publishpress | The Blog Pros

May 2, 2024

How to Create an Effective Content Plan in WordPress (9 Expert Tips)

Are you hitting a brick wall trying to plan upcoming content for your blog or business website?

A WordPress website is a powerful tool. But so many business owners waste their potential by not being intentional about the content they create.

The right content will attract the right visitors. It will answer their questions and provide the information they are searching for. Plus, it can help you grow a community of people who appreciate the types of products or services you provide.

So, here are my top tips on how to create an effective content plan in WordPress.

Note: This is a guest post by Chris Christoff, the Awesome Motive partner in charge of MonsterInsights, the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. This is an expert column that we publish every Thursday, where we invite a WordPress expert to share their experiences with our readers.

I will cover quite a few topics in this post. Here’s a handy list so you can jump to the section you are most interested in:

What Are Users Searching For?
Which Search Terms Are Bringing Visitors to My Website?
Who Is Visiting My Website?
What Is Working on My Site?
What Is Declining in Traffic on My Site?
What Is Missing From My Site?
What Are My Competitors Doing Well?
Use AI Tools to Discover More Content Ideas
Schedule Your Content Plan on a Content Calendar

1. What Are Users Searching For?

Internet users perform 5.9 million Google searches per minute. Wouldn’t it be great to know what they are looking for so you can provide the answers? That’s what keyword research is all about.

Keywords are the specific words and phrases that users type into Google and other search engines to find the content they are looking for.

You can explore the top keywords related to your blog’s niche using free and paid keyword research tools. Throughout this article, I’ll touch on how to use a number of these tools.

Let’s start with Semrush. This is one of my favorite keyword research tools because it makes it easy to discover keywords related to your WordPress blog.

You simply type in any word or phrase related to your business, and Semrush will give you a list of keyword variations, questions, and related keywords.

A list of related keywords in the Semrush platform

These will reveal topics you should plan to write about. Make sure you include these keywords in a natural way within the content of your blog posts.

Alternative: The WPBeginner Keyword Generator is another great and free option.

Another useful tool is Google Trends, which shows you how the popularity of a keyword varies over time. This can show you whether a specific keyword is becoming more or less popular, or if it is searched for more often at certain times of the year.

This will help you spot topics that are quickly growing in importance and topics that are best written about at certain times of the year.

For example, you will want to schedule some topics for summer or winter or during certain holidays, like Christmas or Thanksgiving.

2. Which Search Terms Are Bringing Visitors to My Website?

Now you have a useful list of the relevant keywords that users are generally searching for, you should spend some time learning about the phrases people are using to find your WordPress site right now. This will be a list of search terms you are already ranking for.

One of the best tools to uncover this information is Google Search Console. It’s a free tool that lets you monitor your site’s presence in Google search results.

However, like many online tools, Google Search Console is quite technical and can be difficult for beginners to use.

That’s the problem MonsterInsights intends to solve. It connects with Google Search Console and Google Analytics to let you view easy-to-understand reports right from your WordPress dashboard.

For example, MonsterInsights offers a Search Console report that lists the top 50 Google search terms that bring visitors to your site.

Viewing Google Search Console Report in MonsterInsights

This data shows you which topics your current visitors are interested in. Since you are already getting traffic on those keywords, you can improve your search performance by creating new content on those topics.

Next, I recommend asking yourself whether your WordPress blog posts are ranking for the right keywords. If you have already written content that targets specific keywords but are not getting much traffic for them, then you will need to concentrate on creating better content.

3. Who Is Visiting My Website?

I always suggest that business owners plan their content around their target audience. This is the group of people you want to reach with your products and services.

They are likely to have similar demographics, needs, and interests, and understanding what they are will help you write more engaging content.

The best tool for understanding your website visitors is Google Analytics. It’s a free tool that collects all sorts of information about your website visitors, including the country they live in, the operating system and browser they use, and even their screen resolution.

You can view this information right from your WordPress dashboard using the MonsterInsights Demographics report. It displays visitor information from Google Analytics in a friendly and helpful way.

You can see your visitors’ ages and genders at a glance. This information will help you plan more compelling content.

For example, you will probably want to write with a different style and voice for young female visitors compared to a website that attracts mainly middle-aged men.

This report also lists your visitors’ interests, revealing the topics your target audience is most interested in. This data is also very helpful when planning content.

For more details, just see this article on how to track website visitors in WordPress.

You may be surprised by this demographic data because you are trying to target a completely different audience. In that case, something has gone wrong with your content, and you should keep these insights in mind when planning new content and updates.

4. What Is Working on My Site?

Another important consideration when creating an effective content plan is looking at the website content that is already working well. These are the posts that are receiving the most traffic and that your visitors spend the most time on.

For example, it’s always a good idea to look for your most important pages and posts.

Once you know which posts are performing the best, you can plan to create more content on similar topics and grow your traffic.

I also recommend checking keyword rankings for your top articles. You may be able to improve their rankings by scheduling updates and optimizations.

