How to Migrate Google Business Profile Website to WordPress

The news that Google is shuttering Google Business Profile websites has made many users ask us how to migrate their site to WordPress before the service shuts down for good.

In March 2024, Google will be shutting down more than 21.7 million websites created with Google Business Profiles. This is the latest in a history of Google removing products and services.

If you’re one of the users who will be affected by this change, then now is the perfect time to relocate your website.

In this article, we will show you how to migrate a Google Business Profile website to WordPress.

Migrate Google Business Profile Website to WordPress

Here’s an overview of what we will cover in this guide. You can click the links below to jump ahead to your preferred section:

Why Migrate a Google Business Profile Site to WordPress?

When you create a Google Business Profile, you get an option to add a website. Previously, if you didn’t have a website, Google would allow you to create a free single-page site instantly.

This way, users looking up your brand on a local search will see a detailed business profile, including a business site, working hours, store locations, directions, phone numbers, and more.

Local search results example

However, Google is shutting down Business Profile sites in March 2024. Once the service closes, users will be automatically redirected to your Business Profile page.

Unfortunately, that redirection will only work until June 10, 2024. People visiting your site after this date will see a ‘page not found’ error.

google business profile site email

This can have a negative effect on your business, as it will look less professional. Not to mention, customers won’t be able to view detailed information about your company, products, and services.

As a result, your conversions may drop, and you could end up losing customers to your competitors.

That’s why it’s important to migrate your Google Business Profile site to WordPress.

Note: Google is only shutting down the service that hosts sites through Google Business Profiles. The profile for your business itself will still be available in search results. Later in this post, we will show you how to link your new WordPress site with your business profile.

Why Choose WordPress as a Platform for Your Website?

WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world, as it powers more than 43% of websites on the internet.

The best part is that WordPress is free to use and open-source. By migrating your Google Business Profile site to WordPress, you get more control and flexibility.

For instance, you get to own all your content and don’t have to rely on a third-party platform. All you need is a web hosting service and a domain name to get started.

With WordPress, you get multiple themes. This makes it very flexible, as you can create a simple 1-page WordPress website or a complete online store. It also offers thousands of plugins which help add more features and functionality.

Besides that, WordPress is SEO-friendly. What this means is that you can easily optimize it for search engines like Google. This helps attract users to your website and boost conversion.

Note: Remember that WordPress.com and WordPress.org are different platforms. WordPress.com is a hosted solution that offers limited features, whereas WordPress.org is the famous platform that everyone has come to love and use. You can see our complete comparison of WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org.

That said, let’s look at how you can easily migrate your Business Profile site to WordPress.

Step 1: Create a Backup of Google Business Profile Site

Before you can migrate your website to WordPress, the first step is to backup data from your Google My Business site.

Note that Google Business Profile doesn’t offer an export option, so you’ll need to download all the images, videos, and other media files manually.

To do that, simply open your Google Business Profile website and then right-click on the image you want to save.

Right click to save the image

After that, simply click the ‘Save as’ option and save the image anywhere on your computer.

Similarly, you can simply copy the text on your website and paste it into a document.

To start, first highlight the text on your website and then hit the right-click button on your mouse. From here, select the ‘Copy’ button.

Copy the text from business profile site

You can also use keyboard shortcuts to copy the text. For instance, you’ll need to hit ‘Ctrl + C’ on Windows and ‘Command + C’ on Mac.

Next, open a Notepad file, Google Docs, or a Microsoft Word document and simply paste the content from your website. If you have links in the text, it’s a good idea to use Google Docs or Microsoft Word because they will keep those in the pasted text.

Paste content in notepad

You can right-click anywhere on the document and select the ‘Paste’ option. Or use the ‘Ctrl + V’ keyboard shortcut on Windows and ‘Command + V’ on Mac to paste the text.

Since Business Profile sites are small and single-page, downloading and copying your data should be a quick process.

Step 2: Choosing a Web Hosting Platform for Your Site

Next, you will need a web hosting service to run a website using WordPress. Web hosting is where all your website files are stored. You can think of it as a house where your site’s content lives.

While WordPress is free to download, you’ll need to subscribe to a platform like Bluehost to host the site

Usually, web hosting costs around $7.99 per month (paid annually), and domain name prices start from $16.99 per year, depending on the domain extension. The cost to build a WordPress site can go even higher if you want a custom theme and more features.

This can be a significant investment, considering it was free to create a website using Google Business Profile.

Luckily, Bluehost is offering an exclusive discount for WPBeginner users. You can get started for as low as $1.99 per month and get a free domain + SSL certificate.

Bluehost is one of the best hosting companies in the industry. It is an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.

WPBeginner users can enjoy up to 61% off and get a 1-click WordPress install. To start, simply visit the Bluehost website and click the ‘Get Started Now’ button.

Bluehost

After that, you will need to select a hosting plan.

Simply click the ‘Select’ button to choose a pricing plan. You can select the Basic or Choice Plus plans to get started, as they should be suitable for small business websites.

Bluehost pricing table

On the next screen, you will need to pick a domain name for your website. A domain name is your site’s name that users will enter in their browsers (like wpbeginner.com or google.com).

Bluehost lets you create a new domain name, or you can use an existing domain that you own.

Bluehost buy domain name

Pro Tip: If you need help picking the right name, then try our free business name generator tool. Simply enter words related to your business, and the tool will generate lots of ideas for your domain name.

After choosing a name for your website, you’ll need to fill in your account details and finalize the Bluehost package.

Bluehost will add extra options to your package. We recommend unchecking all the additional options as you’ll save money. Plus, you can always add them later on if needed.

bluehost package extras

Next, you can add your payment details and complete the purchase.

Once that’s done, Bluehost will create your hosting account and email you the login details.

Step 3: Install and Set Up WordPress

Next, you can log in to the Bluehost account to view the dashboard. From here, you’ll be able to manage your website, get support, and install WordPress.

The best part about using Bluehost is that it automatically installs WordPress for you.

You just need to head to the ‘Websites’ tab from the menu on the left. After that, simply click the ‘Edit Site’ button.

Edit site in Bluehost

This will open the WordPress dashboard, where you can log in and start adding content, customizing the design, and creating new pages.

Bluehost offers an AI-powered setup wizard that will guide you through the initial configuration. You can simply follow the on-screen instructions to create a WordPress website. You can also opt-out of the AI assistant.

Bluehost website setup wizard

You can learn more by following our complete guide on how to install WordPress.

Step 4: Add Content From Business Profile Site to WordPress

Now that your WordPress site is ready, the next step is to import content from the Google Business Profile site.

Since there is no way to directly import data from your Google My Business site into WordPress, you’ll need to add content manually.

You can start by creating different pages for your website, like an about us page, a contact page, and more. Simply head to Pages in the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Add New Page’ button.

Add new page

Next, you will need to enter content that you copied from the Google Business Profile site in the content editor.

To start, enter a title for your page at the top. After that, you can type the text or simply copy it from the file you created earlier and paste it into the content editor.

Simply use the keyboard shortcut keys to copy and paste the text. For Windows, you’ll need to press ‘Ctrl + C’ to copy and ‘Ctrl + V’ to paste. If you’re using Mac, then simply press ‘Command + V’ to copy and ‘Command + V’ to paste.

Enter business profile text in content editor

WordPress also lets you add images, videos, and other media files to your content.

