Do you want to add tables to WordPress posts and pages?
Tables are a great way to display data in an understandable format. WordPress offers easy ways to content inside tables with some formatting and design options.
In this article, we will show you how to create tables in WordPress posts and pages without using a plugin or any HTML code. We will also cover how to create advanced tables in WordPress with sorting and search features.
Video Tutorial
If you prefer written instructions, then just keep reading.
Simply create a new post or page, or edit an existing one. Once inside the content editor, click the ‘+’ symbol to add a new block, then select the Table block.
You can find it under the ‘Text’ section, or you can type ‘Table’ into the search bar.
Next, you will be prompted to choose how many columns and rows you want for your table. Both figures default to 2.
Don’t worry if you are not 100% sure about the exact number because you can always add/remove table columns and rows later.
Simply enter the number of rows and columns and click the ‘Create Table’ button.
The block will then generate your table and display it on the screen.
You can type in the table cells, and they will automatically resize depending on how much content is in each one.
You can set this option on the right side if you prefer your cells to be fixed-width. Here, you can also add a table header or footer section.
From the settings panel, you can also switch to the Style tab.
Your WordPress theme may offer a bunch of styles for the table block, or you can choose the background and text colors.
If you want to add a new row or column, just click on a cell at the point in the table where you want to add it. Next, click the ‘Edit Table’ button.
This will show a bunch of options to add or remove rows and columns to your table.
By default, the text in your table’s columns is aligned to the left.
You can change this by clicking inside a column and then clicking the ‘Change Column Alignment’ button:
You can also change the alignment of your whole table within the post or page.
Just click the ‘Change alignment’ button and select an option from the list.
Note that these options can make your table display beyond the normal boundaries of your post area.
Some may look odd on your WordPress website, so please preview your post or page to check how the table will appear.
Here’s our table set to ‘Wide Width’ as it appears on our demo site:
As you can see, it stretches out beyond the left and right margins of the post area.
The table tools built into the Gutenberg editor give you a lot of flexibility over how you can display your tables. You can use the Table block to show your data to readers in an easy-to-understand format.
However, the block doesn’t have advanced features like search filtering, custom sorting, and more. It also doesn’t let you efficiently use the same table across multiple areas of your website, such as sidebar widgets or other pages.
To create advanced tables, you will need to use a WordPress table plugin.
Creating Tables Using the TablePress Plugin
TablePress is one of the best WordPress tables plugins on the market. It is a free plugin and allows you to create and manage tables easily. Plus, you can edit your table separately and even add a large number of rows.
TablePress also becomes necessary if you are using the older classic WordPress editor, which does not come with table functionality.
You will then see a TablePress menu item in your WordPress dashboard. Go to TablePress » Add New to create a new table.
You need to type in a name for your table and decide how many rows and columns you want. You can always add/remove table rows and columns later as well.
Once you have added the table name, rows, and columns, go ahead and click the ‘Add Table’ button to create your table.
Next, you will see a screen with your table’s information and an area where you can add content.
Simply type the data you want into the cells of your table.
To add or remove rows and columns or perform sorting operations, simply right-click inside the table. This will show an options menu where you can make more changes.
There are advanced options below the ‘Table Content’ area, such as ‘Table Manipulation’.
From here, you can do things like adding, removing, and duplicating rows.
In ‘Table Options’, you can add a header and/or footer row, which won’t be sorted in with the data.
You can also decide where to show the table name and description:
Finally, you can set various options in the ‘Table Features for Site Visitors’ section.
These settings allow you to create responsive tables that can be filtered, searched, and sorted by your readers.
Once you are happy with your table, just click ‘Save Changes’.
After that, copy the Table shortcode. You will need it in the next step.
Now, edit the post or page where you want to display the table and add the Shortcode block to the editor.
After that, add the shortcode you copied earlier into the Shortcode block.
Don’t forget to update or save your changes.
On the other hand, if you are using the classic editor, then simply add the shortcode straight into your post:
If you want to change your table in the future, you can return to TablePress in your dashboard and make changes. Your table will be automatically updated in any posts and pages you have used it in.
TablePress also allows you to import data from spreadsheets and CSV files. Similarly, you can also export TablePress table data to a CSV file, which you can then open with any spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
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.
Are you looking for a way to add GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema to your WooCommerce store or WordPress website?
Using GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema on your WordPress site can help search engines better understand your products. This can boost your website’s SEO rankings.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add the GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema in WooCommerce and WordPress.
Why Should You Add GTIN, ISBN, & MPN Schema in WooCommerce and WordPress?
GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is used for identifying trade items such as products or services. By contrast, ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is used for tracking books, eBooks, and audiobooks.
On the other hand, MPN (Manufacturer Part Number) is for tracking specific electronic components and parts, such as integrated circuits and resistors.
GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema properties are markup code that you can add to your WordPress website to provide detailed and accurate product information to search engines.
This markup can help improve your content visibility and improve the SEO of your website. When people search for a specific ISBN, GTIN, or MPN, then your products may show up in the search results.
For example, if your run an online store that sells books, then you can add the ISBN schema to increase your website visibility.
Using schema markup in WooCommerce or WordPress can be a great way to get more clicks to your website from organic search results, which can lead to more sales.
It can also improve the customer shopping experience by making it easier for users to find and purchase your products.
That being said, let’s see how to easily add GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema in WordPress and WooCommerce. You can use the quick links below to jump to the method you want to use:
The plugin also allows you to add different types of schema to your website, including FAQs, recipes, articles, and product schema.
First, you need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: AIOSEO also has a free version. However, you will need the Pro version of the plugin to unlock the schema markup feature.
Upon activation, the plugin will launch the setup wizard on your screen, which will walk you through the setup process.
Next, you need to visit the AIOSEO » Search Appearance page from your WordPress admin sidebar and switch to the ‘Content Types’ tab.
From here, scroll down to the ‘Products’ section and switch to the ‘Schema Markup’ tab. After that, you need to select the ‘Product’ option from the ‘Schema Type’ dropdown menu.
Finally, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.
Now, you will be able to add separate schema markup for all your products. To do this, head over to the page or post where you want to add the ISBN, GTIN, or MPN schema from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Once you are there, scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ section in the block editor and switch to the ‘Schema’ tab.
Next, you need to click on the ‘Generate Schema’ button.
This will launch the ‘Schema Catalog’ popup on your screen, where you can select the schema template you want to add.
Go ahead and click the ‘+’ button next to the ‘Product’ option.
This will open up a modal where you can add the details for your product and tell search engines like Google all of its information.
You can start by providing a name, description, brand, and image for your product.
Once you have done that, scroll down to the ‘Identifiers’ section, where you can insert the GTIN, ISBN, or the MPN of the product.
After that, you can further scroll down to add the price, attributes, reviews, and shipping destination for the product in the schema markup.
Once you are done, just click the ‘Add Schema’ button to save your schema markup for the product. Now, you can repeat the process for the other products on the page.
If you sell books online, then you can also select the ‘Book’ schema from the ‘Schema Catalog’ popup. This will open up a new modal where you can add the title, author, description, and image of the book.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Editions’ section and add the ISBN for the book. Finally, click the ‘Add Schema’ button to generate the schema.
Once you have added the GTIN, MPN, or ISBN schema for all the products, don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button at the top to save your changes.
You and your visitors won’t be able to see a difference on the front end of your website, but search engine bots will now have the ISBN, GTIN, or MPN details for the products.
Method 2: Add GTIN, ISBN, & MPN Schema to Your WooCommerce Store
If you want to add GTIN, ISBN, or MPN schema markup in your WooCommerce store, then you can use this method.
You can easily add the schema markup for ISBN, GTIN, and MPN using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin, which is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market.
First, you need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: AIOSEO has a free version, but you will need the Pro version to unlock the schema markup feature.
Upon activation, the plugin will launch a setup wizard on your screen. If you need any help, then you may want to see our tutorial on how to set up All in One SEO in WordPress.
Next, head over to the Products » All Products page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Once you are there, just click the ‘Edit’ link under the product where you want to add the GTIN, ISBN, or MPN schema.
This will open up the ‘Edit Product’ page, where you need to scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ meta box.
From here, switch to the ‘Schema’ tab, where you will see the ‘Product’ schema is already in use by default. Now, simply click the ‘Edit’ button next to the schema.
This will open up an ‘Edit Product’ popup on the screen, where you will see that the ‘Autogenerate Field’ toggle has been switched to ‘Yes’.
This means that AIOSEO automatically fetches and fills the schema data for the product title, image, and description.
