Do you want to add a ‘click to tweet’ box in your WordPress posts?
These simple boxes allow readers to share quotes from your posts with a single click. This makes them a great way to get more engagement on social media and drive extra traffic to your website.
In this article, we will show you how to add click to tweet boxes in your WordPress posts.
Why Add Click to Tweet Boxes in Your WordPress Posts?
A ‘click to tweet’ button makes it easy for readers to share quotes from your posts and pages.
Visitors can simply click a button to create a tweet that contains the quote, plus a link to the page or post where the quote is featured.
Depending on how the box is set up, the tweet may even tag your Twitter account.
When social media users see lots of people posting your content, they’re more likely to engage with you.
In this way, click to tweet boxes can increase your blog traffic, get you more followers, and create a buzz around your brand on social media.
All of this can translate to more sales on your online store, new subscribers for your email newsletter, and much more.
With that being said, let’s see how you can easily add click to tweet boxes in your WordPress blog posts.
How to Add Click to Tweet Boxes in Your WordPress Posts
The easiest way to create a click to tweet box is by using Better Click To Tweet. This plugin allows you to add a quote box to any page or post using either a shortcode or a block.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Better Click To Tweet plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to Settings » Better Click To Tweet to configure the plugin’s settings. In the ‘Your Twitter Handle’ field, type the account you want to tag in tweets that get shared.
There’s no authentication process, so you can add any Twitter account to the plugin’s settings, including an account that you don’t own.
You can also override this setting for individual click to tweet boxes, so it’s easy to tag lots of different accounts across your WordPress blog.
If you use custom short URLs, then make sure to check the box next to ‘Use short URL.’ This will force the plugin to show the WordPress shortlink instead of the full URL, which is important if you use tools to track link clicks in WordPress. Again, you can override this setting for individual click to tweet boxes.
With that done, click on ‘Save Changes.’
How to Add a Click to Tweet Box Using the WordPress Block
You can add a click to tweet box to any page or post using shortcode or a block. Since it’s the easiest method, let’s start with the block.
Simply open the page or post where you want to create a box and then click on the ‘+’ button.
In the popup that appears, start typing in ‘Better Click to Tweet.’ When the right block shows up, click to add it to the page.
You can now type in the quote you want to use.
By default, the plugin shows a ‘Click to Tweet’ prompt, but you can replace this with your own messaging. For example, if you’re running a giveaway or contest in WordPress then you might encourage readers to quote the tweet, in order to enter the competition.
To do this, simply click to select the block.
Then, type your custom messaging into the ‘Prompt’ field.
By default, the plugin will tag the account you added in its settings, but you can override this and tag a different account instead.
To make this change, simply type a different username into the ‘Twitter Username’ field.
Tagging your Twitter account is a great way to get more followers and engagement. However, if you simply want to get more visitors to your website then you can remove this tag, so the quoted tweet simply contains a link.
To do this, click to disable the ‘Include the username in Tweet?’ toggle.
By default, the plugin includes a link to the page or post where the quote box is featured. If you prefer, then you can use a different link instead. This can be useful if you want to get more visitors to a specific page, such as the landing page for a product or service that’s mentioned in the blog post.
To do this, simply type the URL into the ‘Custom URL’ field.
You can also mark the link as nofollow, which is useful if you’re linking to a third-party website such as a client or affiliate marketing partner.
Another option is removing the link, so the tweet just has the tagged account. This is a good option if you simply want to get more engagement on Twitter, rather than drive people to your website.
To do this, click to disable the ‘Include URL in Tweet’ toggle.
When you’re happy with how the quote box is set up, click on the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to make it live. Now if you visit your WordPress website, you’ll see the quote box in action.
How to Add a Click to Tweet Box Using a Shortcode
If you want to show the same quote on multiple pages, then adding and configuring each box separately can take a lot of time and effort. Instead, it may be easier to paste the same shortcode into multiple locations.
To start, you may want to use the following shortcode:[bctt tweet="Quotable Tweet"]
This will create a tweet that tags the account linked in the plugin’s settings and includes a URL to the current page or post. Be sure to change the words “quotable tweet” in the shortcode to whatever message you want users to share.
If you don’t want to tag an account, then you can use the following instead:[bctt tweet="Quotable Tweet" via="no"]
Want to include a different URL in the tweet? Here’s the shortcode:[bctt tweet="Quotable Tweet." url="http://example.com"]
To remove the link completely, just set it to url="no.†You can also mark the link as nofollow by adding the following to the shortcode: nofollow="yes.â€
Bonus: How to Add a Twitter Feed in WordPress
A click to tweet box is a quick and easy way to get engagement on Twitter. However, there are other ways to promote your social media accounts including adding a feed that shows your recent tweets and updates automatically as you make new posts.
You can quote your own tweets, or even tweets from a third party. For example, you might embed posts from an industry influencer, an advertising partner, or a happy customer.
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.
Do you want to install template kits in WordPress?
Designing a website can take a lot of time and effort, especially if you don’t have any previous experience. Thankfully, template kits allow you to apply a professional design across your entire WordPress website with the click of a button.
In this article, we will show you how you can easily install website template kits in WordPress.
Why Install Template Kits in WordPress?
WordPress template kits are a collection of pre-designed templates, layouts, and other elements that allow you to create a professional-looking website without having to write code.
Template kits are designed to be used together, so you can simply install a kit and use the same design across your entire site.
A good template kit has designs for all the most common pages including an about page, a contact page, and a custom home page. They may also provide templates for areas that appear across multiple pages, such as a header and footer template.
There are some template kits that you can customize to suit any kind of website, similar to multi-purpose WordPress themes. Other templates are designed for a specific industry, such as fashion, venture marketing, and tech blogging kits.
No matter what template kit you use, with the right page builder plugin you can customize it to perfectly suit your business and branding.
With that being said, let’s see how you can design a beautiful website fast, by installing template kits in WordPress.
How to Choose the Best WordPress Template Kits
Template kits have many names, as some companies call them website kits, website templates, or WordPress starter templates. No matter what the name, the best place to find template kits is by installing a drag-and-drop page builder plugin.
SeedProd is the best page builder plugin with over 1 million users. It allows you to create a complete WordPress website without having to write a single line of code.
SeedProd comes with 90 ready-made blocks that you can add to any page, and over 180 templates that you can use to create landing pages, sales pages, and more.
SeedProd also has a growing library of professional website kits that you can add to your site with a single click. After choosing a kit, you can customize every part of the design using SeedProd’s drag-and-drop editor.
Since it’s the fastest and easiest method, in this guide we’ll show you how to install template kits using SeedProd.
Step 1. Install a WordPress Page Builder Plugin
First, you need to install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: There is also a free version of SeedProd that allows you to create beautiful coming soon pages, maintenance pages, and more no matter what your budget. However, in this guide, we’ll be using the premium plugin as it has lots of different template kits. Just be aware that you’ll need a Pro plan or higher to use the template kits.
Upon activation, head over to SeedProd » Settings and enter your license key.
With your license key active, you’re ready to install a template kit.
Step 2. Choose a WordPress Template Kit
SeedProd’s site kits work seamlessly with its WordPress theme builder, so head over to SeedProd » Theme Builder to get started. Here, click on the Theme Template Kits button.
You’ll now see SeedProd’s website kit library.
To take a closer look at any template, simply hover your mouse over it and then click on the magnifying glass icon when it appears.
This opens the template kit in a new tab.
Since it’s a complete website kit, you can see more pages and designs by clicking on the different links, buttons, and menu items.
SeedProd has template kits for different industries and niches like restaurant websites, travel blogs, marketing consultancies, and more.
When you find a template kit you want to use, simply hover over it and then click on the checkmark icon when it appears.
SeedProd will now add all the different templates to the WordPress dashboard.
To take a look, go to SeedProd » Theme Builder. You may see slightly different options depending on the kit you’re using.