To add a picture, you can click the ‘+’ sign and add an Image block in your content. From here, you’ll need to click the ‘Media Library’ button.

Add image block to the post

A new popup window will open with the WordPress Media Library.

Next, you can switch to the ‘Upload files’ tab and then click the ‘Select Files’ button.

upload file to the media library

Now, navaigate to the Google Business Profile website images you saved earlier and select them.

Once they’re uploaded, you will see them in the Media Library. Go ahead and select the image you want to add to your content.

Select an image from media library

To learn more, please see our guide on how to properly add images in WordPress.

Once you’re done, go ahead and click ‘Publish’ at the top of the page. Simply repeat this step to create as many pages as you want for your website.

Next, you can add the content to each of these pages that you saved and copied from your Google Business Profile site.

Pro Tip: We highly recommend checking out our guide to the important pages that every WordPress site should have. This will take you through the pages that ensure your migration from Google Business Profile to WordPress is as complete as possible.

We recommend that you create a custom landing page for your website using the block editor or a plugin like SeedProd.

SeedProd is the best WordPress theme and landing page builder. It offers a drag-and-drop builder, pre-built templates, and lots of customization options.

SeedProd page builder

You can easily edit and control the appearance of your site using the plugin. Plus, there are different blocks to add to the design.

After creating pages, you can also add new blog posts to your business website. For more details, please see our guide on how to add a new post in WordPress.

There are various topics you can write about related to your business. These can be helpful guides, list articles, how-to tutorials that help explain how to use different features of your products and services, and more.

Step 5: Optimizing Your Business Site for Local SEO

After adding content from your Google My Business site to WordPress, you will need to optimize your site for local search results. This way, people searching for your business can easily find it on search engines like Google.

A simple way of doing that is by using All in One SEO (AIOSEO). It is the best WordPress SEO plugin that helps optimize your website for search engines. It automatically adds schema markup and helps configure local SEO settings without any technical knowledge.

Schema markup is a special code format that’s used on your site, and it tells search engines extra information about your business. For instance, schema markup helps you show details like address, opening hours, map location, and more on Google search results.

All in One SEO

Note: To use the Local SEO feature in AIOSEO, you will need at least the Plus plan.

First, you will need to install and activate the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will see the AIOSEO setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button and follow the on-screen instructions.

AIOSEO Setup Wizard

To learn more, please see our guide on how to properly set up All in One SEO in WordPress.

Next, you can go to All in One SEO » Local SEO from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Activate Local SEO’ button.

Activate Local SEO

Add Location and Business Information

Once the Local SEO addon is active, you can head to the ‘Location’ tab.

Here, AIOSEO will ask if you have multiple business locations. If so, then simply click the ‘Multiple Location’ toggle to Yes.

Adding business location information

To learn more, please see our guide on how to add multiple locations schema for local business in WordPress.

Next, you can scroll down and enter your business information. For instance, you can provide a name, logo, image, address, select type of business, phone number, and more.

Enter your business information

Add Opening Hours for Your Business

After that, head to the ‘Opening Hours’ tab and enable the option.

Simply click the ‘Show Opening Hours’ toggle to Yes.

AIOSEO business hours

Next, you can scroll down and add your business hours.

There is also an option where you can show your business is open 24/7.

Add business hours in AIOSEO

Show Business Location on Google Maps

AIOSEO also lets you integrate Google Maps and help users find where your business is located.

You can do that by going to the ‘Maps’ tab and entering the Google Maps API key.

Enter Google Maps API key

For more details, please see our guide on how to add Google Maps in WordPress.

Step 6: Update Website URL in Google Business Profile

Now that your new WordPress website is ready, the next step is to update the link in Google Business Profile.

You can do that by visiting your Business Profile on Google. From here, simply click the ‘Edit Profile’ option.

Edit Google Business profile

You should now see a new popup window open with your business information.

Next, you can navigate to the ‘Website’ section and replace the URL with your new WordPress website.

Add your new site

That’s it! You’ve successfully migrated your Google Business Profile website to WordPress.

Now, users who click the ‘Website’ link on your Business Profile will land on your new WordPress website.

Bonus: Install WordPress Plugins to Get the Most of Your Site

The best part about using WordPress is the plugins. You can think of them as apps, and they help add additional features and functionality to your site.

For instance, there are plugins for creating backups, improving security, boosting speed and performance, starting an online store, and more.

That said, there are over 59,000 free and paid plugins that you can use. This can get overwhelming for new users who don’t know which plugin to pick and install.

To help you out, here are some of the top plugins we recommend using on your WordPress site:

  • WPForms – It is the best form builder for WordPress. You can easily create different types of forms and add them to your site. For example, it lets you create simple contact forms, payment forms, surveys, registration forms, and more.
  • MonsterInsights – It is the best Analytics plugin for WordPress. You can connect Google Analytics to WordPress without editing code using MonsterInsights. Plus, it helps you find out how people behave on your site, where they come from, which links they click, and uncover other useful insights.
  • OptinMonster – A powerful conversion optimization and lead generation toolkit for WordPress. You can create different campaigns to grow your email list, get more leads, and increase sales.
  • Duplicator – It is the best WordPress backup plugin. You can create backups of your WordPress site and store them on the cloud. This way, you’ll have a fresh copy to restore your site in case there’s a security breach, or something goes wrong.

For more plugin recommendations, please see our complete list of must-have WordPress plugins for business sites.

We hope this article helped you learn how to migrate a Google Business Profile website to WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create a free business email address and easy ways to increase your blog traffic.

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 Migrate Google Business Profile Website to WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

9 Things to Do if Your WordPress Site Keeps Going Down

Are you wondering what to do if your WordPress site keeps going down?

A website that is down (offline) can hurt your business. It creates a bad user experience for visitors who cannot access your content, and you may even lose customers and potential sales.

In this article, we will share the most important things you need to do if your WordPress website keeps going down.

Things to do if your WordPress website keeps going down

Why Does Your WordPress Website Keep Going Down?

When your WordPress website is down, your users will see an error message that prevents them from visiting the page.

If your website is down due to one of the common WordPress errors, then you can simply fix it to resolve the issue.

However, if the issue keeps happening, or your website is not showing an error, then you will need to investigate it further.

Website downtime can happen for several reasons, including unreliable hosting, an expired domain, security reasons, an error in custom code, and more.

Another reason for downtime can be increased website traffic that exceeds your WordPress hosting resource limits.

No matter the reason, if your WordPress website keeps going down on a regular basis, then it can harm your business. Your conversion rates may fall, and you might lose customers.

Luckily, we have compiled a list of things to do if your WordPress website keeps going down. These steps will help you troubleshoot the cause and fix it easily.

1. Check if It Is Just You or if the Website Is Down for Everyone

Your WordPress website may not be down for everyone. Sometimes you might just be unable to access your site due to a network error or lack of internet connection.

First, you will need to verify that your website is down for everyone and not just you.

To do that, you can use IsItWP’s free uptime checker.

First, visit the Website Uptime Status Checker website and enter your site URL.

IsItWP Uptime Checker Tool

Click on the ‘Analyze Website’ button, and the tool will tell you if your website is down for everyone or just you.

If it is only down for you, then we recommend checking your internet connection. You can try clearing your browser cache or restarting your network router.