However, if you would like to fill these fields manually, then you can simply switch the ‘Autogenerate Fields’ toggle to ‘No’.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Identifiers’ section and add the GTIN, ISBN, or MPN for your product. You can also add other attributes, shipping destinations, and product reviews in the schema markup.
After you have made your changes, don’t forget to click the ‘Update Schema’ button.
If your online store only sells books, then you can click on the ‘Generate Schema’ button in the Schema tab and then select the ‘Book’ schema template from the catalog.
This will open the Schema Generator on the screen, where you can add the title, image, and description for the book you are selling.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Editions’ section and add the ISBN for your book.
After entering the details, simply click the ‘Add Schema’ button to generate your schema markup for books.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ button at the top to store your changes.
You have now successfully added a schema markup for your products, including the GTIN, ISBN, or MPN details.
Keep in mind that these changes will not be visible on your website’s front end but will help search engine bots rank your content.
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.
Are you looking for a way to add social media icons to WordPress menus?
The logos for sites like Facebook and Twitter are instantly recognized by people all over the world. By adding these icons to your menus, you can promote your social media profiles in an eye-catching way that doesn’t take up a lot of space.
In this article, we will show you to add social media icons to WordPress navigation menus.
Why Should You Add Social Media Icons to Menus?
By adding social media icons to your website, you can encourage people to visit your different social networking profiles. This can get you more followers and engagement across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.
One option is to add social media icons to your WordPress sidebar or a similar widget-ready area. However, when people want to visit a new page, they typically look at your navigation menu first.
By adding social media icons to your WordPress menus, you can often get more clicks, engagement, and followers across all your social media profiles.
Social media icons can also grab the visitor’s attention without adding extra text to your menus. This allows you to promote lots of different profiles in a small amount of space.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add social media icons to WordPress menus.
Video Tutorial
If you prefer written instructions, just keep reading. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use:
When creating your social icons, you can use any image that you have uploaded to the WordPress media library.
For example, many of the top social media companies provide logos that you can use on your website, such as the Twitter brand toolkit. You can also download icons from online libraries like the Font Awesome website.
Menu Image also integrates with the Font Awesome plugin. This allows you to browse and import all the Font Awesome icons directly from the WordPress dashboard, including icons for all the major social networks. For this reason, we recommend installing the Font Awesome plugin.
No matter how you plan to provide the social media icons, you will need to install and activate the Menu Image plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you may want to take a look at the icon sizes and change them if necessary. To do this, you need to go to Menu Image » Menu Image.
When creating your social icons, you can use any of the default WordPress image sizes, such as thumbnail, image, or large. Menu Image also lets you choose between three unique sizes that are set to 24×24, 36×36, and 48×48 pixels by default.
These sizes should work well for most WordPress websites, but you can change them by typing different numbers into the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Menu Image fields.
With that done, click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.
To add icons to a navigation menu, head over to Appearance » Menus. By default, WordPress will show your site’s primary menu.
If you want to add social media icons to a different menu, then just open the ‘Select a menu to edit’ dropdown.
You can then choose a menu from the list and click on ‘Select.’
To start, you will need to add each social profile to your menu as a new link.
When you are ready, click to expand the ‘Custom Links’ section and then type in the address of the social media page you want to use. For example, you might enter the URL of your Facebook group or YouTube channel.
You will also need to type in some ‘Link Text’. In a later step, you will have the option to change where this title appears in the menu or even hide it completely.
With that done, click on ‘Add to Menu.’
This item will now appear in the right-hand column.
To add a social media icon, simply hover over the new menu item.
Then, click on the ‘Menu Image’ button when it appears.
Note: If you don’t see a ‘Menu Image’ button, then click on ‘Save Changes’. Now, the ‘Menu Image’ button should appear when you hover over any item in the menu.
You can now decide whether to use an image from your WordPress media library or an icon provided by Font Awesome.
To use a ready-made Font Awesome icon, click on the radio button next to ‘Icon’.
Then, select ‘Fontawesome’.
You can then click on ‘Brands’.
You will now see all the branded icons, including icons for all the major social networks. When you see the image you want to use, just give it a click.
Another option is using your own icon from the WordPress media library by selecting the ‘Image’ radio button. Then, click on the ‘Set Image’ link.
You can now either choose an image from the WordPress media library or upload a new file from your computer.
No matter where you get the icon from, Menu Image will show a preview on the right.
You can now change whether the link title appears above, below, before, or after the social media icon using the ‘Title position’ settings.
Many social media icons are instantly recognizable, so the link title may be unnecessary. If you are adding lots of social icons to a navigation menu, then titles can even make your menu look more messy and complicated.
With that being said, you may want to hide the title by selecting the ‘Hide’ radio button.
As you make changes, the live preview will update automatically, so you can try different settings to see what looks the best.
Finally, if you are using your own image, then you can resize the social media icons using the ‘Image Size’ dropdown.
Bigger icons will grab the visitor’s attention, but they can also be distracting. With that in mind, you may want to try different sizes to see what works best on your WordPress blog.
When you are happy with how the social media icon is set up, simply click on ‘Save Changes’.
Simply repeat these steps to add more icons to your WordPress menu.
You can even add icons to other important items in the navigation menu. For example, you might add icons to your contact form or WooCommerce checkout page.
When you are happy with how the menu is set up, just click on ‘Save Menu.’
Now, you can visit your website to see the new social media icons in action.
This is how it looked on our demo website.
Method 2: Using the Full Site Editor (Block Themes Only)
WordPress has a built-in Social Icons block that allows you to create a menu containing social media icons and then display them in a nice layout.
This block comes with built-in icons for all the major social networks, so you don’t need to install a plugin like Font Awesome or upload icons to your media library. However, you can only add social media icons and links to the Social Icons block, so it isn’t as flexible as the Menu Image plugin.
If you are using a block theme, then you can add a Social Icons block to any part of your website, such as the header or footer. In this way, you can show a social media menu across your entire website.
To get started, head over to Appearance » Editor in the WordPress dashboard.
By default, the full site editor shows your theme’s home template, but you can add social icons to any template or template part. You can even add social media icons to parts of your website you can’t edit using the standard WordPress content editor.
For example, you can add a social media menu to your site’s 404 page template.
To see all the available options, you need to select either ‘Templates’ or ‘Template Parts’.
You can now click on the template or template part that you want to edit.
As an example, we will add social media icons to the WordPress header, but the steps will be the same no matter which template you select.
After making your choice, WordPress will show a preview of the template or template part.
To continue, click on the small pencil icon.
With that done, click on the blue ‘+’ icon in the top-left corner.
In the search bar, you must type in ‘Social Icons.’
When the right block appears, drag and drop it onto the theme template.
To add the first icon, just click on the ‘+’ icon inside the block.
In the popup that appears, type in the icon you want to add, such as ‘Twitter’ or ‘Facebook’.
When the right icon appears, simply click to add it to your WordPress blog.
Now, click on the new social media icon.
This opens a small bar where you can type in the URL you want to link to, like your Facebook page.
To add more social icons to WordPress, simply click on the ‘+’ icon and repeat the same process described above.
After adding all the social media icons, you may want to customize the block. To do this, click to select the Social Icons block and then click on the ‘Block’ tab.
You can change the icon’s justification, alignment, and orientation using the ‘Layout’ settings.
By default, all the social media links will open in the same tab. To keep visitors on your website, you may want to click to enable the ‘Open links in new tab’ toggle.
By default, WordPress shows the social icons only, without any text.
If you want to show text next to each icon, then click to enable the ‘Show labels’ toggle.
Next, click on the ‘Styles’ tab.
Here, you can change the button style by clicking on ‘Default’, ‘Logos Only’, or ‘Pill Shape’.
Finally, you can change the space between the social icons using the settings under ‘Block Spacing’.
When you are happy with how the menu looks, click on the ‘Save’ button.
Now, if you visit your website, then you will see the social media icons live.
Bonus: How to Promote Your Social Media Profiles
Adding social media icons to WordPress menus is a great way to get more followers and engagement across your different accounts. However, there are lots more ways to promote your Twitter, Facebook, and other social profiles.
The best way to get more followers and engagement is by embedding a live social feed on your website. This allows you to show the latest posts from multiple accounts, along with buttons that visitors can use to engage with your posts or follow you on social media.
The best way to add social media feeds to your website is by using Smash Balloon. It’s the best social media feed plugin for WordPress and lets you embed live feeds from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and more.
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.
Today is July 4th, which means WPBeginner is officially 14 years old. We’ve come a long way!
Like every year, I want to take a few minutes and do a quick recap of all the major things happening in business as well as my personal life.
