Webflow vs WordPress – Which One is Better? (Comparison)
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 23, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Are you comparing Webflow vs WordPress and wondering which one is better for you? Webflow and WordPress are both popular website builders that allow you to easily create a website. However, they both have their own pros and cons that you may want to compare before starting your next project. In this article, we’ll compare Webflow vs WordPress with their pros and cons to figure out which one is better. What to Look for in Website Platform Before we compare Webflow vs WordPress, let’s talk about the main things you should be looking for when choosing a website builder for your project. These will also be the parameters we will use for our WordPress vs Webflow comparison. You can click on any of them to jump directly to the relevant section. Overview – An introduction of WordPress and Webflow Ease of Use – How easy it is to learn using them for an absolute newcomer. Costs – How much does it cost to start a website. Design and templates – What are your web design options Ecommerce – Can you use it to sell things online Addons & Integrations – Can you extend the platform’s functionality with addons and third-party tools Support – Can you get help quickly and easily when you need it? Note: This comparison is between Webflow and self-hosted WordPress.org (not Webflow vs WordPress.com). See our guide on the differences between self-hosted WordPress.org vs WordPress.com. Overview – Webflow vs WordPress Webflow and WordPress are both website building platforms. WordPress has been around for more than 17 years now and is wildly popular among developers, designers, marketers, bloggers, and businesses. Webflow was launched in 2013 and has been steadily growing in numbers since then. Offering a visual and fully hosted WordPress alternative to designers and general users. WordPress overview WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world. It powers more than 38% of all websites on the internet. WordPress is free and open-source software, which means anyone can download and use it to make a blog, business website, online store, and more. To start a WordPress website, you need a domain name and a web hosting account. There are many great WordPress hosting providers that offer 1-click WordPress installation and super easy setup. Webflow overview Webflow is an easy to use website builder that offers a visual web design tool to make your website. It is a hosted software, which means you use the software as a service. They make money by offering paid features, upgrades, and selling hosting services. You can make a Webflow account and connect it to your domain name. You can also download your website and host it on any other hosting platform. Now that we have talked about both platforms. Let’s see how they stack up against each other. 1. Ease of Use Most users starting a website are not programmers or coders. They need an easy to use platform that they can use without hiring developers or paying someone to help. Let’s see how Webflow vs WordPress perform in this regard. WordPress – Ease of Use WordPress is used by more than 38% of all websites on the internet. That’s millions of users from every corner of the world and at different skill levels. It is fairly easy to use. However, it does come with a slight learning curve. Beginners will need to familiarize themselves with WordPress glossary and concepts such as themes, plugins, the difference between posts vs pages, categories vs tags, and more. Adding content to your website is fairly easy. WordPress comes with an intuitive visual editor called the block editor. You get to make your pages and customize content using blocks. This allows you to make beautiful layouts without ever writing any code. Don’t like the default WordPress editor? No worries, there are plenty of drag and drop page builders that you can use instead. These page builders are available as add-ons (also known as: plugins) that you can install and most have free versions. You can start with a ready-made template and change it to fit your need, or you can start from scratch and make your own design. WordPress comes with thousands of free templates and over 57,000 plugins that help you do just about everything you need without writing any code. Webflow – Ease of Use Webflow offers a clean nifty dashboard to manage your website. It comes with a visual interface to design your content. You can write your content and design layouts with a live preview. Webflow comes with different templates that you can use for your project and edit them using their visual editor. The Webflow visual editor has a ton of features, and beginners may struggle a bit to find their way around it. You can point and click on any element to change its properties. You can also add new elements using the add new element button from the left panel. Webflow is made for designers and developers. If you are a content publisher, then you may miss features that are quite common among other CMS platforms like post types, categories and tags, discussion and comments, etc. Winner – WordPress Both Webflow and WordPress offer a point and click editor. Ready to get started templates and layouts. Webflow’s default editor is easier to use, but it still has the same learning curve associated with WordPress. On the other hand, WordPress is extensible so you can replace the default editor with a page builder that suits your need. Webflow’s CMS capabilities are also not the same as WordPress. There are fewer options to add tags and categories to your content types, no native comments feature, and the design elements just get in your way if you just want to write. This makes it a bit difficult to use for content publishers. Costs – Webflow vs WordPress For most users, the cost of building a website is a major factor in choosing a platform. If you are just starting an online business, then you may want to keep your costs down as much as possible with the intention to invest more as your business grows. Let’s compare the costs of building a website with Webflow and WordPress and what are your options to keep the costs down. WordPress – Costs WordPress the software itself is free, but you’ll need to pay for a domain name and hosting. You’ll also be paying for any premium plugins, themes, or any third party service you may need for your business. Normally, a domain name costs $14.99 per year and website hosting packages start from $7.99 per month (usually paid annually). Now that’s not cheap if you are just starting out and testing the waters. Luckily, Bluehost has agreed to offer WPBeginner users a free domain name with a generous discount on hosting. Basically, you can get started for just $2.75 per month. → Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ← Bluehost is one of the top WordPress hosting companies and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider. WordPress also has the advantage of a massive ecosystem. There are more than 57,000 free plugins available in WordPress.org plugin directory alone and thousands of free themes to choose from. This allows you to keep your costs down as you build your site using free plugins and themes. Even most premium WordPress plugins and themes have free versions that you can use without paying anything. For more on this topic, see our guide on the cost of building a WordPress site. It has a detailed break down of different scenarios with practical tips to keep your costs down without affecting functionality or missing anything. Webflow – Costs Webflow offers a limited free version that allows you to make your website and host it using a subdomain with Webflow branding. They have two types of paid plans the Site Plans and Account Plans. Site Plans are priced per site, allow you to use your own domain name (domain price not included), and are priced based on the type of site you want to make. They are divided into Basic, CMS, Business, and Enterprise levels. Each level increases your account limits and adds new features. Site Plans also has an additional category of Ecommerce Plans which allow you to create online stores and are again further divided into multiple levels. Site plans start from $16 per month, eCommerce plans start from $29 per month. You’ll be billed annually, and if you choose to pay month-to-month that would cost you extra. Then there are the Account Plans. These allow you to manage multiple websites as projects, you can host them with Webflow, or download the code and host them elsewhere. However, things like forms and eCommerce checkout may not work if you export the site code. Account plans start from $16 per month (billed annually). Winner – WordPress Using WordPress, you get all the features at much lower costs. You can add any additional features by using free plugins. You can even create an online store without additional costs. Of course, your WordPress website costs will grow as your website gets more traffic, but you can hold it off and allow your business to take off before you upgrade hosting, or buy premium addons for your website. Design and Templates – Webflow vs WordPress Not everyone making a website is a designer. As a beginner, you may use the design tools, but the end result may not be as good as a professionally designed website. Let’s see how WordPress and Webflow handle design and templates to make things easier for users. WordPress – Design and Templates WordPress gives you access to thousands of WordPress themes (website design templates). Many of them are completely free to use and most of them are mobile-friendly out of the box. You can start with any of these professionally designed WordPress themes to make your website. You can change your website’s theme at any time and switch to a different theme. They are easy to use and you can customize them within WordPress using a live customizer. Unlike Webflow, WordPress keeps design elements separate from content. This ensures that design is consistent throughout your website. You can also use a theme and then use a page builder plugin to create landing pages. These page builders also come with professionally designed templates that you can make your own. Can’t find a theme that you like? Don’t worry, you can even use tools like Beaver Themer to make your own templates and themes without ever writing any code. Webflow – Design and Templates Webflow has dozens of paid and free templates that you can use. All of them are mobile responsive and can be used for different types of websites. You can select a template when starting a new project. However, once you select a template you cannot change it. You can create a new project and then select a different template. Editing your templates is easy. Webflow is a visual design tool, so it comes with a powerful visual editor to change any element on any page of your website. Any changes you make to the layout elements like header, navigation, and footer will be applied sitewide. Winner – WordPress By keeping the content and functionality away from the design, WordPress is able to offer a lot more flexibility than Webflow. It also gives users access to a wider variety of designs and tools to edit a website’s appearance. Ecommerce – Webflow vs WordPress Ecommerce features allow you to sell things online. It is essential for many businesses to have a robust eCommerce platform to grow and run their business. Let’s see how WordPress and Webflow handle eCommerce. WordPress – Ecommerce You need WordPress to use the most popular eCommerce platform in the world, WooCommerce. This free WordPress plugin is used by millions of large and small online stores around the world. WooCommerce also comes with its own WooCommerce addons / plugins which help you easily add new features to your online store. You also get access to hundreds of WooCommerce themes to choose a design for your eCommerce website. With WooCommerce you also get to choose from a wide range of payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net, and dozens WordPress also has several other eCommerce and shopping cart plugins that you can use. You can sell digital subscriptions using MemberPress, or software downloads with Easy Digital Downloads. Webflow – Ecommerce Webflow offers limited eCommerce functionality when compared with options available for WordPress. The number of products you can sell depends on your plan (starting from eCommerce Standard plan at $29 per month for 500 products). They use Stripe as the payment service. With the Standard plan, Webflow will also charge a 2% fee per transaction which is apart from the Stripe’s transaction fees. Adding products to your site is easy. You simply fill out a form to provide product details, images, and other options. Webflow is not suitable to sell membership or subscription-based products. It can be used to sell digital goods like software, apps, music, ebooks, and more. Winner – WordPress WordPress has a more flexible platform to sell anything you want. It has more payment options, addons, and no restrictions on how many products you add. You can use WooCommerce or any other eCommerce plugin to get started. You also have the freedom to move your store to any other hosting service without breaking anything. Webflow is more expensive, charges a transaction fee (on the standard plan), limits the number of products, and there are fewer features / integrations available. Addons and Integrations It is simply not possible for any website builder to include everything. That’s why you need the ability to extend it using third-party tools and integrations. Let’s take a look at how WordPress and Webflow handle that. WordPress – Addons & Integrations The real power of WordPress comes from WordPress plugins. These are like apps for your WordPress website. You can simply install them to add new features to your website. There are more than 57,000 free WordPress plugins available. Even more if you count premium plugins (paid). They cover a range of features such as creating contact forms, installing Google Analytics, adding SEO features, backups, security, and more. WordPress works with all popular third-party services and tools that you may need to grow your business. Whether you are looking for an email marketing service, live chat software, help desk, or a business phone service, WordPress works seamlessly with all popular providers. Webflow – Addons & Integrations Webflow offers a limited number of integrations with third party services. Some integrations work out of the box, but for most integrations, you’ll have to follow a tutorial on how to connect it with your Webflow project. Some integrations may break if you move your website to a different hosting service. For instance, forms may not work on your new hosting provider and you’ll need to troubleshoot and find ways to get them to work again. Winner – WordPress WordPress is the clear winner here with support for thousands of plugins and third-party tools and services. Support – Webflow vs WordPress Even expert web developers need help occasionally. Let’s take a look at the support options available for Webflow vs WordPress. WordPress – Support WordPress is a community driven open-source software with lots of free community support available. There are official WordPress support forums, resource sites like WPBeginner, Facebook groups like WPBeginner Engage, and more. Normally, you can find answers to all your WordPress related questions with a simple Google search. You can follow step by step WordPress guides or watch WordPress video tutorials if you need more visual help. If you need more help, then you can find and easily hire a developer to fix things for you. Due to the popularity of WordPress, there are thousands of developers that make it super-easy and affordable for small businesses to get help when needed. For more details see our guide on how to make the most out of WPBeginner’s free resources or how to properly ask for WordPress support and get it. Webflow – Support Webflow hosts a massive library of articles and tutorials called Webflow University. There are video tutorials, how-to guides, and step by step articles covering a wide range of topics. Webflow also provides email-based support to customers which is available Monday through Friday from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm PT. They do have an AI driven chatbot but it doesn’t really offer live chat support. There is also a Webflow support forum where you can post your question and get help from Webflow users, experts, and staff. Winner – WordPress As the largest platform in the world, WordPress has more support options available. Support is available in many languages, provided by third-party developers, and there are a ton of free support options. Considering the premium pricing of their paid plans, Webflow support services are limited to email support. Many of the shared WordPress hosting companies offer live chat and 24/7 phone support for much less monthly fees. Conclusion: Webflow vs WordPress – Which is Better? Considering the criteria we set above, we can confidently say that WordPress is a way better option than Webflow. It offers more design options, flexibility, support, eCommerce options, and all of this at a lower price. You also have the option to manage your costs and only spend when needed. Webflow has a fantastic web design tool which works beautifully. However, it has limited CMS features, flexibility, integrations, and support. We hope this article helped you compare Webflow vs WordPress with their pros and cons. You may also want to see our article debunking the common WordPress myths and check out how WordPress works behind the scenes (infographic). 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 Webflow vs WordPress – Which One is Better? (Comparison) appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
