Do you want your articles to appear in Google answer boxes?
Google uses answer boxes to answer questions directly on the search results page. Getting featured in them can help you get more organic clicks and boost website traffic.
In this article, we will explain how to make your WordPress website’s content appear in Google answer boxes.
What Is a Google Answer Box?
The Google answer box is part of Google’s knowledge graph. It is an algorithm that tries to answer user’s questions right on the search page like a featured snippet, and it appears at the top of the page.
Google uses carousels, side boxes, lists, tables, and answer boxes to display the most relevant information at the top. This information is gathered from various sources, and the algorithm decides which results should be displayed inside an answer box.
According to research done by Advanced Web Ranking, answer boxes have an average click-through rate of 32.3%. This makes them extremely important for your WordPress SEO strategy.
How Google Displays Information in the Answer Box
The purpose of answer boxes is to offer instant information to users. This works particularly well when people are looking for factual data like public figures, distances, conversion rates, scores, and similar information.
If users get the exact information they need, then they can move on and search for something else. For many queries, Google can just display a sidebox from the web’s most reliable knowledge sources, like Wikipedia.
In a way, it might sound like Google is trying to keep all the traffic for itself. However, not all users are looking for information that Google’s knowledge graph can answer with accuracy.
If a user’s keywords require an opinionated, well-thought-out, or research-based answer, then Google relies on other web sources.
If you are among the top 10 results for a keyword, then you are already closer to appearing in a Google answer box.
Google answer box results change quite often, and you can easily appear as the best answer by simply improving your WordPress website content.
Let’s explore a number of content optimization steps that you can take to appear in the answer box. You can click the links below to jump to our different tips:
The purpose of answer boxes is to provide quick answers to users.
To help grab a Google answer box, you will want to make sure that your article answers a specific question as early in the article as possible. You also need to make your answer short, concise, and easy to understand.
You can also add a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section to your blog post and pages. This will allow you to answer as many questions as possible for a particular topic and increase your chances of getting featured in an answer box.
If you are using All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO), then it is super easy to add a FAQ section to your content. AIOSEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress, and it automatically optimizes your site for featured snippets.
Another advantage of using AIOSEO is that it lets you easily add FAQ schema in WordPress. FAQ schema is a smart markup code that allows Google to identify a FAQ section in your content.
As a result, Google may reward you by listing your site in answer boxes, people also ask sections, and other rich results.
2. Include Keywords in the Form of Questions
It also helps to include your keywords in the form of a question followed by a short answer. After that, feel free to add as much detail to your answer as you want.
Adding more information will allow you to use the keyword throughout the article. You can even use the article to answer other questions your users may have about the same topic.
To find keywords that are in the form of a question, you can use any keyword research tool.
For instance, we recommend Semrush as it shows a lot of information about a search term. This includes questions about the topic, which you can include while writing the article.
Expert Tip: Looking for a free way to do keyword research? Our WPBeginner Keyword Generator tool can help you find hundreds of keyword ideas in just seconds.
Users love properly formatted content because it helps them quickly get the information they need. You can publish informative content in a viral listicle format that is easier for visitors to consume and share.
For example, here’s how Google picked numbered bullets from OptinMonster’s exit-intent popup hacks article and showed it as an answer box / featured snippet in the search results.
Google understands that list and table formatting makes content easier to read and tends to highlight the websites that use this formatting.
This does not mean that you must always use one of these formats to write your articles. However, if using formatting can help your users get to the information quickly, then it’s a good idea to use it.
In other cases, Google will use descriptions from your list post and show them in answer boxes.
For example, Google picks small details from our article about WordPress form plugins and displays them in the search results.
4. Optimize Content With Data-Driven Decisions
Data is the most important thing you need if you want to create an effective content strategy. Without knowing information about your visitors, you won’t be able to write content that they want to read.
This is where Google Analytics comes in. Its detailed data helps you understand your audience and plan accordingly.
You will need MonsterInsights to properly track user engagement in WordPress. It is the best Google Analytics plugin on the market, and it will help you learn where your users are coming from and what they do while they are on your site.
These stats provide you with a clear picture of what’s already working on your website. You can then expand on it and make informed decisions for better SEO.
5. Optimize Your Page’s Meta Description
A meta description is a brief description explaining what your page is about. It is added in the <head> section of your site’s HTML. At times, Google will use it as an answer and show it in its answer boxes.
You can easily add meta descriptions to your articles by using the All in One SEO plugin. When you are in the content editor, simply scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings meta box and enter a meta description.
Make sure that your meta description includes your target keyword. It also needs to explain what questions or topics this particular page or post will be answering.
6. Follow SEO Best Practices
Apart from answering user questions, you also need to make sure that Google can find your content and understand it easily.
This means you still need to optimize your posts for SEO just like you would normally do:
Include your keywords in the SEO title, description, and keywords.
Add your focus keyword in the content and sub-headings in your article.
Yes, absolutely. As we mentioned earlier, the click-through rate for results in the answer box is way higher than other content. Depending on the topic and your content, it could go as high as 51.2%.
However, we do not recommend you overthink it. The purpose of answer boxes is to help users find information quickly. If you focus on answering questions through helpful and informative content, then search results will start picking up your content.
Google’s search features are always changing. There are no shortcuts that will help you win forever. But building your website as an authority/reliable source of useful information will help you win in the long run.
Are you looking to display Google reviews on your WordPress website or online store?
Adding reviews from genuine users to your website can help win the trust of your potential customers. Google reviews are a great source of customer feedback, and you can automatically display them on your website using a plugin.
In this article, we will share some of the best Google reviews WordPress plugins.
Why Display Google Reviews on Your Website or Online Store?
Google reviews are feedback about businesses, services, or places that are found on Google. They are left by genuine customers and may include comments and star ratings.
Potential customers may see Google reviews of your business or products on Google search results pages. Positive reviews and ratings can give them the confidence they need to click the link and visit your website, increasing your traffic and sales.
But did you know you can also display Google reviews on your WordPress website?
For example, you could show positive reviews on your landing pages, WooCommerce product pages, checkout page, and About page.
These reviews will be automatically pulled from Google, saving you the work of manually adding them to your site.
But first, you will need to choose a Google reviews plugin and create a Google API key. You can learn more in our guide on how to show Google reviews in WordPress.
Once your customers see Google reviews on your site, they may go on to leave their own positive feedback. This can improve your Google rankings, especially in local search, and the overall star rating for your business.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the best Google reviews plugins for WordPress.
It allows you to easily display Google reviews on your website, as well as reviews from Yelp, Facebook, WordPress.org, Trustpilot, and TripAdvisor. This can save you from having to install multiple plugins.
The reviews will be displayed in a design and format that matches your WordPress theme. This will make sure that the testimonials look like a natural part of your website.
Smash Balloon’s easy-to-use editor allows you to customize how the reviews are displayed. You can decide what content will be displayed with each review, change the layout of the feed, and even add a call to action button asking users to leave their own feedback.
Plus, you can use the plugin’s moderation tools to automatically filter out content you don’t want to display, such as the names of your competitors or offensive words.
You can then add the feed to any post, page, or widget using a block or shortcode. New reviews will be pulled in automatically so that your visitors always see the latest customer feedback.
Pros:
Easy to set up
Automatically shows the latest Google reviews
The reviews will match your WordPress theme
Also supports Yelp, Facebook, WordPress.org, Trustpilot, and TripAdvisor
Display reviews anywhere on your site using blocks or shortcodes
Moderation features allow you to filter unwanted review content
Cons:
The free version is limited to Google and Yelp reviews
Why we chose Smash Balloon Review Feeds Pro: This plugin does everything you need to display Google reviews anywhere on your site. It is easy to set up and use, and it updates the review feed automatically to always display the latest customer feedback.
Widgets for Google Reviews is a popular and free Google reviews WordPress plugin. It doesn’t include any additional features, so it’s fast, streamlined, and easy to use.
While the plugin is lightweight, it offers plenty of options for displaying Google reviews. The plugin has 40 widget layouts and over 25 designs, and you can display the reviews in a carousel, grid, list, and more.
You can use filters to hide the reviews you’d prefer not to see and display them anywhere on your website using shortcodes.
Pros:
Shows the latest reviews automatically
40 layouts and 25 designs
Displays Google reviews in a carousel, grid, list, and more
Filters out negative reviews
Free
Cons:
Does not support any other review platforms
Does not offer any additional features
Why we chose Widgets for Google Reviews: This is a free and user-friendly plugin, making it a great choice for beginners and small business owners. It has everything you’ll need to set up a basic Google reviews feed on your website.
WP Business Reviews lets you showcase your customer reviews from Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Zomato on your website. You can mix up the reviews from different platforms into a single feed or display them separately.
You can also manually add additional reviews that you receive. This will make sure that valuable, positive reviews are not missed.
Additionally, you are able to choose a light, dark, or transparent style to match your website’s theme. You can also display the reviews in a gallery, carousel, or list, control the length of each excerpt, and tag your best reviews to make sure they are seen.
The plugin’s advanced filters allow you to make sure that spammy reviews are not displayed and filter out negative reviews that have a low star rating.
You can also organize the reviews using the plugin’s tagging and grouping system. For example, you can tag your best reviews to make sure they are displayed at the top.
Pros:
Shows the latest reviews automatically
Also supports the Facebook, Yelp, and Zomato review platforms
Display reviews from different platforms together or separately
Tag your best reviews to make sure they are displayed
Multiple formats, including gallery, carousel, and list
Filter out negative reviews
Cons:
TripAdvisor and Trustpilot are not supported
The light, dark, and transparent styles may not look good with every theme
No free version
Why we chose WP Business Reviews: This plugin can combine reviews from multiple platforms in a single feed. And the inclusion of Zomato reviews makes this plugin perfect if you run a restaurant, cafe, pub, or bakery.
WP Review Slider Pro is a WordPress plugin that focuses on showing off your social media reviews on your website. It supports the most popular review platforms, including Google, Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Amazon, and 90+ others.
The reviews can be displayed in a grid or slider. You can choose from 12 different templates, which can be customized to match your WordPress theme.
You can choose which reviews are displayed using filters based on length, rating, source page, and more. This will make sure that your most positive reviews will be seen on your website.
You can place the reviews anywhere on your site using a shortcode. The plugin will then automatically keep your reviews up to date using the WordPress Cron system.
Pros:
Over 90 review platforms supported
Shows the latest reviews automatically
12 customizable templates are available
Display reviews anywhere on your site using shortcode
The included templates may not match every WordPress theme
Why we chose WP Review Slider Pro: This plugin supports more review platforms than most other plugins. That means that besides Google reviews, you can include testimonials from other platforms that are popular in your niche.
Google My Business is a tool that lets you add your local business information to Google and display it in search results. You can combine this with the Local SEO features from AIOSEO to further enhance your local business listings in Google.
This plugin will collect your location’s data using your Google’s Place ID and transform it into a block of reviews that you can display on your website.
You can show these reviews in a list, carousel, column, or tiles, selecting from a range of templates to match your website design. Then, you are able to customize your reviews using 150 variations that include dark and light versions and 14 color schemes.
You can easily sort and filter reviews to display just the content you want. For example, star rating filtering lets you show only the most positive reviews, and you can include or exclude reviews by their word content.
When you are ready, you can display the reviews anywhere on your website using a shortcode or widgets.
Pros:
Displays Google reviews and ratings from your Google My Business account
Shows the latest reviews automatically
250 designs and themes
Display reviews anywhere on your site using shortcodes or widgets
Control the content displayed using filters
Free
Cons:
Does not support any extra review platforms
Why we chose Reviews and Ratings – Google My Business: If you simply want to display reviews and ratings from your Google My Business account, then this plugin will do it without any extra complexity.
Business Reviews Bundle is a highly-rated plugin that allows you to display reviews from Google, Facebook, and Yelp on your website. You are able to combine reviews from different platforms in a single feed and even merge the ratings from each platform into a single score.
You can select from 5 different layouts to display the reviews as a slider, grid, trust badges, or list. Additionally, you can make sure your visitors see the most positive reviews by using exclude/include words and hiding reviews with lower ratings.
A trim feature allows you to collapse very long reviews and add a ‘read more’ link so they don’t take up too much space on your site.
You can then display the reviews on any post, page, or widget using a block or shortcode.
Pros:
Shows the latest Google reviews automatically
Also supports the Facebook and Yelp review platforms
Reviews from multiple platforms can be displayed in a single feed
5 layouts are available
You can filter reviews by rating and keywords that are included or excluded
You can use blocks or shortcodes to display reviews anywhere on your site
Free version available
Cons:
TripAdvisor and Trustpilot are not supported
The free version only allows you to display 5 Google reviews
Why we chose Business Reviews Bundle: This plugin could be a good fit if you are looking to show reviews from multiple platforms, including Google and Yelp.
WP Review Pro is one of the best product review plugins for WordPress. While it allows you to display reviews from Google, Facebook, and Yelp, it is primarily designed to let you add your own product reviews with star ratings.
So, while it has useful features such as templates, a WooCommerce integration, and shortcodes, Google Reviews support is more limited than with other plugins in our list.
In particular, the plugin will only display 5 Google reviews at a time. Besides that, you can’t control the content that is displayed, such as filtering out negative reviews.
That means that this plugin is best for users who mostly want to add their own reviews to their websites.
Pros:
Has many features for adding your own reviews to your website
WooCommerce integration
There is a free version that supports Google reviews
Cons:
No spam or moderation features
You are limited to displaying 5 Google reviews
TripAdvisor and Trustpilot are not supported
Why we chose WP Review Pro: This is the best product review plugin for online stores and integrates well with WooCommerce. It can also be used to make a niche review site in WordPress.
