Using schema markup is an excellent way to make your website stand out among your SEO competitors. This article explains why schema is essential and how to implement it into your web pages.
You can now create unlimited custom schema types – for free! You’ll see how to do this in just a few clicks with SmartCrawl.
Custom schema types mean you no longer need to rely on SmartCrawl’s schema types already installed.
It’s as easy as ever to set up a custom schema type.
We’ve written about the benefits of schema markup and how to set it up using our SmartCrawl plugin. However, as you’ll see, adding Custom Schema Types is a bit different. They’re 100% customizable to fit your needs and are created from scratch!
To include a custom schema type, it takes just a few simple steps. We’ll start with the building blocks to create a custom schema and journey all the way into a specific example.
Let’s dive into…
How to Set Up a Custom Schema Type
It all begins at SmartCrawl’s dashboard. From here, head to Schema. Then in the Types Builder section, you’ll click Add New Type.
One-click gets you started.
This takes you to all the schema types available. Considering you want to create a custom one, you’ll hit the Custom Type option.
The Custom Type is located towards the bottom.
Give the schema type a Name. Using something associated with the schema type is best, so you’ll know exactly what it is.
The default name is Custom Type – but name it anything you’d like to identify it.
The name and other edits can be made at any time (which we’ll get into later in this article).
Configuring Schema Type
Next, you’ll add Rules. This set of rules determines where the schema type will be enabled or excluded.
This consists of configuring the schema type by setting up conditions that must be set and any page, post, or taxonomy that matches the set of requirements to assign the information for the custom schema type.
There are a lot of variations to choose from.
The rule box has a dropdown of options, including Show Globally, Homepage, Category, and more. You’ll then choose what it will equal (=).
Whatever can be combined to equal the rule will appear.
You can always add a rule by clicking the And button.
Clicking “And” opens up a new rule.
Plus, you can have Or rules by clicking Add Rule (or).
The Add Rule (or) button creates a new rule as well.
The dropdown gets you started in the rules editing process.
Clicking the Dropdown opens up all the rules and configurations, which you can edit accordingly.
Any editing can be done from here.
You can Rename, Duplicate, and Delete the custom schema from the Gear Icon.
Just click the gear icon to get to the selections.
If you duplicate the schema type, here’s a quick look at what it does…
Duplicating Custom Schema Type
When you Duplicate your custom schema type, another exact version will appear immediately underneath the one you duplicated.
As you can see, it has the same name, features, etc. – an exact clone of the original.
Just like any schema, you can edit the duplicate accordingly.
If you need to edit, go to the Types Builder in the Schema area of SmartCrawl’s admin. All the schemas that you have for your site are all in one place!
Example Custom Schema Type
Now that you’ve seen how to set up a custom schema type let’s see a real-world example of this. To start with, all available schemas are at schema.org. Schema.org is a community that has a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas.
We’ll use an example from schema.org that’s pretty common: restaurant.
As you can see on the schema.org page, there are a ton of categories to choose schema types.
As you can see on the page, there’s much to choose from. This is just a small portion of schema types available.
Just add properties to your custom schema type in SmartCrawl that you want to use. For example, we have the address, region, price range, logo, etc. — things that pertain to a restaurant.
You can see we’ve added a lot to this restaurant schema type.
As you can see, it has all of our schema types included.
And that’s it! Your custom schema for a restaurant is done, and patrons will set reservations in no time.
What’s Your (Schema) Type?
With custom schema type, there’s an endless possibility of schema to include for your WordPress site. And as you can see, it can be set up, enabled, and duplicated in just a few clicks.
Plus, it doesn’t cost you a thing! The custom schema type is included in our free and Pro versions of SmartCrawl.
So, what’s your schema type? Create a custom schema type to stand out amongst your SEO competitors and bring in more business today.
By using cookies you can significantly improve user experience on your site. However, installing tracking cookies without express user consent constitutes a breach of the ePrivacy Directive 2002/58/EC (EU Cookie Law), and can result in a number of issues for European sites. This is why ensuring you make your WordPress site EU Cookie Law compliant […]
Do you want to disable directory browsing in WordPress?