You can uncover more detailed insights by installing the MonsterInsights Custom Dimensions addon. This will let you create reports of your most popular authors, top categories, top focus keywords, and most popular post types.

In turn, this information will help you build a data-driven content strategy that works.

For example, if one author’s posts are performing well, then you can train the rest of your team to follow their techniques. Or discovering your top categories will show you popular topics on your website that you should plan more content for.

5. What Is Declining in Traffic on My Site?

Content planning isn’t just about deciding on new articles to write. It’s also about regularly updating existing content to stay relevant and accurate.

Content decay is where your posts decline in traffic and search rankings over time. They will continue to lose traffic unless you update that content.

This can happen when your content becomes old or outdated, or your competitors write better content targeting the same keywords. It may also be that those keywords are no longer being searched for as often, or that Google has changed their algorithm.

In my opinion, content decay is one of the biggest problems faced by website owners and online businesses.

That’s why it’s a good idea to monitor how individual posts are ranking using a WordPress SEO plugin. All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is one of the best options, and it helps you easily optimize your website for search engines.

It has a Content Performance report that displays your best-performing posts and pages and shows whether their search engine rankings are rising or falling.

You can quickly see which posts have lost the most rankings in the ‘Top Losing’ tab.

AIOSEO also offers a more detailed Content Rankings report. This displays the date you last updated all of your website content, the change in ranking, and a helpful graph of how each post has performed over the last year.

Once you identify the posts on your website that are declining, you can schedule updates so they will start to rank well again.

You should update any information that has changed since the post was written and optimize it for SEO. For example, you might update the images, embed a video, or add a table of contents or FAQ section.

6. What Is Missing From My Site?

Your WordPress blog is a work in progress. That means there will be lots of topics that users are searching for that you haven’t written about yet.

One of the best things you can do when planning new content is to perform a content gap analysis. This process involves comparing the keywords your audience is looking for against your website content and planning to write new posts to fill the gaps you haven’t covered yet.

I showed you earlier how Semrush can help you discover important keywords that you should cover in your articles.

It also offers a Keyword Gap report that can automatically show you which keywords are missing from your website or not performing well.

You simply enter the URLs of your top competitors to discover the keywords they are ranking for but you are not.

Then, you can easily filter the list to find keywords that are missing or weak on your blog.

Once you identify which topics are missing, you can plan to create helpful content to fill those gaps and improve your website’s search performance.

Now, I want to show you some other ways you can get content ideas from your competitors.

7. What Are My Competitors Doing Well?

I’ve been working in the content marketing space for a long time, and it’s more competitive than ever. You can only stay ahead of the game if you keep your eye on what others are doing in your industry.

Chances are, some of your competitors’ content is outperforming yours. Performing a competitor analysis lets you study what they are doing well so you can improve your own website and ultimately outrank them on search.

You’ve just seen how the Semrush Keyword Gap report shows you the keywords your competitors outrank you on. You can also use their Domain Overview report to discover a more complete analysis of competing websites.

Once you enter your competitor’s URL, you’ll be able to see its authority score, organic search traffic, paid search traffic, backlinks, and a whole lot more.

You’ll also see the countries that provide the most traffic and a graph of their traffic over time.

Besides that, you can discover their top-performing pages and tons of other useful data that you can use to improve your content strategy.

I appreciate how Semrush lets you dig in and explore each aspect of the report to give you fresh insights into your competitor’s SEO strategies.

Now, you can use that information to set goals for your website and identify areas for improvement.

8. Use AI Tools to Discover More Content Ideas

Marketers who use AI (artificial intelligence) see an average of 70% increase in ROI (return on investment). When brainstorming new content ideas, artificial intelligence tools can help by identifying relevant trends, topics, and keywords.

This can spark new content ideas and help you stay on top of current industry discussions.

It can be as simple as typing the right prompt into ChatGPT.

With practice, you’ll start using longer and more precise prompts to get the exact help you are looking for. Here are a few of my own examples that you can use when creating a content plan.

This prompt simply asks for 10 blog post ideas on certain topics, along with a title for each post:

Create a list of at least 10 blog post ideas on the topics of stress management and mental health. Suggest an SEO-friendly title for each post, and use an emotional and persuasive tone in post titles.

Below, you can see the ideas that ChatGPT gave me in response:

ChatGPT Prompt to Generate Content Ideas

If you are planning to write product reviews, then you can ask the AI for the most popular products used in a particular area, and a brief explanation of how they can help, like this:

Create a list of the most popular equipment needed in a home office, along with the pros and cons of each one.

In the same way, you might ask for a list of problems people typically have when trying to accomplish a particular task:

Create a list of problems people typically experience when performing a content gap analysis. Provide three tips on how to overcome each problem.

Specific questions like this will provide a more helpful list of suggestions than generic prompts.

Once you have generated a list of new content ideas, artificial intelligence can help you write powerful headlines for each post. For example, I recommend starting by using a free headline analyzer tool on websites like WPBeginner and MonsterInsights.