It also supports other popular review platforms such as Yelp, Facebook, WordPress.org, Trustpilot, and TripAdvisor, and the reviews will automatically match your WordPress theme.
On the other hand, if you need a simple free plugin that’s fast, easy to use, and doesn’t offer additional features that you don’t need, then we recommend Widgets for Google Reviews.
Or, if you need a WooCommerce integration to display reviews on the product pages of your online store, then you can use WP Review Slider Pro instead.
FAQs About Google Reviews WordPress Plugins
In this guide, we compared some popular Google review plugins for WordPress. You may still have questions about adding reviews to WordPress, so here are the answers to some of our frequently asked questions.
How do I add Google reviews to my WordPress website?
Once you choose a Google reviews plugin for your WordPress website, you will need to install, activate, and configure it.
Is it possible to filter or moderate Google reviews before displaying them?
Yes, most of the WordPress Google reviews plugins we recommend allow you to choose the types of reviews that will be displayed on your website using filters.
For example, you might like to filter out negative reviews that have a low star rating or choose not to display reviews that mention your competitors.
Are there any free plugins for displaying Google reviews?
Yes, we recommend a number of free Google reviews plugins in this article, and some of the premium plugins offer free versions.
Besides Google, what are some other popular review platforms?
Google is an excellent review platform for website owners because your reviews may appear on search engine results pages, especially when your customers are searching for local businesses.
Other popular review platforms include Yelp, Facebook, Trustpilot, G2 Crowd (technology-related), TripAdvisor (travel-related), Angie’s List (service-related), Zomato (food-related), and Glassdoor (employment-related).
Best WordPress Guides for Customer Reviews
We hope this tutorial helped you find the best Google reviews WordPress plugins. You may also want to see our guides on how to use reviews, ratings, and testimonials in WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Recently, one of our readers asked us how to prevent newsletter signup spam in WordPress.
Sometimes spam bots fill in your newsletter signup forms and add dummy email addresses to your email list. This costs you money, and email service providers can mark your emails as spam.
In this article, we will explain how to prevent newsletter signup spam in WordPress and keep your email list healthy and spam-free.
What Is Newsletter Signup Spam, and Why Prevent It?
Newsletter signup spam is when a bot fills in a form and joins your email list.
It happens because some spambots simply fill in all the forms they come across. They are hoping to get a message to you.
While newsletter signup spam may be less noticeable than comment spam and contact form spam, it can still cause problems.
Almost all email marketing services charge you based on the number of subscribers you have in your list. This means that you can end up paying for subscribers who are just bots, which is a waste of your money.
Plus, if you are sending out emails to bot email addresses that don’t exist, then this can potentially damage your sender’s reputation.
There are several ways to prevent newsletter signup spam, and in this article, we will cover all the best methods:
Use Double Optin to Prevent Newsletter Signup Spam
Double optin, sometimes called confirmed optin, is useful in several ways. It means people have to confirm they want to receive your emails.
When users first sign up, they get a special email with a button or link to click. If they don’t click this, then they will not receive any further emails.
This method stops many spambots from becoming full members of your email list. They will not be counted in your total subscribers when your email marketing service bills you.
Double optin has many other benefits, too:
You will only email people who truly want to be on your list.
You will not be emailing addresses that don’t exist. This can happen if someone mistypes their email address when signing up.
Your emails will be more likely to get through. Some mail providers require double optin in order to deliver emails.
All reputable email marketing services offer double optin. This setting often comes enabled by default.
First, you need to log in to your Constant Contact email marketing account. Then, click on your name in the top right-hand corner and click the ‘My Account’ link.
Once you are on the My Account page, simply switch to the ‘Advanced settings’ tab.
Next, click the ‘Manage’ link under the Manage contact emails section. This will take you to the Contact Emails page.
On the Contact Emails page, scroll down to the ‘Confirm Opt-in (Double Opt-in)’ section.
Here, you just need to click the ‘Activate’ button to turn on double optin.
You will then see a popup asking you whether you want to continue.
Simply click the ‘Yes, Continue’ button.
Constant Contact will now take you straight to the optin confirmation email.
You can edit the text of this email if you want. The email provider also provides several customization options. You can add images, buttons, videos, social follow links, and more.
When you are done, simply click the ‘Continue’ button at the top.
On the next screen, you will see a preview of your email and other campaign details. Go ahead and click the ‘Activate’ button at the top.
New subscribers to your email list will now receive a confirmation email. They need to click the ‘Confirm Subscription’ button to become full members of your list.
Unfortunately, some spambots are clever enough that they can click on email links and confirm their membership in your list. In that case, you can try some of these other methods to prevent them from signing up for your email list.
Using reCAPTCHA on Your Newsletter Signup Form
Using reCAPTCHA is a great way to block spambots from completing your form and getting on your list in the first place.
We are going to show you how to use reCAPTCHA with 2 popular tools: OptinMonster, and WPForms.
Using reCAPTCHA with OptinMonster to Prevent Email Signup Spam
OptinMonster is a popular lead-generation tool that you can use on your WordPress site. It lets you create a wide range of email signup forms, including popups, slide-in forms, inline forms, sticky bars, and more.
You can easily add a reCAPTCHA to your OptinMonster forms (optins).
To do so, you must first sign up for Google’s reCAPTCHA and register your site there. Just follow our step-by-step instructions on using reCAPTCHA for help with this.
It’s easy to integrate OptinMonster with Google reCAPTCHA. Simply log in to your OptinMonster account and click on your profile name. From here, you can click on the ‘Sites’ link in the dropdown menu.
Here, you just need to find your website in the list.
Next, click on the ‘Edit’ link next to it.
Now, go ahead and scroll down to the Google reCAPTCHA fields.
Copy your Site Key and Secret Key from your Google reCAPTCHA account here and enter them in the respective fields in OptinMonster.
That’s all you need to do. All the email optin forms you create for that website will now be automatically protected against spam.
Using reCAPTCHA with WPForms to Prevent Email Signup Spam
If you are using WPForms for your newsletter signup form, then it’s easy to use reCAPTCHA to prevent bots from joining your list.
First, you need to enable reCAPTCHA by going to WPForms » Settings and clicking on the ‘reCAPTCHA’ tab.
To do this, you will need a Site Key and Secret Key from Google. Just follow our step-by-step instructions on using reCAPTCHA for help with this.
Once you have enabled reCAPTCHA, go ahead and edit your newsletter signup form.
You just need to click on the reCAPTCHA field on the left-hand side.
Then, you will see a message letting you know that reCAPTCHA has been enabled for your form.
Don’t forget to save your changes to your form.
Your form will now have the reCAPTCHA logo on it, showing that reCAPTCHA is active.
Most users will not even notice the reCAPTCHA if you use the invisible version like us. They will only be prompted to complete a reCAPTCHA test if Google thinks they might be a bot.
Using Smart Lead Verification From Emailable
Emailable offers an email verification service that checks email addresses on your list. You can use this service to remove duplicates, filter out temporary and disposable email addresses, and verify whether email addresses are active.
To get started, you can sign up by creating a new account or using your Google account.
After that, Emailable will ask you to select a source for your email list. You can drag and drop the contact list from your computer or select an email marketing platform.
For this tutorial, we will select the Constant Contact option.
Next, you can select the email list you want to validate. For example, we will choose the ‘General Interest’ group from our Constant Contact account.
After that, go ahead and click the ‘Import’ button.
On the next screen, you can simply click the ‘Verify’ button to continue.
You will get a free quality report for all the lists you upload or import into the app. It shows which emails are deliverable and which are risky, duplicate, unknown, or undeliverable.
You can switch to the ‘Emails’ tab from the menu on the left to filter these emails.
This lets you easily and quickly remove any spambots from your list.
Checking Your List for Suspicious Email Addresses or Activity
If you don’t want to use a smart lead verification service, then you can manually remove suspicious email addresses from your email newsletter list.
There’s no perfect way to identify spambots, but one of the following indicators could be a bot:
They have an unusual-looking email address, maybe with lots of numbers or multiple dots in it.
They open 100% of your emails and click on every link. While this could be a very engaged subscriber, it’s likely to be a bot.
They have never opened an email from you but have been a subscriber for a long time.
Once you have found suspicious email addresses on your list, you can simply delete these subscribers.
But what if you are not sure whether certain subscribers are real people or bots? You could tag them, then email them. Ask them to reply if they want to stay on your list. Then, go ahead and delete anyone who doesn’t reply.
To add a tag to a subscriber in Constant Contact, click the ‘Contacts’ tab, then click on your chosen list. Next, find your subscriber. The easiest way to do this is to search by their email address.
Next, click on the three dots to the right of the subscriber’s details.
From here, you can click the ‘Edit’ link.
Tip: If you want to delete a subscriber, you can do that here by clicking the ‘Delete’ link.
Now, it’s time to add tags in the ‘Tags’ section on the right-hand side.
Go ahead and click the ‘Create tag’ button.
A new window will pop up. Simply enter the name of your tag and click the ‘Save’ button.
Once you have tagged all the subscribers who might be spambots, go ahead and create a new campaign.
Before sending out the campaign, you can select recipients with the tags you just set up to filter spam emails.
Email newsletter spambot subscribers can be expensive and irritating. Make sure you use at least one of the above methods to keep your email list healthy and bots-free.
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A chatbot is software that can start talking with your website visitors. Adding a chatbot to your website can help you provide instant customer support, generate leads, and improve the user experience.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add a chatbot in WordPress, step by step.
What Is a Chatbot?
A chatbot is a computer program that uses a chat interface to talk with your website visitors. It acts just like your customer support team does when they use a live chat plugin.
However, while live chat is a real-time conversation between a customer and your support staff, chatbots are automated.
This means that they can only provide answers that you have programmed them for.
For example, a customer service chatbot can answer questions about products or services, troubleshoot problems, and make recommendations.
Similarly, a healthcare chatbot might answer questions about health conditions, provide reminders for appointments, and connect patients with doctors.
Why Should You Use a Chatbot in WordPress?
Adding a chatbot to your WordPress website will allow you to provide 24/7 customer support to your visitors, even when your support team isn’t available.
This will reduce the number of support tickets on your website and improve user experience.
Chatbots can also be used to automate other customer support tasks like answering frequently asked questions, providing product support, and fixing smaller issues.
This will save a lot of time and let your team focus on more complex issues.
If you have an online store, then you can also use a chatbot to find out about a customer’s interests and ask them about their needs. The chatbot can then answer the customer’s queries and close the deal.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily add a chatbot in WordPress, step by step. We will cover two different methods, and you can use the quick links below to jump to the one you want to use:
Add a Chatbot in WordPress Using HubSpot (Free & Easy)
If you are looking for a free and easy way to build a chatbot, then you can use this method.
HubSpot is an amazing customer relationship management (CRM) system that comes with a suite of tools for sales, customer service, marketing, and content management.
It even lets you create automated conversations with your website visitors with its free chatbot builder.
First, you will need to install and activate the HubSpot plugin on your website. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit the HubSpot menu tab from the WordPress admin sidebar and enter your email address to create a HubSpot account.
If you already have one, then just click the ‘Sign In’ link at the bottom.
Once you’ve provided your details and set a password for your new account, HubSpot will ask you about the industry that you work in.
Simply select an industry of your choice from the dropdown menu and click the ‘Next’ button.
After that, HubSpot will create a new account for you and then ask you to connect it with your WordPress site.
From here, simply click the ‘Connect Website’ button.
Now, it’s time for you to start creating your chatbot.
To do this, visit the HubSpot » Live Chat page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Create chatflow’ button.
This will take you to the next page, where you can select any of the premade chatbot templates.
By default, HubSpot allows you to create a concierge bot, qualify leads bot, meetings bot, ticket bot, offline bot, or even a chatbot from scratch.
For this tutorial, we will be creating a ‘Tickets bot’.
Just select the chatflow you want to use and then click the ‘Continue in HubSpot’ button to move forward.
You will then be directed to your HubSpot account, where you will be creating the rest of your chatbot.
From here, click the ‘Next’ button to move ahead.
In the next step, you need to select the language for your chatbot from the dropdown menu.
You can leave the other settings as they are and click the ‘Create’ button.
Your template will now open in the chatbot builder, where you can edit the chatflow.
Simply click on the ‘Options’ tab in the bot response and select the ‘Edit’ link.
This will open the action settings in the left column, where you can change the action name and text.
In HubSpot, an action is a step in the chatbot conversation that performs a specific task, like asking questions or sending responses. The first action for your chatbot will be the first question that is sent to the website visitor.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Your visitors’ responses’ section and type all the quick replies that a visitor may potentially give to this question.
For example, a visitor may ask you how to purchase your product, or they might want to report an error that they are facing on your website.
After that, scroll back to the top and switch to the ‘If/then branches’ tab.
From here, you have to select the action the chatbot will take if the customer replies with one of the quick responses that you just added.
For example, if you want the chatbot to open support tickets every time a user is unable to receive a confirmation email with credentials, then select the ‘Create Ticket’ option from the dropdown menu.
After that, just click the ‘Save’ button to store the action settings.
After that, you can leave the rest of the chatflow settings as they are or keep editing the different actions for your chatbot.
Chatbot will now create a support ticket for all the quick responses that you’ve added to the action prompt.
Next, switch to the ‘Target’ tab from the top. Here, you have to choose where the chatbot widget will appear on your website.
You can leave these settings as they are if you want the chatbot to appear on every page of your website.
However, if you want to hide the chatbot on specific pages, then you will have to click the ‘Add exclusion rule’ link. This will open another rule where you can simply add the URL of the page where you want to hide the chatbot in the field on the right.
Once you are done, scroll down to the ‘Visitor information and behavior’ section. Here, you can choose the visitors that you want the chatbot to be shown to.