23. Sep 2020
How to Use New Pinterest Features to Improve Your Marketing
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 23, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Want a better return on your Pinterest marketing efforts? Are you using all of the Pinterest features available to you? In this article, you’ll discover how to use three valuable Pinterest features to enhance the customer journey. Explore the Newest Pinterest Board Features First, let’s uncover how to use these features to optimize your Pinterest […] The post How to Use New Pinterest Features to Improve Your Marketing appeared first on Social Media Examiner | Social Media Marketing. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
23. Sep 2020
How to Use Facebook Groups to Keep Customers: 5 Ways
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 22, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Looking for a way to increase customer retention? Are your customers using Facebook? In this article, you’ll discover how to strategically use a Facebook group to nurture customer relationships. Why Repeat Customers Are the Most Valuable Customers Attracting new customers for your business can be a costly exercise, but once you’ve converted them, they become […] The post How to Use Facebook Groups to Keep Customers: 5 Ways appeared first on Social Media Examiner | Social Media Marketing. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
22. Sep 2020
How to Show Personalized Content to Different Users in WordPress
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 22, 2020 5:00 am on WP Beginner: Do you want to show different content to different users in WordPress? Sometimes you may want to show custom content to users from specific locations, on specific dates, or other conditions. Website personalization is not available in WordPress out of the box. However there are easy drag & drop tools that can make life easy. In this article, we’ll show you how to easily show different content to different users based on specific conditions with dynamic text replacement, content personalization, and more. Why Show Different Content to Users in WordPress? Normally, when you publish content on your WordPress website, it just becomes available to everyone. What if you wanted to show a different version of the content to specific users? For instance, you may want to offer free shipping to customers in a specific geographic location, or show different content to users coming from a particular landing page. One way to deal with this is by making a membership site and restricting access to content based on a user’s profile. But not everyone wants to require user login to offer personalization. That’s where WordPress website personalization solutions can help. You can use smart conditions to add content personalization on your blogs, product personalization on your online store, and dynamic text replacement on your landing pages. These conditions can include specific user interactions, their geographic location, time of day, specific pages they’re visiting, specific traffic referrer source, past behavior, and more. That being said let’s take a look at how to show different content to different users in WordPress. Method 1. Showing Different Content to Users Using OptinMonster (Website Personalization Made Easy) OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization tool on the market. It comes with powerful targeting rules which allow you to show personalized campaigns to users based on a large set of display rules. This method is recommended for all users because it gives you the ability to design your content and comes with more powerful targeting rules. It also works with your existing integrations and third-party apps. First, you’ll need to sign up for an OptinMonster account. It is a paid tool and you’ll need at least Pro or Growth plan to access all targeting features. Next, you need to install the OptinMonster plugin on your WordPress site. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Upon activation, you need to click on the OptinMonster menu in the WordPress admin sidebar. Next, you need to click on the ‘Connect Your Account’ button to connect your WordPress site to your OptinMonster account. Design The Content You Want to Show to the Users Once connected, you need to click on the ‘Create New Campaign’ button at the top. This will take you to the OptinMonster website where you will be asked to choose a campaign type and template. OptinMonster offers different campaign types that you can use to show various types of content or targeted messages to your users. This includes lightbox popups, floating bar, fullscreen, inline widget, slide in, and gamified campaigns. For instance, if you want to show dynamic content inside a WordPress post or page, then you can choose the Inline campaign type. Each campaign type has dozens of templates to choose from. Simply click to select and use a template. After that, you will be asked to enter a name for this campaign and select or add the website where it will run. Next, you’ll enter the OptinMonster’s campaign builder interface. It is a drag and drop tool where you can design your campaign with a live preview. Simply click on an element in the preview to edit it or add a new element from the left panel. OptinMonster also connects with all top email marketing services so you can show an email sign up form. While the software was initially designed to help you get more email subscribers, it has now evolved into a full-featured conversion optimization suite. You can use the campaign builder to create modals and campaigns to add any type of content such as a coupon code, free shipping offer, smart product recommendations, or anything you want. Once you are done with the design of your campaign, you can click on the Save button at the top to store your changes. You can always edit your design and change it to match your display rules. We will show you a few design examples tailored for different display scenarios in the next step. Setting up Display Rules for Campaign This is the part where you set up the display rules to decide when to show your campaign. Inside the OptinMonster builder interface, switch to the ‘Display Rules’ tab. It allows you to create smart rule sets, and choose from a ton of targeting options. First, you need to choose the conditions to match. There are plenty of options here. Let’s take a brief look a each one of them. 1. Time based Triggers These triggers allow you to set display rules based on time or date. You can show your campaign content at the specific date, time, or day of the week. These triggers allow you to show custom messages designed for specific dates and times. For instance, you can show a flash sale coupon on holidays or display a message on special events. 2. Targetting Users Matching Specific Criteria The targeting section allows you to set display rules based on smart recognition technology. For instance, you can show campaign to users coming from a specific website, referral, landing page, or Geographic location. You can also target based on cookies, ad blocker, and JavaScript variables. As an independent publisher, you may want to ask visitors to support you by disabling the adblock software. You can show a message only to the users with AdBlock software installed. Another great usage is to give special offers to visitors coming from a specific URL. For instance, you may want to offer an exclusive discount to users coming from an affiliate partner website. 3. Personalization Targeting OptinMonster allows you to set personalized display rules based on user behavior. You can show custom campaigns to new user, returning visitor, device targeting, users who have already converted, not converted, have seen another campaign, visited a page, and more. You can also use OptinMonster’s smart tags feature to display a user’s name, location, and more to show them even more personalized content. This allows you to tailor the content to specific users. Here’s another example of how smart tags work: 4. Ecommerce Display Rules These triggers are made specifically to boost conversions on eCommerce websites. You can show content to users based on their shopping behavior. OptinMonster supports WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify eCommerce platforms. Ecommerce targeting allows you to show content based on what products users are viewing, number of products in cart, total cart amount, and more. Bonus: Need more help to reduce cart abandonment on your online store? See our tips on how to recover abandoned cart sales in WooCommerce for some more ideas. Once you select a condition, you will then be asked to select what to look for. For instance, if you choose a geographic location, then you will be asked to select locations that need to be matched. After setting up your condition, you can validate it to make sure it is set up correctly and then click on the ‘Next Step’ button. Next, you will be asked to select the campaign view. Depending on your campaign you can choose from the optin view (the main campaign), success view, or Yes/No view. Click on the next step button to continue. You’ll now see a summary of your display rule set. If you want you can add more rules or simply click on the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your changes. Publish Your Content and Add it to Your Website OptinMonster also makes it super easy to display campaigns on your website. Simply switch to the publish tab inside the builder and toggle the Status button to ‘Live’. Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your changes. You can now go back to your WordPress site and visit OptinMonster » Campaigns page. You’ll see your new campaign listed there (if not, then click on the Refresh campaign button to reload). Simply click on the ‘Go Live’ link to start displaying your campaign. You can now test it by visiting your website while matching the conditions you set in the display rules. For instance, if you set the condition that a user must be visiting from a specific website, then you’ll need to visit your site by clicking on a link on that referral website. Tip: Clear your WordPress cache and browser cache to make sure you don’t load a cached page. You may also want to use the Incognito mode in your browser to mimic the behavior of a new user. OptinMonster’s display rules give you a lot of powerful options to show different content to users in WordPress without modifying your templates and code. Essentially, it lets you leverage additional digital real estate on your site to increase your sales and conversions. With their A/B testing technology, you can easily test and improve your campaigns to drive better results. A lot of customers use OptinMonster alongside powerful A/B testing tools like Optimizely, Google Optimize, and more. Method 2. Showing Different Content to Users using a Plugin This method is recommended if you want to change the entire content of a post or page in WordPress or show different variations of the same content to your users. First, you need to install and activate the If-So Dynamic Content plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Upon activation, you need to visit If-So » All Triggers page and click on the ‘Add New’ button. This will bring you to the page where you can create a trigger and add the content. First, you have a box where you can select a condition. The plugin offers a number of conditions based on time, date, URL, geographic location, IP address, and more. After choosing the trigger, you can add the content that you want to show to the users when that condition is matched. Below that, you can add another version and use another set of rules to display different content. Lastly, you’ll see the default content area. This is the content that you want to show the users who don’t qualify the conditions you set above. Once you are finished, don’t forget to publish your trigger and copy the shortcode shown on the screen. You can now edit the post or page and add the shortcode in your content where you want to display the trigger. You can now save and publish your post or page. After that, go ahead and visit your website to see the trigger in action. If you match the required conditions, then you’ll see the message you set for those conditions. Otherwise, you’ll see the default message you added for the trigger. We hope this article helped you learn how to easily show different content to different users in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to track conversions on your WordPress site like a pro, and our list of the best marketing automation tools for small businesses. If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook. The post How to Show Personalized Content to Different Users in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
22. Sep 2020
How to Copy and Paste in WordPress without Formatting Issues
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 21, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Recently, a reader asked us how to copy and paste items into WordPress without causing formatting issues? Often when you are copying and pasting content from a desktop app or a web page, you end up pasting unwanted formatting too. This does not match your WordPress theme’s fonts and colors which simply looks odd. In this article, we’ll share how to easily copy and paste into WordPress without any unwanted formatting and styles. Understanding Copying and Pasting in WordPress Copying and pasting means copying text from one place to another without needing to type it all out again. To copy text from a document or webpage, you need to highlight it using your mouse. Then, simply right-click and select ‘Copy’ from the menu. Or, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C (Command+C on a Mac) to copy the highlighted text. To paste text into WordPress, you can right-click and select ‘Paste’ from the menu. Or, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V (Command+V on a Mac) to paste the copied text: When you copy text, the formatting of the text is copied with it. The problem is that sometimes you will end up with formatting that you don’t want. This unwanted formatting can affect how your text displays on other devices. Some WordPress users choose to avoid copying and pasting altogether. Instead, they draft their posts straight into their WordPress site. However, you may prefer to draft using a separate tool, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. This lets you work offline and can make it easier to share your work for comments and revisions before publication. It’s also important to avoid adding unnecessary formatting because it impacts your page size which means slower site speed. That’s why we have created this ultimate guide on how to properly copy & paste text in WordPress. You can use the links to jump straight to the sections you need: How to Copy and Paste from Word to WordPress (Block Editor) Copying text from Microsoft WordPress is quite straight forward. For years, WordPress has allowed you to copy rich (formatted) text from Word documents straight into the editor. This is a big advantage if you like to write and format your posts in Microsoft Word. Copying your post from Word into WordPress lets you keep elements like headings, bold and italic text, links, and lists. It will discard any styling options like colors, spacing, etc. Here is a document that we’re going to copy from Word into WordPress: This document is formatted with two Heading 2 subheadings for subsections of the post. There is bold and italic text, a bulleted list, and a link. We will simply copy all the content from Word document and paste it inside the WordPress block editor. Note that some formatting has not been copied over. The image has been left out, but WordPress has created an image block in the correct place. Tip: Always use the ‘Heading styles’ in Word to create your subheadings. Don’t highlight the text and increase the font size manually. Want to confirm that your text has copied over correctly? Just follow our instructions later in this article on checking for and fixing formatting errors. How to Copy and Paste from Google Docs to WordPress (Block Editor) Google Docs is a very popular word processing tool. Just like with Word, it’s easy to copy and paste from Google Docs into the WordPress block editor. Here is our piece of text in Google Docs. It’s identical to the piece we used in Word, above. When we copy and paste the text from Google Docs to WordPress, again, WordPress has formatted the text correctly. This time, the image has also been uploaded to WordPress too. Copying and Pasting Using the Classic Editor Are you having trouble with formatting errors after copying and pasting text into WordPress? Then you are likely using the old classic editor. The classic editor handles Word documents well and shouldn’t add any unnecessary code. However, it doesn’t do such a good job with the text copied from Google Docs. Here’s how our text from Google Docs looks when pasting it into the classic editor: The headings, link, bold, and italic text all look correct. However, some unnecessary extra formatting has been added that isn’t visible. How to Check and Fix Copy and Paste Formatting Errors Let’s take a look at how to check for and fix