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Tag: News

  • WordCamp Europe 2023 Roundup: Making WordPress History in the Historic Athens

    Our team just returned from WordCamp Europe 2023, which took place in Athens, Greece, from 8 to 10 June 2023. 2,545 people from 94 countries attended the event – proof of WordPress’ wide reach!

    It was Hostinger’s second time sponsoring WordCamp Europe, and this year we’re proud to have supported the event as a Super Admin Sponsor.

    All talks and workshops were recorded and will soon be available for watching on WordPress.tv. In the meantime, you can also watch the recorded live streams on WordCamp Europe’s official YouTube channel.

    We took notes of some of the event’s highlights – read on to find out about the fun we had at WordCamp Europe 2023 and what’s coming at the next WordCamp Europe.

    20 Years of WordPress and Its Future

    WordPress turned 20 on May 27, 2023, so a celebratory spirit was still very much apparent during WordCamp Europe 2023. Some of the sessions reflected on how far the content management system has come.

    One such was Aaron Reimann‘s Where did we come from?, which went through some of WordPress’s major features over the years, including WordPress version 0.71 and search feature version 1.0. It showed attendees the gradual development of the CMS while WordPress community members could see how their contributions had helped along the way.

    Meanwhile, the Variations on a theme: 20 years of WordPress session had WordPress’ Co-founder and Project Leader Matt Mullenweg, WordPress’ Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and Automattic’s Product Architect Matías Ventura come together and review the year’s accomplishments and learnings.

    This session was followed by a live Q&A, during which Matt shared his reflections on open-source innovation and disruption in the past 20 years.

    Instead of retrospection, other sessions covered the possibilities for the future of WordPress.

    For example, Let’s make WordPress & its community sustainable today invited attendees to envision sustainable practices in the WordPress ecosystem. The Women and non-binary folx of WordPress panel discussion examined underrepresented people’s involvement in the open source project, including tips to take part in the initiative. This was especially important since the upcoming WordPress 6.4 release is led by an all-women and non-binary release squad. It will be the second release version with such a team formation.

    As a member of the WordPress community, Hostinger joined the anniversary celebration as well.

    Hostinger team with Matt Mullenweg and Josepha Haden Chomphosy at Hostinger's booth in WCEU 2023

    Besides an anniversary blog post and a podcast with Tammie Lister, we also set up a WordCamp Europe booth highlighting our WordPress clients. This way, we could engage with WordCamp visitors on a more personal level.

    The event finished with a bang – the WordPress 20th Anniversary after-party allowed everyone to relax and mingle after hard and rewarding work.

    Artificial Intelligence in WordPress

    It comes as no surprise that the Artificial Intelligence topic was a high-traffic one at WordCamp Europe. Most sessions had at least one AI-related question during the Q&A. Many professionals from various industries, especially IT, were looking for ways to integrate AI into their workflows to promote smarter work.

    It’s only natural then that there were several AI-themed sessions at WordCamp Europe 2023. They covered a broad ground – from much sought-after AI-assisted content creation to lesser-known areas like AI for accessibility.

    Some sessions specifically talked about AI uses for WordPress, such as AI translation. Another panel discussion explored the active use cases of AI as an accelerator.

    For those still unsure whether AI was worth their while, there was a session called How I learnt to stop worrying & love our AI rulers that discussed AI’s pros and cons and forecast the near future.

    As veteran WordPress contributor Birgit Pauli-Haack pointed out in an interview with us, “The only constant is change itself.” Being open to any new technology while questioning it seems to be the best decision.

    Contributors’ Team in Highlight: the Polyglots Team

    Last year at WCEU22, the WordPress Community team highlighted the Performance Team. This year, the community booth highlighted the Polyglots Team.

    Booth visitors could find out more about the team. They could also meet members of various local communities and learn what they do and how to get involved. This is one of the ways the WordPress community appreciates the global network of teams and contributors who build the project.

    Polyglots Team is responsible for localizing WordPress’ core software, themes, plugins, and other components like support documentation. Half of WordPress installs use a localized version of the CMS, so Polyglots help lessen the communication gaps by making WordPress more accessible to users worldwide.

    The team features translators, who suggest translations in local languages, and translation editors, who review the suggestions and ensure the quality. The team also works to set and maintain translation guidelines to ensure consistency.

    WordPress currently supports more than 200 locales, with only around 70 fully translated. There’s always room to make this platform more inclusive, so multilingual contributors are always welcome to join the team.

    Our WordCamp Europe 2023 Experience

    The event started with Contributor Day. The attending Hostingerians contributed to the Support and Community table at the venue, while one of us joined the Training Team online from Indonesia.