For example, if you only want visitors who are part of your contact list to be able to see the chatbot, then you can choose the ‘Visitor’ option from the left dropdown menu and the ‘Is a contact’ option in the right field.
After that, click the ‘Save’ button and switch to the ‘Display’ tab.
From here, you can upload an avatar image for your chatbot and change its name.
Next, expand the ‘Chat display behavior’ section and choose the chatbot’s default state when the triggers are met.
For example, if you want the bot’s welcome message to appear immediately once someone visits your website, then you can choose the ‘Pop open the welcome message as a prompt’ option.
If you pick ‘Only show the chat launcher’, then visitors will have to click on your chatbot to see its prompts.
However, if you want the chatbot to appear only when a trigger is met, then you can select the third option.
After that, scroll down and choose the trigger for the chatbot appearance.
For instance, if you want the chatbot to be displayed once the visitor is leaving your site, then select the ‘On exit intent’ option.
However, you can also choose the percentage of pages scrolled or minutes spent on your website as triggers.
Next, you can also switch to the ‘Mobile’ tab to configure chat display settings for mobile phones.
Once you have done that, simply click the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.
Now, switch to the ‘Options’ tab from the top to configure general settings like delay message text, session timeout, generic error message, bot language, availability, and more.
After that, click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings. Finally, toggle the switch at the top to activate your chatbot on your website.
Now, you can visit your WordPress site to see your chatbot in action.
This is what it looked like on our demo website.
Add a Chatbot in WordPress Using ChatBot (Best for Customization & Multilingual Websites)
If you are looking for more chatbot customization options or you have a multilingual website, then this method is for you.
You can easily add a chatbot to your WordPress site using ChatBot. It is the best AI chatbot software that allows you to make chatbots using a drag-and-drop builder.
Upon activation, visit the ChatBot menu tab from the WordPress admin sidebar and click the ‘Connect Account’ button.
This will open the ChatBot website in a new window, where you have to enter your login credentials and click the ‘Login’ button.
However, if you don’t have an account on ChatBot yet, then just click the ‘Sign up free’ link at the top.
This will take you to a new page where you will need to provide your email address and enter an account name and password.
Once you are done, just click the ‘Create account’ button.
Upon account creation, you will be redirected to your WordPress dashboard. You have now successfully connected your WordPress site with ChatBot.com.
Now, to start creating a chatbot, just click the ‘Go to dashboard’ button.
You will then be directed to your ChatBot account dashboard.
From here, click the ‘Create bot’ button at the top to start the process.
This will take you to the ‘Create new story’ page, where you need to choose the type of chatbot that you want to make.
By default, ChatBot allows you to create a customer service bot, job application bot, lead generation bot, FAQ bot, sales bot, and more.
However, you can also pick the ‘Build from Scratch’ option to make a bot yourself. For this tutorial, we will be creating a customer service bot.
This will open the premade customer service bot template on your screen.
From here, you can easily create a conversation flow for your chatbot by clicking on the ‘Bot Response’ tabs in the chatflow.
This will open a prompt on the screen, where you can add chat responses and quick replies like text, images, and buttons by dragging and dropping the blocks into the prompt.
Once you have done that, just add the bot response and click the ‘Save and Close’ button at the top.
If you want, you can also add custom filters with the chatbot response by clicking on the ‘Add Filter’ button in the prompt.
This will open a dropdown menu where you can pick a filter that will be added to your chatbot’s response, including:
Message: Personalize the conversation by tailoring the responses to the user’s message.
Score: Prevent irrelevant conversations by filtering out messages that have a low score.
Failures: Improve chatbot accuracy by filtering out messages that are likely to result in failure. This can prevent the chatbot from giving incorrect or misleading information.
Email: Rule out invalid email addresses or address users by their emails.
Name: Create a personalized experience for the user or block messages that contain certain names.
Username: Filter out messages that contain certain usernames.
Integration: Create specific messages for users who use a particular tool.
Language: Write messages in specific languages for multilingual websites.
Timezone: Filter messages according to the relevant time zone.
Additionally, you can create specific messages for users in different regions and countries. This can be helpful if you have a large international audience.
After that, you can also select conditional logic for the now-filtered response. The response that you are creating will only be used by the chatbot if the customer that it is interacting with fits the filter.
For example, if you have a multilingual website and want to create a chatbot for different languages, then you can use the ‘Language’ filter.
Once you do that, select the ‘= equals’ option as the condition and then type in the language name.
After that, you can add the response in the language that you chose. In our example, when a user types a query in the chatbot in Italian, the chatbot will show them the Italian response that we created with this filter.
When you have finished adding your filter, just click on ‘Apply filter’.
After that, you can also use the ‘+’ button to add different blocks to your chat flow. This will open a prompt where you can select any block of your choice, including:
User Input: Add user messages that will trigger the bot’s response.
FAQ: Add frequently asked questions and their answers in this block.
Attachment Input: Let users attach files in an ongoing conversation with the chatbot.
Bot Response: Add a chatbot’s response to a question.
Backtracking: Prevent users from viewing previously matched interactions with the bot.
Fallback: Display a general message or trigger an action anytime your chatbot can’t match the user query with any chatbot response.
Flow: Visually organize complex chatbot response scenarios.
Add to segment: Segment all the users into different groups based on user data.
Delete from segment: Delete users from a specific segment.
Set attribute: Save information about users.
Mark Goal: Mark a conversation as having reached its goal.
You also have the option to send a transcript of a conversation to an email address or tag different chatbot conversations with keywords and phrases.
For example, if you choose the FAQ block, it will open on your screen, where you can now add common customer support questions and their answers.
Your chatbot will then use these responses to answer customer queries on your website.
Next, click on the ‘Main Menu’ bot response tab to open the block prompt. Here, you can add buttons for all the services that your chatbot can offer using the Button block.
After that, click on each Button block to open its settings and configure where you want the button to direct the users.
For example, you can allow users to be directed to the FAQs chatbot response that you created by selecting the button type as ‘Go to block’.
Next, select the ‘FAQ’ block from the ‘Go to’ dropdown menu and click the ‘Save Settings’ button.
Other than FAQs, you can also create buttons for directing users to your newsletter signup, contact us page, discount offers, and more.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
A prompt will now open on your screen, asking you to provide a name for your chatbot.
After entering the details, simply click the ‘Confirm’ button to publish your chatbot.
Next, visit your WordPress dashboard and head over to the ChatBot tab, where you will now notice that the ‘Choose your bot’ section will be visible on the screen.
Note: Keep in mind that it might take 3-4 hours between creating your chatbot and it being visible in your WordPress dashboard.
Now, simply choose the bot that you just created from the dropdown menu.
After that, toggle the ‘Hide chat on mobile’ switch to ‘On’ if you don’t want people visiting your website from their phones to be able to see the chatbot.
You can also toggle the ‘Hide chat for Guest visitors’ to ‘On’ if you want the chatbot to be exclusive for your members only.
Finally, click the ‘Add to Site’ button. Now, you can visit your website to view the chatbot in action.
Bonus: Add Live Chat to Your WordPress Site
Live chat is a communication tool that allows visitors to chat with a member of your customer support team through a chat window on your website.
It is a super popular way to connect with customers and has a satisfaction level of 73%, which is much higher than email, phone, and SMS support.
It comes with pre-made live chat templates, real-time chat, multiple support channels, canned responses, chat transcripts, chat analytics, and so much 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 trying to understand what WordPress layout terms mean?
Many beginners come across WordPress layout terms and vocabulary when working on their websites. These are words used by designers and developers, and average users may find them confusing.
In this guide, we will explain some of the most commonly used WordPress layout terms. This will help you understand the lingo used for WordPress website layouts and work on your website like a total pro.
Why Learn WordPress Layout Terms?
WordPress themes control the appearance of your website. Depending on which theme you are using, you can customize it in multiple ways.
For themes that support the full site editor, you can customize them by visiting the Appearance » Editor page.
If you use a classic theme (a theme that doesn’t currently support the full site editor), then you can customize it by visiting the Appearance » Customize page.
This will launch the theme customizer, which looks like this:
All top WordPress themes have options to modify your website design using the theme customizer or the full site editor, but your options are limited depending on the theme.
SeedProd allows you to easily create custom layouts using simple drag-and-drop tools without writing any code.
It also has dozens of templates you can use as starting points. Plus, SeedProd supports WooCommerce, which also helps you create layouts for your online store.
However, as you work on creating a layout for your website, you might come across web design terms that you may not be familiar with.
Learning these website layout terms will help you to understand the building blocks of WordPress website design so you can more easily create any design you can imagine.
Let’s demystify these common WordPress layout terms to learn what they mean and how to use them. Here is a quick list of the concepts and terms we will explain in this article:
Most websites use a very familiar layout. It looks something like this:
The top area of a website is called the header, followed by a content area, and then a footer at the bottom of the page.
Depending on which page a user views, the layout might differ.
For instance, a WordPress blog page may include a sidebar next to the content area.
This basic layout is filled with other elements, which we will discuss later in this article.
Let’s first talk about each of these main sections in more detail.
Header in WordPress Layout
The header in a WordPress layout is the top section of any page. It usually contains your website logo, title, navigation menus, a search form, and other important elements you want users to see first.
Here is how the header section looks on WPBeginner.
Custom Header in WordPress Themes
Many popular WordPress themes come with additional features to customize the header area of your WordPress layout. This feature is sometimes called a custom header.
If you use a theme with site editor support, then you can change the header by clicking on the header area in the site editor.
From here, you can customize the header to your liking. You can change colors, the navigation menu, and add blocks like search, site logo, buttons, and more.
For classic themes, you can find the custom header settings in the ‘Header Options’ tab.
Depending on your WordPress theme, you may be able to add a full-width image to the header with a tagline or a call-to-action button.
Some WordPress themes may allow you to change the logo’s position, navigation menus, and header images.
Custom Background in WordPress
Some WordPress themes also allow you to easily change the background color or use a background image for your website.
If you use a theme with site editor support, then you can change the background color by going to ‘Styles’ in the full site editor.
Simply choose the ‘Colors’ option from the Styles panel.
After that, you can click on ‘Background’ to pick a background color for your website.
For classic themes, the settings will depend on your theme features.
Many classic themes come with custom background support. You can find these settings in the ‘Colors’ or ‘Background Image’ options in the theme customizer.
Often, these options are buried inside other tabs, and you will have to look around to find them.
The content area comes right after the header part of a layout. This is where the main content of the page is displayed.
For a custom homepage layout, the content section may include a call to action followed by services or products, testimonials, and other important information.
Online stores typically use this area to promote ongoing sales, featured products, best-selling items, and more.
A WordPress blog may use a content-heavy layout with excerpts and images from recent articles, a newsletter sign-up form, and more.
Here is how WPBeginner’s homepage layout looks. It is a content-rich website, so the recent articles take up the whole content area.
By default, WordPress uses a blog layout showing your most recent blog posts as the front page of your website.
However, you can change that setting and use any page as the front page of your website.
Just go to the Settings » Reading page and choose ‘A static page’ under the ‘Your homepage displays’ option.
After that, you can choose a page you want to use for your homepage and another for your blog page.
As the name suggests, sidebars typically appear on the content area’s right or left side.
In WordPress, sidebars are also widget-ready areas. This means that you can add widgets to this area and display elements like archives, newsletter sign-up forms, categories, popular content, and more.
To edit your sidebars, you need to go to the Appearance » Widgets page. From here, you can add blocks to your sidebars and edit them to your liking.
However, not all WordPress themes come with widget-ready areas or sidebars.
If you cannot see a Widgets menu under Appearance, then your theme doesn’t support sidebars or have any widget-ready areas.
Footer Area in WordPress Layouts
The footer area appears below the content area at the bottom of a page layout.
If you use a WordPress theme with site editor support, then you can edit the footer area by clicking on it.
You can also edit the footer area by clicking on ‘Patterns’ in the site editor navigation. The footer area will appear under the ‘Template Parts’ menu item.
While editing the footer area in the site editor, you can add any blocks to display different elements.
For instance, you can add a list of your most important pages, show a navigation menu, add a contact form, and more.
If you are using a classic theme, then there is a good chance that your theme comes with a footer widget area.
Simply go to the Appearance » Widgets page and look for a footer widget area.
Like the site editor, you can use blocks to add different elements to footer widgets in your theme.
Next, we will look at some of the components of a WordPress layout that you can add to your header, content, sidebar, or footer sections. These are the building blocks that help you make a functioning layout.
Navigation Menus in WordPress
Navigation menus or menus are horizontal or vertical lists of links. Most websites have at least one primary navigation menu in the header area.
However, some websites use multiple navigation menus in the header area.
WordPress also allows you to display navigation menus as a widget. These menus appear as a vertical list of links, and you can place them in sidebars or the footer widget areas.
If your WordPress theme supports widgets, then you can use them to rearrange your website layout. Plus, with block widgets, your theme can now also use blocks in the widget areas.
You can add widgets to your WordPress website’s widget-ready areas or sidebars. Some WordPress themes come with multiple widget-ready areas to add widgets or blocks.
WordPress comes with several built-in widgets and blocks that you can use. Many popular WordPress plugins also provide their own widgets and blocks.
For example, you can use widgets/blocks to add popular post lists, a contact form, banner ads, social media feeds, and more.
You can see all these widgets by visiting the Appearance » Widgets page in the WordPress admin area.
Note: You may not see the ‘Widgets’ page in the WordPress admin area if your theme has no widget areas.
WordPress uses the block editor to write content, manage widget areas, or edit your website. It uses blocks for all common web elements, which is why it’s called the block editor.
This editor is designed to help you create beautiful layouts for your WordPress posts and pages using blocks.
There are different types of blocks for the most common elements of any type of content. For instance, you can add paragraphs, headings, images, galleries, video embeds, columns, tables, and more.
