you to create fully responsive and modern image galleries for your website.
Envira Gallery is also super fast and has a drag-and-drop builder, professional gallery templates, and many features, including adding tags, audio, social sharing, and the lightbox effect.
Note: Envira Gallery also has a free plan that you can use for this tutorial. However, upgrading to the paid plan will give you access to more features.
Upon activation, visit the Envira Gallery » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar to enter the license key.
You can get this information from your account on the Envira Gallery website.
After that, you need to visit the Envira Gallery » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard to start creating your own gallery.
From here, type a title for the image gallery and click the ‘Select Files from Your Computer’ button to upload images.
Or, if you want to add media library images to your gallery, then click the ‘Select Files from Other Sources’ button. This will launch the media library from where you can upload gallery images.
Remember that you can only upload one image from the media library at a time.
Once you have done that, scroll down to the ‘Currently in your Gallery’ section, where you will see a preview of your gallery on the right with settings in the left column.
Now, click the pencil icon on top of each image to open the ‘Edit Metadata’ prompt on the screen.
Once you have configured the gallery layout, switch to the ‘Lightbox’ tab from the left column and check the ‘Enable Lightbox?’ option.
After that, select a lightbox theme from the ‘Gallery Lightbox Theme’ dropdown menu. If you choose the ‘Legacy’ option, then the lightbox effect prompt will have an older layout.
On choosing the ‘Base (Dark)’ option, the lightbox prompt will have a dark base as its layout.
Next, you must select if you want to display the image title or its caption in the lightbox prompt. You can also display both or none of them if you like.
Once you have done that, choose the image size for the lightbox from the dropdown menu.
After that, check the ‘Enable Gallery Arrows’ option. The lightbox prompt will now show two arrows that the viewers can use to switch to different images in your gallery.
You can also configure other settings for your lightbox, including its transition effect, open/close effect, enable lightbox supersize, and more.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your changes.
To add your image gallery to a WordPress page/post, open the page in the block editor.
Here, you need to click the add block ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the screen to open the block menu. Next, add the Envira Gallery block to the page/post.
After that, select the image gallery that you just created from the dropdown menu in the block itself. Finally, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
Now, you can visit your WordPress blog to view the image gallery and then click on any image to see the lightbox effect.
Alternative: Use NextGen Gallery to Create Image Portfolios and Galleries in WordPress
Envira Gallery is the best option for adding lightbox images to your WordPress website. Alternatively, you can use NextGEN Gallery to create fully responsive and visually pleasing galleries and portfolios on your WordPress site.
NextGEN Gallery is the best Envira Gallery alternative because it supports a wide range of gallery types, has eCommerce-related features, and allows you to add watermarks, lightboxes, image comments, and more.
Additionally, NextGEN Gallery allows you to accept online payments via Stripe or PayPal, making it easy to sell your images online.
It is an advanced gallery plugin with features for professional photographers, graphic designers, and visual artists, making it one of the best WordPress portfolio plugins on the market.
Do you want to make a travel business site in WordPress?
A travel business site lets you advertise your tour packages, take bookings directly, and communicate with your users. This will allow you to reach more customers, generate more leads and sales, and even improve customer service.
In this article, we will show you how to make a travel business site in WordPress, step by step.
Which Is the Best Website Builder to Make a Travel Business Site?
In our expert opinion, WordPress is the best website builder to make a travel business site. It is used by over 43% of the websites on the internet and is super reliable, secure, easy to use, and scalable.
WordPress is used by many different kinds of businesses to sell their services or products, and you can easily set up a travel company using a travel booking plugin.
However, you should know that there are two types of WordPress on the market.
WordPress.com is a blog hosting platform, whereas WordPress.org is an open-source, self-hosted software. For more detailed information, you may want to see our comparison between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
For a travel company, we recommend using WordPress.org because it is completely free, gives you full control over your website, and can easily integrate with any third-party travel plugins.
To create a WordPress site, you will first need to get a domain name and web hosting.
A domain name is the name of your website on the internet. This is what customers will have to type to visit your site, like www.tourism.com or www.traveladventures.com.
Web hosting is where your website lives on the internet. To choose the perfect hosting plan for your travel business, you may want to see our list of the best WordPress hosting services.
You will notice that even though WordPress.org is free, the domain name and web hosting are where your costs will add up. The average cost for a domain name is $14.99/year, while hosting costs start from $7.99/month.
This can be a bit expensive if you are just starting out and have a shoestring budget.
Thankfully, Bluehost is offering a HUGE discount to WPBeginner readers along with a free domain name and an SSL certificate.
Bluehost is a WordPress-recommended hosting service and one of the best in the business.
To get a discount on Bluehost, just click on the button below.
This will take you to the Bluehost website, where you have to click the ‘Get Started Now’ button.
You will now be taken to the Bluehost Pricing page, where you can select a hosting plan according to your travel business site needs.
We recommend opting for the Basic or Choice Plus plan, as they are the most popular web hosting plans among our readers.
Upon making your choice, simply click the ‘Select’ button under a plan.
This will direct you to a new page where you have to pick a domain name for your travel business site.
We recommend choosing a name related to your business that is easy to pronounce, spell, and remember.
The easiest option would be to choose the name of your existing travel business. However, keep in mind that this domain name may already be taken by some other website.
In that case, you can try adding some extra keywords or use your location to make your domain name stand out. For more ideas, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to choose the best domain name.
If you are just starting your travel business and do not have a name for it yet, then you can also try WPBeginner’s Free Business Name Generator to come up with an interesting name for your company.
After choosing a name, just click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.
This will take you to the next step, where you will be asked to provide your account information, business email address, name, country, phone number, and more.
Once you have provided those details, you will also see optional extras that you can buy.
We generally don’t recommend buying these extras straight away, as you can always add them later if your business needs them.
After that, type in your payment information to complete the purchase.
Once you have done that, you will receive a confirmation email with details to log in to your Bluehost dashboard. This will be your control panel where you will manage your travel business site.
Now, it’s time for you to install WordPress.
Step 2: Create a New WordPress Website
If you signed up for Bluehost using our link above, then Bluehost will automatically install WordPress on your domain name for you.
However, if you want to create a different WordPress site for your travel business, then you can do that by clicking on the ‘My Sites’ tab in the Bluehost dashboard.
Once you have done that, click the ‘Add Site’ button and select the ‘Create New Site’ option.
This will open the Bluehost wizard on the screen, which will walk you through the whole setup process.