SeedProd’s templates are disabled by default, so they won’t immediately change how your site looks by overriding your current WordPress theme.
Step 3. Customize Your Template Kit in WordPress
Before making the kit live, you need to replace the demo content. You may also want to change the kit’s branding to better match your own business. For example, you can add custom fonts, change the colors, add your own logo, and more.
The templates you see may vary depending on the kit. However, most kits have a header and footer template, so we’ll show you how to customize these templates as an example.
How to Customize a Header Template Kit in WordPress
The header is the first thing visitors see when they arrive at your site. With that in mind, it should introduce your brand and provide easy access to your site’s most important content.
To customize the header template, simply hover over it and then click on ‘Edit Design.’
This loads the SeedProd editor, with the header template to the right of the screen.
On the left-hand side, you’ll see a menu with different options.
Most header templates come with a placeholder logo, so let’s start by replacing it. Simply click to select the placeholder logo and the left-hand menu will show all the settings you can use to customize the block.
Simply hover over the image in the left-hand menu and then click on the Select Image button when it appears.
Most template kits come with alternative logos and images that you can add to your WordPress website.
You can choose one of these images from the WordPress media library or upload a new file from your computer.
After replacing the logo, you can change its alignment and size, add image alt text, and more using the settings in the left-hand menu.
When you’re happy with how the logo looks, it’s a good idea to update the menu.
Most header templates come with a placeholder menu that you can easily customize by adding your own text and links. To get started, click to select the Nav Menu block.
You can either build a menu in SeedProd, or you can display any navigation menu you’ve created in the WordPress dashboard.
To build a new menu using SeedProd, simply hover your mouse over any menu item that you want to delete. Then, click on the trash can icon when it appears.
To add a new item to the menu, click on the ‘Add New Item’ button, which creates a new placeholder item.
Next, simply click on the item to expand it.
You’ll now see some new settings where you can type in the text and link you want to use.
You can also set the link to open in a new tab, or you can mark it as no follow.
Simply repeat these steps to add more items to the menu. You can also rearrange items in the menu using drag and drop.
Another option is to simply display a menu you’ve already created in the WordPress dashboard. To do this, click on ‘WordPress Menu’ and choose a menu from the dropdown.
After making these changes, you may want to add more content to the header. For example, you might encourage visitors to follow you on social media by adding ‘like’ and ‘share’ buttons to the header.
In the left-hand menu, simply find the block you want to add and then drag it onto your layout.
You can then customize the block using the settings in the left-hand menu.
When you’re happy with how the header template looks, click on ‘Save’ to store your settings.
How to Customize the Footer Template in WordPress
The footer is the perfect place to add useful information such as a dynamic copyright date or your phone number. You can also link to important content like your contact form, blog, and social media profiles.
With that in mind, most SeedProd template kits come with a footer template. To edit this template go to SeedProd » Theme Builder and then hover over the ‘footer’ template. When the ‘Edit Design’ link appears, give it a click.
This opens the footer template in the SeedProd editor. You can now delete unwanted blocks, replace the placeholder content, and add more blocks following the exact same process described above.
Many business owners use the footer to show their contact information, such as their business email address. However, if you’re using WPForms then you can easily add a contact form to your website’s footer. This allows people to contact you from any page or post.
Most footer templates come with placeholder text that you can replace with your own content. Simply click to select each text box and then type your messaging into the small text editor that appears.
The editor has all the standard formatting options, so you can highlight important text or add links that will appear across your WordPress blog or website.
Many footer templates come with a ready-made Nav Menu block that contains some placeholder links.
You can replace these dummy menu items with links to your own content by following the same process described above. For example, you might include links to your site’s privacy policy, blog, online store, and other important content.
When you’re happy with how the footer looks, click on the Save button to store your changes.
Step 4. Edit Your Global Template Kit Settings
Often, you’ll want to change the template’s default fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more to match your branding. Instead of making these changes to each template, you can save time by editing the kit’s Global CSS settings.
In your WordPress dashboard, go to SeedProd » Theme Builder and hover over the Global CSS template. You can then click on the ‘Edit Design’ link when it appears.
In the left-hand menu, SeedProd lists all the different elements you can change, such as the fonts, forms, layout, and more.
To see what changes you can make, simply click any option.
You can now adjust its settings. For example, you can change the colors used for the kit’s headers, paragraph text, links, and more.
SeedProd will automatically apply these changes across the entire template kit.
When you’re happy with the changes you’ve made, click on the ‘Save’ button.
Step 5. Enabling Your SeedProd Template Kit
You can now customize every SeedProd template by following the same process described above. When you’re happy with how the templates are set up, it’s time to make the kit live.
In the WordPress dashboard, go to SeedProd » Theme Builder and click on the ‘Enable SeedProd Theme’ toggle so that it shows ‘Yes.’
Now, if you visit your WordPress website you’ll see the new design live.
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.
Do you want to display widgets on specific pages of your WordPress website?
By default, when you add widgets to your website, they will be shown on all pages. However, sometimes you may only want to show selected widgets on certain pages can help you better customize your website and provide a personalized user experience.
In this article, we will show you how to easily show or hide widgets on specific WordPress pages.
Why Show or Hide Widgets on WordPress Pages?
WordPress widgets allow you to add additional content to your site’s sidebar, footer, and header.
They help put important information in front of your visitors, like a contact form, social media pages, sales offers, your most valuable pages, and more.
For example, displaying a search box widget on the checkout page of your online store doesn’t provide any benefit to your visitors. On the other hand, showing discount coupons for products and services in the widget area can increase your sales.
Similarly, you may want to keep your homepage clean and reduce its distractions. Hiding widgets on the homepage will keep it clutter-free and increase user engagement on your WordPress website.
Sadly, WordPress doesn’t offer an option to show or hide widgets by default.
That said, let’s see how you can easily display widgets on specific pages using a WordPress plugin.
Showing/Hiding WordPress Widgets on Specific Pages
You can easily hide or show widgets on specific pages using Widget Options. It is a complete widget-management plugin that helps you assign and restrict widgets for different pages, posts, and devices.
Note: If you are using a block theme, then Widget Options will convert your block-based widget areas into classic widget areas. Then, you will be able to use the plugin to show/hide widgets across your site.
Upon activation, you can start by visiting the Settings » Widget Options page from the WordPress admin sidebar. Here, you will find different options that the plugin offers to customize your widgets.
Make sure that the ‘Classic Widgets Screen’ option is enabled so that you can hide or show widgets on your website.
After that, simply click the ‘Configure Settings’ button in the ‘Pages Visibility’ box.
From here, you can control where your widgets will be visible and choose where you don’t want to display them.
By default, the plugin will have the post types tab, taxonomies tab, and miscellaneous tab options enabled.
However, you can uncheck the box for any option to customize the visibility of widgets on different pages.
When you have made the changes, simply click the ‘Save Settings’ button.
Next, you need to head to the Appearance » Widgets page from your admin sidebar and click on any widget that you want to show or hide. This will expand the widget settings, and you will see options for widget visibility.
Now, under the ‘Hide/Show’ dropdown menu, simply select the ‘Hide on checked page’ or the ‘Show on checked pages’ option according to your liking.
By default, widgets will be hidden on the checked pages, but you can change that to show widgets on the checked pages instead.
Next, the ‘Misc’ tab provides options to hide widgets on the home/front page, blog section, archives, 404 pages, and search page.
After that, go ahead and switch to the ‘Post Types’ tab and choose on which pages you want to hide/show the WordPress widget.
Lastly, you can go to the ‘Taxonomies’ tab and select categories to hide or show your WordPress widgets.
This means that the widget will be displayed or hidden for the blog posts with that specific WordPress category.
Finally, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit your website to see it in action.
For this tutorial, we have only displayed the ‘Search’ widget on the ‘Blog’ page and hidden it on all the other pages on our WordPress 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.