This allows you to create different layouts for each post or page on your WordPress website without installing a plugin or changing your theme.
Featured Images in WordPress Layouts
If you visit the homepage of WPBeginner, you will notice thumbnail images next to each article title. These are called featured images.
WordPress allows you to set featured images for your posts and pages. Your WordPress theme then uses these images in different areas of your website.
Patterns are collections of pre-arranged blocks that you can use to quickly add different sections to your layouts.
You can use patterns for writing content and editing posts and pages.
Similarly, you can use patterns in the full site editor in your WordPress theme and website layout.
Simply launch the site editor, and you will see patterns in the ‘Design’ options.
Each pattern is a collection of blocks arranged in a particular order for commonly used layouts.
Your WordPress theme may come with several patterns. You can also find more patterns in the WordPress Patterns Library.
Want to save your design sections? You save your own block arrangements as patterns and reuse them later.
It is a relatively new feature, so a limited set of patterns is available. However, more options will become available as more WordPress themes and plugins add their patterns to the block editor.
Buttons play an important role in modern website design and layouts. They provide users with a clear call to action, which helps you grow your business and conversions.
The default block editor comes with a Button block that you can use in any WordPress post or page or inside the site editor.
Your WordPress theme may also come with a call to action button settings in the theme customizer. Most popular WordPress page builder plugins also come with buttons in various styles that you can use.
CSS is the styling language used to create websites. Your WordPress theme and plugins come with their own CSS rules, but from time to time, you may want to change small things like text color, font size, or background color.
This is where custom CSS comes in. WordPress makes it easier for you to save your own custom CSS rules.
If you use a theme with the site editor support, then just go to the Appearance » Editor page to launch the site editor.
Click on any template to start editing, and then click on the ‘Style’ button in the top-right corner of the screen.
This will show the ‘Styles’ panel in the right column. From here, scroll down and click on the ‘Additional CSS’ tab.
This will show a text box where you can add your additional CSS code.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your changes when you are finished.
If you are using a classic WordPress theme, then you can add your custom CSS in the theme customizer.
Simply go to the Appearance » Customize page and then click on the ‘Additional CSS’ tab.
From here, you can add your custom CSS rules, and you will be able to see them applied in the live preview.
Adding Custom CSS in WordPress Using a Plugin
Normally, if you use the default methods, then your custom CSS code is saved with your theme settings. Changing your theme will disable your custom CSS code.
A better way to store your custom CSS in WordPress is by using the WPCode plugin. It is the best WordPress code snippet plugin that allows you to easily add custom code snippets without breaking your site.
Upon activation, go to the Code Snippets » + Add New from the WordPress admin dashboard.
Then, hover over the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option in the code snippets library and click the ‘Use snippet’ button.
Next, at the top of the page, add a title for your custom CSS snippet. This can be anything that helps you identify the code.
After that, write or paste your custom CSS into the ‘Code Preview’ box and set the ‘Code Type’ by choosing the ‘CSS Snippet’ option from the dropdown menu.
Then, scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section and select the ‘Auto-Insert’ method if you want to execute the code across your entire WordPress website.
You can choose the’ Shortcode’ method if you only want to execute the code on specific pages or posts.
Finally, go back to the top of the page, toggle the switch to ‘Active’, and then click on the ‘Save Snippet’ button.
The easiest way to build custom WordPress layouts for your landing pages is by using a WordPress page builder.
We recommend using SeedProd. It is the most beginner-friendly WordPress page builder plugin on the market.
Other page builders use similar terms for common tools and features.
Using Templates in WordPress Page Builders
Templates are the quickest way to create a web page layout. All popular page builder plugins come with a bunch of ready-to-use templates that you can use as a starting point.
For instance, SeedProd has templates for different types of pages that you may need, including landing pages, sales pages, 404 pages, coming soon pages, and more.
Modules and Blocks in WordPress Page Builders
Like the blocks in the default WordPress editor, page builder plugins also use blocks.
Some page builders may call them modules or elements, but they are essentially the same thing.
However, page builder plugins come with more blocks than the default editor. For instance, SeedProd includes blocks for testimonials, WooCommerce blocks, Google Maps, contact forms, Facebook embeds, and more.
You can use blocks to create your own layouts, move them around, and play around to figure out what works best for your business.
Using Sections in Your WordPress Layouts
Similar to the ‘Patterns’ feature in the default editor, a Section is a set of blocks grouped to instantly create common areas of a website.
For instance, you can typically use a header section, hero image, pricing tables, and more.
Different WordPress page builder plugins may use different terms for them. For instance, in SeedProd, they are called sections, and Beaver Builder calls them saved rows and columns.
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 fastest WordPress hosting?
Fast hosting can help your website load more quickly. Fast loading pages improve user experience, increase your pageviews, and help with your WordPress SEO.
In this article, we will share our performance test results to help you find the fastest WordPress hosting for your website.
Why Fast WordPress Hosting Is Important
Do you want a fast WordPress website? One way to do that is to choose a reputable WordPress hosting provider that is optimized for speed.
The most important performance indicator is your website’s speed. It not only affects user experience, but it can also hurt your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). Users may leave a slow website before it even loads.
According to a case study that involved Amazon, Google, and other larger sites, a 1-second delay in website speed can reduce your conversions by 7%. A delay of 3 seconds can cost you 50% of your traffic.
On top of that, Google and other search engines penalize slower websites by pushing them down in the search results.
This means slow sites get less traffic, while a fast WordPress website will help you get more traffic, subscribers, and revenue.
How We Tested Website Performance for the Fastest WordPress Hosting Providers
One reason that WPBeginner is the most trusted WordPress resource site is that our reviews are based on actual data and experience.
To find the fastest WordPress hosting providers, we actually signed up with each provider and thoroughly tested their services.
We wanted to accurately measure performance across all WordPress hosting companies, so we created the same sample WordPress site on each hosting provider and used the default WordPress theme.
Then, we used independent third-party tools to test the performance of our sample website on each hosting provider:
We used Pingdom, an industry-leading website speed test service, to get a performance grade for each provider and measure how long it took a page to load.
We used the Load Impact (k6) service to send virtual users (VU) to each website to see how the hosting server would handle multiple connections at once, like peak traffic times of up to 100 visitors at once.
We used Bitcatcha to test server response times across many geographical locations, including the United States, London, Singapore, São Paulo, India, Sydney, and Japan. This helps us decide which hosting company is best for each geographical location.
Now that you know our testing process, let’s compare the performance of different hosting companies to see which is the fastest WordPress hosting company on the market.
Hostinger is a popular web hosting provider with a reliable and user-friendly platform to launch websites. They offer affordable shared hosting plans with great customer support, a free domain name, a free SSL certificate, and more.
Here are the Pingdom speed testing tool results for Hostinger.
Our test site loading speed was a fraction of a second at 181 milliseconds, which is great. But keep in mind that this test was performed when the website had no traffic. Let’s take a look at how that speed is affected by more visitors.
k6 Load Impact Test
Here are the k6 performance overview results for Hostinger. To see how more visitors would impact the site’s speed, we gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once.
As you can see, Hostinger performed really well on this test. As we increased virtual users (purple line), the response time (blue line) remained steady, with an average of 460 milliseconds.
This means that if you have a small business website, an online store, or a growing blog, your Hostinger website will easily handle sudden traffic spikes.
Bitcatcha Server Response Time
The web server’s response time will vary depending on how far your visitors are from the server. The Bitcatcha test measures how fast the Hostinger server actually responds from different locations around the world without loading the web page.
You can see that the response times were great across the board. They were particularly fast in Europe and North America.
Hostinger Pros and Cons
Hostinger is a robust platform to host your website. Now that you have seen their performance test results, you might like to see some of their other pros and cons.
Hostinger is a great option for beginners who want to start a website without spending too much money. Their low-price shared hosting options offer good value for money with great performance and an extremely easy-to-use control panel.
Hostinger Pricing Plans
Hostinger offers many hosting plans with different features starting at $2.99/month. These plans include shared hosting, eCommerce hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, a website builder, and more.
DreamHost is a popular, award-winning hosting company and one of WordPress.org’s officially recommended hosts. Their plans include automatic daily backups, a free SSL certificate, a free domain name, WordPress privacy features, and more.
Here are the Pingdom speed testing tool results for DreamHost.
Our test site loaded in less than half a second with a total of 335 milliseconds, which is excellent. This test was done during low traffic, so let’s now see how DreamHost responds during peak traffic times.
k6 Load Impact Test
Here are the k6 performance overview results for DreamHost. We built up to 100 unique virtual visitors at once to see how the server would handle more requests and connections at the same time.
While our site remained available throughout the test, the response time went up as users increased. The average response time was 2,193 milliseconds.
This poor result happened because we turned off DreamHost’s pre-installed WordPress caching solution. So, we tried enabling a caching plugin, and the stress test result improved dramatically. Notice how much lower the light blue line is in the graph below.
This time, our test site handled 97 requests per second (16,000 requests total), and the average response time was a very fast 77 milliseconds.
This means that WordPress blogs, small business websites, and eCommerce stores hosted on Dreamhost can easily handle sudden traffic spikes.
Bitcatcha Server Response Time
Next, we used Bitcatcha to test our Dreamhost test site’s response time from different geographic locations.
DreamHost’s response times remained consistent around the world and were fastest in North America and Europe.
DreamHost Pros and Cons
DreamHost has been around for 18 years and is known for making web hosting easy. Now that you have seen their performance test results, you might like to see some other pros and cons.
DreamHost is highly rated for their fast and reliable hosting, which is great for bloggers, online store owners, developers, and web designers. They have won many awards and get excellent reviews from their customers. But they may not be the right choice if you need a lot of help getting started.
DreamHost Pricing Plans
DreamHost’s shared hosting plans start at $2.59 per month (for a 3-year billing period). You can also pay monthly for the Shared Starter plan, which costs $4.59 per month.
WP Engine specializes in VIP managed WordPress hosting, which is an ideal choice for people looking for hassle-free, premium WordPress hosting. They provide automatic backups, security updates, caching, WordPress security, and more.
Here are the Pingdom speed testing tool results for WP Engine.
Our WP Engine test site loaded in less than half a second (337 milliseconds) without any performance optimizations on our end. This is a good result.
k6 Load Impact Test
Next, we tested how WP Engine servers respond under peak traffic using a tool called k6. Here are the results as we gradually built the test up to 100 unique visitors at once.
As you can see, our test WP Engine website maintained an incredible response rate throughout the test, with an average response time of 67.01 milliseconds. It performed really well with only minor spikes.
Bitcatcha Server Response Time
The Bitcatcha test measures how fast a server responds from different locations around the world. Here are the results for WP Engine:
WP Engine’s server response time was fastest on the east coast of the United States (30 milliseconds), and even its slowest speed of 235 milliseconds in Bangalore is very fast at less than one-quarter of a second.
WP Engine Pros and Cons
WP Engine offers fast servers, security, and peace of mind that users need from a managed WordPress host. Now that you have seen their performance test results, you might like to see some of their other pros and cons.
Pros:
Fast loading times
24/7 expert WordPress support
Advanced security tools to protect your website against DDoS attacks, SQL injections, brute force attacks, and more
WP Engine doesn’t allow you to install some WordPress plugins
Why We Chose WP Engine
WP Engine can be a great option if you are looking for a completely hassle-free web host for your WordPress site. Their advanced features will save you time, and there is plenty of room to scale as your traffic increases.
WP Engine Pricing Plans
WP Engine only offers managed WordPress hosting, and 5 different levels are available, starting at $20/month and going up to $194/month.
SiteGround is one of the most recommended WordPress hosting companies, and we use them ourselves on WPBeginner. Among other features, they allow customers to choose between 6 different datacenters worldwide.
Here are the Pingdom speed testing tool results for SiteGround.
Our SiteGround test site loaded in 491 milliseconds, which is less than half a second. This speed is incredible, but the website had no traffic during this test. Let’s see how more visitors will affect the speed.
k6 Load Impact Test
To test how SiteGround servers would respond to increased traffic, we used a tool called k6 to gradually send up to 100 users to our test website.
Here are the results:
This test shows that SiteGround is a good choice if you are looking for a really fast website. It performed consistently throughout the test without any hiccups, and an average response time of 249.71 milliseconds.
This is partly because of some of the innovations they use. For example, most of their servers are hosted on the Google Cloud Platform, and they have a custom plugin for optimization called SG Optimizer.
Bitcatcha Server Response Time We also ran a Bitcatcha test to see the response time around the world. Here are the results:
The server responded in just a fraction of a second in the United States, making SiteGround a great choice if your target audience is mostly in North America.
It responded quickly in other locations as well. Plus, SiteGround lets you choose a data center closer to your target audience so you can get the best response times in a particular region.
SiteGround Pros and Cons
We found SiteGround to be fast and reliable. Here are some of their other pros and cons.
Pros:
Speedy servers powered by Google Cloud
Excellent customer support
1-click WordPress install
Free domain name, SSL certificate, CDN, and website backups
SiteGround offers fast and reliable web hosting with great customer support. They have hosting plans for every budget, and each plan comes with super fast servers and the option to pick your datacenter.
SiteGround Pricing Plans
SiteGround’s shared hosting packages are available in three levels to match different budgets. The Startup plan is limited to one website and costs $4.99/month. The GrowBig plan costs $7.99/month, and the GoGeek plan costs $14.99/month. These plans offer unlimited websites.
WPBeginner users get an exclusive 70% discount and free SSL with our SiteGround coupon code.
GreenGeeks is a web hosting provider whose goal is to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Their hosting plans also offer great performance, managed updates, a choice of 5 datacenters, and more.