formatting errors now. All the text in your WordPress posts is formatted using HTML (hypertext markup language). HTML tags go around the words that are formatted in a particular way. For instance, bold text in WordPress posts looks like this in HTML code: There is <strong>bold text</strong> in this sentence. The words ‘bold text’ will appear in bold. To check for and fix formatting errors after copying and pasting, you need to check the HTML code for your post. Checking the HTML Code in the Block Editor In the block editor, it’s easy to view the HTML code of any block. First, click on the block. Then, click the three vertical dots to the right of the block’s menu. You will see a dropdown menu. Here, you just need to click the ‘Edit as HTML’ option: You will now see the HTML code for the block. With the block editor, you should normally find that no unwanted formatting has been added. Here, the paragraph correctly begins with the opening <p> tag and ends with the closing </p> tag. The sentence in bold is also correct. It begins at the <strong> tag and ends with the closing </strong> tag. To switch back to the normal view of your block, simply click the three vertical dots again. Then, go ahead and select the ‘Edit visually’ option. Checking the HTML Code in the Classic Editor In the classic editor, it’s easy to view the HTML code of a post by clicking on the ‘Text’ tab at the top of the box containing the text of the post. This is the HTML code for our post copied from Google Docs: The span tags here are extra, unnecessary code. Also, the bold text and italic text are formatted using the <b> tag instead of <strong> and the <i> tag instead of <em>. It is generally considered best to use the <strong> and <em> tags as these give your words semantic meaning, not just visual styling. By comparison, here is the code produced when copying from Word instead of Google Docs in the classic editor. There are no unnecessary formatting tags and the bold and italics have been correctly rendered. If you’ve copied your post from Google docs, you will need to go through the HTML code and manually correct the formatting. In this case, that means: Removing all the <span style="font-weight: 400;"> and </span> tags. Changing all the <li style="font-weight: 400;"> to just <li>. Changing <b> and </b> to <strong> and </strong>. Changing <i> and </i> to <em> and </em>. To speed up the process, you first need to copy and paste the HTML code into a text editor. Then, simply use Find and Replace to change incorrect formatting. Here’s an example using notepad. We are finding all instances of <li style="font-weight: 400;"> and replacing them with <li>: Once you’ve replaced all the incorrect formatting, simply copy and paste the text back into the Text view of the classic editor. Copying and Pasting Plain Text Plain text is text without any formatting. To avoid any possibility of incorrect formatting, you may prefer to copy and paste plain text. This is also a very useful option if you’re copying a section of text from another website. For instance, you might include a quote from someone else in your content. Copying and Pasting Plain Text in the Block Editor The WordPress block editor doesn’t have a button or option to paste plain text. However, it’s easy to do this yourself. The quickest method is to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V (PC) or Command+Shift+V (Mac) to paste your text. This will automatically paste in plain text format. Alternatively, some browsers offer the option to paste as plain text. If you’re using Google Chrome, simply right click and select the ‘Paste as plain text’ option: Both of these methods will work to paste plain text in a single paragraph block. Copying and Pasting Plain Text in the Classic Editor To paste plain text into the classic editor, first click the Toolbar Toggle button: Now, you just need to click the ‘Paste as text’ icon. It looks like a clipboard with the letter T on it: Any text that you paste will now be pasted in plain text mode, with the formatting removed. Here’s how that looks when we paste the text from our Google doc. The headings, bold, italics, bullet points, and link have all been removed: Pro Tip: Copy, Paste, and Clone Entire WordPress Sites While the above beginner’s guide show you the basic of copy and pasting, WordPress also offers many advanced copy, paste, and cloning features. For example, you can easily clone an entire WordPress site in 7 easy steps. There’s also a way to create a duplicate WordPress page or post with a single click. If you’re using the block editor, then you can also create re-usable blocks that you can use across multiple posts. We hope this article helped you learn how to copy and paste into WordPress. You might also like our tips on mastering the WordPress content editor, and our expert pick of the must have WordPress plugins for all websites. If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
21. Sep 2020
How to Manage Instagram From Your Computer
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 21, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
21. Sep 2020
7 Best Twitter Plugins for WordPress in 2020 (Compared)
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 18, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Are you looking for the best Twitter plugins for WordPress? Perhaps you want to include your recent tweets on your site or encourage visitors to share your content. In this article, we’ll share the best Twitter plugins for WordPress that will help you grow your Twitter followers and engagement. 1. Smash Balloon Custom Twitter Feeds Pro Smash Balloon Custom Twitter Feeds Pro is the best Twitter plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily embed your recent tweets in WordPress. It comes with various layout choices and customization options which gives you different ways to display tweets onn your site. You can add Tweets from not just your account, but any public account, hashtag, and keyword. You can even combine multiple accounts and keywords to create smart Twitter feeds. It supports the default WordPress editor and you can add your feed using a simple block. There is also an easy to use sidebar widget, this allows you to showcase Twitter feeds in non-content areas of your website. There’s a free version of Custom Twitter Feeds available as well with limited features that you can get started with. 2. RafflePress RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market. It lets you set up contests with prizes and you can use these to get more Twitter followers and engagement. RafflePress comes with a built-in campaign template for Twitter. This allows you to instantly launch contest aimed at boosting Twitter engagement. It is incredibly easy to use and comes with a drag and drop contest builder. Simply add the actions you want to include in your contest and then add it to any WordPress post or page. RafflePress is not just limited to Twitter. You can use it to grow your email list, increase Facebook likes, drive traffic and sales to your WooCommerce store, and more. Note: You can use RafflePress Lite (free version) as well to get started with giveaways and contests. 3. Shared Counts Shared Counts is one of the best social sharing plugin for WordPress. Unlike other social sharing buttons, it is designed for speed and performance without compromising features. As the name suggests, it also allows you to display the share count for each social media platform. You can also display the total share count for each article. There are multiple button styles to choose from and you can also select where you want them displayed. It is super easy to use and helps you instantly add social features to your website without compromising website speed. Just check out our step by step guide using on Shared Counts to get started. 4. Social Warfare Social Warfare is another popular plugin to easily social sharing buttons to your website. It gives you control over what people share on Twitter (and other social networks) and how they share it. You can give your posts custom images and titles for Twitter, too. Social Warfare offers multiple button styles and they are all designed to work well on mobile devices. You can style and position them in different ways, too. You can even put the sharing buttons in the middle of an article. There’s a free version of Social Warfare available, which is a good place to start. Upgrading to the Pro version gives you access to more features. 5. Revive Old Posts Revive Old Posts lets you easily share old articles at a pre-defined schedule to your social media profiles. This helps you keep your Twitter timeline active throughout the day without manually scheduling tweets. Once you are done with the setup, it automatically works in the background to share your old posts. You can select a date range, exclude specific categories and tags, and pause it at any time. You can customize what goes out in the tweets, too. For instance, you might want to include a hashtag based on the post’s category or tag. The free version of the plugin works with Twitter and Facebook pages, so you may want to use that to begin with. However, the pro version has some powerful extra features. These include the ability to set custom schedules, use multiple Twitter accounts, and add conversion tracking tags to URLs. 6. Simple Social Icons Simple Social Icons makes it easy to add social media icons to a sidebar widget. These icons have links to your Twitter profile and your other social media profiles. Visitors to your site can then easily find and follow you on their favorite social network. It is quite simple and easy to set up. You have the option to choose the button colors, alignment, and order. It comes with an easy to use widget that you can simply add to your WordPress blog. 7. Better Click to Tweet Better Click to Tweet is a free plugin that lets you add ‘click to tweet’ boxes in your posts. It’s fully compatible with the WordPress block editor. You can use this plugin to highlight specific quotes in your content. Your visitors can then simply click a button to tweet that quote. For more details, see our guide on adding click to tweet boxes in your content. The Better Click to Tweet plugin is free, but it doesn’t have any options to customize the styling of your quotes. You can add custom CSS to change how the quotes look or you can pay for the premium addon, which offers a range of different styles to choose from. We hope this article helped you learn about the best Twitter plugins for WordPress. You might also want to see our list of the best Instagram plugins for WordPress, and our comprehensive guide on increasing your website 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. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
18. Sep 2020
YouTube Video Creation: How to Easily Create Videos That Work
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 18, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
18. Sep 2020
How to Create a Local WordPress Site Using XAMPP
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 17, 2020 3:13 am on WP Beginner: Do you want to create a local WordPress site on your computer using XAMPP? Installing WordPress on your computer helps you try out WordPress, test themes and plugins, and learn WordPress development. In this article, we will show you how to easily create a local WordPress site Using XAMPP. Why Create a Local WordPress Site? Creating local WordPress sites is a common practice among developers and site owners. It allows you to test WordPress without creating an actual website on the internet. Local websites are only visible to you on your computer. You can try different WordPress themes and plugins, test their features, and learn the WordPress basics. If you already have a WordPress website, then you can create a local copy of your website on your computer to try out new plugin updates before implementing them on your live website. Important: Local website will only be visible to you on your computer. If you want to make a live website, then you’ll need a domain name and WordPress hosting. Follow the step by step instructions in our how to start a WordPress blog guide when you are ready to create a live website. Having said that, let’s check out how to install WordPress locally on Windows, Mac, or Linux using XAMPP. What is XAMPP? XAMPP is a software package that includes all things you need to set up a local server environment on your computer. In order to create a local WordPress site, you need to set up a web server software (Apache), PHP, and MySQL on your computer. PHP is a programming language and MySQL is a database management software. Both of them are required to run WordPress. Installing each of them separately is quite difficult for beginners. This is where XAMPP comes in. XAMPP makes it easy for you to build WordPress websites locally. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux based computers. Let’s get started by installing XAMPP and setting it up to run your local WordPress site. Installing XAMPP on Your Computer First, you need to visit the XAMPP website and click on the download button for your operating system. Depending on your operating system, your installation wizard and the application interface may differ from the screenshots here. For the sake of this article, we’ll show you the Windows version of the software. After downloading XAMPP, you will need to click and run the installer. XAMPP will ask where to install the software and which packages you’d like to install. The default settings will work for most users. Keep clicking on the ‘Next’ button to finish the setup wizard. After finishing the wizard, check the ‘start the control panel now’ option and then click on the finish button. This will launch the XAMPP control panel app. Using the XAMPP app, you can run Apache web server as your local server and MySQL as your database server. Go ahead and click on the start button next to both Apache and MySQL. XAMPP will now start Apache and MySQL. You may see a Windows firewall notification, it is important that you click on the ‘Allow Access’ button for both applications to run on your computer. Once both applications are started their names will be highlighted in Green. Now you are ready to create a local website and install WordPress using XAMPP. Creating a Local WordPress Site with XAMPP First, you will need to download WordPress. Visit the WordPress.org website and click on the ‘Download WordPress’ button. After downloading WordPress, you need to extract the zip file, and you will see a wordpress folder. You need to copy this folder. Next, head over to your XAMPP installation folder. On Windows it would be C:/Program Files/XAMPP/htdocs or C:/Xampp/htdocs folder. On Mac, it will be /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs folder. Paste the wordpress folder you copied earlier inside htdocs. We recommend renaming the wordpress folder to websites or anything else. This will help you easily identify your local site. Next, you need to open your favorite web browser and enter the following URL in your browser’s address bar. https://localhost/website1/ If you renamed the WordPress folder something else, then replace website1 with your own folder name. This will load the WordPress installation wizard and you’ll be asked to select a language. After selecting a language, click on the ‘Continue’ button. On the next screen, you will see a notice that WordPress needs a database name, database username, password, and host information. Let’s create a database for your WordPress site. You’ll need to open a new browser tab and visit https://localhost/phpmyadmin/. This will launch the phpMyAdmin app that comes pre-installed with XAMPP. It allows you to easily manage your databases using a simpler interface. You would need to click on Databases, and provide a name for your new database. After that, click on the ‘Create’ button to continue. Now that you have created a database, you can use it for your WordPress site. Switch back to /localhost/website1/ browser tab and click on the ‘Let’s Go’ button. On the next screen, you will be asked to provide your WordPress database information. Enter the database name you created earlier. Your username is ‘root’ and you should leave the password field blank. For the database host field, you need to use localhost. Once you are done, click on the ‘Submit’ button to continue. If you are on Windows or Linux, WordPress will now store these settings in your WordPress configuration file called wp-config.php file. However, if you are on Mac, then it will show you the contents of the file and will ask you to create it. You will need to create this file in your website’s root folder. After creating the file, paste the text you copied earlier inside it. Next, you need to save the file and return back to WordPress installer to continue. In the next step, WordPress will ask you to provide information about your website. First, enter the title you want to use for this site. After that, you need to enter a username, password, and email address for your admin account. Once you have filled all the information, click on the ‘Install WordPress’ button to continue. WordPress will now run the installation and prompt you to log in once it’s done. You can login to your website by going to /localhost/website1/wp-admin page and use the username / password that you entered during installation to login. Things to Try After Creating a Local WordPress Site Now that you have created your local WordPress site using XAMPP, you can work on it like you would do on a live WordPress site. Head over to Appearance menu in WordPress admin sidebar, to customize your site’s appearance or install a new theme. Here are some great free themes that you can try. The next thing you would want to try is WordPress plugins. Plugins are like apps for your WordPress site and allow you to add cool features like contact form, social media buttons, eCommerce store, etc. Need help installing plugins? See our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Bonus: Moving Local WordPress Site to Live Server After working on your local WordPress site you may want to move it to a live server to make your first WordPress blog or website. To do that you’ll need a domain name and web hosting account. Normally, a domain name costs $14.99 and website hosting start from $7.99 per month. That’s too much if you are just starting out. Luckily, Bluehost is offering WPBeginner users a free domain name with generous discount on hosting. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month. → Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ← For more hosting recommendations, take a look at our complete WordPress hosting guide. Once you have signed up for hosting, you can follow our step by step guide on how to move WordPress from local server to live site. We hope this article helped you learn how to create a local WordPress site using XAMPP. You may also want to look at alternate ways to create local WordPress sites on Windows using Wampserver, and on Mac using MAMP. 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. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