Today, I’m extremely excited to announce that WPBeginner Growth Fund has taken an investment stake in HeroThemes, the parent company behind the popular WordPress knowledge base theme and plugin called Heroic KB and KnowAll Theme.
Over 26,000 smart business owners use HeroThemes’ plugins and themes to create an extensive knowledge base and offer best-in-class customer support to their customers.
About HeroThemes
HeroThemes is a UK based WordPress company founded by Chris Hadley and Richard Long.
They specialize in building tools that enable you to deliver great customer service on your WordPress website.
With HeroThemes’ plugins and themes, you can
easily manage all your support tickets and emails
add a fully-fledged knowledge base to your site or build one on a dedicated customer support portal
improve support response time with helpful FAQs
… all within your WordPress website.
In a nutshell, HeroThemes transforms your WordPress website into an excellent customer support platform.
Let’s take a detailed look at different HeroThemes products.
Heroic KB: #1 WordPress knowledge base plugin that helps you add a customer support portal to your existing business website.
KnowAll: It’s a dedicated knowledge base theme that enables you to build a knowledge base website and also offers deep integration with Heroic KB plugin.
Heroic Inbox: The #1 WordPress powered help desk & customer support plugin that lets you manage support tickets and customer emails right in your WordPress site.
Heroic FAQs: It lets you publish frequently asked questions to improve support response time and avoid receiving repetitive customer emails.
Background Story
4 years ago, I published a post celebrating WPBeginner’s 10 year anniversary. In that post, I asked our readers to share their WPBeginner story as a video and explain what they have learned from WPBeginner and its impact on their business.
I got tons of user videos, and in there one of the video responses was from Chris Hadley, so I connected with him at that point.
Chris has been a longtime follower of WPBeginner. He learned about WordPress super loop from one of our articles on WPBeginner in the early days, which played a critical role in building the HeroThemes business.
Several of our own knowledge base sites are also powered by Heroic KB plugin, and our other doc sites use a lot of the functionality that we forked from this plugin in the earlier days.
Going into 2023, we eventually decided to join forces.
I invested in the HeroThemes through the WPBeginner Growth Fund and will be advising the team on how to expand their business.
Sharing our combined knowledge with HeroThemes will help all of us better serve the larger WordPress community.
I’m really excited to be working with Chris, Richard, and the entire team to help accelerate their growth in 2023 and beyond. They will be joining me at our next Mastermind.
Are you looking for a way to customize your WooCommerce product pages?
By fine-tuning your WooCommerce product pages, you can get more sales and improve your store’s conversion rates.
In this article, we will show you how to customize WooCommerce product pages without having to write any code.
Why Customize WooCommerce Product Pages in WordPress?
Your product pages are some of the most valuable content in your online store. The problem is that the default WooCommerce product pages aren’t optimized for conversions.
By creating unique product pages you can often convert visitors into paying customers at a much higher rate. This means you can earn more money without needing to attract more visitors to your site or improve your WooCommerce SEO.
Before you start customizing your WooCommerce product pages, you need to make sure you have the fastest WooCommerce hosting to support your online store because speed also has a big impact on conversion rates.
Once you’ve done that, let’s take a look at how you can customize your WooCommerce product pages with no code.
How to Customize Your WooCommerce Product Pages in WordPress
The easiest way to create a custom WooCommerce product page is by using SeedProd.
Even better, you can use SeedProd’s advanced theme builder to create a custom WordPress theme without having to write a single line of code.
You can use this drag-and-drop theme builder to customize every part of your online store, including your product pages.
SeedProd even has ready-made WooCommerce templates and eCommerce blocks that allow you to create a high-converting online store, fast.
Just be aware that this method will replace your current WooCommerce theme.
Install and Activate SeedProd
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: There is a free version of SeedProd that allows you to create stunning designs no matter what your budget. However, for this guide, we’ll use the premium plugin as it comes with the WooCommerce blocks and theme builder. You’ll need to buy a Pro subscription or higher in order to use the theme builder.
Upon activation, go to SeedProd » Settings and enter your license key.
With that done, it’s time to choose the WooCommerce template kit that you’ll use for your online store. Simply head over to SeedProd » Theme Builder and then click the ‘Theme Template Kits’ button.
Since we’re creating a custom WooCommerce theme, click on the ‘WooCommerce’ tab to see all the different eCommerce kits.
To preview a design, simply hover your mouse over it and then click on the magnifying glass.
This opens the template kit in a new tab.
This is a live preview, so you can see other designs in the kit by clicking on the links, navigation menus, buttons, and other interactive content.
Since you’re creating a custom WooCommerce product page, make sure to check out the product page design.
When you find a template kit you want to use, hover over it and then click on the checkmark when it appears. In this guide, we’re using the WooCommerce Starter Theme but you can use any template you want.
Customize the WooCommerce Product Page Template
SeedProd will import the whole kit into your WordPress website, so you can use the kit to create a custom product archive, shop page, blog index, and more.
To see all these templates, head over to SeedProd » Theme Builder.
After installing your template, you’re ready to start customizing the product page.
To get started, hover over the Product Page template and then click on the ‘Edit Design’ link when it appears.
This will open the template in SeedProd’s drag-and-drop editor, with a preview of your WooCommerce template to the right and some block settings on the left.
SeedProd will show an example of how the product page will look, using content from one of your WooCommerce products.
All the WooCommerce templates come with built-in blocks, which are a core component of all SeedProd’s designs.
To customize a block, simply click to select it in the page preview and then make any changes in the left-hand menu.
For example, the template comes with a built-in Featured Product block that you can customize in a few different ways.
To start, you may want to change the block’s size and alignment using the settings in the left-hand menu.
You’ll find more settings in the ‘Advanced’ tab. Here, you can make the image really stand out by adding a border or shadow, adding a CSS animation, and more.
As you make changes, the live preview will update automatically so you can try different settings to see what looks the best on your online store.
The WooCommerce template also has an Add To Cart call to action button. This allows shoppers to buy your products, so you’ll want to make the button stand out.
To start, you can replace Add To Cart with your own custom messaging, such as Buy Now or Get Yours Today. To make this change, simply select the Add To Cart button and then type the new text into the ‘Button Text’ field.
You may also want to add an icon font to the button, to help visitors understand what this button does at a glance.
SeedProd comes with a built-in library of more than 1400 Font Awesome icons that you can use on your product pages. In the left-hand menu, click to expand the ‘Icons’ section.
You can now choose whether to show the icon before or after the button text.
Simply make your decision and then click on the ‘Choose Icon’ button.
You’ll now see all the different Font Awesome icons that you can use. When you find an icon you like, give it a click.
When you’re happy with the button’s messaging, you can change how it looks by clicking on the ‘Templates’ tab. Here, you’ll find different button templates that you can use.
To use any of these designs, simply click on the one you want.
After choosing a template, you can fine-tune how the button looks by clicking on the ‘Advanced’ tab. Here, you can change the spacing between the button and the quantity box, increase the border radius to create curved corners, and more.
Another option is to open the ‘Button Style’ dropdown and choose a new style from the list.
Most of the settings are self-explanatory so it’s worth going through them to see what different kinds of effects you can create.
With that in mind, it’s worth clicking to select the block and then seeing what changes you can make in the left-hand menu. For example, you can change the background color, text color, increase the padding, and more.
To remove any of the default blocks, simply hover your mouse over that block.
Then, click on the Trash can icon when it appears.
You can also move blocks around the page using drag and drop.
Get More Sales with a Custom WooCommerce Product Page
The template’s built-in blocks are a great start, but you may want to add your own content.
SeedProd has lots of WooCommerce blocks that you can use to create a high-converting online marketplace or store. To help you out, here are some blocks you may want to add to your WooCommerce product page.
Show Related WooCommerce Products
You may be able to get more sales and increase the average order value by showing related items on your product pages. These might be products that shoppers frequently buy together or items that complement one another.
For example, if a customer buys a laptop then they may also be interested in a laptop bag.