Here are the Pingdom speed testing tool results for GreenGeeks.
Without additional traffic, our test site loaded in about half a second (527 milliseconds), which is great. Next, we ran a k6 stress test to see how extra traffic affects the site performance.
k6 Load Impact Test
We used the k6 tool to measure how GreenGeeks performs during peak traffic, gradually building up to 100 unique visitors.
Here are the results:
Unfortunately, GreenGeeks didn’t perform well during this test. Performance started to degrade after there were 30 users visiting the site. The response time became too slow, and the server started giving errors.
This means that GreenGeeks will work well on a small website but isn’t recommended for sites with lots of visitors. Traffic spikes will significantly degrade your website performance and may cause downtime.
Installing a WordPress caching plugin may help a little. But it won’t make a significant improvement on a slow web server.
Bitcatcha Server Response Time
We also tested GreenGeeks’ response time around the world using Bitcatcha. Here are the results:
Our test GreenGeeks site responded quickly for visitors in North America. It was slower in other parts of the world, such as India and the Asia Pacific region, but these times are still quite fast.
GreenGeeks Pros and Cons
GreenGeeks is affordable, and their plans include plenty of useful features. Now that you have seen their performance test results, you might like to see some pros and cons.
Built-in performance tools, including LiteSpeed caching
Cons:
Their phone support isn’t available 24/7
Why We Chose GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks is the most eco-friendly web hosting. It is a good hosting solution for anyone who is just starting out. For higher traffic volumes, you may need to upgrade to a high-performance plan or move to a managed WordPress hosting provider.
GreenGeeks Pricing Plans
GreenGeeks has a wide range of hosting plans for customers of every size, starting at $2.95/month.
Rocket.net is a managed WordPress hosting company offering super-fast and fully managed WordPress hosting solutions. Their plans come with a custom, user-friendly hosting dashboard, a CDN, automated backups, and more.
Here are the Pingdom speed testing tool results for Rocket.net.
Our test website loaded in 588 ms, which is just over half a second.
k6 Load Impact Test
We then used the k6 tool to test how Rocket.net would hold up under traffic spikes. We slowly increased the number of virtual users to 100, sending multiple page requests.
This is an excellent result. Our test site responded quickly, regardless of the number of users and page requests. It also had an average response time of 13.91 milliseconds.
Bitcatcha Server Response Time
Next, we used Bitcatcha to measure response times for Rocket.net from different geographic locations.
These results are incredibly fast. Our test site responded in just a couple of milliseconds for all locations.
That’s because Rocket.net uses a CDN and cloud edge network. Users are sent to the closest server for the fastest response time.
Rocket.net Pros and Cons
Rocket.net offers a fast and reliable platform to host your website. Now that you have seen their performance test results, here are some of their other pros and cons.
Pros:
Very fast servers
Excellent customer support
1-click WordPress install
Free SSL certificate and CDN
WordPress staging tools
Integrated firewall and WordPress security features
Cons:
No free domain
Why We Chose Rocket.net
Rocket.net’s servers are fast and highly optimized for WordPress websites. You also get peace of mind with enhanced security, automatic updates, and knowledgeable support. This is why we recommend Rocket.net as one of our best choices for a managed WordPress hosting provider.
Rocket.net Pricing Plans
Rocket.net offers 4 levels of managed WordPress hosting plans starting at $25/month (billed annually).
WPBeginner users can get the best pricing using our Rocket.net coupon.
HostGator is one of the largest and most popular hosting companies in the world. They offer all kinds of hosting plans, including shared, managed, and VPS hosting.
Here are the Pingdom speed testing tool results for HostGator.
Our test site loaded in just 1.03 seconds. This is a great result without traffic, so we also ran a k6 stress test to see how extra users affect our site’s performance.
k6 Load Impact Test
We sent up to 100 users at once to our test site using the k6 tool to see how HostGator performs under load. Here are the results:
The average response time of 234.99 milliseconds is particularly good for a shared hosting account.
Bitcatcha Server Response Time
Response time is also affected by how far your visitors are from the server. We ran a Bitcatcha test to measure response time from 10 locations around the world.
In the United States, our HostGator testing site responded in just 26 milliseconds. Times from other locations were also fast, and the slowest speed in India was still a respectable 262 milliseconds.
You can be confident that a HostGator website will load quickly around the world.
HostGator Pros and Cons
HostGator has grown quickly due to their great shared hosting plans, reliable web hosting, and quality customer service. Here are some of their pros and cons.
Pros:
Reliable web hosting
Free domain and SSL certificate
Free business email address
1-click WordPress install
45-day money-back guarantee
Cons:
Higher monthly pricing
HostGator uses a lot of aggressive upselling tactics
Why We Chose HostGator
Over 2 million customers trust HostGator. They offer a variety of fast hosting plans that fit all budgets and requirements, as well as the user-friendly tools you will need to build a website.
HostGator Pricing Plans
HostGator plans include shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated hosting. The Hatchling plan starts at $3.75/month and allows you to host only one website.
Bluehost is one of the biggest web hosting companies in the world and an official WordPress-recommended hosting provider. They are a great option for beginners, and their budget-friendly plans are suitable for all kinds of websites.
Here are the Pingdom speed testing tool results for Bluehost.
Our test site loaded in well under two seconds. However, this test was performed when the site had little traffic.
k6 Load Impact Test
We then used the k6 tool to test how Bluehost servers respond to increased traffic. We gradually sent up to 100 visitors to the site to see how it would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.
You can see that the blue server load time line remained stable even though traffic and page requests increased. There was an average response time of 156.45 milliseconds.
Bitcatcha Server Response Time
We also used the Bitcatcha server response test to see how the server response time varies around the world.
The fastest response times were for users in the United States and Canada. In other parts of the world, the time was higher, but still acceptable.
Note that this test was performed with a Bluehost server in the United States. If your users come from other parts of the world, then you can change the server location to improve the response time.
Bluehost Pros and Cons
Bluehost is reliable, fast, and affordable, with friendly 24/7 customer support. Now that you have seen the Bluehost performance test results, you can check out their pros and cons.
Bluehost is often ranked the #1 web hosting provider by many websites. They offer a wide range of hosting options with tons of features that help you easily build your website. All their hosting plans include expert 24/7 customer support from knowledgeable staff. Most importantly, they offer affordable starter plans that fit any budget requirement.
Bluehost Pricing Plans
Bluehost offers a shared hosting package suitable for starter websites. Their shared plan is available at 4 different levels starting at just $2.75/month.
WPBeginner users can get the best price using our exclusive Bluehost coupon code.
Which Is the Fastest WordPress Hosting Provider?
Now that we’ve shared our performance test results for each hosting provider, let’s take a look at which services are the fastest.
Page Load Time
Pingdom assigned a performance grade to each service to give you an idea of how optimized the hosting is for speed. The grade is based on how well the service implemented its recommended performance optimization strategies.
Half the services in this review were given an A, and the rest a B.
Hosting Provider
Performance Grade
Page Load Time
Hostinger
B 86
181 ms
Dreamhost
A 95
335 ms
WP Engine
A 94
337 ms
SiteGround
A 94
491 ms
GreenGeeks
B 89
527 ms
Rocket.net
B 87
588 ms
HostGator
B 85
1,030 ms
Bluehost
A 91
1,480 ms
A more important metric is the page load time. Here, Hostinger was quickest, with the page loading in just 181 milliseconds.
However, all providers had loading times of well under 2 seconds, which is very good.
Response Time During Peak Times
The page load times above were tested during low-traffic periods. So, we also tested how each provider’s response time changed when we sent multiple users to the site.
Note that this test didn’t time how long it took the page to load, just how long it took until the server could respond. It also measured how that response time changed as we sent more and more users.
Here are the average response times for each provider during our stress test.
Hosting Provider
Average Response Time
Rocket.net
13 ms
WP Engine
67 ms
Dreamhost
77 ms
Bluehost
156 ms
HostGator
235 ms
SiteGround
250 ms
Hostinger
460 ms
GreenGeeks
3450 ms
Rocket.net performed especially well in the stress test, and most of the other services maintained a stable load during the test.
However, GreenGeeks did not perform well when encountering a lot of visitors at the same time. You can address this by installing a WordPress caching plugin. However, if your web server is slow, then caching alone won’t make much difference.
Response Time Around the World
We also tested each provider’s response times from different locations around the world. That’s because the response time will be slower the further your users are away from the company’s web servers.
Here are the response times (measured in milliseconds) for each provider from 8 locations around the world.
Host
US
(W)
US
(E)
UK
Singapore
Brazil
India
AU
Japan
CA
Germany
Hostinger
147
83
10
280
192
126
270
255
90
10
Dreamhost
18
81
153
182
190
283
158
112
83
168
WP Engine
56
30
95
189
140
23
190
128
30
109
SiteGround
60
34
104
254
157
257
200
161
29
114
GreenGeeks
50
27
89
214
147
212
185
152
20
101
Rocket.net
2
1
3
7
4
5
1
2
2
2
HostGator
26
71
152
189
193
262
163
128
92
159
Bluehost
46
35
107
212
140
226
179
159
47
116
Rocket.net recorded blazing-fast speeds around the world.
SiteGround and Bluehost are good options anywhere in the world because you can choose a data center location where most of your users are.
Besides these hosting providers, if most of your visitors are in the United States, then your best options include DreamHost, HostGator, and WP Engine.
Your visitors in Europe will have the fastest experience with Rocket.net and Hostinger, and the Asia Pacific users will enjoy the fastest speeds with Rocket.net.
Based on our performance tests, these are all good choices for fast hosting.
However, if website speed and performance are your highest priority, then you should also look carefully at Rocket.net. They have a better response time under load and around the world than any other provider.
FAQs About WordPress Hosting
Having helped over 400,000+ users start their websites, we have answered quite a lot of questions. Below are some of the answers to the most frequently asked questions about WordPress hosting.
Do I need WordPress hosting to start a website?
If you want to build a WordPress website, then you need web hosting. Your hosting server is where your website files are stored.
Every website that you see online uses a web hosting provider.
In most cases, free WordPress hosting providers put advertisements on your website. They may even distribute malware to your users. Last but not least, they can shut down your website at any time without any notification.
The cost of building a WordPress website varies based on your needs. It can range from $100 to as high as $30,000. We have created a detailed guide explaining how much it really costs to build a WordPress website.
How do I install WordPress on my WordPress hosting account?
Every WordPress hosting provider that we recommend comes with a 1-click WordPress install. You can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install WordPress on your host.
Can I switch my WordPress hosting provider later?
Yes, you can absolutely switch if you are unhappy with your WordPress hosting company.
Most WordPress hosting companies offer free migration services, which makes the process fairly smooth. However, if you want to do the migration yourself, then you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to move WordPress to a new host with no downtime.
Best WordPress Guides for Web Hosting
Want to learn more about WordPress hosting? Here are our best guides on the topic:
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 integrate Zoom meetings and webinars in WordPress?
Integrating WordPress with Zoom allows you to automatically enroll customers, visitors, and new members into Zoom video calls and webinars. This can improve user engagement and help build a community around your brand.
In this article, we will show you how to easily integrate Zoom meetings and webinars in WordPress, step by step.
Why Integrate Zoom Meetings and Webinars With WordPress?
Integrating Zoom with WordPress lets you easily automate your meeting and webinar registration process. This can save you a lot of time that you can spend on other business tasks.
Zoom is one of the most popular meeting, webinar, and video conference call software in the world, used by over 300 million people every day.
It’s a must-have tool for businesses with remote teams or WordPress website owners who need to get in touch with customers and clients virtually.
For instance, if you have an online store, then you can use Zoom for live product demos, customer support, online training, and even host webinars with your customers to promote upcoming products on your site.
That being said, let’s take a look at how you can easily integrate Zoom meetings and webinars in WordPress. Here’s a quick overview of the topics we will cover in this guide:
Install and Activate the Uncanny Automator Plugin for WordPress
The easiest way to connect Zoom with WordPress is by using Uncanny Automator.
It’s the best WordPress automation plugin that helps you create automated workflows in WordPress without writing any code. The tool lets you easily connect your WordPress site with external apps like Zoom, Slack, and Asana.
It’s like Zapier for WordPress websites but without the high costs.
To connect Zoom with WordPress, you will first have to visit the Uncanny Automator website.
From here, click the ‘Get Uncanny Automator Now’ button to continue.
This will take you to the ‘Pricing’ page, where you can select a plan of your choice.
Keep in mind that Uncanny Automator also has a free version, but it has limited features. That is why we are using the premium plan for this tutorial.
Upon purchase, you must install and activate the Uncanny Automator plugin on your WordPress website. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once you have done that, visit the Automator » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar to enter the license key for your pro plan. You will find this information in your account on the Uncanny Automator website.
After that, don’t forget to click the ‘Activate license’ button.
Now that Uncanny Automator is installed and activated, let’s set up your Zoom account.
There is a free version of Zoom, but you will need a paid account to set up the integration. First, head to the Zoom website and sign up for the plan that best suits your needs.
If you want to integrate webinars on your website, then you will also have to buy the Zoom Webinars addon.
Once you have a premium account, you need to go to the Zoom App Marketplace and sign in to your account. Here, you will create an app that sends data between Zoom and WordPress.
To do this, click the ‘Develop’ menu item and select the ‘Build App’ option from the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the screen.
This will bring you to the ‘Choose your app type’ page, where you must select the type of app you want to build.
From here, you have to find the ‘Server-to-Server OAuth’ app type and click the ‘Create’ button under it.
Next, you can name your app in the popup. The name is to help you remember the purpose of the app and won’t be visible to your visitors.
Simply enter your app name and click the ‘Create’ button to start the process.
This will take you to the ‘Connect Zoom with WordPress’ screen, where you will see the app credentials listed.