You can start by adding a title and an optional tagline for your website. After that, just click the ‘Next’ button to continue.
You will now be asked to choose a domain name and path for your travel business. If you already have a domain name, then you can select it from the dropdown menu under the ‘Domain’ option.
However, if you still haven’t purchased the domain, then you can do that by visiting the ‘Domains’ page on the Bluehost dashboard.
Once you have chosen a domain, leave the directory path blank and let Bluehost fill it in for you.
Now, the setup wizard will show you a list of optional WordPress plugins that you may want to install on your website, like WPForms and OptinMonster.
Most of these tools are must-have WordPress plugins that will help you improve your overall site quality. To install any of these plugins, just check the box next to its name.
After that, click the ‘Next’ button once again to set up your travel business site.
You will now see a ‘WordPress installed successfully’ message with information about your new website on the screen. From here, click the ‘Log into WordPress’ button to access your admin dashboard.
If you want, you can also log in to your WordPress dashboard by going to yoursite.com/wp-admin/ in your web browser.
WordPress themes are professionally designed templates that control how your website looks on the front end.
Upon visiting your newly installed WordPress site, you will notice that it currently has the default theme activated, which will look like this:
If you want to make your travel business successful, get more leads, and impress your customers, then you should replace the default theme with one that matches your niche.
You can install any of the popular WordPress themes on your site and then customize them according to your liking.
You can also use themes that were specifically designed with the traveling niche in mind. For details, you may want to see our list of the best WordPress themes for travel blogs.
However, if you want to easily customize your travel business site in just a few clicks, then we recommend using SeedProd.
It is the best WordPress page builder on the market that allows you to create landing pages and even an entire theme without using any code.
It also comes with travel-related templates and advanced blocks that will let you set up your travel business site in just a few minutes.
Upon activation, visit the SeedProd » Theme Builder page from the WordPress dashboard and click on the ‘Theme Template Kits’ button.
This will take you to a new screen where you will see a list of premade templates that you can use on your website.
When you find the ‘Travel Theme’ or ‘Travel Blog’ template, click on it to launch it in the drag-and-drop builder.
SeedProd will now create all the page templates that you will need for your travel business and launch the home page in the page builder.
Here, you can drag and drop any block from the left column into the page preview. For detailed instructions, see our beginner’s guide on how to create a custom theme in WordPress.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the top.
If you want to use another travel-specific theme on your website, then you may want to see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress theme.
Once you have activated your theme, just visit the Appearance » Customize page from the WordPress admin sidebar. Here, you can change the theme’s appearance in the customizer.
If you are using a block-based theme, then you will have to visit the Appearance » Editor page from the WordPress dashboard.
This will open the full site editor, where you can drag and drop the blocks from the left column to customize your travel business site.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Step 4: Create a Home Page and Navigation Menu
WordPress uses two content types by default, which are posts and pages.
Pages can be used for home page, a Contact Us page, or an About Us page. On the other hand, posts are used to create articles and blog posts for your website.
These posts are then displayed in reverse chronological order on your website’s home page.
To further promote your travel business, it is a good idea to start a travel blog on your website. This will help improve your search engine rankings and gain more customers.
Once you have finished designing your homepage, you need to visit the Settings »Reading page in your WordPress dashboard and choose the ‘A static page’ option in the ‘Your homepage displays’ section.
Next, open the ‘Homepage’ dropdown and choose the page you want to use.
If you want to create a separate page for travel blogging, then you can see our tutorial on how to create a separate blog page. Finally, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Upon adding different posts and pages to your travel business site, you will also need to add a navigation menu at the top.
This navigation menu will show an organized structure of your site and help your visitors navigate through it.
Step 5: Create Image Galleries for Your Travel Business
Showing image galleries is extremely important for travel business sites.
This is because these galleries can show high-quality images of stunning scenery, exciting activities, and comfortable accommodations that can help inspire potential travelers and convince them to book a trip with you.
Plus, these image galleries can also be used to promote specific travel packages, tell a story about your adventure travel company, increase brand awareness, and much more.
To create image galleries in WordPress, we recommend using Envira Gallery. It is the best WordPress gallery plugin on the market that comes with amazing features like lightboxes, tags, watermarks, and more.
First, you need to install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin. For detailed instructions, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, visit the Envira Gallery » Settings page and enter your license key. You can find this information in the Envira Gallery account area.
Next, head to the Envira Gallery » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard. Here, click the ‘Select Files from Your Computer’ button to upload images from the computer.
If you want to add images from the media library, then click the ‘Select Files from Other Sources’ button.
Once you have uploaded the images for your travel package, scroll down to the ‘Currently in Your Gallery’ section.
Here, click the pencil icon on top of each image to open the ‘Edit Metadata’ prompt.
Once that prompt appears on the screen, you can add titles, descriptions, tags, and alt text to your images.
Next, click the ‘Save Metadata’ button to store your settings.
After that, you can further configure other gallery settings according to your liking. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to create an image gallery in WordPress.
Finally, click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, visit the WordPress page/post where you want to add the image gallery for the travel package.
Here, you need to click the ‘Add Block’ (+) button in the top left corner of the screen to open the block menu. Next, add the Envira Gallery block to the page/post.
After that, just choose the image gallery that you created for the travel package from the dropdown menu inside the block.
Finally, go ahead and click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to store your settings.
You can now go ahead and add multiple image galleries to show your travel packages, different destinations, and much more on your WordPress travel business site.
Step 6: Install and Set Up the WP Travel Engine Plugin
By default, WordPress does not come with any built-in functionality for travel businesses. That is why you’ll need to use a third-party plugin like WP Travel Engine to set up trips and bookings on your site.
WP Travel Engine is a popular free WordPress plugin that allows you to create an SEO-friendly travel booking site in minutes.
Note: There is also a premium version of WP Travel Engine. This plugin will give you access to an advanced itinerary builder, upsell features, and more. However, we will be using the free plugin for this tutorial.
Upon activation, the plugin will launch a setup wizard on your screen where you have to click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
You will now be taken to the ‘Currency Setting’ step, where you have to choose your website’s base currency, its symbol, and a thousand separator.
After that, click the ‘Continue’ button to move on.
In the next step, you need to configure the email settings. Here, type the email address where you want to receive notifications when a user books a trip next to the ‘Sales Notification Emails’ option.
If you don’t want to receive any notifications, simply toggle the switch at the top.
After that, toggle the ‘Enable Enquiry Email’ option if you want to be able to send emails to customers who book a trip using your website.
