When it comes to building websites on WordPress, page builders have become an essential tool for many web designers and developers. Among the numerous WordPress page builders available, WPBakery and Elementor are two popular choices that offer a wide range of features and customization options. In this article, we will compare WPBakery and Elementor in […]
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Have you ever needed to clone your website? You might be migrating, or wanting to transform your existing website into a WordPress theme. Either way, we’ve got the best solutions for you!
The post “4 Ways to Clone A Website; Content, Design & All” first appeared on WP Mayor.
Do you want to edit WooCommerce pages without writing code?
WooCommerce creates many pages to display products and add cart functionality to your store. Small improvements to these pages can result in higher sales and less cart abandonment for your store.
In this article, we will show you how to easily edit WooCommerce pages to make more sales without any coding skills.
WooCommerce creates many pages to display products, shop, account, checkout, and cart features for your online store.
By default, your WordPress theme controls how these pages look. There are a ton of great WooCommerce themes that you can choose from.
However, editing these pages may not be as straightforward as it seems.
For instance, you may not be able to show additional products, add upsell features, change the layout, and more.
This is where SeedProd comes in. It is the ultimate WooCommerce page builder plugin that allows you to use an intuitive drag-and-drop tool to design your WooCommerce pages.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
For the different methods in this article, we will be using the SeedProd Pro version, as it has the features needed to edit WooCommerce pages.
Upon activation, you need to visit SeedProd » Settings page to enter your plugin license key. You can find this information under your account on the SeedProd website.
After entering your license key, you are good to go. You can now edit and create highly optimized WooCommerce pages for your online store.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to edit WooCommerce pages, step by step.
You can click any of the links below to jump to any method you want:
SeedProd comes with a complete WooCommerce theme builder built-in. This allows you to replace your WooCommerce theme with a custom one of your own.
The advantage of this approach is that you get more flexibility when editing your WooCommerce theme. You can edit any page using a simple drag-and-drop tool.
To get started, simply go to the SeedProd » Setup page and click on the ‘Select a theme for my store’ button next to the ‘Build a WooCommerce Store’ option.
Next, the plugin will show you many ready-to-use WooCommerce themes you can use as a starting point.
Simply click on a template to select it.
Each WooCommerce or WordPress theme is a collection of templates showing different areas of your website or online store.
SeedProd will now generate those templates for your theme and show you a list of them.
You can now take your mouse over to a template and click on the ‘Edit Design’ link to start editing it.
This will launch the SeedProd page builder interface.
You can add all the common website building blocks from the left column. To the right, you will see a live preview of the page you are editing.
You can also simply point and click on any item to edit it.
SeedProd comes with all the WooCommerce blocks that you will need to build a sales-oriented WooCommerce theme.
Once you are done making changes to a template, simply click on the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.
Just repeat the process to edit other templates in your custom WooCommerce theme.
Once you have finished editing all the pages, go to the SeedProd » Theme Builder page and toggle the ‘Enable SeedProd Theme’ switch.
Your custom WooCommerce theme will now replace your existing WooCommerce theme.
Now, you can visit your WordPress website to see it in action.
To learn more, see our complete tutorial on how to create a custom WordPress theme without coding.
On the other hand, if you want to keep using your existing WooCommerce theme and only edit certain parts of your website, then continue reading.
The checkout page in any eCommerce store is one of the most significant steps in the customer journey.
By default, WooCommerce comes with a plain checkout experience, which is not optimized for sales and conversions.
Small edits to the checkout page can help you increase sales and reduce cart abandonment on your store.
For example, you can show related products with an ‘Add to Cart’ button on the checkout page so that users may see something else they want to purchase, too.
To create your custom checkout page, simply go to SeedProd » Landing Pages and click on ‘Add New Landing Page’.
Next, you will be asked to choose a template for your page.
You can choose one of the templates on the screen and edit it to create a checkout page, or you can start with a blank template.