On the other hand, if your website is down for everyone, then continue reading to learn how to fix it.

2. Make Sure Your WordPress Hosting Plan Has Not Expired

One of the most common reasons for website downtime is your WordPress hosting provider. Your plan may have expired, or the provider might be having server problems.

First, you need to make sure that your hosting plan hasn’t expired. You can usually find this information in your hosting account dashboard.

If your plan has not expired, but your WordPress website keeps going down, then you will need to contact your hosting provider. It is possible that they are facing an issue on their end and can provide you with more information about it.

For example, your hosting company might be performing server maintenance, facing DDoS attacks, or may have taken down a few servers. All of these reasons could result in downtime.

Your website may also be down due to the failure of some hardware components of the host’s server.

In these cases, your website should be up and running again once the hosting provider fixes the issues.

If you’re constantly running into issues with your hosting provider, then it’s a good idea to switch to a more reliable managed WordPress hosting company.

We recommend going with either SiteGround, Hostinger, or WP Engine.

3. Make Sure Your Domain Has Not Expired

Sometimes the website goes down because the domain name you bought when starting your website might have expired. If this is the case, it needs to be renewed.

To check if your domain is still valid, you can use a WHOIS lookup tool. You just need to enter your domain name and click the ‘Lookup’ button.

The tool will then look up details of your domain name. If your domain has expired, it might show as available for registration.

Domain available for registration

If your domain has expired, then you can now go ahead and renew it using any domain registrar, such as Domain.com.

You can also obtain a free domain from some hosting providers, including Hostinger. This is a top WordPress hosting company that provides a free domain name with any web hosting plan.

You can also use our Bluehost coupon code, which provides WPBeginner users with a free domain name, SSL certificate, and a discount on web hosting plans.

4. Check Your Plugins and Themes

WordPress plugins or themes can sometimes cause website downtime. The software may be outdated and / or have a vulnerability that hackers can use to take down your site.

Similarly, a WordPress theme can conflict with a particular WordPress version or a plugin on your website.

To see if a plugin or theme is causing downtime, you will need to deactivate all of your plugins and switch to a default theme.

Deactivate All WordPress Plugins

Deactivating all of your WordPress plugins can quickly show you if one of the tools is causing your site’s downtime.

If you have access to the WordPress admin area, then you need to visit the Plugins » Installed Plugins page from the admin sidebar.

From here, you can select all plugins by simply checking the bulk select checkbox at the top.

Check the box next to the Plugins option

Next, open the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown menu and select the ‘Deactivate’ option.

After that, click on the ‘Apply’ button to deactivate all of the plugins.

Choose the deactivate option from the Bulk Options dropdown menu

However, if you don’t have access to the WordPress admin, then you can deactivate plugins using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client.

First, you need to connect to your website using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your hosting account control panel. Once your site is connected, head to the /wp-content/ folder.

Inside, you should see a folder named ‘plugins.’ This is where all your WordPress plugin files are stored.

Rename plugins folder

Simply rename the plugins folder to ‘plugins_deactivate.’ This will deactivate all WordPress plugins installed on your website.

For more detailed instructions, please see our tutorial on how to deactivate WordPress plugins when not able to access WP-Admin.

Switch to a Default WordPress Theme

Your WordPress theme may also cause your website to malfunction. This can happen if you are using a poorly coded or outdated WordPress theme that has not been updated for a while.

To find out if your current WordPress theme is causing downtime, you will need to switch to a default WordPress theme.

First, connect to your website using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your hosting account control panel.

After that, go to the /wp-content/themes/ folder.

From here, you need to locate the ‘themes’ folder. This is where all the themes from your WordPress website are stored.

Simply rename the folder to ‘themes_deactivate’ to deactivate your current theme.

Rename themes folder

Next, you need to create a new folder named ‘themes.’

After that, you can go ahead and download a default WordPress theme like Twenty Twenty-Three from the WordPress themes directory.

Downlaod default theme to your computer

Once it has been downloaded, you need to unzip the file.

Next, simply upload the downloaded theme file in the new ‘themes’ folder. This will activate it on your WordPress website.

Upload theme folder

You can also delete themes using the WordPress database. For more instructions, you can see our guide on how to delete a WordPress theme.

If changing the theme or deactivating plugins didn’t resolve the issue, then continue reading.

5. Check Your WordPress Settings

Your website may also experience downtime due to incorrect WordPress configuration settings. Most commonly, your site may be using the wrong WordPress address.

First, you will need to check if your WordPress address and site address are the same.

The WordPress address is where your WordPress files and folders are stored. By contrast, the site address points to the part of your website that visitors see and interact with.

If you have access to the WordPress admin dashboard, then just visit the Settings » General page from the admin sidebar.

From here, make sure that the ‘WordPress Address’ and ‘Site Address’ boxes have the same URL.

Check your WordPress and site address from the WordPress admin

However, if you don’t have access to the WordPress admin, then you can check your site URLs by editing the wp-config.php file.

For more detailed instructions, you can check out our tutorial on how to change your WordPress site URLs.

Permalinks are the permanent URLs for posts and pages on your website.

Your permalinks can break due to installing or updating a particular theme or plugin. Additionally, migrating your website to a new server or domain can also break your permalinks and cause your site to go down.

In this case, you can regenerate your site’s permalinks by going to Settings » Permalinks from the admin sidebar. Here, make sure that you have the right permalink structure selected.

Next, you simply need to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom to repair the broken permalinks.

Check Permalinks

If this method doesn’t work, we recommend checking out our tutorial on how to regenerate permalinks in WordPress for other solutions.

If your website is still down after repairing its permalinks, then you will need to continue reading.

7. Try Reuploading the WordPress Core Files

Updating the core WordPress software can also cause downtime due to changes or corruption of the core files. When this happens, important system files for your website cannot be accessed.

To fix this problem, you can try reuploading the /wp-admin/ and /wp-includes/ folders from a fresh WordPress install.

Note: This method will not remove any information or content from your site, but it may fix a corrupted core file.

First, you’ll need to visit the WordPress.org website and click the ‘Download & Extend’ menu link, followed by ‘Get WordPress’. Next, click the blue ‘Download WordPress’ button to download the .zip folder to your computer.

How to download WordPress

Next, you’ll need to extract the zip file and find the ‘wordpress’ folder inside of it.

After that, connect to your website using an FTP client. Once you have made the connection, head to the root folder of your website. It is typically called ‘public_html’ and it contains the wp-admin, wp-includes, and wp-content folders, along with other files.

Open the WordPress folder on your computer in the left column. Then, select all of its files and hit ‘Upload’ to transfer them to your website.

Upload core WordPress files

The FTP client will now transfer these folders to your server.

Next, it will ask if you would like to overwrite the files. You need to simply check the ‘Overwrite’ option and then select ‘Always use this action.’

Overwrite WordPress core files

Finally, hit the ‘OK’ button. Your older WordPress files will now be replaced with fresh copies.

If replacing corrupted files doesn’t solve the problem, then you need to move to the next step.

8. Install a Firewall on Your Website

Your WordPress website might also be down due to malware or DDoS attacks.

During a DDoS attack, a hacker sends a large amount of data requests to your WordPress hosting server. This causes the server to slow down and eventually crash.

Similarly, malware is software that injects itself into your WordPress files. It uses up your WordPress server resources by attacking other websites or generating spam.