From here, you must copy the ‘Account ID’, ‘Client ID’, and the ‘Client Secret’ credentials and paste them into a text editor for now.
These credentials will be used to connect Zoom with your WordPress website. Next, click the ‘Continue’ button.
You’ll now be taken to the next step, where you have to provide basic information for your app, including the app name, company name, short description, developer name, and email address.
Once you are done, just click the ‘Continue’ button to move to the next step.
After that, you’ll be taken to the ‘Feature’ screen, where you don’t have to configure any settings, so you can click ‘Continue’ on this screen too.
This will direct you to the ‘Scopes’ screen, where you have to select at least one scope for your app to be able to activate it.
These scopes provide a way to limit the amount of access granted to an app. To set a scope, click the ‘+ Add Scopes’ button.
This will open a prompt on the screen where you can select scopes for Zoom meetings and webinars that will be hosted on your website using this app.
For example, if you want the app to be able to view live streaming token information or all user meetings information, then simply check the boxes next to these options.
You can also configure the scopes for Zoom webinars here by simply switching to the ‘Webinar’ option from the left column. After that, click the ‘Done’ button to move forward.
Next, click the ‘Continue’ button to move to the next step.
On the ‘Activation’ page, you will now see a message informing you that your app is ready.
From here, simply click the ‘Activate your app’ button.
Create a New Zoom Meeting
Now, you can create a new Zoom meeting that you will connect to your WordPress site.
To do this, visit your Zoom account to click the ‘Schedule’ link, and then fill in your meeting details.
You can even set a recurring Zoom meeting for your users by checking the ‘Recurring meeting’ box in the ‘Timezone’ section.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Create a New Zoom Webinar
To create a new Zoom webinar, click the ‘Webinars’ menu option in the ‘Personal’ tab inside your Zoom account.
After that, just click the ‘Schedule a Webinar’ button.
On the next page, you can enter all of your webinar information.
After that, you need to make sure the ‘Required’ box is checked in the Registration section.
After that, simply click the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.
Connect Zoom Meetings and Webinars With WordPress
Once Uncanny Automator is activated and Zoom is set up, you need to connect both of these apps to each other.
For this, head over to the Automator » App Integrations page from the WordPress dashboard.
Next, click the ‘Zoom Meetings’ tab in the left column and then add the ‘Account ID’, ‘Client ID’, and the ‘Client Secret’ credentials that you copied earlier into the fields.
Finally, click the ‘Connect Zoom Meetings Account’ button.
If you want to integrate Zoom Webinars, too, then just click the ‘Zoom Webinars’ menu option.
Then, paste the same ‘Account ID’, ‘Client ID’, and ‘Client Secret’ credentials that you used above.
Once you are done, go ahead and click the ‘Connect Zoom Webinars Account’ button.
Now that we have set up Zoom and integrated it with WordPress, let’s look at some of the cool things that you can do with this Uncanny Automator integration.
Register Users for a Zoom Meeting After Form Completion in WordPress
This integration will automatically register users for a Zoom meeting when they fill out a form on your website. This can be used to onboard new clients, schedule coaching calls, and more.
If you don’t have an active WordPress form on your website, then you need to create one now.
Uncanny Automator works with all major forms solutions, including WPForms, Formidable Forms, and more.
For this tutorial, we will be using WPForms because it’s the best contact form plugin for WordPress, used by over 6 million websites. There’s also a webinar form template in the form templates pack addon that makes form creation easy.
Now, you are ready to connect your WordPress form with Zoom.
To do this, you will be creating what’s called a ‘recipe’. In Uncanny Automator, recipes are the automations that link different plugins and apps together.
To get started, navigate to the Automator » Add new page from the WordPress admin sidebar and click the ‘Everyone’ option as the recipe type.
The Everyone recipes can be triggered by any user, while logged-in recipes can only be activated by users logged in to your website.
After that, click the ‘Confirm’ button.
Next, you have to provide a name for your recipe. This will help you remember the recipes you create without the name being visible to your users.
Keep in mind that each recipe has two different parts: the trigger and the action. The trigger is the event that will start the recipe, and the action is the task that runs after the trigger takes place.
For your first trigger, you need to select ‘WPForms’ in the ‘Trigger’ meta box.
After that, you have to choose a specific trigger related to WPForms.
For example, if you want your users to be added to a Zoom meeting once they submit a contact form, then you can select the ‘A form is submitted’ option.
If you have multiple forms on your WordPress blog, then you will also have to select the form where the submission will trigger the action.
To do this, simply select a form of your choice from the ‘Form’ dropdown menu.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Next, you will need to add an action for your automation.
To do that, scroll down to the ‘Actions’ sections and click the ‘Add action’ button under the meta box.
This will open a list of all the integrations available in the Uncanny Automator. From here, you need to pick the ‘Zoom Meetings’ option.
This will open the ‘Zoom Meetings’ action settings on the screen.
From here, you must choose the action that Zoom will perform upon form submission.
If you want to add a user to a Zoom meeting after they fill out a specific form on your website, then you need to select the ‘Add the user to a meeting’ option.
Then, you can choose the Zoom meeting you want users to register for in the ‘Meeting’ box.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Now, it’s time for you to finally publish your Uncanny Automator recipe. To do this, all you need to do is toggle the switch in the ‘Recipe’ box to ‘Live’.
Now, when your users fill out the form, they will automatically be registered for your Zoom meeting.
Register Users for a Zoom Webinar After Form Completion in WordPress
Another popular integration is registering users for a webinar when they fill out a form on your website.
To do this, you will follow the same steps as above. However, you will select ‘Zoom Webinars’ instead of ‘Zoom Meetings’ in the actions section.
First, follow the same initial ‘Triggers’ section as above. This means that you will have to choose WPForms as the integration for the trigger.
After that, you can select the ‘A form is submitted’ option as the trigger.
Next, scroll down to the ‘Actions’ section and click the ‘Add action’ button to expand the menu.
Then, simply select the ‘Zoom Webinars’ option as the integration.
This will open up the actions settings for the Zoom webinar.
From here, you can select the ‘Add the user to a webinar’ option from the dropdown menu. This will automatically add a user to your Zoom webinar after they fill out a specific form on your website.
Next, you will also have to choose a Zoom webinar from the dropdown list.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
After that, you must make your recipe live so that new users will automatically be enrolled in your webinar.
To do this, simply click the toggle in the ‘Recipe’ box so it says ‘Live’.
Register Customers for a Zoom Webinar After They Make a Purchase in WordPress
Another way to connect WordPress with Zoom is to enroll new customers in a product webinar after they make a purchase in your WooCommerce store.
Keep in mind that the WooCommerce plugin and store must be set up before you start creating a recipe with Uncanny Automator.
First, you need to visit the Automator » Add new screen from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Everyone’ option.
After that, click the ‘Confirm’ button to move forward.
Next, you have to provide a name for your recipe. This name won’t be displayed to your customers on the front and is only for your identification.
Once you have done that, choose WooCommerce as the integration in the ‘Trigger’ meta box.
This will open the list of WooCommerce triggers in the dropdown menu. From here, you can select any trigger that suits your needs.
For example, if you want customers to be added to your webinar after they buy a product, then you can select the first option.
After that, select the ‘completes’ option in the ‘Trigger condition’ box to start the automation when a customer completes a purchase.
Then, just click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Now, you can choose a specific product in your store or have the automation run when a customer purchases any product.
Simply select the ‘Any product’ option if you want all of your products to be included in the automation, and then click the ‘Save’ button.
Next, scroll down to the ‘Actions’ section and click the ‘Add action’ button to expand the menu.
Then, choose the ‘Zoom Webinars’ integration from the list.
This will open the Zoom webinar action settings on the screen, where you can select the ‘Add the user to a webinar’ option.
This will automatically register new customers for your webinar once they make a purchase.
After that, select the webinar of your choice from the dropdown list in the ‘Webinar’ box.
If you have multiple webinars running, then make sure to choose the webinar that’s associated with your WooCommerce products.
The last thing you need to do is make your recipe live.
To do this, simply click the toggle in the ‘Recipe’ box so it says ‘Live’.
Now, when your customers purchase a product, they will automatically be registered for your product webinar.
Register Members for a Zoom Meeting After Sign Up in WordPress
When running a membership site, registering new members for a Zoom call can be a great way to welcome them into your community.
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 to add emojis to your SEO title in WordPress?
Boosting the click-through rates (CTR) on your blog posts can make a huge impact on your traffic and your bottom line. Emojis are visually appealing and help your page stand out.
In this post, we will show you how to add emojis to your SEO title in WordPress so you can stand out in search results and bring more traffic to your website.
Why Add Emojis to Your SEO Titles?
Emojis are small digital icons used to communicate emotions, objects, activities, and other concepts. They can either replace text or enhance the message, giving it more meaning.
On a page filled with words, colorful and bright emojis help your page stand out.
By using emojis, you draw attention to your page and make your brand seem more human, attracting your target audience and boosting click-through rates.
While increasing your CTR isn’t guaranteed to help you rank better on Google, getting more traffic to your website is always a good thing.
That’s not the only reason. Search engines also support search queries with emojis. Try typing ‘🍕recipe’ into the search bar of Google.
You’ll find a few search results with the ‘🍕’ emoji as Google likes to either find the best pizza recipe pages or pages with the exact ‘🍕’ emoji.
How to Use Emojis in Your SEO Titles
Emojis can negatively impact your click-through rates and SEO if they are seen as misleading or spammy.
Before you start embedding emojis all over your titles, there are some ground rules to follow:
Consider your audience: Without a doubt, emojis work better for some niches than others. For example, including emojis on a recipe page for the best cocktails to make in the summer might be appropriate. But adding a heart or syringe to a page related to health care may hurt your brand’s reputation.
Don’t use emojis to replace words: It doesn’t matter how clear or descriptive your emojis are. They should never replace words because users are forced to interpret the meaning of the emoji instead of being told.
Use clear emojis: Avoid ambiguous emojis that people can misinterpret. Instead, stick to simple ones that are widely known to all audiences.
Use emojis that work on both light and dark backgrounds: Don’t use light emojis on a light background. For example, a yellow hand emoji works better on light backgrounds than a white hand emoji. This is especially important for SEO titles since Google’s default results background is plain white.
Now that you know how to use emojis responsibly, you are ready to begin using them on your web pages.
Let’s take a look at how you can add emojis to your SEO titles.
How to Add Emojis to Your SEO Titles
Adding emojis to your titles is incredibly easy once you have a good plugin. Without it, you’d have to scour the internet to find the right emoji code, which overcomplicates the process.
AIOSEO offers on-page analysis so you can optimize your blogs to rank higher in search results. You can also use the built-in emoji picker to add emojis to your SEO titles.
AIOSEO also comes with an SEO checklist tool, a link assistant, and many other features you can use to optimize your website to boost your rankings.
Now, you are ready to add your emoji to your metadata. To do that, scroll down a little further below the AIOSEO Settings.
Under Post Title, click on the emoji icon next to the tags in each field.
It’ll open up a window with a selection of emojis for you to choose from.
Browse through and pick the emoji of your choice, or just use the search bar to find what you are looking for.
Lastly, make sure to hit ‘Update/Publish’.
After that, the emoji will appear in the SEO title and display in search results.
Now, select your emoji of choice, and that’s it! Congratulations, you’ve just added emojis to your SEO title!
Frequently Asked Questions
Now that you know how to add emojis to your SEO titles, you may have a few more questions about how to effectively use emoticons to enhance your WordPress website.
How Do You Add Emojis to HTML Titles?
To add emojis to HTML titles, you can use the Unicode character codes for emojis directly within the title tag. You can find these codes on various websites that provide emoji Unicode references. Look for the emoji you want to use and then copy its Unicode code.
Inside the <title> tag, you can include the Unicode character code for the emoji. You must use the code &#x followed by the emoji code. For example, to add a smiley face emoji (😊) with the Unicode code U+1F60A, you would use 😊.
Do Emojis Affect SEO?
Google says you can use emojis in your SEO pages, including titles, but it won’t help or harm your search rankings in any way. However, emojis indirectly help your SEO efforts by improving click-through rates.
Emojis can humanize your brand, and if users spend more time on your site or interact with your content, these signals could boost your search ranking position.
Do Emojis Go Before or After Your Title?
Most emojis should generally come after text and never before. You want people to get the message first. Using emojis before the title can give a bad user experience, especially for anyone using a screen reader.
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Do you want to install and set up All in One SEO for WordPress?
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) for WordPress is the best WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website for search engines and social media platforms.
In this article, we will show you how to properly install and set up All in One SEO for WordPress to improve your SEO rankings.
It is easy to use, and you don’t need to be an SEO expert or have any special skills.
At the same time, it is incredibly powerful and allows you to make your WordPress website rank higher in search engines and get more free traffic from social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
By default, WordPress provides an SEO-friendly environment, but there are still many things that you can do to improve your website’s SEO rankings.
These include adding meta tags, generating XML sitemaps, adding schema markup, optimizing social sharing, and more.
All in One SEO for WordPress helps you do all these things with an easy-to-use interface that blends into your WordPress dashboard.
It also shows a TruSEO score for your posts and pages, which helps you create more search engine-friendly content. Plus, you can do a complete sitewide SEO audit with the click of a button.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily install and set up All in One SEO for WordPress. We will walk you through the complete setup, step by step.
Note: To demonstrate all the features of this power SEO plugin, we are using the Pro version. However, you can also download the free version of AIOSEO from WordPress.org.
Upon activation, the plugin will automatically launch the setup wizard.
You need to click on the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button to continue.
On the next screen, you will be asked to choose your website category or type.
For instance, you can pick if your website is primarily a blog, a news website, an online store, a small business, or something else.