17. Sep 2020
Is Instagram Reels Worth Pursuing? Pros and Cons for Marketers
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 16, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
16. Sep 2020
3 New LinkedIn Company Page Features for Marketers
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 15, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
15. Sep 2020
How to Make a Print on Demand Shop in WordPress
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 14, 2020 5:35 am on WP Beginner: Do you want to create a print on demand shop in WordPress? You can use print on demand shop as a new online business idea, or use it to sell t-shirts and other swags to support your existing brand. In this article, we will show you how to make a print on demand shop in WordPress, so you can run an online store without dealing with any inventory or shipping. What is Print on Demand and Why Use It? Print on demand is a manufacturing method where a design is only printed on a product once a customer orders it. This is very similar to dropshipping except the products are custom made for you. It can be used for clothing, bags, homeware, and more. Print on demand isn’t as cost effective as mass production manufacturing methods, but it has some big advantages for small businesses, and it can still be very profitable. With print on demand, you don’t pay anything until a customer pays you which makes it much easier for small businesses to get started. There’s no need to buy inventory upfront, and you don’t need any storage space either. Plus, you can easily experiment with different designs to see which is most popular. There are a few different print on demand companies out there. In this tutorial, we’ll be using Printful. It’s well established and integrates easily with your WordPress site through WooCommerce. As well as printed designs, Printful also offers embroidery for some products, such as baseball caps and backpacks. You can use it to easily sell your custom branded merchandise such as t-shirts, hoodies, shorts, hats, backpacks, bracelets, phone cases, keychains, coffee mugs, blankets, and over 249 products. Creating an Account with Printful to Sell Your Products First, you need to sign up for a free account with Printful. Simply go to the Printful website and click the ‘Start selling’ button: Next, enter your name, email address, and password. You also need to check the box to agree to Printful’s terms and conditions: Printful will ask a few questions about how you plan to use their service. Once you’ve answered these, you will see the Printful dashboard. You will also get an email with a link that you need to click to confirm your email address. You can go ahead and set up your products straight away. Simply go to ‘Product templates’, and then click the ‘New template’ button. Here, you will see a wide range of different templates. Just click on the product you want to use. We’re going to create a basic T-Shirt: If you already have a design for your product, go ahead and drag it here to upload it. For example, you might use your business logo or company slogan. Here’s an example of a T-Shirt using the OptinMonster logo: We’re going to add text and clipart from Printful to create our product. In the mockup generator, you can change the size and color of the text, and you can easily drag it to resize or reposition it. The tabs at the top of the screen let you add designs to other areas of the product, where applicable. Once you’re happy with your design, click the ‘Continue’ button: Now, it’s time to give your template a title and save it. It’s easy to go back and change it if you want to make changes in the future. You can find it by going to the ‘Product templates’ tab again: Go ahead and create as many products as you want. You also need to set up a billing method for Printful. Your customers will pay you through your online store for the product, and Printful will charge you the cost of shipping it. We will show you how to setup your online store in the next step. For now, let’s setup Printful billing. Simply go to Billing » Billing methods in Printful, then click the ‘Add new billing method’ button: Then, you need to enter the details for either your credit card or your PayPal account. Don’t worry, you will not be charged unless you order a shirt from your account. Connecting Printful to Your WordPress Site The next step is to connect your Printful account to your WordPress site. You need to have the WooCommerce plugin installed and activated on your site. If you don’t have an online store yet, then don’t worry. We have a step by step guide on how to start your online store. You’ll need a domain name and web hosting for your store. Domain is your website’s name, and web hosting is where your website files are stored. We recommend using Bluehost. They’re one of the largest hosting providers in the world, and they’re officially recommended by WordPress. They’re offering WPBeginner readers a 60% discount + free domain + free SSL + automatic WooCommerce setup. This means you can get started for $3.95 per month instead of $13.99 regular price. → Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ← Once your online store is setup, you’re ready to connect it to your Printful account. In order to connect Printful to your online store, you need to enable the Legacy REST API feature in WooCommerce. In your WordPress admin area, go to the WooCommerce » Settings page: Next, click on Advanced » Legacy API. Here, you simply need to click the box for ‘Enable the legacy REST API’ then click the ‘Save changes’ button: The next step is to install and activate the Printful Integration for WooCommerce plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Upon activation, go to the Printful tab in your WordPress admin. Then, simply click the ‘Connect’ button: You will be prompted by WooCommerce to approve the connection. Simply click the ‘Approve’ button to continue, then follow the on-screen prompts to connect and confirm your account. Once you’ve done that, you will see a message letting you know that your product data is being synchronized. After a minute or so, your WooCommerce store will be linked. To put your products live in your store, you need to go back to your Printful account. Then, go to the Product Templates tab in your Printful dashboard. Then, click the checkbox above the product you want to add to your store, and click the ‘Add to store’ button. Note: You cannot add two or more products to your store at the same time. You need to go through an approval process for each product. Now, simply follow Printful’s prompts. You will get to select colors and sizes, view the mockup images, and give your product a name and description. The final step is to set the pricing. Printful will automatically suggest prices for you. These are marked up from the price that Printful charges so that you can make a profit on each item: Once you’ve set your prices, simply click the ‘Submit to store’ button to send the product to your WooCommerce store. It will now be live on your site: Go ahead and repeat this process for each product that you want to add to your store. You will then be able to see and edit your Printful products in your WordPress admin by going to Products » All Products: You can create as many products as you like in Printful. You don’t need to pay anything until you get orders. Printful will handle all the production and shipping for you. Here’s our finished online store, with a range of Printful’s products: We hope this article helped you learn how to make a print on demand shop in WordPress. You may also be interested in our articles on the best WooCommerce plugins and best email marketing services to help you get more subscribers and sales. 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 Make a Print on Demand Shop in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
14. Sep 2020
How to Get Higher-Quality Leads From YouTube: 5 Ways
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 14, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
14. Sep 2020
14 Best AI Chatbots Software for Your Website (Compared)
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 11, 2020 6:30 am on WP Beginner: Are you looking for the best chatbot software for your site? Chatbots allow you to free up time by automatically answering common customer questions. They can also be used to generate leads, improve user experience, and make more sales. In this article, we have handpicked the best AI chatbots software for your WordPress site to improve customer experience and boost conversions. 1. ChatBot.com ChatBot allows you to easily make chatbots using their drag and drop chatbot builder. You don’t need to do any coding or have any special technical skills. It even comes with pre-built templates that you can use as a starting point to quickly get your AI ChatBot up and running. These templates include different scenarios like selling products, customer service, recruitment, bookings, and more. ChatBot integrates with your WordPress website and can be used along with top live chat software well as other popular apps that you may be using to grow your business. ChatBot is also a great chatbot for Facebook messenger powered by the same AI-driven software. This gives you a powerful tool to retarget customers on Facebook, collect data, and spend money wisely on Facebook ads. They offer a free 14-day trial (no credit card required) which helps you try it out before choosing a paid plan. Integrating ChatBot within our own businesses is a big priority for us currently. ChatBot is a great tool for us because it lets us seamlessly forward users to our live support teams where needed. Pricing: ChatBot costs from $50 per month, which includes 1 active chatbot and 1000 chats per month. 2. ManyChat ManyChat is a Facebook messenger chatbot builder. With more than 1.3 Billion people using Facebook Messenger, it allows you to have a wider reach and more powerful retargeting options on the Facebook platform. In simpler words, it helps you make sales, decrease cart abandonment, capture leads, and more by using Facebook Messenger. It comes with a simple drag and drop interface which makes it super easy to set up a chatbot for your Facebook page. You can automatically welcome new users, point them to products, schedule messages, respond to specific keywords, and much more. Pricing: ManyChat has a free plan that you can use to get started. This includes basic quick-start templates, 2 drip sequences, and up to 10 tags for audience segmentation. The premium plan has unlimited drip sequences and tags, plus split testing, buy buttons, and more. 3. Freshchat Freshchat allows you to build chatbots for WhatsApp, Messenger, Apple Business Chat, mobile, and web. It is powered by Freddy, their artificial intelligence algorithm. It is designed to detect intent and engage with the customer, rather than simply being intended to free up the time of your live chat agents. Using their machine learning technology, Freshchat can even provide you with a list of customer and prospect questions that need precise or better answers. Pricing: You will need Freshchat’s ‘Forest’ plan for enterprises to use their chatbot. This isn’t cheap, at $69 per user per month when billed monthly. 4. Drift Drift lets you combine live chat and an automated chatbot, like many of the tools on this list. It also integrates with the most popular CRMs and email marketing services. Drift allows you to proactively start conversations with customers that are already engaged with the products or services on your website. It is designed to use conversations for conversions and allows you to create scenarios that help you get more sales. It offers integrations with many third-party tools such as Zendesk, Help Scout, and more. Drift is more suitable for fairly large businesses, and the pricing reflects that. If you’re just starting to make money online, we recommend that you try one of the other tools on our list. Pricing: Drift costs from $400/month billed annually. This includes 5 users. (There is a free plan available too, but that doesn’t have the chatbot features.) 5. Chatfuel Chatfuel is a powerful chatbot platform for Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. You don’t need any coding knowledge or previous experience to use it. Lots of different companies use Chatfuel, including large brands like Adidas, T-Mobile, LEGO, TechCrunch, and more. You can use your bot to increase sales, to qualify leads, or to provide answers to frequently asked questions. This lets you save a lot of time for your customer service team. There is plenty of documentation on the Chatfuel website to help you build a bot easily. This includes advice on how to make sure you follow Facebook’s rules for using a Messenger bot. Pricing: Chatfuel costs from $15/month, with no user limit. There’s also a free plan that offers a fully-featured bot and up to 50 users. 6. MobileMonkey MobileMonkey lets you create bots using their OmniChat™ technology. These bots work in web chat, in Messenger, and even through SMS text messages. This saves you time and money creating different bots using different tools. You can create a single bot and use it across multiple platforms. Your customer service team can easily respond to messages. MobileMonkey has desktop and mobile apps that give you a single inbox to easily monitor and respond to messages from different channels. It also offers integrations with third-party software that you may already be using such as CRM software, email marketing service, webinar provider, and more. Pricing: MobileMonkey costs from $14.25/month, billed annually, for an unlimited number of leads. There’s also a free version with unlimited leads but fewer features. 7. Tars Tars is a tool that lets you create conversational landing pages. Essentially, this means replacing a traditional landing page with a chatbot. It lets you easily qualify leads. Tars is particularly well optimized for mobile users, providing a natural and easy chatbot conversation. Making a chatbot is quite straight forward using Tars. You can either create a conversation workflow from scratch, or you can use a pre-built template. Pricing: Tars costs from $83.25/month, billed annually. There’s no free plan, but you can take a free 14-day trial (no credit card required). 8. Tidio Tidio is a live chat platform powered by chatbots. It allows you to communicate your clients by using web and mobile friendly chatbot, Facebook Messenger chatbot, and more. It comes with an easy dashboard and a mobile app to answer all user inquires at any time from anywhere. You can also use automation as much as you like to answer customer questions and design funnels that lead to conversions. You can use a chatbot template or create your own chatbot scenarios based on keywords and customer behavior on your site. It is easy to use and integrate with your eCommerce platform, email marketing, and help desk software. Pricing: Starting from $18 per month. They have a free plan too but it does not include chatbots. 9. Zendesk Chat Zendesk Chat is part of Zendesk, a popular customer support platform for businesses. It has features that let you handle support tickets, chat live with your customers, and more. You can use automated messages within Zendesk Chat, such as triggering messages based on what your customers are doing. You can also optimize your messages by testing which ones have a high engagement rate. You can even integrate it with other chatbot tools if you want more advanced chatbot features. Pricing: Zendesk Chat costs from $14 per agent per month, when billed annually. You can take a 14 day free trial (no credit card details needed). There’s also a free Lite version, which only lets you have 1 agent and 1 chat at a time. 10. Quriobot Quriobot is a simple chatbot that has a free plan, making it a good option for small companies on a tight budget. Like other chatbot software, it has a simple drag and drop interface. You can either build conversations from scratch or use one of the available templates. You can also create several bots at once. You can adjust Quriobot’s styling to fit your website’s color scheme and you can even add custom CSS if you want to. Quriobot integrates with help desk software such as LiveAgent, if you want a complete solution that gives you a support desk, live chat, and more. Pricing: Quriobot has a generous free plan that allows you up to 500 chats per month, with unlimited bots and organization members. If you want more chats per month, or if you want to remove the Quriobot branding, you need to pay from €9/month. (Quriobot’s pricing is in Euros.) 