Next, type the email address that will be used to send emails to customers next to the ‘From Email’ option and click the ‘Continue’ button.
Expert Tip: Emails sent directly from WordPress can sometimes end up in the spam folder. That’s why we recommend using a service like WP Mail SMTP to improve email deliverability. For more details, you can see our guide on how to fix the WordPress not sending emails issue.
You will now be taken to the ‘Page Settings’ step, where you have to choose different pages for the checkout, terms and conditions, booking confirmation, and other pages.
Here, you can select any of the pages that you have already published on your website or choose a page created by the plugin.
For example, if you have an existing checkout page, then you can select that page from the dropdown menu. If you don’t have one, then you can leave the setting as it is, and the plugin will create a custom page for you.
Once you are done, click the ‘Continue’ button.
In the ‘Payment Gateway Setting’ step, you have to toggle on the switches for the ‘Book Now Pay Later’ option and the ‘PayPal’ option.
After that, add your PayPal email ID into the ‘PayPal Email/ID’ field.
These payment gateways will then be added to your travel business site. Next, click the ‘Continue’ button to move on.
You have now successfully configured the WP Travel Engine plugin.
In the last step, just click the ‘Go to dashboard’ button to exit the setup wizard.
Step 7: Create a Travel Package for Your Business
Upon configuring the plugin, it is now time to create a travel package for your website. To do this, just visit the Trips » Add New page from the WordPress admin dashboard.
This will open the block editor, where you can start by adding a title and details for your travel package. You can also click the ‘Add Block’ (+) button in the top left to add an Image, Heading, or Quote block.
You can also add the image gallery that you created for the travel package by dragging and dropping the ‘Envira Gallery’ block from the block menu.
Once you have done that, expand the ‘Destinations’ tab in the block panel on the right and click the ‘Add New Destinations’ link.
Here, you can add the name of the country or city for the travel package you are offering. This feature will help you organize your travel packages by different destinations.
It will also help your users if you plan to offer multiple packages for the same destination.
Next, expand the ‘Activities’ tab and click the ‘Add New Activities’ link. Here, you can add all the activities that you will offer your clients on this trip, like snorkeling, hiking, scuba diving, visiting heritage areas, and more.
This option can also help you further categorize your trip. For example, if a user who does not have a specific destination in mind but likes hiking types this keyword into the search box, they will be shown all the travel packages that have hiking listed as one of the activities.
After that, you can also add a featured image, trip type (adventure, leisure vacation, business trip), and tags for your package from the block panel.
Now, it’s time for you to configure the trip settings. For this, scroll down to the ‘WP Travel Engine – Trip Settings’ section.
Here, you can type in the trip code and the day and night duration of the trip.
You can also enable a cut time for the travel package. This means that users won’t be able to book this trip after a specified date.
Then, you can also set a minimum and maximum age for the trip and the minimum or maximum number of participants for the trip.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save & Continue’ button to store your settings.
This will take you to the ‘Date and Price’ tab, where you have to click the ‘Add A New Package’ button.
Next, you will have to add a package name and click the ‘Edit Pricing and Dates’ link.
This will open a prompt on the screen where you can expand the ‘Adult’ tab and then type the price for the trip. You can set the price for per person or per group.
After that, you can set a price range for children and click the ‘Save and Close’ button once you are done.
Next, click the ‘Continue’ button to move on.
This will take you to the ‘Overview’ section, where you can add a title and description for your trip.
You can even add trip highlights like a snorkeling adventure under the ‘Trip Highlights’ section. After that, click the ‘Save & Continue’ button.
You will now be taken to the ‘Itinerary’ section, where you can start by adding a title.
Next, add a title for the day 1 itinerary and write all the activities that will be part of the first day of the trip. To add multiple days for the trip, you will have to click the ‘Add Itinerary’ button.
Once you are done, click the ‘Save & Continue’ button.
In the ‘Includes/Excludes’ section, you will have to add a section for all the things that are included in the trip price, like the hotel booking, breakfast, and more.
Similarly, you will also have to add a section for all the things that are excluded from the trip pricing, like snorkeling fees, dinner, and more.
Upon doing that, click the ‘Save & Continue’ button.
You will now be taken to the ‘Trip Info’ section, where you have to add a title and then choose trip facts that may not have been added before from the dropdown menu.
For example, if you want to talk about the hotel that your clients will be staying in, then you can select the ‘Accommodation’ option and click the ‘Add Fact’ button.
After that, you can simply add the hotel’s name and link next to the ‘Accommodation’ option.
You can also add other details for the trip, like admission fees, arrival city, best season, payment methods info, hotel transfer, WiFi, meals, and more.
Once you are done, click the ‘Save & Continue’ button.
You will now be taken to the ‘Gallery’ section, where you can toggle the ‘Enable Image Gallery’ switch if you haven’t already added a gallery with Envira.
You can then add images, and the gallery will automatically be created for you. You can even add a video gallery for the package by toggling the ‘Enable Video Gallery’ switch.
Next, you are able to add a YouTube or Vimeo video to your package. Upon doing that, click the ‘Save & Continue’ button to move on.
This will take you to the ‘Map’ section, where you can add a title, map image, and an iframe code for the hotel where your clients will be staying or for the general trip location.
Then, click the ‘Save & Continue’ button.
In the FAQs section, you can click on the ‘Add FAQs’ button and add questions that are frequently asked by your users. This will help answer customer queries and even improve your search engine rankings.
Upon adding the FAQs, simply click the ‘Save & Continue’ button.
Now, scroll back to the top and click the ‘Publish’ button to make your trip package live. After that, you can visit your WordPress website to view the package in action.
You can now create more packages for your travel business site by repeating the process.
Step 8: Add a Contact Form to Your Travel Business Site
Once you have created multiple travel packages that you plan to sell on your website, it is a good idea to also add a contact form.
This form will allow customers to reach out to you if they have any questions, which can help improve customer satisfaction. Plus, it can even help you build an email list by allowing you to collect customer information.
We recommend using WPForms to add a contact form to your website.
It is the best WordPress contact form plugin on the market that comes with 1000+ premade form templates, a drag-and-drop builder, protection from spam entries, and more.
Other than a contact form, we also recommend using a professional phone service on your travel site to make it easier for users to reach out to you or make bookings over the phone. This can lead to more conversions.
You can easily add a phone service for your travel business using Nextiva.
Another way to build trust among potential customers and increase conversions is to add customer reviews to your travel business site.