SeedProd comes with a ready-made Related Products block. However, to get the most out of this block you’ll need to set up linked products in the WooCommerce plugin, as you can see in the following image.
With that done, simply find the Products Related block in the SeedProd editor and then drag it onto your layout.
By default, the block shows one related product in a single column.
You can show more products by typing new numbers into the ‘Columns’ and ‘Posts Per Page’ boxes or by clicking the arrow buttons.
If you display multiple products, then you can change how these items are arranged using the ‘Order By’ box. For example, you might show the highest-rated products first, since customers seem to enjoy these items the most.
You can also open the ‘Order’ dropdown and choose whether to display the related items in ascending (ASC) or descending (DESC) order.
Add a Star Rating
Showing a star rating for each product can help reassure shoppers that your items are good quality. That said, you may want to drag the Star Rating block onto your design.
For the best results, we recommend showing the star rating towards the top of the screen, where it’s easy for customers to spot. This can help shoppers make purchasing decisions faster since they can immediately see whether other shoppers recommend a product.
Use FOMO by Showing the Product Stock
FOMO, or ‘fear of missing out,’ encourages shoppers to take action now.
If you sell limited edition items or regularly have a small amount of stock, then you may want to show the number of products remaining. This can convince shoppers to buy now, rather than wait and risk the product selling out.
To show this information, drag the Product Stock block onto your design.
By default, the block displays the number of items remaining, followed by ‘in stock.’ You may want to add your own messaging to this default text.
To do this, simply type into the small text editor in the left-hand menu. If you do add some text, then be careful not to edit the ‘[sp_product_stock]’ tag as this allows SeedProd to show the total number of items remaining.
Replace the Featured Image with a Product
A featured product image lets shoppers see what they’re buying in an online store.
However, sometimes you may want to replace a single featured image with a product galley. For example, you might show the same product from different angles. Some stores even use interactive 360-degree images so shoppers can explore a product in more detail.
If you’ve added a gallery to your WooCommerce products, then it makes sense to replace the default Product Featured Image block with a gallery block.
To do this, simply hover over the Featured Product block and then click on the trash can icon when it appears.
You can then find the Product Gallery Image block in the left-hand menu and drag it onto your page layout.
We recommend adding this block toward the top of the page, so visitors can immediately see what they’re buying.
Shoppers can zoom into the image by hovering their mouse over the product gallery.
By default, the zoom icon appears in the upper-right corner of the current featured image, but you can change this using the ‘Position Top’ and ‘Position Right’ sliders.
You can also make the magnifying glass icon bigger or smaller using the ‘Font Size’ slider or change its icon color and background color.
You can also add borders around the different images, using the ‘Image Border’ and ‘Thumbnails’ border settings.
Create a Buzz on Social Media with Sharing Buttons
If a shopper shares your product on social media, then it can drive more people to your online store. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to add social share buttons to your product pages.
SeedProd has a Social Sharing block that supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Simply drag and drop this block onto your page and it’ll add the Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons automatically.
To add more social networks, simply click on the ‘Add New Share’ button.
You can then choose a social media site from the dropdown menu.
After adding all the networks you want to use, you can change the size of the sharing buttons using the ‘Size’ dropdown.
Bigger social sharing buttons will stand out more, although it may distract from the page’s other content including the Add To Cart call to action.
Show Customer Testimonials and Business Reviews
WooCommerce lets customers review your individual products, but you may also want to show customer testimonials. These might be quotes from your best reviews, comments about your excellent customer service, or any other content that you want to highlight.
SeedProd’s Testimonials block lets you create rotating testimonials, which is a great way to show lots of information in a small amount of space.
A ‘recently viewed’ section encourages customers to revisit products they recently saw, but didn’t add to their cart. This helps customers compare products and find the item that’s right for them. It also gives them a chance to change their mind, and buy a product they recently visited but didn’t add to their shopping basket.
With that being said, you may want to add SeedProd’s Recent Products block to your design.
After adding the block, you can change the number of columns using the settings in the left-hand menu.
If you want to show lots of different products, then you can add pagination by activating the ‘Pagination’ toggle.
If you do enable ‘Pagination,’ then you’ll get access to some extra settings.
To start, you can show the total number of results at the top of the Recent Products block, by enabling the ‘Show Items Count’ toggle.
You may also want to enable the ‘Show Order By’ slider, as this allows visitors to sort through the recent products.
As you can see in the following image, this adds a ‘Default Sorting’ dropdown to the area.
Show Your Most Popular WooCommerce Products
You may want to show the best-selling or top-rated products on your product pages. Since these items are already performing well, showing them to more people can be an easy way to get more sales.
Another option is to show products that are currently on sale. This can motivate shoppers to buy these items now, in order to get the best deal.
SeedProd has a few blocks that can fetch these products automatically. If you want to show your biggest sellers, then add the Best Selling Products block to your design.
If you want to show products that have the highest star rating, then you can drag the Top Rated Products block onto the page.
Finally, there’s a Sale Products block that shows all the items that are currently on sale.
No matter what block you add, click to select it and then take a look at the settings in the left-hand menu. All of these settings are straightforward, so it’s worth going through them to see what different effects you can create.
How to Publish Your Custom WooCommerce Product Page
When you’re happy with how the product page looks, it’s time to save your changes. Simply go ahead and click the dropdown arrow next to ‘Save’ and then select the ‘Publish’ option.
The custom product page won’t appear on your online store until you activate the entire custom WooCommerce theme. This gives you the chance to look through the other designs in your theme kit, and then make any changes using SeedProd’s drag-and-drop builder.
For example, you’ll typically want to edit the header and footer templates to feature your own navigation menus, your store’s custom logo, and other content. For inspiration, please see our checklist of things to add to the footer of your WordPress site.
To edit any other template, head over to SeedProd » Theme Builder. Then, hover over the template you want to customize.
You can then click on the ‘Edit Design’ link when it appears.
Now, simply change the design by adding more blocks and then customizing them using the settings in the left-hand menu.
Just keep repeating these steps until you’re happy with how all the templates are set up.
When you’re ready to make the custom WooCommerce theme live, go to SeedProd » Theme Builder. You can then click on the ‘Enable SeedProd Theme’ toggle so it shows ‘Yes.’
Now, if you visit your online store you’ll see the custom WooCommerce product page live.
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.
A target audience is a group of people that a business wants to reach with its products, services, or content.
This group of people would have similar interests, needs, demographics, or other characteristics that make them more likely to be interested in what your business has to offer.
Whether you are starting a blog or an online business, choosing a target audience helps you create effective messaging that really connects with that intended audience.
For instance, a blog about tennis or football may want to reach out to an audience interested in that particular sport, rather than sports content in general.
Similarly, an online store selling pet toys may want to target people who have pets and live around the areas where the store can easily ship products.
Why Choosing a Target Audience is Important
Choosing a target audience is important for a blog or online business because it helps them create content and products tailored to that particular group of people.
This means that the content and products will be more valuable and relevant to the audience which can lead to more user engagement, higher conversions, and increased sales.
Another benefit of choosing the right target audience is that it allows you to plan a more consistent and focused marketing strategy.
By understanding the interests, age, gender, and location, you can reach the right audience by creating organic content or running paid ads on Google or Facebook.
Not choosing a target audience has some significant disadvantages as well.
For instance, you may end up creating content that does not fit any specific customer persona and doesn’t motivate users to spend more time on your blog or WordPress website.
You may also end up wasting time and resources acquiring leads and customers who may not find your content or products relevant to their needs.
That being said, let’s understand what some common types of target audiences are and how you would go about finding the right target audience for your blog or online business.
Types of Target Audience for Your Blog or Business
Marketers categorize their target audience based on their intent, interests, location, and other information.
Following are a few examples of different types of target audiences:
1. Buying Intent Audience
This type of target audience is looking to make a purchase.
For example, let’s say you run an eCommerce store selling gym equipment. You may want to target an audience more interested in buying equipment.