For the sake of this tutorial, we will set it up as a blog.
Below that, you can fill in the homepage SEO title and description. The SEO meta title and description are used by search engines, so it is important to use your main keywords.
You will notice the smart tags options here. These tags allow you to dynamically generate text for your SEO meta title and description. You can also just manually enter the title and description that you want to use.
Note: You can always change these settings later, so don’t worry about missing something.
Now, you can click on the ‘Save and Continue’ button to move on to the next step.
On the next page, you will be asked whether you want to set it up as a person or an organization. For instance, if you run a personal blog, then you may want to choose a person.
Otherwise, you would select an organization and enter your organization name and business phone number. If you don’t have a business phone number yet, then you can leave it blank and add it later.
Below that, you need to provide a business logo and a default social sharing image.
A default social sharing image will be used when someone shares a link from your website and if that page doesn’t have a specific featured image set for it.
If you scroll down a little, then you will see the social profile section. This is where you will add social profile URLs associated with your website.
The business logo and social profiles are important elements that Google and other search engines use for their Knowledge Panels.
Once you have completed all the fields that you can, just click on the ‘Save and Continue’ button to move on to the next step.
Next, you will be asked to turn on SEO features. The essential SEO features like XML Sitemaps and Optimized Search Appearance are already turned on. You can choose other features you want to enable.
If you are unsure, then you can leave the default options and move on to the next step.
Next, you will see the Search Appearance screen. The plugin will show you a snippet preview of how your site will look in the search results. You can click on it to change the homepage title and meta description.
By default, the plugin will use the smart tags to display your site title, separator, and site tagline. You can customize these by clicking on the ‘Google Snippet Preview’.
Your goal should be to use your main keywords in the site’s title and description. You can also change these later from the plugin settings.
Below that, you will see advanced options. You can configure them to your own needs.
The first option is to choose whether your site is live or under construction. If you don’t want search engines to list your website right now, then you can choose ‘Under Construction’.
The next option is to include all post types (such as posts, pages, and products) in search results. If you are unsure, then keep it turned on for all post types.
Next, you need to choose if you have a multi-author or a single-author blog. If you have a single-author WordPress blog, then you need to select this option to avoid duplicate content.
The redirect attachment pages option is turned on by default. Attachment pages are low text pages, and it is highly recommended to redirect them because it will improve your overall SEO score.
Click on the ‘Save and Continue’ button to move on to the next step.
Finally, if you are using the PRO features of the plugin, then you will be asked to enter your license key. You can find this information in your account on the All in One SEO for WordPress website.
After entering your license key, you will see the Congratulations page, letting you know that you have reached the final page of the All in One SEO setup wizard.
You can click on the ‘Finish Setup’ button to save your settings and exit the wizard.
Congratulations, you have successfully installed and set up the All in One SEO for WordPress plugin on your website. You are now ready to take full advantage of this incredibly powerful SEO tool to grow your business.
In the next few steps, we will walk you through important SEO features and how to use them to grow your website.
Optimizing Your Website Posts and Pages for SEO Using AIOSEO
Optimizing your blog posts for SEO is a regular task and a very important part of creating content on your website.
All in One SEO for WordPress shows a TruSEO score for each of your blog posts and pages. This includes practical tips on improving that score and optimizing your posts for better performance in search results.
Simply edit any post or page on your website and scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ section below the content editor.
From here, you will see a snippet preview of how that particular post or page will appear in search results. Below that, you can enter the SEO meta title and description.
AIOSEO can automatically generate the SEO title and description for you. You can also manually enter it for each article, which will allow you to get creative and write catchy descriptions for your articles.
Just make sure that your title and description fields are using the main focus keyphrase for your post or page.
A focus keyphrase is the main keyword or phrase that you want to target. This is the phrase that your users are most likely to type into search engines to look for the information that you have in your article.
Adding the focus keyphrase does not automatically improve your SEO. However, All in One SEO helps you optimize your content for the focus keyphrase using the content analysis feature. More on this later.
Next, you need to switch to the ‘Social’ tab under the AIOSEO settings. This is where you can control how this post or page will appear on social media platforms with a preview of Facebook and Twitter.
From here, you can choose a different variation of title and description. You can also pick which image you want to use when a link is shared.
We will talk about the ‘Schema’ tab later in this article.
Using Content Analyzer for TruSEO Score in WordPress
One of the coolest features of All in One SEO is the content analysis and the TruSEO score. You can see them at the bottom of the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ section and also by clicking on the AIOSEO button in the top right corner of the screen.
The content analysis feature looks for a detailed set of indicators to give your content an SEO score. This allows you to have a handy SEO checklist that you can go through when creating content for your website.
You can expand different sections to view the checks and recommendations. AIOSEO will give you details about each recommendation that needs your attention and tell you how to fix it.
Using Headline Analyzer to Optimize Title SEO in WordPress
Your post titles also play an important role in SEO. You can use All in One SEO’s Headline Analyzer to create headlines that get more clicks on search engine results pages.
Simply click the ‘H’ button at the top of the content editor to get started.
Your title will be given a score, and you should aim for a score of at least 70.
Below that, you will see different sections with tips on how to improve your headline. There are sections for word balance, sentiment, headline type, character count, and word count.
You can expand these sections to see actionable tips and recommendations on how to improve your post’s SEO title.
If you just want to brainstorm some great post headlines, then you can also access Headline Analyzer from All in One SEO » SEO Analysis.
Once there, you need to click on the ‘Headline Analyzer’ tab at the top of the page.
Now, simply type a headline and then click the ‘Analyze’ button.
Your headline idea will be given a score, and you will see actionable tips to improve it.
Optimizing WooCommerce SEO Using All in One SEO for WordPress
All in One SEO for WordPress is ready for eCommerce stores and helps you optimize your WooCommerce SEO right out of the box.
Let’s start with the product pages first.
Simply edit any product in WooCommerce and scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings box below the product editor.
In the ‘General’ tab, you can change the product’s SEO title and description. You can use a product short description smart tag, or you can write a custom description. Just make sure your main product keyword is used in both the title and description fields.
Next, switch to the ‘Social’ tab. From here, you can control how your product will look on social media platforms. You can set a different product image here to get more clicks and engagement from social media.
After that, you can switch to the ‘Schema’ tab.
Schema markup allows search engines to better understand and display your content in search results. For instance, this is how search engines may show a product in search results:
AIOSEO will automatically select the correct schema type.
It will also use the data from your WooCommerce product listing, like product pricing, availability of stock, and more.
Additionally, you can click the ‘Edit Schema’ icon to add other information.
You can add the brand, identifier type, material, color, pattern, and more if you need to.
The plugin also automatically generates WooCommerce XML sitemaps, including product and product category sitemaps. This brings us to the next step.
Using XML Sitemaps in All in One SEO
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all your website content in an XML format so search engines like Google can easily discover and index your content.
Sitemaps are extremely important for SEO, and AIOSEO automatically sets them up for you.
You can find your XML sitemap by adding sitemap.xml at the end of your domain name like this:
https://example.com/sitemap.xml
You can customize your sitemap using All in One SEO.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Sitemaps page to review sitemap settings.
You can scroll down below to the Sitemap Settings section.
From here, you can manage sitemap indexes and include or exclude post types and taxonomies (categories and tags). You can also enable XML sitemaps for date-based archives and author archives.
The plugin also allows you to manually add pages to your XML sitemaps.
For instance, you might do this if you have a standalone contact form, a landing page, or Shopify store pages.
Create a Video XML Sitemap
All in One SEO allows you to create additional sitemaps like a video sitemap or a news sitemap.
If you embed videos into your content, then adding a video sitemap displays the video thumbnail with a play button in search results.
You can enable the video XML sitemap by switching to the ‘Video Sitemap’ tab.
The first time you visit this page, you will need to click the ‘Activate Video Sitemap’ button to turn on video sitemaps on your site.
Once video sitemaps are activated, you will see the ‘Video Sitemap’ settings tab.
Notice that the ‘Enable Sitemap’ toggle has been switched on.
Note: You will need at least a PRO plan of the plugin to access the video sitemaps feature.
Create a News Sitemap in WordPress
If you run a news website, then you will need to generate a news XML sitemap to appear on Google Search’s News results page.
All in One SEO makes it super easy to generate a news sitemap for your website. Simply switch to the ‘News Sitemap’ tab. The first time you visit this tab, you will need to click the ‘Activate News Sitemap’ button to enable news sitemaps on your site.
Now, you will see the ‘Video Sitemap’ settings tab.
Notice that the ‘Enable Sitemap’ toggle has been switched on.
Below that, you will see the news sitemap settings.
You can set your publication name and select a post type that you want to use for the news sitemap.
Note: You will need at least a PRO plan of the plugin to access the video sitemaps feature.
Generate an RSS Sitemap
An RSS Sitemap is different than an XML sitemap. Unlike XML Sitemaps, an RSS sitemap only contains your most recent content. It helps Google and other search engines to show your newer content in the search results.
All in One SEO allows you to easily add an RSS sitemap to your website. Simply switch to the ‘RSS Sitemap’ tab and then make sure the ‘Enable Sitemap’ setting is toggled on.
Using Schema Markup in All in One SEO for WordPress
Schema markup is a special vocabulary that you can use in your post or page’s HTML code to tell search engines more about your content.
For instance, you can tell search engines that the content they are viewing is a recipe or a product page. This allows search engines to use the microdata to display rich snippets in search results.
Schema markup also helps search engines display results in knowledge graph information panels. This enhanced placement in search results helps you get more clicks and visitors to your website.
All in One SEO for WordPress comes with built-in support for schema markup for all your content.
Setting Sitewide Schema Markup in WordPress
First, you need to visit the All in One SEO » Search Appearance page and switch to the ‘Content Types’ tab.
From here, you can open the ‘Schema Markup’ tab for each content type.
For instance, you can choose ‘Article’ for your posts and then choose what type of articles they are, such as articles, blog posts, or news articles.
Similarly, for your WooCommerce products, you can switch to the ‘Schema Markup’ tab and set the default markup type to ‘Product’.
Changing Schema Markup for Individual Posts and Pages
Now, what if you have mixed content that you publish as blog posts? For instance, you may occasionally publish a recipe instead of an article as a blog post.
All in One SEO allows you to control schema markup for all individual posts, pages, and products. Simply edit the item that you want to change and scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings below the post editor.
From here, you need to switch to the ‘Schema’ tab and click the ‘Generate Schema’ button.
This will open up the Schema Catalog.
Here, you can choose the schema type that you want to use.
Depending on which schema type you choose, you will see different options to provide additional microdata to be used in the schema markup.
For instance, if you change it to ‘Recipe’ schema, then you will be asked to enter information such as the recipe name, description, image, dish type, cuisine, the time required, and more.
Schema markup is an extremely powerful tool that helps you enhance the appearance of your content in the search results and get more free traffic to your website.
Connecting Google Search Console and Other Webmaster Tools
Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help website owners track their websites’ presence in Google search results.
All in One SEO for WordPress allows you to easily connect your WordPress site to Google Search Console.
First, you need to add your website to Google Search Console using the URL prefix method. During the process, you will be asked to verify your ownership of the website. You should choose the HTML tag option.
Copy the HTML tag and switch back to your WordPress admin area.
Now, simply go to the All in One SEO » General Settings page and switch to the ‘Webmaster Tools’ tab. From here, you can click on ‘Google Search Console’ and then enter the verification code you copied earlier.
Similarly, the plugin also allows you to add verification codes for other services like Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex, Baidu, and Pinterest site verification.
In fact, if any third-party service asks you to add some code to your site’s header, then you can use this page to add those codes in the ‘Miscellaneous Verification’ box.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Viewing Google Search Console Statistics From All in One SEO
While the Google Search Console offers a lot of useful statistics about your website on the Google Search Console website, many beginners find it difficult to find the information they need.
Luckily, All in One SEO’s Search Statistics feature makes it easy to do this from inside your WordPress website’s dashboard.
When you navigate to the All in One SEO » Search Statistics page for the first time, you will need to click the ‘Connect to Google Search Console’ button.
You will be asked to connect or choose your Google account and then give the All in One SEO plugin access to your Google Search Console account.
Once you are redirected back to your website, All in One SEO will fetch your Google Search Console data for you. It will be presented in easy-to-understand reports featuring graphs.
Using Link Assistant to Add Internal Links to Posts and Pages
Internal links are links between posts on your own website. They help search engines discover your content and rank them higher in search results.
All in One SEO’s Link Assistant feature makes it easy to add links to your old and new content without having to open up the post. Simply head over to All in One SEO » Link Assistant in your WordPress dashboard.
The first time you visit this page, you will need to click the ‘Activate Link Assistant’ to enable the feature on your website.
After that, the tool will need to scan every post and page on your website to collect the links you have and see which posts are linked to and which aren’t.
After a few moments, the scan will finish, and you will see an overview of the links used on your website.
You will see the total counts for internal, external, and affiliate links. The report will also show you the number of orphaned posts that have not yet been linked to from another post or page.
The ‘Links Report’ tab provides detailed information on all your links.
You will see a list of all your posts and pages with columns for internal, external, and affiliate links, as well as suggestions where you can add links.
You can click on the right arrow button next to any post or page to see more details.
For example, you can go to the ‘Link Suggestions’ tab to quickly view link suggestions and add links without directly editing a post or page.
A lot of WordPress users run small business websites that serve a particular town or region. These include businesses like restaurants, real estate agents, plumbing, maintenance service providers, small stores, salons, and more.
Local business SEO allows you to optimize your website to appear more prominently in local search results.
For instance, if someone is looking for an ‘Italian restaurant’, then your location would pop up in the results.
This drives targeted customers and direct sales to your business.