11. Intercom Intercom is a flexible tool that can be used as a chatbot or for live chat with an agent. You can use it to automate your marketing and to engage users. Intercom’s whole approach is designed to be conversational, to help you build relationships. It’s easy to scale as your business grows, too. With Intercom, you can personalize your chatbot’s interactions with customers. You can filter and target customers based on what they do (or don’t do) and you can group them into segments based on their attributes and behavior. Intercom integrates with email marketing services, Slack, Google Analytics, CRM software, and more. Pricing: Intercom’s Start package costs from $39/month. However, to use the chatbot features, you need at least the Growth plan from $99/month. You can take a free 14 day trial of either of these plans (credit card details are required). 12. SnapEngage SnapEngage is designed to help you with both sales and support. You can use it on your WordPress site. It also integrates with Facebook Messenger, and other popular software. It comes with ready-to-use bots, such as the Info-Capture and the Answer Bot. You can also create custom bots using the custom bot API. If you run a healthcare site, then SnapEngage offers ‘Health Engage’ to provide secure, HIPAA-compliant chatbots, live chat, and SMS messaging. Pricing: SnapEngage costs from $16 per user per month (with a minimum of 3 users), billed annually. Their HealthEngage option costs from $26 per user per month, again with a minimum of 3 users. 13. LivePerson LivePerson offers live chat software, as you might expect from their name. You can also use it to create automated conversation flows using a chatbot. Your chatbots can connect potential buyers to a live agent, send offers based on the customer’s interests, and even schedule appointments or meetings. Customers can also check on their order status, find out their account balance, and get answers to billing or payment questions. As well as integrating with your WordPress site, LivePerson can be used on Facebook, Twitter, and more. Pricing: LivePerson doesn’t provide a standard scale of prices. Instead, you need to contact them for a quote. 14. Ada Ada is a chatbot that can tailor its responses and recommendations based on the customer’s information, intent, and interests. It’s designed to be simple to use, so that your support team can set everything up. There’s no coding involved. You can also integrate Ada with your live chat so that customers can move seamlessly from the chatbot to a live agent. It also integrates with your team calendar to schedule appointments and bookings. Pricing: Ada doesn’t provide prices upfront. Instead, you need to chat with the sales team or request a demo to find out how much it will cost you. Our Pick: Best Chatbot Software For most businesses, we recommend ChatBot.com as the best AI chatbot software because it’s easy to use and comes with pre-made workflows. They also offer many built-in integrations with third-party marketing services, and the pricing is fairly affordable compared to other solutions. If you’re looking for alternatives, then please take a look at FreshChat or Drift. We hope this article helped you learn about the best AI chatbots software for your WordPress site. You might also want to take a look at our guides to the best live chat software and best business phone services for small businesses. If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook. The post 14 Best AI Chatbots Software for Your Website (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
11. Sep 2020
YouTube for Marketing: What Marketers Need to Know
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 11, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
11. Sep 2020
How to Easily Add Custom CSS to Your WordPress Site
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 10, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Sometimes you may find yourself needing to add Custom CSS in your WordPress site. Perhaps it’s because you’re following a tutorial on WPBeginner or our YouTube channel. For most beginners, using FTP is too confusing, but there are other ways to add custom CSS. In this article, we will show you how to easily add custom CSS to your WordPress site without editing any theme files. Video Tutorial If you prefer written tutorials or want to move at your own pace, then continue reading the instructions below. Method 1: Adding Custom CSS Using Theme Customizer Since WordPress 4.7, users can now add custom CSS directly from the WordPress admin area. This is super-easy, and you would be able to see your changes with a live preview instantly. First, you need to head over to the Themes » Customize page. This will launch the WordPress theme customizer interface. You will see your site’s live preview with a bunch of options on the left pane. Click on the Additional CSS tab from the left pane. The tab will slide to show you a simple box where you can add your custom CSS. As soon as you add a valid CSS rule, you will be able to see it applied on your website’s live preview pane. You can continue adding custom CSS code, until you are satisfied with how it looks on your site. Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save & Publish’ button on the top when you are finished. Note: Any custom CSS that you add using theme customizer is only available with that particular theme. If you would like to use it with other themes, then you will need to copy and paste it to your new theme using the same method. Method 2: Adding Custom CSS Using a Plugin The first method only allows you to save custom CSS for the currently active theme. If you change the theme, then you may need to copy and paste your custom CSS to the new theme. If you want your custom CSS to be applied regardless of which WordPress theme you are using, then this method is for you. First thing you need to do is install and activate the Simple Custom CSS plugin. Upon activation simply go to Appearance » Custom CSS and write down or paste your custom CSS. Don’t forget to press the ‘Update Custom CSS’ button to save your changes. You can now view your WordPress website to see the custom CSS in action. Using a Custom CSS plugin vs Adding CSS in Theme Both methods described above are recommended for beginners. Advanced users can also add custom CSS directly to their themes. However, adding custom CSS snippets into your parent theme is not recommended. Your CSS changes will be lost if you accidentally update the theme without saving your custom changes. The best approach is to use a child theme instead. However, many beginners don’t want to create a child theme. Apart from adding custom CSS, often beginners really don’t know how they will be using that child theme. Using a custom CSS plugin allows you to store your custom CSS independently from your theme. This way you can easily switch themes and your custom CSS will still be there. Another great way to add custom CSS to your WordPress site is by using the CSS Hero plugin. This wonderful plugin allows you to edit almost every CSS style on your WordPress site without writing a single line of code. We hope this article helped add custom CSS to your WordPress site. You may also want to see how our guide on how to create a custom WordPress theme without writing any code, and the best WordPress drag & drop page builder plugins. 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 Easily Add Custom CSS to Your WordPress Site appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
10. Sep 2020
How to Create an RSVP Form in WordPress (Easy)
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 9, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Are you planning a big event like a birthday party, fundraiser, or even a wedding? Then you need an easy way to collect RSVPs from your guests. If you run a WordPress website, then you can easily add an RSVP form without writing any code. In this article, we will show you how to create an RSVP form in WordPress to improve your planning. Why Create an RSVP Form in WordPress? Creating an RSVP form on your website can save you hours of time. Normally, guests might reply in lots of different ways to your invitation. They could respond by email, text, phone call, or even by telling you at another event. This can be very difficult to manage. It’s easy to forget who has replied. That’s why it’s always a good idea to create an RSVP form in WordPress. This means everyone will reply in the same way. Even better, the RSVPs will be saved in your WordPress database. Creating Your RSVP Form in WordPress First, you will need to install and active the WPForms plugin for WordPress. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Tip: We recommend using the WPForms’ Pro version or higher. That way, you have access to useful form templates to speed up the process of creating your RSVP form. However, you can use the WPForms lite version to also create the RSVP form. Upon activation, go to WPForms » Addons in your WordPress dashboard: Next, search for the Form Templates addon. Go ahead and click the ‘Install Addon’ button to install it. Now it’s time to create your RSVP form. First, go to the WPForms » Add New page. Here, you need to type in a name for your RSVP form: Below this on the page, you will see the Additional Templates section. Go ahead and type in ‘RSVP’ to see all the RSVP form templates. We are going to use the Party Invitation RSVP Form, which is suitable for any type of party. Once you have selected your template, WPForms will open it up in the drag and drop form builder: Here, you can change anything you like about the form. Simply click on the part of the form you want to change and then edit it on the left hand side. For instance, we are going to click on the ‘Name’ field and change it to the ‘Simple’ format: What if you want to add extra options to the ‘Will you be attending’ field? Just click on it then use the (+) button to add more choices: It’s easy to use the ‘Add Fields’ tab to drag and drop more fields onto your form, too: We have added a ‘Single Line Text’ field to ask about allergies and dietary requirements. Once you’re happy with your form, don’t forget to click the Save button at the top of the screen before moving on. Next, go to the Settings » Notifications page for your form. This lets you control where the RSVPs are sent. Simply change the ‘Send To Email Address’ to the email address you want to use. By default, it goes to {admin_email} which is normally the email address of whoever set up the WordPress site. If you want RSVPs to go to more than one person, follow our instructions to create a form with multiple recipients. You can also change other settings here, such as the subject line of the emails. Next, you may want to change the message that guests will see after submitting the form. To do this, click on the Confirmations tab. Simply delete the existing message and type in the message you want to use instead. Again, don’t forget to click the Save button before exiting your form. Adding Your RSVP Form to a Page in WordPress It’s easy to put your RSVP form on any post or page on your website. You can even add it to your sidebar using the WPForms widget. We are going to create a new page for our form. To do this, just go to Pages » Add New. Then, go ahead and enter any content you want for your page. To add your form, simply click the + icon to add a new block. Then, search for the WPForms block. Once you have added that block to your page, you need to select your RSVP form in the dropdown list: Finally, go ahead and publish or preview your page to see your form on your website: Checking Your Guest List in WordPress Once people have had a chance to RSVP, you will want to construct a guest list. Luckily, WPForms makes this process quick and easy for you. Instead of going through all the notification emails, it’s easy to download the guest list from WordPress (this feature is only available in WPForms pro version). First, go to WPForms » All Forms in your WordPress dashboard. Then, click on the name of your form at the bottom of this page: You will now see a table that summarizes the RSVPs. Just click ‘View’ next to any of these to see the full details. To download the whole guest list, simply click the ‘Export All (CSV)’ button. WPForms will then prompt you to confirm which fields you want to include. By default, all will be checked: Simply scroll down and click the ‘Download Export File’ button: It will now download to your computer as a CSV file. You can be open it in Excel or any spreadsheet program like Google Spreadsheet. We hope this article helped you learn how to create an RSVP form in WordPress. You might also want to see our guide on how to create a professional business email address, and how to create a custom WordPress theme (without writing any code). 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 RSVP Form in WordPress (Easy) appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
9. Sep 2020
How to Drive Local Foot Traffic With Twitter Ads
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 9, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
9. Sep 2020
How to Change Sender Name in Outgoing WordPress Email
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 8, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Do you want to change the default sender name and email address for outgoing WordPress emails? By default, WordPress uses ‘WordPress’ as the sender name for all outgoing WordPress notification emails. This doesn’t look very professional, and you may want to change that to your business name. In this article, we will show you how to easily change the default sender name and email address in outgoing WordPress emails. Why You Should Change the Default Sender Information in WordPress? WordPress sends several email notifications to the site administrator as well as other users on your website. This includes very important email notifications such as forgot password emails, website error and recovery emails, new user registration, and more. By default, it uses ‘WordPress’ as the sender’s name and a non-existent email address (wordpress@yourdomain.com) as the sender email. Many spam filters block your WordPress emails believing it to be spam. Sometimes it does not even make it to the spam folder. For more on this topic, take a look at our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue. The outgoing email notifications are important, and you should use your own brand and email address. This increases the authenticity of your brand and increases name recognition among your users. For instance, if you run an online store, then you would want customers to get email notifications with your store name as the sender. See our guide on how to get a free business email address for your website in 5 minutes. Having said that, let’s see how to change the default sender name and email address in outgoing WordPress email notifications. Method 1. Changing Default Sender Name and Email using WP Mail SMTP This method is easier and recommended for all WordPress users. For this method, we’ll be using the WP Mail SMTP Pro plugin. It is the best WordPress SMTP plugin on the market, used by over 1 million website owners. This plugin allows you to easily change the default sender name and email address for outgoing WordPress emails. It also helps you fix the WordPress email deliverability problem. First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Mail SMTP Pro plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Upon activation, you need to visit WP Mail SMTP » Settings to configure plugin settings. Under the Mail section, you can simply enter the email address and the name you want to use to send WordPress emails. Below that you can find the options to set up an SMTP server to send WordPress emails. By default, the plugin will use PHP method provided by your WordPress hosting company which is less reliable. We recommend using any of the listed SMTP services to properly send WordPress emails for higher guaranteed deliverability. If you choose an SMTP service, then follow the on-screen instructions to connect the plugin with your SMTP service provider. Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Settings’ button to save your changes. Test Your WordPress Emails WP Mail SMTP Pro also allows you to test your WordPress email settings. Simply go to the WP Mail SMTP » Settings page and switch to the ‘Email Test’ tab. From here, you just need to provide an email address that you can access and then click on the ‘Send Email’ button. The plugin will now send a test email to the address you provided. You can check your inbox to make sure that you can receive WordPress emails, and it has the correct sender name and sender email address. WP Mail SMTP works with all popular WordPress plugins like WooCommerce, WPForms, and more. For more detailed instructions, you may want to see our article on how to use SMTP to send WordPress emails. Method 2: Changing Default Sender Name and Email using a CB Change Mail Sender This method is only recommended if you don’t use an SMTP service, or the first method is not working for you. Using this method does not improve your WordPress email deliverability or make it easier to troubleshoot email issues. However, if your WordPress emails are working, then it will allow you to change sender name and email address. First thing you need to do is install and activate the CB Change Mail Sender plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Upon activation, you will notice a new menu item labeled CB Mail Sender in your WordPress admin bar. Clicking on it will take you to plugin’s settings page. You will need to enter the name and email address you want to be used for outgoing WordPress emails. Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings. That’s all, your WordPress notification emails will now show the name and email address you entered in plugin settings. There is no method provided by the plugin to test your email settings. You can do that by performing actions that generate WordPress notification emails like creating a new user, requesting a password reset, and more. Method 3: Manually Change Sender Name and Email Address This method is not recommended for beginners. This method requires you to paste code into your WordPress files. It also does not fix any email deliverability issues and is harder to troubleshoot. If you are new to adding code in WordPress, then take a look at our beginners guide on pasting snippets from web into WordPress. You will need to add the following code in your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin. // Function to change email address function wpb_sender_email( $original_email_address ) { return 'tim.smith@example.com'; } // Function to change sender name function wpb_sender_name( $original_email_from ) { return 'Tim Smith'; } // Hooking up our functions to WordPress filters add_filter( 'wp_mail_from', 'wpb_sender_email' ); add_filter( 'wp_mail_from_name', 'wpb_sender_name' ); This code simply replaces the default WordPress sender name and email address with your custom sender name and email address. You can test this by adding a new user, changing passwords, or any other action that sends a WordPress notification email. We hope this article helped you learn how to change the sender’s name and email address in outgoing WordPress emails. You may also want to see our guide on the best bulk email marketing services to bulk send email to all your users, and our comparison of the best WordPress page builder plugins to customize your site without any code. 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 Change Sender Name in Outgoing WordPress Email appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
8. Sep 2020
Do Sponsored Instagram Contests Really Work? A Case Study
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 8, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
8. Sep 2020
How to Remove the Date from WordPress URLs
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 7, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Do you want to remove the date from your WordPress URLs? WordPress comes with an SEO friendly URL structure. This includes several link formats including one that adds dates to your WordPress post URLs. In this article, we will show you how to easily remove the date from your WordPress URLs. Why Dates Appear in WordPress URLs? By default, WordPress uses a non human-readable link structure for post and page URLs which looks like this: https://example.com/?p=123 It uses post ID in the URL which does not look very good or meaningful. However, WordPress also allows you to easily change this to more meaningful and SEO friendly URLs. It gives you a bunch of options to choose from under Settings » Permalinks page. Choosing the ‘Month and name’ or ‘Day and name’ options will add the date parameters to your WordPress URLs. They will then look like this: Day and name: https://example.com/2020/09/03/sample-post/ Month and name: https://example.com/2020/09/sample-post/ These URLs are better than the default ugly URLs. They are still SEO friendly as well. However, they are unnecessarily lengthy and the dates make your articles look old. That’s why a lot of users want to switch to just ‘Post name’ URL structure which will remove the date and just use the post slug keyword in the URL. Name: https://example.com/sample-post/ It is shorter, meaningful, SEO friendly, and doesn’t look dated as time passes. Things You Should Consider before Removing Date from WordPress URLs If you are starting a new WordPress blog and haven’t launched it yet, then it is safe to remove the date from WordPress URLs. However, if your website has been around for some time, then you will need to keep the following things in mind. Changing the URL structure may result in 404 errors for your users and search engines. This means you may see warnings and errors in your Google Search Console reports. Your search engine rankings may also get affected as the link backs to your old articles will now lead to 404 errors. Both of these issues can be fixed by setting up redirects, and we will show you how to do that later in this article. Changing the URL structure will also reset your social share counts. Unfortunately, most social share count services do not track the redirected URLs and will reset share count for them. Removing Date from WordPress URLs First, you need to create a complete WordPress backup of your website. This will allow you to restore your website to an earlier stage in case things don’t work out as you expected. After that, you need to visit the Settings » Permalinks page and choose ‘Name’ as your permalink option. Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes. WordPress will now remove the date from your WordPress URLs and start using the name-based URL structure. Setting up Redirects to Preserve SEO Rankings Now that you have removed the date from your WordPress URLs. You need to set up proper redirects. Redirects will send users to the updated URLs without showing a 404 error. This will also help search engines understand that the old URLs are now moved to these new URLs. First, you need to install and activate the Redirection plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Upon activation, you need to visit Tools » Redirection page and click on the ‘Start setup’ button. The plugin will then show you a couple of options. It can automatically detect and alert you if a posts URL is changed and keep a log of redirects. You can also leave both these options unchecked and simply click on the ‘Continue setup’ button. The plugin will then run some tests and if everything looks good then you can click on the Finish setup button. After that, it will store plugin settings into the WordPress database. Once finished, you will see the plugin’s settings page. From here, you need to click on the ‘Add New’ button at the top or scroll down to the ‘Add new redirection’ section. You will see a form with Source and Target fields. ‘Source’ is the field where you’ll describe your old URL structure and ‘Target’ is the location of the new URL. If you were using the ‘Day and name’ URLs, then you will enter the following values in the source and target fields: Source: /(d*)/(d*)/(d*)/([A-Za-z0-9-*])Target: /$4 If you were using ‘Month and name’ URLs, then you’ll enter the following values: Source: /(d*)/(d*)/([A-Za-z0-9-*])Target: /$3 Don’t forget to select Regex and click on the ‘Add Redirect’ button to save your changes. The plugin will now redirect users to your new name-based URLs. We hope this article helped you learn how to easily remove the date from WordPress URLs. You may also want to see our guide on the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them as well as our collection of the best WordPress SEO plugins. 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 Remove the Date from WordPress URLs appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
7. Sep 2020
How to Write Facebook Ads That Reduce the Barrier to Purchase
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 7, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
7. Sep 2020
9 Best Lead Generation WordPress Plugins (Powerful)
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 4, 2020 5:22 am on WP Beginner: Are you looking for the best lead generation plugins for WordPress? Using the right lead generation tools can help you get more customers and sales faster, so you can grow your business. In this article, we will share some of the best lead generation WordPress plugins to help you improve your marketing. What is Lead Generation and Why Does It Matter? Lead generation means getting the interest of prospective customers. It can be done in a number of different ways. On your website, lead generation might mean getting visitors to: Join your email newsletter. Submit a contact or inquiry form on your website Contact someone at your company through live chat. Talk to a chatbot (automated chat). Call your sales team, or book a call with them. Lead generation is an essential for all online businesses. Of course, it’s also important to have a strong process for converting the leads into customers. However, most businesses struggle to get enough leads in the first place. Even if you run a nonprofit, lead generation matters. It can help you get more donations and more support. Our goal with this list is to share the absolute best WordPress lead generation plugins that you can use to grow your business, faster. Unlike other best lead generation tools list, we are not just sharing a list of plugins that do the same thing. Instead we’re focusing on lead generation from a holistic point of view. For each lead generation solution category, we share an expert pick along with one alternative option for that category. This will help us keep this list comprehensive without causing choice paralysis. With that said, here are the best lead generation plugins for WordPress. 1. WPForms WPForms is the best contact form plugin on the market. Over 3 million website owners use their drag & drop form builder to easily create any type of online form for their WordPress site. It comes with over 100 pre-built form templates that you can use as a starting point. From there, you can easily customize the form to match your needs using the drag & drop form builder interface. Some of the lead generation templates include: Newsletter signup form Content download form Online event registration form Request a quote form Contest entry form Neighborhood events questionnaire form Personal trainer signup form WPForms also integrates with your favorite email marketing service and CRM providers. This lets you automatically add leads to your email list. Each time someone submits the form, you will automatically get an email notification. You can easily turn this off if you prefer not to receive email alerts. WPForms will store each completed form in your WordPress database too. It’s also possible to send notifications to multiple recipients using WPForms. For example, you might want to send the customer inquiry notification to a specific person in the sales team and their supervisor. Price: WPForms costs from $39.50/year. There’s also a free version of the plugin, which has limited features. Alternative: Formidable Forms (from $59/year) is a good alternative to WPForms. It has powerful tools that let you create all sorts of different forms, including lead calculators, however it’s not as beginner friendly as WPForms. 2. OptinMonster OptinMonster is a powerful lead generation software that you can use on your WordPress site. It lets you create high converting popups and email signup forms that helps you turn abandoning website visitors into subscribers & customers. It has lots of useful features, including Exit Intent ® technology. This lets you show your popup at the exact moment when someone is about to leave your site. You can combine it with their page targeting feature to show customized popup messages for each page which is proven to increase conversions. With OptinMonster, you even get special popups like spin the wheel popups and Yes/No popups. These can boost your conversion rate even further. There are lots of different professionally designed templates included in the app. This makes it quick and easy to create your lead forms using the drag and drop builder. You can also use OptinMonster to generate leads in other ways. For instance, you might use the Content Locking feature to ask visitors to join your email list before they can read your full content. You don’t necessarily need to use it to generate email leads, either. You could add a Click to Call button to your popup instead, use it to show special discount codes, and more. Price: OptinMonster costs from $9/month (billed annually). To get advanced features like Exit Intent technology and Yes/No forms, you need the Pro plan from $29/month. Alternative: ThriveLeads (from $67) is a good alternative to OptinMonster. It offers a range of different types of lead generation forms. It also has a drag and drop builder. 3. LiveChat LiveChat is the best live chat software for WordPress websites. It’s very easy to set up, and you can integrate it with dozens of other marketing services. This plugin places a chat button in the bottom right-hand corner of your website. Visitors can click on this to chat with your team in real-time. Your support team members don’t need to be logged into WordPress in order to use LiveChat. Instead, they can use the Live Chat app on their laptop or mobile device. If a visitor contacts your team outside support hours, LiveChat will create a support ticket instead. LiveChat is fast and easy to use, for your visitors and for your support team. It lets you quickly turn leads into customers by answering pre-sales questions straight away. Price: LiveChat costs from $16/month (billed annually) with a 14 day free trial. Our LiveChat coupon gives you an extended 30 day free trial plus a 30% discount. Alternative: Sendinblue offers a simple, free live chat feature that you can use on your website. It also offers email, SMS, and a CRM tool that integrate with the live chat. 4. ChatBot ChatBot lets you use automated live chat to connect with your potential customers. Through the power of AI (Artificial Intelligence), it can respond to customer questions 24/7. To help you get started quickly, ChatBot has lots of pre-designed templates. For instance, you could use the lead generation bot to book calls. The sales bot template allows you to sell products directly from the chat window. ChatBot can be used in Facebook messenger as well as on your website. That makes it a great option for companies and organizations that get a lot of inquiries through Facebook. It’s easy to integrate it with other apps such as LiveChat. This means that a live agent can step into the conversation seamlessly if needed. Price: ChatBot costs from $50/month. There’s a 14-day free trial available. Alternative: Drift (from $500/month with the chatbot feature) combines a chatbot with live chat. It’s a powerful tool if you have a larger business and can afford it. 5. OneSignal OneSignal lets you add push notifications to your WordPress site. Push notifications are shown on the user’s desktop or in the notification area on their mobile device. They are a highly effective way to convert website visitors into loyal followers and customers. Visitors simply give their permission to receive push notifications by clicking a button: OneSignal makes it easy to create push notifications. You simply need to create an account and install the WordPress plugin. With OneSignal, you can fine-tune exactly how your push notifications are displayed. For instance, you could display a prompt after a certain number of page views or after a visitor has been on your site for a certain length of time. Price: OneSignal has a free plan that covers you for up to 30,000 desktop subscribers and unlimited on mobile. For more subscribers and advanced features like delayed notifications, it costs from $99/month. Alternative: PushEngage (from $29/month for up to 5,000 subscribers) is a good alternative to OneSignal. It also offers a free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers. 6. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded Subscribe to Comments Reloaded is a WordPress plugin that lets people sign up for comment notifications. This can be a good option if you have a website that involves a lot of interaction in the comments. The plugin lets you customize the notification messages, too. You could use these to increase brand awareness or even promote your products. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded makes it easy for users to manage their subscriptions. That means they can easily unsubscribe from comments on particular posts, or even from all comments. You can also require double opt-in, so users need to click a link to confirm they want to receive email notifications of comments. Price: Subscribe to Comments Reloaded is free. Alternative: Lightweight Subscribe to Comments (also free) is a fast, lightweight plugin. It works straight out of the box and offers some customization options. 