After that, you can use tools such as All in One SEO to optimize your headlines. With the click of your mouse, you will be offered 5 optimized post titles that are designed to capture your audience’s interest using up-to-date best practices.

For more details, just see this tutorial on how to write powerful headlines with AI.

9. Schedule Your Content Plan on a Content Calendar

If you followed all my tips above, then you should now have a very long list of ideas. This will include new blog post topics, optimized titles and keywords, and articles that need to be updated.

It’s now time to make a plan. The problem is that a large list of keywords can overwhelm beginners, so they simply give up.

You can make sure those posts actually get written or updated by scheduling them on your content calendar. This will act like a roadmap, giving you a clear overview of your content strategy and keeping you on track.

You can use popular online task management tools like Asana or Trello. You may already be familiar with these web apps, and they come with powerful features that help you stay on track.

Additionally, if you have a multi-author blog, then solutions like PublishPress Pro can improve your editorial workflow. This WordPress plugin lets you create a content calendar with custom post statuses, editorial comments, and email notifications.

Just make sure that your publishing schedule is consistent and achievable. Your goal is to create a bird’s eye view of your content strategy that keeps you organized and productive.

I hope these practical tips help you create an effective content plan for your WordPress blog. You may also want to see these guides on how to increase your blog traffic and the best analytics solutions for WordPress users.

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

The post How to Create an Effective Content Plan in WordPress (9 Expert Tips) first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 2, 2024

How to Auto-Schedule Your WordPress Blog Posts

Do you want to auto-schedule your WordPress blog posts?

Auto-scheduling your posts can help you pick an article to publish randomly on your pre-selected publication date. This can also help make sure that your content is published at the optimal time for audience engagement.

In this article, we will show you how to easily auto-schedule your WordPress blog posts.

Why Auto-Schedule WordPress Blog Posts?

By default, WordPress allows you to schedule your posts to be published later. However, you will have to manually schedule every post that you write according to your content calendar, which can be time-consuming.

By auto-scheduling your WordPress posts, you can use an automatic system with a fixed time to publish all your scheduled posts.

For example, if you have written 10 blog posts to be published the following month, then you can auto-schedule all the articles to go live in a random order on your preselected publication dates.

This way, you won’t have to manually schedule everything on your WordPress website, helping you save time.

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to easily auto-schedule your WordPress posts, step by step.

How to Auto-Schedule WordPress Blog Posts

You can easily auto-schedule your WordPress blog posts using the PublishPress Planner plugin. This free plugin lets you organize and schedule your WordPress content.

Note: To unlock some of the more advanced features in the plugin, you will have to upgrade to the PublishPress Pro plan. This will give you access to reminder notifications, a Slack integration, and more.

First, you need to install and activate the PublishPress Planner plugin. For detailed instructions, you can see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, visit the Planner » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard and switch to the ‘Content Calendar’ tab from the top.

Here, you need to check the ‘Scheduled’ box next to the ‘Statuses to display publish time’ option. You can also choose other publication statuses like draft or pending review if you like.

Once you have done that, you must choose a time format for your post’s publication and then click on the field next to the ‘Default publish time for items created in the calendar’ option.

This will open a prompt on the screen where you can pick the exact time, hour, and minute for your scheduled posts to be published daily.

We recommend choosing a publishing time when there is usually an increase in your blog traffic. To determine the correct time to publish your blog posts, you may want to see our tutorial on when is the best time to publish a blog.

Finally, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Choose a time for the publication of the scheduled posts

Now, you need to open the post that you want to schedule on your WordPress blog in the block editor.

Here, you will see a ‘Post Status’ dropdown menu in the block panel on the right. Once you have completed your post, simply open this dropdown menu and select the ‘Scheduled’ option.

After that, click the ‘Save as Scheduled’ button on the top of the screen to store your settings.

Your post has now been scheduled and will be published on the day and time that you chose in the settings earlier.

You can see all your published and scheduled posts by visiting the Planner » Content Calendar page from the WordPress dashboard.

Bonus: How to Increase WordPress Blog Traffic

Consistently publishing content is just one way to boost your rankings in the search results and get more visitors to your blog. You can also easily increase your blog traffic by optimizing your content for search engines.

This will improve your content’s authority and reach, as well as make your blog posts more likely to appear on search results pages (SERPs).

To do this, you can use All in One SEO (AIOSEO), which is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It is used by over 3+ million users and is a comprehensive SEO toolkit that can help your website rank higher.

It comes with features like a headline analyzer, Flesch reading score, SEO health check, XML sitemaps, and more to improve your content.

Plus, it also offers schema markup like Article schema, FAQ schema, and How To schema to increase your visibility on Google.

Adding AIOSEO schema markup to a page or post

AIOSEO provides suggestions to use active voice, insert transition words, and distribute subheadings better. It also analyzes your blog posts for keyword density, readability, and title tags, making it the best writing assistant software on the market.

By using the tips suggested by AIOSEO, you can make your content more readable while at the same time optimizing it for search engines.