To do that, you will need to create content like a sales funnel to drive customers toward making a purchase.
2. Information / Educational Audience
This type of target audience is looking for information about specific topics.
For instance, they may need information about workout plans, healthy food recipes, fitness advice, and more.
To target this audience, you’ll need to create content that provides this informational and educational value.
Now as you can see, you can still have an eCommerce store selling gym equipment, yet you have two different types of target audiences that you can create content for.
3. Demographic Target Audience
This type of target audience is selected based on their demographic information, such as age, gender, location, occupation, income group, and more.
For instance, you may have certain products women are more interested in. Similarly, you may want to reach people in specific locations where you can ship products.
Now let’s say you want to run Google or Facebook Ads. You can target these specific demographics to make your ads more effective.
To summarize:
Target audience types can be segmented based on their intents, challenges, and segments.
A business can have multiple target audiences with different intents.
Each target audience can be further divided into narrower segments to make your campaigns even more effective.
Finding Your Target Audience
Most blog and business owners already have some very basic idea of who their target audience is.
For instance, if you run a travel blog, then you may already have some idea of your target audience and what their interests are.
However, often it is just guesswork and may not be enough to get you the desired user engagement and customer acquisition that you seek.
Finding Your Target Audience Using Google Analytics
Smart marketers rely on actual marketing data to choose their target audience and learn more about them.
It is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to see where your website visitors are coming from, what they look at, where they are located, and more.
You can also use it to collect demographic data, which allows you to see your audience’s age, gender, and interests as well.
Setting Up Google Analytics for Audience Insights
The easiest way to set up Google Analytics on your blog is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and allows you to easily set up Google Analytics for your WordPress blog.
Note: There is also a free version of the plugin called MonsterInsights Lite that you can try. However, we recommend upgrading to the pro version to take full advantage of the plugin.
Once you have activated the plugin, visit the Insights » Settings page in your WordPress admin area and then click on the Connect MonsterInsights button.
After that, you can follow the on-screen instructions to connect Google Analytics to your WordPress website.
Once you have connected to Google Analytics. You’ll need to turn on demographics data in your Google Analytics account settings.
Simply log in to your Google Analytics account and click on the Admin gear in the lower corner.
Next, under the property column, click on Data Settings » Data Collection menu.
This will slide open the Data Collection page. From here, you need to turn on the ‘Google signals data collection’ option.
Google Analytics will now start collecting demographic data for your website visitors.
To view this report on your WordPress website, switch back to your WordPress admin area and go to the Insights » Settings page.
From here, you need to click on the Engagement tab and turn on the checkbox next to the ‘Enable Demographics and Interests Reports for Remarketing and Advertising’ option.
Don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button to store your settings.
Viewing Google Analytics Reports for Your Target Audience
Now that you have set up Google Analytics and turned on demographics data, you’ll need to wait for Google Analytics to collect some data.
After a while, you can visit the Insights » Reports page. Under the overview tab, you’ll see the overall traffic performance of your website.
You can also see new vs returning users and a device breakdown chart.
The device breakdown chart will show you what kind of device your users are using Desktop, tablet, or mobile.
You’ll also find the top countries your visitors are coming from and your top posts and pages.
Next, you need to switch to the Publisher tab and scroll down a little. From here, you’ll see Age and Gender charts.
The chart will show you a breakdown of users by age and gender.
Note: It is normal to have a large chunk of users marked as unknown. Google only collects data from users who are logged in and have opted in for ad personalization.
Below that, you’ll find the Interests report. This data is collected by Google Signals to help marketers target the right audience. It also helps publishers see the interests of their current website audience.
This gives you an idea of what topics interest your target audience the most.
You can further drill down these reports inside the Google Analytics dashboard. Simply go to the Demographics » Demographic details report under your Google Analytics account.
From here you can narrow down your audience by country and city. You can also see more detailed reports of interests, age, and gender breakdowns.
All of this data gives you a much clearer image of your website’s current audience and from here you can choose the target audience that you want to focus on.
Building Customer Personas for Your Target Audience
Building ‘Customer Personas’, also known as buyer personas, is a marketing exercise that helps you better understand your target audience.
These customer profiles use the target audience based on the data you have collected in the earlier step.
A good customer persona focuses on the following key elements.
Goals – What the user wants to achieve?
Pain points – What are the hurdles and challenges they face in achieving those goals?
Values and motivations – What drives them to achieve their goals? For instance, it could be personal, professional, or business growth, faith, beliefs, lifestyle, or more.
Solutions – How your product, services, or content can help them?
There are many ways to generate customer profiles using surveys, customer feedback, and other data sources.
You can also use customer persona generators to fill in the data.
Perhaps the best way to create a target audience profile is by collecting user data directly on your website. You can do so by running surveys, polls, Net Promoter score surveys, feedback forms, and more.
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder on the market that allows you to create all types of survey and feedback forms for your website.
It comes with built-in templates to quickly create forms and surveys.
Plus, you can save form data, export it, and use it in other third-party apps to better understand your website audience.
This downloadable cheat sheet helps you fill in a template to generate a customer avatar for your target audiences.
You can provide a name to each customer persona and fill in their average age, gender, and location based on the demographics data you collected using Google Analytics.
After that, you will need to answer the four main sections about their goals, challenges, objections, and sources of information.
The purpose of the exercise is not only to give you a better understanding of each customer persona but also to help you answer and address their objections.
Make My Persona is a free tool created by HubSpot. It allows you to simply answer a few questions to generate a persona for your target audience.
You can then edit the template by manually creating your own sections and adding information to them.
Depending on your business needs, you can then segment your target audience into different categories and create different reader profiles for each segment.
Creating Content for Your Target Audience
Once you have chosen your target audience, the next step is to reach out to them with the right content.
You can now narrow down your list of content ideas to match your target audience’s goals and pain points.
For instance, your audience’s goal could be “losing weight,” and their challenge is that they cannot go to the gym.
This allows you to look for ideas around ‘working out at home’ and ‘exercising without gym equipment.’
Bringing your target audience to your website is only the first part of the customer journey. Next, you need to convince them to make a purchase or sign up.
Research shows that more than 70% of people visiting your website will leave in merely a few seconds without making a purchase.
Luckily, there are tools like OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization software on the market. It allows you to easily convert your target audience into paying customers and subscribers.
It allows you to use intuitive marketing tools like lightbox popups, countdown timers, header and footer banners, and more to convert users.
Now let’s say you want to run an ad campaign for upcoming holidays. This campaign targets a specific segment of your target audience.
However, sending them directly to your homepage doesn’t show them the most relevant and effective content.
This is where SeedProd can help. It is the best WordPress page builder plugin on the market and allows you to create beautiful landing pages for your website quickly.
It uses an intuitive drag-and-drop design tool and comes with dozens of templates that are optimized for sales and conversions.
It comes with support for WooCommerce and dozens of ready-made templates to easily create any kind of page you need.
As a marketer, your goal is to open a communication channel with your users before they leave your website.
There are a bunch of tools you can use to achieve this. This includes social media marketing, email marketing, paid search campaigns, or push notifications.
Push notifications are custom messages with links that you can send as notifications to users’ web browsers.
PushEngage is the best push notification software on the market. It enables you to send push notifications to your users regardless of which device they are using (mobile or desktop).
It comes with powerful targeting features that allow you to send personalized messages to your users. Plus, you can automatically segment your target audience for more effective messaging.
We hope this article helped you learn how to choose a target audience for blogs. You may also want to see our complete WordPress SEO guide or take a look at our tutorial on how to get more traffic to 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.
Are you looking for WordPress startup themes for your site?
You need a reliable platform for your website, something that can scale quickly as your startup grows. You also need a theme that lets you showcase your work and projects professionally.
In this article, we will share some of the best WordPress themes for startups that you can use to create your business website.