We will be using the blank template for this tutorial, but you can choose any of them that you like.
Next, you will need to provide a title and URL for the page. You can use anything that helps you easily identify this page.
Click on the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button to continue.
This will launch SeedProd’s page builder interface, where you can simply drag and drop blocks to build your page layout.
First, you should add a header and then customize it with your own branding.
SeedProd comes with sections, which are collections of blocks that are often used together. To add a header section, click on the ‘Sections’ tab and then select the ‘Header’ category.
Next, take your mouse to a header and click the ‘Add (+)’ button to insert it into your page.
You can now edit the header section by simply clicking on each block and replacing it with your own logo, menu, and call to action.
Once you are happy with the header, you need to add a two-column layout.
You can use this two-column layout to display the checkout form and upsell products, testimonials, and other elements.
After that, you need to add the Checkout block from the left-hand menu.
Add it to the left column, which is wider and will appear first on mobile devices.
Next, you need to add blocks to the right column. This is the area you can use to convince users to complete the purchase.
You can add a testimonial block here or show your most popular products.
Here are a few more things you can add to your checkout page to improve it for higher conversions:
Once you have finished editing your checkout page, don’t forget to click the arrow beside ‘Save’ and then click on ‘Publish’ in the upper-right corner of the screen.
Next, you need to tell WooCommerce to start using your custom checkout page for all customers.
Go to the WooCommerce » Settings page and switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab.
Under the ‘Page Setup’ tab, select your custom checkout page for the ‘Checkout page’ option. Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save changes’ button to store your settings.
You can now go to your store in a new browser tab and try the new checkout experience by adding a product to your cart.
For more details, you can see our tutorial on customizing the WooCommerce checkout page.
Bonus Tip: Want to see how your new cart page is performing? See our tutorial on WordPress conversion tracking for beginners to track all your conversions.
The checkout page is one of the areas where many users abandon carts.
The easiest way to ensure users complete their purchases is by offering a better checkout experience.
This is where FunnelKit can help. It is one of the best sales funnel builders for WooCommerce that enables you to optimize funnels, checkout pages, cart experience, and more.
It has dozens of templates, a funnel builder wizard, and drag-and-drop editing for your cart and checkout pages.
First, you need to sign up for a FunnelKit plan by visiting their website.
Note: You will need at least the Plus plan to unlock sales funnels, upsells, order bumps, and other features.
After that, you need to install and activate the FunnelKit Builder and FunnelKit Builder Pro plugins. You can find them under your account on the FunnelKit website.
Need help? See our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you will be asked to provide your plugin license keys. You can find them on the same Downloads page under your account on the FunnelKit website.
Once you have finished, you are ready to customize the WooCommerce checkout form.
Simply go to the FunnelKit » Store Checkout page in the WordPress admin dashboard and click on the ‘Create Store Checkout’ button.
On the next screen, you need to first choose your editor interface.
FunnelKit templates can be edited with the default Gutenberg editor, Elementor, Divi, Oxygen, or any other page builder by using shortcodes.
After that, you need to choose a template. There are dozens of beautiful templates to choose from. Just click on the ‘Preview’ button to see a live preview of the template.
You can choose between a single-step or multi-step checkout page in the preview. After that, simply click on the ‘Import This Funnel’ button at the top.
Next, you will be asked to enter a name for your funnel.
You can call it anything that helps you identify it later. Then, click on the ‘OK’ button to continue.
FunnelKit will now create your custom checkout page.
After that, you will see the page dashboard. From here, you can edit your checkout page, add more steps, or add an order bump.
Editing a page will open it in the editor you chose earlier.
For this tutorial, we chose Gutenberg. Each item on the checkout page is a block that you can edit by simply clicking to select it.
You can also add new blocks by clicking on the ‘Add Block’ button.
Once you have finished making the changes, don’t forget to click on the ‘Update’ button.