If you already have reviews for your trip packages on Yelp, Facebook, or Google, then you can easily add them to your website using the Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro plugin.
AIOSEO comes with an amazing setup wizard that automatically helps you choose the best SEO settings for your business. Plus, it offers features like an on-page SEO checklist, XML sitemaps, a broken link checker, a schema generator, and more.
You can also add FAQs and their schema, track individual keyword results, do image SEO, use a social media assistant, and use the link assistant feature to further optimize your website.
Bonus Tools to Boost Conversions on Your Travel Business Site
By now, you should have a functional travel business site up and running. Here are some plugins that you can install to improve your business and get more conversions:
OptinMonster: It is the best conversion optimization and lead generation tool on the market. It can be used to create opt-in forms that will help build you an email list.
PushEngage: It is the best push notification software that allows you to send personalized web push notifications to your customers. For example, you can let users know when you’ve published a new blog post or released a new travel package.
SearchWP: It is the best search plugin on the market that allows you to create a better search form for your website. This way, users can find the travel deals they are looking for.
Do you want to add photos from Adobe Lightroom to your WordPress website?
Many photographers use Adobe Lightroom to edit photos before uploading them to WordPress. While editing photos is essential, manually uploading them to WordPress can be a time drain.
In this article, we will show you how to easily upload photos from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress with just one click.
What is Adobe Lightroom?
Adobe Lightroom is a photo editing suite that helps you make basic changes and adjustments to your images. It is part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud and includes other tools like Photoshop and Illustrator.
Adobe Lightroom lets you manage your pictures and make finishing touches, like adjusting the exposure, contrast, cropping, and more. It is different from Adobe Photoshop, as you don’t get a wide range of editing capabilities and features in Lightroom as you’d get in Photoshop.
Adobe Lightroom is more suitable for professional photographers who want to create a collection and do basic editing.
With the right WordPress plugin, you can connect your Lightroom account to your site and easily upload pictures from your collection.
Let’s see how you can get started.
Requirements for Uploading from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress
First, you will need Adobe Lightroom Classic installed on your computer. Any version after Lightroom 6 or Creative Suite would work. For this, you’ll need to visit the Adobe Creative Cloud website and sign up for an account.
Envira Gallery offers a Lightroom Addon, which is available with their Gold, Platinum, Agency, and Pro licenses. This addon provides seamless integration between Adobe Lightroom and your WordPress site.
Let’s take a look at how you can integrate Adobe Lightroom into WordPress.
Upon activation, you need to go to the Envira Gallery » Settings page from your WordPress dashboard. You will then need to provide your license key, which can be found on your accounts page on the Envira Gallery website.
Go ahead and click the ‘Verify Key’ button.
After verifying your license key, you need to go to Envira Gallery » Addons and scroll down to locate the Lightroom Addon.
Next, you can click on the ‘Install’ button.
Envira Gallery will install the Lightroom addon, and then you need to click on the activate button to enable it.
Next, you will need to go to the Envira Gallery » Settings page and click the ‘Lightroom’ tab.
Here, you will see two options. First, you need to choose the user account you want to use for publishing images from Lightroom. Second, you need to generate an access token.
Simply click on the ‘Generate New Access Token’ button and copy the token as you will need it in the next step.
Don’t forget to click on the Save button to store your settings.
Setting Up Adobe Lightroom Classic on Your Computer
Next, you’ll need to install and set up the Adobe Lightroom Classic app on your computer.
To start, simply visit the Adobe Creative Cloud website and click the ‘Your Creative Cloud’ button at the top. Make sure you’re signed in to your Adobe account.
After that, you’ll see your Creative Cloud homepage.
Go ahead and click the ‘Install Creative Cloud app’ option in the right corner under your user name.
Next, you can save the download file on your computer and install it.
Upon installation, open the Creative Cloud app on your computer. From here, you can go to the ‘Apps’ section and then navigate to Lightroom Classic.
Go ahead and click the ‘Try’ button under Lightroom Classic.
Next, you’ll need to select a subscription plan. Adobe offers a 7-day free trial, so you can pick a plan and click the ‘Continue’ button.
After completing the subscription process, Lightroom Classic will start to install on your computer.
Connect Adobe Lightroom Classic to Envira Gallery
Next, you need to install the Envira Gallery addon for Adobe Lightroom.
You can do this by visiting your Envira account area and switching to the ‘Downloads’ tab.
From here, you’ll need to scroll down and navigate to the ‘Lightroom Addon (Adobe)’ option.
Go ahead and click the download icon under the addon.
Next, you can save the zip file for the addon on your computer.
In your computer’s downloads folder, you should now see a file enviralrplugin.zip. You need to extract this file because it contains a file named envira.lrplugin.
Mac users can simply double-click the file to unzip it. Windows users can right-click the file and extract its content.
Next, you need to open Adobe Lightroom and click on File » Plugin Manager in the toolbar.
This will bring up the plugin manager window.
Go ahead and click on the Add button and select the ‘envira.lrplugin’ file from your computer.
When you’ve added Enivra addon folder, simply click ‘Done’ to close the plugin manager window.
You should now see Envira Gallery in Adobe Lightroom Classic under the Publish Services section.
You have successfully added Envira Gallery as a publishing service to Adobe Lightroom.
Now that we have setup both Envira Gallery and Lightroom, the next step is to allow Lightroom to speak with Envira Gallery on your WordPress site.
Simply open Adobe Lightroom Classic app and click on the ‘Set Up’ link next to Envira Gallery under the Publish Services panel.
This will bring up the publishing services manager window.
You will need to provide the address of your WordPress website and the access token you generated earlier.
Once you do that, click on the ‘Authenticate’ button.
Lightroom will now connect to your WordPress site, and you will see a success message when it has connected to your website successfully.
Go ahead and click the ‘OK’ button on the success message and then click on the Save button in the publishing services manager window.
Uploading Photos From Lightroom to WordPress
Now you can easily upload photos from Adobe Lightroom Classic to WordPress using Envira Gallery.
Simply start by going into Adobe Lightroom and then right-clicking on Envira under the Publish Services panel. After that click on the ‘Create Published Collection’ option from the menu.
This will bring up a popup window where you need to provide a name for your collection.
It is important to note that this name will also become the name of your image gallery on your WordPress site.
Once you have chosen the name, click on the Create button to continue. Lightroom will now create an empty collection for you. You can drag and drop images from your library into your new collection.