There are 2 types of WordPress websites, which can be confusing for beginners. First, there is WordPress.com, which is a hosted solution, and then you have WordPress.org, also called self-hosted WordPress. For more details, check out our side-by-side comparison of WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org.
To create a website for your startup, you will need to use self-hosted WordPress.org. It gives you instant access to all features and third-party resources.
You will also need a domain name and web hosting account. A domain name is your site’s address on the web, such as wpbeginner.com. Web hosting is the storage for all your website files.
We recommend using Bluehost. It is an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider and one of the largest web hosting providers in the world.
For WPBeginner users, Bluehost offers a free domain name, a free SSL certificate, and a BIG discount on web hosting.
You can get started for just $2.75 per month, making it a very affordable option for even the smallest startups.
Astra is a modern WordPress theme built for startups, business websites, and eCommerce stores. It comes with dozens of starter sites that you can use to launch your startup website quickly.
Astra is highly flexible, letting you change your colors, font, background, header, footer, and sidebar.
It integrates with popular drag-and-drop page builders such as Elementor and WPBakery to customize your landing pages. It also works perfectly with WordPress’s built-in block editor (Gutenberg editor).
SeedProd is the most popular WordPress theme and website builder plugin. It comes with dozens of site templates, including a fully functional website layout for startups and small businesses.
It has a powerful drag and drop builder that you can use to easily customize your website. You just need to replace the dummy content with your text and images, and your website will be ready.
SeedProd gives you full control to customize colors, font, background, and other styling options on your site. It’s highly flexible with everything you need for your startup website.
Hestia Pro is a beautiful WordPress multipurpose theme for business websites and startups. It’s compatible with top WordPress plugins, so you can add any feature to your website easily.
It lets you add an image slider and background video to your website. Hestia Pro has full compatibility with WooCommerce to start an online store.
Also, Hestia Pro is fully responsive and retina ready. That means your site will offer a great user experience on all devices.
Divi is a powerful WordPress all-purpose theme to create any type of website. It offers hundreds of website and blog layouts, a theme options panel, and a built-in page builder for you to set up your startup site without editing any code.
It has lots of customization options, including effects and animations, to make your website engaging without touching a single line of code. The theme provides ready-made and full website templates for different business niches. It’s also SEO-friendly.
With Divi, you get all Google Fonts built-in. You can also add custom fonts to your site.
OceanWP is a beautiful and responsive WordPress theme designed specifically for small businesses, eCommerce, and startup sites. It comes with a one-click demo content importer and multiple built-in website layouts to get started quickly.
It has free and premium demos, powerful addons, theme extensions, and more. With page builders like Beaver Builder, you can fully customize your website in just a few minutes.
Ultra is a flexible business WordPress theme that you can use for startup sites for all kinds of business niches. It comes with Themify Builder built in. This gives you an easy drag-and-drop interface to create your website.
Ultra has multiple homepage designs and layouts, letting you pick the perfect option for your website. For easier setup, it includes a one-click demo installation and several website templates.
Ultra uses responsive design, so your site will look great on all mobile devices.
It lets you display services, projects, portfolios, clients, and other details professionally. This makes it a great option for a digital agency, web design agency, or freelancer. It’s a powerful and robust theme that uses modern design and is suitable for any small business.
Sydney Pro is a stunning WordPress theme for startups. It comes with custom widgets, additional page templates, exceptional page/post options, and WooCommerce support.
For easier customization, it offers new and additional settings in the live theme customizer. Sydney Pro supports video headers to embed custom and self-hosted videos at the top of your website.
Bramble is a beautifully designed WordPress theme for startup sites. It comes with multiple homepage layouts that you can use with a drag-and-drop page builder to design your website the way you want.
ElitePress is a free WordPress theme for startup sites and a great fit for creative agencies. You could also use it for blogging. It comes with a full-width image slider, a detailed header to display information, services, and project sections, and a recent blog post area.
It has a user-friendly customizer that you can use to customize your theme settings. This includes a live preview to see your changes easily.
Potenza is a fantastic WordPress theme for startups and eCommerce stores. It comes with custom widgets, flexible layouts, animations, parallax scrolling, and more.
Other notable features include unlimited color options, background image and video options, and social media integration. It also comes with services, clients, portfolios, and pricing sections.
Business Hub is a modern and elegant WordPress theme for your startup site. It’s free, and it lets you create a professional business startup website easily.
It comes with event scheduling, social feeds, WooCommerce integration, and a testimonials section. It’s easy to set up, and you can use it with your favorite page design plugin, like Visual Composer.
Inspiro Pro is a multipurpose WordPress theme that you can use to build any kind of website. It comes with interactive homepage sliders, a video section, a testimonial section, navigation menu styles, custom widgets, and more.
It has a beautiful videos section to display your story and portfolio. More options include sidebar widgets, footer widgets, and a beautiful portfolio section.
Startupzy is a classic WordPress theme for startup and business sites. The theme has an eye-catching homepage layout with welcome text, a background image, and a call-to-action button.
It comes with a native plugin that helps add content in blocks. The theme is easy to set up using the WordPress customizer and page builders.
Presence is a stylish WordPress theme for all kinds of business websites. It comes with a one-click demo installer to help you launch a fully customizable and responsive website instantly.
It has multiple page layouts, color choices, custom widgets, and slider styles. The Presence theme offers a portfolio section, testimonials area, welcome message, and beautiful header styles.
Neve is a fast and lightweight WordPress theme designed specifically for startups, online stores, and small businesses. It comes with custom header and footer designs and gives you complete control of layout options.
With over 80 starter sites, you get a template for almost any business niche. Neve is designed for good WordPress SEO (search engine optimization) to give your startup a visible online presence.
Plus, Neve is translation ready and supports RTL languages. This is ideal for startups with a global customer base.
Struct is a beautiful WordPress theme for startup sites, particularly tech startups. It comes with multiple custom post types that you can use to create pages for services, clients, guides, FAQs, slideshows, and more.
It supports drag-and-drop page builders to let you design your page layouts. Struct offers useful features like custom widgets, beautiful color schemes, additional page templates, call-to-action buttons, and more.
Hantus is a free WordPress startup theme specifically built for spas and wellness businesses. It has a simple and minimal layout design with a custom logo, a navigation menu, and contact details in the header section.
When it comes to theme features, Hantus offers a custom background, a featured image, footer widgets, and eCommerce integration.
Venture is a professional and modern WordPress theme for startups. It features a responsive layout, a built-in homepage builder, support for WooCommerce and WooCommerce plugins, and more.
Inside, you will find custom widgets for sub-pages that you can use to create your online business directory. The WordPress customizer comes with additional settings to design a site with a live preview.
Roxima is a gorgeous WordPress theme for business and startup sites. It comes with a corporate layout design, flexible layout options, and custom widgets.
The homepage has built-in sections for services, portfolios, clients, and team profiles. It’s optimized for speed and performance, which means it’s good for your SEO and for your visitors’ experience on your site.
Illdy is a free WordPress theme with a beautiful design and powerful features to create a startup website. It is a multipurpose responsive theme that you can use to design one-page or multi-page websites. You could even use it for an app landing page.
Illdy is easy to set up and fully customizable, making it a great option for startups on a bootstrap budget. It lets you add sections for testimonials, portfolio, About Us, and an animated counter to your website’s homepage.
Advance Startup is a good-looking WordPress theme for business startups. It offers powerful features to create a blog page, landing pages, portfolio pages, and other custom pages.
It supports page builder plugins like Elementor to add drag-and-drop functionality. It also includes a unique header, custom colors, featured content blocks, 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.
Are you wondering what to do if your WordPress site keeps going down?
A website that is down (offline) can hurt your business. It creates a bad user experience for visitors who cannot access your content, and you may even lose customers and potential sales.
In this article, we will share the most important things you need to do if your WordPress website keeps going down.
Why Does Your WordPress Website Keep Going Down?
When your WordPress website is down, your users will see an error message that prevents them from visiting the page.
