8 Best TikTok Plugins for WordPress (Expert Pick in 2024)

One of the questions we often receive from our readers is if there is a TikTok plugin that we recommend for WordPress users.

We know firsthand how helpful TikTok can be for growing a social media audience and increasing brand awareness. But to integrate TikTok with your website, you’ll need the right WordPress plugin.

To find the best one, we downloaded some of the most popular TikTok plugins and reviewed their features to determine if they were worth the hype.

Based on our testing, we picked the plugins that are easy to use, help integrate TikTok with your site, and offer useful features.

In this article, we will show you the best TikTok plugins for WordPress.

Best TikTok plugins for WordPress

In a hurry? Don’t worry, here are the top TikTok plugins for WordPress.

#PluginBest ForPricing
🥇Smash BalloonCreate stunning TikTok FeedsPaid + Free
🥈RafflePressRun viral TikTok giveaways Paid + Free
🥉Floating Tiktok ButtonIncrease TikTok followers Free
4WPCodeAdd TikTok pixelPaid + Free
5LitCommerceSell products on TikTok ShopPaid + Free
6SeedProdTikTok landing pagesPaid + Free
7QuadLayers TikTok FeedEmbed TikTok videosPaid + Free
8Add TikTok Pixel for TikTok AdsSet up TikTok PixelFree

How We Test and Review WordPress TikTok Plugins

There are many TikTok plugins for your WordPress website, each with different features for specific use cases.

However, it can be overwhelming to choose the right WordPress plugins because many of them offer similar features. For instance, you can create TikTok feeds by embedding content on your site, adding tracking pixels, and more.

To help you out, we tested some of the most popular TikTok plugins based on the following criteria:

  • Ease of Use – When testing plugins, we checked if they were user-friendly. They need to have a simple interface, an easy onboarding process, and detailed documentation.
  • Features – Each TikTok plugin is useful for different situations. So, we checked the features they offered and how they can help you grow your business. We also highlighted the features we liked and didn’t like.
  • Reliability – We only picked the plugins that were up to date and recently tested. We also looked at customer reviews to find the best options.

Why Trust WPBeginner?

At WPBeginner, our team of experts has researched and tested many different WordPress plugins on live websites. With over 16 years of experience in WordPress design, marketing, and social media, we can confidently offer the best recommendations.

Want to know more? Check out our editorial process!

Why Use a TikTok Plugin for WordPress?

TikTok is among the most popular social media platforms in the world, with over 1.5 billion users. The platform lets you publish short-form videos, which has proved to be an excellent growth hack.

As a marketer and website owner, TikTok should be part of your social media marketing strategy. It offers the potential to attract a new audience to your site and promote your products and services.

WordPress offers a native block for embedding content from TikTok into blog posts and pages. However, it lacks customization options and other features.

This is where a TikTok plugin comes in handy. It can extend your site’s functionality and streamline the process of adding content from TikTok.

An example of a TikTok feed, embedded on a WordPress website

Besides that, there are many plugins that help set up tracking on your site. You can see how your TikTok campaigns are performing or find out how many people visit your site from the social platform.

That said, let’s look at some of the best TikTok plugins for WordPress.

1. Smash Balloon TikTok Feeds (TikTok Feeds)

Smash Balloon TikTok Feed

Smash Balloon TikTok Feeds is the best WordPress TikTok plugin for WordPress. It is super simple to set up and lets you easily add videos from TikTok to your website.

You can connect your site with your TikTok account and create stunning feeds. Smash Balloon offers multiple layouts for your TikTok feed, including grid, carousel, masonry, and more. Plus, you can also get started with pre-built templates and save time.

Choose a template for your TikTok feed

Besides that, Smash Balloon TikTok Feeds offers lots of customization options.

You can choose which videos to show in the feed, adjust their spacing and layout, and display your TikTok profile, picture, username, and more.

Edit TikTok feed header

You can learn more by following our guide on how to embed TikTok videos in WordPress.

One of the standout features we like about Smash Balloon is that it also offers other solutions for your social media needs. You can create feeds for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X), and YouTube, or even combine content to create a social wall.

Pros:

  • Beginner friendly plugin
  • Multiple layouts for creating TikTok feeds
  • Lots of customization options
  • Responsive themes that work on different devices
  • Filter videos based on words or hashtags
  • Optimized for speed and SEO

Cons:

  • The free version has limited features

Why We Recommend Smash Balloon: If you are looking for a way to display content from TikTok on your site and make it look amazing, then Smash Balloon is for you. It integrates with TikTok seamlessly and offers lots of customization options to show videos on your site

Pricing: Smash Balloon TikTok Feeds starts at $49 per year. You can also use the free version to get started.

2. RafflePress (TikTok Giveaways)

RafflePress

RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin that helps you create viral contests for your site. It offers different TikTok options that can help you get more followers and boost engagement.

Using the plugin, you can offer incentives like prizes, free shipping, and discounts for participating in the giveaway and following you on TikTok. Plus, RafflePress offers pre-designed giveaway templates, a drag-and-drop content builder, and multiple customization options.

Adding actions to a WordPress contest

You can learn more by following our guide on how to run a viral TikTok giveaway in WordPress.

Besides that, RafflePress also helps you build an email list, increase followers on other social platforms, and drive traffic to your site.

We have actually used RafflePress on WPBeginner, so we know how easy it is to use. For more details, see our guide on how to run a viral giveaway like WPBeginner.

Pros:

  • Very easy to use
  • Drag and drop giveaway builder
  • TikTok entry option for the contests
  • Multiple customization options
  • Pre-designed templates
  • Built-in fraud protection
  • Social media integration

Cons:

  • The TikTok feature is not available in the free version

Why We Recommend RafflePress: Over the years, we’ve tested different ways of growing social followers, and RafflePress is one of the best solutions. It easily integrates with social channels, including TikTok, and helps you grow your followers.

Pricing: RafflePress prices start from $39.50 per year, but you’ll need the Pro version for TikTok, which will cost you $99.50 per year.

3. Floating Tiktok Button  (TikTok Follow Button)

Floating TikTok button plugin

Floating TikTok Button is a free WordPress plugin that helps you get more followers. You can show a static or animated TikTok button anywhere on your site to get people to follow your profile.

Besides that, the plugin also lets you create a QR code or Tikcode that users can scan and quickly follow you back on TikTok.

You can also try different customization options. For instance, the plugin lets you change the button text, font, size, and more. Plus, you can choose from different button styles or upload a custom design.

Pros:

  • Super easy to use and set up
  • Display a floating button, QR code, or both
  • Multiple customization options
  • Flexible button placement options for desktop and mobile
  • Create a static or animated button

Cons:

  • Animated icons locked in the pro version

Why We Recommend Floating TikTok Button: It is a great plugin for anyone looking to display a TikTok follow button on their WordPress site. It offers simple customization options and helps display a floating button or QR code to attract more social followers.

Pricing: It is a free TikTok plugin for WordPress.

4. WPCode (TikTok Pixel)

wpcode plugin

WPCode is the best WordPress code snippet plugin that makes it very easy to add custom code to your site. Using the plugin, you can add the TikTok Pixel ID to your website and start tracking your campaigns.

There is no need to edit code with WPCode. Simply paste the pixel ID and access token, and the plugin will take care of the rest. With WPCode, you can also manage all your code snippets from a single place and insert them anywhere on your site.

The best part about using the plugin is that it comes with a built-in code snippet library. So, you can add custom features to your site by inserting pre-built code snippets without risking breaking anything.

Pros:

  • Add custom code to WordPress without editing theme files
  • Get full support for PHP, JS, CSS, HTML, and text snippets
  • Built-in code snippets library
  • Support for advanced conditional rules
  • Safe error handling

Cons:

  • Has a higher learning curve to use advanced features

Why We Recommend WPCode: WPCode is the quickest way to set up tracking for your TikTok campaigns and add the pixel ID to your site. The plugin makes the entire process very simple, and you don’t have to touch a single line of code.

Pricing: WPCode prices start from $49 per year. There is also a WPCode Lite version that you can use for free.

5. LitCommerce (Sell Products on TikTok)

LitCommerce

LitCommerce is a powerful multichannel selling tool that helps you list your products across different social platforms, including TikTok Shop. The plugin allows you to display and promote products on TikTok.

For example, if you have a WooCommerce store, then you can use the LitCommerce plugin to list your products on TikTok Shop. It seamlessly integrates WooCommerce with TikTok.

On the other hand, if you have products on TikTok Shop and want to display them on your WordPress site, the plugin will easily import them. In addition to WooCommerce, the plugin also works with Shopify, BigCommerce, and other eCommerce platforms.

Pros:

  • Easily integrate WooCommerce with TikTok Shop
  • List products on TikTok Shop and promote them
  • Import products from TikTok Shop
  • User-friendly interface
  • Detailed documentation and tutorials
  • Integrates with other popular marketplaces

Cons:

  • The free version has limited features and integrations
  • Pay as you go model can be expensive for new business owners

Why We Recommend LitCommerce: After testing multiple eCommerce plugins, we highly recommend LitCommerce. You can sell your products on TikTok Shop or import them on your site and make money online.

Pricing: LitCommerce offers a free pricing plan. Its premium plans are pay-as-you-go, where you can choose the number of channels or listings you need for your site.

6. SeedProd (TikTok Landing Pages)

SeedProd Website and Theme Builder

SeedProd is the best WordPress website builder and landing page builder. You can use it to create amazing landing pages on your site to display your TikTok content.

The plugin comes with pre-built templates and lots of customization options. You can edit your landing page using the drag-and-drop builder. Plus, there are different blocks to add elements like social profiles, images, videos, and more.

For more details, just see our guide on how to design a custom landing page in WordPress.

The best part, SeedProd also integrates with Smash Balloon. This allows you to design a custom landing page for your TikTok feed.

Pros:

  • Drag and drop page builder
  • Pre-built landing page templates
  • Create coming soon and maintenance mode pages
  • Lots of customization options
  • Seamless integration with other plugins
  • Collect leads by integrating email marketing services

Cons:

  • Free version has limited customization options

Why We Recommend SeedProd: If you’re looking for a solution to create stunning landing pages for your TikTok content, then SeedProd is the best option. Its beginner-friendly interface and different customization options make it a powerful landing page builder.

Pricing: SeedProd prices start from $39.50 per year. There is also a free SeedProd Lite version.

7. QuadLayers TikTok Feed (TikTok Feeds)

QuadLayer TikTok feed

QuadLayers TikTok Feed is another plugin for creating TikTok feeds in WordPress and displaying your videos. The plugin is easy to integrate and use, and you can choose from different layouts and customization options to create a TikTok feed.

One of the features we liked while testing the plugin is its popup feature. This transforms your videos into a full-screen viewing experience. Plus, users can like, comment, and share directly from the popup box without leaving your site.

That being said, the customization options are good but not as extensive as Smash Balloon, especially in the free version. However, if you want basic design options, then QuadLayers TikTok Feed will work perfectly.

Pros:

  • Easy-to-use plugin
  • Seamlessly integrates WordPress and TikTok
  • Create simple feeds quickly
  • Choose from different customization options
  • Pre-built feed layouts

Cons:

  • Limited features in the free version

Why We Recommend QuadLayers TikTok Feed: The plugin can be used to create TikTok feeds and display videos in an organized form. The premium version offers decent customization options and layouts.

Pricing: The QuadLayers TikTok Feed is a free WordPress plugin. It also offers paid pricing plans starting from $49 per year.

8. Add Tiktok Pixel for Tiktok Ads (TikTok Pixel)

Add TikTok pixel for TikTok ads

Add TikTok Pixel for TikTok Ads is the next plugin on our list. As the name suggests, it simply adds the TikTok pixel to your site’s header section.

The plugin is very simple to use. All you need to do is enable the TikTok pixel option, enter your pixel ID, and save changes.

The plugin also optimizes your TikTok videos for search engines and offers an option to improve crawlability by optimizing the robots.txt file. In its pro version, you can add the TikTok advertising pixel to WooCommerce pages.

Pros:

  • Beginner friendly plugin
  • Adds TikTok Pixel to a website seamlessly
  • Add alt text and image title attribute

Cons:

  • TikTok Advertising Pixel is not included in the free version
  • It doesn’t show reports or tracking data

Why We Recommend Add TikTok Pixel for TikTok Ads: If you’re looking for an easy way to add the TikTok pixel to your site or online store without editing code, then we recommend using this plugin. In just a few clicks, you will be able to configure the TikTok pixel.

Pricing: It is a free WordPress plugin to use.

Which Is the Best TikTok WordPress Plugin?

After testing multiple plugins, we believe that the best TikTok plugin depends on your needs.

For instance, if you’re looking to display content from TikTok on your site, then Smash Balloon TikTok Feeds is the best option. It is very easy to use and offers amazing customization options for showing your content.

On the other hand, if you want to boost followers, then the Floating TikTok Button is perfect. It helps show a follow button or QR code anywhere on your site. As an honorable mention, you can also use RafflePress to run viral TikTok giveaways and boost followers.

If you have an eCommerce store and want to showcase your products on TikTok Shop, then LitCommerce will work best. It helps sync your product library with TikTok, allowing you to boost sales.

FAQs About WordPress TikTok Plugins

Over the years, we’ve helped over 2 million people start a WordPress site and answered many questions. Here are some common questions users have about the best WordPress TikTok plugins.

1. Can you add TikTok to WordPress?

You can use a WordPress plugin to easily integrate TikTok into your site. TikTok also offers an official plugin for the social channel that you can use to set up an advertising pixel.

Besides that, there are several other TikTok WordPress plugins that help solve different problems. For instance, you can use Smash Balloon TikTok Feeds to show videos on your site.

2. How to install TikTok Pixel on WordPress?

You will need to add the TikTok pixel code to your site’s head section. The easiest way to do this is to use a WordPress plugin, such as WPCode or the Add TikTok Pixel for TikTok Ads plugin.

3. What is the TikTok pixel code?

TikTok pixel code is a piece of code that’s placed on your site, usually in the <head> section and it allows you to share website events with TikTok. It’s used for running ad campaigns, measuring campaign performance, finding new users, and more.

Additional Resources for WordPress and Social Media

We hope this article helped you find the best TikTok plugins for WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to embed Facebook videos in WordPress and our pick of the best social media plugins for 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 8 Best TikTok Plugins for WordPress (Expert Pick in 2024) first appeared on WPBeginner.

29 Best Business Tools for Small Business (Expert Pick for 2024)

Over our years of helping small websites and companies grow and compete with the big guys, we’ve learned that the right business tools can make a huge difference in their success.

Whether you are looking for something to help you with email marketing, customer support, customer relationship management, or something else, there are plenty of plugins and software options that can fit the bill.

That’s why we’ve done the research and put together a huge list of the best business tools for small businesses. We’ve broken down everything into different categories so that you can find the best options for your needs.

best-business-tools-for-small-business-OG

Quick Pick: The Best Business Tools for Small Business

ToolCategoryPriceFree Trial
Constant ContactEmail Marketing$12 per monthYes
NextivaBusiness Phone$14.95 per month per user Yes
GrooveLive Chat & Support$16 per person per monthYes
GustoHR & Payroll$40 per month, plus $6 per month per additional userNo
HubSpot CRMCRM$90 per month per seatYes

How We Test and Review Business Tools

Here’s how we reviewed different small business tools for this guide:

  1. Real-World Experience: At WPBeginner, we actively run small businesses of our own. We’re involved in starting new projects and managing existing websites, so we’ve used and tested these tools extensively ourselves. We ensure that they meet our high standards of reliability and ease of use.
  2. Comprehensive Research: We perform our own dedicated research to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in each category. We regularly update our recommendations accordingly, holding each tool to a high standard.
  3. User Feedback: We’ve combed through various third-party sites and even performed polls for users to see how they enjoy using these tools.

Why Trust WPBeginner?

At WPBeginner, we’re a passionate team with over 16 years of hands-on expertise in WordPress, design, and online marketing. Our mission is simple: deliver top-notch content and valuable resources to our audience. We achieve this by thoroughly evaluating and reviewing the plugins and software we actually use.

To learn more, see our complete editorial process.

Why Do You Need the Best Small Business Tools?

Running a business is no small feat. Luckily, there’s a wealth of online tools available to streamline your workflow and ease your burden. Choosing the right ones can feel overwhelming, though.

At WPBeginner, we’ve been testing and refining our top picks for years, keeping pace with the ever-evolving market. We’ve narrowed down our favorites to a curated list across various categories.

However, it can be a chore to figure out which is the right tool for your business.

Here are just a few reasons to add some of these small business tools to your repertoire.

  • Increased Productivity: The right tools streamline business processes, automate repetitive tasks, and enhance overall efficiency. This leads to increased productivity among your team members, allowing them to focus on more strategic and value-added activities.
  • Improved Collaboration: Many small business tools come with collaboration features that facilitate communication and teamwork. This is especially important in modern work environments where remote or dispersed teams are common. Collaboration tools enhance communication, file sharing, and task management.
  • Enhanced Customer Experience: Tools such as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system help businesses manage customer interactions, track leads, and provide personalized services.
  • Data-Driven Decision Making: Software with analytics and reporting capabilities provides valuable insights into business performance and customer journey. With accurate data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions, identify trends, and adjust strategies to align with your business goals.
  • Time and Cost Savings: Automation tools can significantly reduce the time spent on manual tasks, saving both time and money. You may have limited resources, so software that automates activities allows you to allocate resources more efficiently.

That said, it’s time to cover the best business tools for small businesses. Feel free to use the links below to jump to any section you need a solution for:

Email Marketing

Every business needs to build an email list. Sure, you could keep in touch with your customers via social media, but you don’t own the audience there.

An email list is something you own and can continually contact customers or leads anytime.

That’s why you need an email marketing service. These services allow you to send bulk automated emails to your subscribers. Not only that, you can segment users into groups, track their performance, and create marketing workflows.

1. Constant Contact

The Constant Contact autoresponder

Constant Contact is the most beginner-friendly and fastest-growing email marketing service out there. It boasts an impressive 97% deliverability rate and offers a handful of time-saving automation that every small business could use.

Out of the many email service providers we’ve tried, we really like the user interface. From the moment you make your account, Constant Contact guides you through their simple process. You can create email newsletters, social media posts, landing pages, and events in minutes.

One of Constant Contact’s most unique aspects is its ability to segment the audience based on engagement level. Sure, it’s got all the standard segmentations, such as dividing contacts by location, membership, sales, email activity, and more.

That said, Constant Contact lets you segment your audience into four categories: most engaged, somewhat engaged, least engaged, and everyone else. For example, your most engaged customers could be your most loyal subscribers, to whom you can send upsell or cross-sell promotions.

WPBeginner readers can use our special Constant Contact coupon code to receive an additional 20% off.

Pricing: Plans start at $12 per month. If you need more storage, users, and advanced features, there are also higher-tiered plans.

Pros:

  • Very affordable pricing
  • It offers powerful integrations such as Facebook ads and eCommerce platforms.
  • Constant Contact offers 200+ templates to fit your needs.

Cons:

  • No advanced dynamic tags.

Why We Recommend Using Constant Contact: You can’t go wrong with Constant Contact as it’s good at just about everything. We especially like that they offer really outstanding customer support via live chat, email, phone calls, and community support, along with a large library of helpful resources. That way, you’ll always get your questions answered.

2. Brevo

Brevo website

Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is an email and SMS marketing software perfect for small businesses.

One of the best things about Brevo is that you receive unlimited email lists and contacts no matter which plan you choose. With contact segmentation, you can easily target smaller groups and engage them with relevant content.

Their advanced plans go well beyond just email marketing. They offer a sales CRM, live chat, landing page builder, and Facebook Ads integration. That means that for the price you are paying, you’re getting a lot more value than most email marketing services can offer.

Brevo is also known for high deliverability, guaranteeing up to 97%. That’s because they support many setup options, including email API, SMTP relay, webhook, and plugin. This means you can send bulk emails and have more control over your batch sends.

Pricing: Brevo is free to get started. However, their Starter plan begins at $25 per month and has unlimited contacts.

Pros:

  • You will receive access to an unlimited number of contacts on any plan.
  • A built-in CRM app is included.
  • You can send advanced automation campaigns based on list-based behaviors.

Cons:

  • You have to pay for a higher-tiered plan to get access to more advanced reporting features.

Why We Recommend Using Brevo: We like Brevo as an all-in-one marketing automation software that can do a little bit of everything. For instance, you can send timely SMS messages to promote your products and personalize them accordingly.

3. Drip

Drip

Drip is the best email marketing service for advanced users, especially for businesses looking to deliver hyper-personalized campaigns to their audience.

One of Drip’s standout features is its ability to create seamless workflow automation. The visual workflow builder makes it easy to visualize and customize user journeys.

When building your workflows, there are intuitive trigger options based on page visitors, tags, and other on-site behaviors that start the flow. Then, choose from dozens of actions to build the desired automation sequence.

If you’re running an online store, Drip offers integrations for WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify. That allows you to send strategically segmented campaigns to visitors and customers. For example, there are templates for just about everything, including cart abandonment emails and workflows.

Pricing: Pricing starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 people on your email list. The price increases the more subscribers you have. All plans come with a 14-day free trial.

Pros:

  • Drip has plenty of merge tags that dynamically replace content within an email based on the info you’ve collected in your contact or lead forms.
  • You can A/B split test automation workflows to see which one performs better and ultimately provides the best conversion rates.
  • It offers an eCommerce revenue attribution feature, so you know exactly how much revenue is generated from your email marketing campaigns.

Cons:

  • Some learning curve is involved. For example, there are countless Liquid tags to learn about, which can be a lot of information if you’re used to using simpler email marketing services.

Why We Recommend Using Drip: At WPBeginner, we switched from MailChimp to Drip largely because of its more advanced segmentation and personalization features. That allows us to send more relevant and targeted campaigns to our readers.

For a more in-depth list of our favorite providers, check out our blog on the best email marketing services for small businesses.

Business Phone

While adding your mobile number to your WordPress site might seem convenient, it’s unprofessional and exposes your personal privacy.

That’s why you want to get a virtual business phone number and use a dedicated business phone service. This is a secure and professional solution. It allows you to:

  • Make calls over the internet: Eliminate expensive phone bills.
  • Use call forwarding, routing, and recording: Enhance team collaboration and capture valuable customer interactions.
  • Track call metrics: Gain insights into wait times, hold times, and call duration to optimize your customer service strategy.

In essence, a business phone service is essential for any business that wants to improve customer service and effectively manage inbound and outbound calls.

4. Nextiva

Nextiva homepage

Nextiva is the best business phone service, and it makes it easy to manage communication between you and your customers.

The phone service is highly efficient and reliable, and you get helpful features beyond voice calling. There are plenty of features your call team can take advantage of, such as advanced call routing, voicemail to email and text, unlimited free domestic calling, text messages, and more.

Nextiva offers a treasure trove of data to help support your decision-making. You get critical information such as talk time, net promote score, first-time resolution rate, etc. Call center and sales team managers can easily interpret the data and come up with solutions to better improve performance.

If you’re using a traditional landline office phone system, Nextiva makes it easy to transition to a VoIP system. That means you can run your calls over the internet rather than complex landlines. They work with a variety of VoIP phones, headsets, and other call devices.

Pricing: Nextiva pricing starts at $14.95 per month per user for unlimited voice calling.

Pros:

  • Nextiva provides 99.99% uptime for excellent reliability.
  • They offer 24/7 customer support, so you always get the help you need.
  • It’s an all-in-one phone system with a wide range of features to handle both outbound, inbound, and internal team communication.

Cons:

  • Somewhat pricy, but the value is definitely there for what you pay for.

Why We Recommend Using Nextiva: Nextiva gives you everything you need to handle communication in your business. They offer a comprehensive set of VoIP service features that help you take your customer service to the next level. That way, your agents can work efficiently, and your customers can get their issues resolved quickly.

WPBeginner readers also get a special Nextiva Coupon to unlock an additional 21% off your purchase.

5. RingCentral

Is RingCentral the right VoIP and communications solution for you?

RingCentral is an affordable alternative to RingCentral that offers high-quality business phone services. Despite its cost-effective price, it doesn’t skimp out on quality.

With the entry plan, you get unlimited calls and texts, team messaging, file sharing, and other basic features you need. For smaller teams of 20 people or less, the $20 per user per month price point is a great deal.

We like the call routing capabilities, which allow you to direct callers to various departments and extensions. You can create and manage custom answering rules to ensure you get callers to the right people. You can even route the most important calls directly to your mobile device.

Pricing: Plans start at $20 per user per month, billed annually. Pricing varies depending on number of users and features available.

Pros:

  • RingCentral comes with video meetings, team messaging, and screen sharing.
  • It integrates with useful tools like Google Workspace and Microsoft, so you can easily connect data across platforms.
  • You can enjoy a user-friendly interface that allows you to easily understand where and how to use all of its features.

Cons:

  • You need to pay for the higher-priced tiers to get access to Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu options.

Why We Recommend Using RingCentral: RingCentral is a good beginner-friendly option for small businesses just getting started with phone services. It lacks a few advanced capabilities that Nextiva has but gives you all the essential features needed for any business phone service.

The good news is that WPBeginner users get 33% off when they use our special RingCentral coupon code.

6. Ooma

Ooma VoIP phone service

Ooma is one of the top VoIP providers for small businesses. It offers virtual numbers, collaboration tools, call forwarding, voice mail, and more. It’s great for small businesses without IT teams because it provides everything you need in an easy-to-use way.

Ooma features a virtual receptionist feature, which is great for directing calls for your small business. You can easily set up a custom greeting, provide a menu of options that guides callers to the right departments, and send them to various extensions. It also helps to reduce the call load and average wait times, which your customers will appreciate.

Every Ooma plan has a mobile app so that your agents can easily answer or make calls while on the go. You can do all the important tasks, such as checking your voicemail, reviewing stats, and more.

That said, when comparing Nextiva vs. RingCentral and Ooma, this service isn’t ideal for call centers since it doesn’t support desk and conference phones.

Pricing: Plans begin at $19.95 per month per user. No contract is necessary, so you won’t be tied to a year-long commitment.

Pros:

  • Ooma offers unlimited domestic calling in the US, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Canada.
  • Pricing is relatively affordable.
  • Easy to use mobile app.

Cons:

  • Missing a few advanced features unless you upgrade to the higher plans.

Why We Recommend Using Ooma: We like Ooma because it’s ready to use out-of-the-box. It requires zero technical installation, and just about everything is already configured when installed. They use an auto-configuration technology that automatically detects all the settings needed for your system to work.

You may want to also check out our full list of the best business phone services for small businesses.

Live Chat & Support

Live chat software is a tool that helps connect customers to an actual human support representative so that you can resolve their issues in real time. That way, your customers can get the answers they’re looking for quickly.

They’ll spend less time sifting through your knowledge base and waiting to find a solution.

This goes hand-in-hand with your business phone services. By offering live chats on your website, you provide a more omnichannel customer experience, reducing your call load and average handling time.

7. Groove

Groove

Groove is a popular help desk software used by big brands like HubSpot, AppSumo, AT&T, and CloudApp.

It offers all the essential features a small business needs to deliver fast and responsive customer service. These include a knowledge base builder, shared inbox, collaboration and reporting tools, and live chat support.

Using Groove, we quickly realized how accessible the software feels. Think of it like a simple inbox that manages all customer communication in one place. Each conversation can be assigned to specific team members, so it’s clear who’s responsible for managing each conversion. Even better, you can label and assign agents to conversations based on certain conditions, such as department or type of inquiry.

Sticking to the theme of simplicity, Groove makes reporting as easy to understand as possible. Rather than giving you a ton of analytics that may confuse small businesses, they stick to the most important options.

For example, some of the metrics include response time, agent performance, busiest times, customer feedback, number of customers helped, and number of resolutions.

Pricing: Starts at $16 per user per month, billed annually. There is also a free trial available.

Pros:

  • Groove integrations with the most popular business tools like Shopify, Slack, and Mailchimp.
  • The knowledge base builder is customizable, and there are time-saving AI writing tools to help you quickly create support articles.
  • Live chat lets you deliver fast service to customers

Cons:

  • Groove isn’t the most customizable in terms of layouts and themes.

Why We Recommend Using Groove: Groove ranks as our top choice based on its value and ease of use. The entire system is easy to adopt, so you can better manage your support reps without having to spend a lot of time training them on how to use the software.

8. Heroic Inbox

Heroic Inbox

Heroic Inbox is the best WordPress-powered help desk and customer support market in the market. It allows you to easily manage customer emails and support tickets right within your WordPress site.

This can streamline workflow by keeping all support-related tasks in one place so you can respond to customer inquiries faster.

After testing the inbox, we found that it comes with all the features you’ll need to manage support emails. For instance, you can create canned responses, add notes to conversations, track your ticket history, and assign messages to team members.

Best of all, it pulls multiple inboxes into one place. Chances are, you may have various inboxes to respond to, such as sales, support, customer service, and partnerships. This allows you to ensure that an important message is never missed.

If you want to add knowledge base capabilities, then you’ll simply need to download Heroic KB, which gives you the ability to add a searchable knowledge base to your website.

Pricing: Starts at $199.50 per year.

Pros:

  • Manages customer service inquiries directly in WordPress.
  • You can connect multiple inboxes in one place.
  • It offers the ability to add notes and assign tickets to users.

Cons:

  • It doesn’t have live chat capabilities.

Why We Recommend Using Heroic Inbox: Juggling a lot of software can be a problem for a lot of small businesses. With Heroic Inbox, you can manage all inquiries in your WordPress dashboard. Since it lives within the WordPress ecosystem, it also seamlessly connects with other plugins, such as WooCommerce.

9. LiveChat

Live Chat Inc Website

LiveChat is an all-in-one customer service software that works seamlessly for WordPress website owners. With over 35,000+ businesses that trust LiveChat, it’s a very popular tool for building live chatbots.

You can create a chatbot that asks the user questions before they’re automatically transferred to the right agent. During the chat, the agent is able to share files back and forth with the customer, send calendar links, or complete a purchase. On top of that, you can set up canned frequently asked questions type of responses to save time.

Beyond that, you can add pre-chat survey forms before and after each live chat session. That way, you’re able to evaluate your sales reps and customer support agents and how they’re performing.

It even integrates with popular tools like HubSpot, Zendesk, and Google Analytics, so you can better understand where your customers are coming from and who they are.

Pricing: LiveChat starts at $20 per person, billed annually, with higher-priced plans that track more users and better features. There’s also a free plugin available.

Pros:

  • Plenty of integrations to seamlessly connect data across platforms.
  • You can initiate a chat with a visitor as they are browsing on your site.
  • There are lots of customization options to help users find a solution.