Luckily, you can easily prevent DDoS attacks and malware by using a web application firewall.

The firewall acts as an filter between your website and incoming traffic. It identifies and blocks all suspicious requests before they reach your server.

We recommend using Sucuri because it is the best WordPress security plugin with a website firewall.

It runs on a DNS level and catches DDoS attacks before they can even make a request to your website.

Sucuri Website Application Firewall

However, if you are looking for a free solution, then we recommend using Cloudflare instead.

You may want to read our article on Sucuri vs Cloudflare for a detailed comparison.

For better website protection, you will also need to use security best practices on your WordPress website. For more details, see our complete WordPress security guide with step-by-step instructions on how to secure your site.

9. Move to a Reliable WordPress Hosting Plan

Finally, if you have tried all the steps above and your website keeps going down, then it might be time to move to a reliable WordPress hosting provider.

If you have a small business or blog, then we recommend moving to Bluehost or Hostinger.

If you run an online store, then SiteGround is the go-to hosting provider because it comes with a managed EDD hosting plan. This enables you to launch a ready-to-go eCommerce store.

Alternatively, if you have a rapidly growing business, then you should consider switching to a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine.

Once you have chosen a provider, you will need to move your website to the new host.

Most hosting companies offer a free migration service that allows you to migrate your website without downtime.

You can also move your website on your own. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our tutorial on how to move WordPress to a new host or server.

We hope this article helped you learn what to do if your WordPress website keeps going down. You may also want to see our article on the best email marketing services compared and our tutorial on how to get a free SSL certificate for your website.

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

The post 9 Things to Do if Your WordPress Site Keeps Going Down first appeared on WPBeginner.

14 Best Ways to Use OpenAI on Your WordPress Website

Are you wondering how to use OpenAI and ChatGPT on your WordPress website?

OpenAI can help with everything from generating meta descriptions for your posts to writing email sales copy. You can use OpenAI on your WordPress site to save time, cut costs, improve your SEO and workflows, and grow your business!

In this article, we will show you 14 of the best ways to use OpenAI on your WordPress website.

The best ways to use OpenAI on your WordPress website

A (Brief) Introduction to OpenAI

You have probably heard the terms “OpenAI” and “ChatGPT” used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly the same.

OpenAI is the research laboratory (read: a group of very smart people) behind the chatbot ChatGPT and the deep-learning, image-generating model DALL-E 2, among other AI-powered products.

OpenAI homepage

The team over at OpenAI created ChatGPT which is an AI assistant to help streamline your workflows and save you time.

It can write email newsletters for you, suggest blog post ideas, do keyword research, automate your workflows, and so much more.

To improve your WordPress website workflows with artificial intelligence, you will first need to create an account with OpenAI. Getting signed up is FREE. All you will need is an email and a password.

We also recommend reading our guide on the best ChatGPT prompts for bloggers, marketers, and social media, so that you can interact with the program more easily.

With that in mind, let’s look at 14 ways to use OpenAI on your WordPress website.

1. Generate Titles and Meta Descriptions with AIOSEO

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best SEO plugin for WordPress, and it just got an AI-powered boost. After adding your keywords to your blog posts, let AIOSEO and OpenAI further optimize your content for search engines.

The first step is installing AIOSEO. Please see our guide on how to install WordPress plugins.

Then, from within the WordPress post editor, you can tell OpenAI to generate titles and meta descriptions that best fit your content with the click of a button.

Simply go to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ at the bottom of your page and find the ‘Post Title’ box.

The AIOSEO OpenAI post title generator
Next, you need to click on the robot icon. If you hover your mouse over it, you will be able to see a ‘Use AI Generator’ message.

Now, you can see 5 post title suggestions. Simply click on the ‘+’ icon next to one to use it for your post.

AIOSEO OpenAi SEO post title suggestions

If you don’t like any of the suggestions, you can also click ‘Generate New Titles’ to see new ones.

Then, simply repeat the same steps by clicking on the robot icon in the ‘Meta Description’ box. AIOSEO will then suggest a few meta descriptions for your post.

Plus, connecting your OpenAI account to your AIOSEO account is as easy as copying and pasting an API key. You can check out AIOSEO’s documentation for more details.

2. Generate Ad Copy and Product Descriptions

Due to GPT-3’s talent for SEO, it is probably no surprise that it can handle more of your content creation needs. You can use OpenAI to create short, effective ad copy that matches your brand or long-form product descriptions for your WooCommerce store.

For example, we prompted ChatGPT to describe the need for running shoes using the “problem-agitate-solve” framework.

Creating a product description with ChatGPT

Simply edit the text to match your preferred sentence structure, include your keywords, throw in some on-brand and product-specific language, and then watch your sales increase!

3. Generate Blog Post Ideas

If you are anything like us, then coming up with content ideas for your WordPress blog can be time consuming. Fortunately, OpenAI runs on one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

So, you can ask it to come up with ideas for new content on your blog.

In our previous examples, we used OpenAI to help with tasks by inputting prompts directly into ChatGPT.

In our next few examples, we will look at how to integrate OpenAI directly into your WordPress workflow, truly leveraging the power of automation and AI to save time and resources.

Uncanny Automator is one of the best automation plugins for WordPress, and it enables you to connect OpenAI to your WordPress site in many useful and interesting ways.

For this example, we will use OpenAI with Uncanny Automator to generate ideas for new content based on a user’s form submission. Then, we will automatically send OpenAI’s response to your content management spreadsheet or database, like Google Sheets or Airtable, for the whole team to access.

If you don’t already have Uncanny Automator, you can download the Automator plugin for FREE to try on your WordPress site.

Once you have downloaded Automator, you will need to connect Automator to OpenAI. Then we will build the automation recipe below.

Automator and OpenAI content ideation recipe

First, you need to create a new form using a contact form plugin like WPForms. From your WordPress admin sidebar, navigate to WPForms » Add New.

Then, create a new contact form and make sure to add two number fields labeled ‘Temperature’ and ‘Maximum length’, and one single line text field labeled ‘Open AI Prompt’.

WPForms OpenAI prompt

Now, you must head to Automator » Add New. In the pop-up window that appears, simply select ‘Logged-in users’, followed by ‘Confirm’.

Automator logged-in recipe

Next, give your new recipe a title that makes it easy to recognize. For example, we have named our recipe ‘OpenAI Content Ideation’.

In the ‘Triggers’ panel, you need to select ‘WPForms’. From the drop-down list that appears, select ‘A user submits a form’ and choose the WPForms form that you just made. When you are finished, just click ‘Save’.

WPForms Automator trigger

After that, in the ‘Actions’ panel, you have to select ‘OpenAI’.

From the drop-down list that appears, choose ‘Use a prompt to generate text with the Davinci model’.

Use a prompt to generate text with the Davinci model

In the Actions section, map the fields from the WPForms form to the Temperature, Length, and Prompt fields in the OpenAI action.

To do this, click the ‘*’ icon to the right of each field to choose the correct token associated with the trigger.

How to use WPForms tokens with OpenAI prompts using Automator

When you are finished, simply click Save.

To send the blog post ideas to an external spreadsheet, you will need to add a second Action. To do this, click ‘Add action’ in the ‘Actions’ panel.