Bonus: I’m also doing a massive birthday giveaway, and you’ll get a chance to win your favorite premium WordPress plugins worth $50,000. On top of that, you can also win a 1-on-1 mentorship call with me for 1 hour.
I first started using WordPress when I was 16 years old and I fell in love with the community. This led me to start WPBeginner at age 19 with a single mission: to make WordPress easy for beginners.
Since then WPBeginner has become the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.
For those of you who’re new, you can read the full WPBeginner story on our about page and use the Start Here page to get the most out of WPBeginner.
Personal Updates
My son Solomon is now 6.5 years old, and it’s quite cool to see him taking interest in WordPress. He attended WordCamp Asia with me earlier this year in Bangkok.
His favorite task in the company is coming up with mascot ideas for our new plugins at Awesome Motive.
We as a family are continuing our travels around the world, and it’s really awesome to meet our local WPBeginner users.
Since the last WPBeginner birthday, we have taken trips to Istanbul, Karachi, Alaska, Dubai, California, Mexico, St. Thomas, Maldives, Thailand, Canada, and more.
One of the best parts about running a fully remote online company is that I can work from anywhere in the world. We have team members in 50 countries now, and I’m planning to visit at least few more countries this year.
If you didn’t get a chance to read my 2022 recap, I highly recommend checking it out on my personal blog where I share lessons learned from last year.
Btw, here’s a preview of a mascot that Solomon helped come up with for our new plugin, Duplicator. The mascot’s name is Willie the Walrus.
WPBeginner Updates
Thanks to our awesome community, WPBeginner has continued to grow year after year. Aside from all the amazing WordPress tutorials on our blog, there have been several notable updates from last year that I’d like to highlight.
But before I do that, I want to share a huge milestone that I’m super proud of. We got featured on the NASDAQ billboard in Time Square for passing 25 million active installs of our products.
This was a huge celebration for our entire team — going from a blog to being in Time Square in New York City!!!
We passed a BIG milestone!
Now over 25 million websites are using our software 🚀
I'm super proud of our team @awesomemotive and the amazing work we're doing to help shape the web for billions worldwide.
We also revamped our WPBeginner video site. Now you can access loads of step-by-step videos without hiring a developer for free.
You can follow us on various social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter.
3. Contributing to WordPress and Open Source
We have always been huge supporters of open source. This past year, we revamped our free Insert Headers and Footers plugin from the ground up and relaunched it under a new brand WPCode.
It was originally created to help you add code snippets in WordPress without editing your theme’s functions.php file or installing an additional plugin.
Now we launched a brand new snippet library from where you can find the snippet and add them to your site with one click.
You can also create your own WPCode profile to save snippets, create private snippets, and more.
See the full WPCode announcement to see why this is the most underrated yet MUST HAVE plugin for all websites, and it’s now being used by over 2 million websites!
4. New Acquisitions & Investments
In 2018, I created the WPBeginner Growth Fund to invest in WordPress-focused companies that are solving important problems that you, our readers, want me to help out with.
Over the past 12 months, we have made several big acquisitions and investments in the ecosystem.
We acquired Thrive Themes, company behind some of the most powerful growth tools for WordPress. Over 200,000+ smart website owners use the Thrive plugin suite to easily convert website visitors into email subscribers, paying customers, and raving fans. Some of their plugins include landing page builder, quiz builder, course platform, and more. Here’s the full background story.
We acquired Duplicator, a powerful WordPress backup and migration plugin used by over 1.5 million websites. You can use it to create automatic backups and store them on cloud. It comes with easy restore option to save time. It’s also the best solution to migrate your website from one hosting provider to another, or even from local server to live. Here’s the full background story.
We acquired WP101, which offers professionally-produced WordPress training videos to help you learn WordPress, fast. It’s a perfect solution for business owners to offer WordPress training videos in their employee onboarding process. Here’s the full background story.
We acquired Easy WP SMTP, which helps you solve email delivery issues and prevent your emails from landing in the spam folder.
Aside from the full acquisitions, we also invested in HeroThemes, a company that specializes in building tools to help users deliver great customer service on their websites. See more details here.
I’m really proud of how far we’ve come with the Growth Fund, and it’s really amazing to see the impact our companies are making in the WordPress ecosystem and the larger open web.
Often readers ask me what is WPBeginner’s income, and how does WPBeginner make money by giving away all WordPress tutorials for free.
Well, we make money indirectly through our suite of premium WordPress plugins that are now running on over 25 million websites. Aside from that, we also have investments in a suite of other WordPress companies through our growth fund that I mentioned above.
Our team at Awesome Motive continued to set new records this year, and all of our products saw tremendous growth.
Here’s a list of our plugins that you should check out:
OptinMonster – The #1 conversion optimization software that helps you convert abandoning website visitors into subscribers and customers. There’s also a free version here.
WPForms – The most beginner-friendly WordPress form builder used by over 5 million websites. There’s also a free version – WPForms Lite.
MonsterInsights – The most popular WordPress Analytics plugin to help you grow your business with confidence. I use this on all of my websites. Free version available: MonsterInsights Lite.
AIOSEO – The original WordPress SEO plugin to help you get more traffic. Used by over 3 million websites. There’s also a free version of AIOSEO.
WP Mail SMTP – The #1 plugin that helps improve your WordPress email deliverability. The free version: WP Mail SMTP Lite is sufficient for most website owners.
SeedProd – The best drag & drop website builder for WordPress. You can use it to create custom WordPress themes, landing pages, and website layouts without any code. Try the free version of SeedProd.
RafflePress – A powerful WordPress giveaway and contest plugin to grow your website traffic.
PushEngage – The leading web push notification software for small businesses. It helps send over 9 billion push notifications each month.
SearchWP – The most advanced WordPress search plugin. Completely customize your WordPress search form and search results algorithm to improve your content discoverability and increase sales. Trusted by over 30,000+ website owners.
Easy Digital Downloads – the top-rated WordPress plugin for selling digital products and subscriptions. Easily sell eBooks, software, music, and more, protect digital downloads, accept payments, and more. Trusted by over 50,000+ website owners. Try the free version of EDD.
AffiliateWP – The most popular affiliate management plugin for WordPress. Easily launch an affiliate program for your store. One-click integration with WooCommerce, WPForms, and 20 other payment plugins. Unlock a new growth channel without the middleman fees.
WP Simple Pay – Easily accept payments online without a complex shopping cart setup. Great for simple one-time or recurring payments. Built-in support for credit card payments, ACH bank debit, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more. Try the free version of WP Simple Pay.
TrustPulse – Leverage the power of social proof to instantly increase site conversions by up to 15%. Automatically show real-time purchase notifications and other website activity notifications to increase trust, conversions, and sales.
WP Charitable – The top-rated donation and fundraising plugin for WordPress. Over 10,000+ non-profit organizations and website owners across the world use Charitable to create fundraising campaigns and raise more money online. Try the free version of Charitable.
Duplicator: Secure your WordPress website with reliable backups. It also makes it easy to migrate and restore your website to your favorite locations. Try the free version of Duplicator.
User Feedback: Easiest way to collect user feedback and make surveys on your website. Great HotJar alternative (free version here).
We’re a fully remote team of over 290+ people across 50 countries. Want to join our team and work alongside me in helping small businesses grow and compete with the big guys? We’re hiring.
WPBeginner Birthday Giveaway
To celebrate the 14th birthday of WPBeginner, we are offering premium plugins worth $50,000.
The prize includes 10 licenses of each of the plugins listed here.
On top of that, you can also win a 1-on-1 mentorship call with me for 1 hour.
The winner will be chosen randomly using a random generator script.
Thank You, Everyone
I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported us in this journey. I really do appreciate all of your retweets, personal emails, content suggestions, and interactions at events.
I also want to say a special thank you to everyone who’s using our plugins because that enables us to keep bringing more free tutorials on WPBeginner.
You all are AMAZING, and without you, there is no WPBeginner.
Are you looking for the best WordPress backup plugin for your website?
Creating regular WordPress backups is the best thing you can do for your website security. Backups give you peace of mind and can save you in catastrophic situations, like when your site gets hacked or you accidentally lock yourself out.
There are several free and paid WordPress backup plugins, most of which are fairly easy to use.
In this article, we will share some of the best WordPress backup plugins for small businesses.
Important: While many WordPress hosting providers offer limited backup services, we always recommend that our users not rely solely on them. At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to keep regular backups of your website.
If you are not already backing up your WordPress website, then you should pick one of these best WordPress backup plugins and start using it right away.