Cons:

  • Price can quickly add up for large teams.

Why We Recommend Using LiveChat: LiveChat is an AI-powered help desk software that has a lot of advanced tools to help you sell more. For example, their custom forms, product cards, and AI automation can help turn inquiries into actual sales.

10. HubSpot Chat

HubSpot Live Chat

HubSpot Chat is an all-in-one marketing platform that also offers a chatbot builder and live chat feature.

You’re able to customize the live chat design to help route leads and customers to the right person on your team. The live chat widget can be edited to match the look and feel of your brand. You can even send targeted welcome messages on your live chat widget based on segments of your audience or different web pages.

The routing feature works during a chat, where your services team passes a lead to a sales rep. In addition, it provides useful automation features so you can deliver canned responses for faster response times.

Since HubSpot is an all-in-one tool, all chats are automatically stored in the CRM. That means your team will have a clear view of each customer interaction.

Pricing: It’s free to get started. But if you want the suite of marketing tools or CRM, you’ll need to buy the entire package. Prices vary based on what suite you choose.

Pros:

  • HubSpot Chat is free to use.
  • You can connect the tool to Slack so your team gets immediate notifications when a visitor requests to speak with your support team.
  • You’re able to route leads to anyone on your team.

Cons:

  • It’s missing advanced features such as post-chat survey forms.

Why We Recommend Using HubSpot Chat: We like HubSpot Chat because it offers all the essential features of live chat software and is absolutely free to use. That said, if you want more advanced automation or more sales-related features like product recommendations, then you may want to consider LiveChat or ChatBot instead.

11. ChatBot

ChatBot

ChatBot is the best helpdesk software for creating AI-generated answers to customer questions.

Where ChatBot stands out is its ability to build visual workflows that help customers get their questions answered and guide them to a sale. It comes with pre-built templates so that you can use them out of the box. For example, after a customer asks a question about a specific product category, you can immediately offer a limited-time discount to incentivize visitors to take action.

If site visitors want to chat with a real person, you can easily forward them to a live customer support representative. That said, the customization options are quite limited compared to LiveChat.

But, when it comes to AI automation, ChatBot can make your life easier. For example, depending on how users interact with your site and chatbot, you can add them to a segmentation and then import them to a CRM or email marketing service. This is great for nurturing leads and sending follow-up emails.

Pricing: Chatbot starts at $52 per month, billed annually or $65 month-to-month. However, there is a 14-day free trial, with no credit card required.

Pros:

  • ChatBot saves time with its powerful and expansive automation features.
  • It allows you to segment lists and trigger actions based on visitor behavior.
  • It integrates with WooCommerce and WordPress.

Cons:

  • ChatBot lacks high-level live chat features.

Why We Recommend Using ChatBot: If you want to automate your helpdesk and chat support, ChatBot is the way to go. It has many templates that help guide users into a sale.

Also, check out our expert picks of the best WordPress chat plugins.

HR & Payroll

Managing your team members is arguably one of the most important functions of a business. No matter what type of business you run, you’ll need to pay your employees and manage their hours.

With HR payroll software, you can automatically send out paychecks through bank direct deposit, manage PTO and bonuses, streamline employee onboarding, withhold a percentage for taxes, and more.

When your HR and payroll are organized, employees know what to expect, and you don’t have to worry about running into tax compliance issues.

Best of all, HR software streamlines all the tedious admin tasks that you would otherwise have to do by yourself.

12. Gusto

gusto website

Gusto is the best payroll and HR software that helps you automate both basic and advanced payroll tasks for employees and contractors. With its beginner-friendly approach to payroll management, it’s definitely a tool to have in your corner to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Even if you’re a small business without a full accounting team, Gusto makes it easy to handle payroll. It automatically runs payroll for you as many times a month as you need, and taxes are filed automatically. In addition, it automatically syncs health insurance, workers’ compensation, time tracking, 401K, PTO, and more.

Besides payroll, Gusto makes hiring and onboarding a breeze. There are features like custom offer letters, onboarding checklists, document signing, and even software account creation.

Pricing: Gusto starts at $40 per month, plus $6 per month per additional user you add.

Pros:

  • Relatively affordable to use.
  • Very beginner-friendly for both business owners and employees.
  • Gusto is a self-service tool for employees where they can hop online to check their pay stubs and important documents and request time off without the need for HR to intervene.

Cons:

  • Gusto is only available in the United States.

Why We Recommend Using Gusto: Gusto is an all-encompassing tool for payroll and HR tasks. You don’t have to worry about the nitty-gritty tasks like filing payroll and tracking all the taxes withheld. Plus, its higher plans offer next-day deposits, so employees get paid faster.

13. BambooHR

BambooHR

BambooHR is an excellent HR software and payroll solution for small businesses. The program is better suited for human resource tasks like compensation, hiring, onboarding, and company culture.

Inside, you get an application tracking system (ATS) that helps you speed up the hiring process and weed out potential applicants who don’t meet the job role requirements. Its automated alert features ensure you stay on schedule and keep candidates in the loop during the hiring process.

Once you’ve made your decision, you can use one of the many offer letter templates that come with auto-fill features so the new hire can sign and accept everything digitally.

That said, Bamboo HR also does all of the essential payroll tasks. It automates tax filing, so you don’t have to do it manually. As a result, you’ll avoid tax penalties and ensure you accurately report your employee earnings and taxes withheld.

Pricing: BambooHR offers free pricing quotes. To receive customized pricing, you will need to complete their contact form.

Pros:

  • BambooHR offers self-service tools so employees can access information such as tax forms and pay stubs online.
  • It automates the payroll process to avoid mistakes.
  • The ATS makes hiring much easier and faster.

Cons:

  • BambooHR is not as contractor-friendly as Gusto since it doesn’t have many features that cater to freelancers.

Why We Recommend Using BambooHR: BambooHR is a great choice if you have a remote team based internationally (outside of the U.S.). It makes it easy to manage your hiring and payroll across multiple countries.

14. QuickBooks

Quickbooks Payroll

QuickBooks is a payroll software designed to make life easier for small business owners. It’s primarily used for accounting tasks, allowing you to calculate all your balance sheets and perform payroll.

One key area where QuickBooks shines is that it offers same-day or next-day direct deposit processing, depending on the plan you choose. You also get useful features such as automated tax calculations and payroll, business receipt capture, paycheck creation, and more.

There’s a dedicated mobile app, so employees can easily access their PTO and health information and even look into their paystubs on the go. For administrators, you can manage payroll from anywhere, ensuring your team never misses payday.

Pricing: Price starts at $37.50 per month, plus an additional $6 per additional employee per month.

Pros:

  • Quickbooks offers a 30-day free trial.
  • For Elite users, QuickBooks Payroll provides a tax penalty protection of up to $25,000 per year.
  • QuickBooks Payroll integrates with QuickBooks Online, meaning you get a payroll and accounting system in one.

Cons:

  • There are limited third-party integrations.

Why We Recommend Using QuickBooks: If you’re focused on getting your accounting and payroll right, then QuickBooks is the way to go. With the tax penalty protection, you’re getting great coverage. That means if you make an error, they’ll not only help you to fix the issue but also cover any penalty and interest fines along with it.

For a more comprehensive list, read our blog post on the best payroll software for small businesses.

CRM

Juggling customer data across scattered Excel sheets can be chaos. You may deal with missed follow-ups, forgotten birthdays, unsent emails, mixed signals, and frustrated teams and customers.

CRM apps eliminate this nightmare. They consolidate all customer data into a single, accessible platform. This empowers your sales, marketing, and customer support teams to:

  • Effortlessly access information: No more scrambling for details.
  • Personalize the customer journey: Deliver targeted experiences based on customer history.
  • Boost efficiency: Automate tasks and free up time for strategic work.

Sales reps can prioritize high-value opportunities and close deals faster. Plus, marketers can leverage customer insights to craft impactful campaigns. Customer support gains a complete view of each interaction, providing exceptional service every time.

15. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is the most popular CRM software on the market. It is cost-effective and offers a wide range of features, making it a great choice for most small businesses. You can get started with the free plan, which already gives you access to unlimited users and contacts.

Where HubSpot excels is its all-in-one capabilities. Since it combines sales, marketing, customer service, CMS, and operation hubs, you can easily connect data between departments. For example, you can easily pass contacts from your marketing team to the sales department without having to sync information to another system.

HubSpot is also really easy to navigate. It provides a full picture of customer interactions and comes with customizable reporting dashboards so that you can see how your team is performing. By looking at the opportunities and deal stages, you can quickly see what’s currently in the pipeline and focus on high-leverage prospects who are ready to buy.

Pricing: Hubspot CRM is free to get started. If you want the entire marketing suite, it’s $800 per month for 3 seats, billed annually, and an extra $45 per month per additional user. HubSpot Sales suite costs $90 per month per seat.

Pros:

  • HubSpot has an easy-to-use interface.
  • There are tons of features and even apps that you can download to make your experience better.
  • Visual dashboards and reporting make it very easy to track team performance and spot opportunities for growth.

Cons:

  • While HubSpot has a very generous free plan, its pricing gets steep quickly if you wish to upgrade.

Why We Recommend Using HubSpot: HubSpot is one of those can’t-miss tools for beginners. Sure, it could be more customizable or offer more affordable plans. But with that said, its free plan is enough to get small teams started.

16. FunnelKit Automations

FunnelKit Automations

FunnelKit Automations is the best CRM and marketing automation engine for WooCommerce. It’s filled with a wide range of features to help get your online more repeat sales and higher order values.

Geared towards e-commerce business owners, you have a complete 360-degree contact view of your customers. You’ll be able to see their name, gender, email, tags, lists, geographical location, and custom field data.

In addition to the CRM tool, you can build high-converting checkout pages and flows. The drag-and-drop builder connects with other major page builders, such as Divi, Elementor, Oxygen, and Gutenberg.

Once customers complete the purchase, you can create upsell pages to showcase higher-tier products, increasing your total order value.

Pricing: FunnelKit starts at $99.50 per year. That said, there is a free version as well.

Pros:

  • You get plenty of automation templates and workflows to increase conversions.
  • You can view the customer’s complete profile, including purchase history, order placed, etc.
  • Everything can be tracked, including what pages and workflows led to revenue.

Cons:

  • You’ll need a mailer plugin, such as WP Mail SMTP, since WordPress isn’t built for high-volume email.

Why We Recommend Using FunnelKit Automation: If you’re running an online store, adding FunnelKit Automation is a no-brainer. Keep your opt-in leads and customers organized so that you can send them more relevant product recommendations.

17. Pipedrive

Pipedrive CRM

Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM app for small businesses. It’s an all-in-one sales platform to boost revenue and track all of your leads and customers.

What we like about Pipedrive is its smart, in-platform tips. It comes with a sales assistant that provides performance tips and recommended features to help your team get acclimated to the software. For example, if you’re not sending follow-up emails after demo calls, it might send reminders to your reps.

Pipedrive goes beyond simple CRM with powerful automation features. Imagine automatically nurturing leads with timely emails, assigning tasks, and moving deals through your pipeline.

These automated workflows free up your sales reps to focus on closing high-value deals, not repetitive tasks.

Pricing: Pipedrive begins at $14 per seat per month, billed annually. But there’s a free 14-day trial you can get started with.

Pros:

  • Fairly affordable to use.
  • The smart assistant feature helps you improve your team performance.
  • It has a lead enrichment feature, which scrapes data online to find information about your prospects based on the email you’ve collected.

Cons:

  • It lacks phone support.

Why We Recommend Using Pipedrive: If you want a comprehensive sales tool to help manage your leads and drive home more revenue, Pipedrive is a solid choice. They offer many AI-powered features to make your life easier and save a lot of time.

If you want to learn about other options, check out our list of the best CRM apps for small businesses.

Bonus Small Business Tools

Aside from these top business tools that we mentioned above, we also use and recommend the following plugins to better manage our WordPress sites.

  1. WPForms is the most beginner-friendly contact form plugin used by over 6,000,000 sites. It features an intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, allowing you to build beautiful contact forms, payment forms, user registration forms, multi-page forms, and more.
  2. All in One SEO is a WordPress SEO plugin that helps you improve your WordPress SEO. It provides powerful on-page SEO optimization tools to help search engines better crawl and index your site, among many other capabilities.
  3. SeedProd is the ultimate drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress. With this software, you can design high-converting and beautiful pages that convert visitors into leads and leads into customers. You can create everything from landing pages and custom home pages to 404 pages and more.
  4. MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It brings the power of Google Analytics right to your WordPress dashboard, so you can get detailed reports of important metrics to see what’s working and what could be improved.
  5. OptinMonster is the best lead generation and popup plugin that helps you convert website visitors into subscribers and customers. With this tool, you can create a wide range of campaigns, including popups, scroll boxes, floating bars, and fullscreen welcome mats.
  6. MemberPress is a popular WordPress membership plugin for building membership websites. It has advanced membership features, including the ability to create gated content, add member levels, accept payments, create members-only forums, and more.
  7. PushEngage is a web push notification software that helps you engage and retain visitors once they’ve left your site. When users leave, you can send them all types of reminders, such as product announcements, blog post notifications, cart abandonment reminders, and more.
  8. RafflePress is a WordPress giveaway and contest plugin that lets you run all sorts of competitions. For example, you can run a giveaway to grow your email list.
  9. WP Mail SMTP is the best WordPress SMTP plugin for improving the deliverability and security of your emails.
  10. WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payments plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily create payment forms or buttons that accept 13+ payment methods and collect recurring payments.
  11. Smash Balloon is a social media feeds plugin for WordPress websites. It allows you to display custom Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube feeds on your site to boost followers and engagement.
  12. WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is cost-effective, super-flexible, and easy to use for beginners. You can easily create product pages, accept payments, manage orders, and much more. Basically, you can create your entire online store from scratch.

Frequently Asked Questions About Business Tools

What should you look for in a business tool?

The most important factors to consider when selecting a business tool are:

  • Integration with WordPress: If you own a WordPress site or WooCommerce store, you’ll want a business tool that easily connects the platforms. That way, no crucial information is lost in translation.
  • Ease of Use: The tool should be user-friendly and have an intuitive interface. Small businesses often have limited resources and may not have dedicated IT personnel, so it’s essential that the tool is easy for anyone on the team to use.
  • Scalability: Will it be able to grow with your business? Make sure the software can accommodate increasing data, users, and business complexity.
  • Cost-effectiveness: Evaluate the cost of the software pricing and its value for your business. Consider both upfront costs and ongoing fees. Some tools offer scalable pricing plans, which can be beneficial for small businesses.
  • Feature Set: Identify the specific features that are essential for your business. Whether it’s task management, CRM, eCommerce capabilities, or content marketing, make sure the service aligns with your business needs.
  • Customization: Look for a tool that allows some level of customization. This ensures that the tool can be adapted to meet your business’s unique requirements.
  • Customer Support: Reliable customer support is crucial. Check the availability, response times, and level of support provided. This is especially important when technical issues arise.
  • Security: Security is vital, especially when dealing with customer data. The tool should adhere to industry security standards and have measures in place to protect your business and customer information.
  • Mobile Compatibility: With an increasing number of users accessing websites through different devices, the software should be mobile-friendly.
  • Community and Reviews: Check for testimonials and user feedback to gain insights into the experiences of other small businesses using the tool.
  • Data Backup and Recovery: Make sure the software has reliable data backup and recovery mechanisms to prevent data loss in case of unexpected events. That said, if you don’t already have a WordPress backup plugin, Duplicator is our go-to recommendation.

Do business tools integrate with your WordPress site?

Yes, the best WordPress plugins should seamlessly integrate with the most popular third-party business tools. However, if there isn’t an integration, we recommend using Uncanny Automator.

It is the best automation plugin, allowing you to create unlimited automated workflows in WordPress. That means you can connect your website to a specific tool to complete an action.

Let’s say every time someone completes your contact form, you want to automatically add those contacts to your prospects list to your CRM tool. You can create an automated workflow through Uncanny Automator that will easily execute that action for you.

Are there any free business tools available?

Yes, many of these tools offer a free version with limited features. That means you can test the product and see if it meets your needs. That said, you can also check out our list of the best free business tools for small businesses.

We hope this article helped you find the best business tools for small businesses. You can also check out our list of the must-have WordPress plugins for business websites or our guide on the proven ways to make money online blogging with 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 29 Best Business Tools for Small Business (Expert Pick for 2024) first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Start a Podcast (and Make it Successful) in 2024

Podcasts are a popular media format that is growing rapidly. During last year alone, 220,786 new podcasts were launched, which is a 9% increase since 2022.

However, many beginners find it technically challenging to start a podcast.

There is too much information about hosting media files, buying equipment, and recording good-quality audio. It is enough to overwhelm and discourage users who are less tech-savvy.

Here, we will try to make it easy for you by showing you how to start a podcast, step by step. We will also show you how to start promoting your podcast and, more importantly, how to monetize and turn it into a profitable business.

Starting a podcast, a step by step guide for beginners

Here is an outline of everything that we will cover in this guide:

Ready? Let’s get started.

What Is a Podcast? And How Do Podcasts Work?

A podcast is an episodic series of audio files that users can subscribe to, download, and listen to.

There can also be video podcasts, but they are less common.

For your podcast to work, you need to have an audio file and an RSS Feed that users can subscribe to stay updated and download new episodes when they come out.

How podcasting works

Because WordPress has a built-in RSS feed system for blogs, many podcasters use WordPress as their podcast website platform.

You can connect your podcast website with podcasting apps like iTunes to make it easier for millions of users to listen and subscribe. We will cover this later in the article.

Now that you know what a podcast is and how it works, let’s take a look at how to find ideas to make a successful podcast.

Finding Podcast Topics and Niche

Around 27,557 podcast episodes are published every day (source: PodcastIndex).

In order to compete, you need to find the topics you will cover in your own podcast.

Here are some tips that may help you narrow down the topics and find your niche.

  • Follow your passion – Choosing topics that excite you will help you create better content that is engaging for your target audience as well.
  • Pick a lane – Instead of podcasting about random things, try to stick with topics within a defined subject area. This will help you more quickly establish expertise and authority while finding a target audience. It will also help you with monetization and sponsorships in the future.
  • Think like your audience – You can build an audience persona based on the topics you choose. Who is your audience, and what other things do they like? What are their pain points that you can address in your podcast?
  • Research your competition – Look at what other podcasters in your niche are doing. Can you build on that with your unique perspective and voice?
  • Choose your podcast format – Would you like to do interviews, solo commentary, or something different? Choose a format that suits your topic and your strengths.

Now that you have made up your mind about what you want to say, let’s take a look at the things you will need to make all this happen.

Things You Need to Set Up Your Podcast

For a professional podcasting setup, there are a few things that you will need to get started.

The first thing is a website or a blog where people can learn more about you and your podcast.

The second thing is the equipment to record your podcast episodes.

Lastly, you need to have the right tools to publish your podcast on the internet so you can get maximum subscribers and reach.

We will walk you through the whole process, step by step.

Step 1. Website Setup: WordPress Hosting and Domain Name

The most important step in building a website is to choose the right platform.

We recommend using WordPress.org, also known as self-hosted WordPress, for setting up your podcasting website.

WordPress is free to use. You can install plugins, customize your site design, and, most importantly, make money from your site without any restrictions (See the difference between WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org).

Why We Recommend WordPress:

  • WordPress is open source and gives you full control and ownership of your podcast content.
  • WordPress has thousands of plugins, which are like apps for your website. These plugins help you connect your site to any third-party tool, service, or payment gateway you need.
  • WordPress is beginner-friendly, and you can set up your podcast website without hiring a developer.

Setting Up WordPress

To get started, you will need a domain name and a website hosting account.

A domain name is your website’s address on the internet. This is what people type to get to your website. For example, google.com or wpbeginner.com.

Web hosting is your website’s house on the internet. This is where all your files and images are stored. Every website needs web hosting.

The typical cost of web hosting is $7.99 per month, and a domain name usually costs around $14.99 per year.

This is a lot for someone just starting out. Thankfully, Bluehost has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and up to 61% off on web hosting.

In real numbers, this means you can start your podcasting website for only $2.75 per month.

We recommend using Bluehost because they are one of the official WordPress-recommended hosting providers and one of the largest web hosting services in the world.

Other hosting companies we recommend: Hostinger ($2.69 /month, free domain included) and SiteGround ($2.99/month, free domain included).

For more hosting recommendations, see our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting.

After signing up for WordPress hosting, you can follow the instructions in our complete step-by-step WordPress installation tutorial to get started.

Choose a Podcast WordPress Theme

Once you have installed WordPress, your website will use a default WordPress theme. It is quite basic, and you may want to change it.

Themes control how the front end of your website looks to the visitors.

Luckily there are thousands of WordPress themes to choose from. However, not all of them are made specifically for a podcast website.

Don’t worry. We have got you covered there as well. Our expert team has curated a hand-picked list of WordPress themes for podcasters.

WordPress podcast themes

All themes in this list are made specifically for podcasting websites or are well-suited for podcasting.

Need help setting up your theme? See our tutorial on how to install a WordPress theme.

Step 2. Setting Up a Media Hosting Service

The next thing you will need is a good media hosting service.

Podcast episodes are large audio files. Serving them from your web host will consume a lot of server resources, making your website slow and often unresponsive.

For the best user experience, we recommend that you use a podcast-specific media hosting platform like Blubrry.

Most smart podcasters use a separate podcast hosting service to serve their podcast files. It is the smartest and most efficient way to run a podcast.

Why we recommend Blubrry:

  • Blubrry is optimized for podcasting using WordPress. They offer a powerful plugin called Blubrry PowerPress, which makes it easy to manage your podcast from the WordPress site.
  • It comes with a large user community made up of many successful podcasters. If you need help, join the forums to learn from others who have been podcasting for a long time.
  • Blubrry has great tools like ID3 tagging, iTunes optimization, automatic media artwork management, etc.
  • They have a top-tier content delivery network (CDN), which makes your content delivery faster and more reliable.

Step 3. Choosing Proper Podcasting Equipment

As your podcast grows, you will need to invest in new tools to produce higher-quality podcasts.

As a beginner, the most important tool you need is a good microphone.

Please do not use your computer’s built-in microphone to record your podcast. Your users will instantly notice the terrible sound quality.

There are two main types: XLR and USB microphones.

XLR microphones are like professional cameras. They give high-quality audio but need an audio interface or mixer to connect them to your computer. This can be a bit complex for beginners.

USB microphones are like point-and-shoot cameras. They are easy to use, and you can just plug them into your computer and start recording. They are great for beginners. However, the sound quality might not be as good as XLR microphones.

We recommend choosing a USB microphone. They are beginner-friendly and require less technical knowledge to operate.

However, if you are willing to spend extra time and money for better sound quality, then choose an XLR microphone. This is what most professional podcasters use.

There are three popular mic choices among podcasters.

Choosing a microphone to record podcasts
  • Samson C01U (USB) – Entry-level Microphone
  • Røde Podmic (USB) – Best USB mic
  • Heil PR-40 (XLR connection, not USB) – This is what the pros use. You will need to buy an audio mixer as well.

Here is some other equipment that you probably want to purchase: a mic arm, shock mount, and a pop filter.

For WPBeginner’s audio/video setup, we use the Rode Podcaster kit with a mic arm and shock mount.

You will also need a decent headphone. We are using Sony MDR7506.

Once you have the right podcasting equipment, you will be ready for the next step: planning and recording your first podcast episode.

Step 4. Planning Your First Few Podcast Episodes

You need to plan your podcast episodes before you sit down to record them. There are several important decisions that you need to make.

1. Episode content

What will be the topics for your first few episodes? You can plan your content in an orderly fashion, work on the content by creating an outline, and then digging into the details.

2. Length of Episodes

Podcasts can be from 20 minutes to over an hour long. The duration of your episodes depends on your content and audience.

There are no strict rules about the ideal length for a good podcast episode. However, episodes between 20-40 minutes tend to do better.

If you have good content, then don’t cut it down just so it can fit the specific length. Similarly, don’t drag content too much so that you can fill the desired episode length.

3. Supporting Media

You will also want to work on intro music, background music, or other sounds you may want to add to your podcast for a dramatic effect.

The following are a few places where you can find license-free music and soundtracks to use in your podcast episodes or as your theme music. Carefully review the licensing terms before using any track in your podcast:

4. Storyboarding and Scripting

You can sit down and record by just looking at a simple outline of your ideas. However, this might give your users the impression that you didn’t do your homework.

You need to actually sit down and write down the script. This helps you stay focused and makes you sound more professional and prepared.

You can still go on and speak off the script during the recording, but having an actual script keeps you on track and results in better-quality content.

After spending some time planning your episodes and giving more thought to your content, it is time to record your first podcast.

Step 5. Recording Your First Podcast

To record your podcast, you will need audio recording software. This software will help you record and edit your audio files.

The best podcast recording software used by most podcasters is Audacity. It is a free, cross-platform, and open-source software capable of recording studio-quality professional podcasts.

After installing Audacity, you need to open it up and create a new project from the File menu.

To record your voice, simply click on the record button.

Now, feel free to record your podcast. Don’t worry about awkward pauses, breaks, coughing, or any glitches you might make while narrating.

You can edit the recording as many times as you want.

Audacity

You can also import music files from File » Import and set them as background music.

Audacity is a very powerful tool, and it is not possible for us to even cover its basic features in this article. However, TeamAudacity has an extensive Wiki with detailed tutorials.

We recommend that you go through these tutorials. Becoming familiar with the software will take some time, but it’s worth your time and effort.

Once you have recorded your podcast, you need to export it.

Most podcasters export their audio files in the MP3 format because it creates smaller file sizes with good quality.

You also need to be smart about naming your podcast files. Remember, podcasts are episodic series, so it would be best to use a naming practice that uses an episode or serial number in the file name.

Some suggestions would be WPB001.mp3 or WPBep001.mp3.

Then, you need to save the final version of your podcast file to a separate folder on your computer.

Step 6. Publishing Your Podcast With WordPress

After you have created a few episodes and you are satisfied with their quality, it’s time to learn how to publish your podcast with WordPress.

You will need to log in to the admin area of your WordPress site.

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

Upon activation, you will see a PowerPress menu item in the WordPress admin menu. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s settings page.

Connect powerpress to your Blubrry account

If you are using Blubrry to host your podcasting files, then you need to click on the ‘Let’s Connect’ button to configure the Blubrry statistics and hosting services.

This will bring up a popup, where you will be asked to log in to your Blubrry account and give the plugin permission to access your account.

Connect Blubrry account

Next, you will need to fill out the rest of the information on the settings page.

Start by providing a title for your feed in the ‘Feeds’ tab.

podcast feed title

After that, you can upload the artwork by switching to the ‘Podcast Artwork’ tab.

This will be the square thumbnail displayed next to your podcast in podcast listening apps. Make sure that it represents your podcast branding.

Podcast artwork

The rest of the plugin settings are quite self-explanatory, and the default options will work for most users.

We will come back to the Apple iTunes settings later in this article.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings. Your WordPress website is now ready to publish your podcast.

Step 7. Upload Media Files to Blubrry

Before you can publish a podcast episode with WordPress, you first need to upload the podcast file to your media hosting service, Blubrry.

Log in to your Blubrry hosting account and then click on the ‘Set Website’ option in the dashboard.

Set website in Blubrry

On the next screen, choose ‘I already have a website’.

Below that, you must provide the URL of your WordPress website.

Enter podcast website

Click the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.

Next, go to the Episodes » Publish New page. Here, simply provide a title and description for your podcast episode.

Upload podcast episode

After that, click on the ‘Upload Episode File’ button to upload the podcast episode you recorded earlier.

Below that, you can schedule the release date and time. This allows you to schedule episodes to be released at a preferred time. Not choosing a date and time will make your episode available immediately.

Optionally, you can provide a transcript for your episode if you have one.

Once you are finished, go ahead and click on the ‘Publish’ button to save your changes.

Publish podcast media

Step 8. Adding Your First Podcast in WordPress

Everything is now in order, and you are ready to add your first podcast in WordPress.

To publish your first podcast, you need to go to the Posts » Add New page.

It is highly recommended that you create a separate category for your podcast episodes.

This will allow you to keep your podcast episodes separate from the rest of your content. You will also be able to publicize your podcast feed more easily later on.

After that, you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page, and there you will see the ‘Podcast Episode’ box.

Add podcast episode in WordPress

From here, click on the ‘Choose File’ button to select the file you uploaded to Blubrry.

If your podcast media file is not hosted on Blubrry, then you can just paste the media file URL here. Then, you need to click the ‘Verify’ button to ensure you have put the correct URL.

Now, you need to scroll back up to the post editor section. Give your blog post a suitable title and add a description for this podcast episode.

Add podcast player

After that, you need to add the PowerPress Player block to the content area where you want to display the podcast player.

That’s all. You can now publish and preview your blog post, and you will see your podcast episode live with a beautiful player.

Podcast player preview

Congratulations, your WordPress podcasting site is ready to go live.

Step 9. Previewing Your Podcast With iTunes

Now that you have set up your podcast website with WordPress, it is time to submit your podcast to iTunes and get more subscribers.

Before submitting it to iTunes, you might want to check to see how your podcast will look on iTunes. To do this, launch iTunes, go to File » Subscribe to Podcast and enter your feed URL. Your feed URL will look like this:

http://www.example.com/feed/podcast

Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.

Once you enter the URL in iTunes, it will fetch the feed and display it. As you can see in the screenshot below, it fetched the artwork, description, subtitle, and more.

Preview podcast in iTunes

If everything looks good, then this means you are ready to submit your podcast to iTunes.

Step 10. Submitting Your Podcast to iTunes

To submit your podcast to iTunes, you need to download and install the latest version of iTunes on your computer. Next, launch iTunes and click on the iTunes Store button in the top right corner of the screen.

iTunes will now access the iTunes Store. Click on the ‘Podcasts’ menu, and then scroll a little to find the Podcasts Quick Links section. There, you will see a link to ‘Submit a podcast’.

Submit podcast to iTunes

This will open the podcast submission process. You will need an Apple ID to submit your podcast to the iTunes directory. If you are not already signed in, then iTunes will prompt you to log in.

The first thing you will need is your podcast feed URL. Your podcast feed URL will be like this:

http://example.com/feed/podcast

Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.

Since you are using PowerPress, your feed will already include the tags required by the iTunes Store for podcasts.

Upon submission, your podcast feed will be submitted to the iTunes review queue. After approval by the iTunes review staff, it will be added to the iTunes directory, and you will be notified via email.