Directory browsing can put your site at risk by showing important information to hackers which can be used to exploit vulnerabilities in your site’s plugins, themes, or even your hosting server.
In this article, we will show you how you can disable directory browsing in WordPress.
What Does Disabling Directory Browsing in WordPress Do?
Every time someone visits your website, your web server will process that request.
Usually, the server delivers an index file to the visitor’s browser, such as index.html. However, if the server can’t find an index file, then it may show all the files and folders in the requested directory instead.
This is directory browsing, and it’s often enabled by default.
If you’ve ever visited a site and seen a list of files and folders instead of a webpage, then you’ve seen directory browsing in action.
The problem is that hackers can use directory browsing to see the files that make up your website, including all the themes and plugins that you’re using.
If any of these themes or plugins have known vulnerabilities, then hackers can use this knowledge to take control of your WordPress blog or website, steal your data, or perform other actions.
Attackers may also use directory browsing to look at the confidential information inside your files and folders. They might even copy your website’s contents, including content that you would usually charge for such as ebook downloads or online courses.
This is why it’s considered a best practice to disable directory browsing in WordPress.
How to Check is Directory Browsing is Enabled in WordPress
The easiest way to check whether directory browsing is currently enabled for your WordPress website is by simply visiting the /wp-includes/ folder link like this: https://example.com/wp-includes/.
You’ll want to replace www.example.com with your website’s URL.
If you get a 403 Forbidden or similar message, then directory browsing is already disabled on your WordPress website.
If you see a list of files and folders instead, then this means that directory browsing is enabled for your website.
Since this makes your website more vulnerable to attack, you’ll typically want to block directory browsing in WordPress.
How to Disable Directory Browsing in WordPress
To disable directory listing, you’ll need to add some code to your site’s .htaccess file.
To access the file, you’ll need an FTP client, or you can use the file manager app inside your WordPress hosting control panel.
After connecting to your site, simply open your website’s ‘public’ folder and find the .htaccess file. You can edit the .htaccess file by downloading it to your desktop and then opening it in a text editor like Notepad.
At the very bottom of the file, simply add the following code:
Options -Indexes
It will look something like this:
Once you’re done, save your .htaccess file and upload it back to your server using an FTP client.
That’s it. Now if you visit the same http://example.com/wp-includes/ URL, you’ll get a 403 Forbidden or similar message.
Most WordPress themes are set up so that your latest blog posts appear on the front page of your site. Or, if you have a static homepage, your newest entries appear on a dedicated page. Regardless of how these posts are displayed – in a list, in a tiled view, or what have you – […]
It has never been easier for individuals to tell the world about themselves by creating a personal brand identity. Building a personal brand can demonstrate a person’s qualities and skills, defining what makes them unique or different. Any edge you can find on your competition is critical in today’s cutthroat business environment. Social media and […]
Is your WordPress export file too large to import into your new website?
WordPress comes with built in import and export functionality that uses the XML file format. Sometimes the exported XML file is larger than your web host’s upload limit.
In this article, we’ll show you how to split large XML files in WordPress.
WordPress allows you to export your entire WordPress website as a single XML file that contains all of your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags.
This is known as a WXR file and stands for WordPress Extended RSS.
However, sometimes you may find that this file size is larger than the upload limit allowed by your WordPress hosting provider. If the file size is too large, then you will see an error message, and you will not be able to import your website data into the new WordPress installation.
This limit can vary, depending on your hosting provider and plan.
While you can ask your web hosting company to temporarily increase the file size limit, most shared hosting companies will not allow it.
So the only other option you have is to split the XML file into smaller files manually which is hard work.
Luckily, there’s an easy free online tool that can help you automatically split large WordPress XML files.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to split large XML files in WordPress.
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How to Split Large XML Files in WordPress
Once you have exported your WordPress site to a single XML file, you need to go to the Free WXR File Splitter Tool website. This is a free online tool that is designed to divide a large WordPress export file into small chunks.
Once there, you can upload your XML file by dragging it onto the area labeled ‘Click or drag a file to this area to upload’. Alternatively, you can click the ‘WXR File’ button and then select the XML file.
After that, you need to move the ‘New file size’ slider to your website’s maximum upload size or smaller. The goal is to create multiple files that are small enough to be uploaded to your host without surpassing the limits.