This will bring you back to the Checkout page dashboard. From here, you need to switch to the ‘Fields’ tab.
This is where you can edit the checkout form fields. In this example, we are using a two-step checkout form. This allows you to capture the contact information before the payment.
You can also add new form fields from the right column. By default, the plugin shows the commonly used checkout fields.
However, you can click on the ‘Add New Field’ button to add a custom form field.
This will show a popup where you can choose the field type, provide a meta key, and enter a label.
You can also make the field ‘required’ and assign it to the checkout or thank you page.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your form settings.
FunnelKit comes with a bunch of optimizations that you can add to your checkout page for a more frictionless experience.
Just switch to the ‘Optimizations’ page, and you will see a list of optimizations that you can apply to the checkout page.
Simply click on an optimization to configure it, then click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.
Next, switch to the ‘Settings’ tab to enable Analytics, Facebook pixel, custom scripts, or CSS in your checkout funnel.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to apply your changes.
Finally, you need to click on the ‘Draft’ button next to the Checkout page title and change it to ‘Publish’. This will replace your existing checkout page with the custom funnel you have just created.
You can now visit your store in a new browser tab to test the custom checkout experience you have created.
This is how it looked on our demo website.
FunnelKit also allows you to create a one-page checkout experience.
You need to visit the FunnelKit » Store Checkout page and click on ‘Create Store Checkout’.
In the template selection, simply click on the ‘One-Step’ option at the top.
After that, click on the ‘Import This Funnel’ button to continue.
You can then continue editing your template in your preferred editor. See the previous section of this tutorial for more detailed instructions.
Most WooCommerce themes come with a separate cart page. This cart experience adds friction to the shopping and checkout experiences.
If users need to adjust the product quality or remove items from the cart, they have to leave the page they are currently viewing to update the cart.
This can be fixed by adding a slide-in cart in WooCommerce.
A slide-in cart shows a cart button on the screen. Clicking on the button displays a slide-in menu with products the user has added to the cart.
Users can now edit and update the cart without leaving the page.
FunnelKit has a beautiful slide-in cart feature that integrates seamlessly with your online store. You can even use it to upsell products, incentivize checkout, offer discounts, and more.
First, you need to visit the FunnelKit website and sign up for an account.
Note: You will need at least the Plus plan to access the slide-in cart features.
After signup, go to your account on the FunnelKit website to download the FunnelKit Cart plugin.
Next, you need to install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once you have activated the plugin, you must go to the FunnelKit » Cart page to configure the slide-in cart settings.
From here, you will see many options to your left and a live preview of how your slide-in cart will look.
FunnelKit offers a ton of customization options. For instance, you can choose from different styles, select cart icons, change button text, and more.
You can also add upsell products or cross-sell products, offer discounts, and make the cart experience much more appealing.
To publish your changes, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button.
You can now visit your website to test the slide-in cart in your live store.
WooCommerce has a default cart page allowing users to continue to the checkout page.
By default, it shows the products customers have added to their cart. However, research shows that more than 70% of customers leave an online store without completing the purchase.
WooCommerce themes often come with a boring cart page with no optimization for conversions.
By customizing your WooCommerce cart page, you can easily reduce cart abandonment and improve sales.
To create your custom checkout page, simply go to the SeedProd » Landing Pages and click on ‘Add New Landing Page’.
Next, you will be asked to choose a template for your page.
You can choose one of the templates on the screen and edit it to create a cart page, or you can start with a blank template.
We’ll use the blank template for this tutorial.
Next, you will need to provide a title and URL for the page. You can use anything that helps you easily identify this page.
This will launch the SeedProd builder interface.
You can start by switching to the ‘Sections’ tab and adding a header to your blank template.
After that, feel free to point and click to edit the header area to your liking.
Below that, you need to add a two-column layout, which you will use to add other cart page blocks.
Next, add the ‘Cart’ block to the right column.