    WordCamp Europe 2023 Contributor Day attendees

    Contributors explored WordPress Playground – a version of WordPress that runs entirely on your browser. It’s a handy sandbox for experimentation, like trying a theme, testing a plugin, or even building a site.

    Contributor Day also hosted a lot of cross-team collaboration. Meeting other contributors in person and becoming immersed in an all-hands-on-deck experience are some of the perks of joining an offline WordPress event.

    At the end of Contributor Day, an official announcement unveiled the addition of a new team to the WordPress ecosystem – the Sustainability Team. This team will focus on finding ways to make both WordCamps and WordPress more sustainable.

    The second and third days of the event were conference days, allowing attendees to participate in various sessions and workshops. Emma Young, our Content Lead, volunteered as the event’s MC. She could mostly be found on Track 2’s stage.

    “I volunteered as an interviewer in WordCamp Asia 2023, and that was fun, but I wanted to try something new. I also wanted to see how comfortable I would be on stage because I would like to be a speaker someday,” said Emma. “If public speaking excites you, definitely do it at your local WordCamps!” she added.

    Meanwhile, visitors to Hostinger’s booth could view special videos with our clients who successfully developed businesses using WordPress. We also ran a personality quiz that would tell you which WordPress theme you were.

    Hostinger booth at WordCamp Europe 2023

    As connecting with fellow WordPress enthusiasts is the essence of WordCamps, we used the chance to meet our clients and customers. As always, we were after candid feedback to improve our products and services. We also introduced them to our newest product updates, such as our in-house Hostinger Blog Theme and AI Content Generator.

    Our client, digital business card company Doup, supported us during the event by providing NFC cards to activate newly-signed hosting plans.

    Hostinger's WordPress 20th anniversary-themed merchandise

    However, WordCamps are only complete with signature swag. That’s why we brought our Block and Roll-themed merchandise – a homage to WordPress’s very own Block Editor celebrating the 20th-anniversary. Within 3.5 hours, we had given out 500 T-shirts – we were happy people found them cool!

    What’s Next

    At the end of this three-day event, Torino, Italy, was announced as the host city of WordCamp Europe 2024.

    Until then, there are many upcoming local WordCamps that you can attend. WordPress Community Summit and WordCamp US 2023 in National Harbor, Maryland, are the next flagship events.

    Hostinger will also be sponsoring WCUS 2023, so we’re looking forward to meeting you there and geeking out over WordPress together. Block and Roll!

    The post WordCamp Europe 2023 Roundup: Making WordPress History in the Historic Athens appeared first on Hostinger Blog.

  • Gutenberg 16.0 Introduces Page Management in the Site Editor

    Gutenberg 16.0 was released today with page management now available inside the Site Editor. This is the first step towards a more unified experience of editing both content and design.

    Users can now create new pages and view page details in the sidebar, an experience that is very similar to editing a page in the block editor except it keeps the process inside the flow of design editing.

    video credit: Gutenberg 16.0 release post

    “This means you can practically build out a website without leaving the Site Editor, which speeds up the site creation process, makes it easier to see what the final result will look like, and reduces the overall cognitive load of switching between editors,” Automattic-sponsored core contributor Nick Diego said.

    This update to the Site Editor will be available in the upcoming WordPress 6.3 release, along with the Details block, which has been stabilized in Gutenberg 16.0 and is no longer under the Experimental flag. The implementation was scaled back to be more simple by including the summary as part of the block itself.

    The Command Center, created to be an extensible quick search for jumping to other pages or templates inside the editor, has come out of the experimental stage as well in Gutenberg 16.0. This is another major feature coming to core in the next release, and its API is also now public, opening the possibility for developers to create custom commands.

    A few other user-facing highlights in this release of the plugin include the following:

    Check out the release post for more details on all the enhancements, bug fixes, and tooling, accessibility, and performance updates included in Gutenberg 16.0.

  • WooCommerce Stripe Gateway Plugin Patches Security Vulnerability in 7.4.1

    Patchstack is reporting an Insecure Direct Object References (IDOR) vulnerability in WooCommerce Stripe Gateway, the most popular WooCommerce Stripe payment plugin with more than 900,000 active users. It was discovered by Patchstack researcher Rafie Muhammad on April 17, 2023, and patched by WooCommerce on May 30, 2023, in version 7.4.1.

    The security advisory describes the vulnerability as follows:

    This vulnerability allows any unauthenticated user to view any WooCommnerce order’s PII data including email, user’s name, and full address. The described vulnerability was fixed in version 7.4.1 with some backported fixed version and assigned CVE-2023-34000.

    It was assigned a high severity CVSS 3.1 score of 7.5 and added to the Patchstack database on June 13.