When you are ready, you need to press the ‘Submit’ button. Your large XML file will be split into smaller files of the correct size.
Finally, you’ll need to press the ‘Download’ button to download the files to the default download location on your computer. The files will be contained in a single file which will need to be unzipped so that you can import them into your new website.
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Maintaining the same form styles and appearance across all of your forms has never been easier with Forminator’s Global Appearance Presets.
The look and style of a form you create with our free plugin, Forminator, can be replicated and used for all of your forms. Even change existing forms to your new style and appearance with a click of a button!
This article shows you how it’s done. We’ll be covering how to…
Using a form to your specification across multiple platforms is excellent for branding, saves you time, and helps manage your form creation as simple as possible.
Let’s get to it!
Update the Default Preset
Forminator starts from scratch with its Default preset. Before we dive into making new presets, here’s a look at how you can change the default settings.
The whole process begins in Settings and Appearance Presets. You’ll see at the top of the page an area called Preset.
This Preset dropdown is what shows up first.
The preset design that pops up is Forminator’s Default Preset.
This is the blank slate of style for your form.
Underneath this, jazz things up for the default design. You have your choice of any Color, Hundreds of Fonts, Form Container, and even Custom CSS.
Check out all of the configurations options in our documentation and below…
There are a TON of configuration options.
When you have it edited according to your configuration, hit Update – and that’s it! We’ll talk about how to apply it to all of your forms and more coming up in this article.
Create a New Preset
Let’s say you want to create a new preset and leave the default one alone. Or, you decide to change the default configuration and make a new configuration. Either way – it’s simple to do!
We’ll head back to the banner on the top of the Settings and Appearance Presets web page. From there, it’s just a matter of clicking on the plus sign for a New Preset.
New Preset is a click away!
You’ll first give the form a Preset Name.
This window will appear after hitting New Preset.
Additionally, you can import the style from an existing form that you created by clicking the Import Style From Form dropdown. It’s up to you.
All of my current forms are displayed.
We’ll create a new preset for this example and name it Preset One. Once named, you’ll hit Create Preset.
Name the preset anything you’d like!
After that, you’ll see the new preset in the dropdown.
All of your presets will be shown here.
And that’s all it takes. If needed, you can access it at any time to edit.
All of your presets will appear in the dropdown. You can create unlimited amounts of presets as you want!
Apply Your Preset to Multiple Forms in Bulk
There are several ways to apply a preset to multiple forms – either in bulk or individually. All of this is done from Forminator’s dashboard under Forms.
Let’s say you want to apply a preset to ALL of your forms. That can be done in just a few clicks. Simply click the checkbox to the left of the dropdown, and click Apply Appearance Preset.
This updates all of the forms at once.
After choosing your bulk action, you’ll select which preset you’d like to apply. Select the one you’ll use from the dropdown, click Apply Preset – and you’re done.
All the presets created will show in the dropdown.
Additionally, you can check only certain forms to apply the appearance preset. The choice is yours!
Add Preset to Individual Form
You can use the method I just touched on with bulk by checking the box to the form you want to change. However, there’s another option.
Each form has a Gear icon. When clicked, a dropdown appears of various functions (e.g. preview, duplicate, etc.). One of those options is Apply Preset.
All of your forms will have the gear icon.
Just like with bulk presets, you’ll choose which preset form you’d like to apply. The preset will then be applied to that individual form.
Looks and Style at Peak Per-FORM-ance
As you can see, it’s as easy as ever to apply Forminator’s Global Appearance Presets to all or individual forms. It makes branding and form creation much more manageable than starting from scratch with each new form you create.
This keeps the style of your form and looks consistent throughout, no matter where you’re using them.
If you haven’t yet, be sure to start using our Forminator plugin to implement this useful feature and check out the documentation if you need help. Forminator is free to use, with over 200k active installs and a solid 5-star review.
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Moving your WordPress site to another location can be a stressful and fiddly experience, not helped by the fact you can’t just simply move your files and database. No, that’s just not how WordPress works.
Fortunately, WordPress has a handy “Import” and “Export” tool built in. But unfortunately, it’ll only suit some basic requirements and you need to improvise a little to achieve other effects.