Podcasting Resources to Help You Grow

Congratulations on starting your podcast with WordPress! If you want to make your podcast successful, then we recommend you join:

Podcasters’ Paradise by John Lee Dumas

John is a good friend of ours, and he is an inspiration for most new podcasters. In just a few years, he has taken his podcast from $0 to 7 figure annual income. If you are thinking of starting a podcast, then you want to learn from him.

Plus, here are some actionable tips to drive traffic to your new WordPress site.

Plugin Recommendations to Grow Your Podcast

We recommend installing some must-have plugins on your WordPress website to extend its functionality and grow your podcast. Here are the most often recommended top plugins you can install right away:

  • All in One SEO for WordPress – The best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It enables you to optimize your podcast website SEO to get more free traffic from search engines.
  • RafflePress – The best WordPress giveaway plugin that allows you to run viral giveaways in exchange for a podcast subscription, joining your email newsletter, or following you on social media.
  • MonsterInsights – Once you start getting listeners to your website, you will want to know which episodes they are listening to or downloading and where they are coming from. MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin that allows you to track all this data.

Making Money From Your Podcast

It will take a lot of your time and solid commitment to make your podcast successful. To make it all sustainable in the long run, you will need to find ways to monetize your podcast.

We have a detailed guide on how to make money online using your WordPress blog. All the items listed there can also be used on your podcasting website.

The following are some of the top ways to make money from a podcast.

  • If you think a business would benefit from sponsoring your podcast, feel free to reach out to them to be a sponsor. You’d be surprised how often this would work out for you.
  • Use affiliate marketing to recommend third-party products and services to your audience.
  • Sell your own products and services by adding an online store to your website.
  • Ask subscribers to support your podcast with donations. You can simply add a payment form on your website where subscribers can make a small donation.
  • Make older episodes available only for members. See our guide on how to make a membership website with WordPress.

We hope this article helped you start a podcast with WordPress. You may also want to see our list of must-have WordPress plugins for business websites and our expert picks of the best WordPress themes for podcasters.

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 Start a Podcast (and Make it Successful) in 2024 first appeared on WPBeginner.

80+ Social Media Statistics for 2024 (Ultimate List for Bloggers)

Do you want to explore the latest trends and statistics related to social media?

The use of social media is constantly on the rise. Businesses can use social media platforms that align with their respective niches to connect with relevant audiences and increase engagement.

Using social media, you can create a community around your brand and easily promote your products and services to the right audience.

However, to make the most out of social media, it’s a good idea to be familiar with the latest social media trends and statistics.

In this article, we have gathered the most relevant and recent social media statistics to help you stay up-to-date.

Social media statistics

List of Social Media Statistics and Trends

To make it easier for you to go through the insights in this post, we have divided the relevant statistics and trends into different categories.

All you have to do is click on any of the links below to jump to the section you are interested in:

General Social Media Statistics

General social media statistics
  • Around 5.04 billion people actively use social media platforms around the globe. 
  • Social media users make up 62.3% of the world’s total population. 
  • Social media users are estimated to reach over 6 billion by the year 2027. 
  • On average, social media users are active on 6.7 social media platforms. 
  • An average user spends around 2 hours and 23 minutes on social media on a daily basis. 
  • 39% of people say that they are addicted to using social media apps. 
  • 49.5% of people use social media to stay connected with their friends or family. 
  • 48.9% of people leverage social media to learn about their preferred brands and explore their content. 
  • 43% of people explore new products or services through social media. 
  • 73.9% of people use social media to research products or services from different brands that they may consider purchasing from. 
  • 87% of people say that social media helps them make informed buying decisions. 
  • 90% of people explore online reviews before visiting a brand’s social media page. 
  • 72% of people trust businesses endorsed by social media influencers
  • 40% of people are inspired by social media influencers to purchase certain products or services. 
  • 77% of businesses leverage social media platforms to connect with relevant audiences. 
  • 76% of professionals say social media platforms help them drive relevant website traffic
  • 41% of small companies and local businesses use social media to generate revenue. 
  • Advertisement spending on social media is expected to reach $219.8 billion by the end of 2024. 
  • Ad spending on social media is expected to grow by 6.1% in 2024. 
  • Businesses spend 8.7% of their total revenue to run ads on social media platforms. 
  • Social media ads have a click-through rate of 1.21%. 
  • Bite-sized video content on social media yields 2.5 times more engagement compared to longer videos. 
  • 99% of people use social media apps on their mobile devices, like tablets or smartphones. 
  • 60% of B2C marketers say that social media helps them get more conversions
  • Social listening is the top social media marketing tactic for 62% of marketers. 
  • 89.3% of marketers say that social media plays a key role in helping them execute their marketing strategies. 
  • 82% of businesses leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to come up with new ideas for their social media content.
  • 52% of businesses leverage AI to generate images for their social media activities. 
  • 46% of businesses use AI to respond to messages they receive on social media. 

Social media has taken the world by storm. Social platforms made it easier for people to stay connected with their friends or family and interact in a fun way.

This is the reason why almost every person you meet is active on different social media platforms and spends a considerable amount of time there.

However, being connected with their loved ones isn’t the only reason that people are active on social media. They also use social platforms to research brands that they are interested in and explore the solutions they offer.

This is why having an active presence on relevant social media platforms has become a necessity for all kinds of businesses.

With the help of social media, you can generate traction for your brand organically or by investing in advertising. For instance, hosting a contest or giveaway on social media with RafflePress is a great way to grow your reach. Plus, you can partner with other content creators or influencers to boost your brand’s reach.

You can also leverage social proof to display how people are interacting with your online content. Smash Balloon can help you embed fully customizable social media feeds into your website from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more. This can improve your reputation and help you get more followers, likes, and engagement.

Your blog or business can benefit from social media in a number of ways. All you need to do is know your target audience and create content around their interests to generate traction.

Facebook Statistics

Facebook statistics
  • Facebook is a leading social media platform, with over 3 billion users worldwide. 
  • An average user spends 19 hours and 47 minutes on Facebook in a month. 
  • 72.6% of people use Facebook to contact their friends or family. 
  • 18% of Facebook posts are videos. 
  • 54.3% of people use Facebook to research brands and their solutions. 
  • 89% of marketers leverage Facebook for advertising. 
  • Marketers reach 2.19 billion people through Facebook ads. 
  • Facebook posts have a 0.06% engagement rate. 
  • Facebook is the preferred social media platform by marketers, leading the charts with 89%. 
  • The average number of posts by users on Facebook is 1.86 per day. 

Despite having a low engagement rate, Facebook is still a leading social media platform and is preferred by billions of people around the globe.

That’s why Facebook is an excellent choice to create a community around your brand. This enables your audience to share their experiences and connect with your business.

We did this by creating a Facebook group called WPBeginner Engage, where aspiring entrepreneurs, bloggers, and small business owners can connect with like-minded people, troubleshoot problems with their websites, and share their stories. We now have more than 97,000 members, and our community is constantly growing.

Plus, Facebook is a great option for reaching new users through ads and driving them to your website. For more information, you can see our guide on how to create a Facebook Ads landing page in WordPress.

Instagram Statistics

Instagram social media statistics
  • Around 2 billion people around the globe use Instagram. 
  • An average user spends 15 hours and 50 minutes on Instagram in a month. 
  • 62.7% of people use Instagram to research brands and their solutions. 
  • 70.4% of people use Instagram to upload or share content. 
  • A standard image post on Instagram has the potential to reach 2,002 users on average. 
  • The average engagement rate for all types of posts on Instagram is 1.89%. 
  • 80% of marketers around the globe use Instagram for advertising. 
  • Marketers reach 4.65 billion people by leveraging Instagram ads. 
  • Influencer marketing spending on Instagram is worth $4.14 billion. 
  • 43% of marketers plan to invest more into marketing their respective solutions through Instagram. 

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms, with a very high engagement rate compared to other apps.

You can use the platform to connect with a relevant audience organically or leverage paid advertising to get the traction you need. You can even add Instagram shoppable images and sell your products directly through the social platform.

Due to the high activity level of users, Instagram has the potential to deliver the best results and get a higher return on investment (ROI).

Plus, it is home to influencers representing different niches around the globe, giving you plenty of opportunity to form brand collaborations and promote your business online.

Collaborating with the right influencers may help you create a buzz around your brand. Plus, you can easily showcase their reviews, sponsored posts, and recommendations on your website with the Smash Balloon Instagram Feed plugin.

Twitter Statistics

Twitter social media statistics
  • Twitter has around 619 million users worldwide. 
  • On average, 1.5 million people sign in to Twitter on a daily basis. 
  • Twitter Blue has over 640 thousand active subscribers. 
  • An average user spends 4 hours and 40 minutes on Twitter in a month. 
  • 60.6% of people use Twitter to stay up-to-date with the latest news and events. 
  • 35.7% of people use Twitter to research brands and their solutions. 
  • Marketers reach 618.9 million people through Twitter ads. 
  • 49% of Twitter users are inspired by influencer recommendations. 
  • Influencers on Twitter generate around 5.2 times higher purchase intent than other platforms.

A common mistake brands make is thinking that promoting their solutions on Twitter isn’t worth the effort. Businesses are often on the fence when it comes to reaching their intended audience through Twitter due to user preferences.

A majority of people use Twitter to keep up with the latest news and updates. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the platform has the potential to generate a significant amount of traction for your brand through ads and influencer partnerships.

All you need to do is understand the platform’s dynamics and know how to benefit from them. We recommend checking out our guide to the best Twitter plugins for WordPress to get more out of this social platform.

YouTube Statistics

YouTube social media statistics
  • YouTube has around 2.5 billion users worldwide. 
  • The overall audience of YouTube covers 95% of internet users, as the platform supports many different languages. 
  • YouTube channels get an average growth rate of 36% per year. 
  • Around 90% of people access YouTube via their mobile devices. 
  • Less than 11% of people access YouTube from their desktops. 
  • An average user spends 28 hours and 5 minutes on YouTube in a month. 
  • Marketers reach 2.49 billion people through YouTube ads. 
  • YouTube’s ad revenue worldwide encompasses over $7 billion. 
  • To collaborate with YouTubers, brands spend $418 on average.

YouTube is a social media platform that is preferred by users around the globe for educational or entertainment purposes.

Due to the active presence of content creators representing different niches, YouTube is an excellent platform for brands to get more engagement, traffic, and sales through long-form videos.

On YouTube, you can collaborate with different streamers or content creators to expand your reach and generate awareness. You might even get one of these influencers to host a livestream and then embed it into your website to generate some buzz.

If you don’t have a channel yet, then you can check out our ultimate guide on how to start a successful YouTube channel. Once it’s up and running, you can also see our tutorial on how to embed YouTube videos into your website to get more eyes on your content.

TikTok Statistics

TikTok social media statistics
  • Over 1.5 billion people use TikTok around the globe. 
  • TikTok has 37.3 million active Gen Z users. 
  • TikTok is the fastest-growing social media platform, with a growth rate of 100%. 
  • An average user spends 34 hours on TikTok in a month. 
  • 80.3% of people use TikTok to explore entertaining content. 
  • 44.9% of people use TikTok to research brands and their solutions. 
  • 25% of marketers leverage TikTok for advertising. 
  • Marketers reach 1.56 billion people by leveraging TikTok ads. 
  • 69% of marketers prefer TikTok for influencer marketing activities. 
  • 50.1% of marketers say that TikTok offers the highest ROI to influencers. 

One of the key reasons TikTok became the fastest-growing social media platform is the content format it follows.

The platform allows its users to publish bite-sized video content, which has proved to be an excellent growth hack over the years.

Not only does this make the platform a preferred choice for people who are looking for their daily dose of content, but also for content creators and influencers worldwide.

That’s why TikTok is a reliable social media platform for brands that want to attract a relevant audience through ads and influencer partnerships. You can even take things a step further by using RafflePress to host a viral giveaway on TikTok, which can quickly help you grow your audience and get more leads.

Plus, with Smash Balloon TikTok Feed, you can display your TikTok videos on your website and offer a fun experience to your younger audience. Here’s our step-by-step tutorial on how to embed TikTok videos on your website that will guide you through the process.

LinkedIn Statistics

LinkedIn social media statistics
  • Over 67 million companies have an active presence on LinkedIn. 
  • Over 174 million people around the globe use LinkedIn Premium. 
  • 27.7% of people use LinkedIn to stay up-to-date with the latest news and events. 
  • 24.1% of people use LinkedIn to research brands and their solutions. 
  • 98% of content marketers leverage LinkedIn to fuel their content marketing activities.
  • 46% of social traffic to B2B websites comes from LinkedIn.
  • 80% of the leads captured by B2B marketers come from LinkedIn.
  • 59% of professionals prefer consuming video content on LinkedIn.
  • Marketers reach 1.03 billion people through LinkedIn ads.
  • LinkedIn generates around $6 billion in ad revenue.

LinkedIn is more than just a social media platform that people use for professional networking.

It’s one of the leading sources for getting traffic to B2B websites and capturing quality leads for their sales funnels.

LinkedIn allows businesses to attract a relevant audience organically and through brand advertisements. However, the platform delivers the best results when your target audience is companies rather than individual customers.

List of Sources

WPBeginner, OptinMonster, Forbes, Datareportal, SproutSocial, Truelist, Hootsuite, WebFX, Kinsta

We hope that this list of social media statistics, facts, and trends will provide you with some relevant insights and help you design better social media strategies for your business. You may also want to see our other research articles:

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 80+ Social Media Statistics for 2024 (Ultimate List for Bloggers) first appeared on WPBeginner.

How I Run Giveaways to 2x Traffic & Conversions (Case Study)

When WPBeginner turned 14 years old in 2023, we threw a giveaway to celebrate, which is a long-standing tradition we’ve been following for over a decade now.

One of the questions I often get asked is why we run giveaways on WPBeginner.

With the giveaway, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who supports WPBeginner and use the opportunity to supercharge our growth.

The birthday giveaway was a huge success. You may be wondering exactly what I did so you can use the same method to grow your own email list and conversions.

In this article, I will share how I planned and ran a giveaway on WPBeginner that grew our email subscribers while boosting our social media followers and more.

Note: This article is part of our WPBeginner Insider series, where we explain things we do at WPBeginner.

run giveaways on wpbeginner

Why I Run Giveaways to Grow Our Email List

Before I get into the nitty-gritty details of a viral giveaway, you might be wondering why I decided to run a giveaway.

Running the birthday giveaway in the first week of July is a long-standing tradition I’ve been following for over a decade at WPBeginner.

It is, indeed, one of the ways I choose to give back to the WPBeginner community.

Over the years, we’ve gifted several giveaway prizes like laptops, premium WordPress plugins, 1-hour mentoring calls with me, and even an all-expense paid trip to Florida, where I live, so I can offer a 1-1 mentorship.

viral giveaway winner

It’s also the time of the year when I look back on things I did in the previous years, communicate with our audience, and plan a year ahead.

To celebrate the birthday to the fullest with our audience, I wanted to ensure maximum reach for our giveaway.

I use viral sharing (refer-a-friend) to spread the word, which in turn helps us supercharge our user growth in terms of email subscribers, social media users, website engagement, and more.

Here are the lessons I learned by running annual birthday giveaways at WPBeginner.

1. Select the Right Prize That Connects with the Audience

The first thing you need to do is choose an attractive prize that will generate excitement and encourage your visitors to participate in the giveaway.

At WPBeginner, I often give away free licenses of WordPress plugins and themes to our winners. As you might already know, I run giveaways on several of my other brands. For example, WPForms runs monthly giveaways of cool gadgets such as MacBooks.

Because our 14th birthday was a big celebration, we offered a big prize: premium plugins worth $50,000.

I also decided to have multiple winners to encourage our readers and offer them a bigger chance to win.

Giveaway Preview

A big lesson I learned is that giveaways don’t always have to be expensive, but they should be exciting enough. So, choose a prize that connects with your business and target audience. For example, many online stores award free products, free shipping, or gift cards.

2. Choose the Right Giveaway Tool

To create our birthday giveaway, I used RafflePress, one of my portfolio products, which is a WordPress giveaway plugin that lets you create all kinds of contests using a simple drag-and-drop editor.

RafflePress is designed to entice users to engage with giveaways while also growing our email list, site traffic, and social media followers.

No matter which giveaway plugin you use, make sure it encourages your site visitors to make multiple entries to stand a chance to win.

While I used the premium version, there is also a free version of RafflePress that you can use to get started. You can see our complete RafflePress review for more details.

I quickly created a new giveaway using the Classic Giveaway template. Instead of listing all of the prizes on the entry form, I just entered a simple and descriptive title. Then described the prizes in more detail in our birthday blog post.

RafflePress Setup Details

On the plugin’s Setup page, I entered the start date as July 4th, WPBeginner’s birthday, and an end date 9 days later. That gave our readers plenty of time to enter the contest while still being short enough to create a sense of urgency.

At the top of the entry form, I displayed the user’s number of entries, the total number of entries across all users, and the time remaining before the competition closed.

3. Choose a Goal for Your Giveaway

It’s important to keep your giveaway campaign focused by setting a goal. If you aim at nothing, then you’ll probably hit it.

Online brands often use giveaways to encourage their customers to post reviews on review websites like Solution Center, TrustPilot, and G2.com. This helps brands foster trust among potential customers when they compare products online.

Another popular goal website owners often set is growing email subscribers. Your email list is crucial because it gives you direct access to our users’ inboxes and allows you to send them personalized content, offers, news, and more.

Fact: According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing, on average, sees a 4300% return on investment (ROI) for businesses in the USA.

Similarly, you can incentivize users to join you on social media, leave a blog comment, and more.

Here is a screenshot from last year’s giveaway:

Ways to Enter the Giveaway

4. Use Viral Sharing to Supercharge Your Growth

Whenever I run a birthday giveaway at WPBeginner, I ensure it’s easy for our readers to spread the word about the giveaway with viral sharing. This is a method of incentivizing users to supercharge your growth.

No matter what your goals are with your giveaway, you can add them as an action and encourage users to take that action. On top of that, by adding social sharing action, you can bring in more users to your giveaway as well.

RafflePress actions are the things that people need to do to enter your giveaway. They are the key to maximizing your giveaway’s conversions.

RafflePress comes with lots of different actions, so you just need to choose the ones that help you achieve your goals.

RafflePress Actions to Get More Subscribers

Actions are grouped into ones that let you get more subscribers, get more social engagement, and get more traffic.

For example, some of the actions that can help you get more subscribers include joining an email newsletter, visiting a YouTube channel, and visiting us on Facebook. These all align with the goals we set for our giveaway.

You can add as many actions as you like. Offering multiple entry methods encourages more participants to enter and can grow your following across multiple social media platforms.

RafflePress will track how many people use these actions individually so you can see how many new subscribers have been added to your email list and social channels from the giveaway.

I added 11 entry methods in total and dragged the most important ones to the top of the list, starting with ‘Join the WPBeginner Email Newsletter’.

Ways to enter WPBeginner giveaway

After that, I customized each of these actions.

I gave the email newsletter action a value of ‘+3’. This gives the user 3 entries into the competition instead of 1. The extra value will encourage users to complete this action because it gives them a bigger chance to win.

Increasing the Value of a RafflePress Action

I also gave higher values to joining our Facebook group (+5) and visiting our YouTube channel (+4) because they align with our goals. I gave ‘Refer a Friend’ the value of +4 per referral to encourage users to share the giveaway with their friends.

Besides that, I enabled the ‘Trigger on Sign Up’ option. This will automatically add users to our email list when they sign up for the giveaway.

The best thing is that RafflePress comes with integrations for the best email marketing services, such as Drip. This saved us a ton of time and effort.

I set up the ‘Join an Email Newsletter’ action to automatically add users to our email list.

RafflePress Integrations

Note: During this giveaway, we were using Mailchimp for our email list, but we’ve since moved to Drip. You can check out our WPBeginner Insider post to see why we switched from MailChimp to Drip.

5. Spread the Word

I created a new post on WPBeginner talking about what we achieved in our 14th year and introducing the competition.

RafflePress lets you easily add your giveaway to your WordPress website using a WordPress block, shortcode, or dedicated landing page.

All we had to do was drag the RafflePress block into our post and select the correct giveaway from the dropdown menu.

This allowed our visitors to enter the competition during the dates that it was active. Once the competition was closed, it automatically displayed a notification that ‘This giveaway has ended’ and didn’t allow further entries.

Next, we promoted the competition on our social channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest. We explained the giveaway and linked back to our 14th birthday blog post.

Promoting Our Giveaway on Facebook

It’s always a good idea to make it clear who is eligible to participate. RafflePress lets you generate rules and terms and links to them at the bottom of the entry form.

6. Pick Giveaway Winners

If a lot of people enter your giveaway or competition, then choosing a winner can be difficult and time-consuming. Luckily, RafflePress makes it easy.

Once the competition is closed, a ‘Pick Winner’ button will appear at the top of the campaign.

Choosing a winner for an online giveaway

When you click this button, you will be asked how many winners you want to pick and whether to only consider users who verified their email.

Upon clicking the ‘Choose Winners Now’ button, RafflePress quickly chose the winners for us, taking into account how many entries each user had.

Once the winners were selected, we contacted each one by email. If you only have a few winners, then you simply click the ‘Email Winner’ link under each winning user.

However, if you have hundreds of winners like we did, then you can save time by exporting the users and importing them into your favorite email marketing service.

Finally, we updated our blog post to state that the competition was closed and all winners had been contacted.

Final Thoughts

RafflePress works well for giveaways of all sizes, even those with tens of thousands of entries. I used it for our 14th birthday giveaway celebration, and RafflePress’ advanced features and usable interface made the whole process effortless despite the 20,000+ participants.

The free RafflePress plugin comes with a customizable Classic Giveaway template and is perfect for blogs, non-profits, and new businesses looking to grow their social media engagement.

The RafflePress Pro plan also connects to the best email service providers, making it the best choice if you want to grow your email list.

Overall, we recommend RafflePress for online businesses and eCommerce stores that wish to use giveaways and competitions to get more subscribers, improve their social engagement, and increase their website traffic.

Expert Guides on Using Giveaways in WordPress

Now that you know how powerful giveaways can be, you can follow these guides to do the same on your own WordPress website:

We hope you found this article helpful in finding out how to run a successful viral giveaway. You may also want to see our guide on proven ways to make money online blogging with WordPress or our expert pick of the best social media plugins for 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 I Run Giveaways to 2x Traffic & Conversions (Case Study) first appeared on WPBeginner.

6 Proven Methods We Use at WPBeginner to Grow Our Email List

Many of our users often ask about the methods we use at WPBeginner for marketing channels like email, social media, and SEO.

We regularly share the tools and techniques we use not only just on WPBeginner but also on our other portfolio companies.

However, the one area we get asked the most about is ‘growing an email list’ and which tools and techniques we use.

This article will walk you through the proven and tested methods we currently use at WPBeginner to grow our email list. We will also share the tools we use and show you how you can apply each tip on your website.

Note: This article is part of our WPBeginner Insider series, where we introduce you to the products we use at WPBeginner. We publish WPBeginner Insider every other Thursday.

Methods we use at WPBeginner to grow our email list

1. Convert Abandoning Users Into Subscribers with Exit Intent

Love it or hate it, but the reality is popup works.

We use a few popups on WPBeginner. And we try to use them to enrich the user experience (UX) instead of ruining it. This strategy has proven to work very well with our audience.

Example: Exit Intent Popup

Instead of just nagging our users to fill in their email addresses and sign up for our email list, we offer our newsletter as a training resource for beginners. The high value of the free resource balances out the trade-off for our users.

To summarize, we have learned that the best approach is offering users something valuable and useful in exchange for their contact information.

This is our value proposition, which we show in our email list sign-up popups.

wpbeginner popup

No one wants to be bombarded by annoying popups when they visit a website. Helping users get the information they need in the shortest time is essential to the user experience.

This is why we show our popups just when a user is about to leave our website. These kinds of popups are called exit intent popups, and they are helpful in reducing the bounce rate on a website.

At WPBeginner, we currently use a full-screen exit intent popup. In the recent past, we have also used regular-sized exit intent popups, which also worked well.

Why Does It Work?

At WPBeginner, popups work very well for two main reasons.

First, they offer value to our users, which they might not have noticed by simply scrolling through our website.

Secondly, they appear without disrupting the user experience and just when visitors are about to leave. That way, we avoid annoying our readers.

How to Implement It

We use OptinMonster to create popups on WPBeginner. It is the best WordPress popup plugin on the market that allows you to easily create popups and show them to the right users at the right time.

OptinMonster website

Note: There is also a free version of OptinMonster available with limited campaigns and features. However, we recommend upgrading to the paid plan to unlock its full potential.

First, you will need to sign up for an OptinMonster plan. After that, install and activate the OptinMonster plugin. For more details, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will ask you to connect WordPress with your OptinMonster account. Just follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup.

Afterward, go to the OptinMonster » Campaigns page and click the ‘Add New’ button.

Create new OptinMonster campaign

Next, you will be asked to choose a template or Playbook.

Click on ‘Templates’ to continue.

Choose a template or playbook

Next, you will be asked to choose a campaign type.

Click to select Popup campaign, and then choose a template down below.

Select campaign type

This will lead you to OptinMonster’s campaign builder.

It is a drag-and-drop design tool where you will see a live preview of your popup with blocks on the left. You can add those blocks to your popup or click anywhere to edit it.

OptinMonster campaign designer

Once you are finished, don’t forget to save your changes and publish your popup.

For more details, you can see our tutorial on how to add a fullscreen popup in WordPress.

2. Offer a Lead Magnet in a Campaign

We also use lead magnets to grow the WPBeginner email list.

A lead magnet (sometimes called an optin bribe) is an incentive that you offer users in exchange for their email address or other contact information.

Example: Our UIltimate WordPress Toolkit Offer

Found at the end of each article, our ultimate WordPress toolkit is a resource with all the essential WordPress tools we use and recommend for all websites.

It appears as a large rectangle with text explaining the offer and a prominent Download button. When clicked, the button opens a popup where we ask for the user’s email address.

Lead magnet example from WPBeginner

The same offer is also in the sidebar and appears across the WPBeginner website.

Why Does It Work?

It works mainly because of the value it offers to the users. For beginners, getting quick access to a ready-to-use toolkit hand-picked by experts is a tempting offer.

Secondly, it does not ask for an email address until users click a button. A psychological principle in UX design says that users are more likely to complete an interaction they started themselves. In this case, the action is clicking the button.

How to Implement It on Your Site

We use OptinMonster’s MonsterLink technology for this lead magnet. It opens a popup when a user clicks on a link.

If you have installed and connected OptinMonster on your WordPress website, you can go to the OptinMonster » Campaigns page and click the ‘Add New’ button.

Create new OptinMonster campaign

Next, you will be asked to choose a template or a playbook.

Select ‘Templates’ and continue.

Choose a template or playbook

Next, you will be asked to choose a campaign type.

Click to select Popup campaign, and then choose a template. All these templates are editable, so you can make them your own in the next steps.

Select campaign type

You will be asked to provide a name for your campaign.

After that, you will be redirected to OptinMonster’s campaign builder interface. This is where you can design your campaign.

OptinMonster popup builder

Simply drag and drop items from the left column onto your campaign. You can also point and click on any item on the preview screen to edit it.

Then, you need to switch to the ‘Display Rules’ tab once you are satisfied with the design and click on the ‘Add a New’ Rule.

OptinMonster Display Rules

OptinMonster has powerful display rules that let you configure your campaigns to appear exactly when you want them.

Under the conditions menu, click on the ‘When (Triggers)’ option and then click ‘MonsterLink (On Click)’.

MonsterLink on Click trigger

OptinMonster will now display your campaign when users click on a specific link.

You can now click on the ‘Copy MonsterLink Code’ to copy the link code, which you can add anywhere on your WordPress website.

Copy MonsterLink code

For more details, just see our tutorial on how to open a WordPress popup by clicking a link or an image.

3. Run a Timely Viral Giveaway

Giveaways are a popular technique used by all types of businesses across different channels. Giveaways can be very effective, whether they are used for growing a YouTube channel, getting new Instagram followers, or growing an email list.

However, the trick is not to overuse them or offer extravagant prizes. You don’t want to appear desperate to your audience.

Example: WPBeginner’s Birthday Giveaway

We organize a yearly giveaway on WPBeginner’s birthday and use it to grow our email list and social media followers.

Users get entries into the giveaway if they follow us on social media, join our email newsletter, and more.

WPBeginner giveaway

Why Does It Work?

Our giveaway is just a yearly event, which makes it a rare chance to participate and can create some hype around the event itself.

Plus, the prizes are related to our website’s industry, which is WordPress. Last year, the prizes were premium WordPress plugins and a 1-on-1 mentorship call with WPBeginner’s CEO, Syed Balkhi.

Participating in the giveaway requires minimum effort, and users can increase their chances of winning by using multiple ways to join in.

How to Implement It

We use RafflePress to run giveaways on WPBeginner. It is the best WordPress giveaway plugin that allows you to easily create viral giveaways on your website.

RafflePress

RafflePress connects with all the top email marketing services and social media websites. It also allows entrants to refer a friend, making it easier for users to share your giveaway to increase their chances of winning.

Plus, it comes with fraud protection, analytics, and retargeting features.

Note: There is also a free version of RafflePress that you can try. However, we recommend upgrading to a paid plan to unlock the full potential of the plugin.

First, you need to install and activate the RafflePress plugin. For more details, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to the RafflePress » Add New page to create your first giveaway.

RafflePress add new giveaway

From here, you need to provide a name for your campaign and choose the template that you want to use. There is even a ready-made template for growing your email list.

Next, you can add your prize and select the giveaway and start and end times.

Giveaway setup

Next, switch to the ‘Actions’ tab and click on an action that users must take to get an entry into the contest.

Here, you will find options to add an email optin form, plus a bunch of social media platforms and WordPress actions.

Giveaway actions

After adding an action, you can select it and then click on the ‘Entry Options’ tab to configure that particular action’s settings.

For instance, for the Email Newsletter action, you can add an integration to your email marketing or CRM software.

Email marketing entry options

Once you are finished building your giveaway campaign, you can add it to your WordPress post or page.

Simply add the RafflePress block to your post or page and select your giveaway campaign from the dropdown menu.

RafflePress block

For more details, see our tutorial on how to run a giveaway/contest in WordPress.

4. Improve Engagement With Quizzes

Like giveaways, using quizzes is another highly engaging way to capture more email subscribers.

An online quiz could be a helpful questionnaire, a fun exercise, or a serious survey. In the end, users are given a result in exchange for their email address, which could be a score based on their answers.

Buzzfeed, a popular online entertainment and news website, is well-known for their clever use of viral quizzes to grow a massive user following.