For more information, you can see our complete All in One SEO review.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily auto-schedule your WordPress blog posts. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to add custom post status for blog posts in WordPress and our top picks for the best plugins to efficiently manage WordPress multi-author blogs.

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

The post How to Auto-Schedule Your WordPress Blog Posts first appeared on WPBeginner.

December 6, 2023

How to Email Authors When Articles Are Published in WordPress

Do you want to email authors when their articles are published in WordPress?

If you run a multi-author blog, then notifying authors when their blog posts are published keeps them informed. Plus, it can also help increase engagement on your website since authors can quickly share their content and participate in discussions.

In this article, we will show you how to email authors when their articles are published in WordPress.

Why Email Authors When Their Articles Are Published in WordPress?

By notifying authors when their posts are published on your WordPress blog, you allow them to immediately promote their work on social media platforms and communicate with readers in the comments section.

Additionally, notifications keep authors updated about the publication statuses for different posts. This helps build trust among your team by showing that you value the writer’s contributions to your multi-author blog.

By alerting authors immediately upon post publication, you also give them the opportunity to view their content and correct any typos or errors before visitors have a chance to read it.

Having said that, let’s see how to easily email authors when their articles are published in WordPress. You can use the links below to jump to the method of your choice:

Method 1: Email Author When Their Article Is Published in WordPress Using a Plugin
Method 2: Email Author When Their Article Is Published in WordPress Using Code
Bonus: Use WP Mail SMTP to Send Your Emails

Method 1: Email Author When Their Article Is Published in WordPress Using a Plugin

If you prefer to use a plugin to notify your authors, then this method is for you.

First, you need to install and activate the PublishPress Planner plugin. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You can also use the PublishPress Pro plan to unlock more features like Slack integration, send reminder notifications, and meta posts. This will help you improve the overall editorial workflow of your multi-author blog.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Planner » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar and switch to the ‘Notifications’ tab.

Once you are there, type in the admin email address that will be used to send emails to your authors next to the ‘Email from’ option.

After that, check the ‘Always notify the author of the content’ option to send emails to authors every time their posts are published on your website.

If you also want to notify the users who edited the post, then you can check the ‘Always notify users who have edited the content’ option.

Once you are done, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.

Now, when you publish an author’s post, they will receive an email notification that looks like this:

Preview of author email notification upon post publication

Method 2: Email Author When Their Article Is Published in WordPress Using Code

If you don’t want to use a plugin, then you can also automatically send emails to authors by adding code to your theme’s functions.php file.

However, the smallest error when adding code can break your website and make it inaccessible.

That is why we recommend always using WPCode. It is the best WordPress code snippets plugin on the market that makes it super safe and easy to add custom code to your website.

First, you need to install and activate the WPCode plugin. For details, you can see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You can also use WPCode’s free plan for this tutorial. However, upgrading to the pro version will give you access to more features like a code snippets library, conditional logic, CSS snippets, and more.

Upon activation, simply visit the Code Snippets » + Add Snippet page from the WordPress dashboard. Then, click the ‘Use Snippet’ button under the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option.

This will take you to the ‘Create Custom Snippet’ page, where you can start by adding a title for the code snippet.

After that, select the ‘PHP Snippet’ option from the Code Type dropdown menu on the right.

Choose the PHP Snippet option for emailing authors upon post publication

Now copy and paste the following custom code into the ‘Code Preview’ box:

function notifyauthor($post_id) {
 
$post = get_post($post_id);
$author = get_userdata($post->post_author);
$subject = "Post Published: ".$post->post_title."";
 
$message = "
      Hi ".$author->display_name.",
       
      Your post, \"".$post->post_title."\" has just been published.
       
      View post: ".get_permalink( $post_id )."
       
      Thanks"
      ;
       
   wp_mail($author->user_email, $subject, $message);
}
add_action('publish_post', 'notifyauthor');

This code runs when a new post is published in WordPress. It sends an email notification to the author using the subject and message defined in the code. Feel free to change the subject and message fields to meet your needs.

Once you have done that, scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section and choose the ‘Auto Insert’ mode. The code will be automatically executed on your website upon activation.

Finally, scroll back to the top and toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch to ‘Active’.

After that, click the ‘Save Snippet’ button to store your settings.

Save the snippet for emailing authors upon post publication

Now, when you publish a post, the author will automatically receive an email notification.

It will look like this:

Preview for sending email notification to authors upon post publication

Bonus: Use WP Mail SMTP to Send Your Emails

When you send emails to your authors about their published posts, you are using the default WordPress email settings, which are not always reliable.

This means that your email may not reach the author or might even end up in their spam folder.

To fix this issue, you can use WP Mail SMTP, which is the best WordPress SMTP plugin on the market. It uses the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) method for mail transmission and eliminates your email delivery problems.

You can easily connect WP Mail SMTP with popular email marketing services and make sure that your emails reach the user’s inbox immediately.

With WP Mail SMTP, you can easily avoid the spam folder, track your email logs, use backup connections and failure alerts, and use premade templates to send emails to your users.