Now, since your cart is currently empty, it will not show any products. Go to your store and add a few products to your cart and then reload the SeedProd page builder.
After that, you can add other elements to improve your cart page.
For instance, you can start by adding testimonials or add a countdown timer to trigger the FOMO effect.
Feel free to play around by adding different blocks and tweaking colors and width.
Once you have finished editing, don’t forget to click on ‘Save and Publish’ in the top-right of the screen.
Next, you need to tell WooCommerce to start using your custom cart page for all customers.
Go to the WooCommerce » Settings page and switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab.
You can now visit your online store in a new browser tab.
Start adding a few products, and then head over to the cart page to see your new cart page in action.
WooCommerce themes use the same template to display all products on your website.
However, you may want to promote some products more than others. The most you can do to distinguish important products is to make them featured products.
SeedProd allows you to create custom product pages. You can use a well-designed template tailor-made for higher conversions and then simply fill it with your product information.
To get started, simply go to the SeedProd » Landing Pages and then click on ‘Add New Landing Page’.
Next, you will be asked to choose a template for your page.
You can choose one of the templates on the screen and edit it to create a product page. You will find several templated optimized for conversions under the ‘Sales’ tab.
Simply click to select a template and continue.
Next, you will be asked to provide a page title and URL. You can use the product name as the title and URL.
Click on the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button to continue.
This will launch the SeedProd page builder interface with your selected template. You can simply point and click on any item on the page to edit it.
You can start by replacing the header items, such as the logo, navigation menu, and call-to-action button, with your own.
After that, you can replace images with your product images and edit the text as necessary.
Finally, you can replace the call to action with the Add to Cart block.
After that, you need to enter the product ID in the Add to Cart block settings. You can also change the button text, as well as add subtext, color, and shift alignment.
To find a product ID, you need to go to the Products » All Products page in the WordPress admin area in a separate browser tab.
Take the mouse over to the product that you want to promote, and the product ID will appear along with other links.
To make your product page more effective, you can try these tips:
Once you are done editing your product page, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save and Publish’ button at the top.
Once published, you can view your product page by clicking on the ‘Preview’ button.
This will show the live product page on your website that you can now start promoting.
For more details and bonus tips, see our tutorial on customizing WooCommerce product pages.
WooCommerce allows you to easily display your products on the shop page. It is basically a page with your products displayed in a grid layout.
The shop template in most WooCommerce themes is boring and not optimized for sales and conversions. On top of that, there are usually no or very few options to customize it.
SeedProd allows you to create and customize a WooCommerce shop page easily. You can choose your own layout and design and optimize this page for higher conversions.
To get started, simply go to the SeedProd » Landing Pages and then click on the ‘Add New Landing Page’ button.
Next, you will be asked to choose a template for your page.
You can choose one of the templates on the screen and edit it to create your shop page.
Simply click to select a template and continue.
Next, you will be asked to provide a page title and URL. You can use something like Shop, Store, or Storefront to indicate that it is the main shop page.
Click on the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button to continue.
This will launch the SeedProd page builder interface with your selected template. You can simply point and click on any item on the page to edit it.
You can start by replacing the header items, such as the logo, navigation menu, and call-to-action button, with your own.
After that, you can add a hero section at the top with a large image and your main call to action.
Below that, you can use WooCommerce blocks to display your products.
You can choose from recent, featured, best-selling, top-rated, and sale products.
After adding a product block, you can also customize how it looks.
SeedProd allows you to choose the number of products, sorting options, columns, and more.
You can further optimize this page by adding more text, special offers, banners, an FAQ section, and more.
Once you are done editing, don’t forget to click on ‘Save and Publish’ at the top.
After saving your page, click the ‘Preview’ button to see it in action.
SeedProd will open the page in a new browser tab.
You can now replace links to the Shop page in your navigation menu with your custom shop page.
The WooCommerce ‘Thank You’ page appears when a customer completes a purchase. By default, WooCommerce will only show them their order details on this page.