Add recipe action with Automator

From the menu of available integrations, simply choose Google Sheets.

Then, from the drop-down list, select ‘Create a row in a Google Sheet’.

Create a row in a Google Sheet with OpenAI

In the editor, you must select your content management spreadsheet. Then, click ‘Get columns’ and add the OpenAI Response token to the appropriate column(s).

Make sure to click ‘Save’ when you are done.

Add response token to Automator recipe

Finally, in the top right corner, toggle your recipe from ‘Draft’ to ‘Live.’

Now, whenever you enter information into your blog post idea generator form, Automator will tell OpenAI to suggest new content ideas and send them to your Google Sheets spreadsheet.

Make the Automator recipe live.

In our example, we entered “Give me 5 fun blog posts on pediatric dentistry” into the WPForms form.

Then, OpenAI generated a response, and Automator added it to the worksheet in the recipe.

OpenAI topic ideas

4. Perform Sentiment Analysis

There is no way of knowing if AI has any feelings of its own. If we had to guess, we would say that it probably doesn’t. At least, not yet. But that doesn’t mean that it cannot understand human emotions.

You can use OpenAI to perform sentiment analysis by asking it to interpret the mood of your customers’ feedback.

OpenAI sentiment analysis

But how can you use this with your WordPress website?

Maybe your contact forms are connected to a help desk plugin, and you want to assign priority based on the message urgency.

Alternatively, maybe you want to automatically approve positive blog comments. You could even quickly identify negative feedback in surveys powered by your favorite WordPress form plugin.

In both cases, you will be able to address negative feedback quicker, keep your customers happier, and improve your online reputation.

5. Automate Customer Support with Intelligent Sentiment Analysis

Now that you know how to use OpenAI to perform sentiment analysis, you can easily add it to your workflows. By combining OpenAI’s emotional intelligence with Uncanny Automator’s efficiency, you will be able to create a seamless customer support system.

For this example, you will need the pro version of Uncanny Automator so that you can add conditional actions to the automation.

Let’s put together an Automator recipe that creates tickets in our customer support plugin whenever a customer reviews a product.

First, we have OpenAI perform sentiment analysis on the reviews as they come in.

Then, using Automator’s Filters feature, we create tasks with different priority levels based on OpenAI’s assessment of the customer’s sentiment.

In this recipe, if OpenAI decides that a new WooCommerce product review is negative, then it creates a new help desk ticket in FluentCRM and adds an Urgent tag.

How to tag a negative support ticket with OpenAI and Automator

If you are ready to take things to the next level, you could even use the submission to create a draft reply for the ticket.

Just add an extra OpenAI action to generate a draft reply, then include that response as the ticket draft.

This works best with the GPT-3.5-Turbo model because you can use Automator to also send context. For example, you can tell it to answer the prompt as a helpful support agent from your website.

6. Create Event Summaries, Recap Podcast Episodes, and Take Meeting Minutes

Running special events on your WordPress website is easy with WordPress calendar plugins. Unfortunately, not every customer of yours can save the date.

After all, we cannot do everything and be everywhere all at once, but OpenAI can.

If your customers missed the big day, OpenAI can create event summaries for you. You can even choose the length and format of the summary you want OpenAI to make.

For example, we asked ChatGPT to create a 100-word summary of an October 2008 IMF town hall. In less than one minute, ChatGPT turned the 1,500-word opening remarks into a 100-word summary.

ChatGPT text summary

Alternatively, maybe you are trying to grow your podcast audience. To help your listeners who don’t have two hours a day to consume media, you can use OpenAI to recap your podcast episodes, hitting all of the highlights.

Using transcripts, we asked ChatGPT to summarize the first 15 minutes of a popular podcast.

Podcast summary from OpenAI

Finally, some conference call tools, like Zoom and Google Meet, allow users to record their meetings with audio transcripts. You can then feed those transcripts into OpenAI and create meeting summaries in just a few seconds.

7. Draft Blog Posts (and Seamlessly Integrate Them Into Your Workflows)

For content writers (including us), few things are more stressful than a blank page. Thankfully, artificial intelligence is the sledgehammer that can break through any writer’s block.

Using one of our blog post ideas from our previous recipe, we told OpenAI to draft a blog post for us.

In this Automator recipe, a form submission (the trigger) tells OpenAI to draft a new blog post. Then, it messages the writer in Slack to let them know the draft is ready for them.

Generate a post with OpenAI

From your WordPress admin sidebar, simply go to WPForms » Add New.

Then, create a new form with at least two number fields labeled ‘Temperature’ and ‘Maximum length.’ You will also need two single-line text fields labeled ‘Title’ and ‘Open AI Prompt’.

WPForms OpenAI blog post draft

Next, you must go to Automator » Add New. In the pop-up window that appears, select ‘Logged-in users’. Then, simply give your new recipe a title like ‘OpenAI Blog Post Draft’.

In the ‘Triggers’ panel, you need to select ‘WPForms’ From the drop-down list that appears, you must choose ‘A user submits a form’ and pick the form you just created.

OpenAI blog post generator

When you are finished, make sure to click ‘Save’.

Moving on, in the ‘Actions’ panel, you must select ‘OpenAI’. From the drop-down list that appears, choose ‘Use a prompt to generate text with the Davinci model’.

In the editor, fill in the fields using the tokens from your form’s fields that match the fields in the editor. When you are finished, just click ‘Save.’

How to use WPForms tokens with OpenAI prompts using Automator

Now, it is time to set up an automatic blog post that will be created with the OpenAI content.

In the ‘Actions’ panel, simply click ‘Add action’. Then, from the menu of available integrations, select ‘WordPress’.

Automator WordPress integration

Next, from the drop-down list, hit ‘Create a post’. In the editor, you must fill in the ‘Title’ field with the Title token from your form and enter the OpenAI Response token into the ‘Content’ field.

Then, make sure to click ‘Save’.

Create a post using Automator and OpenAI

Optional: You can also add a ClickUp action to your recipe to create a task with the post URL in the description.

Additionally, you can include a Slack action to notify your content writer that a new task and draft post is waiting for their review.

Send a direct message to a Slack user

Finally, in the top right corner, toggle your recipe from ‘Draft’ to ‘Live’.

In our WPForms form, we then asked OpenAI to ‘Write a casual blog post on three ways to make dental visits fun for kids.’

And here is the draft that Automator created with OpenAI’s response.

OpenAI blog post

We call that the anti- writer’s block recipe! You can also use AI to generate your SEO title, write a meta description, and even set up a featured image.

8. Draft Emails in Minutes

Writing carefully-worded emails takes time. Unless, of course, OpenAI is writing them for you.

Whether you are sending out an internal notice, responding to a customer’s questions, or reaching out to prospective clients, OpenAI can draft your email in seconds. After that, it is just a matter of proofreading and including specific information.

We prompted ChatGPT to “write a 300-word marketing email promoting a Black Friday sale on limited edition clothing.” Less than 30 seconds later, we had an email that we could easily customize to suit our branding and needs.

ChatGPT Black Friday marketing email

If you pair OpenAI with customer relationship management (CRM) apps, you will be drafting emails faster than your SMTP server can send them!

9. Create Blog Post Summaries for Social Media

Promoting your blog posts on social media is important. However, sometimes, writing the appropriate character-length tweets and captions can be even more challenging than creating a whole article.