For detailed instructions, you can see our beginner’s guide on how to properly configure your WordPress email settings.

We hope this article helped you learn how to email authors when their articles are published in WordPress. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to highlight author comments in WordPress and our expert picks for the best free author bio box plugins in WordPress.

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

The post How to Email Authors When Articles Are Published in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 22, 2022

PublishPress Acquires MetaSlider Plugin and MetaSlider Lightbox

PublishPress, a company that develops free and commercial publishing and permissions plugins for WordPress, has acquired MetaSlider from Extendify. The plugin is used on more than 700,000 sites to build sliders, slideshows, carousels, and galleries. The company’s mission is to help publishers succeed, so this is a curious acquisition as sliders seem to have fallen out of favor on the web over the past seven years, due to problems with SEO, performance, and poor engagement.

“A traditional slider isn’t a good fit for a news website for a couple of reasons,” PublishPress founder Steve Burge said. “First, publishers want a display that they can update easily. Second, they can be worried about the performance slowdown from a slider.

“We aim to tackle those problems head-on. To solve the first issue, we plan to expand dynamic content features of MetaSlider so you can easily pull in fresh content. And secondly, we’ll focus on the speed of MetaSlider, so you don’t have to worry about a slow site.”

Burge said PublishPress will use MetaSlider as a platform for building a suite of image tools. As part of the sale, the company has also acquired MetaSlider Lightbox, which has 10,000 active installs, and a photo gallery that’s in a beta version.

“There will be more [tools] to come,” Burge said. “Most of my favorite publishers also have beautiful photography with their stories. From big WordPress publishers such as Outside Magazine to small start-ups such as TheNarwhal, the photos often add as much as the text. We hope to build tools to help publishers showcase their images.”

Burge said the sale of MetaSlider started with a Twitter DM. He had never spoken with the Extendify team before but said the process was “quick and easy” because all the data was “clean and professionally organized.”

“The MetaSlider plugin is almost 10 years old, and in the last few years it was maintained by a couple of companies,” Burge said. “It was previously owned by the team behind UpdraftPlus and WP-Optimize. You can still see similarities in the orange color scheme between MetaSlider, UpdraftPlus, and WP-Optimize.”

Extendify took on the plugin as a side project but it was never a core product for their company.

“They were excited about our desire to invest in MetaSlider to ensure that it remains a great plugin for WordPress users,” Burge said. “After some recent high-profile handovers went badly, we’ve seen sellers do careful due diligence on who they sell to.”

Burge could not share any financial details of the acquisition but said the sale price was based strictly on revenue even though the MetaSlider plugin has nearly a million users.

“In most sales, the number of active installs is a bonus rather than a driving factor,” Burge said. “It’s not uncommon, particularly for older plugins, for 1% or less of active installs to convert to paying customers.”

MetaSlider has a Pro version that PublishPress will continue sell and the plugins will remain as a standalone brand focused on images. They will not be included in the PublishPress plugin bundle. Burge said users can expect MetaSlider to continue at the same price but with more features.

“The business model won’t change and the Pro version will support future development on the plugin,” he said. “At the moment, there’s only a single Pro version based on the number of sites. That won’t change in at least the next few months as we focus on adding more features and giving users more value for their money.”

August 19, 2022

How To Efficiently Manage Post Series in WordPress

Are you looking for a better way to manage post series in WordPress?

If you’re working on an online novel or simply want to cover a broad industry topic, then creating a long post may not work for you. A post series allows you to dig deep into a particular topic and encourage readers to keep coming back for more.

In this article, we’ll show you how to efficiently manage post series in WordPress.

Why Publish Post Series in WordPress?

If you are writing about a complex topic on your WordPress website, then it is often better to write a series of posts that break the topic up into smaller chunks than to write one long post.

For example, our ultimate guide to speed up WordPress is a roundup of a series of posts we published on different ways to improve your site’s performance.

When you write a big series of posts like that, it can be tough to help your readers navigate the series and find all the information in the right order.

You could simply add a paragraph before each post telling your users that the post is part of a series and then list the rest of the posts at the bottom. But then you would have to manually update every post each time you publish a new article in the series.

Another solution would be to create a custom taxonomy called ‘Series’, but this also creates more work, such as creating or customizing template files.

Luckily, there is a WordPress plugin that will help you manage a series of articles. Let’s take a look at how to efficiently manage post series in WordPress.

How to Efficiently Manage Post Series in WordPress

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

There is a premium version with more features, but for this tutorial, we’ll use the free plugin.

As soon as the plugin is activated, you will be able to create new series and add posts to it.

Creating a New Series

To create your first series, you’ll need to head over to the Posts » Manage Series page. This looks similar to the page you see when adding new categories.

Once there, you will need to type a name, slug, and description for the series. When you’re finished, you’ll need to click the ‘Add New Series’ button at the bottom of the page.

You’ll notice that the new series is added to the list on the left.

Adding Posts to the Series

Now you can add some blog posts to the series. To start, simply create a new post or edit an old one.