7. WP Call Button WP Call Button allows you to easily add a ‘click to call’ button on your WordPress website or WooCommerce store. Visitors can simply click or tap the button to call you straight away. If your customers need to call you before purchasing a service or booking an appointment, then adding a click to call button on your website will definitely increase your leads / sales. WP Call Button makes it easy to add your button to any post or page. You can include it in your WordPress sidebar, too. It’s also easy to create a sticky floating call button that stays visible all the time. It works with all top business phone services such as Nextiva and RingCentral. Price: WP Call Button is free. Alternative: You can also create a click to call link using the manual method covered in adding a click-to-call button in WordPress. 8. All in One SEO All in One SEO is a powerful search engine optimization (SEO) plugin for WordPress. It lets you optimize your website as effectively and efficiently as possible so that your content can rank highly in search engines. SEO is an important part of lead generation. You need to bring people to your website before they can join your email list, call you, subscribe to push notifications, or anything else on this list. WordPress beginners often feel that SEO is something too technical or complicated for them to do. All in One SEO makes it easy, with powerful on-page optimization tools. These let you easily add things like meta titles and descriptions to your pages. All in One SEO can also automatically create sitemaps, add social media data to your site, and much more. It makes it easy to connect your website to tools like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. There are also lots of video tutorials that walk you through all the different aspects of SEO. The friendly support team is always happy to answer questions, too. Price: All in One SEO costs from $57/year. There’s a fairly robust free version available as well, but it doesn’t include some of their powerful features. Alternative: Yoast SEO ($89/year) offers similar features to All in One SEO. 9. MonsterInsights MonsterInsights is a powerful way to add Google Analytics to your WordPress website. It lets you quickly and easily see crucial statistics about your site. This means you can easily find out what’s working and what’s not, so you can focus on the areas that really matter. For instance, you might use MonsterInsights to enable author tracking and see which writers for your site are producing the best-performing posts. Or you could use MonsterInsights to track link clicks and button clicks. This can let you figure out which links and buttons are getting clicked and which ones aren’t, letting you pinpoint areas for improvement. MonsterInsights is quick and easy to set up and gives you real-time stats. It can even track things like your eCommerce data, form completions, and file downloads. This gives you more insights about your lead generation efforts. Price: MonsterInsights costs from $99.50/year. There’s also a free version available with limited features. Alternative: ExactMetrics (from $99.50/year) offers similar features to MonsterInsights. Our Pick: Best Lead Generation Plugin for WordPress We believe that you need multiple plugins to have a robust lead generation strategy on your site. With that said, WPForms is the best lead generation plugin for WordPress. You can use their drag & drop form builder to create any type of online forms. If you’re looking for live chat solution to improve leads, then Live Chat and ChatBot are both great options. If you want to improve your overall conversion rate on your website, then nothing in the market beats the powerful features that OptinMonster has to offer. With any lead generation strategy, attracting leads is only the first part. You have to ensure that there’s a proper sales process to close the deal. If you rely on phone calls, then we recommend using Nextiva. It comes with auto-attendant, call-routing, CRM and many powerful sales features that you can use to increase your sales. To summarize, our top 5 lead generation tools are: WPForms OptinMonster LiveChat.com ChatBot.com Nextiva We hope this article helped you learn about the best lead generation plugins and tools for WordPress. You might also like our comprehensive list of the best WordPress plugins for business websites, and our ultimate guide on how to improve WordPress speed and performance. 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 Best Lead Generation WordPress Plugins (Powerful) appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
4. Sep 2020
TikTok for Business: Why Marketers Should Consider TikTok
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 4, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
4. Sep 2020
How to Password Protect Your WordPress Forms
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 3, 2020 7:50 am on WP Beginner: Do you want to password protect a form on your WordPress website? Normally, when you add a form to your website, it is visible to all users who can see that page. If you want to protect a WordPress form and limit its access to only certain people, then you may need to password protect that particular form. In this article, we’ll explain step by step how to easily password protect your WordPress forms. Why Password Protect WordPress Forms? There are lots of reasons why you might password protect forms on your WordPress website. For instance: You create and maintain websites for a number of clients. When they need support, they fill out a support request form. Non-clients shouldn’t be able to request support using that form. You have weekly appointments with clients over Zoom or Skype, which they can book through your website. Non-clients shouldn’t be able to book an appointment. You run an online photography club. Members can send in their best photos each month and you feature a selection on your website. Non-members shouldn’t be able to send in photos. In all these situations, you want to prevent non-clients or non-members from filling in your form. Otherwise, you need to carefully go through all the form entries to check whether they are valid submissions or not. We are going to cover 2 ways to password protect your forms in WordPress. 1. Password Protect a WordPress Form Using WPForms WPForms is our #1 rated contact form plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create any kind of WordPress forms by using a simple drag and drop form builder. It also comes with a form locker addon which allows you to add password protection to your WordPress forms when needed. First,you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Next, you need to set up your form. Just follow our instructions on how to create a contact form in WordPress for help with this. Once you have your form ready, the next step is to install the Form Locker addon for WPForms. First, go to WPForms » Addons in your WordPress admin. Here, you need to search for the ‘Form Locker’ addon. Just click on the ‘Install Addon’ button to install and activate it: Now, go to WPForms » All Forms and find the form that you want to protect. Simply click on the form name to start editing it: Next, go to Settings » Form Locker and you will see the Form Locker options. Go ahead and click on the ‘Enable password protection’ box: You will now be able to enter a password. You may also enter a display message if you want to. Don’t forget to click the Save button at the top of the screen after setting your password: Now, when someone visits a post or page with that form on, they will see the rest of the content but not the form itself. When the user enters the password, the password box and message will disappear. They will see the page content and the form itself: You could also use this method to password protect forms in widgetized areas such as your sidebar. As you can see, outside of just password protection, the form locker also offers other advanced features like limiting total number of entries, restricting access to logged in users only, and even enabling form submissions for only certain dates. However if you’re looking for a free option to password protect your form, then see option #2. 2. Password Protect the Form’s WordPress Page What if you want to hide the whole page, not just the form itself? This is very easy to do in WordPress. First, create or edit a page and add your form to it, as shown above: Then, click on the ‘Document’ settings on the right hand side. Simply click on the ‘Public’ link here: You will now see the ‘Post Visibility’ popup. Next, click the ‘Password Protected’ option and type in the password you want to use: Now, when someone visits that page, they will need to enter a password to see any of the content: We hope this article helped you learn how to password protect your WordPress forms. You may also want to see our guide on how to password protect a WordPress website, how to secure your contact forms, and how to improve overall WordPress security to keep your content safe and protected. 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 Password Protect Your WordPress Forms appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
3. Sep 2020
How to Install WordPress in a Subdirectory (Step by Step)
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 2, 2020 7:00 am on WP Beginner: Do you want to install WordPress in a subdirectory? Installing WordPress in a subdirectory allows you to run multiple WordPress instances under the same domain or even a subdomain name. In this article, we will show you how to install WordPress in a subdirectory without affecting the parent domain name. Subdomain vs Subdirectory? Which One is Better for SEO? Normally, you would want to start a WordPress website on its own domain name (for example, wpbeginner.com). However, sometimes you may want to create additional websites on the same domain name. This can be done by either installing WordPress in a subdomain (http://newebsite.example.com) or as a subdirectory (http://example.com/newwebsite/). One question that we get asked is which one is better for SEO? Search engines treat subdomains differently from root domain names and assign them rankings as a separate website. For instance, search Engines consider WPBeginner and our WPBeginner Videos website as two separate websites. On the other hand, sub-directories directly benefit from the domain authority of the root domain thus ranking higher in most cases. One way to create separate WordPress sites in both subdomain or subdirectory is by installing WordPress multisite network. However, if you want to keep two websites managed separately, then you can install different instances of WordPress. You can also use WordPress site management tools to set up a single dashboard for managing your multiple WordPress installations. Requirements for Installing WordPress in Subdirectory There are no special requirements to install WordPress in a subdirectory. If you already have a WordPress website in the root domain name, then you are good to go. All top WordPress hosting companies make it very easy to install multiple WordPress websites using the same hosting account. For instance, if you are using Bluehost, you can add a new WordPress website from your hosting dashboard. However, please keep in mind that most shared hosting accounts have limited server resources. A sudden traffic spike on one of your websites will affect the performance and speed of all other websites on the same account. If you are just starting out, then you can do that on shared hosting. Keeping in mind that you’ll need to upgrade to a managed WordPress hosting as your business grows. That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily install WordPress in a subdirectory. Step 1. Create a Subdirectory under The Root Domain Name First, you need to create a subdirectory or a folder under the main website. This is where you will install WordPress files. Connect to your WordPress hosting account using a FTP client or File Manager in cPanel. Once connected, go to the root folder of your website. Usually it is the /public_html/ folder. If you already have WordPress installed in the root folder, then you will see your WordPress files and folders there. Next, you need to right click and select ‘Create new directory’ from the menu. You need to be careful when choosing the name for your subdirectory. This will be part of your new WordPress site’s URL and what your users will type in their browsers to reach this website. For example, if you name this directory travel-guides then your WordPress website’s address will be: http://example.com/travel-guides/ Step 2. Upload WordPress Files Your newly created subdirectory is empty at the moment. Let’s change that by uploading WordPress files. First you need to visit WordPress.org website and click on the download button. Your browser will now download the zip file containing the latest WordPress software to your computer. After downloading the file, you need to select and extract it. Mac users can double click the file to extract it and Windows users need to right-click and then select ‘Extract All’. After extracting the zip file, you will see ‘wordpress’ folder containing all the WordPress files. Now let’s upload these files to your new subdirectory. Connect to your website using an FTP client and go to the subdirectory you created in the first step. In the local files panel of your FTP client, go to the ‘wordpress’ folder you just extracted. Select all files inside the folder and then upload them to your new subdirectory. Step 3. Create New Database WordPress stores all your content in a database. You need to create a new database to use with your new WordPress site installed in a subdirectory. First, you need to login to the cPanel dashboard of your WordPress hosting account. Click on ‘MySQL Databases’ under the databases section. Note: Your hosting dashboard may look different than the screenshot above. You simply need to locate the ‘Databases’ section. On the next screen, enter a name for your new database and then click on the ‘Create Database’ button to continue. Your cPanel dashboard will now create the new MySQL database. Click on the Go Back button to return to the Databases page. Next, you need to add a username and password for the database. Simply scroll down to the ‘MySQL Users’ section and provide a new username and password. Click on ‘Create User’ button to continue. Next, you need to give this newly created user privileges to work on the database you created earlier. Scroll down to ‘Add user to database’ section. Select your MySQL username and then select your newly created database. Click on the Add button to continue. Cpanel will now grant the MySQL user full privileges on your newly created database. Step 4. Install WordPress Now that everything is in place, you can go ahead and install WordPress. Simply visit the directory you created earlier in a web browser by typing the URL like this: http://example.com/your-subdirectory-name/ This will bring up the WordPress installation wizard. First, you need to select the language for your WordPress website and click on the continue button. Next, you will be asked to provide your WordPress database name, database username, password, and host. Enter the database details and click on the submit button. WordPress will now connect to your database and you will see a success message like this: Click on ‘Run the install’ button to continue. On the next screen, you will be asked to provide a title for your website and choose an admin username, password, and email address. After entering your website details, click on ‘Run install’ button to continue. WordPress will now set up your website and will show you a success message: You can now go ahead and login to your new WordPress website installed in the subdirectory. Step 5. Fix Permalinks If you have a separate WordPress install in the root directory, then the .htaccess files of your subdirectory will cause conflict. This will result in 404 errors on your website. To solve this, you need to edit the .htaccess file in your subdirectory WordPress install. Replace the code inside your .htaccess file with the following code: # BEGIN WordPress <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase /your-subdirectory/ RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /your-subdirectory/index.php [L] </IfModule> # END WordPress Don’t forget to replace /your-subdirectory/ with your own subdirectory name. We hope this article helped you install WordPress in a subdirectory. You may also want to see our ultimate step by step WordPress SEO guide for beginners. 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 Install WordPress in a Subdirectory (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
2. Sep 2020
How to Convert More Prospects on Social Media: A 5-Step Plan
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 2, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
2. Sep 2020
How to Delete All Pending Comments in WordPress