    The vulnerability affects versions 7.4.0 and below. Although the patch from WooCommerce has been available for two weeks, more than 55% of the plugin’s user base is running on versions older than 7.4 and it’s not clear how many 7.4.x users are on the latest version.

    The WooCommerce Stripe Gateway plugin’s changelog for version 7.4.1 includes two short notes and doesn’t elaborate on the severity of the security update:

    • Fix – Add Order Key Validation.
    • Fix – Add sanitization and escaping some outputs.

    Patchstack’s security advisory includes more technical details about underlying vulnerabilities fixed in this update. It is not yet known to have been exploited but store owners are encouraged to update to the latest 7.4.1 version as soon as possible.

  • WordPress Accessibility Day Secures Nonprofit Status for Annual Event, Calls for Speakers and Sponsors

    WordPress Accessibility Day, an independent 24-hour virtual conference, will return in 2023 – this time under an official non-profit status.

    The first edition of the event was hosted in 2020 by the WordPress core Accessibility Team. They wanted to manage it independently of the WordPress Foundation in order to reserve the option to do things like pay speakers for their time and expertise. The most recent 2022 event ran its finances through  WP Accessibility Day Board President Amber Hinds’ company, Equalize Digital, to expedite the process of getting started.

    The success of last year’s event, which drew 1,604 attendees from 52 countries, thanks to 28 sponsors and a 32-person volunteer crew, inspired organizers to keep pushing to make the organization a nonprofit.

    Through a fiscal sponsorship partnership with Knowbility, an Austin-based digital accessibility advocate and services provider, WP Accessibility Day has secured 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

    “When I helped found this event in 2020, I already knew that our biggest challenge would be ensuring that the event wasn’t dependent on a single person to survive,” WP Accessibility Day Board Secretary Joe Dolson said. “Setting up as a non-profit and partnering with a larger organization helps us reach our goal of creating an event with a life of its own. Knowbility’s dedication to accessibility education makes them a great match for our mission.”

    This arrangement makes sponsorships and donations to the WP Accessibility Day event tax-deductible in the United States. Past sponsors include Cloudways, Gravity Forms, WP Engine, Yoast, GoDaddy Pro, Weglot, among other WordPress companies.

    The next WP Accessibility Day event is scheduled for September 27-28, 2023, and will feature a single-track that runs for 24 hours. It will also include live captioning and sign language interpreters. Organizers plan to publish the sessions following the event with transcripts and updated captions.

    Speaker and sponsor applications are already open, and speakers will be compensated with a $300 stipend per session. The deadline to submit an application as a speaker has been extended to June 18, 2023. Attendance is free via livestream.

  • Introducing Email Signature Generator – Designing Professional Email Signatures Made Easy

    Have you ever wished you could give business cards to people you meet online?

    Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an easy way to let people know how to connect with you WITHOUT spending a dime for an expensive marketing tool?

    If you’re like me and most other smart business owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your business journey.

    Today, I am excited to release a new FREE tool, WPBeginner’s Email Signature Generator, which helps you let people know who you’re and how to reach out to you.  

    We built this tool because we want to make it easy and FREE for everyone to create a stunning email signature.

    announcing email signature generator tool

    What is WPBeginner’s Email Signature Generator?

    Our Email Signature Generator is a powerful FREE online tool that enables you to design aesthetically pleasing email signatures in a few minutes.

    No need to hire a designer or use an expensive tool. If you can point and click with a mouse, you can design beautiful email signatures quickly and easily.

    The best part is that our email signature builder generates an HTML signature, which is supported by every email client available in the market, including Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, Apple Mail, and more.

    email signature builder

    As opposed to image-only signatures, HTML signatures reduce the likelihood of your emails being flagged as spam by spam filters.

    While a well-designed email signature can help make a good first impression, most people don’t use a signature at all because it’s not easy to design one.

    This is why we decided to build the Email Signature tool at WPBeginner and make it free for all our readers.

    Below are a few benefits of using an email signature for your emails.

    • Your digital business card: Email signatures have the same purpose as a business card. It shows you who you are and the brand you represent.
    • Real person: It reassures your email recipients that they’re communicating with a human being rather than a bot.
    • Brand awareness: It helps in brand awareness and enables you to show your contact details, website URL, social media profiles, and more.

    How to Use WPBeginner’s Email Signature Generator

    First of all, head over to WPBeginner’s Email Signature Generator page. To create a unique signature, choose a signature template you like the most.

    choose a template for email signature

    Now you’ll be directed to our email signature builder, where you can add signature details like name, email address, phone number, website URL, and more. The builder even lets you change the signature template as you customize your signature details.

    The signature builder comes with 4 options to tweak your signatures the way you want.