In this article, I’ll show you step-by-step how to migrate your WordPress installation’s content to a new place.
Let’s get cracking!
Before We Start: Back Up Your Website
Some WordPress installations or server setups may present you with unique challenges on migrating content. Although this article will deal with an additional unique eventuality (namely that you only want to transfer a part of your WordPress installation’s content), there’s no guarantee that the steps detailed here will unfailingly work for every setup.
It goes without saying that you’re solely responsible for your site, even when following this guide to the letter; there’s some database work involved depending on what you want to do, and if you accidentally delete a huge chunk of your site, that’s down to you. Basically, be careful with this!
For the purposes of this post, I’ve created two separate localhost installations of WordPress to provide you with pictures of each step. You might like to try moving your content to a test site to check it works.
To that end, I’d recommend making a backup of your entire site at this point. Of course, you do that regularly, don’t you? (If not, you definitely should be. Get to it.)
If you want to do this manually, remember to include both your database and site files (primarily because this includes your website’s Uploads folder).
Backing Up Files
You can create and download a ZIP of your site files via FTP. How to do this varies per FTP client but is generally fairly obvious. Make sure you download and securely store your backup compressed file – just as with any backup.
Backing Up Your Database
Login to your phpMyAdmin account and select the database in which WordPress is installed.
Select Export from the top menu. For most people, “Quick” options will be adequate. However, if you have tables other than the WordPress installation you want to back up in the same database, click Custom to select the tables you want to back up; all other options should remain untouched. Finally, click Go to download your database backup file (.sql format).
Your WordPress tables are prefixed “wp_” by default – since I have two installations in the same database, mine are actually prefixed wpmudev_export and wpmudev_import. Here, I’m backing up the wpmudev_export files.
Hopefully, those backups won’t be needed, but it’s always advisable before embarking upon such work. If the site to which you’re migrating content already has content, make sure you back up that one too.
With precautions out of the way, let’s get to work!
Changing Your WordPress Installation’s URL? Transferring a Whole Site
If you’re just looking to change your website to a new URL or otherwise want to transfer absolutely everything from one installation to another, the good news is that you’ve picked the easy option. WordPress’s own import and export tools will work perfectly for you so no need to do anything too complicated under the hood.
Here’s how to transfer all your WordPress content – pages, images and files, posts and everything else – to a new installation.
Incidentally, it is probably easiest to create a new installation on your new server (or even the new location within a server) and import/export than to change your files’ configurations. However, if you’d rather do it that way, the WordPress Codex can advise. Your installation should be up-to-date with the latest WordPress version so it won’t be a problem, but if it’s not, upgrade your old installation first. If you really can’t update for some reason – such as keeping a plugin that doesn’t work with new versions – your new installation can be an old version. This is far from recommended because many old versions of WordPress have critical security flaws.
How to Move Content From One WordPress Site to Another
Go to your WordPress dashboard and select the Export item from the Tools section.
Because you’re exporting everything, it’s easy: keep the All content option selected and hit Download Export File.
An XML file will be created. Keep it in a safe place and go across to the installation to which you’re migrating.
2. Install the Importer
The WordPress importers screen.
On the new WordPress installation, go once again to Tools, but this time select Import.
You will be shown a list of importers, from which you should select the WordPress option.
Click Install Now and wait for the importer plugin to download and install.
If it all works, you can click Activate Plugin & Run Importer on the next screen.
At this point, you’re all ready to import and the XML file you generated earlier comes into play.
3. Upload Your Content
Upload the WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) XML file you created earlier.
Click Choose File on the screen that follows and select the XML file you created on the old site.
Next, click Upload file and import.
4. Assign the Content
You can import or add new author accounts, or attribute content to existing authors. Ensure you import and download attachments.
You’ll be given an option to assign content to existing users on the new site (if you have an account on both, you can assign your old posts to your new account), or create new users either with their old usernames or with a new one you select. This ensures all the content is attributed to an author account that exists on the new site.
If you have any images or files to move to the new site, make absolutely sure that you tick Download and import file attachments– it’s not selected by default.
Hit the Submit button and you’re done! The page may take a little longer than usual to load because it’s creating all the new rows on the database, but it will get through it. Just wait patiently for it to be processed and all of your content should be imported onto the new site ready for its life there.