With OpenAI and Automator, you won’t have to stress about the perfect hashtags.

Here is an example of an action that takes a new blog post and sends it to OpenAI to generate a summary that can be shared on Twitter:

Create a post summary for Twitter

Automator will send that summary, complete with hashtags, to our WhatsApp account. There, we can review, edit, copy, and then paste the content into our social media accounts when we are ready to publish it.

For a post on connecting ChatGPT to LearnDash, OpenAI wrote this summary:

Embrace the robot revolution and use OpenAI and LearnDash to create the e-learning platform of your dreams. #AI revolution is here! Harness the power of AI for your #elearning platform w/ OpenAI & ChatGPT models. Automate content creation, create course outlines & answer students’ questions. Save time & money w/ Uncanny Automator! #LearnDash #NolejAI #RobotRevolution.

You could even extend your recipe to make Automator post the summary straight to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.

OpenAI social sharing

10. Generate AI Images for Your Posts or Landing Pages

Are you tired of scrolling through stock photography databases trying to find the perfect image for your blog post? Or finding a picture and then realizing that every other article with your keywords is using the same image?

Fortunately, OpenAI’s image generator DALL-E 2 can create original images from descriptive plain text.

OpenAI’s Content Policy and Terms give you all of the rights to the images that you create with DALL-E 2, “including the right to reprint, sell, and merchandise.”

Using our original WPForms form with an added field for an image prompt, we used Automator to create a draft blog post complete with a featured image.

Generate AI images with Automator

Here is that same blog post about dental visits with a featured image created by DALL-E.

As you can see, it has a fun graphic with a tooth, toothpaste, and different toothbrushes.

To make the process even easier, whenever you tell DALL-E to create an image using Uncanny Automator, Automator will add the image to your WordPress media library, with no hotlinking necessary.

11. Create Course Outlines in Your LMS

OpenAI is smart. After all, “intelligence” is in the name.

With Uncanny Automator and a learning management system (LMS) like LearnDash, you can be just as smart as AI. Or, at least, you can create outlines for courses that will make you as smart as AI (if you do your assigned reading).

We asked OpenAI to create an advanced 8-week course outline on supercomputers, which, funnily enough, is kind of like an OpenAI autobiography.

OpenAI course outline

Once you have your course outline, don’t forget to use AIOSEO’s OpenAI integration to write your meta description.

12. Create Lessons in Your LMS

Using a similar Uncanny Automator recipe to the previous one, you can easily fill in the course outline that you created with OpenAI-generated content.

Automator recipe for an OpenAI lesson

We used OpenAI’s response from our previous recipe to help us create this lesson.

Here is the first part of it.

ChatGPT lesson on supercomputers

With the right prompts, you can also create a recipe that generates unique images for your lessons and uploads them automatically to your WordPress media library.

Using Automator tokens, you can also set your new DALL-E 2 generated image as the featured image for your lesson or include it somewhere in the lesson itself.

OpenAI supercomputer lesson with DALL-E image

13. Create a Chatbot

As a natural language processor, OpenAI loves to talk. You can use this feature to communicate with customers in your online store or business website.

This can help you target users who are having problems on your site or want to learn more about your products and services.

With the right recipe, you can actually turn OpenAI into a chatbot on your WordPress website. You can read this guide on how to create an AI-powered chatbot with OpenAI and Automator.

14. Have Fun! Write Short Stories, Poems or Cook Up Recipes

Once you have fully integrated OpenAI and Uncanny Automator into your workflows, you will have enough time to do the things that really matter like growing your business or spending more quality time with family.

Playing around with OpenAI and trying out new things is a great way to learn how to create better prompts that get the results you are looking for, so you can continue to save time and optimize your workflows.

OpenAI and WordPress plugin development are in the super early stages right now, and there is so much more in the works. We will be sharing more details and updates in this guide in the coming months.

We hope this article helped you find some ways to use OpenAI on your WordPress website. You may also want to see our guide on the best AI chatbots software for your website, or how to create an email newsletter to connect with visitors after they leave your website.

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

The post 14 Best Ways to Use OpenAI on Your WordPress Website first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Create an Author Website in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to create an author website?

Making an author website allows you to connect with your readers directly and grow your personal brand to sell more books, create online communities, sell premium courses, find more speaking gigs, and more.

In this article, we’ll show you how you can easily create an author’s website in WordPress without hiring a developer.

Creating an author website in WordPress

Following is the list of topics that we’ll cover in this guide.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Why Build An Author’s Website?

Many authors rely heavily on promoting their works on social media platforms or through their publisher’s website/marketing channels.

However, at the end of the day, you don’t own any social media platform. The social media followers you gather would instantly disappear if your profile gets blocked by those websites.

The best way to promote your books or build a personal brand is by making a website.

Author website - Stephen King

First of all, you own your website, so no one can block you from it.

You can still build a social media following, but we highly recommend also building your email list. This way, you can have direct communication with your followers without relying on a third-party platform.

Lastly, having your own website gives you much more flexibility in how you earn an income. You can promote your books and other writings, build an online subscription-based community, and more.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily make an author’s website without any coding knowledge or special technical skills.

What Do You Need to Build an Author Website?

First, you need to choose the right website building platform for creating your author’s website.

We recommend using WordPress.org. It is the best website builder on the market and powers over 43% of all websites on the internet. Countless authors around the world including many #1 New York Times bestseller authors use WordPress for their websites.

Now keep in mind that when we say WordPress, we are talking about WordPress.org and not WordPress.com which is a website hosting company.

For more details, see our guide on the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

To make an author website in WordPress, you’ll need the following items:

  1. A domain name (e.g. wpbeginner.com). This will be your website’s address and what your users will type in their browser to reach your website.
  2. A website hosting account. This is where all your website files will be stored.

Usually, a domain costs around $14.99 per year, and website hosting plans start at $7.99 per month (often paid annually).

Luckily, the team at Bluehost has agreed to offer WPBeginner users a free domain name with a generous 60% discount on hosting. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.

Bluehost is one of the biggest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.

If your budget allows you to spend a little more on premium hosting, then you can check out SiteGround or WP Engine.

Need more hosting recommendations? See our comparison of the top WordPress hosting companies.

Getting Started with Your Author Site

Once you have signed up for a WordPress hosting account, the next step is to install WordPress.

Now if you signed up with Bluehost, then they would automatically install WordPress for you.

Simply log in to your hosting account dashboard, and you’ll see a button to log in to WordPress.

Login to WordPress

For other hosting companies, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install WordPress.

After that, you’ll reach your WordPress dashboard. It would look something like this:

WordPress dashboard

Examples of Author Websites (For Inspiration & Ideas)

Before you start working on your own author website, it’s a good idea to set some goals for what you want it to look like and what features you want to add.

The beauty of WordPress is that you can add just about every type of feature on your site since there are over 59,000 free plugins available (more on this later).

Following are a few examples of author websites that we really like. You can take a look at them to get ideas for your own website.

1. James Clear

James Clear - Author website example

James Clear is the author of the #1 New York Times best-selling book Atomic Habits.

His website features a clean minimalist design with an email capture form as the main call to action.

2. Lisa Gardner

Lisa Gardner

Popular fiction author Lisa Gardner’s website showcases primarily her work and drives traffic to online retailers where users can purchase more of her books.