    • General: Add more info like your name, email address, company name, your position at the company, and the department you work at.
    • Theme: This is where you pick a different template design if you change your mind.
    • Addons: Add even more details, like social media profiles, and change the avatar and a logo URL. 
    • Styling: Make advanced changes like fonts and spacing, and make your signature unique.
    copy email signature code

    Next, you’ll be prompted to sign up for the WPBeginner newsletter. And finally, you can copy the HTML signature embed code and paste it into your preferred email client.

    Our Signature Generator Improves Deliverability

    To improve email deliverability, our Email Signature Generator helps you build HTML email signatures.

    Unlike image-only signatures, HTML signatures are not likely to be flagged by spam filters.

    That’s because spam filters take text:image ratio into account to figure out whether an email is legitimate or spam.

    Using only an image as your signature could potentially reduce the text:image ratio and increases the likelihood of your emails getting flagged by spam filters.

    Customize Email Signature the Way You Want

    Another benefit of creating HTML signatures is that it’s highly customizable. With our free tool, you can easily add as many or as few details as you want to your email signature.

    For example, you can add important details like your first and last name, your business name, job title, and department.

    If you want, you can add even more details such as:

    • Your recent photograph
    • Your company logo
    • Social media profile links
    • And so much more…

    Set Up a Professional Email Address for FREE!

    Alongside a stunning email signature, we highly recommend using a professional email address. A professional email address uses your company name instead of the generic name, like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo.

    Here’s what a professional email address looks like: john@examplebusiness.com. And here’s an example of a generic email address: john.smith2019@gmail.com.

    When a professional email address is used alongside a professional email signature, you can win trust when dealing with other businesses and customers. 

    On the other hand, since anyone can create generic email accounts, it becomes harder for customers and other businesses to trust generic email addresses as legitimate business email accounts.

    Setting up a professional email address is free if you already have a website. If you don’t have a WordPress website yet, you can build one with Bluehost, which offers a free domain name, free business email address, and 60% OFF web hosting.

    For more details, check out how to create a business email address for free.

    What’s Coming Next?

    Our Email Signature Generator is a great tool for designing an email signature that creates a lasting first impression.

    At WPBeginner, we’ll continue to build more powerful tools for small businesses, so they can grow and compete with the big guys.

    We have an exciting roadmap ahead of us, and in the coming weeks, hopefully, we’ll deliver more free tools at your disposal.

    Email Signature Generator is just one of the tools that we’ve recently launched.

    Here are a few more business tools that you can use RIGHT NOW.

    If you have ideas on how we can make WPBeginner’s Email Signature Generator or other tools more helpful for you, then share your thoughts in the comments.

    As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner, and we look forward to continue serving you for years to come.

    Yours Truly,

    Syed Balkhi
    Founder of WPBeginner

    The post Introducing Email Signature Generator – Designing Professional Email Signatures Made Easy first appeared on WPBeginner.

  • WordPress.org Enables Commercial and Community Filters on Plugin and Theme Directories

    During the 2022 State of the Word, Matt Mullenweg announced a plan to add new “Community” and “Commercial” taxonomies for the theme and plugin directories that would help users more quickly ascertain the purpose of the extensions they are considering. Shortly after the announcement, instructions were published for theme and plugin authors to opt into the new taxonomies.

    The new filters are now enabled on both the theme and plugin directories, giving users the ability to quickly sort between free community extensions and those with commercial upgrades. Anything with a “pro version” should be designated as Commercial. These usually come with some upsells for more features than are offered in the free version. So far, the number of themes identified as commercial vastly exceed the number of community themes.

    In the Plugin directory, extensions designated as free are nearly equal those designated as commercial. Many of the most widely used plugins have already been identified as commercial, including Yoast SEO, Jetpack, Akismet, Elementor, WooCommerce, All-in-One WP Migration, and more. Examples of community plugins include the WordPress Importer, Classic Editor, Classic Widgets, Gutenberg, Performance Lab, and Debug Bar.

    In both directories it appears only a small percentage of authors have designated their extensions using the commercial or community taxonomies. At this time, use of the taxonomies is not required. This gave rise to some questions in the comments of the announcement.

    “Would a better classification system would be to just have either no label for the majority, and then something closer to ‘includes paid upgrades’ that just implies they also offer additional services on top of their free (and often fully functional) version?” WordPress developer Kevin Batdorf said.

    “All plugins are open source regardless of whether they sell something, and that doesn’t make those developers any less passionate about open-source. Nor does it imply non-commercial plugins have any less features, or that the level of dedication to support is any less dedicated.”

    Batdorf also asked if use of the taxonomies would be a requirement in the future, because, at the moment, their low usage could give some plugins an advantage under these new classifications.