Partial Content Movement
So that’s the easy bit out of the way. However, if you’re looking to export only some of your content, I’m afraid to say that WordPress’s tools probably won’t cater for your needs on their own.
Selecting All content is the only way to export your attachments (files that appear under the Media section). Therefore, if you want to transfer specific parts of the content and your images, you’ll either need to move everything across then delete it (time consuming for larger sites) or poke around in your files and database – which I shall show you how to do now.
The exporting and changing SQL that I’m about to show you will be demonstrated for moving attachments, but you can also use a similar methodology to transfer the whole database across. This is useful if you want to transfer everything but your XML file is too large to upload through the importer.
1. Select the Content You Want to Export
Venture once more to the Tools > Export screen to begin with.
Here I have chosen to export only posts after mid-2010 from a certain author. You can also choose to export by status (eg. Published, Pending, Draft) or their Category. Other content types like pages (or Feedback, Portfolio, etc. if enabled) can be selected.
Once you’ve selected which content you’d like to export, click Download Export File as before. If there are multiple selections you’d like to make (eg. two authors’ posts in a date range, or someone’s posts and all pages), it’s entirely possible to go back and create multiple export files for each selection.
2. Import as Before
After you have all the WXR XML files you want, go to the new site and install the WordPress Importer as previously shown. You can upload your files (one at a time) as before and they’ll install the specific posts/pages/other content onto the site.
However, this is not the end, because you’ll notice that you still don’t have any attachments (eg. uploaded images) on your installation quite yet.
3. Duplicate Media Files
Go to your old installation’s FTP client and find the /wp-content/uploads/ folder. I’m using Windows 10’s File Explorer as my FTP client, but most should be able to compress files and download them.
Depending on your FTP client, compressing all folders within your uploads directory into a .zip file will be done through different methods.
Download the .ZIP file you generate and upload it to your new site’s FTP (or cut and paste it if you can access both sites through your FTP client).
I’m cutting and pasting my compressed uploads across, but you can download and upload if you need to change between FTP clients.
You can then extract all the files from the compressed folder into the Uploads directory.
Unfortunately, that’s not the end of it; while your files are in the right place, your WordPress installation won’t know about them because the attachment details haven’t yet been copied across from the database.
Your new WordPress database doesn’t know about the files you’ve uploaded to the new server yet.
4. Export Attachment Posts
Head over to your old site’s phpMyAdmin database and find the wp_posts table (replace wp_ with your prefix as necessary).
Again, I used wpmudev_exportposts, but replace the table name with the right prefix as applicable to your database.
At this point, you need to find the attachment posts (those are the media posts) so paste in the following SQL (changing the table name to have the right prefix if necessary) and hit Go.
SELECT
*
FROM
`wp_posts`
WHERE
`post_type` = "attachment"
The SQL query will return only attachment posts.
Scroll to the bottom of the query results and check Show all so all attachment posts are showing. Once all rows are displayed, choose Check All then click Export.
At this point, things get a bit more complicated, but stay with me and follow the steps carefully and you should be fine.
For the purposes of the picture, the options you’ll need to change have been moved up the page. You may need to scroll down to find them.
Choose Custom to show all possible settings.
Scroll down to the Format-specific Options section.
Choose data.
Leave everything else as it is and click Go.
5. Edit Your SQL
This step is necessary if your new installation has a different database prefix to the one from which you’ve just downloaded your SQL export file.
Edit the .sql file using a text editor such as Notepad++, finding and replacing the old prefix with the new prefix.
In my case, my original database was prefixed wpmudev_export and the one to which I will be moving the attachments is prefixed wpmudev_import!
If your prefixes are the same (eg. both tables are wp_posts), that’s fine and you can ignore this step.
6. Import Attachment Posts
As ever, find the table with the right prefix as applicable!
Go to your new database and find wp_posts (or equivalent); click Import.
Click Choose File – make sure you click, don’t drag it in, as this means it won’t be uploaded in the right place – and select the exported SQL file.
Leave all other options as they are and execute the query by hitting Go. You’ll see a success message once it’s finished and all your attachments will now be visible under Media – although there’s a further step before your images will start showing up properly.