First, you may want to create a Google My Business account. This allows you to add your business listing, prove that you own the business, and manage your business information using Google’s My Business dashboard.
All in One SEO for WordPress allows you to easily add local business SEO schema markup to your website. This helps you get even more enhanced placement in the search results and keep the information up to date for your business.
Simply navigate to All in One SEO » Local SEO. The first time you visit this page, you will need to click the ‘Activate Local SEO’ button to enable local SEO on your site.
After that, you can set up your location settings. The first setting asks whether your business has multiple locations.
After that, you need to decide how you will add location information to your website. Most users prefer to use Gutenberg blocks, but you can also use a shortcode, widgets, or PHP code.
Now you can scroll down to the Business Info section
Here, you can fill in your business’s information like name, logo, location, area served, and more.
Once you have entered all of your business information, you can add your opening hours.
In the ‘Opening Hours’ tab, you will find settings for whether to display your business hours and how to add them to your website, such as using a Gutenberg block.
After that, you can scroll down the page and enter your business hours.
There are options for businesses that are open 24/7, or you can add your opening hours for each day of the week.
The last tab allows you to add a map of your location to your website. This can help customers navigate to your office or physical store.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Performing a Website SEO Audit in WordPress
Now, as you work on your website, you will want to know how your website’s SEO is doing. All in One SEO for WordPress provides a built-in tool to perform a detailed website SEO audit.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » SEO Analysis page to perform a complete site-wide SEO analysis.
On top of the page, it will give you an overall score for your site’s SEO health. Any score above 70 is acceptable, but there is always room for improvement.
Below the score, you will see the breakdown of your site’s SEO audit report with different labels.
If there are any critical issues, then they need your immediate attention.
Simply click on the ‘Important Issues’ tab, and you’ll see a list of issues that you need to fix. You can click on the arrow next to each item to expand, and it will show you how to fix it.
As you fix an issue, you can click on the ‘Refresh Results’ button to regenerate the SEO Analysis score.
Performing SEO Competitor Analysis in WordPress
Want to compare your SEO analysis with your competitors? AIOSEO comes with a built-in competitor analysis tool that you can use inside WordPress.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » SEO Analysis page and switch to the ‘Analyze Competitor Site’ tab. From here, you need to enter the URL of your competitor’s website to generate an analysis report.
AIOSEO will generate an SEO analysis report of your competitor.
Below the score, you will get a detailed report on different SEO checks, top keywords, critical issues, performance, and a security analysis.
You can compare this report with your own report and see if there is something that they are doing that you can use and improve upon.
All in One SEO for WordPress is an incredibly powerful SEO tool. Apart from the features we have covered above, it comes equipped with many features for advanced users.
Moving From Yoast SEO to All in One SEO
All in One SEO allows you to easily import SEO data from third-party plugins so that you can switch and use a more powerful and much better SEO tool.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Tools page and switch to the ‘Import/Export’ tab.
You can then import data by choosing a plugin from the dropdown list and clicking on the ‘Import’ button.
Edit Robots.txt and .htaccess Files
Sometimes, when following a WordPress tutorial or guide, you may need to edit your robots.txt or .htaccess file. All in One SEO allows you to easily do that.
You can do this by visiting the All in One SEO » Tools page. From here, you will find the option to edit the robots.txt and .htaccess files.
Manipulate Your WordPress RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds are used by content aggregators to display your site’s articles or summaries.
All in One SEO allows you to easily manipulate your WordPress RSS feeds to your own advantage by adding your own custom content before or after blog posts.
You can do that by visiting the All in One SEO » General Settings page and switching to the ‘RSS Content’ tab.
Control Who Can Access SEO Options in WordPress
Many businesses have staff members responsible for creating content, marketing, or managing SEO. All in One SEO makes it easy for you to choose who has access to SEO settings.
Simply go to the ‘Access Control’ tab and toggle the different settings on and off.
Now that you have installed and set up All in One SEO for WordPress, the next step is to track how your website is doing and what you can do to grow it.
The easiest way to track your website traffic is by using MonsterInsights. It allows you to see how many visitors are coming to your site, which pages they are viewing, and what they do on your site.
It is the best conversion optimization software in the world and helps you convert website visitors into customers. It comes with beautiful lightbox popups, slide-in menus, countdown timers, notification bars, and more.
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The Instagram Shopping feature lets you show the catalog and pricing of your products within the photos on your Instagram account.
This means that users browsing on your Instagram account will be able to see a ‘View Products’ icon on your posts.
Once they click on it, they will be able to see the names, descriptions, and prices of the products tagged in the post, and on further clicking, they will be directed to your Instagram store to view all your products.
Upon tapping again, the users will then be taken to your WooCommerce store that is linked to your Instagram account.
This allows you to create a shop front for your online store on the Instagram platform and directly promote your products on social media to increase sales.
Plus, Instagram is used by over 1 billion active users, which helps you to reach a wider audience.
The Downsides of Using Instagram Shopping
Even though Instagram Shopping can help increase your sales, it’s not easy to set up. This is because to set up an Instagram Shopping store, you must first meet Instagram’s requirements.
Here is a list of all the requirements that you must fulfill to set up an Instagram Shopping store:
You must have the latest version of the Instagram app.
Your site must be connected to an eCommerce platform for selling products.
You must convert your Instagram account into a Business account and add your public business information.
Be a Facebook page admin or set up a Facebook Business Manager account.
Your Instagram account has to be connected to your Facebook page.
Have an eligible product catalog connected with a Facebook shop to sell products on Instagram.
Go through the domain verification process.
Follow all of Instagram’s commerce policies.
Another downside of Instagram Shopping is that you can only sell physical products on the platform. This is because you can only tag physical products in a post.
Moreover, Instagram still hasn’t introduced the Instagram Shopping feature in some countries. This means that even if you meet the requirements, you may not be able to sell products on Instagram simply because the feature isn’t available in your region.
Having said that, let’s see how to set up Instagram Shopping in WordPress.
How to Sell Products on Instagram With Instagram Shopping
You can sell WooCommerce products on Instagram by turning on the Instagram Shopping feature.
However, keep in mind that you will need a business account on Instagram to do this. You will also need to meet the platform’s requirements and wait for their approval first.
You will also need to set up your WooCommerce store first. If you haven’t already done this, then please see our complete WooCommerce tutorial.
Step 1: Submit Your WooCommerce Store for Instagram Review
To send your WooCommerce store for the platform’s approval, you will need to visit the Commerce Manager page on the Meta website.
Here, click on the ‘Get Started’ button to be directed to the next screen.
From here, you will have to select the ‘Create a shop’ option to sell your products on Instagram.
After that, just click the ‘Get Started’ button to continue.
Next, simply add products to your catalog and then submit the store for review to Instagram.
Once you’ve done that, Instagram will review your online store and then send you their answer over email in the next few days.
Step 2: Turn On the Instagram Shopping Feature on Your Account
Once you have set up a business Instagram account and your online store has been approved by Instagram, you need to open your Instagram app and select the three-line menu in the top right corner of the screen.
This will open a prompt where you have to choose the Settings » Business option.
If your account has been approved for Instagram Shopping by the platform, then you will see a ‘Shopping’ menu on the screen that you have to click or tap on.
Next, you need to select the ‘Continue’ button on the screen and then pick one of your product catalogs to set up Instagram Shopping.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Done’ button to store your settings.
You have now successfully set up an Instagram Shopping store.
Step 3: Add Products to Your Instagram Shop Using Product Tags
Now that you have set up your Instagram shop, you can easily add a post for your products by clicking on the ‘Share Photos’ button.
You need to add a product description and call to action (CTA) for the product in the caption and then click on the ‘Tag Products’ option.
After that, tap the section of the post where you want to add the product tag.
This will open a search box where you need to type the product’s name and select it on the screen.
Finally, click the ‘Done’ button and then the ‘Share’ button at the top to make your product post live on your Instagram account.
Now, users will be able to view the product details in the post, and clicking on the tag will open your Instagram Shopping store.
How to Set Up Instagram Shopping on Your WordPress Website
Even though Instagram Shopping can increase your revenue, it is super hard to set up and get your store approved.
Another easier way to sell products on Instagram is to display your shoppable Instagram feed on your WordPress website.
This way, visitors will easily be able to view your Instagram product reels, posts, and videos without needing to visit your Instagram account. They can also buy products directly from your online store.
It is the best Instagram plugin for WordPress that lets you easily create, customize, and embed your shoppable Instagram feed on any page or post on your WordPress site.
Note: You can also use the free version of the Instagram Feed Pro plugin. However, we will be using the premium plan for this tutorial.
Upon activation, you need to head over to the Instagram Feed » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Once you are there, enter the Smash Balloon license key for the plugin into the field and click the ‘Activate’ button.
You can find this information in your account on the Smash Balloon website.
Next, visit the Instagram Feed » All Feeds page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘+ Add New’ button.
You can now start creating your own shoppable Instagram feed for WordPress.
This will direct you to the ‘Create an Instagram Feed’ page, where you have to select the ‘User Timeline’ option as the feed type and click the ‘Next’ button.
This means that Smash Balloon will directly fetch posts for the feed from your Instagram account and even update the feed automatically once you post new photos on your Instagram account.
You will now be taken to the ‘Select one or more sources’ page, where you will have to connect your Instagram account.
To do this, click the ‘+ Add Source’ button.
This will direct you to the Smash Balloon website, where you will be asked to select your Instagram account type.
Here, click the ‘Business’ option to move to the next step. You will then be asked if you have connected your Facebook account using Smash Balloon before.
Here, simply select your answer and then move to the next step.
Keep in mind that to connect your Instagram account with WordPress, you will first have to connect your Instagram account with your Facebook page.
To do this, click the ‘Connect with Facebook’ button.
This will direct you to your Facebook account, where you have to select your business Instagram account from the prompt.
After that, click the ‘Next’ button to continue.
Next, you have to select the Facebook page that you want to link to your WordPress site.
Once you’ve done that, just click the ‘Next’ button to move forward.
Facebook will now ask you to manage the plugin’s access rules for your Facebook page.
Simply click the ‘Done’ button to allow Smash Balloon access to your Facebook page.
Once you do that, you will redirected to your WordPress dashboard, where you have now successfully connected your Instagram and Facebook account to your website.
To start creating a feed, you need to click on the popup of the Instagram account that you just linked to your website.
After that, click the ‘Next’ button to continue.
How to Create an Instagram Feed for Your WordPress Site
Upon selecting your account, Smash Balloon will open the Instagram feed in the live feed editor.
Here, you will notice a live preview for the feed on the right with all the customization options in the left column of the screen.
From here, simply click the Settings » Shoppable Feed tab to open more settings.
On the new screen, turn on the toggle to activate the Shoppable Feed feature.
Smash Balloon will now show an ‘Add’ button next to all of the product posts on your Instagram Feed.
Next, click on the ‘Add’ button above an Instagram post from your feed to open its settings in the left column.
Once you do that, just type the product’s URL from your WooCommerce store into the ‘Product Link’ field and click the ‘Add’ button.
Now, when a user clicks on this product while browsing through your Instagram feed, they will be directly taken to the product’s page on your WooCommerce store.
You can now repeat these steps for all of the posts in your feed to make your products shoppable.
You can even change the URL of a product by clicking the ‘Update’ button on the posts.
Finally, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings. You have now successfully connected your Instagram Shopping account with your WooCommerce store.
How to Customize the Instagram Shopping Feed
You can easily customize the Instagram shopping feed that you’ve just created by using the live feed editor.
First, you can click on the ‘Feed Layout’ tab in the left column to change the layout of your Instagram feed.
From here, you can use the Grid, Carousel, Masonry, or Highlight option. The live feed preview will automatically be updated according to your chosen option.
Depending on the layout, you will get some extra settings that you can use to fine-tune your feed.
For example, upon choosing the ‘highlight’ option, you can pick the element that will be used to highlight different posts, including a pattern, post ID, or hashtag.
You can also select the padding and height of the feed by filling in those fields.
Once you have made your changes, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
With Smash Balloon’s live feed editor, you can also customize the color scheme and header, add a load more button, and further customize your Instagram feed.
How to Add the Instagram Shopping Feed to Your Website
To add the Instagram Shopping feed to your website, you need to visit the Instagram Feed » All Feeds page from the WordPress dashboard.
From here, copy the shortcode next to the Instagram feed that you created.
Next, open a page or post in the block editor.
Once you are there, click the ‘+’ button on the screen to open the block menu. Next, find and add the Instagram Feed block to the page.
By default, the Smash Balloon will display a random feed.
To embed your Instagram feed on the page, simply paste the shortcode into the ‘Shortcode Settings’ section in the block panel and click on the ‘Apply Changes’ button.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
You have now successfully added your Instagram Shopping feed to your WooCommerce store.
Bonus: Promote Your Products With Affiliate Marketing
Apart from selling your products on Instagram, you can also make money in your online store by starting your own affiliate program.
Other small businesses or influencers can join your referral program and promote your products or services on their websites in exchange for a commission.
This can be a cost-effective way to advertise your products or services. It can even help you build a community of affiliates who are passionate about your products and are willing to help you spread the word.
The easiest way to build an affiliate program for your website is by using AffiliateWP, which is the best self-hosted affiliate program plugin for WordPress.
It makes it easy for beginners to launch a referral program and grow their online sales by integrating with WordPress plugins like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and WPForms.
Plus, AffiliateWP lets you monitor affiliate clicks, sales, and payments and comes with amazing features like a built-in affiliate dashboard, affiliate coupon tracking, a referral link generator, and more.
We hope this article helped you learn how to sell your WooCommerce products on Instagram. You may also want to see the best WooCommerce hosting and our expert picks for the best WooCommerce plugins for your online store.
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