Duplicator Pro is a powerful and user-friendly WordPress backup plugin used by over 1.5 million website owners. It makes it easy to back up, migrate, and clone your WordPress site, even for beginners.
You can create manual or scheduled WordPress backups and safely store them on popular cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, OneDrive, and Amazon S3.
You can also view all of your backups right from your WordPress dashboard, which makes backup management simple.
When you need to restore a backup, the Duplicator Recovery Wizard will walk you through restoring your backup files, step by step.
Duplicator comes with all of the backup features you need, including complete WordPress files & database backups, recovery points, archive encryption for enhanced security, and more.
It also offers advanced site migration features such as an easy migration wizard, a streamlined installer, server-to-server imports, multisite network migrations, customizable pre-configured sites, large site support, and more.
At WPBeginner, we have used Duplicator for various website migrations, and it’s super reliable, especially for complex migrations.
Pricing: Starts at $49.50 per year for unlimited backups for up to 2 sites. There’s also a free version of Duplicator that you can use to get started.
Review:Duplicator Pro is a top-rated WordPress backup and migration plugin. It has over 1.5 million active installs and an average 4.9 out of 5 star rating. The free version has everything you need to get started. But we recommend upgrading to the premium version to access features like cloud storage, scheduled backups, and more.
Besides backing up each WordPress website, UpdraftPlus also allows you to easily restore backups directly from your WordPress admin panel.
UpdraftPlus also has a premium version with add-ons to migrate or clone websites, database search and replace, multisite support, and several other features. The premium version also gets you access to priority support.
Pricing: Free (UpdraftPremium Personal costs $70 per year).
Review:UpdratPlus is one of the most loved WordPress backup plugins on the market. It has over 3 million active installs and an average 4.8 out of 5 star rating. While the free version has a lot of features, we recommend upgrading to UpdraftPlus premium to unlock all its powerful backup features.
Jetpack VaultPress Backup is a popular WordPress backup plugin by Automattic, the company created by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg.
This plugin was originally launched under the name VaultPress, which is what we use on WPBeginner, but now it’s been redesigned and rebranded as Jetpack Backups. We have started to switch several of our websites to the new Jetpack backup platform because it’s more up-to-date.
The Jetpack backup plugin offers automated daily and real-time cloud backup solutions without slowing down your site. You can easily set up Jetpack backups and restore from backups within a few clicks.
The higher plans of Jetpack also offer security scans and several other powerful features.
There are a few downsides to using Jetpack backups for beginners.
First, a recurring expense can add up with multiple WordPress sites because you pay per site.
Second, the purchase flow is quite complicated, and they force you to install the Jetpack plugin to purchase a subscription. The good news is that you can manually disable all the unnecessary features of Jetpack except for backups, so they don’t slow down your site.
Lastly, backups are stored for only 30 days on the lower plans. If you want an unlimited backup archive, you will have to pay $4.95 per month per website, which is significantly more expensive for beginners when compared to other solutions listed here.
WPBeginner website still uses VaultPress (an older version of Jetpack) because we got grandfathered in at their older pricing, which was much more favorable.
However, even at the higher price, Jetpack backup is completely worth it due to the stellar reputation of Automattic. This is why we pay for higher priced real-time backup plans for our new sites like All in One SEO because it’s an eCommerce store, and we want maximum protection.
Pricing: From $14.95 per month for a daily backup plan or $59.40 if you pay for a full year in advance.
Review:Jetpack VaultPress Backup is a premium backup service with a premium price point. If you are already using JetPack for other features like JetPack CDN for photos, social media promotion, and Elastic search, then it’s good value to purchase their Complete plan bundle. If you are just after real-time cloud backups for WordPress, then you can also look at BlogVault in our list because they offer more affordable pricing for beginners.
BackupBuddy is one of the most popular premium WordPress backup plugins used by over half a million WordPress sites. It allows you to easily schedule daily, weekly, and monthly backups.
With BackupBuddy, you can automatically store your backups in cloud storage services like Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, and Stash (their cloud service) and even email it to yourself.
If you use their Stash service, you can also do real-time backups.
The biggest advantage of using BackupBuddy is that it is not a subscription-based service, so there is no monthly fee. You can use the plugin on the number of websites mentioned in your plan.
You also get access to premium support forums, regular updates, and 1GB of BackupBuddy Stash storage to store your backups. In addition, their iThemes Sync feature lets you manage up to 10 WordPress sites from a single dashboard.
You can even use BackupBuddy to duplicate, migrate and restore websites.
Pricing: $99 for Basic Plan (1 Site License).
Review:BackupBuddy is a cost-effective premium WordPress backup solution for you. It has a full set of features you will need to back up, restore, and move a WordPress site. In a nutshell, it’s a powerful UpdraftPlus and VaultPress alternative that you can use.
BlogVault is another popular WordPress backup service for WordPress. It’s a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution rather than just a WordPress plugin. It creates offsite backups independently on BlogVault servers, so there will be zero load on your server.
BlogVault creates an automatic backup of your website daily and also allows you to manually create unlimited on-demand backups. It features smart incremental backups that sync only incremental changes for minimal server load. This ensures optimal performance for your WordPress site.
Besides backups, it helps you to recover your website easily. You can store 90 days backup archive on lower plans and a 365-day backup archive on the higher plan, so you can recover your site from any mishap.
It also has a built-in staging site feature to let you test your website easily. Plus, they provide an easy option to migrate your website to another host.
BlogVault features are very promising for small businesses, and their real-time backup plan is affordable compared to Jetpack backups (half the price). However, if you compare it to self-hosted plugins like Updraft or BackupBuddy, the cost per site is more expensive.
Pricing: $89 per year for Personal Plan 1 Site License for daily backups. $299 per year for high frequency daily backups.
Review:BlogVault is an easy-to-use WordPress backup solution. It creates offsite backups, so your website server will not be overloaded with your backups. The pricing seems very affordable for small businesses that want real-time backups but don’t want to pay the premium pricing of Jetpack backups.
BoldGrid Backup offers Total Upkeep, an automated WordPress backup solution by BoldGrid.
It allows you to easily create your website backups, restore your site after it crashes, and even use it to move your site when switching hosts. You can set up automated backups or manually create backups with one click.
Total Upkeep comes with an automated fault protection feature that automatically creates a backup of your site before it updates. If an update fails, it automatically rolls back your WordPress site to the last backup. It’s a great feature that protects you against update errors.
With BoldGrid’s Total Upkeep, you can store backup archives on your dashboard and in remote storage locations like Amazon S3, FTP, or SFTP.
Pricing: $2.50 per month billed annually (Includes all of BoldGrid Premium tools & Services).
Review:BoldGrid Total Upkeep Backup is a simple WordPress backup plugin you can use to create your website backups. If you want to take advantage of their bundle plan, including other powerful tools, then you will need to purchase the BoldGrid Premium Connect Key. This plan also includes the WordPress website builder, costing $60 per year.
BackWPup is a free plugin that allows you to create complete WordPress backups for free and store them on the cloud (Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace, etc.), FTP, email, or on your computer.
It is extremely easy to use and allows you to schedule automatic backups according to your site’s update frequency.
Restoring a WordPress site from a backup is also very simple. The BackWPup Pro version comes with priority support, the ability to store backups on Google Drive, and other cool features.
Pricing: Free (Premium plan is also available).
Review: Used by over 700,000 websites, BackWPup is a great alternative to other backup plugins in the list. The premium version of the plugin adds more powerful features, including easy and quick website restoration from the backend with a standalone app.
Which Is the Best WordPress Backup Plugin?
Each WordPress backup plugin in our list has pros and cons, but all plugins offer complete WordPress file backup and full database backup features.
We use Jetpack Backups for two main reasons. It is extremely easy to use, and it offers real-time incremental backups.
This means that instead of backing up all of your files every day or every hour, it only creates a backup of what has been updated literally within minutes of the update. This is ideal for a large website like ours because it allows us to use our server resources efficiently.
However, if you run a small to medium size website and hate paying high monthly fees, we recommend the popular Duplicator plugin. It has powerful features like backup encryption, scheduled backups, and many cloud storage options.
Whichever WordPress backup plugin you choose, please do NOT store your backups on the same server as your website.
By doing that, you are putting all of your eggs in one basket. If your server’s hardware fails or you get hacked, you don’t have a backup. This defeats the purpose of setting up regular backups.
We recommend storing your backups on a third-party storage service like Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, etc.
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Do you want to create a searchable database in WordPress?
A searchable database allows you to easily store, manage, and update all the data on your website in a central location. This can be helpful for sorting through information from contact form submissions or other user data.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create a searchable database in WordPress.