As you can see, none of the images actually show as images…yet!
7. Export Post Meta
Again, the options you need to change are on this picture. You may need to scroll to find them.
Similar to the previous database work, this time find your old installation’s wp_postmeta table and select the Export tab.
Select Custom settings again and choose data rather than structure and data, just as before.
This time, also locate the Data Creation Options heading and select REPLACE as the function to use when dumping data.
Once again, click Go to create and download your SQL file.
8. Edit Your SQL
Again, you need to change the prefixes in your SQL file if the new database prefix will be different. You should also find all references to your old URL and replace them with the new one.
9. Import Post Meta
Go to your new wp_postmeta (or other applicable prefix) table and, exactly as before, import your edited SQL file into the new installation.
Your media library is now complete once more, ready to fit back into your transferred content (finally).
Finally, all your images show up and can be shown within content!
Finishing Up
If you’ve got through all that, well done – it’s a bit of a roundabout method just to transfer some images across with specific posts.
Of course, there are still catches with this: if you only want to migrate some of the images, you need to go through and pick out the folders (hopefully you want them by date or it would take forever) more carefully when uploading. You could also run into trouble with duplicate primary keys transferring wp_posts if you already had posts on the new installation.
Clearly, to make the Import/Export process more intuitive – rather than requiring such creative thinking with the databases behind the CMS – some work will need to be completed for a future WordPress release. While we wait, however, if you do need to move some of your content, this should work for you – it’s well worth the time!
If you’ve got any more ideas and methods for moving across parts of a WordPress installation with all the content in tow, we’d love you to share it with us in the comments. Likewise, let us know if you’re having any issues with these methods and we can try to give you a hand.
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Personalized content, friendly interfaces, and interactive themes help create engaging, accessible websites. But to truly reach a global audience, your website should speak your clients’ language. Fortunately, translating your site into any language is getting easier, quicker, and more affordable thanks to automatic translation options, also called machine translation, in many translation plugins. Why Translate […]
Do you want to limit the number of posts in your WordPress RSS feed?
By default, WordPress displays the ten most recent posts in the main RSS feed. You can change that to include more or fewer articles in the feed.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to easily limit the number of posts in the WordPress RSS feed. We’ll also show you how to easily create an RSS sitemap for search engines as well.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
Change Posts Limit in WordPress RSS Feed
First thing you need to do is go to Settings » Reading page in your WordPress admin dashboard.
From here, you need to change the value next to the ‘Syndication feeds show the most recent’ option. Simply enter the number of posts you want to be shown in your RSS feed.
Below this option, you’ll also see the option to show either the full text or excerpt of your posts in RSS feeds.
We recommend using the Excerpt option because it reduces the feed size and increases your page views.
After that, don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button to store your settings.
That’s all, you have successfully limited the number of posts displayed in RSS feed of your site.
Create RSS Sitemap for Search Engines
If you only want to change the number of posts in your RSS feeds for more search engine visibility, then increasing posts in your main WordPress RSS feeds is not the best way to do this.
Many popular search engines like Google and Bing support RSS sitemaps.
Unlike XML sitemaps which contain most of your content, an RSS sitemap provides search engines with the latest posts on your site.
This helps search engines quickly find the updated posts on your website. You can set a different limit of posts that you want to include without affecting your main WordPress RSS feed.
The easiest way to add anRSS sitemap in WordPress is by using All in One SEO for WordPress. It is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market and allows you to easily optimize your website without any SEO skills.
Do you want to add a search form to a WordPress post?
Adding a search form to your post or page content is a good way to encourage your visitors to find more content and stay on your website longer.
In this article, we’ll show you how to add a search form in your posts and pages using a WordPress search shortcode.
Why Add a Search Form to Your Posts and Pages?
If a visitor has enjoyed reading a post on your WordPress blog, then they will likely want to read more. Offering a search form in the post will help them find more of your content that they are interested in.
Your visitors are also more likely to join your email list, leave a comment, make a purchase, and follow you on social media.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to add the standard WordPress search form to your posts. If you want to add a custom search form, then see our step by step guide on how to create a custom WordPress search form.