Example: WPBeginner Hosting Quiz

We use a quiz at WPBeginner to help users find the right WordPress hosting plan for their website. This quiz is displayed on our home page, making it easy for visitors to see.

WPBeginner hosting quiz

It can also be found in our ultimate WordPress hosting guide.

This is where we test the top WordPress hosting companies for performance and help users find the right hosting provider for their needs.

WordPress hosting recommendation engine

After users have answered the questions, they are asked to provide their email address.

However, users can skip this step and see their results.

Email capture form after the quiz

Why Does It Work?

Quizzes work very well if they are used intelligently. In this example, our quiz actually helps users narrow down their hosting options based on the answers to the questions.

Another reason for the success of online quizzes is the simple user behavior psychology. Users are more likely to complete an action that they started.

Plus, we give users the option to skip providing their email addresses. While this means they may not sign up for our email list, we can win their trust by providing them with helpful information anyway.

How to Implement it?

At WPBeginner, we use Interact for our hosting recommendation quiz. However, this tool could be a bit expensive for small businesses and bloggers.

A good alternative is Thrive Quizzes. It is one of the best online quiz builders that allows you to create highly engaging and interactive quizzes for your website.

It is highly flexible and supports all types of quizzes, including ones showing results in numbers, percentages, categories (like a personality quiz), right/wrong quizzes, surveys with no result scores, and more.

Select quiz type

It has an interactive quiz builder to add your questions.

You can choose from different types of questions, such as multiple choice with buttons, multiple choice with images, and open-ended questions.

Question types

Lastly, you can add an opt-in-gate to display your email sign-up form at the end of the quiz.

This will show users your email form with the option to skip it.

Add an optin-gate to your quiz

For more details, see our tutorial on how to create a quiz in WordPress, which has step-by-step instructions.

Alternative Options: Formidable Forms, WPForms

5. Free Video Courses

Another popular method to collect email subscribers is to offer users premium members-only content when they sign up for your list.

This could be repurposed content curated into bundles. It could also be unique content made specifically for subscribers.

Example: We use this method with our free WordPress video courses.

WPBeginner video courses

WPBeginner offers free WordPress video training courses for beginners. These courses are designed to help users quickly familiarize themselves with WordPress.

The most popular among them is our WordPress 101 course, which is a series of 30+ videos aimed at beginners. Users can also access WooCommerce, blogging, SEO, and WordPress plugin courses.

Why Does It Work?

WPBeginner’s WordPress video courses are an immensely valuable free resource. Professional Udemy and LinkedIn trainers charge hundreds of dollars for similar courses.

Our courses also provide structured learning, making it easier for users to track their progress and move on to the next step. This makes the courses more engaging and helpful.

How to Implement It

We use MemberPress for video courses. It is the best WordPress membership plugin that allows you to create any kind of membership website easily.

MemberPress makes it super easy to restrict access control to members-only content. You can create different subscription levels and membership plans and then accept online payments for those subscriptions.

MemberPress to sell online courses and subscriptions

Plus, MemberPress has a Courses addon for WordPress. It enables you to create and sell online courses (or offer them for free).

You can also set up drip content to allow users to move on to the next course only after finishing the current one.

MemberPress courses

For more details, see our tutorial on how to create and sell online courses in WordPress.

6. Free Tools

You may have seen many popular websites offering free online tools to do various things. These range from file type conversion tools to speed testing tools and anything in between.

Example: WPBeginner Email Signature Tool

At WPBeginner, we offer a bunch of free online tools. Most don’t require signing up for the newsletter or providing an email address except for our Email Signature Tool.

The free email signature tool allows users to design an email signature. They can choose a template and provide information to fill it in.

WPBeginner email signature designer

After that, they can click ‘Continue’ to save their progress.

Lastly, users are asked to provide an email address to download their email signature.

Email optin gate

Why Does It Work?

This strategy provides a free tool to do something quickly online. Many beginners would otherwise struggle to do this independently and spend more unnecessary time doing the same thing.

This means that signing up for our email address is a small price to pay for a high-quality email signature.

How to Implement It

Some online tools require programming and coding skills and some server resources. For instance, image conversion tools require server resources and storage, which can be off-putting for beginners.

Fortunately, there are also no code solutions like WPForms. It is the best form builder on the market, enabling you to build custom forms without writing code.

For instance, you could offer a loan repayment calculator as a free tool on your website. Users will be asked to fill in their email addresses to get the results from the tool.

Example of a loan calculator tool created with WPForms

WPForms’ Pro plan comes with a Calculations addon, allowing you to perform simple and advanced calculations in your forms.

It even comes with ready-to-use templates that let you quickly add these forms to your website.

WPForms calculator templates

Depending on your website’s niche, you can find a calculator template that you can add as a lead capture tool on your site, including budgeting forms, mortgage calculators, and credit card repayment calculators.

WPForms connects with all top email marketing services and supports multi-step forms, which allows you to easily capture email leads at the end of your forms.

For more details, you can see our guide on how to create a custom calculator in WordPress.

Alternative Option: Formidable Forms

Conclusion: Lessons Learned While Growing the WPBeginner Email List

Over the years of growing the WPBeginner email list, we have learned the following lessons, which we now use as part of our email marketing playbook.

1. Offer Value in Return

WPBeginner users are smart and won’t just sign up for no reason until they are confident they will get something in return. We believe this to be true for all users.

We try to offer something valuable to our users in exchange for signing up for our email list.

2. Start Now

One rookie mistake we have learned is not putting enough importance on growing our email list from the very beginning. The best time to start your email list is now, and you can try all the above methods right away.

3. User Experience Comes First

There are email-capturing techniques that would allow us to do email marketing even more aggressively. However, doing so would require compromising the user experience.

Annoyed users are much less likely to join an email list or make a purchase. An average user spends less than 3 seconds looking at a website before they decide whether they want to stay or not. Make those 3 seconds count.

4. Choose the Right Email Platform

At WPBeginner, we started out with Mailchimp, which was one of the best email marketing platforms at the time.

However, as our website grew, we needed email marketing automation tools, better customization and personalization tools, and flexibility. Mailchimp didn’t fit our needs, so we switched to Drip. See our case study explaining why we switched from Mailchimp to Drip.

Some of our sister companies started with Drip and had the advantage of those features from early on.

If you’re on a budget and need a platform that meets your needs, you might want to use Constant Contact.

For more details, take a look at our pick of the best email marketing services and find out which would be best for your needs.

We hope this article helped you learn about the techniques we use at WPBeginner to grow your email list. For more tips, you can see our guide on how to grow your email list quickly and our expert picks for the best email capture tools.

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 6 Proven Methods We Use at WPBeginner to Grow Our Email List first appeared on WPBeginner.

17 Best WordPress Mailchimp Plugins for 2023

Do you want to integrate Mailchimp with your WordPress site and want to find the best plugins?

Mailchimp is a popular email marketing service that lets you create email campaigns, send automated messages, and more. With the right plugin, you can grow your email list, automate workflows, and make the most out of the service.

In this article, we’ll show you the best WordPress Mailchimp plugins that you can use for your business.

Best WordPress Mailchimp plugins

Why Use WordPress Mailchimp Plugins?

If you’re just getting started with email marketing, then you must have come across Mailchimp. It is one of the best email marketing services in the market. The best part is that you can get started for free and send up to 1,000 emails every month.

With Mailchimp, you can set up emails, create campaigns, and manage your subscribers with ease. It also integrates with other third-party plugins and tools for WordPress.

For instance, you can use it with lead generation software to grow your email list. Or you can connect it with a WordPress contact form plugin and automatically collect email addresses in Mailchimp.

You can even set up automation with Mailchimp using the right plugin. For example, automatically send an email using Mailchimp when publishing a new blog post. This way, your audience is immediately notified about new content, news, announcements, and sales.

That said, let’s look at some of the best Mailchimp plugins you can choose for your business.

1. WPForms

Is WPForms the best form builder plugin for WordPress?

WPForms is the best WordPress form builder plugin for WordPress that lets you easily create Mailchimp signup form with its powerful drag-and-drop form builder.

With its Mailchimp addon, you can create a newsletter signup form and select which audience or group the subscribers should be added to in Mailchimp. This makes it very easy to save form entries and add them to your email list.

Besides that, you also get options to unsubscribe, archive, delete, and record events. The Mailchimp addon also lets you mark subscribers as VIPs, so you know your high-value customers.

By integrating Mailchimp with WPForms, you can assign Mailchimp tags to segment subscribers. Or use WPForms smart tags to save additional information about subscribers in their Mailchimp profiles.

Pros:

  • Beginner-friendly plugin with drag-and-drop builder
  • Tons of pre-built form templates
  • Smart conditional logic
  • Easily integrates with Mailchimp
  • Built-in spam protection
  • Automated workflows

Cons:

  • Offers a Lite version, which is available for free but with limited features
  • Mailchimp integration is not available in the Lite version, only Constant Contact

Why Use This Plugin: If you’re looking to create different WordPress forms and want to collect subscribers’ contact information in Mailchimp, then WPForms is the best plugin.

Pricing: WPForms pricing plans start from $49.50 per year. However, you’ll need the Plus plan to use the Mailchimp addon, which will cost $99.50 per year. There is also a WPForms Lite version you can use for free.

2. Uncanny Automator

Uncanny Automator

Uncanny Automator is the best WordPress automation plugin. You can think of it as Zapier but for WordPress. Uncanny Automator offers different recipes that you can create for Mailchimp and automate workflows.

You can choose from hundreds of actions and triggers to create an automated recipe. It helps 2 or more WordPress plugins to talk to each other.

For example, let’s say a user cancels their membership on MemberPress. They’re then automatically unsubscribed from the Mailchimp audience. Similarly, if a user completes an online course on LifterLMS, then a tag is automatically added to the user’s profile in Mailchimp.

Aside from Mailchimp, Uncanny Automator integrates with over 130 different plugins and social media apps. Plus, its recipe builder is user-friendly, and you don’t need to edit code to set up automation.

Pros:

  • Easy-to-use recipe builder
  • Supports over 130 integrations, including Mailchimp
  • Choose from over 500 triggers and 300 actions
  • Automate workflows without touching code

Cons:

  • The premium version can be a bit expensive for startups or businesses on a tight budget

Why Use This Plugin: If you’re looking for a way to automate your workflows between Mailchimp and other plugins on your WordPress site, then Uncanny Automator is the perfect solution for you.

Pricing: Uncanny Automator prices start from $149 per year.

3. WP WooCommerce Mailchimp

WP WooCommerce MailChimp

WP WooCommerce Mailchimp is a free WordPress Mailchimp plugin. It helps you add customers to your email list automatically.

You can select which Mailchimp list the subscribers should be added to. The plugin lets you choose when to collect customers’ email addresses. For instance, you can collect information when a customer places an order, the order is processed, or when the order is completed.

Other options offered by the plugin include asking permission from customers to subscribe to the email list, editing the opt-in field text, and more.

Pros:

  • Simply and free-to-use plugin
  • Automatically add customers to your email list in Mailchimp
  • Add interest groups to further segment customers
  • Multiple opt-in settings

Cons:

  • Limited opt-in customization options

Why Use This Plugin: If you have a WooCommerce store, then the WP WooCommerce Mailchimp plugin is a great plugin to automatically add customers to specific email lists. This way, you can create custom email campaigns for each customer group and send personalized messages.

Pricing: WP WooCommerce Mailchimp is a free WordPress plugin.

4. OptinMonster

The OptinMonster conversion optimization plugin

OptinMonster is the best lead generation and conversion optimization software. It helps you get more leads, grow your email list, and boost conversions.

OptinMonster easily integrates with Mailchimp, and you can gather email addresses through different campaigns in your Mailchimp account.

With OptinMonster, you can create all types of campaigns, like a simple popup, floating bar, full-screen welcome mats, and more. There are lots of pre-built campaign templates to choose from. You can then use its drag-and-drop campaign builder to easily customize your campaigns.

Plus, it offers powerful display rules that let you show personalized messages based on user behavior. You can learn more by following our ultimate guide to using Mailchimp and WordPress.

For instance, you can show a campaign when a user is about to leave your site with an exit-intent popup. Or display campaigns based on the time a user spends on a page, visit a specific page, and more.

Pros:

  • Drag and drop campaign builder
  • Pre-built campaign templates and customization options
  • Powerful display rules to show campaigns
  • Simple integration with Mailchimp and other email marketing services
  • Mobile friendly popups

Cons:

  • The free version has limited features

Why Use This Plugin: OptinMonster and Mailchimp are an explosive combination to have on your website. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to create attractive and nonintrusive popup campaigns using OptinMonster and collect email addresses in Mailchimp.

Pricing: OptinMonster pricing plans start from $9 per month (billed annually).

5. MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress

MC4WP

MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress is a free plugin that lets you add signup forms to your WordPress site. It easily integrates with Mailchimp and collects email addresses from the sign-up form.

The plugin is simple and easy to use. It even integrates with other form builders and plugins like WooCommerce, WPForms, AffiliateWP, and more.

While the plugin is free to use, it doesn’t offer the customization options or form templates that you’d get in other form plugins, like WPForms. There are only a handful of form fields to choose from and limited customization options.

Pros:

  • Simple interface and is easy to use
  • Easily integrates with Mailchimp
  • Free to use
  • It also integrates with other form plugins

Cons:

  • Limited customization options
  • No form templates

Why Use This Plugin: The plugin is best for anyone who wants a free WordPress plugin that creates basic sign-up forms and integrates with Mailchimp.

Pricing: MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress is a free to use plugin.

6. SeedProd

SeedProd WordPress Website Builder

SeedProd is the best WordPress website builder that helps you create custom themes and landing pages without editing code or hiring a developer.

SeedProd easily integrates with Mailchimp. This way, you can create custom landing pages with subscription forms and collect email addresses in Mailchimp.

Besides that, you can also select which segment or group to add your subscribers to in Mailchimp, enable double opt-in, and more.

Other features offered by SeedProd include a drag-and-drop theme builder, pre-built theme and landing page templates, lots of customization options, and more.

Pros:

  • Super easy to use
  • Drag and drop theme and landing page builder
  • Easily integrates with Mailchimp
  • Multiple customization options

Cons:

  • The free version has limited customization options

Why Use This Plugin: If you’re looking for a plugin that lets you design and create custom landing pages and works seamlessly with Mailchimp, then SeedProd is the perfect solution.

Pricing: You’ll need at least the Plus plan in SeedProd to use Mailchimp integration. This will cost you $99.50 per year.

7. Another Mailchimp Widget

Another MailChimp widget

Another Mailchimp Widget is the next Mailchimp WordPress plugin on our list. The plugin lets you add clean and basic sign-up forms for your WordPress site.

You can show the signup form through a shortcode or use a widget. The plugin also shows different lists from your Mailchimp account. You can select a list and group to add new subscribers.

That said, there are not many customization options or templates to choose from. The plugin just lets you edit the first and last name labels and show a success message and a failure message. The form also only contains 3 fields, which include first name, last name, and email.

Pros:

  • Lightweight and easy-to-use plugin
  • Automatically add subscribers to lists and groups in Mailchimp
  • Add sign-up form using shortcode
  • Free to use

Cons:

  • Limited customization options
  • Cannot add additional form fields

Why Use This Plugin: The plugin is best for anyone looking for a free option to add simple Mailchimp signup forms. It is lightweight, and you can add the form anywhere using a shortcode.

Pricing: Another Mailchimp Widget is 100% free to use.

8. Thrive Themes

ThriveThemes

Thrive Themes offers powerful tools to build high-converting WordPress sites without editing code. It is a complete suite of plugins that help you build, convert, sell, and engage.

Thrive Themes suite includes popular tools like Thrive Leads, Thrive Architect, Thrive Theme Builder, Thrive Quiz Builder, Thrive Ovation, and more.

You can easily integrate Mailchimp with Thrive Theme and then use the email marketing software with different tools in the suite.

For instance, you can connect Mailchimp’s API with Thrive Themes and then use Thrive Leads to gather email addresses. Or use Thrive Apprentice to build online courses and integrate it with Mailchimp for all your email needs.

Pros:

  • Offers 9 powerful tools for different purposes
  • Easy to set up and use
  • Mailchimp easily integrates with different tools
  • 24/7 customer support

Cons:

  • Thrive Theme suite is only for WordPress

Why Use This Plugin: The plugin is great for anyone looking for a complete marketing toolkit for their WordPress site and wants to integrate Mailchimp as well. You can do so much with Thrive Themes tools, from creating landing pages to building online courses, popups, quizzes, and more.

Pricing: The Thrive Themes suite will cost $299 per year.

9. MemberPress

The MemberPress membership plugin

MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin that’s beginner-friendly to use. You can use it to create a membership site, lock content based on user roles, set up content dripping, sell online courses, and more.

MemeberPress easily integrates with different email marketing tools, including Mailchimp. This allows you to add your members to Mailchimp and segment them based on their membership levels. You can then create targeted email campaigns for each segment.

MemberPress also lets you send custom fields to Mailchimp and add additional user information. By default, it will only send the email address and first name to Mailchimp. But you can edit the settings to map other fields as well.

Pros:

  • Easy to set up and use
  • Create unlimited membership levels
  • Easily integrates with Mailchimp
  • Offers powerful content access controls
  • Offers a drag-and-drop online course builder

Cons:

  • Limited payment options
  • Mapping custom fields in Mailchimp can be tricky for beginners

Why Use This Plugin: MemberPress is one of the best Mailchimp plugins because it makes it very easy to create a membership site. Plus, it helps you manage all your email needs by seamlessly integrating with Mailchimp.

Pricing: MemberPress is a premium plugin with prices starting from $179.50 per year.

10. RafflePress

Is RafflePress the best WordPress giveaway plugin?

RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin that helps you run viral giveaways to grow your email subscribers, social followers, and website traffic.

The plugin easily integrates with Mailchimp. You can add an option in your giveaway content to join your email newsletter and integrate it with Mailchimp. This way, when users enter their email addresses, they’re automatically added to Mailchimp.

Besides that, RafflePress offers a drag-and-drop giveaway builder, pre-built templates, social media integration, a custom giveaway landing page, and more.

Pros:

  • Drag and drop giveaway builder
  • Use pre-built giveaway templates
  • Fraud protection
  • Seamless integration with Mailchimp

Cons:

  • The free version doesn’t include Mailchimp integration
  • Limited customization options in the free version

Why Use This Plugin: The plugin is perfect for anyone who wants to run a viral giveaway and collect email addresses in Mailchimp. Both plugins smoothly integrate with each other.

Pricing: You’ll need at least the RafflePress Pro plan to unlock email integrations. This will cost you $99.50 per year.

11. Formidable Forms

Formidable forms

Formidable Forms is another popular contact form plugin for WordPress, and it also offers a Mailchimp addon. Formidable Forms lets you create complex and advanced forms without editing code.

For instance, you can create advanced calculators like mortgage calculators, time sheet forms, amortization calculators, registration forms, content download forms, web applications, and more.

With the Mailchimp addon, you can automatically send contacts gathered from the form over to Mailchimp. You also get options to sort leads with tags and groups in Mailchimp.

Other options include selecting a single or double opt-in, asking users to update their information when filling out the form, and more.

Pros:

  • Create complex forms and web applications
  • Drag and drop form builder
  • Multiple customization options
  • Seamless integration with Mailchimp
  • Create all types of WordPress forms

Cons:

  • High learning curve for creating complex forms
  • No Mailchimp integration in the free version

Why Use This Plugin: Do you want to create advanced and complex WordPress forms and manage leads in Mailchimp? If yes, then Formidable Forms is perfect for you. It offers pre-built form templates, a drag-and-drop form builder, lots of customization options, and more.

Pricing: Formidable Forms is a premium WordPress plugin. You’ll need at least the Plus plan to unlock Mailchimp integration, which is priced at $99.50 per year.

12. MailChimp Forms by MailMunch

Mailchimp forms by mailmunch

MailChimp Forms by MailMunch is one of the best free WordPress Mailchimp plugins on our list. The plugin deeply integrates with Mailchimp and lets you create beautiful opt-in forms for your website, eCommerce site, or blog.

With different opt-in forms, you can grab user’s attention and grow your email list. MailChimp Forms by MailMunch lets you create opt-in forms like popups with exit, sidebar widgets, top bars, scroll boxes, landing pages, and embedded forms.

Besides that, you can add additional information about your subscribers in Mailchimp. For instance, it lets you collect first and last names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, and more.

The plugin offers other features as well. For instance, you can A/B test Mailchimp opt-in forms, enable welcome emails, and more. However, MailChimp Forms by MailMunch doesn’t offer many display rules or templates compared to OptinMonster.

Pros:

  • A free plugin that’s easy to use
  • Easily connects with Mailchimp
  • A/B test opt-in forms
  • Enable Google reCAPTCHA protection
  • GDPR compliant

Cons:

  • Limited opt-in forms options
  • Display rules are not that powerful
  • Not many customization options

Why Use This Plugin: If you’re looking for a free Mailchimp WordPress plugin to create opt-in forms for your site and grow your email list, then MailChimp Forms by MailMunch is among the best free solutions in the market.

Pricing: MailChimp Forms by MailMunch is a free WordPress plugin.

13. Easy Digital Downloads

The Easy Digital Downloads website

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is among the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress, and you can use it to sell digital products on WordPress. The plugin comes with powerful features and lets you create beautiful digital stores.

We use Easy Digital Downloads to sell our software, like WPForms and MonsterInsights. With that, we can easily say that it’s the best eCommerce platform for your site.

Easy Digital Downloads offers different extensions, including a Mailchimp extension. This helps you connect your email lists in Mailchimp to Easy Digital Downloads. When a customer purchases a product and enters an email address, it’s automatically saved in Mailchimp.

You can also show different email lists at checkout and let customers choose which list they’d like to subscribe to. EDD also supports Mailchimp’s eCommerce tracking, which shows the products that are driving the most subscribers.

If you’re using the Free Downloads extension in Easy Digital Downloads, then you can integrate it with Mailchimp. This way, you can grow your email list faster by offering free downloads.

Other than that, you can also use email templates offered by Mailchimp to run email campaigns, A/B test different email versions and improve email deliverability.

Pros:

  • Beginner-friendly to use
  • Works smoothly with any WordPress theme
  • Set up software licensing and sell all kinds of digital goods
  • Easily integrates with Mailchimp

Cons:

  • Selling non-digital products can be complicated
  • You’ll need third-party to sell external or affiliate products

Why Use This Plugin: Easy Digital Downloads makes it very easy to sell digital products. It is the best Mailchimp WordPress plugin, as you get to do so much more with your eCommerce website. For instance, automatically add customers to email groups, send targeted messages, create segments, and more.

Pricing: Easy Digital Downloads pricing plans start from $99.50 per year.

14. MC4WP: Mailchimp Top Bar

MailChimp top bar

MC4WP: Mailchimp Top Bar is a WordPress Mailchimp plugin that lets you add a customization sign-up bar at the top of your WordPress website.

You can show a beautiful sign-up bar at the top of the page to attract user attention. The best part, it automatically connects with your Mailchimp account and adds new subscribers to your preferred list or group.

The plugin offers decent customization options. You get to change the bar color, and text color, edit the text for the message and button, and more.

Pros:

  • Create stunning sign-up bars
  • Easily integrates with Mailchimp
  • Choose your Mailchimp lists and groups
  • Basic customization options
  • The plugin is 100% free

Cons:

  • Only limited to creating sign-up bars
  • There are no additional display rules

Why Use This Plugin: If you’re looking for a plugin to add a sign-up bar only, then this is the right plugin for you. It’s free to use and allows users to quickly enter their email address and subscribe to your emails.

Pricing: You can use the MC4WP: Mailchimp Top Bar plugin for free.

15. Featured Images in RSS for Mailchimp & More

Featured images in MailChimp RSS

Featured Images in RSS for Mailchimp & More is a free Mailchimp plugin that lets you add featured images to your RSS feed.

The plugin is super easy to use and offers different image size options, image alignment settings, image-to-text padding, and more. You can also use it with your WooCommerce store to show product photos in Mailchimp RSS campaigns.

Pros:

  • Simple and easy to use
  • Show featured images in the Mailchimp RSS feed
  • Free to use plugin

Cons:

  • Limited customization options in the free version
  • You cannot set custom image size in the free version

Why Use This Plugin: If you want to ensure that your blog post featured images appear in the RSS feed, then this is the plugin to use. You can set a particular image size and customize the image’s appearance in the feed.

Pricing: Featured Images in RSS for Mailchimp & More is a free WordPress plugin.

16. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights horizontal navigation menu preview

MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress that lets you enable Mailchimp form tracking in WordPress. It helps you set up Google Analytics in WordPress without editing code or hiring a developer.

For instance, you can use its Forms addon to track Mailchimp signup forms on your site. The plugin also shows reports inside your WordPress dashboard, so you can easily view data without having to leave your website.

You can see which Mailchimp form is performing the best. This way, you get to optimize low-converting forms while promoting high-performing forms even more.

Pros:

  • Set up Google Analytics in WordPress
  • View dashboard reports to make decisions
  • Track Mailchimp forms conversions
  • Set up advanced tracking like eCommerce tracking

Cons:

  • Forms addon is not available in the MonsterInsights Lite version

Why Use This Plugin: Do you want to track Mailchimp forms on your website and see which campaign is performing the best? Then MonsterInsights is the perfect solution for you. It is beginner-friendly and helps set up tracking without touching a single line of code.

Pricing: The MonsterInsights Forms addon is available in the Pro plan, which costs $199.50 per year. There is also a MonsterInsights Lite version that you can use for free, but it doesn’t include the Forms addon.

17. Contact Form 7 Extension For Mailchimp

Contact form 7 for mailchimp

Contact Form 7 Extension For Mailchimp is a free plugin that lets you integrate Contact Form 7 with Mailchimp. All your Contact Form 7 entries will be automatically added to an email list in Mailchimp.

The plugin is flexible and easy to set up. You can choose a predefined list to add new contacts to in Mailchimp. The plugin also lets you choose between single or double opt-in, as well as show an opt-in checkbox.

Pros:

  • Simple and easy interface
  • Easily connect mailing lists from Mailchimp
  • Add mailing list tags to subscribers
  • Show a single or double opt-in

Cons:

  • The plugin works only if you’re already using Contact Form 7
  • Not many customization options

Why Use This Plugin: If you are already using Contact Form 7 on your WordPress site, then this plugin is for you. It lets you pair Contact Form 7 with Mailchimp.

Pricing: Contact Form 7 Extension For Mailchimp is 100% free to use.

Which WordPress Mailchimp Plugin Should You Use?

After going through multiple plugins, choosing the best Mailchimp WordPress plugin depends on your needs. You can use multiple plugins in combination and integrate Mailchimp with your site.

For instance, if you’re looking to add different forms on your site and collect emails, then WPForms is the best plugin. You get multiple form templates, a drag-and-drop form builder, lots of customization options, and easy Mailchimp integration.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to get more email subscribers in Mailchimp, then we recommend OptinMonster. It offers pre-built templates, lots of campaign options, and powerful display rules.

Similarly, you can use Uncanny Automator and connect Mailchimp with other plugins and tools on your website. This way, you get to automate different tasks and let the plugin handle everything for you.

We hope this article helped you pick the best WordPress Mailchimp plugin. You may also want to see our list of best WooCommerce plugins and how to create a free business email address.

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 17 Best WordPress Mailchimp Plugins for 2023 first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Convert WooCommerce Visitors into Customers (9 Tips)

Do you want to convert visitors to your WooCommerce store into customers?

Bringing traffic to your WooCommerce store is only half the battle. The other half is to convert those visitors into paying customers. One of the ways you can optimize your online store is by using targeted messages and offering incentives to boost conversions.

In this article, we will show you how to easily convert WooCommerce visitors into customers.

How to convert WooCommerce visitors into customers

Why Do You Need Conversion Optimization for Your WooCommerce Store?

Most eCommerce stores rely on search engines or paid advertising campaigns for traffic.

There are many other ways to get more traffic to your website. However, more than 75% of visitors who find your website through search engines will never find it again. Of the people who stick around, only a small percentage of them will add products to their carts.

In the end, more than 69% of shopping carts are abandoned without making a purchase. Shipping costs, a complicated checkout experience, and bad design are among the top reasons for abandoned carts.

Considering these statistics, your WooCommerce store will continue losing potential sales if you don’t work on converting those visitors into customers.

How Do You Convert Visitors Into Customers?

The process and technique that is used to convert visitors into customers is called conversion rate optimization (CRO). Marketers and usability experts use CRO to successfully drive visitors to become customers.

Basically, you remove obstacles that affect a user’s experience on your WordPress website. You also provide incentives that convince users to buy.

Lastly, if a user must leave without making a purchase, then your goal is to try and get their information through lead generation. This allows you to communicate with them via email and offer personalized messages, special discounts, or new product announcements.

In the early days of eCommerce, you needed programming skills to work on all these tasks, but not anymore. Now, you have tools that make it extremely easy to do all these things without writing code or acquiring any new technical skills.

That being said, let’s take a look at different ways you can convert WooCommerce visitors into customers.

1. Offer Discount Coupons and Free Shipping

One of the easiest ways of converting visitors into customers is by offering incentives like discounts and free shipping.

They also help convert abandoning visitors and reduce abandoned carts. For instance, if a visitor is about to exit your online store without checking out, then you can show a popup with a discount coupon.

WooCommerce popup preview

The best way to show discounts, flash sales, free shipping, and other offers is by using OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization and lead generation software.

OptinMonster lets you create different campaigns for your WooCommerce store, including popups, slide-in scroll boxes, floating bars, countdown timers, sidebar forms, and in-line forms.

Besides that, it offers powerful display rules to show the campaign to the right person at the right time.

Ecommerce display rules

For instance, it allows eCommerce targeting, where you can show your campaigns based on cart total, specific product pages, how long a customer has spent in your online store, and more.

For more details, see our guide on how to create a WooCommerce popup to increase sales.

You can also create a spin-to-win campaign to offer discount coupons and free shipping to users. This helps create engagement and is a fun way to boost conversions.

OptinMonster Spin Wheel Campaign

2. Promote Products That Your Audience Prefers

Another way to get more conversions in your WooCommerce store is by figuring out which products your audience likes the most and then promoting them. This way, you can improve the visibility of top-selling products and boost conversions.

To find out which products your visitors prefer, you can use MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress that helps you set up advanced tracking without editing code.

MonsterInsights lets you set up eCommerce tracking, which helps record conversions, revenue, and user behavior in your WooCommerce store. It also offers eCommerce reports, so you can easily view top products inside your WordPress dashboard.

How to set up eCommerce tracking on a WooCommerce store

Once you know which products your audience prefers, the next step is to promote them in your WooCommerce store.