As soon as you add, remove, or edit images in a collection, you will see a Publish button appear below it. Clicking on the Publish button will upload your photos to WordPress and store them in your Envira Gallery.
You can continue editing your images in Lightroom, make changes, add or remove images, and do anything you want. You can always click on the publish button and your Envira Gallery will get updated because this addon keeps Lightroom synchronized with WordPress.
You can visit your WordPress admin area and go to Envira Gallery to see your Lightroom collection added as a gallery.
Looking to create an online portfolio website in WordPress?
The freelance market has grown rapidly. Resumes and LinkedIn profiles are important, but to beat out the opposition, you’ll need a portfolio website to showcase your best work and land more clients.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create an online portfolio website in WordPress, step by step.
Why Do You Need an Online Portfolio Website?
Think of your online portfolio website as your digital business card.
Portfolios are assets for everyone, including freelancers, job seekers, and small businesses.
While you may think a portfolio is only for artists or creatives, that’s simply not true. They work for any profession, whether you’re a graphic designer, writer, or developer.
It’s a chance to put your best foot forward in your industry. In a nutshell, your website portfolio helps you to stand out from the crowd and build trust. When you design a professional portfolio website, you instantly gain credibility and show off your experience.
Plus, you can optimize your site for search engines based on specific keywords so that more people can find you.
How to Create an Online Portfolio Website in WordPress with SeedProd
You don’t need to learn how to code or write HTML to build your portfolio site. Simply follow our step by step instructions, and you’ll have your website up and running in minutes.
1. Choose a WordPress Host
To start with, you’ll need a domain name and web host. The web host stores your website files and is your site’s home on the internet.
A good web host should be scalable enough to handle demanding sites, offer support in case anything goes wrong, take web security seriously, and have features to keep you safe.
Hostinger is the best choice for small businesses that want affordable, beginner-friendly hosting.
Fortunately, Hostinger has agreed to offer our readers a free domain name and up to 78% off on WordPress hosting. You can get started for just $2.69 per month.
To get set up with Hostinger in a few minutes, simply click this button:
If you need help signing up for Hostinger, check out our post on how to get a free domain name, where you find a step by step tutorial.
Once you’ve registered and set up your hosting plan, you can just go into your dashboard and select the ‘Domains’ tab.
From there, you’ll need to enter a new domain name.
You’ll be prompted to create a new website or migrate an existing website.
For the sake of this tutorial, you can click the ‘Skip, create an empty website.’
Next, click on the ‘Select’ button under ‘Claim a Free Domain.’
You can simply enter the domain name that you want to use for your portfolio website.
If you need help deciding on a domain name, WPBeginner offers a free business name generator to help you find a company name that is easy to read and promote online.
Of course, if you’re creating a personal portfolio, the easiest thing to do would be to use your first and last name as a domain name. If it’s taken, you can add your profession along with your first name.
For example, if johndoe.com is taken, you might find johndoephotography.com or janedoewriter.com.
Ideally, you should stick to a .com domain extension since it’s the most recognizable and trustworthy for small businesses.
2. Install WordPress
One of the most common mistakes most beginners make is choosing the wrong website platform. Many freelancers or small business owners gravitate towards Squarespace or Wix.
While those are easy to use, they lack tons of functionality, customization, and control.
Using a content management system like WordPress gives you much more flexibility with thousands of designs and addons for your portfolio site. WordPress is free, open-source, and has thousands of pre-built extensions and website designs.
With the right WordPress plugins and themes, you’ll also get the same drag-and-drop builder that makes platforms like Squarespace or Wix so easy to use.
Next, in your Hostinger dashboard, click on the ‘Admin Panel’ button with the WordPress logo to go to your WordPress website’s dashboard.
You can also go to yoursite.com/wp-admin directly in your browser.
3. Choose a Portfolio Theme
Once you have your WordPress set up, you’re ready to customize your website design by choosing a theme and creating new pages.
For this tutorial, we’ll be using SeedProd to create a theme specifically for portfolio websites.
SeedProd is the best WordPress page builder on the market. It lets you quickly and easily create any type of page without writing a single line of code.
Whether you want to make a portfolio website to land potential clients, start a WordPress blog, or an online store, SeedProd is a one-stop solution that gives you templates tailored to your needs.
You’ll want to install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more help, see our in-depth guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon installation, you’ll be prompted to complete the setup wizard. You can click ‘Get Started’ and just follow along the step by step instructions so that SeedProd can configure the plugin to best suit your needs.
When you’ve completed the setup wizard, head over to SeedProd ≫ Settings and enter your license key. You can find your license key under your accounts page on the SeedProd website.
After entering the information, click on the ‘Verify Key’ button.
You will now have access to all of SeedProd’s features.
4. Build Your Portfolio Landing Page
Next, go to SeedProd ≫ Theme Builder.
From there, select the orange button that says ‘Theme Template Kits.’
You’ll land on a page with a searchable library of WordPress themes to choose from. Type in ‘portfolio’ in the search bar and select the theme template that best fits your website idea.
Also, you may want to search other keywords if you’re in a specific niche. For example, if you are a realtor, you can find real estate WordPress themes on SeedProd.
We’ll be choosing the ‘Freelance Portfolio’ theme, but feel free to pick any theme that fits your needs.
We’ll be creating a one-page portfolio site, where your portfolio page is on the Homepage of your website. This lets you have your portfolio site up and running fast without the hassle of designing multiple pages.
In the WordPress dashboard, head over to Settings ≫ Reading. Next to the Homepage, select the ‘Portfolio’ dropdown to make your portfolio page your Homepage.
Then head back to SeedProd ≫ Theme Builder, and you’ll see a list of all the pages within the theme.
Scroll down and hover over the ‘Portfolio’ page. Then click on ‘Edit Design.’
5. Edit the Portfolio Website
Now it’s time to edit the content and make it your own. You’ll be sent to SeedProd’s visual, drag-and-drop page builder. There are plenty of Standard and Advanced widgets to choose from, such as a headline, text, list, header, featured image, and so on.
Simply drag the widget you want and move it to the exact location you want that element.
You can also customize the background to your liking by choosing a solid color, gradient color, or background image.
Just click on the outer layer box, and under ‘Content’ in the sidebar menu, you’ll see options to customize your background.
If you need help working with the SeedProd interface, you can watch our SeedProd video tutorials.
When editing the contents of your main portfolio page, there are several key components you want to include, such as:
Strong Call to Action (CTA): Portfolio sites should have a clear call to action to allow visitors to hire or get in touch with you. The CTA button should be placed both above the fold and at the bottom of your page.