If your website is down due to one of the common WordPress errors, then you can simply fix it to resolve the issue.
However, if the issue keeps happening, or your website is not showing an error, then you will need to investigate it further.
Website downtime can happen for several reasons, including unreliable hosting, an expired domain, security reasons, an error in custom code, and more.
Another reason for downtime can be increased website traffic that exceeds your WordPress hosting resource limits.
No matter the reason, if your WordPress website keeps going down on a regular basis, then it can harm your business. Your conversion rates may fall, and you might lose customers.
Luckily, we have compiled a list of things to do if your WordPress website keeps going down. These steps will help you troubleshoot the cause and fix it easily.
1. Check if It Is Just You or if the Website Is Down for Everyone
Your WordPress website may not be down for everyone. Sometimes you might just be unable to access your site due to a network error or lack of internet connection.
First, you will need to verify that your website is down for everyone and not just you.
To do that, you can use IsItWP’s free uptime checker.
Click on the ‘Analyze Website’ button, and the tool will tell you if your website is down for everyone or just you.
If it is only down for you, then we recommend checking your internet connection. You can try clearing your browser cache or restarting your network router.
On the other hand, if your website is down for everyone, then continue reading to learn how to fix it.
2. Make Sure Your WordPress Hosting Plan Has Not Expired
One of the most common reasons for website downtime is your WordPress hosting provider. Your plan may have expired, or the provider might be having server problems.
First, you need to make sure that your hosting plan hasn’t expired. You can usually find this information in your hosting account dashboard.
If your plan has not expired, but your WordPress website keeps going down, then you will need to contact your hosting provider. It is possible that they are facing an issue on their end and can provide you with more information about it.
For example, your hosting company might be performing server maintenance, facing DDoS attacks, or may have taken down a few servers. All of these reasons could result in downtime.
Your website may also be down due to the failure of some hardware components of the host’s server.
In these cases, your website should be up and running again once the hosting provider fixes the issues.
If you’re constantly running into issues with your hosting provider, then it’s a good idea to switch to a more reliable managed WordPress hosting company.
Sometimes the website goes down because the domain name you bought when starting your website might have expired. If this is the case, it needs to be renewed.
To check if your domain is still valid, you can use a WHOIS lookup tool. You just need to enter your domain name and click the ‘Lookup’ button.
The tool will then look up details of your domain name. If your domain has expired, it might show as available for registration.
If your domain has expired, then you can now go ahead and renew it using any domain registrar, such as Domain.com.
You can also obtain a free domain from some hosting providers, including Hostinger. This is a top WordPress hosting company that provides a free domain name with any web hosting plan.
You can also use our Bluehost coupon code, which provides WPBeginner users with a free domain name, SSL certificate, and a discount on web hosting plans.
4. Check Your Plugins and Themes
WordPress plugins or themes can sometimes cause website downtime. The software may be outdated and / or have a vulnerability that hackers can use to take down your site.
Similarly, a WordPress theme can conflict with a particular WordPress version or a plugin on your website.
To see if a plugin or theme is causing downtime, you will need to deactivate all of your plugins and switch to a default theme.
Deactivate All WordPress Plugins
Deactivating all of your WordPress plugins can quickly show you if one of the tools is causing your site’s downtime.
If you have access to the WordPress admin area, then you need to visit the Plugins » Installed Plugins page from the admin sidebar.
From here, you can select all plugins by simply checking the bulk select checkbox at the top.
Next, open the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown menu and select the ‘Deactivate’ option.
After that, click on the ‘Apply’ button to deactivate all of the plugins.
However, if you don’t have access to the WordPress admin, then you can deactivate plugins using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client.
First, you need to connect to your website using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your hosting account control panel. Once your site is connected, head to the /wp-content/ folder.
Inside, you should see a folder named ‘plugins.’ This is where all your WordPress plugin files are stored.
Simply rename the plugins folder to ‘plugins_deactivate.’ This will deactivate all WordPress plugins installed on your website.
Your WordPress theme may also cause your website to malfunction. This can happen if you are using a poorly coded or outdated WordPress theme that has not been updated for a while.
To find out if your current WordPress theme is causing downtime, you will need to switch to a default WordPress theme.
First, connect to your website using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your hosting account control panel.
After that, go to the /wp-content/themes/ folder.
From here, you need to locate the ‘themes’ folder. This is where all the themes from your WordPress website are stored.
Simply rename the folder to ‘themes_deactivate’ to deactivate your current theme.
Next, you need to create a new folder named ‘themes.’
After that, you can go ahead and download a default WordPress theme like Twenty Twenty-Three from the WordPress themes directory.
Once it has been downloaded, you need to unzip the file.
Next, simply upload the downloaded theme file in the new ‘themes’ folder. This will activate it on your WordPress website.
You can also delete themes using the WordPress database. For more instructions, you can see our guide on how to delete a WordPress theme.
If changing the theme or deactivating plugins didn’t resolve the issue, then continue reading.
5. Check Your WordPress Settings
Your website may also experience downtime due to incorrect WordPress configuration settings. Most commonly, your site may be using the wrong WordPress address.
First, you will need to check if your WordPress address and site address are the same.
The WordPress address is where your WordPress files and folders are stored. By contrast, the site address points to the part of your website that visitors see and interact with.
If you have access to the WordPress admin dashboard, then just visit the Settings » General page from the admin sidebar.
From here, make sure that the ‘WordPress Address’ and ‘Site Address’ boxes have the same URL.
However, if you don’t have access to the WordPress admin, then you can check your site URLs by editing the wp-config.php file.
Permalinks are the permanent URLs for posts and pages on your website.
Your permalinks can break due to installing or updating a particular theme or plugin. Additionally, migrating your website to a new server or domain can also break your permalinks and cause your site to go down.
In this case, you can regenerate your site’s permalinks by going to Settings » Permalinks from the admin sidebar. Here, make sure that you have the right permalink structure selected.
Next, you simply need to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom to repair the broken permalinks.
If your website is still down after repairing its permalinks, then you will need to continue reading.
7. Try Reuploading the WordPress Core Files
Updating the core WordPress software can also cause downtime due to changes or corruption of the core files. When this happens, important system files for your website cannot be accessed.
To fix this problem, you can try reuploading the /wp-admin/ and /wp-includes/ folders from a fresh WordPress install.
Note: This method will not remove any information or content from your site, but it may fix a corrupted core file.
First, you’ll need to visit the WordPress.org website and click the ‘Download & Extend’ menu link, followed by ‘Get WordPress’. Next, click the blue ‘Download WordPress’ button to download the .zip folder to your computer.
Next, you’ll need to extract the zip file and find the ‘wordpress’ folder inside of it.
After that, connect to your website using an FTP client. Once you have made the connection, head to the root folder of your website. It is typically called ‘public_html’ and it contains the wp-admin, wp-includes, and wp-content folders, along with other files.
Open the WordPress folder on your computer in the left column. Then, select all of its files and hit ‘Upload’ to transfer them to your website.
The FTP client will now transfer these folders to your server.
Next, it will ask if you would like to overwrite the files. You need to simply check the ‘Overwrite’ option and then select ‘Always use this action.’
Finally, hit the ‘OK’ button. Your older WordPress files will now be replaced with fresh copies.
If replacing corrupted files doesn’t solve the problem, then you need to move to the next step.
8. Install a Firewall on Your Website
Your WordPress website might also be down due to malware or DDoS attacks.
During a DDoS attack, a hacker sends a large amount of data requests to your WordPress hosting server. This causes the server to slow down and eventually crash.
Similarly, malware is software that injects itself into your WordPress files. It uses up your WordPress server resources by attacking other websites or generating spam.
The firewall acts as an filter between your website and incoming traffic. It identifies and blocks all suspicious requests before they reach your server.
It runs on a DNS level and catches DDoS attacks before they can even make a request to your website.
However, if you are looking for a free solution, then we recommend using Cloudflare instead.