    “Should it also be a requirement?” he said. “Otherwise this also seems like something to be gamed for visibility. Do Community or Commercial (or neither) plugins show higher install growth? I guarantee you people are tracking this already.”

    WordPress’ Meta team is seeking feedback on the current implementation. Automattic-sponsored contributor Steve Dufresne said “work is continuously underway to improve the browsing experience and refine the visual aspects of the Theme and Plugin Directory as part of the site redesign.” The new filters will be incorporated into the upcoming redesign changes that have been slowly rolling out across WordPress.org.

    These filters will also be making their way into the admin theme and plugin browsers, so users can access them from wherever they search for extensions. In the meantime, users and theme and plugin developers can leave feedback via Meta Trac on the specific tickets outlined in the announcement, as the team continues to iterate on the project.

  • WordCampers Demand Changes to Q&A Format

    Q&A segments at a live event are a valuable point of connection where attendees have the opportunity to gain the undivided attention of the speaker or panelist and get answers to important questions. Inevitably, people who abuse the format can lower the quality of the experience for everyone. A Twitter thread addressing this chronic problem is gaining momentum today following the conclusion of WordCamp Europe 2023.

    “One problem is that they often add very little value – although they’re supposed to achieve the opposite,” WordPress Core Committer Felix Arntz said. “Unfortunately, those who ‘ask’ are often telling stories, promoting themselves or their business, [or] mansplaining the speaker.

    “Sometimes they’re not even asking any question at the end which is ridiculous. If that is you, you may not even notice it, but you are seriously wasting people’s time, potentially harming the speaker, and preventing folks from actually learning something.”

    Arntz suggested that those asking questions longer than a minute should forego the Q&A time and ask the speaker informally at a later opportunity if it is relevant.

    “Just to clarify, while some of the issues apply especially to sessions with more exposure, like a Matt Q&A, they all also apply to any other session,” he said.

    “While these problems mostly occur due to individual folks in the audience, I think the WordCamp organization needs to take action to improve the situation as it’s been happening for years.”

    Arntz proposed a number of actionable ideas, including submitting questions to a central platform where they can be upvoted by community members, discarding lengthy questions, and providing mandatory training or documentation for emcees on how to handle problematic Q&A situations. He also noted that having questions in writing can assist non-native English speakers in understanding other non-native speakers.

    Arntz also contends that Q&A should be optional, depending on the speaker’s preference. This may also have the added effect of creating a more inclusive environment for speakers.

    “Particularly for new speakers, it can cause lots of distress or anxiety, especially because, as mentioned before, it very often isn’t questions but any of the aforementioned problems,” he said.

    “All of this can be another blocker for folks from underrepresented groups to even apply to speak, which came up in the session on women & non-binary folx of WordPress.

    “Making Q&A optional is a great and simple way to at least improve the latter issue while working on addressing all the other problems. It’s literally just a decision to make, so I urge the community and organizing teams to make it.”

    Arntz’s thread has received positive feedback and support, and other WCEU attendees have joined in with suggestions for improving the Q&A format.

    “Many other open source conferences use apps that do more with Q&A, rating speakers, and even helping attendees schedule networking,” GoDaddy Developer Advocate Courtney Robertson said. “The favorited events export to iCal/gCal.”

    Raymon Mens, a first-time-attendee at WCEU, said he was “negatively surprised by the Q&A part” for every session. “I would have preferred some more time for the speaker to go more in depth and not have a long Q&A that doesn’t add a lot.”

    Jon Ang, an organizer for WordCamp Asia, said he is taking Arntz’s feedback into consideration for their next event, and future global leads for WCEU said they are also discussing these ideas for next year.

    “At WordCamp San Francisco 2011 there was a Q&A session with Barry and it used a P2,” WordPress core committer Aaron Jorbin said. “For the off topic questions, others often chimed in. I think an MC with knowledge of the subject matter asking questions off this would be perfect.”

    Changes will likely originate from WordCamp organizers who can recognize the existing problems with the current Q&A format and depart from tradition with a better way of bringing quality questions to speakers who wish to entertain them. Getting Q&A right may also become a stronger priority as WordPress’ community team evolves the WordCamp format to promote adoption, training, and networking. Based on the feedback on Arntz’s Twitter thread, it’s past time to update the Q&A format and WordCampers are eager to see it happen.

  • Introducing UserFeedback – Easy Survey Tool to Uncover What Users are Really Thinking

    Do you want to know why your website visitors abandon your site?

    Ever wished there was an easy way to read your website visitors’ minds WITHOUT learning telepathy or using an expensive user survey tool that costs a fortune?

    If you’re like me and most other smart website owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your WordPress journey.