We’ll show you two methods to add a search form to your posts, and the first is the simplest. Use the links below to jump to the method you’d like to use.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit the Settings » SearchWP page and then click on the ‘License’ menu option.
You then need to enter your license key in the License box. You can find this information in your account on the SearchWP website. After that, you should click the Activate button.
Next, you need to click on the Engines menu option. This brings you to a screen where you can choose your search engine settings.
Here you need to create a site-wide search engine. You can adjust your search engine settings by clicking on the Posts, Pages and Media drop downs.
The Attribute Relevance sliders in each section adjust how the search engines value and rank content. For example, if you want to value the post title higher than the content, then you can adjust the sliders accordingly.
After you’ve finished adjusting the settings, make sure to click the ‘Save Engines’ button to save the default search engine.
Adding a Search Form to a Post
Now you need to download the SearchWP shortcodes extension to easily add your new custom post search form to WordPress.
You’ll need to visit the SearchWP Shortcodes Extension website and then click the ‘Download available with active license’ button.
After that, you need to install and activate the extension the same way you installed the plugin above. Now you can add a search form in your posts.
Simply edit the post and place your cursor where you want to add the search form. After that, click the plus ‘Add Block’ icon to bring up the blocks menu.
Next, type ‘html’ into the search box. Then, select the ‘Custom HTML’ block.
Once you’ve added the new block, you can add the following shortcodes and HTML to your page. If you need more help, then see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
This code will add a search form to the post, create a section to display the search results, show a no results message if necessary, and add pagination if the results go into multiple pages.
Make sure you click Publish or Update to save your post and make it live.
To see the search form in action, simply view the post on your WordPress website. This is how it looks on our demo site running the Twenty Twenty-One theme.
You can also add a search form to your WordPress posts by use of a code snippet. This method is not recommended for beginners, so if you’re not familiar with code, then you should use Method 1 instead.
In this method you will have to edit your theme’s functions.php file.
Do you want to create additional image sizes in WordPress?
By default, WordPress automatically creates several copies of image uploads in different sizes. Additionally, WordPress themes and plugins can also create their own image sizes.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create additional image sizes in WordPress and use them on your website.
Why Create Additional Image Sizes in WordPress?
Normally, all popular WordPress themes and plugins handle image sizes very well. For instance, your WordPress theme may create additional sizes to use as thumbnails on archive pages.
However, sometimes these image sizes may not fit your own requirements. You may want to use a different image size in a child theme or a post grid layout.
You can do this by creating additional image sizes in WordPress and then calling these sizes whenever you need them.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to create additional image sizes in WordPress.
However, if you are creating a custom WordPress theme then you will need to add support for post thumbnails by adding the following code to your theme’s functions.php file.
add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );
Once you enable the support for post thumbnails, you can now use the functionality of registering additional image sizes by using the function add_image_size().
The add_image_size function is used in the following format:
Now if you notice, we have specified three different sorts of image sizes. Each has different modes such as hard crop, soft crop, and unlimited height.
Let’s cover each example and how you can use them in your own projects.
1. Hard Crop Mode
As you may notice, there is a “true” value added after the height. This tells WordPress to crop the image exactly to the size that we have defined (in this case 120 x 120px).
This method is used to ensure that everything is exactly proportionate. This function will automatically crop the image either from the sides or from the top and bottom depending on the size.
2. Soft Crop Mode
By default, soft cropping mode is turned on this is why you do not see any additional value added after the height. This method resizes the image proportionally without distorting it. So you might not get the dimensions that you wanted. Usually, it matches the width dimension and the heights are different based on each image’s proportion. An example display would look like this:
Unlimited Height Mode
There are times when you have super long images that you want to use in your design, but you want to make sure that the width is limited. For instance, infographic images tend to be very long and usually wider than the content width.
This mode allows you to specify a width that will not break your design while leaving the height to be unlimited.
Displaying additional image sizes in your WordPress theme
Now that you have added the functionality for the desired image sizes lets take a look at displaying them in your WordPress theme. Open the theme file where you want to display the image and paste the following code:
Note: This bit of code must be pasted inside the post loop.
That’s all you really have to do to display the additional image sizes in your WordPress theme. You probably should wrap it around with the styling that fits your need.