You may want to read our article on Sucuri vs Cloudflare for a detailed comparison.
For better website protection, you will also need to use security best practices on your WordPress website. For more details, see our complete WordPress security guide with step-by-step instructions on how to secure your site.
9. Move to a Reliable WordPress Hosting Plan
Finally, if you have tried all the steps above and your website keeps going down, then it might be time to move to a reliable WordPress hosting provider.
If you have a small business or blog, then we recommend moving to Bluehost or Hostinger.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Do you want to create and manage an ads.txt file in WordPress?
If your website gets caught up in fraudulent advertisements, then it can damage your reputation and cost you money. By adding a simple ads.txt file to your website, you can protect your site, partners, and publishers from advertising fraud, and possibly increase your ad revenue.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create and manage an ads.txt file in WordPress.
Why Create and Manage Ads.txt files in WordPress?
Selling advertising space is a great way to make money online blogging with WordPress. However, online advertising fraud is also a huge problem for both brands and website owners.
Let’s look at an example. Imagine a brand wants to place an ad on your WordPress website. They find a seller who claims they have a relationship with you, and can place advertisements on your website.
This third party might be one of your approved partners, or they might be committing online advertising fraud by selling unauthorized ads.
If your site gets caught up in advertising fraud, a third party may buy advertising space on your website and then resell it without your approval. This can lead to spammy or malicious advertisements on your WordPress blog.
Here, an ads.txt file can help keep your site safe.
Ads.txt file stands for ‘Authorized Digital Seller.’ It was developed by IAB Tech Lab to help stop fraud in online advertising. In this file, you can list all the companies that have permission to sell advertising space on your website.
An ads.txt file is publicly available, so advertisers, publishers, and resellers can use it to check that they’re dealing with an approved company.
With that being said, let’s see how you can create and manage an ads.txt file in WordPress.
How to Create and Manage Ads.txt Files in WordPress
The easiest way to create an ads.text file is by using Ads.txt Manager. This free plugin adds a simple code editor where you can type in all your authorized platforms and networks.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Ads.txt Manager plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to the Settings » Ads.txt page.
This opens a simple code editor where you can add each platform or reseller on its own line. For example, here we’re adding Google AdSense as an approved advertising platform:
The first field is the domain of the company that is allowed to sell or resell your ad inventory. In the above example, that’s google.com.
After that, you’ll add the publisher ID, which is unique to your account. If you’re not sure where to find this ID, then you can check the network or platform’s online documentation for more information.
The third section declares the relationship type, which is either DIRECT or RESELLER. Direct means the publisher works directly with the AdTech vendor. Meanwhile, reseller means the publisher has authorized a third party to resell on their behalf, such as an ad network or ad management solution.
The last field is the ID of the advertising platform, which is optional.
You can now add as many platforms and resellers as you want. Simply add each organization on its own line.
When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Now, anyone can read your site’s ads.txt file.
To see the file in action, simply add ads.txt to the end of your domain name, such as www.example.com/adds.txt
Fixing the ‘Earnings at risk Error’ in Adsense
If you use Google AdSense, then you may see the following error in your AdSense account:
Earnings at risk – One or more of your ads.txt files doesn’t contain your AdSense publisher ID. Fix this now to avoid severe impact to your revenue.
This just means your ads.text file doesn’t have the right publisher ID.
To fix this issue, log into your AdSense page using your Google email address and password. You’ll find the ID next to the following field: ‘This email is associated with the AdSense account.’
Now, simply go to Settings » Ads.txt in your WordPress dashboard and find the line that adds Google AdSense as an authorized provider.
You can now change the text so that it uses the right ID.
After that, don’t forget to click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings. Now if you visit your Google AdSense account again, the error message should have disappeared.
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One of our readers recently asked whether it’s ok to give WordPress plugins on your site permission to collect usage data.
They were concerned about whether there are security concerns in sharing website usage data with plugin developers, and whether there are any benefits for doing so.
In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of letting plugins collect data from your WordPress site, and when it poses an unacceptable security risk.
Which WordPress Plugins Collect Data From Your Website?
Most plugins DO NOT collect any data from your WordPress website. However, some plugins may ask you to share anonymous usage data with the developers, so that the plugin can be improved.
For example, on the WPForms plugin’s Miscellaneous Settings page, you will find an option called ‘Allow Usage Tracking.’
The description explains, ‘By allowing us to track usage data, we can better help you, as we will know which WordPress configurations, themes, and plugins we should test.’
Similar to leaving plugin reviews, sharing anonymized data with reputable plugins is a helpful way to support plugin developers.
WordPress.org rules require that all free plugins MUST get user’s consent before enabling such usage tracking, so you can be certain that no one will collect your website’s data unless you specifically authorize them to do so.
Now you may be interested to learn about the types of usage data that help plugin developers.
How Do We Use Usage Data Collected by Our Plugins?
It may be helpful to give you our perspective, and let you know about the types of data we collect from our plugins, as well as how we use the data to improve our products.
Awesome Motive, the company behind WPBeginner, develops a suite of free and premium WordPress plugins that are used by over 25 million websites.
Some of our plugins give you the option to enable anonymous usage tracking. This helps us to improve each plugin and make better decisions about future feature development.
The data we collect is always anonymous. It is not tied to your website in any way. For example, here is a screenshot from the OptinMonster Miscellaneous settings page.
You can think of the data we collect as telemetry. It allows us to monitor how our plugin is being used in real-time.
It is important to understand that we are looking for how our plugins are being used across our entire user base, not on your particular website.
That means we will never know which settings and plugins are being run on a specific website such as syedbalkhi.com. But we will be able to discover, for example, the percentage of all users who have installed a specific version of our plugin.
We also find it useful to collect information about the server environment being used by your WordPress hosting provider, including your PHP version, MySQL version, and locale / language.
This allows us to test our plugins for the most popular versions among our users. It also allows us to improve coding standards by safely deprecating older versions.
For instance, the diagram below shows the different versions of PHP being used by one of our plugins’ users. It shows that PHP 5.5 is used by very few users, and this helps us to decide whether to deprecate support for that version of PHP.
We’re also interested in which plugin features are being used and which settings are active. This information gives us a better idea of which features are doing well, and which aren’t.
Besides that, we gather aggregated data to improve our cross-plugin and theme compatibility to ensure that our plugin updates does not lead to any conflict with other popular plugins that happens so often in the WordPress industry.
Again, this is all general, aggregated data and not tied in any way to you and your specific website.
We NEVER collect any data about your website’s visitors, customers, or any other personal identifiable information.
Should You Allow WordPress Plugins to Collect Data From Your Site?
Now that you can see the benefits sharing usage data gives to the plugin developer, we’ll answer the question of whether you should allow plugins to collect data from your WordPress site. This decision needs to happen on a case-by-case basis. Here are some guidelines.
Anonymous Usage Tracking
When a reputable plugin collects data from your website anonymously, then it is normally safe to share usage data with the developer.
You can look for the author’s reputation. If the plugin is popular, then you can be confident they will collect and use the data responsibly. You could even reach out to them and ask how they use the data they collect.
Also, if you rely on the plugin to add needed features to your website, then you can help the developer to improve the plugin and add features by sharing anonymous usage data.
Data Tied to Your Website or Email Address
However, not all data is collected anonymously. For example, there may be plugins that tie your usage activity to your specific website or even an individual email address.
In these cases, you should exercise caution. It is normally not a good idea to freely share such detailed information about your website with third parties.
Also, if you want to keep your website secure, then you should never use nulled themes and plugins, or pirated copies of premium WordPress products.
That’s because you have no way of knowing how they have been modified. They might collect sensitive information about your website without your permission. They may even spread malware to your users or give hackers access to your site.
Nulled and pirated plugins pose a serious security risk. That’s why we recommend that you do not ever allow data collection from a nulled or pirated plugin or theme. For more details, see our guide on why you must avoid nulled WordPress themes and plugins.
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