Just find the ‘Button’ box in the left-hand menu and drag it to your page on the right.
When editing any element, you must click on the specific element or area you want to customize.
Then, the options for that block appear to the left. As you can see below, the Content tab lets you edit the button text and link it to your contact page or even to an embedded form lower in this same page.
The ‘Templates’ tab lets you choose the button style, and the Advanced tab lets you change the padding, fonts, and more.
Services you offer: Visitors want to know what you offer so they can be sure you can do what they’re looking for. For instance, as a WordPress developer, do you code custom plugins, offer website customizations, or build websites from scratch?
To create a services section, just add a Column widget and insert an Icon Box for each service we offer.
Then, you can customize the text and icons as needed by clicking on the element and using the sidebar.
About Me section: Potential customers and clients also want to know more about your background and experience. This is a chance to build a connection with people and showcase why you’re passionate about what you do.
To create an About Me section, all you need to do is add the ‘Image Box’ widget to the page. Then, add a portrait photo of yourself and write a description that tells people more about you.
If you are creating a portfolio for a business or brand, you could use your custom logo here instead.
Testimonials: Providing testimonials from previous clients helps to build trust, especially if you’ve worked with reputable brands. Seeing that other people are satisfied with your work gives others the confidence that you can also do a great job.
Simply add the Testimonials widget to your page. Then, you can add a photo of the client and edit their name and testimonial. If you want to add more reviews, click on the ‘Duplicate’ icon next to the person’s name.
6. Add a Gallery to Showcase Examples of your Work
Creating a portfolio website gives you a chance to showcase all of the awesome work you’ve done. When potential clients see what you can do, they’ll trust that you’re the right person for the job.
To do that, we’ll be using Envira Gallery, which is the best WordPress gallery plugin. While you can use the ‘Advanced Gallery’ widget on SeedProd, Envira Gallery gives you more functionality.
For example, it comes with Lightbox images, meaning when someone clicks on a photo, it automatically displays the full dimensions without needing to crop or resize them. You can even add slideshows and organize your galleries into albums to better categorize your work.
First, install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin. You can follow our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for detailed instructions.
Head over to Envira Gallery ≫ Add New in the WordPress dashboard. Then, name your gallery in the title bar. From there, click ‘Search Files from Your Computer’ to add images of your portfolio projects.
Once you’ve uploaded the portfolio items, scroll down and select the ‘Config’ tab.
Here, you can change the number of gallery columns you want to display. Setting it to ‘Automatic’ will set the number of images to automatically fill each row.
If you want to change the image sizes, scroll down in the ‘Config’ tab and find the Image Size option.
Select the size that best showcases your portfolio items.
You can also adjust the Lightbox image size so that it displays the original size image when someone clicks on the picture.
Go to the ‘Lightbox’ tab and adjust the Image Size to ‘Original Image.’
Scroll up to the top of the page and hit ‘Publish.’ Underneath the publish button, you’ll see a shortcode.
Copy the shortcode so that we can add the gallery to our WordPress portfolio page.
Go back to your portfolio page in SeedProd. Drag and drop the Shortcode block anywhere you’d like on the page.
Then, simply paste the shortcode into the ‘Shortcode’ box in the sidebar menu.
If you want to preview the shortcode, click on the ‘Preview’ button on the top right corner of the page.
This will show you what the entire page looks like.
Here, you should be able to see that your Envira Gallery is embedded in your portfolio site.
With the lightbox feature from Envira Gallery, you can click on each item to see the full image.
7. Add a Contact Form
Now that you’ve reeled in your potential clients, it’s time to get them to contact you. Sure, you can just drop an email in there, but contact forms let them send you a message directly without opening up their email app.
The best way to create a simple and professional contact form is with WPForms.
To learn how to create a simple contact form for your website so that potential clients can contact you, just follow our step-by-step tutorial on how to create a contact form in WordPress.
Once you’ve completed your form, go back to your portfolio page. You can use the ‘Contact Form’ widget to add a form from WPForms. Under ‘Select a Form,’ choose the one you’ve created.
8. Make It Live
If everything looks good, you’re ready to launch your website.
All you have to do is click the arrow under the green ‘Save’ button on the top right corner. Then click ‘Publish.’
Go ahead and check the live site.
Everything should appear, including the portfolio gallery, buttons, and contact form.
Once you have a professional-looking portfolio website made, you’re ready to start sending more traffic to your site or nurture interested prospects.
Do you want to create WooCommerce product galleries to add to blog posts or pages?
WooCommerce product galleries are an easy way to display your products outside your shop pages. It helps attract more customers and boosts conversions.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create a WooCommerce product image gallery (step by step).
Why Should You Create WooCommerce Product Galleries?
Most WordPress themes for WooCommerce come with default templates for shop and shop category pages. These pages simply list your products using the theme’s style.
What if you wanted to create a product gallery and display it inside a blog post or another page on your site? By displaying your products in your popular blog posts and pages, you can increase your sales and conversions.
Let’s take a look at how to easily create WooCommerce product image galleries with Envira Gallery.
Creating WooCommerce Product Galleries with Envira
The best way to create a WooCommerce product gallery in WordPress is by using Envira Gallery. It is the best WordPress photo gallery plugin and makes it very easy to show products anywhere on your site.
The first thing you need to do is to install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to go to the Envira Gallery » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the Envira Gallery website.
Once the license key is verified, you can go to Envira Gallery » Addons to install and activate the ‘Featured Content’ addon.
This addon will allow you to display your WooCommerce products in the Envira galleries. Go ahead and click the ‘Install’ button under the Featured Content Addon.
Next, you need to go to the Envira Gallery » Add New page to create your new product gallery.
From here, you can start by adding a title for the new gallery.
After the title, you need to switch to the ‘External Gallery’ tab and click the ‘Featured Content’ option.
Next, scroll down to the ‘Images’ tab. In the ‘Select Your Post Type(s)’ field, you need to select the ‘Product’ option, which is the custom post type for WooCommerce products.
If you have hundreds of products, then you may want to create multiple galleries.
You can narrow down the gallery listings by selecting taxonomy terms for specific product tags or categories.
Simply repeat this process with different product tags and categories each time you create a new product gallery. The post type will always be ‘Product’ in all your WooCommerce product galleries.
You can also choose a taxonomy term relation to select and display specific products in your galleries.
Once you are done, you can publish your product gallery which will make it available to be added anywhere on your WordPress site.