It has a slider at the top and also has a prominent email newsletter signup form right below that.

3. Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert - Author website example

This author website example prominently displays Elizabeth Gilbert’s books with links to online retailers where users can buy those books.

On top, it links to different sections neatly highlighted with icons.

4. Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek - Author website example

Simon is the author of the popular ‘Start with Why‘ book, and his website has multiple monetization options tied together.

It features books, a podcast, online courses, an online store, and more.

5. Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell - Author website example

Malcolm Gladwell’s author website features a minimalist design with the latest book showcased prominently on the front page.

His menu also features a podcast.

Choosing a Theme for Your Author Site

Now that you have some ideas on how you want to structure your author’s website, it is time to choose a design.

Option 1. Choose a WordPress Theme for Authors

WordPress uses themes to control the display of your website. A typical WordPress theme contains several templates for different parts of a website.

There are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes available that you can use to build an author’s website. However, this abundance also makes it harder for beginners to figure out which design would work best for them.

To make it easier, we have compiled a list of the best WordPress themes for authors.

Choose a theme for your author website

We recommend starting with a minimalist theme with a clean layout and lots of empty space. This makes your website looks clean and more professional.

Option 2. Using SeedProd’s Drag and Drop Page Builder

WordPress themes are incredibly easy to use. However, sometimes you may want the ability to just create your custom website design.

This is where SeedProd comes in. It is the best WordPress page builder plugin on the market and allows you to create any kind of layout you need with drag & drop (no coding needed).

Building an author website using SeedProd page builder

SeedProd comes with an intuitive page builder where you can simply point and click to edit any item or drag and drop items to create your own layouts.

It is theme agnostic, which means it works regardless of which WordPress theme you are using.

Editing pages in SeedProd

You can even create a custom WordPress theme without any coding and then edit it using the same easy-to-use interface.

Setting Up Your Website Layout and Pages

WordPress comes with two commonly used content types called posts and pages.

Posts are part of a blog and displayed in reverse chronological order, with most recent posts at the top. On the other hand, pages are used for more static content. You can see other author websites to get an idea about which pages you need to create.

Typically, websites made for authors have the following essential pages:

  • Home page – This is the front page that users will see if they enter your domain name.
  • Blog page – This is where you can post regular updates, news, articles, and more.
  • About / Bio – An about page provides a detailed introduction of the author with biographical information, awards, achievements, and more.
  • Contact Page – A simple page with a contact form and other ways to reach out to the author.

There could be other pages as well, depending on how you want to run your author website. For instance, if you have an online store where you sell merchandise, then you may want to add a shop page.

For more details, see our article on important pages for any type of WordPress website.

To create a new page in WordPress, simply head over to Pages » Add New. From here you can provide a title for your page and then add the content.

Add new page

WordPress comes with a powerful block editor where each content item is added as a block. See our tutorial on how to use the WordPress editor to create beautiful content layouts for your pages.

Alternately, you can also use SeedProd to create custom page layouts for your website.

Once you have added a few pages, you would want to add them to the top navigation bar of your website.

You can simply go to Appearance » Menus page to create a new menu. After that, add the pages you just created from the left column to your menu.

Add navigation menu

Don’t forget to click on the Save Menu button to store your changes. For more details, see our tutorial on how to add navigation menus in WordPress.

Navigation menu displayed

Selling Books on Your Author’s Website

As an author, you would want to prominently showcase your books across your website.

WordPress makes it super easy.

You can simply create a page called Books and add your book cover images with buttons to buy them on Amazon, or any other online store where your books are available.

Creating a books page

You can also display your newest book on the front page of your website with a call to action button that take users to an online retailer.

For step-by-step instructions, you can see our guides on how to add and align images and how to add buttons in WordPress.

Promoting a single book

If you are currently only selling ebooks as digital downloads, then you can check out our tutorial on how to sell ebooks in WordPress.

Promoting Your Author Website

Now that your author website is all set up, the next big step is to promote it.

This not only helps you sell more books but also establishes your author name as a brand.

Following are some essential tips used by almost all authors to promote their websites.

1. Start Your Email Newsletter

Start your online newsletter

Not everyone visiting your website is going to buy your books right away. Plus, most people want to hear the latest news from their favorite authors.

An email newsletter is the easiest way to reach out to your readers and potential readers on a regular basis.

WordPress works with all top email marketing services. We recommend using Constant Contact as the most beginner-friendly email service on the market.

For more details, see our tutorial on how to start your newsletter.

Having a large subscriber base helps you negotiate better book contracts in the future.

2. Grow Your Email List Quickly

Email popup example

Now simply creating a newsletter and adding a plain sign-up form to your website is not enough to grow your email list quickly.

You need to actively promote your newsletter across your website and nudge users to sign up.

The best tool for this is OptinMonster. It is the industry-leading conversion optimization software that allows you to convert website visitors into subscribers and customers.

OptinMonster comes with tools like lightbox popups, slide-in popups, header & footer banners, countdown timers, and more. All of them allow you to capture more emails and grow your newsletter.

Header email banner

Need more tricks? See our tips on quickly growing your email list.

3. Optimize WordPress SEO for Author Website

SEO or search engine optimization helps you bring more free traffic to your website from search engines.

For that, you need All in One SEO for WordPress. It is the best WordPress SEO plugin and allows you to easily optimize your website without any technical knowledge.

The best part is that it comes with schema markup, which tells search engines that your website represents a person with your photo.

Person schema

Apart from that, All in One SEO will also monitor your site’s SEO score and will make recommendations to improve it.

For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to properly set up All in One SEO for WordPress.

5. Add Contact Forms

Your author website is not only the place to promote your books, it is also the place to generate business opportunities, get reader feedback, and establish your brand.

Adding a contact form to your website is the best way for all these users to quickly send you a message.

For this, you’ll need WPForms. It is the best WordPress contact form plugin on the market and comes with a simple drag and drop form builder.

Contact form builder

WPForms comes with features like entry management, user surveys, real-time polls, instant notifications, form templates, and spam protection.

6. Sell Online Courses and Subscriptions

Many authors particularly in self-help, health & nutrition, and business categories are now offering online courses and exclusive members-only content on their websites.

This helps them add another revenue stream apart from selling books.

If you want to add that to your website, then you’ll need to install and activate MemberPress.

MemberPress to sell online courses and subscriptions

MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin that allows you to easily sell subscriptions, restrict content to paid users, and sell online courses.

You can easily accept online payments, set up recurring payments, add course content, set up drip content rules, and more.

For complete details, see our guide on how to build a membership website or see our tutorial on selling online courses for beginners.

7. Track User Activity on Your Author Site

Now that you have set up your website and started promoting it, you would want to keep an eye on how your site is performing.

You can easily track your website statistics with MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and helps you easily install Google Analytics.

MonsterInsights shows easy-to-understand reports inside your WordPress dashboard. This gives you a clear picture of where your users are coming from and what they are doing on your website.

MonsterInsights reports

It also helps you track conversions for your forms, buttons, eCommerce, and more.

This way you can tweak your website to boost conversions and get more people to sign up for your newsletter, buy books, or join your membership program.

Need more suggestions, see our complete pick of the essential WordPress plugins for all sort of websites.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create an author website in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how much does it cost to build a WordPress website, or see our expert comparison of the best virtual business phone number apps.