That doesn’t provide customers with more options to explore. It is kind of a dead end and a missed opportunity for sales and conversions.
Luckily, you can fix that with SeedProd by creating a custom thank you page.
To get started, simply go to the SeedProd » Landing Pages and then click on the ‘Add New Landing Page’ button.
Next, you will be asked to choose a template for your page.
Switch to the ‘Thank You’ tab, and you will find a bunch of thank you page templates. You can choose one of them, or you can even start with a blank template.
Next, you will be asked to choose a title and URL for your page.
You can use ‘Thank You’ or any other meaningful title for your page.
Click on the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button to continue.
This will launch the SeedProd page builder interface, where you will see a live preview of your template. You can simply point and click to edit any item in the preview or add new blocks from the left column.
You can now use this opportunity to promote your email list or upsell products by adding WooCommerce product grid blocks.
Feel free to experiment with different headings, text copy, and products to create an effective Thank You page.
Once finished, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save and Publish’ button in the top right corner of the screen.
Your custom thank you page is now live. However, you still need to tell WooCommerce to use this page as your default Thank You page.
To do that, you will need to install and activate the Thanks Redirect for WooCommerce plugin. For more details, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to the WooCommerce » Settings page and click the ‘Products’ tab.
From here, you need to check the ‘Enable Global Thanks Redirect’ option. After that, you will see a field labeled ‘Thanks Redirect URL.’
Paste your new WooCommerce Thank You page URL into this box, then click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Now when customers complete a purchase, they will see your highly optimized custom Thank You page. They will be far more likely to click and search the rest of your store than if you had stayed with the default.
We hope this article helped you learn how to easily edit WooCommerce pages without writing code. You may also want to see our complete WooCommerce SEO guide or our expert picks for the best WooCommerce sales funnel plugins to boost your conversions.
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The post How to Edit WooCommerce Pages (No Coding Required) first appeared on WPBeginner.
You may already know that WordPress lets you schedule posts to publish at a later date, but did you know that you can also schedule posts to automatically unpublish after a set time period?
In a previous article, we looked at the best post scheduling plugins for WordPress. Depending on the nature of your content, however, you may also want posts to automatically unpublish after having served their purpose.
In this article, we look at practical ways to use expiring posts in WordPress and plugins that will help you automate this.
We’ll cover the following areas:
Here are 21 ways to improve your content and marketing strategy using expiring posts in WordPress:
If you run time-limited sales announcements, promotions, offers, or contests on your website, scheduling expiring posts lets you automatically remove or update those posts once the promotional period has ended.
Scheduling posts to automatically expire at the end of a promotional campaign ensures that visitors and customers are not presented with outdated offers or information, preventing confusion and avoiding disappointment, and helps to maintain your brand’s credibility.
For example, let’s say you have a retail store or an eCommerce website and are planning to run a week-long flash sale on selected items. You could create a series of posts promoting different products and schedule them to automatically expire at the end of the sale period, ensuring that customers only see your active promotions.
Scheduling expiring posts can be really useful if your business has seasonal products, services, or events.
Automatically expiring posts that contain seasonal content, such as holiday greetings, seasonal sales, or event announcements (e.g. festivals, growers markets, etc.) helps to keep your website’s content aligned with the current season and relevant throughout the year, and avoids showcasing outdated products or information.
This is not only useful for businesses that offer seasonal products or services, such as gardening supplies or holiday-specific decorations, but also seasonal offers or services.
For example, if you have a holiday-specific campaign, you can schedule the corresponding posts to expire once the holiday is over, saving you the effort of manually having to remove or update content every season.
Or, let’s say your client runs a travel agency and wants to showcase different holiday destinations throughout the year (or promote destinations that match discounted airfares from different airlines). They could create posts highlighting specific locations and set them to automatically expire once the corresponding season ends, keeping their website content aligned with the current season.