Adding WooCommerce Product Gallery in WordPress
Next, you can add a new post or page or edit an existing one to display your WooCommerce product gallery.
Once you’re in the content editor, simply click the ‘+’ button and add the Envira Gallery block.
After that, you can select your product image gallery in the Envira Gallery block.
Simply click the dropdown menu and choose the gallery you created earlier.
You’ll now see a preview of your gallery in the block editor. If it doesn’t load, then don’t worry, you can simply preview your blog post or page to see if it’s working properly.
Next, you can save and publish your post. After that, visit your website to see the product gallery in action.
Are you looking for the best Instagram plugins for WordPress?
Whether you want to display your Instagram photo feed, create an Instagram slider, add the Instagram icon with a link to your profile, or create an Instagram giveaway to grow your followers, this list is for you.
In this article, we’ve hand-picked the best Instagram plugins for WordPress to help you increase your followers and boost engagement.
Instagram Feed Pro from Smash Balloon is the best Instagram feed plugin in the market. Over 1.3 million websites use the plugin to create custom Instagram photo feeds.
There is a free version of the plugin that lets easily create a custom Instagram social photo feed.
The free version comes with a lot of features built-in, but you can upgrade to the Pro version to unlock additional features like multiple layout choices: masonry grid, horizontal layout, carousel, and more.
You can also use the Pro version to display several different Instagram feeds on your site from multiple sources including #hashtag feeds. It also letsy ou create shoppable feeds and has lightbox popup option with built-in social sharing buttons.
You can easily add your Instagram feed to any post or page using the block editor or a sidebar widget. The plugin also supports Instagram stories and brings them to your WordPress site.
By far the best part about Smash Balloon’s Instagram plugin is their smart feed cache and backup functionality. This allows you to show Instagram photos on your site without slowing your site down, and your photos will show even if Instagram API goes down (which is a huge benefit).
RafflePress is a giveaway and rewards plugin for WordPress. You can integrate it with Instagram to grow your followers.
With RafflePress, it’s incredibly easy to set up a contest that prompts your visitors to take specific actions using Instagram. That might mean visiting your Instagram profile or viewing one of your Instagram posts.
Of course, you can also use RafflePress to get users to take other actions too.
For example, you could run a RafflePress giveaway or contest for your Instagram followers where they need to visit a specific page of your website. You could even ask them to join your email list in order to enter.
RafflePress is extremely to use and it’s by far the most feature-rich giveaway and contest plugin for WordPress. You can try the free version of RafflePress plugin to get started.
Revive Old Posts is a social media scheduling plugin. It lets you easily share both old and new content on social networks, including Instagram.
You can set a custom schedule for your social media posts. If you don’t want to share all your posts, you can leave out content on your blog by setting a date range or by excluding certain categories or tags.
This plugin also has the ability to share photos from your media library on Instagram. You can even share new posts the moment they’re published and add custom UTM tags to your Instagram posts.
There is a free version of the plugin, too, but that only lets you share content on Facebook pages and Twitter.
It lets you create advanced photo and video galleries in WordPress with features like albums, lightbox popups, pagination, tagging, and more.
Envira comes with an Instagram Addon that lets you import your Instagram images into WordPress, so you can add it alongside your other photo galleries.
It’s up to you whether you want to bring the images onto your blog and have them open in a lightbox, or whether you want the images to link to your Instagram posts.
It comes with a Dynamic slider addon that lets you add Instagram photos along with your featured blog post thumbnails, testimonials, and others in a single slider.
You can determine exactly what content from Instagram you want to use on your slider. For instance, you could include only photos with specific tags.
You can also control the speed of your sliders and tweak lots of other settings to match your website layout.
10Web Social Photo Feed is quick to set up and lets you add Instagram feeds to any of your posts or pages. With the free version, you can choose from thumbnail images or regular sized ones. The premium version offers more options.
You can use 10Web Social Photo Feed to display your Instagram posts in your WordPress sidebar. There’s a built-in widget for this, making it easy and straightforward.
The free version lets you include single feeds from your Instagram account or from a specified hashtag. With the premium version, you can create mixed feeds from multiple hashtags.
The support team is helpful and quick to get back to queries, even from free users.
Simple Social Icons lets you add social media icons in a sidebar widget. These icons have links to your profile on Instagram and other social networks. They make it very easy for your readers to find and follow you there.
Simple Social Icons is a very straightforward plugin that takes just moments to set up. It’s completely free, too.
With this plugin, you can customize the style and color of your icons and choose how to align them. Note that you can’t add more icons or change the order unless you use a filter.
Are you looking for the best WordPress gallery plugin for your website?
There are so many WordPress photo gallery plugins available, but the problem is that most will either slow down your website, or they’re extremely difficult to use.
To help you pick the right solution, we have created a detailed comparison of the performance, features, and quality of the best WordPress photo gallery plugins.
Our goal is to help you find the WordPress photo and video gallery plugin, that is fast, easy to use, and has all the features you will need.
Our Criteria for the Best WordPress Gallery Plugin
In our opinion, a perfect WordPress gallery plugin should be fast, easy to use, and have all the necessary features that you need to create beautiful galleries (such as lightboxes, image navigation, albums, pagination, etc).
The gallery plugin should offer a great user experience and help improve your image SEO as well.
4 Best WordPress Gallery Plugins
We have hand-picked the four most popular WordPress photo gallery plugins on the market.
In our comparison, we will look at the speed, features, ease of use, and reliability of these plugins:
Speed is crucial when you are choosing a WordPress photo gallery plugin. Not only does it affect your WordPress SEO, but it also affects user experience on your site.
If you are using a gallery plugin for a portfolio or photography site, then you simply cannot afford to compromise on speed.
We ran a speed test for each of these plugins using the same images without modifying any default settings. Below are our results:
As you can see in the above results, Envira Gallery came out as the fastest loading WordPress image gallery plugin. Modula came as a very close second with barely few milliseconds difference and with smaller page size.
The reason why Envira Gallery and Modula are so fast is that they are both well coded and highly optimized for speed. If performance and speed is your main concern (which it should be), then Modula and Envira Gallery are both great options.
Winner: It’s a tie between Envira Gallery and Modula
Ease of Use
Creating image galleries is not as simple as uploading a single image to your posts. You need to choose layouts, select columns, add thumbnail sizes, choose lightbox animations, etc.
Most beginners find the process quite overwhelming. The goal here is to find a WordPress photo gallery plugin that is both powerful and beginner friendly at the same time.