A simple way to do that is by improving their visibility so users can easily find and purchase them. For example, you can show top-selling products under other items, in the sidebar, or within your content.

Showing best-selling products on your WooCommerce store using MonsterInsights

With MonsterInsights, you can easily show top products across your website. It offers a Popular Products feature that lets you add products at the end of a blog post to boost conversions.

To learn more, please see our guide on how to display popular products on WooCommerce product pages.

3. Make High-Converting Sales Pages

You can also create high-converting sales pages to promote different products and boost conversions in your WooCommerce store.

A sales page has a single purpose, which is to get people to buy your products or services. A high-converting sales page will have clear call-to-action (CTA) buttons, engaging product images, and other details to help users buy the product.

You can easily create high-converting sales pages for WooCommerce using SeedProd. It is the best WordPress page builder that lets you create custom landing pages without editing code.

SeedProd's drag and drop page builder

SeedProd offers 300+ prebuilt templates, multiple customization options, a drag-and-drop page builder, and more. It also integrates with email marketing tools and other third-party tools.

For step-by-step details, see our guide on how to create a sales page in WordPress that converts.

4. Build an Email List and Promote Products

Did you know that email lists get 10 times higher conversions than social media campaigns?

Building an email list for your WooCommerce store can help improve your revenue. You can tell your subscribers about the latest products, promotional sales, upcoming campaigns, and more.

Example of a flash sale email blast

You can also send targeted emails to specific subscribers. For example, if you are launching a new product in a specific location, then you can send out an email campaign for subscribers from that particular country.

To get started, you will need an email marketing tool like Constant Contact. It is very easy to use, and you can easily collect email addresses, manage them, and segment them into different groups. Plus, it helps you set up automated drip notifications and other email campaigns.

Create an automated workflow

Once you’ve started collecting emails, you can take things one step further and try different ways to grow your email list.

For example, you can offer discounts, giveaways, and other incentives to customers in exchange for their email. You can see our complete guide to uncover more ways to grow your email list.

5. Leverage Social Proof to Boost Conversions

Another simple hack for converting WooCommerce visitors into customers is by showing social proof.

People feel more comfortable with their buying decisions when they know others have also bought the same product and had a great experience.

There are different ways to show social proof on your WooCommerce store. For instance, you can use TrustPulse to display real-time user activity notifications, such as the latest product purchase.

A notification, created using TrustPulse

Besides that, you can also show testimonials and customer reviews on the product page to boost social proof.

They can help you gain trust from your visitors and encourage them to purchase the product.

Preview for testimonials

You can learn more by following our guide on how to add a customer reviews page in WordPress.

Another way to boost conversions in WooCommerce stores is by using FOMO or fear of missing out. You can add a countdown timer to a discount campaign and encourage users to make a purchase before time runs out.

Black Friday FOMO popup for WooCommerce

6. Run a Giveaway Contest

If you are looking for a way to boost engagement on your website and increase eCommerce conversions, then running a viral giveaway contest is a great way of doing it.

A competition gives your WooCommerce visitors a fun reason to return to your store and stand a chance to win free products.

In return, you can ask users to participate in the competition by following your social media pages, signing up for an email newsletter, inviting a friend to participate, and more.

This way, you’ll also grow your social followers, increase your email list, promote your brand, and build a relationship with your audience.

The best way to run a giveaway contest is by using RafflePress. It is the best giveaway plugin for WordPress that’s easy to use. RafflePress offers a drag-and-drop contest builder with lots of customization options.

Host a giveaway

To learn more, please see our guide on how to create a WooCommerce contest to boost loyalty and engagement.

7. Upsell Products in WooCommerce

Upselling is a technique that encourages visitors to purchase a higher-priced product instead of the one they already have in their shopping cart.

These products might have a higher value, offer more features, or have better quality. As a result, they are also more expensive and more lucrative for your business.

For instance, let’s say you are selling plugins or software in your online store. You can offer users a higher pricing plan with more addons and upgrades than the base plan.

There are several ways you can upsell products in WooCommerce. First, you can show different products on a product page at the bottom and ask visitors to buy them instead. Or you can create a popup to upsell particular products.

Upsell popup preview

Besides that, you can also showcase different products on the checkout page before a user makes a purchase. Or you might promote products on the thank you page, enticing a customer to buy more items.

To learn more details about each of these methods, please see our guide on how to upsell products in WooCommerce.

8. Add Express Checkout Buttons

Another simple method for boosting conversions in your WooCommerce store is offering express checkout buttons. This allows users to skip different steps in the checkout process and go directly to the payment page.

This provides a better shopping experience for customers and makes the buying process quicker. A user can simply click a button to make a purchase. As a result, you’ll see more conversions and less cart abandonment.

Express checkout buttons preview

Please see our guide on how to add express checkout buttons in WooCommore to learn more.

9. Offer a Personalized Experience to Users

Personalization helps you improve the user experience by making your content more personal for each visitor. You can create product offerings for different users to boost WooCommerce conversions.

For example, you might greet logged-in customers with their names, show them products based on their browsing history, and offer them discounts or coupons.

Lightbox popup with yes no optin

For more details, you can see our guide on how to show personalized content to different users in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to convert WooCommerce visitors into customers. You may also want to see our guide on how to enable customer tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics and our expert picks for the must-have WordPress plugins for business websites.

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

The post How to Convert WooCommerce Visitors into Customers (9 Tips) first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Plan a Holiday Sale for Your WooCommerce Store (12 Tips)

Do you want to plan a holiday sale for your WooCommerce store?

The holiday season is the busiest time for online stores across the world. By planning a sale for the holidays, you can capitalize on this demand and boost your sales and revenue.

In this article, we will share some tips on how to easily plan a holiday sale for your WooCommerce store.

How to Plan a Holiday Sale for Your WooCommerce Store

Why Plan a Holiday Sale for Your WooCommerce Store?

If you have a WooCommerce store, then planning a holiday sale for it can be a great way to attract new customers.

This is because most users are looking for sales during the holiday season and offering them discount coupons can help you generate more revenue. A well-executed online store sale can even increase your brand awareness and retain existing customers.

Additionally, a holiday sale can improve your website SEO due to the increased traffic, improved click-through rates, and relevant content.

Having said that, here is our list of some of the best tips that can help you easily plan a holiday sale for your WooCommerce store.

1. Create Holiday-Themed Lead Generation Campaigns

OptinMonster is the best lead generation and conversion optimization tool that allows you to create popups, yes/no optins, banners, sliders, and more.

It comes with a drag-and-drop builder, exit-intent technology, and A/B testing, making it super easy to convert website visitors into customers.

OptinMonster even comes with premade templates for the holiday season that can be used to launch a marketing campaign in just a few minutes.

First, you’ll need to visit the OptinMonster website to create an account by clicking the ‘Get OptinMonster Now’ button.

OptinMonster – The best WordPress popup plugin

Then, you need to visit your WordPress site to install and activate the OptinMonster plugin. For details, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, this plugin will act as a connector between your OptinMonster account and website. You will now see a setup wizard on the screen, where you have to click on the ‘Connect Your Existing Account’ button.

Connect your existing account

Once you have done that, visit the OptinMonster » Templates page from the WordPress dashboard.

Here, you will notice a list of holidays under the ‘Seasonal’ section in the left column. Now if you are planning a sale for the Christmas season, check the box next to that option.

OptinMonster will now display all the premade templates for this holiday season. You can even select a campaign type from the top including popups, floating bar, fullscreen, gamified, inline, or slide-in.

Upon making your choice, simply click the ‘Use Template’ button to launch the template in the OptinMonster’s drag-and-drop builder.

Choose a holiday campaign template

Here, you can add headings, and dynamic content, add your discount offers, configure the countdown timer, and so much more.

You can even connect your campaigns to your email marketing services. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our tutorial on how to create WooCommerce popups to increase sales.

Customize holiday campaign popup

Once you are done, you can easily publish your campaign by switching to the ‘Publish’ tab from the top.

Upon its launch, the WooCommerce campaign for holiday sales will promote the discounts that you are offering, increase engagement, help you build an email list, and even boost sales on your online store.

Apart from that, you can also schedule your Christmas campaign, check analytics, and create mobile popups, making OptinMonster a great tool for building campaigns.

Holiday sale popup preview

2. Start a Giveaway Contest

You can also promote your holiday sales by hosting a giveaway competition on your website. This can create excitement and increase user engagement.

You can even make the giveaway competition exclusive for the customers who have bought something from your store which can convince potential customers to make a purchase.

When hosting a giveaway, keep in mind to choose a prize that may interest your entire audience, make the competition easy to enter, and announce the winner publicly.

To create and add a giveaway on your website, we recommend using RafflePress.

It is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market that comes with a drag-and-drop builder, premade templates, fraud protection, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) integration, and more.

RafflePress

Upon installing the plugin, you can navigate to the RafflePress » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard and select a template for your giveaway.

Once the template opens up in the drag-and-drop builder, you can add a name, prize, countdown timer, and a background image related to the holiday season.

For detailed instructions, see our tutorial on how to run a giveaway in WordPress with RafflePress.

Create Christmas giveaway

Once you are done, simply switch to the ‘Publish’ tab from the top to launch it.

The holiday season giveaway will now help you grow your audience and encourage them to buy from you to return the favor for freebies.

However, you can also host competitions on your website during the season to promote sales. For detailed instructions, you can see our beginner’s guide on how to create a WooCommerce contest to boost loyalty.

3. Offer Holiday Discount Coupons to Customers

When planning a holiday sale, it is important to create discount coupons, gift cards, and loyalty programs for your customers.

Discount coupons can help you clear out the inventory, increase sales, and even attract new customers.

On the other hand, offering gift cards on a new purchase for store credits can help build loyalty among users.

Another tip is to launch a loyalty program on your WooCommerce store during the holiday season to encourage customers to purchase more products in order to gain points.

You can do all of this on your website using Advanced Coupons. It is the best WordPress coupon plugin on the market that allows you to create BOGO (Buy One, Get One) deals, loyalty programs, gift cards, and smart coupons for your WooCommerce store.

It is super easy to use and offers features like coupon URLs, scheduled coupons, auto-apply coupons, shipping coupons, bulk coupons, and more.

Advanced Coupons

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

Upon activation, you must visit the Coupons » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard. Here, you can start by adding a name and description for the coupon.

Next, you can select a discount type and add the coupon amount next to the ‘Coupon amount’ option.

Now according to the studies, most online stores offer a discount of about 30-40% during the holiday season. While some stores also add discount offers of up to 70% for selected items only.

We recommend creating discount coupons of up to 35-40% off on all products to maximize your sales during the holidays.

Create a discount coupon

Once you have added all the details, simply click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.

For detailed instructions, you may want to see our complete tutorial on how to create smart coupons in WooCommerce.

If you also want to add a loyalty program or offer gift cards to your customers, then you can see our guides on how to create a loyalty program in WooCommerce and how to add advanced gift cards in WooCommerce.

4. Add Social Proof to Your WooCommerce Store

You can also plan and promote your holiday sale by displaying social proof on your website. It is a social phenomenon wherein people copy the actions of others in choosing how to behave in a situation.

This means that a user is more likely to purchase your products if they see testimonials or reviews from other users talking positively about them.

You can easily add social proof to your WooCommerce store using TrustPulse. It is the best WordPress social proof plugin on the market that displays real-time notifications of user activities on your site.

Is TrustPulse the best social proof plugin for WordPress?

TrustPulse shows recent purchases or customer interactions to all the users who are visiting your online store at the time in order to convince them to make a purchase as well.

It offers actionable insights, real-time event tracking, smart targeting, and flexible design options, making it super easy to add social proof to your site.

For more detailed instructions, you can see our beginner’s guide on how to use FOMO on your WordPress site to increase conversions.

Fomo notification preview

5. Add Banners to Promote the Holiday

Another amazing tip that can help promote your WooCommerce holiday sale is to add banners at the top of your website.

These banners can include your brand name, logo, and discount offers to promote the holiday season and even create a festive atmosphere on your site.

If you also run a WordPress blog separately, then adding banners there for your online store sale can help drive more traffic.

You can easily create a banner on your WooCommerce store using OptinMonster which is the best WordPress banner plugin on the market.

All you have to do is create an account on the OptinMonster website and then connect it to your WordPress site using the free OptinMonster plugin.

Once you have done that, visit the OptinMonster » Templates page from the WordPress dashboard and select the ‘Floating Bar’ campaign type.

After that, choose the ‘Christmas’ option from the ‘Seasonal’ section on the left. You can now select any of the premade banner templates for your WooCommerce store.

Add a sale banner

Once you choose a template, it will be launched in the drag-and-drop builder where you can customize it according to your liking.

After that, you must switch to the ‘Publish’ tab to activate the Christmas sale banner on your online store.

Customize the WooCommerce holiday sale banner

However, if you don’t want to use OptinMonster, then you can also create a banner for your store using Thrive Leads or Canva. For detailed instructions, please see our tutorial on how to make a website banner easily.

6. Start a Holiday Countdown

When planning for a holiday sale on your WooCommerce store, it is important to also add a countdown timer on your website.

This can create a sense of urgency among your customers and encourage them to make a buying decision. It can also reduce cart abandonment rates by reminding customers to complete their purchase before the sale ends.

Plus, countdown timers also help highlight your sale and make it more visible to customers.

Countdown timer for the WooCommerce sale

You can easily create a countdown timer using a free plugin like Countdown Timer Ultimate or by opting for paid plugins like Thrive Ultimatum which is one of the best countdown plugins for your website.

For detailed instructions, you may want to see our tutorial on how to add a countdown timer widget in WordPress.

7. Offer Free Shipping

Offering free shipping upon purchase during the holiday season can help increase conversions by removing a purchase barrier.

This builds customer loyalty, encourages customers to spend more money, and also creates a sense of urgency because you are offering this service for a limited time only.

You can easily offer free shipping with a purchase using the Advanced Coupons plugin.

Upon activation, all you will have to do is visit the Coupons » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard. This will take you to a new screen where you can start by creating a discount coupon for the holiday season.

After that, simply check the ‘Allow free shipping’ box in the ‘General’ section to enable free shipping for customers who use the discount code on your website.

Allow free shipping in WooCommerce

This will encourage more customers to use your discount coupons and will boost your sales during the holiday.

For more information, you may want to see our tutorial on how to offer a shipping discount in WooCommerce.

8. Run an Email Campaign For the Sale

Email campaigns can also be an effective way to promote your WooCommerce store sales.

You can send personalized emails to your existing customers to let them know about the sale or encourage users to sign up for your newsletter to stay updated about future discount offers.

You can also send automated emails to all your subscribers and launch drip campaigns for further sale promotion. This can create a buzz around your holiday sale and help generate more leads.

You can easily launch an email marketing campaign for your holiday sale by connecting your email marketing service and WordPress site using WP Mail SMTP.

It is the best WordPress SMTP plugin on the market that allows you to properly configure your email settings and improve the overall deliverability rate.

WP Mail SMTP

With WP Mail SMTP, the emails that you send to your customers will never end up in the spam folder, ultimately helping you gain more visitors and revenue for your online store’s holiday sale.

9. Create Attractive Landing Pages

Another way that you can plan and promote your WooCommerce holiday sale is by creating attractive landing pages that represent the holiday.

These landing pages will quickly grab the user’s attention with their visuals and eye-catching colors, encouraging users to take action.

To easily create landing pages in WordPress, you can use SeedProd which is the best page builder plugin on the market.

It comes with a drag-and-drop builder, numerous pre-made templates, and advanced WooCommerce blocks that allow you to create landing pages for online stores in just a few minutes.

The SeedProd page builder plugin for WordPress

First, you’ll need to install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, visit the SeedProd » Landing Pages screen from the WordPress dashboard and click on the ‘Add New Landing Page’ button.

Click the Add New Landing Page button

This will take you to the ‘Choose a New Page Template’ screen where you can select any of the premade templates for your WooCommerce store.

You can easily create a pricing page for your services, a 404 error page, a coming soon page, a products page, or a home page.

Upon making your choice, you will be asked to enter a name for the landing page that you are about to create. Once you do that, click on the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button to continue.

Add a page for the WooCommerce sale

This will launch SeedProd’s drag-and-drop page builder, where you can now start editing your page.

You can add a heading, CTA, dynamic content, images, videos, navigation menu, or anything else you like by dragging and dropping blocks. You can even use the WooCommerce blocks from the left column.

For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to create a landing page in WordPress.

Publish landing page for the holiday sale

Once you are done, simply click the ‘Save’ and ‘Publish’ buttons at the top to launch your page on the store.

Tip: You can even create a fully customized theme for the holidays without using any code with SeedProd. For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to easily create a custom theme in WordPress.

10. Use Surveys and Polls to Plan Holiday Sale

You can also use surveys and polls to plan your holiday sale. These polls can help you learn more about your customers, their shopping habits, and preferences and help you plan a sale according to them.

For example, if most of the customers who filled out the survey form have said that free shipping or a 50% discount on all products encourages them to buy from the store, then you can use these suggestions for your holiday sale as well.

Adding a poll or survey form to your WooCommerce store is the easiest way to gather feedback for your holiday sale plan and make improvements where needed.

You can add polls and survey forms to your website using WPForms which is the best WordPress contact form plugin on the market. It comes with a drag-and-drop builder, spam protection, and numerous pre-made templates.

Keep in mind that you will need the Pro plan of the plugin to unlock the surveys and poll extension.

WPForms

Once you do that, visit the WPForms » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard and select from the multiple Survey or Poll form templates.

WPForms will then load the template in the drag-and-drop builder where you can add, remove, rename, or rearrange fields in a few minutes.

For detailed instructions, check our tutorials on how to create a survey in WordPress and how to create an interactive poll in WordPress.

createsurveyform

If you don’t want to create surveys for your online store, then you can use the UserFeedback plugin. It is the best WordPress feedback plugin on the market that makes it super easy to collect feedback from your users.

It shows a small prompt on the screen that you can use to ask users about their shopping habits and holiday sale preferences.

UserFeedback preview

11. Plan Your Social Media Strategy

When planning a holiday sale, it is important to also build a social media strategy for it. These are tips that you will be using on different social media platforms to drive more traffic to your WooCommerce store.

To develop a solid social media strategy, you will first need to identify your target audience, and then choose the right social media platforms according to it.

For example, if you have a store that sells teen clothes, then you may want to focus on Instagram to target the younger audience.

To do this, you can start selling your products on Instagram as well, add Instagram shoppable images to your store, or add your whole Instagram feed to your WooCommerce store.

Instagram feed preview

Similarly, if you sell home decor products or DIY, then Pinterest is the go-to platform for you.

Once you do that, use a content calendar to plan and schedule your social media posts, create high-quality content, use relevant hashtags and keywords, and then start promoting your holiday sale on the platforms in advance.

You can also offer discounts to your Facebook or Instagram followers, run social media contests, and so much more.

This will help drive traffic to your WooCommerce store from different social media platforms.

For more tips, you can see our complete social media cheat sheet for WordPress.

12. Start an Affiliate Program

Another great way to promote the holiday sale is by starting an affiliate program on your WooCommerce store.

A referral program lets you build partnerships with other small businesses on the market who promote your products or services on their websites to earn a small commission.

This practice can help you reach to a different audience and bring more traffic to your online store, ultimately leading to more conversions.

You can easily create an affiliate program for your store using AffiliateWP. It is the best WordPress affiliate tracking and management software that gives you complete control over your affiliate program.

Plus, it is super cost effective making it a great choice.

AffiliateWP website

For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to easily add an affiliate program in WooCommerce.

Bonus: Spread Holiday Spirit on Your WooCommerce Store

By spreading holiday spirit on your WooCommerce store, you can drive more traffic and generate more leads.

This is because customers are more likely to buy from vendors who have decorated their websites for the holidays and look as excited about the season as they are.

To spread the holiday spirit, you can use free plugins like Christmasify or Christmas Greetings to add jingle music, Santa Claus, gift boxes, and change the fonts of your store for the holidays.

Christmas Greetings preview

This can make your WooCommerce store look more fun and approachable and users are more likely to buy from it.

For more tips, you can see our tutorial on how to spread the holiday spirit on your WordPress site.

We hope this article helped you learn how to plan a holiday sale for your WooCommerce store. You may also want to our tutorial on how to create a sales page in WordPress and our list of amazing holiday gift ideas for bloggers, designers, and developers.

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 Plan a Holiday Sale for Your WooCommerce Store (12 Tips) first appeared on WPBeginner.

12 Best WordPress Voting Plugins (Compared)

Are you looking for a WordPress voting plugin for your website?

A WordPress voting plugin allows you to easily conduct polls on your website where users can vote. It is an effective strategy to build user engagement while collecting insights.

In this article, we have hand-picked the best WordPress voting plugins that help you easily add voting and polls to your website.

Comparing the best WordPress voting plugins

Why Use a WordPress Voting Plugin?

WordPress voting plugins help you build user engagement on your website.

User engagement refers to how users interact with your website. It ensures users spend more time on your website for a more engaged experience.

Businesses that invest in creating meaningful, interactive, and positive user experiences on their website tend to see better user engagement, which leads to higher sales and conversions.

Buzzfeed viral quiz example

A WordPress voting plugin allows you to improve user engagement by adding surveys, polls, and quizzes to your website.

For instance, if you run a food blog, you can ask users to vote on which recipe they want you to cover next on your blog.

Similarly, if you run an online store, you can ask users to vote on products, participate in surveys, or take a quiz to win discounts.

Customer feedback poll example

Here are some of the top benefits of using a WordPress voting plugin:

1. Improved User Engagement – By adding a poll or survey, you allow users to spend more time on your website. This leads to more user engagement and reduces bounce rates on your website.

2. Build a Community – Allowing users to vote and participate on your website gives them a sense of community. It improves your brand recognition and builds your business a loyal following.

3. Gather Feedback – By adding surveys and polls you can collect invaluable customer feedback to help you improve your business.

4. More Traffic and Social Shares – Users are more likely to share viral quizzes and online polls to their socials. This helps you get more traffic and social shares for your website.

That being said, here is a quick list of plugins we’ll compare in this article:

1. WPForms

WPForms

WPForms is the best WordPress voting plugin on the market. It is one of the most feature-rich WordPress form builders and allows you to easily create any type of form, including forms to conduct polls and surveys.

It comes with a drag-and-drop interface where you can create your form easily.

You can point and click to add form fields like multiple-choice checkboxes, radio buttons, drop-down fields, Likert scale fields, and more.

WPForms poll form example

Beginners would love the read-made form templates that allow you to quickly load form fields and edit them to your liking.

WPForms also allow you to show poll results in beautiful charts and graphs on the front end.

WPForms poll results

You can also view survey results with beautiful charts and graphs in the backend.

This provides you with more insights into customer feedback and voting patterns.

WPForms survey graphs and charts

For more details, see our tutorial on how to create interactive polls in WordPress.

Pricing: $199.50 – WPForms also has a free version called WPForms lite, but you’ll need their PRO plan to unlock surveys and polls add-on.

2. RafflePress

RafflePress

RafflePress is a WordPress giveaway plugin with built-in polls and survey features.

Users can join a giveaway or contest by voting in a poll or answering a survey question. This is particularly helpful in boosting user participation by providing users with an incentive to vote in the survey.

RafflePress is built with social and viral capabilities in mind. This allows you to create successful polls and encourage users to share them to gain more entry points.

It is effortless to use, highly interactive, and highly effective in reaching a larger audience.

Pricing: $99.50 for their Pro plan, which includes polls and survey features.

3. WP-Polls

WP-Polls

WP-Polls is a free WordPress poll and voting plugin. It is simple and quite basic compared to some other options on the list, but it is comprehensive and gets the job done.

It has a basic user interface that blends in your WordPress admin area. Advanced users can add custom CSS to change the style and appearance of their poll form and results.

You can easily schedule your polls, run multiple polls, sort poll questions and results, and more.

Pricing: Free

4. Thrive Quiz Builder

Thrive Quiz Builder

Thrive Quiz Builder is the best WordPress quiz plugin on the market. It allows you to easily create highly interactive BuzzFeed-like quizzes to boost user engagement on your website.

You can also create a quiz to use as a poll or survey, which allows users to vote and see the results at the end of the quiz.

Building your quiz with Thrive Quiz Builder

You can choose from various templates for five main quiz types. Each template allows you to customize the quiz screens step by step.

The quiz builder also makes it easy to create branching questions, which is when the next question to be displayed depends on the previous answer.

It also includes built-in features to encourage social sharing inside the quiz screens. Increasing the chances that your users may help spread the word by sharing their voting results.

Pricing: $99 as a standalone plugin. $299 as Thrive Suite Bundle.

5. Formidable Forms

Formidable Forms

Formidable Forms is the most advanced form builder for WordPress. It allows you to create any type of form, including powerful calculators, solution-focused forms, and online polls and surveys.

Formidable Forms comes with a powerful form builder that supports various fields that you can use in your polls. You can use checkboxes, radio buttons, Likert scale, dropdown menus, and more to create your online poll.

It also comes with a Quiz Maker feature, allowing you to turn your poll into an interactive quiz.

Formidable Forms can show poll results in graphs and charts on the front end. It also summarizes form results in graphs and charts in the backend.

Pricing: Starting from $39.50/year

6. UserFeedback

UserFeedback

UserFeedback is an easy way to collect feedback on your website by running quick polls and surveys.

It is handy for businesses that want to get insights and feedback from users directly.

For instance, you can ask users about your new website design, which products they are interested in, what they would like to read on your blog, and more.

UserFeedback is easy to use and allows you to add any type of form fields to your polls, surveys, or feedback forms.

Poll builder in UserFeedback

You can use one of the dozens of templates to add a poll quickly. You can use conditional logic to show users questions based on their answers.

It also comes with smart targeting features, allowing you to choose when to show the form.

UserFeedback integrates with Google Analytics using MonsterInsights, which gives you even deeper insights into customer interactions with your forms.

Lastly, it integrates with Uncanny Automator, allowing you to take advantage of 100+ interactions with all popular third-party apps, CRM software, email services, and other WordPress plugins.

Pricing: Starting at $49.50. There is also a free version of UserFeedback with limited features.

7. YOP Poll

YOP Poll

YOP Poll is a good WordPress voting plugin suitable for creating polls and surveys for users to vote in.

It lets you easily create and embed the poll anywhere on your WordPress website. It supports single and multiple-form fields.

The plugin also lets you manage how you wish to sort the questions, display results, show/hide details, set voter permissions, and even block users.

It also allows you to schedule your polls. You can run several polls simultaneously or schedule them to run one after another.

You also have multiple style options for your polls and poll results. This helps you easily divert user’s attention to the polls.

Pricing: Free. There is also a paid version starting at $27.

8. CrowdSignal Polls and Ratings

Crowdsignal

CrowdSignal (formerly Polldaddy) is a simple WordPress voting plugin that allows you to create engaging online polls, surveys, and forms.

It allows you to show real-time poll results and comes with beautiful styles to make your polls look more appealing.

The plugin supports 14 types of poll questions and comes with an intuitive poll builder to create your forms.

It also includes beautiful poll results with bars and graphs. In the backend, you can see more details of how your users interacted with a poll.

Pricing: Paid plans start at $180. There is also a limited free version available.

9. Poll Maker

Poll Maker

Poll Maker is another option to create polls for your WordPress website. It comes with a modern poll builder that lets you easily design your polls.

It has five poll types and dozens of style options, including seven pre-built themes.

Creating a poll is quite straightforward and easy. You can then add the poll to your WordPress website using a shortcode or a block.

Once a user has submitted a vote, you can choose to redirect them to any page on your website. The plugin also lets you schedule polls, limit who can vote, limit the number of votes a user can add, and more.

Pricing: The basic version of the plugin is free. There is also a pro version starting at $39.

10. WP Poll Maker

WP Poll Maker

WP Poll Maker is another way to create polls and contests on your WordPress website. This free voting plugin for WordPress allows you to easily create basic polls and surveys for your website.

It includes a poll builder where you can design your poll questions and adjust individual poll settings.

It comes with several templates to choose a style for your theme. Each theme is designed to be engaging and stand out, which helps you boost user engagement.

The plugin allows you to control and limit who can vote in a poll. You can also show live results for each poll, allow comments, or add social sharing features to trigger viral reach.

Pricing: The basic version of the plugin is free, and the paid plan starts at €35.

11. WP-PostRatings

WP-Postratings

WP-PostRatings is a WordPress post rating plugin that allows users to vote on a post or page. It is not a poll or contest plugin but if you were looking for a way for users to vote on your articles, then WP-PostRatings is the way to go.

It supports schema.org markup out of the box, meaning the post ratings may appear in search results.

It uses Ajax for voting functionality, ensuring users don’t leave a page when they add their rating.

WP-PostRatings has a rating dashboard where you can see how users voted on your posts, which posts are highest rated, and which posts are the lowest.

The one downside of the plugin is that it requires you to add a code snippet to your WordPress theme. For details, see our article on adding a post rating system in WordPress.

Pricing: Free

12. kk Star Ratings

kk Star Ratings

kk Star Ratings is another option to let users rate and vote on your WordPress posts and pages. Unlike other voting and polling plugins, kk Star Ratings only allows your users to rate your posts.

It supports schema.org markup, which enables search engines to use ratings data and show it in search results.

One advantage of using kk Star Ratings is that you don’t need to add custom code to your theme. However, unlike the WP-PostRatings plugin, it only allows you to use Stars as your rating icons.

Pricing: Free with paid add-ons.

Which is The Best WordPress Voting Plugin?

WPForms is the best WordPress voting plugin on the market. It is the best WordPress form builder, allowing you to create beautiful forms with a drag-and-drop tool.

With WPForms Survey and Polls addon, you can create dynamic polls and display results with beautiful charts and graphs.

For contests and giveaways, we recommend using RafflePress, which has built-in social features to make your polls go viral.

How to Create a Successful Voting Page?

Many of the WordPress voting plugins allow you to easily create a voting page on your WordPress site. However, to ensure that users participate in your polls you will need to make your poll questions interesting for your audience.

For instance, you can ask questions suitable for your target audience. You can also use tools like OptinMonster to boost engagement by showing your polls in lightbox popups, slide-in forms, display banner notifications, and more.

We hope this article helped you choose the best WordPress voting plugin for your website. You may also want to see our guide on showing personalized content to users in WordPress or our top social proof plugins for 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 12 Best WordPress Voting Plugins (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

7 Ways to Spread the Holiday Spirit With Your WordPress Site

Are you looking for ways to spread the holiday spirit on your WordPress website?

By promoting different holidays on your website, you can increase user engagement as visitors are more likely to stay and interact with your seasonal content. This can even help boost your profits and sales.