What Is a Searchable Database?
A searchable database is a collection of all the data on your website that you can filter to find the information that you need. It allows you to organize and view all the data that is coming into your WordPress blog.
For example, you can use a searchable database to easily sort and view user information submitted via your contact form.
This ensures that you don’t waste time manually searching through pages or posts to access the data you need. Plus, viewing data in a central location can also help you see data trends and use them to your advantage to generate more leads for your business.
Searchable databases also have a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to navigate and interact with the back end of your WordPress website, even if you are a beginner.
Having said that, let’s see how you can easily add a searchable database in WordPress step by step. You can use the quick links below to jump to the different parts of the tutorial:
You can easily add a searchable database in WordPress using Formidable Forms.
Formidable Forms is an all-in-one WordPress form builder plugin that comes with a drag-and-drop interface to create different forms, including quizzes, contact forms, surveys, payment forms, and more.
It also comes with a built-in searchable database feature that lets you easily search, edit, add, display, hide, sort, and view all your WordPress form data in one location.
Note: Formidable Forms also has a free version that you can use to create a searchable database. However, we will be using the Pro version to unlock more features.
Step 1: Create a Form Using The Plugin
Upon activation, you need to head over to the Formidable » Forms page from the WordPress admin sidebar. From here, click the ‘Add New Form’ button to start creating a form for your WordPress site.
This will open up a ‘Create new form’ prompt on the screen, where you have to select a form template.
For this tutorial, we will be creating and adding a contact form to our website.
Once you have done that, you will be asked to name your form.
After that, just click the ‘Create’ button to launch the form builder.
This will open up the drag-and-drop builder interface, where you can drag form fields of your choice from the left column onto the form.
You can even customize your form by switching to the ‘Style’ tab at the top and choosing a theme for it.
Once you are done, simply click the ‘Update’ button at the top to store your changes.
Now, to add the form to your WordPress website, you need to head over to an existing or new page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Once there, click the ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the screen to open up the block menu.
From here, find and add the Formidable Forms block to the page.
Next, you must click the ‘Select a form’ dropdown menu in the block and choose the form that you want to add to the page.
Once you are done, simply click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now that a form has been added to a page, a searchable database will automatically be created for it.
Step 2: View And Edit Data Using a Searchable Database
You can easily view it by visiting the Formidable » Entries page from the admin sidebar. Here, each entry for the form will be displayed on the screen.
Simply click the ‘View’ link under an entry name to see it.
Alternatively, if you want to edit the form entry, then you can click the ‘Edit’ link under it.
This will take you to a new screen, where you will be able to view all the user information, entry id, entry key, submission data, and more.
You will also be able to edit and update the form details.
If you want to easily visualize all the form data as tables, grids, or calendars, then you must visit the Formidable » Views page from the admin sidebar.
Keep in mind that the Views feature is only available in the Pro version of the plugin.
From here, click the ‘+Add New’ button in the top right corner of the screen.
This will open up a prompt where you have to select a view type, such as a grid, table, calendar, or ready-made solutions.
For this tutorial, we will be picking ‘Table’ as the data view type.
After that, you need to provide a name for your view type. This name won’t be displayed on the front end and is only for your identification purposes.
Next, select your form from the ‘Select Datasource’ dropdown menu. The plugin will then fetch entries for the data from the form you choose.
Once you have done that, just click the ‘Create a view’ button to move forward.
Next, you will be asked to customize the view. From here, you have to select all the columns that you want to be displayed in the database table.
For example, if you want to have a column with the email addresses of all the users that have submitted the form, then you need to select the ‘Email’ option.
You can also use the search bar at the top to find a form field not displayed on the screen. Keep in mind that the plugin can only fetch data for the form fields that are already added to the form.
After that, click the ‘Create a view’ button to continue.
This will take you to the ‘Views’ page, where you will be able to see and search through all the data for your form entries.
From here, you can even look for a specific entry using the ‘Filter entries’ and ‘Sort entries’ features at the top.
You can even edit each column in the table individually by clicking on it to launch the ‘Edit Listing Page Content’ prompt on the screen.
For example, if you want to change the entry update date of each user to the same current date, then you can click on the ‘Entry Updated Date’ field in the user table and enter a new value.
Once you are done, just click the ‘Update’ button at the top to save your changes.
You can now easily view and search through your form database.
Step 4: Export the Searchable Database to Your Computer (Optional)
If you want to export your searchable database to your computer, you must head over to the Formidable » Import/Export page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Once there, scroll down to the ‘Export’ section and choose ‘XML’ as the export format.
After that, select the data you want to be included in the XML file by checking the box next to the options. If you want to export all the data in the View you created, then check the box next to that option.
Next, select the form with the data you want to export from the ‘Select Form’ section.
Finally, click the ‘Export Selection’ button to download the file. You have now successfully exported the database to your computer.
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Do you want to add multi-column content to your WordPress posts?
Columns can be used to create engaging layouts for your posts and pages. They make it easier for you to organize your content. They can also improve readability as your website visitors quickly scan the text.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add multi-column content to your WordPress posts without writing any HTML code.
Why Add Multi-Column Content in WordPress?
Traditional print media, like newspapers and magazines, have been using multi-column layouts since the very early days of printing.
Their goal was to make it easier for users to read the smaller text while utilizing the available space economically.
Single-column layouts are more commonly used on the web. However, multi-column grids are still useful for highlighting content and making it easier to scan and read.
For example, if you run a magazine website, then you can use a multi-column layout to organize your content. It will give it the same feel as you would find in a physical magazine.
Organizing your content in multiple columns is also helpful if you are publishing comparisons, research papers, and other interactive content on your WordPress website. It helps improve readability and boost engagement.
That said, let’s see how you can add multi-column content in the block and classic editor. You can simply click the links below to jump ahead to the method you want to use:
Adding Multi-Column Content in WordPress Block Editor – The Easy Way
Creating multi-column content, also known as grid column content in WordPress, is now easy because it is a default feature. The WordPress Block Editor includes a Columns block.
To add a multi-column layout, you need to create a new post or edit an existing one. Once you are in the content editor, click on the ‘+’ icon at the top to add a block.
Next, you need to select the Columns block in the ‘Design’ tab.
Next, you will need to select the number of columns and layouts you would like to use for your blog post.
WordPress will show you different options to choose from. For example, you can pick a 50/50 column layout, use a 33/66 layout, and more.
After choosing a layout, you can add blocks to your columns. The Columns block allows you to add blocks inside each column.
For example, you can select the Paragraph block and add content to it.
You will also be able to see the block settings in the right column of the post-edit screen in the settings panel. Here, you can edit the width of the columns.
In addition to the text, you can also add images and embed videos in WordPress columns.
Simply take the mouse to one of the columns, and click the ‘+’ button to add a block. You can also add a block by typing ‘/’ and then the block name.
For example, we added an image in one column and some text in the other column.
Adding Multiple Columns in Old WordPress Classic Editor
If you haven’t upgraded your WordPress to Gutenberg and are still using the Classic Editor, then you will need to install a separate plugin for creating a grid column layout.
Upon activation, you can create a new post or edit an old one. Once you are in the classic editor, simply click on the ‘[ ]’ button in the toolbar.
The plugin will now show you a list of column shortcodes for your blog post.
You can choose any layout you would like to add to your WordPress blog. There are also options to edit the column padding.
Once you have selected a shortcode, it will automatically appear in the classic editor. For instance, we picked the ‘one half’ shortcode for this tutorial.
You can then enter your content between the shortcodes.
Next, you can click the shortcode icon ‘[ ]’ again to add another column shortcode.
Let’s add the ‘one half (last)’ shortcode to show two columns next to each other. From here, you just need to add your content to the other column.
After that, you can preview your post and publish it.
Here’s how it looked on our test site.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add multi-column content in WordPress posts and pages. You may also want to see our simple guide to WordPress SEO and our expert picks for the must-have WordPress plugins for business sites.
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.
Are you looking for the best way to gather useful feedback about your WooCommerce store from your active customers?
User surveys can help you get valuable information so you can use it to make data-driven decisions. For example, they can help you find out how to improve your sales funnel or why your customers bought a particular product.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create post purchase surveys in WooCommerce.
Why Use Post Purchase Surveys in WooCommerce?
If you have a WooCommerce store, then you may be wondering what your customers think of your products and online store. There’s no easy way to find out without actually asking them.
Luckily, you can use a WordPress survey plugin to collect real user feedback quickly and easily. This feedback will help you discover the ‘why’ behind every website visitor’s action. This is something you can’t learn from Google Analytics alone.