In the settings panel on the right of the screen, you’ll notice a new section called ‘Series’. Simply click the button next to the series you created to add this post.

Make sure you click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button at the top of the page to push the post live as part of the series.

Next, you should add any other existing posts to the series. As you continue to write new articles, simply repeat this step to add them to the series.

Customizing the Order of Posts in the Series

By default, your articles will be displayed in the order you add them to the series. However, you can customize the post order by visiting the Posts » Publish Series page in your WordPress admin area.

Here you will see all the series you have created, with columns to show how many articles are published, unpublished, and scheduled in each. You will also see links to update the post order, publish or unpublish all, and view the series.

Click the 'Update Order' Link to Reorder Your Posts

To change the order of the posts, you will need to click the ‘Update order’ link. You will now see a list of all the posts in that series.

You can reorder the articles by dragging the post names up or down the list. When you move a post, the ‘Current Part’ number will be updated automatically to reflect the new order.

Drag and Drop Your Posts to Place Them in the Right Order

When you’re happy with the order of the posts, make sure you click the ‘Update Order’ button to store your settings.

Previewing Your Post Series

Now you can visit your WordPress blog to see how your new post series looks. Simply view a post that is part of the series.

At the top of the article, there will be a message that the post is part of a series. You will also see a list of all posts in the series and can easily navigate between them by clicking a link.

You will also find links at the bottom of the article to navigate to the next and previous article in the series.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to efficiently manage post series in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to track visitors to your WordPress site, or check out our list of must have plugins to grow your site.

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

The post How To Efficiently Manage Post Series in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

May 19, 2022

How to Add a Blog Post Checklist to the WordPress Editor

Do you want to add a blog checklist to the WordPress editor?

A checklist can help you to make your posts the best they can possibly be. If you’ve added multiple authors to your site, then a checklist can also help everyone write in the same style and remember all the details.

In this article, we’ll show you how to add a blog post checklist to the WordPress editor.

Why Add a Blog Post Checklist to the WordPress Editor

Writing a good blog post for your WordPress website is only the first step.

Once you’ve finished writing, you’ll want to edit, proofread, add categories and tags, optimize the post for search engines, and more.

This is where a checklist can help. Checklists show a list of tasks you need to do before publishing your post, such as adding internal links or alt text.

Some WordPress plugins such as AIOSEO use checklists to help site owners with search engine optimization.

Checklists typically monitor your post as you’re writing and then check off each task as you finish it. This makes it easy to see what you’ve done well, and what you still need to work on.

But what if you wanted to create your own custom checklist in WordPress?

Perhaps you have a multi-author blog where you want to ensure a certain quality standard for your content. That’s where checklists come in handy.

With that in mind, let’s see how you can add a blog post checklist to the WordPress editor.

How to Add a Blog Post Checklist to the WordPress Editor

The easiest way to add a blog post checklist to the WordPress editor is by using PublishPress Checklists. This plugin adds a checklist to the right-hand menu of the WordPress editor.

A blog post checklist created with PublishPress

PublishPress has a list of default tasks that you can add to your checklists. It also lets you create custom checklist tasks for your WordPress blog.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need more instructions, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, head over to Checklists » Settings.

Here you can choose where WordPress will show your checklist. To add a blog checklist to the WordPress editor, you’ll want to check the ‘Posts’ checkbox.

Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Adding a checklist to the WordPress post editor

You can then build your checklist by going to Checklists » Checklists.

Here you’ll see all of the default tasks that you can add to your blog post checklist. PublishPress is able to detect when these tasks are completed and check them off for you.

Tasks for your WordPress blog post checklist

All these tasks are disabled by default.

To add a task to your blog post checklist, simply open the ‘Disabled, Recommended or Required’ dropdown menu.

The Recommended and Required checklist dropdown

You can now choose between ‘Required’ or ‘Recommended.’

If you click on ‘Required,’ then authors won’t be able to publish their blog post without checking off this task first.

If the user clicks on the ‘Publish’ button without completing all ‘Required’ tasks, then WordPress will show a ‘Please complete the following tasks before publishing’ message.

If you choose ‘Recommended’ instead, then the editor will show a message encouraging authors to complete any outstanding ‘Recommended’ tasks before publishing.

However, authors will be able to publish their post without completing these tasks.

After choosing between ‘Recommended’ and ‘Required,’ you can move onto ‘Who can ignore the task?’

Here, you can let certain user roles publish a post without completing the task, even if that task is ‘Required.’ For example, you may trust your site’s admins or editors to skip this task if they think it’s for the best.

To add a user role to your ‘ignore’ list, click on the ‘Who can ignore the task?’ box.

Creating an 'ignore' list for your WordPress checklist

This opens a dropdown showing all of the different user roles on your site.

You can now simply click on a role to add those users to your ‘ignore’ list.

Adding a blog post checklist to the WordPress editor

For some tasks, you may need to set a maximum and minimum value. For example, you can set a minimum number of categories that authors must add to a post. To learn more, please see our guide on how to add categories and subcategories in WordPress.