    Today, I’m excited to share the launch of my free UserFeedback plugin, which enables you to collect real user feedback quickly and easily.

    We built this tool because we want to know the “why” behind every website visitor’s action that Google Analytics won’t tell you.

    announcing userfeedback plugin

    When you know the why or the intent behind users’ actions, you can easily figure out why your visitors buy or do not buy your products.

    Background Story

    In 2016, I acquired a Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, completely revamped it, and launched it as MonsterInsights.

    The goal of this plugin was to help users make informed decisions by showing them the data that matters to their businesses.

    For example, you can easily see which products or pages are the most popular or where your most profitable traffic comes from.

    As the plugin grows, I often get asked by our users: is there a way to understand the intent of every website visitors’ actions?

    When you know the intent … the “why” behind users’ actions, you can figure out why customers purchased from you or, better yet, why they did NOT purchase from you.

    Unfortunately, Google Analytics only tells you half the story: “What is happening on your website?”. It’s not built to answer the other half of the question: “Why are your visitors doing that?”

    In fact, most of the customer feedback tools in the market charge exorbitantly high prices, which aren’t affordable to small businesses.

    After a lot of thought and consideration, we decided to release a brand-new plugin called UserFeedback, which enables you to understand user intent by collecting real time feedback from them.

    With UserFeedback, you can:

    • Create a demographic survey to fill out your buyer personas
    • Ask website visitors to leave their phone number for a callback
    • Run customer satisfaction surveys to see what buyers think about your products
    • Run NPS surveys
    • Ask for feedback on your website design
    • Run product surveys to find out what buyers are actually using your products for
    • And so much more

    What is UserFeedback?

    UserFeedback is a free and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you launch in-the-moment surveys to collect quality feedback from your website visitors.

    pricing page survey tool

    It comes with built-in templates and questions to make creating feedback surveys quick and effortless, including:

    • Website feedback/experience
    • Ecommerce store survey
    • NPS survey
    • Post purchase review
    • Product usage survey
    • Competitive research
    • And so much more!

    Anything you’ve ever dreamed of being able to easily ask your customers, you can ask with UserFeedback.

    In combination with a powerful analytics tool like MonsterInsights, website owners can finally see both the “why” and the “what” of their users’ behavior on their WordPress websites.

    When you have direct access to your visitors’ wants and needs, you can make changes that will take your website and business to the next level.

    My plan is to continuously add more helpful templates and addons to make UserFeedback even more powerful and essential to understanding your website visitors.

    Collect Feedback in Minutes, not Hours

    UserFeedback makes it super easy to launch a survey in minutes, not hours. Its 20+ survey templates give you a head start, so you don’t always have to start a feedback survey from scratch.

    userfeedback surveys

    Each of those templates is pre-designed for different user needs. Based on your requirements, choose the right template, make quick changes, and publish it on your website.

    For example, the Website Design Feedback template comes with a star-rating question, whereas the NPS Survey template lets your users grade their loyalty on a scale of 1 to 10.

    star rating feedback

    The best part is that you can build and preview your design within the dashboard.

    Get Best Results with Laser Targeted Surveys

    UserFeedback enables you to display the right surveys at the right time to the right users. Here are some targeting options you can use for the best results.

    survey targeting options
    • Logged in status: Choose to show your surveys only to logged in or not logged in users.
    • Page URL: Show it only on certain pages
    • Traffic source: Display it based on the traffic source, like organic traffic, PPC ads, social media, and so on.
    • Device type: Choose which types of devices the survey should appear
    • Display timing: Choose the right time to show the survey.
    • Exit intent / scroll targeting: You can show it to users who abandon the site on desktop or show when a user scrolls halfway down the page.
    • And much more…

    Now that you know how UserFeedback works, let’s take a look at how our customers are using UserFeedback to grow their businesses.

    1. Focus on What to Prioritize Next

    Are you looking to redesign your website? Wondering how to improve your website copy to boost sales and conversions?

    One of the best things about UserFeedback is that it lets you collect feedback score on every page of your site. That way, you can quickly find pages that aren’t resonating well with your audience and prioritize those pages while redesigning.

    2. Get Feedback to Validate Your Plans

    Pushing out new changes on your site can be intimidating. It’s especially true when you change the pricing plan on your website.

    With UserFeedback, you can validate your plans with a survey and learn what users think about your latest plans.

    3. Boost Profit by Reducing Customer Churn

    UserFeedback comes with several targeting options, including exit intent. This targeting option helps you understand why users are leaving by collecting feedback at the exact moment when people churn.

    4. Collect a Constant Stream of Great Suggestions

    Do you want to encourage users to provide you with suggestions to improve your product?