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

The post How to Create an Author Website in WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.

6 Best Patreon Alternatives to Monetize Your Audience in 2022

Are you looking for a Patreon alternative to make more money from your YouTube and other social channels?

Patreon is a popular crowdfunding platform that helps content creators monetize their work. Fans can subscribe and pay a regular fee to support their favorite artist or creator. However, Patreon may not be the right platform for many people due to fees and censorship issues.

In this article, we’ll share the best Patreon alternatives to monetize your audience.

Best Patreon alternatives to monetize audience

Why Do You Need a Patreon Alternative?

Patreon provides a platform for vloggers, musicians, writers, journalists, podcasters, and other creators to generate a consistent income stream from their content, but it has several big shortcomings.

First, it’s hard to create your own brand since there are over 6 million monthly active users on Patreon. You’ll compete with other creators in your niche, and it can be challenging to make your content discoverable for new users. Not to mention, you get limited tools to promote your content.

Then there is an issue of censorship. Patreon’s content restrictions can be strict for people in particular niches, as political content creators faced crackdowns in the past. As a result, their fan base reduced dramatically.

Lastly, the fee charged by Patreon can be a big turn-off for some content creators. For instance, it charges a flat 5%, 8%, and 12% on top of the payment processing fee on your monthly income on Patreon, depending on the pricing tier you’re subscribed to.

Creators just don’t need another tax on their earnings.

This is why many power users switch away to Patreon alternative like WordPress because it’s more powerful, and it gives you full control.

Let’s look at why you should use WordPress as a Patreon alternative.

What Makes WordPress a Great Alternative to Patreon?

WordPress is a popular website builder powering more than 43% of all the websites on the internet, and it’s free to use. You might think that starting a website from scratch is a lot of work and takes too much time, but that’s not the case anymore.

You can create a WordPress website of any type in no time using a drag and drop website builder like SeedProd, which requires no coding at all.

WordPress comes with over 59,000+ free plugins that you can use to maximize your earnings, grow your traffic, get more followers, and build an email subscriber base that can never be taken away from.

Another benefit of using WordPress is that it offers more control over your content than Patreon. You’ll be protected from changes in terms of service and don’t have to worry about losing your fan base due to content restrictions.

With WordPress, you can even offer different payment options on your site and make money online without worrying about paying a portion of your earnings to Patreon.

Here’s what you’ll need the following to create your WordPress website:

  1. A domain name. This will be the address of your online store (e.g. wpbeginner.com).
  2. A WordPress hosting account. This is where your website files will be stored.
  3. An SSL certificate. This allows you to securely accept payments online.

Normally, web hosting costs $7.99 per month, a domain name starts at $14.99 per year, and an SSL certificate costs around $69.99 per year.

This can be a big investment when you’re just starting out.

Luckily, Bluehost has agreed to offer our readers a big 60% discount on web hosting, plus a free domain name and SSL certificate. 

Bluehost

Basically, you can get started for as low as $2.75 per month. 

Simply click on the Bluehost button below, and the discount will automatically be applied.

That said, let’s look at some WordPress tools and plugins that you can use as Patreon alternatives.

1. MemberPress

MemberPress

MemberPress is the best membership plugin for WordPress and it is super easy to use. It lets you create a membership website and have full control over who can access your premium content.

It’s a great alternative to Patreon because the plugin lets you set up multiple membership tiers and enables you to restrict access to any premium content based on the user’s membership level. You can even use the plugin to create a video membership website in WordPress.

Besides that, it comes with a powerful course builder. You can create and sell online courses using MemberPress. They also have a content drip feature that allows members to see the content after they’ve completed a certain course or been a member for a particular time.

Another advantage of using MemberPress is that it easily integrates with popular payment providers like Stripe and PayPal, and all the best email marketing services.

2. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is one of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress and lets you sell digital products.

If you’re an artist, musician, writer, developer, or any other content creator that sells digital products like music, ebooks, PDF files, videos, premium software licenses, and more, then Easy Digital Downloads is the perfect Patreon alternative for you.

Using the plugin, you can manage and sell files with ease. It has a built-in shopping cart system that makes it effortless for users to purchase your digital products.

You can also track the download activity of your customers inside the WordPress dashboard and get reports to see how your downloads are performing.

Note: There’s also a free version of Easy Digital Downloads that you can install in WordPress. Alternatively, you can use SiteGround’s EDD hosting which comes with WordPress and EDD pre-installed.

3. WooCommerce

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the best eCommerce plugin in the market, and you can use it create an online store in no time.

Using WooCommerce, you can sell digital and physical products. It’s excellent for content creators that want to sell merchandise to their fans. Plus, it offers an inventory management feature that helps you keep track of how many products you have available for purchase.

There are also tons of WooCommerce plugins and extensions to help you grow your website. Many website themes for WooCommerce are also available, so you can design an online store just the way you want.

You can even design a custom WordPress theme using a compatible drag and drop builder like SeedProd.

WooCommerce also supports popular payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal. Other than that, the plugin offers extensive documentation, community forums, and support to help you out.

4. WP Simple Pay

WP simple pay homepage

WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payment plugin for WordPress. As a content creator, you can monetize your site by adding a payment button using the plugin, and there’s no need to set up a shopping cart.

Simply add the payment option to your site to let your fans support you. Using the plugin, you can easily accept credit card payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH payments, iDEAL, and more.

You can even set up different subscriptions for recurring payments, just like Patreon only with much lower fees.

WP Simple Pay also helps in collecting donations. You also get an option to set up discount coupon codes, allow users to subscribe or pay one-time, add free trials, and more.

Note: There’s a free version of WP Simple Pay plugin available that you can use as well.

5. Blubrry

Blubrry

Blubrry is one of the best WordPress podcast hosting services in the market. It’s a perfect Patreon alternative for podcasters who want more control over their content.

You can create a podcast website in no time with Blubrry. Another advantage is that you can easily distribute your podcast to popular platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazin Music, TuneIn, iHeart Radio, Pandora, and more.

Blubrry comes with a powerful podcast plugin called PowerPress that lets you manage your podcast files in WordPress. Blubrry also has a large community of podcasters, and you can easily find forums to learn from other experienced and successful podcasters.

6. WP Crowdfunding

WP Crowdfunding

WP Crowdfunding is a powerful WordPress fundraising plugin that you can use as a Patreon alternative to create a fundraising site like GoFundMe and Kickstarter.

The plugin is based on WooCommerce and allows you to raise funds for your creative project. Its native wallet system helps keep track of all the funds you’ve raised.

WP Crowdfunding also easily integrates with payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, Skrill, and more. The plugin is super easy to use and offers a beginner-friendly user interface.

Which is the Best Pateron Alternative?

After carefully evaluating all the popular Patreon alternatives, we believe the top Pateron alternative is MemberPress. It lets you restrict premium content, sell courses, and offers a comprehensive set of features.

Easy Digital Downloads is a close second.

If you’re just looking to accept simple one-time or recurring payments from subscribers, then you can also use WP Simple Pay or their free version.

We hope that this article helped you find the best Patreon alternative to monetize your audience. You may also want to see our guides on how to choose the best blogging platform and the most important reasons why you should use WordPress.

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

The post 6 Best Patreon Alternatives to Monetize Your Audience in 2022 first appeared on WPBeginner.

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