When creating your customer survey, make sure you don’t add any unnecessary questions. The questions you ask should get you the most valuable information and insights.
Here are some examples of questions you can ask your customers after checkout:
How long have you been a customer?
How did you discover us?
Was our pricing page easy to understand?
Which of our products have you used?
How satisfied are you with our products?
Have you needed to contact customer service?
Do you have any additional comments or suggestions?
By asking for user feedback after each WooCommerce purchase, you will learn ways you can improve your sales funnel to boost user experience and increase sales.
When you know the why or the intent behind users’ actions, you can easily figure out why your visitors buy or do not buy your products.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to easily create post purchase surveys in WooCommerce. We will cover two different methods:
Method 1: Creating Post Purchase Surveys Using UserFeedback
UserFeedback is an easy-to-use survey plugin by the MonsterInsights team. It lets you ask your website visitors questions and collect their feedback in real time. It also makes it easy to add the survey to specific WooCommerce pages, such as the order confirmation page.
UserFeedback includes a Post Purchase Review template to give you a head start in creating your survey. Plus, you can customize how your popup surveys look so that they completely match your brand and site design.
Note: There is a free version of UserFeedback that you can use to get started. However, you will need the features of the Pro version to create a post purchase survey.
Setting Up the UserFeedback Plugin
Once the plugin is activated, the setup wizard will automatically launch. Click the ‘Start’ button to begin the setup.
Next, you will be prompted to create your first survey to show you what the plugin is capable of.
We won’t be using this example survey, so you can go ahead and use the default answers.
You can choose from a few pre-written questions or create your own question. You will also be able to change your questions at any time.
For this tutorial, you should simply click the ‘Next Step’ button to continue.
Next, you will see the option to enable specific UserFeedback features, depending on your license level.
Go ahead and enable the features you want or that your license level allows.
Once you have done that, you need to click the ‘Next Step’ button at the bottom of the page.
Now, you can enter the email address where you want the survey responses to be sent.
Since we won’t be using this survey, you don’t need to make any changes and can simply click the ‘Next Step: Publish’ button.
In the final step of the setup wizard, the features and addons you enable will be installed.
Then, you can click on the ‘Exit to dashboard’ button at the bottom of the page.
You will see the sample ‘First Survey’ that you created with the wizard.
Now you can unlock the Pro features of the plugin. You need to enter the license key that was emailed to you when you purchased a UserFeedback plan.
You will need to navigate to UserFeedback » Settings in the WordPress admin area. Once there, simply paste your license key into the field and click the ‘Verify’ button.
Make sure you click the ‘Save Settings’ button once you have done this.
After that, you can enable the Pro features by going to the UserFeedback » Addons page.
For each addon, you will need to click the ‘Install Addon’ button, followed by the ‘Activate’ button that appears.
This is important since the Additional Templates addon includes a Post Purchase Review template, and the Question Types addon allows you to add star ratings and more. Other addons allow you to further customize your survey form.
Now that you have successfully installed the UserFeedback plugin and its addons, you are ready to create your post purchase survey.
Creating a Post Purchase Survey Using UserFeedback
To create a new survey, you need to return to the UserFeedback » Surveys page and click the ‘Create New’ button.
This will show you dozens of survey templates that you can use as a starting point.
You need to scroll down until you find the Post Purchase Review template and then click it.
A new survey will be created for you. Some helpful questions have already been added.
You can change any question’s type and title by simply pointing and clicking.
Each question has a Settings tab where you can set the question as ‘Required’. The Logic tab lets you show or hide the question based on the customer’s previous answers.
With UserFeedback, you can ask unlimited questions and receive unlimited responses. You can ask all types of questions, including multiple-choice and free-form questions, and even capture emails and collect star ratings.
You might like to add some of the questions we listed at the beginning of this article. To add a question to your survey, simply click the ‘Add Question’ button after the last question.
When you choose a question type from the dropdown menu, a new question will be added.
After that, you will be able to add a question title. Depending on the question type, you can then customize the question in other ways, such as labeling checkboxes or radio buttons.
Tip: The ‘Preview’ link at the top of the page doesn’t just preview the form but also allows you to customize its colors.
You can also create a custom thank you message and redirect users after their submissions.
When you have finished editing your survey questions, just hit the ‘Next Step: Settings’ button. This will open the Settings page, where you can customize your survey even more.
Next, in the ‘Targeting’ section, you can select what types of devices and pages you want your survey to appear on. You can display the survey on all device types or create different surveys that target desktop and mobile users.
Next, you can scroll down to the Pages setting area. This is important because it allows you to choose where the survey will be displayed.
The default setting is ‘All Pages’. This will display the survey on every page of your online store. However, we only want to survey customers after they have made a purchase.
In this case, we should display the survey on the order confirmation page that is displayed after checkout. This page is also known as the WooCommerce thank you page.
To target this page, you will need to select ‘Page url is’ from the dropdown menu. After that, you should type ‘order-received’ in the next field.
This works because the setting matches partial URLs. The full URL will change with each transaction but will always contain the characters ‘order-received’.
You can also scroll down to the ‘Behavior’ section. Here, you can configure settings like:
Display Timing – When the survey will appear on the page.
Display Length – How often the survey will appear to website visitors.
Survey Run Time – How long the survey will appear on the designated pages.
In addition, you can enable or disable the ‘Start Survey Minimized’ option.
This displays a less visible version of your survey instead of automatically opening the first question.
Once you are done changing the settings, you can click the ‘Next Step: Notifications’ button.
This will take you to the Notifications page, where you can choose to send yourself an email with each new response to the survey. Simply leave the ‘Send Email’ toggle switched on and then enter one or more email addresses.
You can also enable conditional logic to trigger email notifications when visitors respond to your questions in a certain way.
For example, you might only want to receive an email if the user checks a box labeled ‘Do you want a callback?’
For this to work, your survey needs to contain at least one question with a radio, checkbox, NPS, or star rating question.
After that, click on the ‘Next Step: Publish’ button to continue.
Publish Your Survey
Lastly, there’s an option to schedule the survey for a later date and time.
If you are ready to publish your survey immediately, then go ahead and click the ‘Save and Publish’ button.
That’s it! You’ve successfully created a survey form.
Now when your customers purchase items from your store, your survey will pop up on the order confirmation page.
Tip: You may not see the customer survey when you are logged into WooCommerce. You will need to open your online store in a new incognito window or a different web browser.
Viewing Your Survey Form Results
Once you start getting responses, you can analyze them right from your WordPress admin dashboard using easy-to-read reports.
Simply navigate to UserFeedback » Results to see the total responses, impressions, and more details.
Method 2: Creating Post Purchase Surveys Using WPForms
WPForms is the best WordPress contact form plugin on the market. It comes with a powerful surveys and polls addon, which allows you to quickly create highly-engaging survey forms.
It lets you combine the Surveys and Polls addon with powerful WPForms features like conditional logic, multi-page forms, custom notifications, email integrations, and more.
Note: You will need the Pro plan because it includes the WPForms Surveys and Polls addon. WPBeginner users can use our WPForms coupon to get 50% OFF on all WPForms licenses.
Once the plugin is activated, you need to go to the WPForms » Settings page and enter your license key. You will find this information in your account on the WPForms website.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Verify Key’ button.
Once you have done that, you should head over to the WPForms » Addons page and scroll down to the Surveys and Polls addon.
Go ahead and click on the ‘Install’ addon button to install and activate the addon.
Now you are ready to create the post purchase survey form.
Creating a Post Purchase Survey Using WPForms
You need to visit the WPForms » Add New page to create a new form. This will launch the WPForms form builder interface, and you can choose from different pre-built form templates.
First, you should provide a title for your survey form at the top of the page.
After that, you need to choose a template. Start by clicking on ‘Addon Templates’ to list templates that are compatible with the Surveys and Polls addon.
Then you need to click the ‘Use Template’ button on the Survey Form template. This will load a sample customer feedback form template with several fields already added to it.
You can just point and click to edit the fields, rearrange them with drag and drop, or remove them from the form. You can also add new form fields from the left column.
WPForms supports all commonly-used form fields, including dropdown, radio buttons, checkboxes, Likert scale, text input, rating scale, and many more. This makes it super easy for you to build highly-interactive survey forms.
There is some conditional logic already built into the form. For example, the ‘How can we improve?’ field will only appear if a user selects 1 or 2 stars in the ‘Your Experience’ field.
You can see this by selecting the ‘How can we improve?’ field and then clicking the ‘Field Options’ tab on the left, as seen in the image above.
If some of your customers log in to your online store, then you can make their life easier by auto-filling some of their information from their user profiles.