    One of the reasons most people hesitate to provide feedback is that it’s not easy to do so. With an on-site survey, you can make it convenient for them to send you feedback. Plus, you can collect a constant stream of suggestions to improve your product.

    5. Fix the Problems Before They Develop

    The biggest benefit of collecting feedback is that it helps you quickly identify problems before they develop. That means you can quickly rectify your problems before your customers start complaining about it.

    Get Unlimited Everything – Questions, Responses, and Sessions

    A big reason why we built UserFeedack is that most feedback tools are just too expensive. They slow down your site and charge you based on the number of responses and sessions …

    Let’s take a look at how UserFeedback surveys compare to another feedback tool, Hotjar.

    hotjar pricing
    As you can see while the basic plan is free, it only allows you to get responses for up to 35 daily sessions.

    On the other hand, UserFeedback lets you ask unlimited questions and get unlimited responses without a daily session limit!

    userfeedback pricing

    What’s Coming Next for UserFeedback?

    UserFeedback is a great tool that helps you uncover more insights about your website visitors that Google Analytics won’t tell you. I’m extremely pleased with the community response so far, as everyone is loving the new features.

    We have lots of great features coming, including:

    • Customizable survey designs so you can fully tweak them to match your website’s colors, fonts, and personality.
    • Advanced integrations to automatically let you send a special email, add entries to a spreadsheet, and so on.
    • Additional prebuilt templates to collect feedback for a variety of additional websites.

    We’re truly building something special here. If you have ideas on how we can make the plugin more helpful to you, please send us your suggestions.

    As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner, and we look forward to continuing to serve you for years to come.

    Yours Truly,

    Syed Balkhi
    Founder of WPBeginner

    P.S. Want us to acquire or invest in your WordPress business? Learn more about the WPBeginner Growth Fund.

    The post Introducing UserFeedback – Easy Survey Tool to Uncover What Users are Really Thinking first appeared on WPBeginner.

  • Get Ready for WordCamp Europe 2023

    Next week, thousands of WordPressers will descend on Athens, Greece for WordCamp Europe 2023. The conference kicks off with Contributor Day on June 8 and is followed by two jam-packed days of talks and workshops on the 9 and 10.

    Tickets are still available.

    It’s going to be an amazing weekend full of sun, food, and learning. Let’s dive into what you can expect.

    Learn

    Organizers did not skimp on the content for this year’s event, and there is absolutely something for everyone. Because so many people applied to speak, they have added an entirely new speaker track. Talks cover topics like AI, the WP-CLI, security, and more.

    Here are some we don’t want to miss:

    Women and Non-Binary Folx of WordPress: A prestigious panel of people will lead a discussion on underrepresented people in WordPress. This conversation will undoubtably be eye-opening and educational, so come with questions.

    The Art of Code Review: Code review is incredibly necessary but can be daunting. Developer Tim Nash, will teach you how to make the most out of the process and have fun while doing it.

    Building Interactive Blocks: Interactive blocks can entirely change the functionality of your site. This workshop led by developer Luis Herranz, will take you through the process of creating one step-by-step.

    How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love our AI Rulers: AI has been a huge topic among WordPressers over the last year, and some people are reticent. Technical Architect at WP Engine, James Dominy, wants to assuage some of those fears and take a look at how to leverage these tools responsibly.

    Variations on a Theme: 20 Years of WordPress: WordPress Co-Founder, Matt Mullenweg, and WordPress Executive Director, Josepha Hayden Chomphosy, will wrap-up the conference with a look at the last 20 years of WordPress and what’s in store for the next.

    This list doesn’t even skim the surface of the amazing content available. Make sure you go back and watch all the talks on WordPress.TV after the event so you don’t miss a minute.

    Check out our conversation with Global Lead for WCEU Evangelia Pappa:

    Connect

    After you have soaked up all the knowledge you can, it’s time to relax and connect with the other attendees. WordCamp is a great time to meet new people and catch up with old friends, and there are a plenty of chances to do that.

    WP Engine is hosting an after party on Friday at 7 pm at Le Grand Balcon, located on the 6th floor of the St. George Lycabettus Hotel. The even is free to anyone who registers. There will be drinks, appetizers, and of course, networking.

    Come for the drinks, stay for the great company.

    As always, organizers have put together a rockin’ after party for anyone with a badge. At 8:30 on June 10, head to the Lohan Athens Nightclub and compliment your favorite speaker.

    There are also a variety of side events to attend including a pre-event picnic and a Pride event. Check out the entire list here.

    Explore

    The conference will be held at the Megaron Athens International Conference Centre. It is near historical sites and a metro ride away from city center.

    While you’re there, make sure to do some exploring of Athens. Whether you want to practice your Greek, lay on a beach, or eat your weight in tzatziki, there is something for you!