In this article, we will show you how to easily spread the holiday spirit with your WordPress site using plugins and themes.

Ways to spread holiday spirit in WordPress

Why Spread the Holiday Spirit With Your WordPress Site?

Celebrating holidays on your WordPress website can improve your brand image. Customers are more likely to trust your brand if they see you as an approachable and fun-loving company.

Additionally, spreading the holiday spirit can also help drive social media traffic to your website because users are more likely to share content that aligns with holidays during the festive season.

If you have an online store, then promoting different holidays can boost your sales. You can offer seasonal discounts, create gift guides, or run holiday-themed contests to encourage people to shop on your site.

You can also add holiday decorations like snowfall effects, Christmas bells, and lights to your blog. There are many third-party WordPress plugins and themes for the holiday season that you can use on your website to make it look more festive.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best ways to spread the holiday spirit with your WordPress site. You can use the quick links below to jump to our different tips:

1. Create Seasonal Popups

OptinMonster – The best WordPress popup plugin

OptinMonster is the best lead generation and conversion optimization software on the market.

It allows you to easily create opt-in forms, popups, yes/no opt-ins, and banners using its drag-and-drop builder. The tool basically helps you convert website visitors into customers or email subscribers.

OptinMonster even comes with premade seasonal templates that you can use to create a popup, sidebar, or floating bar and launch a successful campaign.

Once you have installed and activated OptinMonster, just visit the OptinMonster » Templates page from the WordPress dashboard. Here, you will see a list of holidays under the ‘Seasonal’ section in the left column.

You can now select the holiday that you want to promote on your website, and it will show a list of premade templates. For example, you can select the ‘Christmas Savings Sales’ template for your online store.

Choose holiday spirits

This template comes with a countdown timer and works well with the exit-intent technology.

This popup will be shown to your visitors when they are about to leave your website and can help boost your conversions. Plus, the countdown timer can also create a sense of urgency for your holiday sale.

Holiday sale campaign

Similarly, you can also use a slide-in popup, floating bar, or inline banner to promote the holiday by using these premade templates.

You can then easily customize these popups in OptinMonster’s drag-and-drop builder and even connect them to an email marketing service to grow your email list.

Customize the holiday campaign

Apart from that, you can also schedule your Christmas campaign, do A/B testing, perform analytics, and create mobile campaigns, making OptinMonster a great tool for promoting the holiday spirit.

For more details, you can see our guide on how to build your email list with OptinMonster.

2. Run a Holiday Giveaway

RafflePress

Another way to spread the holiday spirit on your website is by hosting a seasonal giveaway. This is a competition where entrants must complete actions like signing up for your email list, commenting on your blog posts, or following you on social media. Then, you give away a product or service for free to the winners.

Many small businesses and WooCommerce stores use giveaways as part of their marketing strategies because they are much more cost-effective than running paid advertisements.

To create a giveaway for your website, we recommend using RafflePress, which is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market.

It comes with premade templates and a drag-and-drop interface that makes it super easy to run a holiday giveaway on your website.

All you have to do is add a prize name, start and end time for the giveaway, and then use an image that represents the holiday as the background on the RafflePress popup.

Host a giveaway

Additionally, you can also use other features of RafflePress, like mobile-friendly widgets, viral sharing, fraud protection, and more, to further improve your giveaway.

For more detailed instructions, you may want to see our tutorial on how to run a giveaway in WordPress with RafflePress.

3. Spread Holiday Cheer With Seasonal Web Pages

SeedProd

If you want to create customized pages on your WordPress site that promote holiday cheer, then you can use SeedProd.

It is the best WordPress page builder plugin on the market that comes with a drag-and-drop builder, premade templates, advanced blocks, integrations with email marketing services, and more.

You can create a pricing page, coming soon page, landing page, home page, 404 error page, or even an entire custom theme with SeedProd.

After installing and activating the SeedProd plugin, just visit the SeedProd » Landing Pages section from the admin dashboard and click on the ‘Add New Landing Page’ button.

Click the Add New Landing Page button

This will take you to the ‘Choose a New Page Template’ screen, where you can select any of the premade templates offered by SeedProd.

Once you do that, you will have to add a name and URL for the template and click the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button to continue.

Add page name and URL

SeedProd’s drag-and-drop builder will now open up on the screen, where you will see a block column on the left with a template preview on the right.

You can now change the whole look of the template by adding a different background image, adding a heading block, buttons, videos, and more. In our example, we have created a simple login page.

However, you can add a contact form, giveaways, opt-in form, countdown timer, pricing table, navigation menu, and more to create a landing page that represents the holiday spirit.

Customize the landing page for the holiday spirit

Once you have customized the page, you can click the ‘Connect’ tab at the top and then choose an email marketing service that you want to connect to your landing page.

This can help boost your email list and gain new subscribers for your newsletter.

Choose an email marketing service

For detailed instructions, you can see our tutorial on how to create a landing page in WordPress.

4. Add Christmas Effects to Your Site

Chritmasify

Christmasify is a free WordPress plugin that can be used to create holiday effects on your website. The plugin allows you to add jingle music, a flying Santa Claus, Christmas decorations, fonts, and much more.

Upon installing the plugin, all you have to do is visit the Chrismasify menu tab from the WordPress admin sidebar.

Christmasify settings

Here, you can choose jingle music from the dropdown menu and check the box next to the Christmas effects that you want to add to your WordPress blog.

After that, don’t forget to click the ‘Christmasify My Website’ button to store your settings.

Christmasify plugin preview

5. Add Falling Snowflakes to Your Website

DB Falling Snowflakes plugin

DB Falling Snowflakes is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add falling snowflakes to your website. This can create a festive atmosphere and increase user engagement.

Upon plugin activation, you can visit the DB Snow Flakes menu tab from the WordPress dashboard to configure the start and end dates for the snowflakes.

Choose a start and end date for snowflakes

This way, you won’t be using snowflakes excessively, and they will only start falling on your website on your chosen date.

You can even choose the snowflake size, color, and speed from these settings. For detailed instructions, just see our tutorial on how to add falling snowflakes on your WordPress blog.

Add Snowflakes

6. Create Seasonal Weather Effects

Weather Effect plugin

The Weather Effect plugin is completely free and lets you add falling effects for different seasons, including Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Day, and more.

With the Weather Effect plugin, you can set up falling Christmas bells, Santa, gift boxes, a snowman, autumn leaves, and more. You can even configure the size of all these effects by visiting the Weather Effect menu tab from the WordPress dashboard.

Configure weather effect settings

Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

You can now visit your WordPress site to view the different effects.

Weather effect plugin preview

7. Use a WordPress Holiday Theme

We don’t usually recommend our users change their WordPress theme for a specific event or holiday season. This is because it can distract from your business’s branding and confuse your visitors.

However, if you have a personal website, then you can change your theme to create a festive atmosphere and increase user engagement.

A holiday theme can help you stand out from your competitors and promote your holiday specials like sales or discount offers.

Here is our handpicked list of the best WordPress themes for the holidays.

Christmas Bell

Christmas Bell theme

Christmas Bell is a free and multipurpose WordPress theme that can be used to give your website a warm and festive atmosphere.

We recommend this theme specifically for Christmas due to its built-in Christmas decoration features like Christmas-themed images, snowflakes, bells, and other elements.

Other features of the Christmas Bell theme include the ability to add a custom logo, featured content slider, header media options, holiday fonts, social media integrations, WooCommerce compatibility, and more.

Overall, the theme adds a fun and festive feel to your WordPress website, making it a great choice for the Christmas season.

Snowflakes

Snowflakes theme

Snowflakes is another free WordPress holiday theme with seasonal photos. It comes with bright colors and a cheerful, festive look.

Snowflakes has multiple color options, navigation menus, image galleries, header media options, hero content, and so much more.

You can use this theme to transform your site for the holidays and create a welcoming environment for your users. We recommend this theme if you have a photography website and want to add some holiday spirit to it.

We hope this article helped you find the best ways to spread the holiday spirit with your WordPress site. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to add Halloween effects to your WordPress website and our expert picks for the best holiday gift ideas for bloggers, designers, and developers.

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 7 Ways to Spread the Holiday Spirit With Your WordPress Site first appeared on WPBeginner.

2023’s Creator Economy Statistics That Will Blow You Away

Want to explore the recent trends and statistics in the creator economy?

The industry is home to content creators worldwide and grows a lot every year. From full-time content creators to hobbyists, the creator economy is made up of different creator profiles with different skills.

The creator economy also favors brands around the globe. It offers collaboration opportunities and helps businesses use different platforms to engage with their target audiences.

In this article, we have gathered a ton of creator economy statistics that will help you know the industry inside out.

Creator economy statistics

List of Creator Economy Statistics

To help you explore all the different insights in our research post, we have divided the creator economy statistics into different categories.

By clicking the links below, you can jump to the section that you are most interested in and view the different statistics:

General Creator Economy Statistics

General creator economy statistics
  • The estimated worth of the creator economy is $104.2 billion.
  • The creator economy is expected to double in size by 2027.
  • The creator economy has 207 million content creators worldwide.
  • The industry has 200 million active content creators.
  • The creator economy has over 2 million expert content creators.
  • Shopify is a leading company supporting the creator economy, with an annual revenue of $5200 million.

The creator economy is growing at a really fast pace. It is expected to double in the next few years as the industry welcomes new content creators every day.

Leading companies contribute to the creator economy’s growth by either providing services to content creators or working with them to promote different solutions.

This makes it possible for both brands and content creators to benefit from partnerships.

If you are a content creator, then you can join affiliate programs within your niche and make money writing about and promoting these products. Alternatively, you can work directly with brands and get sponsorships.

Apart from social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok, it’s a good idea to create a WordPress website. This will give you full control over your content. Plus, having a website makes it easier for brands to find you and reach out to you for partnerships.

As a business, you can enter the creator economy by sponsoring influencers or starting your own affiliate marketing program with a plugin like AffiliateWP. That way, you can quickly get more referrals to your products and services.

Creator Profile Statistics

Creator profile statistics
  • There are more than 45 million professional content creators in the creator economy.
  • 51.9% of content creators in the industry are women, with men making up 48.1%.
  • The creator economy has more than 162 million amateur content creators.
  • 46.7% of people identify as full-time content creators, followed by 42.7% as part-timers.
  • 10.6% of people consider content creation a hobby.
  • Only 0.96% of content creators have more than 1 million followers.

The gender gap in the creator economy is not that high. However, the industry has more female content creators than men.

The majority of people in the industry work as full-time content creators. However, there are some who work 9–5 and create content to make a decent amount of money.

Influencer Statistics

Influencer statistics
  • The current estimated value of the influencer industry is $17.4 billion, which is expected to grow to $22.2 billion by 2025.
  • The expected growth rate of the influencer industry is 14.47%.
  • 78% of influencers earn around $23,500 per year.
  • The average influencer income is $76 per hour.
  • 83% of people believe influencer marketing is an effective marketing tactic.
  • 63% of brands use artificial intelligence (AI) for their influencer marketing campaigns.
  • Brands spend $6 billion on influencer collaborations.
  • 82% of the total influencer marketing budget is spent on influencer collaborations in the United States.
  • On average, lifestyle influencers pitch $994 for a collaboration, followed by fashion influencers at $912.
  • On average, brands spend $257 per collaboration with an influencer.
  • The average time influencers take to respond to collaboration requests is 14 hours.
  • Influencers usually take 16 days to wrap up a collaboration.
  • 42% of influencers prefer to be paid for a collaboration.
  • 26% of influencers produce user-generated content like reviews, unboxings, testimonials, etc.
  • 50% of people prefer purchasing products from their favorite influencers.
  • Influencers are active on at least 2 social media platforms.

Professional content creators have a lot of influence in their niches. This makes them ideal candidates for brand collaborations.

For this reason, around 68% of companies prefer working with influencers. The creator economy acts as a bridge. It allows brands to onboard influential content creators and helps independent creators make a living from collaborations. 

Influencers generally have a huge follower base. So, they can help your business increase its brand awareness and connect with online communities.

This partnership can help you attract more traffic to your website and capture high-quality leads.

Work Preference Statistics

Work preference statistics
  • 85% of full-time content creators enjoy what they do.
  • 1/3 of content creators prefer creating a single type of content.
  • 58% of content creators generally produce 2–4 types of content.
  • 94.5% of content creators use AI tools.
  • For more than 25% of full-time content creators, follower growth is a preferred metric to measure their success.
  • 37% of full-time content creators prefer working solo.
  • 45% of part-time content creators prefer hiring staff.
  • More than 35% of full-time content creators prefer creating content around entrepreneurship.
  • More than 20% of hobbyists prefer creating content around personal development.
  • Only 5% of content creators spend more than 40 hours each week creating content.

A majority of full-time content creators and hobbyists prefer to work alone. However, most of the part-time content creators do not mind hiring help.

Creators usually experiment with different types of content until they find what works for them. However, full-timers generally prefer creating content that talks about new business ideas.

Full-time content creators measure success by the rate at which their followers grow. Plus, they do not shy away from using AI tools to be more efficient at work.

For example, with AI-powered tools like All in One SEO (AIOSEO), you can easily optimize your written content for search engines.

AIOSEO comes with a powerful AI title and description generator that can help you write better headings and meta descriptions for your written content. This can help you improve your rankings in Google and get a bigger audience for your content.

Earnings Statistics

Earnings statistics
  • More than 45% of content creators use revenue as a metric to measure their success.
  • 52% of content creators are monetized (make money from their content).
  • 78% of monetized content creators are women.
  • 59% of beginner content creators are still waiting for monetization.
  • Monetized content creators generally earn $51 per hour on average.
  • 32% of content creators own businesses related to creative work.
  • The average income of content creators who run a business is $75 per hour.
  • 67% of content creators sell products or merchandise to get more revenue.
  • 28% of content creators make income through partnerships and promotions.
  • 29% of content creators generate revenue through affiliate links.
  • 35% of content creators make a living through ad revenue.
  • 25% of content creators earn $50–100K a year.
  • Only 2% of content creators make more than $1 million a year.
  • To make more than $1 million a year, content creators need more than 5 million followers.
  • 26% of content creators make the most money from TikTok and YouTube, respectively.
  • 48% of people do not mind paying a subscription fee to access exclusive content.
  • 29% of people want to support their favorite content creators because they inspire them.
  • 35.3% of people give tips to their favorite content creators to support them.
  • 50% of people have tipped their favorite content creators at least once.
  • More than 40% of people tip $5 to $10 on average to their favorite content creators.

Most content creators let their earnings define their success. So, they often choose to own a business even if they are already monetized on social platforms.

Monetized content creators make the most money from TikTok and YouTube. Female content creators have the advantage here.

Apart from business income and ad revenue, content creators also earn through affiliate links and paid promotions.

Furthermore, the majority of people are willing to pay a premium fee to get exclusive content from their favorite content creators. This means you can easily make more money by making restricted content.

You could make a membership website. That way, users will need to pay to get past your paywall and get access to your content.

For example, 40 Aprons is a health and wellness blog that uses MemberPress to offer its visitors access to premium content like diet plans and secret recipes.

Alternatively, if you have something to teach your followers, then Thrive Apprentice is a great option. It allows you to make and sell online courses to your audience.

Engagement Statistics

Engagement statistics
  • 29.3% of content creators publish content frequently on social media to engage their audiences.
  • 5.6% of content creators host meetups to increase engagement.
  • 62% of content creators say that focusing on a particular niche helps them get more engagement and reach.
  • More than 25% of content creators say that Instagram is the top channel for generating engagement.

Engagement is one of the main metrics that content creators use to measure their performance.

To meet engagement goals, content creators often focus on a specific niche and create content around relevant topics. 

Publishing content on a regular basis is the key here. However, some content creators go the extra mile and host virtual events or in-person meetups to engage with their audiences.

Running competitions and giveaways on your website is also an excellent way to boost engagement.

With RafflePress, you can easily run giveaways on your WordPress website without having to hire a developer. This can help you get more followers and shares on social media, as well as subscribers to your email list.

Challenges Statistics

Creator economy challenges
  • 14.6% of content creators say their greatest challenge is finding brand deals.
  • 63% of full-time content creators have experienced burnout at least once in the last 12 months.
  • 13% of full-time content creators consistently have extreme levels of stress, followed by part-timers at 9%.
  • More than 45% of full-time content creators say the pressure to post everywhere causes burnout, followed by content fatigue at around 44%.

It may seem like content creators are living the dream. However, they can have challenges from time to time.

Always meeting audience expectations can be overwhelming. It can severely affect the health and well-being of some content creators.

Whether they are full-time content creators or part-timers, creators often report extreme levels of stress trying to meet the demand for new content.

When you create content day in and day out, you may eventually run out of content ideas.

The WPBeginner Blog Post Idea Generator can come in handy here. The tool instantly generates 100s of content ideas to help you find new topics and inspiration.

YouTube Statistics

YouTube statistics
  • With 2.2 billion monthly active users, YouTube is one of the most popular social media platforms.
  • YouTube channels grow by 36% per year.
  • 69% of influencers on YouTube are women, followed by men at 31%.
  • YouTube supports multiple languages, covering 95% of internet users.
  • 197 million YouTube users are from the United States.
  • 29% of children in the United States want to be YouTubers or vloggers one day.
  • Only 3% of YouTubers make 90% of the money generated through the platform.
  • An average content creator on YouTube has a 1/57 chance of crossing the 10,000 subscribers milestone.
  • 10% of the content published by popular YouTube channels gets 79% of the total views.
  • 70% of YouTubers prefer creating long-form content.
  • On average, brands spend $418 to collaborate with YouTubers.
  • 25% of people prefer to watch live streams on YouTube.
  • 25.9% of people prefer YouTube for tipping or subscribing to their favorite content creators.

YouTube is one of the leading social media platforms. Creators use the platform to engage their audiences with long-form content and make a living from ad revenue.

However, this is not the only way content creators earn money through YouTube. People also prefer the platform for live streams, where they support their favorite creators through tips.

So, if you are a content creator, live streaming on YouTube is a good option for you to grow your income.

You can also embed your live stream on your WordPress website. This is one of the most effective ways to attract more viewers and grow your audience.

Plus, you don’t need to hire a coding expert for this. You can simply use Smash Balloon YouTube Feed to embed your YouTube streams on your website.

Instagram Statistics

Instagram statistics
  • 25% of people say that Instagram has the potential to generate the highest return on investment (ROI).
  • 29% of brands plan to invest the most in Instagram because of the platform’s potential to help them grow their audiences.
  • Instagram is one of the most popular platforms, with 2 billion monthly active users.
  • 79% of influencers on Instagram are women, followed by men at 21%.
  • 9 out of 10 Instagram users consume video content on a weekly basis.
  • 89% of Instagram users live outside the United States.
  • 11% of Instagram users in the United States use the platform as their go-to news source.

Instagram is also an ideal place for content creators to score brand deals and sponsorships.

Instagram users are also generally very active. So, engaging them may be easier compared to other platforms.

Additionally, by embedding your Instagram feed on your website, you can show user-generated content to build trust and grow your brand’s reach.

Smash Balloon Instagram Feed can help you with that. Using this plugin, you can easily add customizable social media feeds to your website and show your content to more people.

TikTok Statistics

TikTok statistics
  • 26% of content creators say that their preferred social media platform is TikTok.
  • TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users.
  • 53% of TikTok users are women, followed by men at 46%.
  • 76% of influencers on TikTok are women, followed by men at 24%.
  • 80 million monthly active users on TikTok are from the United States alone.
  • 37.3 million active users on TikTok represent Gen Z.
  • TikTok users are active for around 95 minutes on a daily basis.
  • 56% of brands prefer TikTok to collaborate with influencers.
  • The highest-earning content creator on TikTok is Charli D’Amelio.

TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. Over 1 billion people use the app to get their daily dose of content, especially people from Generation Z.

This is why most content creators prefer TikTok to showcase their creativity to their fans. TikTok is also preferred by many brands for partnerships.

Facebook Statistics

Facebook statistics
  • With 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms.
  • 26.4% of people who use Facebook are millennials.
  • Facebook is the source of news and updates for 43% of adults in the United States.

TikTok may be the preferred platform to engage Generation Z. But Facebook is the go-to place for content creators who want to connect with millennials.

Businesses often use Facebook to create an online community. It helps them humanize their brand and engage with their audience.

We even do the same at WPBeginner. We created our own Facebook group called WPBeginner Engage to help WordPress users improve their websites and connect with 95k+ like-minded people.

List of Sources

WPBeginner, MemberPress, RafflePress, Smash Balloon, Statista, Adobe, Forbes, HubSpot, Exploding Topics, Linktree, The Influencer Marketing Factory, Influencer Marketing Hub, ConvertKit, Collabstr, Zippia, Goldman Sachs, Demand Sage

We hope this list of creator economy statistics, trends, and facts will help you make a marketing strategy that works best for your business. You may also want to see our guide on how to start a successful YouTube channel for your business and our expert picks for the best marketing automation tools for small businesses.

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 2023’s Creator Economy Statistics That Will Blow You Away first appeared on WPBeginner.

15 Best WooCommerce Automations to Increase Sales

Are you looking for easy and smart ways to automate tasks and increase sales in your WooCommerce store?

By automating tasks in your online store, you can save time and money while growing your business and increasing sales.

In this article, we will show you how to use WooCommerce automations to increase sales.

15 WooCommerce Automations to Increase Sales

Why Automate Your WooCommerce Store?

If you are running a WooCommerce store, then you probably spend a lot of your time performing repetitive tasks. These can be anything from sending marketing emails for your online store to processing customer invoices.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could automate all of those tasks and focus on growing sales and your business instead?

Luckily, you can use the best WordPress automation tools and plugins to automate WooCommerce tasks. By doing this, you will save time, offer a better user experience to your customers, and ultimately increase sales.

With that being said, here are 15 WooCommerce automations to increase sales:

1. Use Automation to Personalize Your Email Marketing

Are you keeping in touch with your customers using an email newsletter? You may not be taking advantage of all the automation tools available in your email marketing software.

For example, the best email services like Constant Contact, Sendinblue, and Omnisend all have integrations with WooCommerce. They allow you to personalize your emails by adding the customer’s name and more.

They also let you set up a Welcome email series using a drip campaign. This is a sequence of automated emails that will go out automatically to new customers.

Choose an email automation

You can learn how to get started by scrolling down to the automated drip emails section of our guide on how to send automated emails in WordPress.

Additionally, if you are looking for a complete tool that offers WooCommerce email customization and automation, then we highly recommend using FunnelKit Automations.

Apart from letting you fully customize your WooCommerce emails, it also lets you set up smart, automated follow-up emails and workflows to boost your sales.

You can get started with FunnelKit Automations by selecting an automation from a library of handy templates.

Autonami Email Library for WooCommerce

For example, you can automatically send an email series to new customers, recover abandoned carts, send promotional emails to selected audiences, and more.

There is also an option to create your own WooCommerce automation from scratch. You will then see a visual email automation builder where you can make any customizations that you need.

Autonami Marketing Automation Email Analytics for WooCommerce

For example, the screenshot above shows the workflow for sending out a thank you email after a customer makes their first order. You can even see in-line analytics for each email.

You can learn more in our guide on how to customize WooCommerce emails. Make sure you scroll down to the section on FunnelKit Automations.

Tip: We recommend combining FunnelKit Automations with an SMTP service like WP Mail SMTP. This will make sure your emails are delivered to your customers and won’t get lost or end up in the spam folder.

2. Set Up an Automated Marketing Campaign With Push Notifications

You can also run an automated marketing campaign using push notifications instead of emails. These notifications go directly to the user’s web browser or mobile device. This means they have a much higher engagement rate, similar to SMS messages.

The easiest way to set up automated push notifications is with PushEngage. It is the best web push notification software for WordPress, and over 10,000 businesses use it to send targeted messages.

Create a new drip autoresponder

For each notification, you can change the title, message, URL, icon image, and more by expanding it.

There is also a preview of how your notifications will look in the browser.

Edit your push notifications

PushEngage also lets you choose when to send each notification. For example, you can immediately send the first notification and select a different time for the following one.

For more details, see our guide on how to set up automated drip notifications in WordPress.

3. Let Customers Track Orders With Automated Transactional Emails

WooCommerce will need to send different transactional emails to your customers. These help them get order confirmations, track their order status, get invoices, and find out more information about your online store.

You can customize and automate these emails using FunnelKit Automations, which is a popular WooCommerce plugin for marketing automation.

The FunnelKit Automations dashboard makes it easy to create a new automation. You can simply click on one of the plugin’s many templates.

Funnelkit Automations WooCommerce Automation Templates

You can filter the list to quickly find the WooCommerce automation you wish to use. For example, you might want to send automatic thank-you emails to repeat customers.

You can then customize the automation using the visual automation builder, including the content of the email.

Funnelkit Automations Workflow and Email Customization

For detailed instructions, please see the section about sending automated transactional emails with FunnelKit Automations in our guide on how to send automated emails.

4. Quickly Update Your Customers With Automated SMS Messages

Many customers prefer to receive text messages to notify them about their orders. Plugins like YITH WooCommerce SMS Notifications or FunnelKit Automations will automatically send SMS messages to your customers.

Yith SMS Notifications Plugin

SMS messages are an effective way to keep your customers up to date. They have a 98% average open rate, with 95% of messages being read in the first 3 minutes!

You can send automatic texts to your customers when their orders are dispatched or their status changes. You can automatically send SMS notifications to your customers or let them opt in at checkout.

Learn how by following our guide on how to send SMS messages to your WordPress users.

5. Automate All Invoicing and Payment Processes

As a business owner, there is a lot to manage. If you are still creating invoices manually, then you can switch to professional invoicing software that automates all invoicing and payment processes. Then, you will be free to focus on growing your business.

A plugin like WooCommerce PDF Invoices makes it easy to automatically generate invoices, collect orders, and manage your finances.

WooCommerce PDF Invoices

You can also save time by accepting recurring payments or adding subscriptions to WooCommerce. These WooCommerce automations will help automate the billing process and can save you time.

With automatic recurring payments, you don’t have to spend time manually sending invoices and waiting for payments from your customers.

Plus, adding subscription payments to your eCommerce business will give you a more consistent cash flow, fewer payment errors, and fewer payment delays.

Creating a recurring payment in WooCommerce

6. Use Automated Store Activity Notifications to Boost Sales

Automated FOMO and social proof notifications can also increase sales in your WooCommerce store.

FOMO, short for fear of missing out, is a marketing technique used to create excitement about a product. It uses psychology to encourage customers to make buying decisions faster.

Plus, social proof shows visitors that other customers have purchased your products. This can convince users that your online store is trustworthy.

The best way to add social proof to your website is by using TrustPulse. It is one of the best social proof plugins for WordPress on the market.

TrustPulse automatically monitors activity on your site. When potential customers are close to buying something, they will see a notification showing that another customer has just made a purchase.

By simply displaying social proof, you will give your visitors a small push to complete their purchase. To learn more, see Method 1 of our guide on how to use FOMO to increase conversions.

7. Automatically Display Your Best Product Reviews

Would you like to automatically display the best reviews of your products from across the internet? You could copy and paste them manually, but that is a lot of work. Plus, there would be a delay before they appear on your website.

Luckily, Smash Balloon has a Reviews Feed Pro plugin that lets you automatically show off your best reviews from platforms like Google Reviews, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more.

Customer reviews, displayed on a WordPress website

It comes with pre-designed templates, so you can display your reviews in different layouts, including showcases, carousels, grids, and more.

The Reviews Feed automatically copies your website’s design so that the reviews look like a natural part of your website rather than content embedded from another platform.

You can follow our guide on how to show Google, Facebook, and Yelp reviews to set up your own automatic review feed in WooCommerce.

8. Use an Automated Sales Funnel to Boost Sales Conversions

A sales funnel is the path a user takes on your website to become a customer. It is made up of the specific pages a user may visit before making a purchase.

For example, a new visitor might land on a blog post, then view a product page, then go through your checkout flow.

Unfortunately, only 10% of shoppers, on average, will add anything to their carts. After they do, 60-80% of them abandon their carts without completing the purchase.

Luckily, you can use FunnelKit, the best WooCommerce sales funnel plugin, to change that. You can use the plugin to optimize each step, offer a better user experience, reduce distractions, and nudge users toward completing their purchases.

For example, it comes with a one-click Upsells feature, which allows users to add products to their carts on their way to the checkout.

WooFunnels One Click Upsell

FunnelKit also lets you customize the user journey with pre-checkout offers, custom checkout form layouts, beautiful templates, and more.

For instance, the FunnelKit Funnel Builder lets you add order bumps to boost profits if someone adds $X to their cart. You can also add one-click order bumps to your checkout page.

Edit design of your bump offer

To learn more, see our guide on how to make a high-converting sales funnel in WordPress.

9. Reduce Cart Abandonment With Popups and Push Notifications

As we said earlier, 60 to 80% of people who add items to their cart don’t actually buy them. This means if you have an online store, then you are losing out on a lot of sales.

Luckily, you can use automatic push notifications to reduce cart abandonment rates. For example, you can pop up a notification when a user is about to leave your website and offer a coupon or free shipping.

Or, if the customer already has discounted items in their cart, they may just need some reassurance that they are making the right decision. Push notifications like these can help you recover 3 to 8% of abandoning cart sales.

Smash Balloon exit intent popup

You can learn how to use OptinMonster to add exit-intent popups by following our guide on how to create a WooCommerce popup to increase sales.

But what if the customer leaves your site before they see the popup? Push notifications can also help you connect with your visitors after they leave your website. These messages will display in your subscriber’s browser even when they are not actively browsing your store.

Push notification abandoned cart example

The easiest way to do this is with PushEngage. It is the best web push notification software on the market, and it is used to send over 15 billion push messages every month.

For more details, see our guide on how to add web push notifications to WordPress.

You can also significantly reduce cart abandonment by simply improving your online store and checkout process. We share plenty of proven tips with real examples in our guide on how to recover WooCommerce abandoned cart sales.

10. Send Automated Coupons to Bring Back Customers

It costs 5 times more to get a new customer than to keep an old one. Over time, people may lose interest in your website, forget about your products, or start shopping with a competitor.

One way to bring those customers back is to automatically send them a coupon code via email. You can use automation tools to send a coupon to customers who have become disengaged, such as when they don’t place an order for 2 months or have stopped opening emails.

Scheduling an automated coupon code

You can learn how in our step-by-step guide on how to send automated coupons in WordPress to bring back customers.

Another good use for automated coupons is recognizing and rewarding customers when they engage with your online store. For example, you might send a coupon after a customer reviews one of your products.