For example, to auto-fill their email address, you need to click on the Email field, then click the ‘Field Options’ tab on the left. Once there, just click on the ‘Advanced’ tab to show the advanced field options.
You will notice a field where you can set a Default Value for the email field.
You can enter information from their profile automatically by clicking on ‘Show Smart Tags’.
Now you simply click the ‘User Email List’ option, and the {user_email} smart tag will be entered into the field. This will automatically add the email address for logged-in users.
You can also easily remove any fields that you don’t need on the form.
For example, if you would like to remove the ‘Name’ field, then you should point at that field with your mouse and then click the red Trash icon that appears at the top right of the field.
If you would like to add more questions, such as the ones we listed at the beginning of this article, simply drag a new field onto the page and then customize it.
Once you have created the form, you need to click the orange ‘Save’ button at the top of the page to store your form settings.
Next, you can go to the Settings tab and select ‘Confirmations’ in the WPForms form builder.
Here, you can choose whether to show a message or a page or even redirect users to a URL when they submit the survey form.
Besides that, the WPForms Notifications tab lets you edit the notification settings so that you get email alerts when a user fills out your survey.
You can now click on the close button to exit the form builder.
Adding the Survey Form to a Custom Thank You Page
If you have gone through the trouble of creating a custom WooCommerce thank you page, then you can easily add your post purchase survey to it using a shortcode or a block.
Note: Whether you are using the default thank you page or a custom one, you can also display the survey as a popup using a plugin. See the next section for details.
You will find the shortcode you need by visiting the WPForms » All Forms page.
Alternatively, if you created your custom thank you page using the block editor or a page builder plugin like SeedProd, then all you need to do is drag the WPForms widget onto the page and then pick the survey form you just created from a dropdown menu.
Once you have saved your custom thank you page, your customers will see the survey after checking out.
Automatically Showing a Survey Popup Using OptinMonster
You might prefer to have the survey pop up automatically over the order confirmation page, similar to what happens with the UserFeedback plugin in Method 1.
Note: In this tutorial, we will use the free OptinMonster plugin because it does everything we need. However, with a Growth subscription, the premium version of OptinMonster has much stronger integration with WooCommerce.
Upon activation, the OptinMonster setup wizard will start.
Simply follow the onscreen instructions to set up OptinMonster on your website and create a free account.
Once you complete the setup, you will find yourself on the OptinMonster dashboard.
You will see a welcome message, a link to the OptinMonster user guide, and a video to help you get started.
Now you will need to scroll down until you find a box where you can create a new popup.
Simply click the ‘Create New’ link.
You will now see a collection of popup templates. Since our popup will just contain our post purchase survey, we will use the minimal Canvas template.
You can find this template by typing ‘canvas’ into the search field.
When you point your mouse over the Canvas template, two buttons will appear.
You can create your popup by clicking the ‘Use Template’ button.
You will see a popup asking you to give the campaign a name.
You can type in ‘Post Purchase Survey’ and then click the ‘Start Building’ button.
The OptinMonster builder will open with your selected template. You can see a preview of the popup on the right, and there are blocks on the left that you can add to the popup.
You need to find the WPForms block and drag it onto the page.
You can now select the survey you want to add.
Simply click on the name of the WPForms post purchase survey that you created earlier. The WPForms shortcode will be added to your popup.
There is still a placeholder image and text block on the page. These can be safely deleted.
When you hover your mouse over the image, a purple toolbar will appear. You can delete the image by clicking the Trash icon. You will be asked to confirm the deletion.
You can delete the text block that says ‘Drag blocks and elements to start building your campaign’ in the same way.
Your finished popup should include just the WPForms shortcode. This is a good time to save your work by clicking the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen.
Your next job is to click the ‘Display Rules’ tab and set how and where the popup will be displayed.
The first rule determines when the popup will be shown. The default value is after you have been on the page for 5 seconds. This will work for most online stores, but you can change the value if you like.
Now you need to scroll down to the second rule, which you will find just below the ‘AND’ label.
The default value is to display the popup on every page of your WordPress website. You need to change this so that it only displays the post purchase survey on the order confirmation page.
To do this, you need to click the dropdown menu for ‘is any page’ and select ‘contains’ instead.
Another field will appear, and you need to type ‘order-received’ here.
This rule will match the confirmation page URL. Although the URL changes with every transaction, it will always contain the characters ‘order-received’.
Now you can click the ‘Next Step’ button to determine what happens when the conditions in those two rules are met.
The default settings here will display the popup without any effects or sound. If you would like to add an effect or sound, just use the dropdown menus.
Once you are finished, you need to click on the ‘Next Step’ button. You will see a summary of the display rules you just created.
Make sure you click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Finally, you can click the ‘Publish’ tab at the top of the screen and then click the ‘Publish’ button under ‘Publish Status’. This will push the popup live on your online store.
You can now close the OptinMonster builder by clicking the ‘X’ icon in the top right corner.
Your customers will now see the post purchase survey whenever they finish checking out. Here’s how it looks in our demo store.
Viewing Your Survey Form Results
WPForms shows survey results in beautiful charts and graphs. You can also print survey results and export them to your favorite spreadsheet software.
To view your survey results, you need to visit the WPForms » All Forms page and click on the ‘Survey Results’ link below your survey form.
On the results page, you will see your survey responses displayed in an interactive chart and tables.
You can export responses to a single question and the entire survey.
On the top, you will see options to switch to different chart types and export options.
You can save individual survey results in JPEG, PDF, and Print formats to easily share them on presentation slides, blog posts, or social media.
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Do you want to set up email logs on your WordPress or WooCommerce website?
Email logs allow you to monitor the emails sent by your WordPress site to users. This helps you troubleshoot issues and check the status of email notifications.
In this article, we will show you how to set up WordPress email logs and WooCommerce email logs easily.
After following this tutorial, you will be able to view the email logs directly from your WordPress admin area in an easy-to-understand format.
Why Set Up Email Logs in WordPress or WooCommerce?
Whether you are running a small business website using WordPress or a WooCommerce store, WordPress automatically sends some email notifications to your users.
On a typical WordPress website, these messages include password reset emails, new user notifications, password change notifications, comments, and WordPress update notifications.
If you are also running an online store, then email becomes even more important. WooCommerce will send out customer receipts, order details, new order notifications, and user account emails regularly.
As you can see, email notifications are crucial for your website to function properly and deliver the best user experience.
You need to make sure that those emails reach users’ inboxes and don’t just disappear or end up in spam. The best way to do this is to use a proper SMTP service provider to ensure email deliverability.
You will also want to see which emails are sent and to which users. This allows you to keep a record of email activity, which comes in handy in several situations.
Following are just a few of those situations when an email log comes in handy:
Make sure that email notifications are delivered promptly.
Keep an email log of your WooCommerce orders, receipts, and customer notifications.
That being said, let’s see how to easily set up email logs on your WordPress or WooCommerce website.
Video Tutorial
If you prefer written instructions, just keep reading.
Setting Up Email Logs in WordPress & WooCommerce
For this tutorial, we will be using the WP Mail SMTP plugin. It allows you to send WordPress emails using any SMTP service provider, including Gmail, Outlook, SendGrid, Amazon SES, and more.
Upon activation, you need to visit the WP Mail SMTP » Settings page to configure the plugin’s settings.
First, you will need to enter your license key. You can find this information in your account on the WP Mail SMTP website.
Simply copy and paste your license key and then click on the ‘Verify’ button.
After that, you need to scroll down to the Mailer section and select how you would like to send your WordPress emails.
WP Mail SMTP works with any SMTP service. It has easy configuration options for popular SMTP service providers like SendLayer, SMTP.com, Gmail, Outlook, Brevo (Previously Sendinblue), Mailgun, SendGrid, Amazon SES, and other SMTP services.
Clicking on the mailer will show you instructions on how to set it up.
The default option is set to PHP mailer. We don’t recommend using that because it is not reliable.
Since most WordPress hosting servers are not properly configured for emails, choosing this option means that your WordPress emails may never reach users’ inboxes or even spam folders.
If you choose Other SMTP as your mailer option, then you will need to provide SMTP settings. You can get them from your SMTP service provider’s website:
SMTP Host: Your SMTP host address, which usually looks like this: smtp.yoursmtpserver.com
Encryption: Usually, it is either SSL or TLS
SMTP Port: Usually, it is 465
Authentication: Turn on the authentication
Username: The username provided by your SMTP service. Usually, it is your email address
Password: The password for your SMTP service
After entering your mailer credentials, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Settings’ button to store your settings.