    WCEU organizers have written up great guides on transportation and local customs so you’ll fit right in.

    Whether you’re there for the sun, talks, or networking, WCEU is going to be an incredible experience.

    Buy your tickets here.

    The post Get Ready for WordCamp Europe 2023 appeared first on Torque.

  • Introducing WPBeginner SEO Analyzer: Free SEO Audit Tool to Boost Rankings

    Do you want to optimize your website for search engines?

    Ever wished there was any easy way to perform an SEO (search engine optimization) audit to find critical errors on your site WITHOUT the high costs?

    If you’re like me and most other smart website owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your WordPress journey.

    Today, I’m excited to release a new free tool, WPBeginner SEO Analyzer, which helps you make informed decisions on how to fix SEO errors and grow your organic traffic.

    We built this tool because we believe everyone should be able to optimize their site for SEO regardless of their skill set.

    seo analyzer announcement

    What is an SEO Analyzer Tool?

    WPBeginner’s SEO Analyzer is a powerful FREE online tool that makes it easy to run an SEO audit of your website, find critical errors, and generate a FREE SEO report with recommendations so you can fix the errors. 

    It’s completely FREE for all WPBeginner readers … no signup or registration is required.

    Most websites fail in SEO because they don’t know what keeps their website from getting high rankings and organic traffic. While there are several advanced SEO analysis tools available on the market, most of them cost a fortune.

    And not every website has the budget or resources to hire an expert SEO consultant to detect and fix their SEO errors. At WPBeginner, we want to fix it once and for all.

    This is why we decided to build the SEO Analyzer tool and make it free for all WPBeginner readers.

    free seo analyzer

    Some of the benefits of our SEO Analyzer are…

    • Get an analysis of the good, bad, and the ugly part of your website’s SEO
    • Get instant recommendations and download the complete WordPress SEO analysis report
    • No signup or installation is required for SEO analysis. It’s absolutely FREE!

    How to Use WPBeginner’s SEO Analyzer

    First of all, head over to WPBeginner’s SEO Analyzer tool. Next, type in your website URL to detect SEO errors and click Analyze.

    Our SEO Analyzer grades your website’s SEO on a scale of 1-100, where 1 is the least, and 100 is the perfect score.

    For best results, it’s recommended to aim for a score of 70 or above.

    seo analyzer report

    Aside from providing you with an SEO score, it creates a detailed SEO report on what works on your site and what doesn’t. You’ll also get customized recommendations on how to make the right changes to boost your SEO score.

    The SEO Analyzer gives you suggestions based on 4 primary SEO factors as follows:

    1. Basic SEO: It analyzes if your website is following basic SEO practices, like using an SEO title, meta tag, if the site is optimized for any keywords, and so on.  
    2. Advanced SEO: Get custom-tailored advanced SEO recommendations for your site.
    3. Site performance: It helps you monitor page loading time and provides suggestions to improve it.
    4. Site security: It helps you ensure your website never gets blacklisted by Google and other search engines.

    Improve Search Rankings and Organic Traffic

    For your best interest, after doing an SEO audit, you’ll need to follow the recommendations provided by our SEO checkup tool.

    Here are a few suggestions to fix your critical SEO errors:

    For more details on how to optimize your website for SEO, we highly recommend our detailed guide on WordPress SEO made easy.

    Perform an SEO Audit Right Within WordPress

    Do you want to perform an SEO audit right inside your WordPress dashboard? Then, we recommend using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) WordPress plugin.

    SEO audit

    Its free plugin comes with all the basic features that help you optimize your site for search engines, including the SEO Analysis tool.

    There is also a premium version of AIOSEO that offers advanced features like a redirection manager, schema markup, powerful sitemap tools, and more.

    What’s Coming Next?

    Our SEO Analyzer is a great tool to help step up your website’s SEO strategy.

    Our goal at WPBeginner is to build more powerful tools for small businesses, so they can grow and compete with the big guys.

    SEO Analyzer is just one of the tools we’ve recently launched.

    We have an exciting roadmap ahead of us, and in the coming weeks, hopefully, we’ll deliver more free tools at your disposal.

    Here are a few more business tools that you can use RIGHT NOW.

    Our goal is to continue to build best-in-class tools to help you level the playing field.

    If you have ideas on how we can make WPBeginner’s SEO Analyzer or other tools more helpful for you, then share your thoughts in the comments.

    As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner, and we look forward to continue serving you for years to come.

    Yours Truly,

    Syed Balkhi
    Founder of WPBeginner

    The post Introducing WPBeginner SEO Analyzer: Free SEO Audit Tool to Boost Rankings first appeared on WPBeginner.