This builds loyalty to your store and can get you more sales. It also encourages shoppers to review more products in the future.

You can also schedule coupons in advance so that they go out automatically on popular holidays like Black Friday, Christmas, New Year’s, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s Day. This will leave you free to focus on promoting your offers and getting as many sales as possible.

See our guide on how to schedule coupons in WooCommerce for detailed instructions.

Additionally, as we mentioned earlier, you can also offer a coupon in a popup. Showing a coupon at the right time makes a huge difference in converting your website visitors into paying customers.

There are a few ways to do this, and we give you all the details in our step-by-step guide on how to create a coupon popup in WordPress.

11. Automate Your Social Media Channels

You can also use automation to post your online store content to your social channels. This lets you keep your social followers engaged with fresh content.

Uncanny Automator has integrations with all popular social platforms. It will let you publish new blog posts on Facebook, show off your latest product images on Instagram, advertise your sales on Twitter, and more.

Post a featured image to Instagram from WordPress

You can learn how to do this step-by-step by following our guides on how to automatically post to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

12. Automatically Display Social Media Content in WooCommerce

Are you looking for ways to show fresh content without doing any extra work? One way to do that is to automatically display your latest social media activity in your WooCommerce store.

This can save you time and keep your website content fresh and engaging for visitors. Plus, it can boost social proof by displaying your social media followers, comments, and like counts.

Smash Balloon automates your website content by displaying your latest social media activity. It is a popular social media feed plugin for WordPress that is used by over 1.4 million websites.

For example, you can add a Facebook feed to WordPress, and new posts will automatically appear in real time. Your customers can also like, share, and comment on your WordPress posts, which is a great way to get more engagement on Facebook.

An example of an embedded Facebook feed, created using Smash Balloon

You can change the feed’s color scheme, design a custom header, add ‘like’ and ‘load more’ buttons, and much more.

If you are posting beautiful photos and engaging videos to Instagram, then it makes sense to post that content to WordPress too.

An Instagram photo feed, created using Smash Balloon

You can even show other people’s photos on your site by creating a hashtag feed or displaying the posts that other people have tagged your account in.

In the following image, you can see an example of an online store that uses a custom Instagram feed to show user-generated content.

An example of Instagram user-generated content

For details, please see our step-by-step guide on how to add your social media feeds to WordPress.

Tip: For more tips on how to use social channels to grow your online store and increase sales, you can see our complete social media cheat for WordPress.

13. Make Your Forms Smarter Using Automation

You can use form plugins like WPForms to collect all kinds of information from your customers.

For example, you can use a form plugin to display a contact form, create a questionnaire, gather testimonials, or build a survey form.

The best thing is that WPForms easily integrates with many other tools and plugins, so you can easily automate any action after someone fills out your form.

For example, when someone fills in an order form, you can use conditional logic to send an email notification to the correct department, depending on the product that was purchased.

WPForms Conditional Logic for Sending Notifications

You can also send a confirmation email to the customer who filled in the form to let them know you will be in contact soon. This a nice gesture that lets your users know that you have received their information.

In addition, by using the Google Sheets Addon, you can send any form fields you want to a spreadsheet. This will allow you to use spreadsheet features to analyze the data and collaborate with others in your team.

Using WPForms' Google Sheets Addon

To automate your forms further, Uncanny Automator will let you connect WPForms and other form plugins to 100+ third-party services without having to pay fees to services like Zapier.

For example, you can create an Uncanny Automator recipe to send customer form data to Airtable. Then, your team will be able to access and use the data easily.

Using Uncanny Automator to Send WPForms Data to Airtable

To learn more, see our guide on how to create automated workflows with Uncanny Automator.

14. Automate Live Chat Using Artificial Intelligence

Automated chatbots are the future of live chat software because they allow you to engage with your customers 24/7. They can free up time by automatically answering common customer questions, generating leads, improving user experience, and making more sales.

Chatbot.com is the best AI chatbot software for WordPress. It lets you easily automate live chat on your website by setting up your own chatbot using a drag-and-drop builder. You don’t need to do any coding or have any special technical skills.

ChatBot live chat

It even comes with pre-built templates that you can use as a starting point to quickly get your AI chatbot up and running. These templates include different scenarios like selling products, customer service, recruitment, bookings, and more.

For example, you can use the eCommerce bot template to walk your customers through the entire buying process. There are even templates for specific industries, including a coffee shopbot, recruitment bot, and restaurant bot.

If visitors want to communicate with a real person, then you can easily forward them to your customer support agent, phone support, or any of ChatBot’s live chat software integrations, such as LiveChat.

15. Use Uncanny Automator for Even More WooCommerce Automations

This article contains many specialist tools that do specific automation jobs very well. By contrast, Uncanny Automator is a Swiss army knife that allows you to create all types of automation workflows without having to write any code.

It acts as a bridge so that you can get different WordPress plugins talking to each other, as well as loads of third-party services.

You create automation by building Uncanny Automator recipes, consisting of triggers and actions. The action will be automatically run when a user or WooCommerce triggers an event.

Uncanny Automator Triggers and Actions for WooCommerce

Here are some of the WooCommerce triggers you can use to run a recipe:

  • A customer viewing a product
  • A customer adding a product to their cart
  • A customer paying for a product
  • A payment failing
  • A customer reviewing a product
  • And much more

Then the recipe can automatically run any of these WooCommerce actions:

  • Creating an order with a product
  • Changing the price of a product
  • Generating and emailing a coupon code
  • Giving an order a specific status

There are dozens of recipes that you can create, allowing you to save hundreds of hours while running your online store more efficiently.

For instance, you can use Uncanny Automator to automatically create a new customer account when someone submits a contact form on your website, or send notifications to Slack.

Bonus: Track Conversions to Learn How to Increase Sales

To use any marketing automation platform effectively, you will need easy-to-understand reports that tell you exactly what is working for your business and what isn’t.

MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It lets you get a clear picture of what is happening on your site and what you can do to bring in more sales.

It comes with WooCommerce conversion tracking, form submissions, outbound link tracking, and user tracking.

Its Reports page has an ‘eCommerce’ tab that shows your most important conversion metrics, including the conversion rate, transactions, revenue, and average order value. Below that, you will see a list of your top products with quantity, sale percentage, and total revenue.

Ecommerce report in MonsterInsights

You will also see your top conversion sources. You can use this report to attract more customers and offer exclusive discounts for customers from specific sources.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to set up WooCommerce conversion tracking.

You can also connect Google Sheets with WooCommerce to easily record and manage your orders and customer data. Once the information is in a Google Sheet, you can easily filter it based on factors like the order total, the customer’s location, coupons used, and more.

You can then share this information with your team, even if they don’t have access to the WordPress dashboard. For example, you can easily send this data to your suppliers, marketing departments, or other team members.

You are even able to turn this data into charts and graphs. All of this makes it easier to analyze the information and then use these insights to fine-tune your business and get more sales.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to increase sales using WooCommerce automations. You may also want to see our guide on how to add wholesale pricing in WooCommerce or our expert picks for the best WooCommerce plugins for your store.

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 15 Best WooCommerce Automations to Increase Sales first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Do a Twitch Giveaway in WordPress (Step-by-Step)

Do you want to do a Twitch giveaway in WordPress?

Giveaways can help you get more followers on your Twitch channel. They’re also a great way to engage with the people who already watch you on Twitch.

In this article, we’ll show you how to run a Twitch giveaway in WordPress.

How to do a Twitch giveaway in WordPress

Why Do a Twitch Giveaway in WordPress?

There are many reasons why you may want to do a Twitch giveaway.

Giveaways are popular because they can help you reach a wider audience and increase your followers. You can then ask people to follow you on Twitch, in order to enter your contest.

A Twitch giveaway

You can also use a contest to engage with the people who already watch your Twitch channel.

A giveaway with a valuable prize is much more engaging than other content, so watchers who typically don’t interact with you may decide to visit your WordPress website in order to enter the competition. This means you can increase your blog traffic and get more engagement from your Twitch audience.

You can also offer multiple ways to earn more giveaway entries by encouraging users to follow you on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, join your email list, etc, so you can get your Twitch followers to follow you on other social channels.

With that being said, let’s see how you can do a Twitch giveaway on your WordPress website.

How to Do a Twitch Giveaway in WordPress (Step-by-Step)

The easiest way to create a Twitch giveaway is by using RafflePress. It’s the best WordPress giveaway plugin and lets you create all kinds of contests using a simple drag-and-drop editor.

There is a free version of RafflePress that makes it easy to run giveaways and competitions no matter what your budget. However, in this guide, we’ll be using RafflePress pro as it has ‘Follow us on Twitch’ as an entry method.

A Twitch giveaway, created using RafflePress and WordPress

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

Upon activation, you’ll see the RafflePress welcome screen in the WordPress dashboard. You can now go ahead and enter your license key.

Adding the RafflePress license key

You’ll find this information in your account on the RafflePress website. Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Verify Key’ button.

After that, go to RafflePress » Add New.

Creating a new giveaway in WordPress

On the next screen, you’ll need to give your Twitch giveaway a name.

This is just for your reference so you can use anything you want.

Adding a title to your Twitch giveaway

Next, choose the template that you want to use. RafflePress has ready-made templates for specific goals such as growing your YouTube channel or going viral.

For this guide, we’ll use the Classic Giveaway template as it lets us create a contest from scratch. Simply hover your mouse over the Classic Giveaway template and then click on the ‘Use this Template’ button when it appears.

Choosing a template for your Twitch giveaway

This opens the template in RafflePress’ drag and drop builder.

We’ll start by entering some information about the prize so simply click to select the headline area, which shows ‘My Awesome Prize’ by default.

The RafflePress WordPress giveaway plugin

You can now go ahead and type a title into the ‘Name’ field.

You’ll usually want to talk about your exciting prize, but you can use any title you want.

Adding a title to your Twitch giveaway

Once you’ve done that, type in a description, which will appear below the headline.

Here, you may want to add some more information about the competition, such as how much the prize is worth and what it has to offer users.

Adding a description to a Twitch giveaway

You might also add a photo of the prize, so visitors can see what’s at stake. Even simply adding the product’s logo can make the competition more eye-catching.

To do this, simply click on ‘Select Image.’

How to create a Twitch giveaway in WordPress

Then, either choose an image from the media library or upload a new file from your computer.

When you’ve finished making changes to this section, click on the ‘Done Editing’ button.

Adding an image to a Twitch giveaway

Now it’s time to set a start and end date for your giveaway. If you have lots of giveaways planned, then this allows you to schedule them in advance. It also guarantees that your contests will start and end on time, no matter how busy you get.

To schedule the contest, simply enter a date and time into the ‘Giveaway starts…’ and ‘Giveaway ends…’ sections.

Scheduling your Twitch contest

By default, RafflePress uses the UTC timezone, but you can change this using the ‘Timezone’ dropdown menu.

Your next task is choosing how visitors will enter the giveaway, by selecting ‘Actions.’

Adding actions to your Twitch giveaway

You will now see all the different entry methods. For example, if you want to create a Facebook giveaway to boost engagement, then you can select ‘Like our Page’ or ‘Visit us on Facebook’ as the entry method.

To get more followers on Twitch, just click on the ‘Follow us on Twitch’ action.

You can then type in the text that will appear to the people who visit your WordPress website. This is ‘Follow us on Twitch’ by default, but you can use anything you want.

Adding a Twitch action to a WordPress contest

Next, paste your Twitch link into the ‘Twitch Profile URL’ field.

Every time someone clicks on the link, they’ll be asked to follow you on Twitch and also type in their username, so you can verify that they’re following your account.

Adding your Twitch profile to RafflePress

You can add multiple entry methods to a single competition. By offering visitors a choice, you can often boost the number of entries you get. For example, some people may not have a Twitch account, but will happily enter the contest by subscribing to your podcast or completing a survey in WordPress.

Some people may even want to boost their chances of winning by using more than one entry method.

If you do offer visitors a choice, then you may want to make some methods more appealing than others. For example, if your main goal is to grow your Twitch followers, then you might make this method worth two entries.

By default, every action is worth one entry, but you can change this by selecting a new number in the ‘Value’ area.

Changing the value of a Twitch entry method

You could also make the Twitch action mandatory, while all other entry methods are optional. This means all participants must follow you on Twitch in order to enter the contest, but they can get additional entries by performing other tasks.

To do this, simply click the ‘Make Mandatory’ slider so that it turns from ‘No’ to ‘Yes.’

Making the Twitch method mandatory

To add more entry methods, simply click on the ‘Add Actions’ tab and then follow the same process described above.

Every time you add an action, RafflePress will show the settings you can use to configure that action. For example, if you add ‘Join an Email Newsletter’ as an entry method then you’ll need to select your email marketing service.

Adding an email marketing service to your RafflePress contest

By default, RafflePress will show the actions in the order you add them to your competition.

To change this, simply hover over the action in the editor and then grab the dotted button that appears to the left of the action.

Rearranging your giveaway entry methods

Then, move the entry method using drag and drop.

When you’re happy with how the giveaway is set up, you can change how it looks by clicking on the ‘Design’ tab.

Changing the design of your Twitch contest

Here, you can change the fonts, select a new button color, change the background color, add a background image, and more.

You can even customize the giveaway template using custom CSS.

Adding a background image to a Twitch giveaway

When you’re happy with how the contest looks, select the ‘Settings’ tab.

Here, you can edit the giveaway’s general settings including its name, URL, and whether it’ll show the total number of entries to visitors.

You can also join the RafflePress affiliate marketing program and make money from your Twitch giveaway.

Configuring the RafflePress contest

If you’re using the contest to grow your mailing list or generate leads, then you may want to verify each participant’s email address by selecting the ‘Email Verification’ tab.

Here, click on the ‘Contestant Must Confirm Their Email’ toggle to turn it from ‘No’ to ‘Yes.’

Requiring email verification for contest entries

If you’re using Google Analytics to track user engagement, then you can select the ‘Success Tracking’ tab.

This section has two text editors where you can add your tracking scripts.

Adding tracking scripts to a Twitch contest

When you’re happy with how your giveaway is setup, make sure you store your changes by clicking on the ‘Save’ button.

Then, it’s time to make your giveaway live by clicking on the ‘Publish’ tab.

How to publish a Twitch giveaway using WordPress

You can add the contest to your site using a shortcode, the RafflePress WordPress block, or by creating a landing page.

If you want to add the giveaway to a post or page, then the easiest option is using the RafflePress WordPress block.

However, if you want to get as many entities as possible, then we recommend choosing the ‘Giveaway Landing Page’ option as it creates a separate page that you can easily share on social media.

To get started, click on ‘Giveaway Landing Page’ and then select the ‘Click here’ link.

Creating a landing page for your giveaway

If you haven’t already, then type the URL that you want to use into the ‘Page Permalink’ field.

Finally, go ahead and click on ‘View.’

Setting the permalink for your giveaway landing page

RafflePress will now publish your giveaway as a landing page. If you visit the URL, then you’ll see the giveaway live.

How to Promote your Twitch Giveaway

After creating a giveaway, you’ll want to promote it so more people can enter. Wherever possible, it’s a good idea to promote a giveaway before publishing it, so you can get a ton of entries straight away.

To start, you’ll want to help visitors find your giveaway landing page by promoting it on your site’s most important pages.

One option is adding the giveaway to your navigation menu or sidebar. You can also create a floating bar with a link to the giveaway landing page using a plugin such as OptinMonster.

Creating a floating banner in OptinMonster

You might even create a sense of urgency by adding a countdown timer to the floating bar. In this way, you can use FOMO on your WordPress site to get more entries and Twitch followers.

Promoting the giveaway on your social media profiles is also a great way to get more participants. Since these people already follow you on social media, they may be interested in watching your Twitch, so this is a great way to grow your channel.

Sending web push notifications can also boost your participants. You can ask your push notification subscribers to follow you on Twitch if they haven’t already, or to refer any friends or family members who might want to enter the competition.

It’s also important to promote the giveaway to your Twitch audience. They may already be following you on Twitch, but contests are a great way to engage with your followers. For example, you might announce the competition on a stream, or add the giveaway to your Twitch stream panels.

How to Pick a Twitch Giveaway Winner

Once your giveaway closes, it’s time to choose a lucky winner.

To pick a winner at random, simply head over to RafflePress » Giveaways in your WordPress dashboard. If you didn’t set an end date, then you’ll need to hover over the giveaway and click on the ‘End Now’ link when it appears.

How to close a contest manually

When it shows up, click on ‘Needs Winners.’

On the following page, RafflePress will show all the people who entered your giveaway, along with how they entered, their total entries, and more.

Here, just type in the number of winners that you want to pick.

Picking a winner for your Twitch competition

When you’re ready, go ahead and click on the ‘Choose Winners Now’ button. RafflePress will then show the winner highlighted at the top of the list.

You’re now ready to contact the winner and let them know the good news, for example you might send them an email or even announce the winner on a live Twitch stream.

It’s also a good idea to thank everyone for taking part and encourage them to join your giveaways in the future.

Analyze Your Twitch Giveaway

After announcing the winner and thanking your audience, it’s smart to analyze your giveaway. You can use this information to fine-tune all the competitions you run in the future.

If you offered multiple entry methods, then we recommend using RafflePress’ Entries Report to see which method was the most popular.

To see this information, head over to RafflePress » Giveaways and then hover your mouse over the contest that you want to analyze. When the ‘Users’ link appears, give it a click.

Analyzing your Twitch giveaway

On the next screen, click on ‘Entries Report.’

You will now see a pie chart of all the different entry methods, along with the percentage for each method.

How to analyze a WordPress competition

Another easy way to analyze your giveaway is by using MonsterInsights.

MonsterInsights is the best WordPress Google Analytics plugin, and it allows you to track all your website activity right from your WordPress dashboard. For example, you can see how people arrived at your giveaway landing page, the actions they took on that page, and more.

The MonsterInsights Google Analytics plugin

By anazlying your website data with MonsterInsights, you can see which actions and promotions drove the most people to your giveaway and the traffic sources that got you the most entries. You can then use this insight to improve your next contest.

We hope this article helped you learn how to do a Twitch giveaway in WordPress. You can also go through our expert pick on the best social media plugins for WordPress, and our step by step guide on how to create an email newsletter.

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 Do a Twitch Giveaway in WordPress (Step-by-Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.

6+ Best Product Review Plugins for WordPress (2024)

Our readers often ask us if there are any WordPress product review plugins that we recommend.

During our 16+ years of blogging, we’ve reviewed and written about a lot of different products that we recommend to our readers. We have also collected and displayed different customer reviews for the plugins that we develop through our partner companies.

While we did these things completely manually in the past, plugins can speed up the process a lot. Plus, product review plugins can help you get more traffic from search engines, boost affiliate link clicks, add user-submitted reviews to your website to increase social proof, and more.

That’s why we have tested the most popular WordPress product review plugins on the market, while paying attention to features, user-friendliness, and different use cases.

In this article, we have hand-picked the best product review plugins for WordPress.

Best Product Review Plugins for WordPress

Why Use Product Review Plugins in WordPress?

What do you do when you want to buy something online? If you are like most people, then you probably check out product reviews to compare different options.

If you have an online store, then allowing your customers to submit reviews is a smart way to add social proof to your website and boost sales.

Even a niche review site where you are writing all the reviews yourself can use a product review plugin. The right plugin will help you optimize your reviews in search results so you can get more clicks and traffic.

WordPress makes it easy to add new blog posts and create important website pages, but writing review content or adding reviews to your website requires additional features offered by WordPress plugins. 

Product review plugins can help you make more sales, let users add reviews to your website, display reviews from third-party platforms, and more. 

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best product review plugins you can use on your WordPress site. 

Why Trust WPBeginner?

At WPBeginner, our team has 16+ years of experience in blogging, affiliate marketing, and running WordPress websites. We also thoroughly test each of the plugins that we recommend on real websites.

For more details, see our editorial process.

1. WP Review Pro

WP Review Pro

WP Review Pro is the best WordPress product review plugin on the market. It gives you full control over your WordPress product reviews, makes it easy to create product comparisons, and much more. 

It includes a library of pre-designed templates you can customize to match the design of your website. There are different types of rating systems you can use, like percentage, star rating, points, and more. 

WP Review point rating example

Creating a custom review box lets you present all the important product information for your visitors, including a link to buy the product.

Review schema markup is automatically included, allowing you to show star ratings in the search results. When we tested the plugin, we realized that you can also let your users add their reviews to your products, rate features, and vote on other users’ comments. 

WP Review Pro user rating example

Pros

  • The plugin lets you display reviews from third-party sources like Facebook, Google Places, and Yelp, so you can easily add social proof to your WordPress website
  • WP Review allows you to create a pros and cons section for each product.
  • It lets you control who can review your website with its review user roles feature.
  • The plugin offers complete spam protection, import/exports reviews, and has a WooCommerce integration.

Cons

  • WP Review has a free plan, but most of the features can only be unlocked in the pro version.

Why we recommend WP Review Pro: Overall, WP Review Pro is the best product review plugin. It comes with lots of premade templates, makes it super easy to add reviews from other sources, and also offers complete spam protection.

2. All In One SEO

AIOSEO

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best SEO plugin for WordPress on the market used by over 3 million websites. It lets you easily add product review schema to your review blog posts and optimize your content to get more traffic from search engines.

Schema markup doesn’t appear on your website for visitors to see, but it helps search engines better understand your content and display your product reviews properly.

Rich snippets will catch potential visitors’ attention and are more likely to get clicks from the search results.

Rich snippets product schema example

When you are writing your product reviews, AIOSEO will automatically detect the right type of schema based on what you are writing. 

You also have full control over the product review schema and can enter relevant product information for search engine bots to read.

AIOSEO product schema

Pros

  • With AIOSEO, you can add existing customer reviews to improve the search appearance. You will find this option below the review schema box in your post editor.
  • You can optimize your product images for SEO with the plugin.
  • It offers on-page SEO analysis, local SEO, social media integrations, and a broken link assistant.
  • When testing the plugin, we realized that AIOSEO can also act as a writing assistant and help you write better product descriptions.

Cons

  • The plugin does not offer any premade templates for product reviews and does not let you add product reviews from other sources.
  • There is a free version of the plugin available, but you’ll need the pro version to access the product review schema feature.

Why we recommend AIOSEO: If you want to optimize your product reviews for SEO, then All in One SEO is the best option. Its product review schema allows you to easily add product reviews and boost search engine rankings on your website.

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

3. Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro

Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro

Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro is the best Google Reviews plugin. It also allows you to display reviews on your website from different sources like Yelp, Facebook, WordPress.org, Trustpilot, and TripAdvisor.

The plugin comes with an easy-to-use editor that lets you customize your product reviews feed according to your liking. You can change the feed’s layout, add different buttons, and create your own color scheme.

The Smash Balloon Review Feed Pro plugin

You can then add the product reviews feed to any page, post, or widget area on your website using Smash Balloon’s block or shortcode.

Pros

  • Reviews Feed Pro lets you create multiple product review feeds for different platforms.
  • It lets you filter reviews based on star ratings, keywords, or specific platforms.
  • You can configure the reviews feed to match your WordPress theme.
  • The plugin offers optimized images, local storage, and background caching for fast-loading review feeds. When we tested the plugin, it loaded the product review feed in no time.
  • Smash Balloon also offers other plugins that you can use to embed Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds. You can also create a social wall with it.

Cons

  • The plugin’s free plan only lets you add Yelp or Google reviews. To add a feed for product reviews from other sources, you will need to upgrade to the pro plan.
  • It does not offer a feature for users to add product reviews directly on your WordPress site.

Why we recommend Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro: If you want to display a product reviews feed from another source like Yelp, Facebook, or Google, then Reviews Feed Pro is the ideal plugin for you.

For more information, you can see our complete Smash Balloon review.

4. WP Customer Reviews

WP Customer Reviews

WP Customer Reviews allows you to collect customer reviews and testimonials as well as create your own product reviews. 

For example, you can create a specific page on your website to showcase your testimonials and improve your social proof and conversions. 

You have full control over your review forms and the information you want to collect from your users. To display reviews, you can use shortcodes or the included block.

Plus, WP Customer Reviews allows you to configure which user roles can leave product reviews on your website.

Pros

  • You can check the reviews in your WordPress dashboard, so you have complete control over the ones that are displayed.
  • It has the option to turn any existing WordPress blog post into a product review.
  • WP Customer Reviews lets you add product review schema to improve search engine rankings.
  • The plugin allows you to add a pros and cons section for each product, add star ratings, and import/export reviews.

Cons

  • It offers limited features to filter and approve reviews based on different criteria.
  • The plugin offers basic layouts for reviews with limited customization.

Why we recommend WP Customer Reviews: The plugin is completely free and can also integrate with WooCommerce seamlessly. If you have an online store and are on a shoestring budget, then we recommend WP Customer Reviews to add product reviews to your website.

5. Site Reviews

Site Reviews plugin

Site Reviews is an easy-to-use review plugin that lets you collect customer reviews for your products, services, or a local business, similar to a site like TripAdvisor or Yelp.

You can even let users review certain parts of your website, like posts, products, pages, and more. 

It comes with a simple settings page that allows you to control how you want to gather reviews and how you want to display them on your website. You can customize the review form and display it anywhere on your site.

Pros

  • With Site Reviews, you can pin your best reviews to the top so your customers will see them first.
  • You can display your reviews using the included Gutenberg block or shortcode to show specific reviews. 

Cons

  • Site Reviews offers limited mobile responsiveness.
  • The plugin can potentially conflict with other plugins activated on your website.

Why we recommend Site Reviews: If you are looking for a free plugin to add a simple product reviews section, then you can use Site Reviews.

6. Customer Reviews for WooCommerce

Customer Reviews For WooCommerce

Customer Reviews for WooCommerce lets you easily add more detailed reviews to your store.

Your customers can attach pictures and vote on reviews, plus you can add a question and answer section so your product listings look the same as Amazon.

Overall, this plugin helps improve your social proof so that when visitors go to your product pages, they are more likely to make a purchase. 

Pros

  • It lets you send automated emails after a customer makes a purchase to help you generate more reviews. You can also send a coupon after a review is left on your product.
  • The plugin can integrate with Google Shopping, boost SEO, and support over 30 languages.
  • It allows you to approve, edit, or delete reviews, import/export reviews, and send review reminders on WhatsApp.

Cons

  • The plugin does not come with spam protection, so you may have to deal with spam, negative, or inappropriate reviews.
  • Users have had security concerns with the plugin in the past.

Why we recommend Customer Reviews for WooCommerce: This free plugin is a great option if you have a WooCommerce store due to its seamless integration and beginner-friendly interface.

Bonus Entries

7. OptinMonster

OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the best lead generation tool for WordPress and is used by over 1.2 million websites. You can easily create high-converting popup campaigns to grow your email list and get more sales for the products you review on your website.

It comes with a library of over 400 templates you can use to quickly create spin to win optins, alert bars, yes/no optins, and many other types of popup campaigns for your website. 

You can use these popups in creative ways. For example, you might create a popup that displays a coupon for the affiliate product you are reviewing in an article. 

OptinMonster affiliate popup example

This is a common way to increase affiliate income and earn more revenue. That’s why many of the most successful WordPress blogs use this technique in their product review articles.

Pros

  • You can target different users for various product reviews based on behavior, interests, or location.
  • The tool comes with a drag-and-drop builder.
  • You can optimize your opt-in forms with A/B testing.
  • The plugin can help you capture leads and generate revenue.

Cons

  • OptinMonster does not have a free plan, but its connecting plugin is free.
  • It does not have a dedicated product or customer reviews feature.

Why we recommend OptinMonster: If you are looking for a tool that can encourage users to buy products from your product reviews, then OptinMonster is a great option. You can use it to create popups that will offer discounts or coupons to users on product review pages.

For more information, see our OptinMonster review.

8. Uncanny Automator

Uncanny Automator website

Uncanny Automator is the best WordPress automation plugin. It lets you automate the process of collecting reviews from customers after they purchase a product.

You can also use the plugin to automatically post product reviews on Facebook or other social media platforms every time a user leaves feedback on your website. This can help boost your social media following and engagement.

Plus, Uncanny Automator helps you create other automated workflows on your site without any code, making it easier to manage your website and business.

Pros

  • The plugin acts like Zapier for WordPress and can connect with 150+ WordPress plugins and tools like Twilio, Instagram, Google Sheets, and Zoom.
  • It has a free plan, is super easy to use, and provides unlimited recipes and actions.
  • It can connect your product reviews with email marketing tools or CRM software.

Cons

  • Some of its features can only be unlocked in the pro version.
  • The plugin does not offer dedicated product review features.

Why we recommend Uncanny Automator: If you want to add your product reviews on platforms other than your WordPress site, then you can use Uncanny Automator to create an automated workflow.

For more details, you may like to see our Uncanny Automator review.

9. RafflePress

RafflePress

RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market that allows you to get more customer reviews in exchange for entries into your giveaway/competition.

You can use it like a product review plugin by asking users to leave feedback on your website for your products if they want to enter your free giveaway.

RafflePress can also integrate with Trustpilot, Capterra, and G2 if you want users to leave product reviews on those platforms instead. All you will have to do is simply add these platforms as actions in the giveaway.

Once you do that, click on the block to open its settings in the block panel, where you can make the action mandatory. Now, if users want to enter a giveaway, then they must leave a product review first.

Product review giveaways

We have also used RafflePress on our own website to get more email subscribers. For details, you can see our insider look at how WPBeginner ran a successful viral giveaway with RafflePress.

Pros

  • The plugin comes with a drag-and-drop builder, premade giveaway templates, and complete fraud protection.
  • You can also ask users to share your products on their social media handles to enter the giveaway.
  • It can help capture leads and choose real-time winners.

Cons

  • It has a free plan, but you will need the pro version to unlock the product review actions.
  • RafflePress is not a dedicated product review plugin.

Why we recommend RafflePress: If you want to host giveaways or contests to boost engagement and get product reviews at the same time, then this is the plugin for you.

For more information, see our RafflePress review.

Which Is the Best WordPress Product Reviews Plugin?

In our expert opinion, WP Review Pro is the best WordPress product review plugin on the market. It comes with plenty of premade review templates, complete spam protection, and lets you add different rating systems for reviews.

However, if you want to boost search rankings with your product reviews, then we recommend All in One SEO for WordPress due to its amazing product reviews schema.

Similarly, if you want to add product reviews from another platform like Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, or Facebook, then Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Pro is a good choice.

Alternatively, if you want to use a free plugin, then WP Customer Reviews is also a great option.

Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Product Review Plugins

Here are some questions that are frequently asked by our readers about product review plugins for WordPress.

Do product review plugins help with SEO?