If the task has a ‘Min’ and ‘Max’ section, then you can type in the numbers you want to use.

To add more tasks to your checklist simply repeat the process described above.

You can also add custom tasks to your blog post checklist.

The drawback is that PublishPress can’t check whether the author has completed custom tasks. This means the author will need to do this check manually.

For more information about custom tasks you may want to add, please see our guide on how to optimize your blog posts for SEO like a pro.

To create a custom task, simply scroll to the very bottom of your screen and then click on ‘Add custom task.’

Creating custom blog list checklist tasks

This adds a new task ready for you to customize.

To start, type the task’s name into the ‘Enter name of custom task’ field. This text will be shown in your checklist, so make sure it lets authors know exactly what they need to do.

Adding a title to your custom checklist task

You can now make this task ‘Recommended’ or ‘Required,’ and give some users the option to ignore this task by following the process described above.

For custom tasks, you can specify the users who can mark this task as a complete. For example, you might use custom tasks to create a special ‘Editing’ checklist for users who have the Editor role.

How to add a blog post checklist to WordPress

To do this, click on the ‘Which roles can mark this task as complete’ box. This opens a dropdown where you can click to select any of your user roles.

Once you’ve added all the tasks to your checklist, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button. Now, you can visit the WordPress editor to see your blog post checklist live.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add a blog checklist to the WordPress editor. You may also want to check out our guide on how to create an email newsletter, and our expert pick of the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools you should use to improve your rankings.

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

The post How to Add a Blog Post Checklist to the WordPress Editor first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 7, 2021

How to Set a Minimum Word Count for WordPress Posts

Do you want to set a word count for your WordPress blog posts?

If you have multiple authors on your site, then setting up a minimum word count can help ensure that writers meet content standards and fully answer the reader’s questions.

In this article, we’ll show you how to set a minimum word count for your WordPress posts.

Why Set a Minimum Word Count for Your Blog Posts?

Whether you’re creating content yourself or run a multi-author website, you should set certain content standards to ensure top quality articles.

One of the standards you can introduce is a minimum word count for each WordPress blog post. With WordPress, you can restrict authors from publishing blog posts with thin content and ensure high content quality.

Why would you want to enforce longer posts?

Some research suggests that longer content tends to rank significantly better in search results than short content, which could help you get more traffic to your blog.

That being said, let’s look at how you can set a minimum word count in a WordPress blog.

Method 1: Set a Minimum Word Count Using a Plugin

A simple way to add a minimum word count to your WordPress website is by using a plugin like PublishPress Checklists.

PublishPress Checklists allow you to set tasks that authors must complete before publishing content. This includes adding a minimum and maximum word count on posts and pages.

For this tutorial, you can use the free version of PublishPress Checklists, since it has the features we need. There’s also a premium version available that offers more features like checklists for WooCommerce products.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the PublishPress Checklists plugin. You can follow our step-by-step tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin for more details.

Upon activation, you’ll need to go to Checklists from your WordPress admin panel. Next, you can set minimum and maximum words for the ‘Number of words in content’ option.

After that, you can choose whether you want to make the ‘Number of words in content’ option to be disabled, required, or recommended task from the dropdown menu.

If you select Recommended, then authors can publish articles even if they don’t meet the minimum word count. However, the Required option makes it mandatory to complete the word count task, so go ahead and select the Required option.

Besides that, PublishPress Checklists also lets you add user roles to exclude from meeting the word count requirement. Simply click on the box under the ‘Who can ignore the task’ column and select a user role.

When you’ve set the number of words writers should complete, simply scroll down and click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Now you can go to Posts » Add New to create a new blog post and see the minimum word count requirement in action.

If the post doesn’t contain the minimum number of words, a warning icon will appear on the ‘Publish’ button in the WordPress editor. The plugin will also show that the word count task wasn’t met in the ‘Checklist’ settings box on your right.

Once your content meets the minimum word count, the checklist task will show a green checkmark, and authors can publish the blog post.

Method 2: Manually Set a Minimum Word Count Limit

Another way to add a minimum word count on your WordPress website is by adding a code snippet to the functions.php files in a WordPress theme.

However, we don’t recommend editing your site’s theme files. That’s because even a small mistake can break your website and even prevent you from accessing the WordPress dashboard.

An easier way to add code to your site is by using the Code Snippets plugin. It lets you add custom code without worrying about breaking your site. Plus, it makes it easier to keep track of any snippets you add to your site.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Code Snippets plugin. If you need help, then check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once the plugin is active, simply head over to Snippets » Add New from your WordPress dashboard. You can start by adding a title for your custom code.

Now, you’ll need to copy the following code:

function minWord($content)
{
	global $post;
	$content = $post->post_content;
	if (str_word_count($content) < 100 ) //set this to the minimum number of words
	wp_die( __('Error: your post is below the minimum word count. It needs to be longer than 100 words.') );
}
add_action('publish_post', 'minWord');

Note: You may change the minimum number of words from 100 to whatever you like and also customize the error to make it helpful. Make sure to change the number in both places in the code snippets.