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 1, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Do you have a lot of pending comments in WordPress that you want to delete? This can easily happen if you get a lot of spam comments. Normally, deleting comments in WordPress is easy, but it gets trickier when there is a large number of pending comments. You may even come across weird errors while bulk deleting comments if there are too many of them. In this article, we’ll show you how to easily bulk delete all pending comments in WordPress, step by step. What Are Pending Comments in WordPress? Pending comments in WordPress are the comments that are awaiting moderation. You’ll find them in the WordPress admin area by visiting the ‘Comments’ page and switching to the ‘Pending’ tab. We recommend users turn on comment moderation on all their websites to combat comment spam. This means all comments on your website will go to the Pending queue before they are approved. Why would anyone want to delete pending comments? There are many scenarios when you may need to do that. For instance: Akismet anti-spam plugin got disabled on your site and suddenly all spam comments are appearing in pending. You simply forgot about a website, and it gathered hundreds of comments that are no longer relevant. Articles on your website generating a lot of unwanted comments You forgot to turn off comments on older posts It can take a long time to go through and moderate each comment individually. If you are confident that there are no comments marked ‘pending’ that you want to keep, then you can simply bulk delete them all. 1. Deleting All Pending Comments in WordPress Manually If you only have a few hundred pending comments, it’s quite quick to delete them manually. Simply go to the ‘Comments’ page in WordPress admin area and then click on the ‘Pending’ tab to see a list of all your pending comments. By default, this list will show 20 pending comments at a time. To change this, click on the ‘Screen Options’ tab at the top-right corner of the page. Next, type ‘100’ into the ‘Number of items per page’ and click the Apply button: Now that you have 100 comments displaying, simply check the box to the left of ‘Author’ at the top of the list of comments. This selects all the comments on the page: Then, click on the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown and select the ‘Move to Trash’ option. Go ahead and click the Apply button to move all those comments into the trash: WordPress will automatically show the next 100 comments on the page. Simply repeat the process to remove these too. When you delete any comment on WordPress, it is not deleted right away. Instead, it is sent to the ‘Trash’ and will remain there for 30-days. After that, it will be automatically deleted permanently. If you would rather delete them permanently right away, then you need to switch to the ‘Trash’ tab on the ‘Comments’ page and then click on the ‘Empty Trash’ button. You will then see a message confirming that those comments have been deleted: Note: You can use the Screen Options to show up to 999 comments per page. However, this will increase the load on your WordPress hosting servers and slow down your site. You might also see an error message like this one when you try to move comments to the trash: If you have more than a few hundred pending comments, then we recommend using a plugin method to delete them. 2. Deleting Large Number of Pending Comments in WordPress Using a Plugin The quickest way to delete a very large number of pending comments is to use a plugin. This will delete your pending (and spam) comments permanently. We recommend making a backup of your WordPress site before proceeding, just in case you change your mind later. First, you need to install and activate the Delete Pending Comments plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Upon activation, go to the Comments » Delete Pending Comments page in your WordPress admin. You will see a message letting you know how many pending comments there are. Note: This figure includes spam comments, which are deleted at the same time as the pending comments. To delete all the pending comments, you need to type the required line of text into the box. You can copy and paste this text if you prefer. After that, go ahead and click the ‘Delete Pending Comments’ button. You will then see a message confirming that all pending and spam comments have been deleted. Deleting Spam Comments Only in WordPress What if you don’t want to delete pending comments but just want to delete the ones that are marked as spam? That’s very easy to do in WordPress. First, go to Comments in your WordPress admin and click on the Spam tab: Next, click the Empty Spam button. This will delete all spam comments permanently, not just the ones on the current page: We hope this article helped you learn how to delete all pending comments in WordPress. You may also want to see our WordPress security guide to protect your website, or see our guide on how to allow users to report inappropriate comments in WordPress. If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook. The post How to Delete All Pending Comments in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
1. Sep 2020
How to Enhance LinkedIn Marketing With Video
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published September 1, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
1. Sep 2020
Coming Soon vs Maintenance Mode: What’s the Difference (Explained)
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published August 31, 2020 6:11 am on WP Beginner: Recently, a reader asked us if there is a difference between coming soon mode and maintenance mode? The answer is: Yes. They are both used for different purposes and search engines treat coming soon mode differently from maintenance mode. In this article, we’ll explain the difference between coming soon vs maintenance mode, so you can choose the best option for your needs. What is Coming Soon Mode vs. Maintenance Mode, and Why Does It Matter? Coming soon mode is used when your website has not yet been launched. Maintenance mode is used when your website is temporarily offline for maintenance. It’s easy to get these 2 modes confused. Several WordPress plugins such as SeedProd’s Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode Plugin let you put your site into either coming soon mode or maintenance mode. You may not be sure about the difference. It’s extremely important to use each mode correctly. Because if you choose the wrong option, then it can harm your WordPress site’s SEO rankings. When to Use a Coming Soon Page You should use a coming soon page after you have registered a domain name, but before you have finished creating your website. A coming soon page lets you gather interest on your site before you launch it. Plus, it lets Google start sending you visitors. It’s best practice to have an email newsletter form on your coming soon page. This allows people to sign up and get an email when your site goes live. SeedProd lets you create great-looking coming soon pages with just a few clicks. Let’s take a look at how to create a coming soon page like this: How to Create a Coming Soon Page To create a coming soon page, you first need to install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. We’re using the Pro version for our tutorial, but you can also use the free version of SeedProd. Upon activation, you should be prompted for your license key. You will find this in your account area on the SeedProd website. Simply enter it on your WordPress site and click the ‘Check License’ button: After that, go to the Settings » Coming Soon page and click the ‘Edit Coming Soon/Maintenance Page’ button: Then, simply pick a template for your coming soon page. There are over 50 different coming soon templates ones to choose from: You will now be taken into SeedProd’s coming soon page editor. Go ahead and change anything you want using the tabs in the left-hand sidebar. For instance, you can click on the Countdown tab to enable a timer. You will need to specify an end date for the timer: If you would like to integrate your coming soon form with your email marketing service, then simply click on the ‘Email Form Settings’ tab. Next, select your email marketing service from the ‘Save Subscribers To’ dropdown: You then need to follow the on-screen instructions to connect your coming soon page with your email list. Go ahead and make any other changes you want. Once you’re happy with your coming soon page, click the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen. Next, click the ‘Back to Settings’ link: Now, simply click the ‘Enable Coming Soon Mode’ button then the ‘Save All Changes’ button. Your coming soon page is now live. To view it, log out of your website and visit any page: When to Use Maintenance Mode You should use maintenance mode if you need to briefly take your site offline for changes or updates. For instance, you might want to use maintenance mode while changing WordPress themes. This ensures that your site still functions correctly and looks good with the new theme. Another good time to use maintenance mode is if you’re adding an online store to your site. You can leave your website online but put your store into maintenance mode. Maintenance mode lets search engines know that your site is currently down. It does this by returning the header code 503. That way, your site’s SEO won’t be affected by the downtime. It’s good practice to let users know that your site will be back soon, too. You can do this by putting a message on your maintenance page. You might want to add an email form so they can get an email alert once your site is back up. Tip: When you update plugins, themes, or core WordPress, your site will automatically go into maintenance mode for a few seconds. If your site gets stuck in this mode, we have instructions on fixing the WordPress maintenance mode error. How to Put Your Site in Maintenance Mode To put your site in maintenance mode, first install and activate the SeedProd plugin. Next, follow the instructions above for creating a coming soon page above to create your maintenance mode page. When you are ready to put your site into maintenance mode, simply go to the Settings » Coming Soon Pro page in your WordPress admin. Then, select the ‘Enable Maintenance Mode’ option and click the ‘Save All Changes’ button. Remember, maintenance mode should only be used when your site is down for maintenance. If you have not yet launched your site, use coming soon mode instead. We hope this article helped you understand how to choose coming soon vs maintenance mode. You may also want to check out our guide on the must have WordPress plugins for your website and our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress. If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook. The post Coming Soon vs Maintenance Mode: What’s the Difference (Explained) appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
31. Aug 2020
How to Get Started With Marketing Analytics: A 5-Step Framework
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published August 31, 2020 5:00 am on Social Media Examiner: Social Media Marketing Industry Report In our 12th annual social media study (46 pages, 60+ charts) of 5,200+ marketers, you’ll discover which social networks marketers most plan on using, organic social activities, paid social media plans, and much more! Get this free report and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner. Learn more about Social Media Examiner by visiting their website.
31. Aug 2020
5 Best WordPress Request a Quote Plugins (Instant Quotes)
The Digital Ninja Club News Aggregation service has sourced the following article originally published August 28, 2020 6:00 am on WP Beginner: Are you looking for the best request a quote plugin for your WordPress website or WooCommerce store? Some businesses may not be able to list prices on their website. A request a quote form allows your customers to ask for the quote by providing the information you need to determine the price. In this article, we will take you through the best WordPress ‘request a quote’ plugins that you can use to make more sales through your website. Why Use a Request a Quote Plugin for WordPress? Some products and services can’t be easily priced without some details from the customer. For instance, if you provide a lawn care service, your price will vary depending on the size of the lawn, existing condition, and other factors. You might also offer optional extras, such as creating decorative borders. Similarly if you sell custom made furniture on your online store, then the prices will vary based on customers’ requirements. Some companies share their complex custom pricing in a table, but this can be confusing for customers. Others ask customers to email for a quote. But customers might not send all the information that’s needed. The best solution is to use a request a quote WordPress plugin. Depending on the plugin you choose, this might be able to provide an instant quote. Alternatively, you can simply respond to the customer by email once you’ve received their request. Note: This article is about price quotations provided for a product or service. To display or rotate interesting quotes on your site, see our guide on showing random quotes in your sidebar. With that said, let’s take a look at the best request a quote plugins for WordPress and WooCommerce. 1. WPForms WPForms is the best contact form plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily add any kind of forms to your WordPress website using a simple drag and drop form builder. It includes ready-to-use templates including one for a Request a Quote form. You can use it as a starting point to quickly build your form and then customize it to match your specific requirements. WPForms’ Conditional Logic feature lets you show specific fields based on the information that the customer gives you. For instance, you could create a form that shows different options based on the service that your customer requests. It also lets you create special Conversational Forms that take a ‘one question at a time’ approach. This can help reduce form abandonment rates, by making your form feel easy and attractive to your customers. You can create lots of other types of forms with WPForms, too. For instance, you can use it to run a survey on your website. Price: WPForms costs from $39.50/year. This includes Conditional Logic. However, to get Conversational Forms, you need the Pro package for $199.50/year. 2. Wholesale Suite (Order Form and Prices Premium) Wholesale Suite Order Form and Wholesale Prices Premium are a great option if you use WooCommerce on your website. These plugins let you offer wholesale pricing, providing an instant quote so customers can buy straight away. Wholesale Suite’s plugins also integrate with several popular WordPress and WooCommerce plugins. If you sell bulk products to wholesale customers, then these plugins make it much easier for them to order from your store. With Wholesale Suite Order Form, your products are all displayed in a searchable and sortable WooCommerce table. This means your whole product catalog can be seen on a single page. By also using the Wholesale Prices Premium plugin, you can offer discounted wholesale prices in your quote. The plugin also lets you set minimum purchase rules. You can discount by a percentage based on the product’s category, too. Price: Each plugin costs from $59/year for a single site license. 3. Formidable Forms Formidable Forms is an advanced forms plugin for WordPress. It has powerful features that mean it can be used to create online calculators. You can use Formidable Forms’ Request a Quote form to make a form that automatically calculates a quote for the customer instantly. Because of Formidable Forms’ flexibility, it’s easy to add as many variables as you want. The quote that Formidable Forms produces can then be emailed to your customer. It can even be included in a booking form so your customer can book and pay for your service or product. There are plenty of other forms you can create using Formidable Forms, too. For instance, you could use it to create a quiz for your WordPress site. Formidable Forms also comes with visual design tools that let you make your request a quote form look great. Price: Formidable Forms costs from $99.38/year. 4. YITH WooCommerce Request a Quote YITH WooCommerce Request a Quote hides the price and/or the Add to Cart button for the products you select in WooCommerce. In the place of these, it gives your customers the option to request a quote for the product. Customers can choose from the options you set. You can even allow them to upload files. For instance, if you provide printing services, then you could ask the customer to upload their print-ready files when they request the quote. The plugin also supports product variations, letting you add specific variations to the quote list. When you are ready, it’s quick and easy to respond to the customer with a quote. The customer will receive this in a nicely-formatted email. The whole process can be managed through your WordPress dashboard. Here, you are able to see quote requests, pending quotes, pending payments, and more. Price: YITH WooCommerce Request a Quote costs from $59.99/month. There’s also a free version of the plugin, with limited features. 5. Request a Quote for WooCommerce Request a Quote for WooCommerce is an official WooCommerce plugin. It lets your customer add products to a quote basket, just like they would normally add products to their cart. You can customize the quote button text, the quote submission messages, and more. You can also automatically redirect the customer to a specified page on your site after they submit their request for a quote. Request a Quote for WooCommerce is a great option if you have personalized products that could have a range of prices depending on what the customer wants. You can also use this plugin to sell to wholesale, B2B, or retail customers. Price: Request a Quote for WooCommerce costs $59/year. We hope this article helped you learn about the best request a quote plugins for WordPress. You may also want to see our comparison of the best live chat software and best business phone services to help you get even more sales from 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 5 Best WordPress Request a Quote Plugins (Instant Quotes) appeared first on WPBeginner. Learn more about WP Beginner by visiting their website.
28. Aug 2020