Regenerating Additional Image Sizes
If you are not doing this on a brand new site, then you probably will have to regenerate thumbnails.
The add_image_size() function only generates the sizes from the point it was added into the theme. This means any post images that were added prior to the inclusion of this function will not have new sizes.
To fix this, you need to regenerate the new image size for older images. This is made easy by the plugin called Regenerate Thumbnails. Once you install and activate the plugin, a new option is added under the menu: Tools » Regenerate Thumbnails
You’ll see the option to regenerate thumbnail for all images or just the featured images. We recommend regenerating all images to avoid any unexpected behavior or broken images.
Don’t forget to save your changes after adding the code.
You can now go and upload an image to a WordPress post or page. In the image block settings you’ll see your custom image sizes under the ‘Image size’ option.
You and other authors working on your website can now select these size options when adding images to posts and pages.
Do you run a news site or blog or publish newsworthy content with WordPress? Then put your site on the Google News map with SmartCrawl’s Google News Sitemap…for Free!
Have you heard the good news?
If you are already using our powerful SmartCrawl WordPress SEO plugin and you want to add a Google News sitemap to your site, then look no further…SmartCrawl comes with its own built-in Google News sitemap so there’s no need to install an additional plugin.
So, if you run a news site, news blog, or publish newsworthy content with WordPress, read on to learn more about:
Use SmartCrawl’s Google News sitemap to get your news content published on Google News!
Why Use Sitemaps
We’ll keep this section short and sweet…
Sitemaps are useful tools for helping site visitors and search engines find content on your site.
An HTML site map helps human visitors navigate faster to content on your site and an XML sitemap helps search engine robots crawl and discover all of your content.
In addition to providing an XML sitemap that offers many advantages over the WordPress core sitemap such as performance caching, including images from post content, adding styling to the sitemap, automatic updates, and auto-notifying search engines, SmartCrawl also offers a configurable Google News sitemap.
SmartCrawl’s Google News sitemap is specifically designed to meet all of Google News technical requirements for a news sitemap feed.
How To Use SmartCrawl’s Google News Sitemap
To enable or disable SmartCrawl’s Google News Sitemap feature, select Sitemaps > News Sitemap in the SmartCrawl plugin menu.
Select Sitemaps in SmartCrawl’s menu.
Click Enable…
SmartCrawl Google News Sitemap screen.
Once the feature is enabled, you will find fields for entering your Google News publication name (Note: your publication name must match the one you have set up on news.google.com) and the option to include post types (e.g. Posts, Pages, Products, etc.) or exclude posts by category or individual posts.
SmartCrawl’s Google News sitemaps lets you control which posts are submitted to Google News.
Remember to click the Save Settings button when done.
View your Google News sitemap at yourdomain.tld/news-sitemap.xml.
Your Google News Sitemap feed…powered by SmartCrawl!
Note: Only content published in the last 48 hours will be included in your News Sitemap. If no content is published during this time, your feed page will display an empty sitemap with no URLs.
You don’t necessarily need to have a news site to get approved as a publisher on Google News, but you must be publishing timely, topical articles, and newsworthy content on a regular basis.
Your site must also be an authoritative source of news in your industry or niche and your content must meet Google’s technical and quality guidelines to get approved.
Note: no amount of whitehat SEO tweaking (or blackhat SEO shenanigans) will get you listed on Google News if your site does not actually meet Google’s stringent criteria for inclusion.
Once Google approves you as a news publisher, you will have access to the Google Publisher Center – an interface where you can submit, manage, and monetize your content in Google News.
You can then copy your news feed URL and paste it into your Google Publisher account, under the publication you set up for your news site in your Google Publisher Center.
Rather than make this a lengthy post, we recommend visiting the Google Publisher Center Help section. It will explain everything you need to know and take you through the entire process of getting started with Google News and setting up your news publication.
Visit the Google Publisher Center Help section for all the information you need to get your site on Google News.
If you run a WordPress-based news site, make sure to use SmartCrawl’s Google News Sitemap (available in both the free and pro versions) to get your good news published instantly and automatically.
And if you need any help installing or configuring SmartCrawl, check out our plugin documentation or contact our support team any time of day or night.
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