Product review plugins can help boost SEO if they have a schema markup feature. The plugins also add new content to your site, which can further improve search engine rankings.

Additionally, reviews left by customers usually contain relevant keywords that can help with your site’s SEO. If you want to use product reviews to improve your website’s ranking, then AIOSEO is the ideal choice.

Can I use product review plugins to encourage customers to leave reviews?

Most product review plugins do not contain any specific feature that can encourage users to leave reviews.

However, you can use a plugin like OptinMonster to generate attractive popups that will offer discount offers to customers if they visit the product review pages on your website.

If you want, you can also offer free giveaways to customers if they leave product reviews on your website or external review platforms.

How can I use product reviews to gather customer feedback and insights?

Popular plugins like WP Customer Reviews allow you to create product review forms where you can add different fields to gather feedback and insights from customers.

However, we recommend using a dedicated user feedback plugin to gather customer insights instead.

For example, you can use UserFeedback to add a customer survey prompt on your website.

UserFeedback Survey Preview

You can even use WPForms to create polls and surveys to collect feedback. For details, see our tutorial on how to create post purchase surveys in WooCommerce.

Best WordPress Guides for Product Reviews

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 6+ Best Product Review Plugins for WordPress (2024) first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Create a Giveaway to Grow Your Email List by 150%

Do you want to start a giveaway and get more email subscribers?

Giveaways are one of the fastest ways to grow your email list, increase traffic, and boost sales. They help you reach new audiences and boost user engagement on your website.

In this article, we’ll show you how to use a giveaway to grow your email list faster.

Use a giveaway to grow your email list in WordPress

Why Use a Giveaway to Grow Your Email List?

Did you know that email marketing sees a 4300% return on investment (ROI) on average for businesses in the US?

People who sign up for your emails are already interested in your products and services, making them highly likely to convert into paying customers. However, the hardest part is getting more people to join your email list.

This is where running a contest or giveaway on your WordPress site comes in handy.

It helps you grow your email list while getting more social media subscribers and increasing traffic on your website.

Giveaways give you instant results. They create a sense of urgency, and the fear of missing out encourages your visitors to participate in the contest. Plus, you can reach new audiences using giveaways and get more email subscribers for your WordPress website.

This is why we regularly use giveaways on WPBeginner.

That being said, let’s look at how you can get started with your giveaway.

Select a Prize for Your Giveaway

Before creating a giveaway, you should choose an attractive prize for your giveaway. A good prize will incentivize your website visitors to participate in the giveaway and subscribe to your email list.

A good place to start is by offering a prize based on your business and target audience. For example, at WPBeginner, we usually award free licenses of WordPress plugins and themes to giveaway winners.

On the other hand, if you’re running an eCommerce store, then you can giveaway gift cards, free shipping, or free products as prizes. Similarly, you can also give free gadgets like laptops, smartphones, headphones, etc as rewards to attract more participants.

We run monthly giveaways offering new cool gadgets as giveaways to our WPForms subscribers.

That said, let’s find out how you can create a giveaway in WordPress.

Creating a Giveaway in WordPress

The easiest way to set up contests in WordPress is by using RafflePress. It’s the best WordPress giveaway plugin that’s beginner-friendly and lets you create giveaways in just a few clicks.

We’ll use the RafflePress Pro version for this tutorial because it lets you sync with popular email marketing services and offers more giveaway actions. There’s also a free version of RafflePress you can try.

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

Upon activation, you’ll see the RafflePress welcome screen in the WordPress dashboard. Next, enter the license key and click the ‘Verify Key’ button. You can find the license key in your RafflePress account area.

Verify license key

After that, you can scroll down and click the ‘Create Your First Giveaway’ button to launch the RafflePress giveaway builder.

Create your first giveaway

On the next screen, you’ll need to enter a name for your giveaway campaign and then select one of the templates.

Since your goal is to grow our email list, go ahead and click on the ‘Grow Your Email List’ template.

Select grow your email list

Now, you can add information about your giveaway under the ‘Details’ section that’s located in the left sidebar.

To start, go ahead and enter a name and description for your giveaway. You can also add an image, select the giveaway start and end time and date, and choose a timezone.

Customize your giveaway

Next, head over to the ‘Actions’ section. Here you can select all the ways your users can participate in the giveaway.

RafflePress will add the ‘Join the Email Newsletter’ option by default in the Grow Your Email List template. However, you can choose more actions like getting users to follow you on Twitter or visiting your YouTube channel.

Add actions to your giveaway

Keep in mind that the more entry options people have, the better engagement you will get. To keep the focus on growing your email list, you can assign more entry points to the Join Newsletter action and make it a required option.

Simply click on the ‘Join an Email Newsletter’ action in the template to further customize it.

From here, RafflePress lets you choose the number of entries a user will get. You can also edit the title text, automatically add people to the email list when they signup for the giveaway, and make the action mandatory.

To encourage more people to sign up, you can assign a higher value. In our example giveaway, we’re assigning a ‘+3’ value so that users get 3 entries when they sign up for the newsletter.

Edit action settings

There is also an option to enable opt-in confirmation, which ensures that contestants give permission to add them to your email list. This helps in complying with data regulation laws like GDPR.

Next, you’ll need to select an email marketing service from the ‘Integration’ dropdown menu. RafflePress easily integrates with popular services like Mailchimp, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, Drip, and SendinBlue, and more.

Once you’ve selected an email marketing service, the next step is to connect it with your giveaway.

Enter email marketing service details

Note: Each email platform will have different settings to connect with RafflePress. Simply follow the onscreen steps and provide any required information like API key, client ID, security keys, or authorization code.

Next, you can switch to the ‘Design’ section from the menu on your left to customize the look of your giveaway.

RafflePress gives you options for changing the layout, fonts, button color, adding a page background, editing the background color, and entering custom CSS.

Change the design of your giveaway

After that, you can go to the ‘Settings’ section from the menu on your left.

Here, you can edit the general settings of the giveaway like name, page permalink, and more.

Giveaway settings

Once you’ve made the changes, simply click the ‘Save’ button at the top.

Next, you’ll need to publish your giveaway. To get started, click the ‘Publish’ tab at the top of the screen.

RafflePress gives you the option to publish your giveaway as a block in a page or post, as a widget, or as a standalone landing page.

We’ll choose the ‘Giveaway Landing Page’ option because it’s quick and easy.

Simply click the View Page button to see your live giveaway in action.

Publish RafflePress giveaway landing page

Promote your Giveaway

Once your giveaway is live, you should promote it so more people can participate and join your email list.

There are many ways you can spread the word about your giveaway contest. You can start by making your giveaway visible on the website and display it on the homepage, sidebar, and on your most important pages.

For example, displaying a floating bar on your homepage with a link to your giveaway helps improve the visibility of your contest. You can also add countdown timers to create urgency.

Promoting the giveaway on your social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is also a great way of getting more participants. It lets you add followers to your email list who haven’t subscribed yet.

Besides that, another way of generating excitement around your giveaway is by sharing it in different online communities. You can also reach out to influencers from your industry to promote your giveaway.

Sending web push notifications can also boost engagement around your contest. You can ask your push notification subscribers to join your email list if they haven’t already, or to refer their friends and family members.

Choose a Giveaway Winner

When your giveaway reaches the end time, you can go ahead and choose a winner. RafflePress helps you automatically pick a winner at random.

All you have to do is head over to RafflePress » Giveaways page from your WordPress admin area. Next, click the ‘Needs Winners’ option next to your giveaway.

Click needs winners

RafflePress will now ask you how many winners you want to pick for the giveaway and whether unverified emails can win. Once you’ve chosen your settings, click the ‘Choose Winners Now’ button.

Select how many winners

Next, RafflePress will randomly select a winner for the giveaway. You can then email the winner so that they can claim their prize.

See highlighted winner

That’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to use a giveaway to grow your email list. You may also want to go through our guide on how to get a free email domain, and see our expert pick of the best identity theft protection services 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 Create a Giveaway to Grow Your Email List by 150% first appeared on WPBeginner.

12 Best WordPress Automation Tools and Plugins Compared (2021)

Are you looking for the best WordPress automation tools and plugins?

By automating tasks on your WordPress website, you can save time and money while growing your website traffic and business.

In this article, we’ll share the best WordPress automation tools and plugins to help you speed up your workflows.

12 best WordPress automation tools and plugins

Why Use WordPress Automation Tools and Plugins?

When you’re running a WordPress website, there are many repetitive tasks that can take up a lot of your time.

By using WordPress automation tools and plugins, you can free up your time to spend on more productive tasks. They help to automate tasks like marketing, lead generation, social media, customer support, and much more.

For example, you can create an AI chatbot to automate basic customer support, or use an email autoresponder to welcome new subscribers.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress automation plugins and tools you can use to automate your WordPress site.

1. Uncanny Automator

Uncanny Automator

Uncanny Automator is the best WordPress automation plugin in the market. It lets you create powerful workflows to save time and reduce errors without writing any code.

Uncanny Automator seamlessly integrates with all the most popular WordPress plugins and third-party tools in the market. This makes it easy to set up your own custom automations in a couple of clicks.

Think of it like Zapier, but for WordPress websites.

For example, you can connect WordPress with Google Sheets, integrate Slack and WordPress, create buttons that trigger actions, and so much more.

There’s support for 70 different WordPress plugins and third-party apps to help you create endless automations and run your WordPress blog more efficiently.

You can get started with the free version of the plugin, which supports all kinds of WordPress plugins and actions.

2. Constant Contact

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is the best email marketing service for small businesses.

Constant Contact lets you stay in touch with your visitors after they leave your website. You can use it create automated email sequences to build customer relationships, sell products, and more.

Plus, it’s very easy to set up and create your own email newsletters. You can use the drag and drop email creator and bundled email templates to quickly create beautiful emails to send to your subscribers.

It also integrates with popular lead generation tools like WPForms and OptinMonster to fully automate your lead generation and follow-up process.

You can use our Constant Contact coupon code to get 20% off your monthly plan.

Alternatives: SendinBlue, HubSpot, and Drip are great alternatives for email marketing automation.

3. OptinMonster

OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization software and WordPress popup plugin in the market. It lets you automate your lead generation and convert website visitors into new email subscribers and customers.

OptinMonster includes a library of high-converting templates you can use to create location based popups, announcement bars, slide-ins, gamified spin wheels, and more to capture your user’s attention.

Spin the wheel popup example

All of the templates can be fully customized with the drag and drop builder.

There are also advanced targeting features so that each campaign will display based on the rules you decide. For example, you can have popups display for visitors in a certain location, or show targeted messages for different pages on your website.

Note: You can get a free version of OptinMonster to get started.

4. WPForms

WPForms

WPForms is the best contact form plugin in the market used by over 4 million websites. It’s very beginner friendly and lets you create forms that make it easy for your visitors to get in touch with you.

The drag and drop form builder lets you quickly create a nearly endless amount of forms like contact forms, order forms, email subscription forms, survey forms, and more.

Beyond beginner-friendly form creation tools, you’ll find advanced features like conversational forms, geolocation tracking, login forms, and much more.

WPForms easily integrates with a ton of other tools and plugins so you can easily automate any action after someone fills out your form.

For example, you could automatically send the data to a Google Sheet, register new users on your membership site, get an SMS message from your form, and much more.

The free version of WPForms lets you create simple contact forms, but for the more advanced form creation features, you’ll need to update to WPForms pro.

5. Chatbot

ChatBot

Chatbot.com is the best AI chatbot software for WordPress. It lets you easily automate live chat on your website by setting up your own chatbot.

It comes with an easy to use chatbot builder and template library, so you can quickly create your own chatbot without any coding or technical skills.

The templates include different scenarios where a user might reach out to live chat, including customer support, bookings, selling products, and more.

Plus, it integrates with popular live chat software like LiveChat, so you can have a live agent jump in if the user needs extra help.

6. HubSpot

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot is one of the best CRM software for small businesses. It allows you to manage your leads better and automate aspects of your online marketing.

With HubSpot, you can easily manage your marketing, sales, and customer service together in one place. All of your customer data will be updated automatically.

You can view detailed performance reports to help you improve your sales and lead generation process.

Plus, it integrates easily with all the top email marketing and lead generation plugins and tools.

You can get access to the core features of the CRM for free, but to get even more features and advanced tools, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans.

7. TrustPulse

TrustPulse

TrustPulse is the best social proof plugin for WordPress that lets you set up automatic notifications to improve website conversions and make more sales.

TrustPulse automatically monitors activity on your site. When potential customers are close to buying something on your site, they will see a notification from other customers who have just made a purchase.

By simply displaying social proof, you’ll give your visitors a nudge to complete their purchase.

TrustPulse example

TrustPulse can be installed on any website without any code and customized to easily match your website’s design.

Plus, there are advanced targeting options so you can choose which products and pages you want your social proof notifications to display on.

For more details, see our guide on how to use FOMO to increase conversions.

8. Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon is a collection of 4 different WordPress social media plugins that let you add social feeds from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to your website.

It’s the most popular social media feed plugins for WordPress, used by over 1.4 million websites.

Smash Balloon automates your website content by displaying your latest social media activity. This can save you time and keep your website content fresh, while keeping visitors engaged on your site.

Plus, it can boost your social proof by displaying your social media followers, comments, and like counts.

There are a lot of different ways you can customize how your social media feeds display.

For example, you can customize the design to match your brand, choose from a handful of pre-designed templates, and even add Instagram shoppable feeds to make more money.

Smash Balloon Instagram example

All of your feeds will be automatically updated when you post new content to your connected social media accounts.

You can choose to add individual social media feeds to WordPress, or use the Smash Balloon Social Wall plugin to display all of your social media feeds in one place.

There are also free versions of Smash Balloon available to let you try before you buy.

9. RafflePress

RafflePress

RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway and contest plugin in the market that lets you grow your email list, traffic, and social media followers with giveaways and contests.

It has a drag and drop builder, so you can easily create successful giveaways using proven templates that will attract your visitor’s attention.

To enter your giveaway, your visitors will need to enter their email address, so you can automatically gain new email newsletter subscribers.

Plus, you can connect other tools you’re using like your WordPress form plugins, WordPress CRM, marketing automation tools, and more.

There is a free version of RafflePress available. If you want more powerful features to skyrocket and automate your growth, then you need to get RafflePress pro.

10. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is the best analytics solution for WordPress used by over 3 million websites.

It helps you automate tracking on your website with Google Analytics, without having to modify your tracking code. For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Plus, you can view these stats directly inside your WordPress dashboard. You’ll get a quick overview of your traffic sources, most popular pages, and more.

MonsterInsights stats

You can optimize your website to get more traffic, revenue, and email subscribers when you know this information.

MonsterInsights has a free version available, but to unlock the tool’s true power, you’ll want to upgrade to the premium version.

11. SeedProd

SeedProd

SeedProd is the best drag and drop WordPress page builder in the market used by over 1 million websites.

With SeedProd, you can create beautiful landing pages to automate things like product sales, webinar signups, newsletter subscriptions, and more.

SeedProd templates

There are built-in blocks that let you add things like countdown timers, optin forms, and more to build urgency and get your visitors to take action.

Plus, you can integrate your landing page with your email marketing service to send an automated email after they sign up.

The lite version of SeedProd lets you create simple maintenance mode pages, but for advanced page building features, smart blocks, and the library of templates, you can sign up for the pro version.

12. PushEngage

PushEngage

PushEngage is the best push notification software for WordPress. It lets you send automated push messages to your visitors after they leave your website.

You can set it up to automatically send out new blog post notifications, or use it to send custom messages.

Thank you push notification

It comes with all kinds of advanced marketing features like automatic drip campaigns, opt-in reminders, interactive messages, and more.

Your campaigns can be customized to work with your online store so you can increase revenue and reduce abandoned carts.

The level of personalization and targeting available will greatly help to improve your website conversions. For more details, see our guide on how to add web push notifications to WordPress.

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress automation tools and plugins. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate and our expert picks on the best HR payroll software for small businesses.

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 12 Best WordPress Automation Tools and Plugins Compared (2021) appeared first on WPBeginner.

9 Best Twitter Plugins for WordPress in 2024 (Compared)

We’ve been promoting our brands across social media platforms like Twitter for several years now, so we know how useful plugins can be for increasing followers, traffic, and shares.

However, not every Twitter plugin can handle every use case that your business might have. That’s why we’ve tested the best options on the market and paid attention to social features, user-friendliness, and price.

In this article, we will share the best Twitter plugins for WordPress that will help you grow your Twitter followers and engagement.

Best Twitter Plugins for WordPress (Compared)

If you are in a hurry, then you can take a look at our top picks to choose a WordPress Twitter plugin quickly.

#PluginBest ForPricing
🥇Smash Balloon Twitter FeedEmbedding Twitter feeds on your website$49/per year + Free
🥈RafflePressHosting Twitter giveaways and contests$39/per year + Free
🥉Uncanny AutomatorCreating automated workflows for Twitter$149/per year + Free

Why Use a Twitter Plugin for WordPress?

Twitter, also known as X, is one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 217 million monthly active users. Because of this, many WordPress sites and blogs use Twitter to reach new audiences and maximize their online presence.

With a WordPress Twitter plugin, you can quickly boost your social media marketing efforts. You can do things like:

  • Increase traffic by automatically sharing new blog posts on Twitter.
  • Add social proof by displaying a Twitter feed on your website.
  • Boost your Twitter followers by running a viral giveaway.
  • And more

That being said, let’s take a look at the best WordPress Twitter plugins that you can use.

Disclaimer: We have tested all the plugins in this list on our demo website to look at all their features, pros, and cons. This helped us give you only the best recommendations for Twitter plugins. For more details, you can see our WPBeginner editorial process.

1. Smash Balloon Twitter Feed (Twitter Feed Embeds)

Smash Balloon Twitter Feed Pro

Smash Balloon Twitter Feed is the best WordPress Twitter plugin on the market because it easily lets you embed your recent tweets in WordPress.

It allows you to display multiple Twitter feeds based on users, hashtags, keywords, or search terms, meaning you can also add tweets from public accounts to your website.

The Smash Balloon Twitter Feed plugin also has different customization and layout options like grids and carousels to help attractively display tweets.

Customizing the Twitter feed using Smash Balloon

For more information, see our tutorial on how to embed actual tweets in WordPress blog posts.

Additionally, the plugin lets you include retweets and replies, use advanced filters, and even allows you to display photos, videos, and Twitter cards to embed rich content on your blog.

Pros

  • Twitter Feed supports the default WordPress editor, and you can add your feed using a simple block.
  • It comes with a smart caching system that loads your feed easily.
  • Upon plugin testing, we found that it lets you showcase specific Twitter profiles on your website.
  • The plugin comes with reports and analytics features to track your Twitter feed performance.
  • Smash Balloon also offers social feed plugins for Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Cons

  • The Twitter Feed plugin has a free plan. However, you will need to upgrade to the pro version to unlock advanced features.

Why we recommend Smash Balloon Twitter Feed: It is the best WordPress Twitter plugin on the market that allows you to easily embed recent tweets and your entire Twitter feed.

It comes with an easy-to-use builder, multiple layout templates, analytics, and a caching feature to load your feed quickly. If you want to display tweets on your site, then this plugin is the best choice for you.

For more information, you can see our complete Smash Balloon review.

2. RafflePress (Twitter Giveaways and Contests)

RafflePress

RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market. It lets you set up contests with prizes that you can use to get more Twitter followers and engagement.

The plugin comes with a built-in campaign template for Twitter. This allows you to instantly launch contests aimed at boosting Twitter engagement.

Plus, it is incredibly easy to use and has a drag-and-drop content builder. All you have to do is add the actions you want to include in your contest and then add them to any WordPress post or page.

Add Twitter as an action in a giveaway

For detailed instructions, you can see our tutorial on how to run a social media contest to grow your site.

Pros

  • RafflePress is not just limited to Twitter. You can use it to grow your email list, increase Facebook likes, drive traffic and sales to your online store, and more.
  • When we tested the plugin, we realized that you can choose if you want users to share your content on Twitter, follow your account, or tweet a specific message to enter the contest.
  • RafflePress is completely mobile-friendly, meaning users can enter your contest directly from their mobile devices.
  • It ensures a smooth Twitter login experience for users and provides complete spam entry protection. Plus, it has an analytics feature.

Cons

  • You can use RafflePress Lite to get started with giveaways and contests. However, to unlock more Twitter actions, you must upgrade to the pro plan.
  • You cannot use the plugin to embed or share Twitter content on your website.

Why we recommend RafflePress: If you want to use your WordPress site as a platform to boost your Twitter following and activity, then RafflePress is the perfect choice for you. It lets you build amazing giveaways and contests that can drive traffic to your Twitter handle as well as boost engagement on your WordPress blog.

To learn more, just see our detailed RafflePress review.

3. Uncanny Automator (Twitter Automations)

Uncanny Automator website

Uncanny Automator is the best WordPress automation plugin. It lets you connect your website with over 150 applications, including Twitter, to create automated workflows without writing code.

You can easily connect the plugin with Twitter to send a new tweet when a blog post is published, a comment is posted, a new user registers on your site or to encourage visitors to post a tweet after an online course completion.

With Uncanny Automator, you are able to set these triggers and actions to create a recipe and also use conditional logic to control when and how your automation runs.

Choose your action for Twitter

For detailed information, you can see our tutorial on how to automate WordPress and social media with IFTTT and more.

Pros

  • Uncanny Automator’s recipe builder is super beginner-friendly. It provides unlimited recipes and actions.
  • You can use the plugin to send direct messages to Twitter users, mention specific users, reply to tweets, and post multimedia content.
  • It lets you connect with your personal or business Twitter account to create an automated workflow.
  • Uncanny Automator can monitor clicks, likes, and retweets directly.

Cons

  • It has a free plan, but you must buy the pro version to unlock advanced Twitter triggers and actions.
  • It cannot embed Twitter content on your website.

Why we recommend Uncanny Automator: It is the best automation plugin that can help drive traffic to your website using Twitter. This way, whenever something happens on your site, it will automatically be tweeted on your account, sending more traffic.

For details, you can also see our Uncanny Automator review.

4. All in One SEO For WordPress (Twitter Cards)

All in One SEO

All in One SEO for WordPress is the best SEO plugin on the market that allows you to add Twitter cards for your website content. These cards are the images and descriptions that appear on Twitter when someone shares your blog posts.

They can help boost the number of people following your Twitter accounts through content attribution.

Twitter card

AIOSEO also offers multiple Twitter card types and makes it super easy to link your website with your social media account. This allows Twitter to display your username and profile picture when sharing your content.

For details, you can see our tutorial on how to add Twitter cards in WordPress.

Pros

  • When we were testing the plugin, we realized that AIOSEO lets you link individual content to the author’s Twitter profiles.
  • The plugin offers other features like XML sitemaps, a broken link assistant, a headline analyzer, on-page SEO, and more.
  • It can act as a writing assistant and provide suggestions to improve your content.
  • Other than Twitter, you can also add Facebook cards with AIOSEO.

Cons

  • The plugin’s free plan has limited features.
  • It cannot add your Twitter feed to your website.

Why we recommend All in One SEO: If you are looking for a tool to add Twitter cards to your blog posts, then All in One SEO is the perfect choice for you. It’s also an excellent choice for improving your website’s overall SEO.

For details, you can see our AIOSEO review.

5. Shared Counts (Social Sharing)

Shared Counts

Shared Counts is one of the best social sharing plugins for WordPress that is designed for speed and performance without compromising on features.

As the name suggests, it allows you to display the share count for each social media platform, including Twitter. You can also display the total share count for each blog post.

Plus, you can add Twitter Share and Retweet buttons to make it easy for website visitors to share your content online.

Pros

  • Other than Twitter, you can also add share buttons for Facebook, Yummly, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
  • There are multiple button styles to choose from, and you can also select the button location.
  • The plugin is super easy to use and helps you instantly add social features to your WordPress site without compromising website speed.
  • It helps offer social proof by displaying share counts.

Cons

  • When we were testing the plugin, we realized that it does not let you choose button positions.
  • Its analytics and reporting feature is basic compared to other tools on this list.

Why we recommend Shared Counts: If you want to encourage users to share your content or tweet about it on their Twitter accounts, then Shared Counts is the best Twitter plugin for you.

6. Social Warfare (Social Sharing)

Social Warfare

Social Warfare is another popular plugin for adding social sharing buttons to your website. It gives you complete control over what content your readers can share on Twitter (and other social networks) and how they share it.

The plugin offers multiple button styles, and they are all designed to work well on mobile devices. You can also style and position them in different ways and add sharing buttons in different parts of an article according to your liking.

While testing the plugin, we particularly liked that you can also add a customizable tweet box within your content.

Pros

  • It shows an accurate share count for each platform, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
  • Social Warfare improves shareability by setting content titles, descriptions, and images for social media.
  • The plugin prevents content theft and encourages social sharing by blurring post content on social networks until clicked.
  • Some of its advanced features include A/B testing, analytics, email sharing, automated scheduling, and more.

Cons

  • Social Warfare has a free version, but most of the advanced features can only be unlocked in the pro plan.
  • The plugin has a lot of features that can feel overwhelming for beginners.

Why we recommend Social Warfare: If you are looking for an advanced Twitter social sharing tool, then this plugin is for you. It lets you create an attractive button, prevents content theft, and improves the overall shareability of your content by setting custom titles, descriptions, and, images for Twitter.

7. Revive Old Posts (Re-Share Social Content)

Revive Old Posts

Revive Old Posts lets you easily share old articles at a pre-defined schedule on your social media profiles. This helps you keep your Twitter timeline active throughout the day without manually scheduling tweets.

Once you are done with the setup, it automatically works in the background to share your old posts. You can select a date range, exclude specific categories and tags, and pause it at any time.

With the help of the plugin, you can customize what goes out in the tweets, too. For instance, you might want to include a hashtag based on the post’s category or tag.

Pros

  • You can exclude specific posts from being shared on your Twitter account.
  • The plugin allows you to create unique tweets for each post with Spintax support for messages.
  • It comes with Open Graph Optimization for content shared on social media.
  • Revive Old Posts also has the ability to set custom schedules, use multiple Twitter accounts, and add conversion tracking tags to URLs.

Cons

  • Using the plugin to share older content can affect your site negatively because some of these posts may contain outdated information. In that case, you must ensure your article has relevant content.
  • Sharing too much old content can look like spam and drown out newer posts and announcements on Twitter.

Why we recommend Revive Old Posts: If you want to bring traffic to older posts and maintain your Twitter activity, then this Twitter plugin is a great option.

8. Simple Social Icons (Twitter Icons)

Simple Social Icons

The Simple Social Icons plugin makes it easy to add social media icons to a sidebar widget. These icons have links to your Twitter profile and other social media platforms. Visitors to your site can then easily find and follow you on their favorite social networks.

It is quite simple and easy to set up. You have the option to choose the button colors, alignment, and order. It comes with an easy-to-use widget that you can simply add to your WordPress blog.

Pros

  • If you don’t want to add social media icons to a widget area, then you can also add them to pages or posts using a shortcode.
  • The plugin lets you configure icon settings so that the social media will open in a new tab when a user clicks the button.
  • It has custom URL support, Font Awesome integration, floating icons, and email sharing.
  • The plugin can also display share counts next to social media icons.

Cons

  • During our research, we discovered that the plugin does not have great customer support.
  • It comes with basic customization options.

Why we recommend Simple Social Icons: If you are looking for a free solution to add Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram share buttons to your website, then this plugin is for you.

9. Better Click to Tweet (Tweet Boxes)

Better Click to Tweet

Better Click to Tweet is a free plugin that lets you add ‘click to tweet’ boxes in your posts.

You can use this plugin to highlight specific quotes in your content. Your visitors can then simply click a button to tweet that quote. For more details, just see our guide on adding click-to-tweet boxes in your content.

Plus, it’s fully compatible with the WordPress block editor and also offers a shortcode that you can use to add the click-to-tweet box to your preferred place on your website.

Pros

  • The plugin comes with multiple pre-designed styles for your click-to-tweet box.
  • It allows you to shorten your URLs, open Twitter in a new tab, and monitor click-to-tweet engagement.
  • Some of the plugin’s advanced features include button customization, share counts, A/B testing, click triggers, and more.

Cons

  • The tracking and analytics feature is basic compared to other tools on this list. The advanced features can only be unlocked in the pro version.
  • The plugin has a bit of a learning curve.

Why we recommend Better Click to Tweet: If you want to add a click-to-tweet box that visitors can use to highlight specific website content on Twitter, then this plugin is for you.

Which Is the Best WordPress Twitter Plugin?

In our expert opinion, Smash Balloon Twitter Feed is the best WordPress Twitter plugin on the market because it lets you easily embed your Twitter feeds on your website.

It comes with an easy-to-use builder, smart caching system, reports and analytics, and multiple layout templates, making it a great choice.

However, if you want to boost your social media following, then you can use RafflePress instead. It lets you easily host contests on your website and encourages users to follow you on Twitter to enter the competition.

On the other hand, you can also opt for Uncanny Automator to automatically create tweets every time something exciting happens on your site like new posts, new comments, user registrations, and more.

Additionally, you can use AIOSEO to add Twitter cards to your WordPress blog posts.

If you just want to add a simple share button for Twitter, then Shared Counts is a good choice as well.

Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Twitter Plugins

Here are some questions that are frequently asked by our readers about Twitter plugins:

What is the best free Twitter plugin for WordPress?

Most of the Twitter plugins in our list have free plans that you can use if you are on a budget.

For example, Smash Balloon Twitter Feed is the best Twitter plugin and it offers a free version to help embed your Twitter feed to your website.

Similarly, RafflePress can also be used to host giveaways and boost Twitter followers for free. You can even add a Twitter social sharing button with a free plugin like Shared Counts.

Can I schedule tweets to be posted automatically?

You can easily schedule tweets to be posted automatically using Uncanny Automator.

It is the best automation plugin that lets you create a recipe for automatically posting a tweet upon a new blog post publication, user registration, new comments, and so much more.

What are the different types of Twitter plugins?

Different types of Twitter plugins perform different actions, and you can choose the one that you need for your website. Some kinds of Twitter plugins include:

  • Feed Display: These plugins can embed entire timelines, specific tweets, hashtags, keywords, and feeds on your website, like Smash Balloon Twitter Feed.
  • Social Sharing: These plugins can add share buttons and share counts to encourage Twitter sharing of your content, like Social Warfare or Shared Counts.
  • Auto Posting: Some plugins, like Revive Old Posts and Uncanny Automator, automatically publish WordPress posts to Twitter.
  • Contests & Giveaways: Plugins like RafflePress let you run Twitter-based contests to attract followers.

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The post 9 Best Twitter Plugins for WordPress in 2024 (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.