Now that you have set up mailer settings in the WP Mail SMTP plugin, it is time to turn on the email logging feature.
From the plugin’s settings page, you need to switch to the ‘Email Log’ tab and check the box next to the ‘Enable log’ option.
The email log option will save general and troubleshooting information about each email message, including the date and time, subject, email status, email addresses of the sender and recipient, BCC and CC, and attachments.
The plugin also allows you to enable complete WordPress email logs. We don’t recommend enabling this setting because it will save all email contents, including private or sensitive information in your WordPress database, as plain text.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save settings’ button to save your changes.
Step 3: Testing WP Mail SMTP Setup
Now that you have set up the WP Mail SMTP plugin, let’s test it to make sure that everything is working as expected.
WP Mail SMTP makes this step easy. Just go to the WP Mail SMTP » Settings page and switch to the ‘Email Test’ tab.
From here, simply enter your email address and click on the ‘Send Email’ button.
The plugin will now send a test email to the address you provided. It will then show you the status of the email delivery on the screen.
Step 4: Viewing Your Email Logs in WordPress
You can view your WordPress email logs anytime without leaving the WordPress admin area.
Simply go to the WP Mail SMTP » Email Log page. You will see the log with a list of entries from since you enabled the email log.
To view entry details, take your mouse over it and then click on the ‘View’ link below it.
This will open the email log entry with a detailed view.
You can use the search feature to look for entries by email address, subject, header, or content (if you enabled content logging).
You can also delete older entries from your email log. Simply use the ‘Delete’ link below any entry.
To delete multiple entries, you need to select each email and then click on the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown menu to select ‘Delete’.
After that, you must click on the ‘Apply’ button.
If you need to analyze your email logs more carefully or create your own deliverability reports, then you can export your logs to your favorite spreadsheet software or email marketing service.
You can also easily resend an email that has failed.
WP Mail SMTP Pro subscribers can also visualize their email deliverability in a chart that shows how many emails were sent, opened, and clicked each day.
This is super useful for WooCommerce users.
It’s easy to check the engagement of each campaign or newsletter. The logs include open and click counts for each email subject.
Clicking the graph button displays a chart of how the specific email is performing.
And every week, WP Mail SMTP will email you a helpful summary of your email performance statistics.
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.
Are you worried about the declining performance of some of your website’s content? This could be a sign of content decay.
Content decay is the decline in organic traffic and search rankings over time. Unless you update the content, you will continue to lose rankings and traffic.
In this article, we will explain content decay and how to find and fix it.
Here is a quick overview of the topics we will cover in this guide:
‘Content decay’ describes the decline in organic traffic and search rankings for a particular piece of content over time.
Every time you publish new content on your WordPress website, search engines crawl it. Then, after some time, this content may start ranking for specific search terms and bring new traffic to your website.
However, sometimes this traffic may start declining, and certain content may drop in search rankings. This can happen even if you don’t change the content itself.
It is important to understand that content decay doesn’t necessarily mean old articles on your website. An old article may consistently rank and continuously bring traffic to your website.
At the same time, some newer content may start decaying. This decayed content can start affecting your business, sales, and profits if left unchecked.
What Causes Content Decay on Your Website?
Several factors can cause content decay on a website. Here are some of the top reasons for content decay:
Better content from competitors – Your competitors may be targeting the same keywords with more detailed and helpful content.
Declined interest – The keyword is no longer searched as often as it used to be. There may be a decline in search volume for several reasons.
Keyword cannibalism – Your WordPress blog may have similar content targeting the same keyword, which splits your search traffic. Google might be unable to guess the search intent and match it to the right content.
Change in search intent – The reason why people are searching for the keyword may have changed. For instance, you might have an article about different types of solar panels, but the user intent has now changed to buying a solar panel.
Search features – Google is continuously changing search results to match user intent. For instance, shopping results, featured snippets, places, and other search features can divert search traffic to those snippets.
However, before you can find out what has caused your content to decline, you will need to see which pieces of content on your website have decayed.
How to Find Decayed Content in WordPress
Content decay happens gradually and over time, which is why many site owners don’t notice it right away.
However, if it is left unchecked, other articles can start decaying. Soon, you will end up with a large number of posts and pages that are all decayed, and it will take you a long time to fix them.
With that being said, we will now show you two ways to find decayed content on your website.
Method 1: Find Decayed Content Using All in One SEO (Recommended)
All in One SEO has a Search Statistics tool that helps you connect your website to Google Search Console. It then fetches data from Google Search Console and presents it in an easily-readable format. This includes data showing how much your content has declined in search over a period of time.
Once you have added your website to your Search Console account, the next step is to connect All in One SEO to Google Search Console.
You need to go to the All in One SEO » Search Statistics page and click the ‘Connect to Google Search Console’ button.
This will take you to your Google Account, and you will be asked to give the plugin permission to access your Search Console data.
Simply click on the ‘Allow’ button to continue.
If you have multiple websites on your Google Search Console account, then you will be asked to select a site.
After that, just click on the ‘Complete Connection’ button to continue.
Once connected, you can view the Google Search Console data by visiting the All in One SEO » Search Statistics page in your WordPress admin dashboard.
You will see a quick overview of your site’s performance in Google Search.
Next, you need to switch to the ‘Content Rankings’ tab.
From here, you will see a list of your content in Google Search with the loss or gain points, drop percentage, and last updated information.
To find out which pieces of content have dropped the most points, you can sort the list by ‘Loss’ and ‘Drop’ values.
The Loss value shows your content rankings in points, while Drop shows the advantages and gains as a percentage.
You can see the content that has dropped the most in rankings during the last 12 months. Content with the most drop or loss in points is the content that has decayed the most.
You can also see quick stats about a post or page, including internal links, outgoing links, and affiliate links. Hovering your mouse over will also show you links to edit or view a post.
This allows you to view a post to see why it may have declined and edit it if needed.
Method 2: Find Decayed Content Using Google Search Console
This method is not as easy to use as All in One SEO. However, it will help you find content decay, and you can then manually start fixing it.
If you haven’t already done so, then you will need to add your WordPress website to Google Search Console and give it some time to collect data. For more details, you can see our guide on how to connect your website to Google Search Console.
After that, you need to log in to your Google Search Console dashboard and switch to the ‘Performance’ tab.
From here, you need to click on the ‘Date Range’ label.
This will bring up a popup. Just switch to the ‘Compare’ tab and then select a custom date range for your comparison.
For this example, we are comparing the last 6 months to the previous 6 months. You can also choose custom ranges by selecting dates.
Simply click on the ‘Apply’ button to continue.
Search Console will now show you a comparison of your site’s performance in the search results for the selected period.
Make sure to check all the boxes at the top of the Performance overview columns so that you can see positions, impressions, clicks, and the click-through rate (CTR).
After that, scroll down to the data table section and switch to the ‘Pages’ view. This will allow you to see exactly what content has decayed.
In the results, you can sort the ‘Position Difference’ column to find the content that has dropped the most in search rankings.
Tip: If you can’t see the Position Difference column, use your keyboard’s right arrow key to scroll through the columns horizontally.
Similarly, you can also sort content by Impressions Difference or CTR Difference. This may help you find content that appears less in search or has dropped in click-through rate.
You can also switch to the ‘Queries’ tab to see which keywords your site rankings are decaying for.
You can also click on the ‘Export’ button at the top to download this data in CSV format, which you can then open in your preferred spreadsheet software.
How to Fix Content Decay on Your Website
Now that you know which content has decayed on your WordPress website, it is time to fix it.
Before you do that, you need to figure out what has caused a piece of content to fall in rankings or lose its organic click-through rate.
You can try searching for the keywords where that content used to rank and analyze the results.
The most common cause of content decay is newer, more detailed content outranking yours. To fix this, you need to update your content to make it better.
Here are some quick tips to make your content more comprehensive:
Optimize your post for SEO – While optimizing your post for SEO, you can also update your post to add new, more helpful content that you may have missed before.
Embed a video– Adding images and videos is great for building user engagement.
Add a table of contents– This helps users easily navigate longer content. Plus, the table of contents can also be picked up by Google in the featured snippet.
Add FAQ schema markup – Answering general user questions in an FAQ section can help your readers and make your content show up in Google FAQ search results.
Sometimes, the reason for content decay can be a lack of user interest or the search intent not matching your content.
In that case, you may consider changing your content to address the new audience intent. Alternatively, you can rewrite and optimize it for a similar topic that still has search volume.
We hope this article helped you learn about content decay and how to fix it on your WordPress site. You may also want to see our complete WordPress SEO guide or our expert picks for the best WordPress plugins to grow 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.