Envira Gallery
Envira Gallery follows and adheres to the WordPress coding standards and best practices. It provides a user interface that seamlessly blends into your WordPress admin area.
Creating a new gallery is quite simple and beginner friendly.
Envira Gallery also comes with a Gutenberg block allowing you to easily add photo galleries into any WordPress post and page. You can also change gallery settings right from the post edit screen.
Classic editor users can use the shortcode or the button above the post editor to quickly add any gallery or album in your post/page.
Aside from that Envira Gallery also shows you the template tag that you can use it in your WordPress templates. This is particularly handy if you are developing a site for a client and want to include galleries straight into the theme.
Modula
Modula Gallery uses a similar approach to create new photo galleries. You can simply upload your files or select them from the media library to create a photo gallery.
Below the images, you will find all gallery settings organized in tabs. From here you can change gallery style, theme, lightbox, and other settings.
To insert the gallery into WordPress posts and pages, you will need to copy the gallery shortcode and insert it using the Shortcode block in the Gutenberg editor.
There are no sidebar widgets or Gutenberg blocks at the moment to make it easier for users to insert Galleries.
FooGallery
FooGallery takes the similar approach as Envira Gallery and Modula. They use a simple user interface that looks and feels like WordPress.
After uploading your photos, you can adjust the gallery settings in great details below the images.
FooGallery also makes it easy to insert photo galleries. You can use the built-in Gutenberg block, shortcode, or sidebar widget to display your photo galleries anywhere in WordPress. It also adds a button on top of the Classic Editor to select and insert galleries.
Unlike Envira Gallery, FooGallery does not show the template tag to insert your galleries into theme files or templates.
NextGEN Gallery
NextGEN is a little different than our other three contenders. It brings its own user interface, database tables, and separate folders to store your images. This is why NextGEN user interface looks a bit complicated in WordPress.
It does offer a gallery wizard which can be helpful for beginners. However, it will take users some time to understand how to upload images and create a gallery. You may also find it a bit difficult to add the gallery into your post/page.
NextGen adds a Gutenberg block which allows you to create and add galleries from the post edit screen. For classic editor users, it adds a button to the post editor.
Winner: No clear winner. Envira, Modula, and Foo Gallery all offer easy to use interface.
Features
In order to create a beautiful photo gallery, you need functionality like lightboxes, full-screen mode, albums, pagination, navigation, slideshow, password protection, EXIF metadata, social media sharing, and more.
However it’s important to remember that too many features can slow down your site, so let’s take a look at how our contenders handle the balance in features and functionality.
Envira Gallery
Envira Gallery is built with a mobile first approach. This means that it is fully responsive out of the box.
It allows you to easily choose thumbnail sizes, animations, gallery layouts, add meta tags for your images all from the single user interface.
Apart from the built-in features, there are loads of features that you can add by installing addons such as: gallery templates, social sharing, videos, password protection, image protection, albums, slideshow, Pinterest, image proofing, WooCommerce support, and more.
Modula
Modula is the newest of all plugins on our list, so they do not have the advanced features. However the plugin does cover all the basic features you’ll want from a WordPress gallery plugin like lightbox popup, social sharing, custom styles, grid layouts, and more.
It comes with a custom grid feature which allows you to use simple drag and drop to create your own custom grid for galleries.
It also has a video addon for creating video galleries. However, Modula is lacking other features like albums, watermarking, proofing, and gallery templates.
FooGallery
FooGallery comes with a lot of powerful features however it is not mobile responsive out of the box. You can select the responsive template to add a responsive photo gallery.
Another feature that we missed is the lightbox. You can install the free Foobox plugin to add lightbox functionality, but we felt that it should have been packaged with the core gallery plugin.
FooGallery also comes with extensions that you can install to add more features such as custom branding, cube effect, lightbox, and more.
NextGEN Gallery
NextGEN Gallery is the oldest of all four plugins, and it comes with an extensive list of features.
Many of the features that are available as addons in Envira and Foo, are available out of the box in NextGEN gallery. There are also premium addons with more features that you can install.
Most NextGen features require a certain level of familiarity with the plugin. Users will need some time to figure things out, reading the documentation, and posting questions in support forums.
Winner: Envira Gallery is the clear winner here with its extensive list of features that cover all the basics + advanced features for photographers, eCommerce websites, and portfolios. NextGEN is the close second with a matching set of features.
We need to see if you can easily import/export and backup your photo gallery data.
Envira Gallery
Envira stores all your photo galleries as custom post types in the WordPress database. It stores your media files using the default WordPress media location. This means if you backup your WordPress site, then you will have all Envira Gallery data backed up.
Envira also allows you to import/export your individual galleries. This means that you can move a single gallery from one WordPress site to another.
When you move your WordPress site, Envira will automatically detect it and will show you an option to fix the migration. All these features make Envira Gallery the most reliable photo gallery plugin for WordPress.
Modula
Modula also uses a custom WordPress content type to store your photo galleries. This means you can save your photo galleries with your WordPress backup and restore them when you restore WordPress site from backup.
Modula doesn’t allow you to import/export individual galleries.
FooGallery
Similar to Envira, FooGallery also stores your galleries as custom post types in the WordPress database. If you backup your WordPress site, then you will have a FooGallery data backup as well.
However, if you just want to export individual galleries, then there is no option for that because the plugin doesn’t come with an import/export feature.
NextGEN Gallery
NextGEN gallery does not come with import/export feature. Since it stores your data in separate database tables, this means you will need to configure your WordPress backup plugin to include those tables.
NextGEN also stores your images in a separate folder. If you want to create a backup for them, then you will need to download the folder separately to your computer.
Both Envira and FooGallery offer NextGen importers to make it easy for users to switch to their platform.
Winner: Enivra Gallery offers the most comprehensive set of tools to import/export your photo galleries.
Pricing
All four plugins have a free WordPress gallery version available in the WordPress plugin directory. All four of them have paid upgrades available with more features. The pricing of your photo gallery plugin will depend on which plan you want to use for any of these plugins. You can choose a plan based on the features you need after trying the free versions.
Winner: No clear winners here – the pricing of products will vary based on what features you need and plan that you select.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a simple and fast solution, then Envira Gallery and Modula Gallery are both great options for a WordPress gallery plugin.
If you need the advanced features and don’t mind a learning curve, then NextGen gallery is your best option.
We hope this article helped you pick the best WordPress gallery plugin for your website. You may also want to see our expert-pick of the must have WordPress plugins for all websites.
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