Next, simply paste the copied code in your new snippet under the ‘Code’ area and then click the ‘Save Changes’ and ‘Activate’ buttons.

Now, if you try to publish a blog post that’s below the word count limit (100 words in our example), then you’ll see a publishing error.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set a minimum word count for a WordPress blog. You may also want to look at how to create an email newsletter the right way, or see our expert pick of the best HR payroll software for small business.

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

The post How to Set a Minimum Word Count for WordPress Posts appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 4, 2021

How to Get Email Notifications for Posts Pending Review in WordPress

Would you like to get email notifications when authors submit posts for review on your WordPress site?

Managing multiple writers in a WordPress blog can be hectic. If you have a multi-author blog, then you might find it helpful to know when a writer submits a post for review.

In this article, we will show you how to get email notifications for posts pending review in WordPress.

Why Get Email Notifications for Posts Pending Review in WordPress?

When you first start your WordPress blog you’ll probably do everything yourself. You’ll come up with all the ideas for your content, write and proofread the posts, and publish them when they’re finished.

As your blog grows, you may get other writers involved in contributing to your blog. That can be a lot more work!

You’ll need to collaborate with them and keep them on track. You’ll have to become more deliberate when planning and scheduling your content. And you’ll have to review each article before you publish it.

There are plenty of ways you can improve the editorial process. One thing that really helps is to receive a notification when a post is pending review.

Without these notifications, you’ll have to constantly visit your blog’s dashboard to check up on the progress of each post.

You could set up email notifications for all post changes on WordPress, but with a busy multi-author blog, that may be too many emails.

Luckily, there is an excellent plugin that makes setting up more specific notifications easy.

PublishPress is the best plugin for multi-author WordPress blogs. It sends email notifications when a post’s status is changed in WordPress, along with adding tons of other features.

How to Get Email Notifications for Posts Pending Review in WordPress

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

Note: There is a paid version of PublishPress with more advanced features, but we will be using the free version in this tutorial.

Upon activation, a PublishPress section is added to your WordPress dashboard. To create a new notification you need to visit the PublishPress » Notifications page.

On this page, you will see the default notifications. These send emails to the site administrator when content is published and editorial comments are added to a post.

To create a new custom notification, you need to click on the ‘Add New’ button. Go ahead and type ‘Posts Pending Review’ in the title section.

Now we’ll turn our attention to the Workflow Settings. Here, you can select when to send a notification, the users who will get notified, and for which types of content.

We want a notification to be sent when the status of a post is changed to ‘Pending review’. So you need to click the ‘When the content is moved to a new status’ checkbox.

Once you’ve done that, select ‘Pending review’ from the New status dropdown menu.

Next, you need to let PublishPress know the types of content you want to send notifications for. So click the Post type checkbox and select ‘Posts’ from the dropdown menu.

If you also want notifications to be sent for other types of content, then you need to check ‘Pages’ as well.

The next thing you need to do is let the plugin know who to notify. If you’re the only person who should be notified, then you can just check the Site Administrator box.

If you have several editors, then it’s a little more complicated.

While you could individually select each user who needs to be notified, it’s simpler to notify everyone with the Editor user role instead. You can learn about assigning roles in our beginner’s guide on user roles and permissions.

To notify all your editors, click the Roles checkbox and select ‘Editor’ from the dropdown menu.

You might also like to check ‘Users who selected Notify me for the content’ since they’ll be expecting to receive notifications.

Note: By default, the author of the content and everyone who edited it will also receive notifications. You can change this in PublishPress’s settings.

Now it’s time to compose the contents of the email that will be sent. While the basic content will be the same each time, specific information like the post title and author will change with each email.

PublishPress offers a number of shortcodes that will automatically fill in the correct information for each post. You’ll see the list of available shortcodes in the Help box on the right of the screen.

Here are the shortcodes we’ll use in our email:

[psppno_post title] fills in the title of the post
[psppno_post display_name] fills in the author of the post
[psppno_post permalink] fills in the permalink to the post

First, you need to copy the line below and paste it into the Subject text box.

“[psppno_post title]” is ready for review

Then you need to copy the two paragraphs below and paste them into the Body text box.

This notification is to let you know the content “[psppno_post title]” is ready for review. The post was written by [psppno_post display_name].

The URL of the content is [psppno_post permalink]

The final step is to click the Publish button. This will save and activate the notification workflow.

Now you and your editors will be notified promptly whenever a post is ready for review.

How to Make Sure Your Emails Get Delivered

Unfortunately, many users who start out with a WordPress blog become frustrated with emails not arriving.

That might be because your WordPress hosting server isn’t properly configured to use the PHP mail() function. Or it could be because emails sent by WordPress are often identified as spam by email providers like Gmail.

Either way, it’s not good news if you rely on email for notifications.

That’s where WP Mail SMTP can help. It’s a WordPress plugin that makes sure your emails are delivered reliably.