Setting expiration dates for event-related posts ensures that outdated event details are automatically removed, maintaining accurate and up-to-date information for attendees.
For example, if your company organizes events, you can schedule posts to expire after the event has taken place. This helps manage event-specific content, such as registration details, agenda updates, or speaker information, and ensures that your website stays relevant before and after the event.
Similarly, if your business organizes conferences, you could create posts promoting each session and speaker and then schedule these to expire after the session has taken place, ensuring that outdated session details are automatically removed.
Promoting exclusive deals or discounts by scheduling posts to expire when the offer period ends creates a sense of urgency for visitors and encourages customers to make timely purchases.
This is ideal for online retailers planning to launch a one-day or weekend sale with posts featuring discounted products.
By scheduling posts to automatically publish when the event kicks off and then setting the posts to expire at the end of the sale, they would not only create a sense of urgency but automate the entire process so they wouldn’t even have to monitor it (think of all those limited-time sales that end at midnight…you could be sleeping and still be making money!)
When you have important announcements or releases that need to be shared at a specific time, such as product launches, press releases, or scheduled events, scheduling expiring posts ensures that the information becomes available and expires automatically according to your desired schedule.
Scheduling your news articles, press releases, or industry updates posts to automatically expire when the information loses its relevance or becomes outdated after a certain period helps to keep your website current, maintains a current and accurate representation of the news landscape, and ensures that readers are always presented with the latest news stories.
Scheduling posts to expire after a product launch prevents outdated information about previous releases from cluttering your website.
If you are a technology company planning to release a new version of its software, foir example, you could create a series of posts providing information and updates about the upcoming release, then schedule these to expire shortly after the launch to prevent users from accessing outdated software details.
Displaying time-sensitive notices or alerts, such as maintenance notifications or temporary closures, that automatically expire once the issue or event has passed, ensures that visitors no longer see the closure notice.
For example, a small business could display a notice on its website about a temporary closure due to personal reasons (e.g. owners travelling overseas or a death of a key business team member), and schedule the post to expire once the business reopens.
Automatically expiring posts that are accessible only to members or subscribers after their membership or subscription period ends, encourages them to renew or upgrade.
A good example of this is where a membership-based website grants access to premium content for a specific subscription period and sets users’ access to posts and resources to automatically expire at the end of their subscription.
Controlling access to course or lesson content by scheduling posts to expire based on the duration of the course or availability of the material encourages students to progress through the course within a designated timeframe.
For example, an online learning platform could provide access to course materials for a limited duration with each lesson post scheduled to expire after a certain number of days.
Setting posts to expire when a contest or giveaway ends ensures that the information remains accurate and helps to avoid confusion for participants.
A practical use of this could be where a social media influencer runs a giveaway and promotes it through posts on their website. The posts are then scheduled to expire at the end of the giveaway, ensuring that participants can no longer enter after the specified deadline.
Automatically expiring and archiving posts that are no longer relevant or useful keeps your website clutter-free and ensures a better user experience.
For example, suppose your company blog features posts about past product releases. As new products are launched, the corresponding posts are then scheduled to expire and automatically move to an archive section, keeping the main blog focused on current offerings.
If you need to comply with specific regulations regarding the removal or expiration of certain types of content, scheduling posts to expire can help you meet those requirements.
An example of where setting posts to expire once a required duration has passed to ensure compliance with regulations would be where a financial-related institution publishes posts with legal disclaimers that must be displayed for a specific time period.
Similar to the above, you can automatically expire posts that contain time-limited legal disclaimers, privacy policies, terms of service, or cookie notices to ensure compliance with changing regulations.
For example, let’s say that an online service provider includes a cookie notice on their website. The post containing the notice can be scheduled to expire after the required consent duration, ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations.
You can also schedule posts to expire when downloadable files, resources, or documents are no longer available or have been updated.
Scheduling posts related to older versions to expire once new updates are released ensures that users access only the most recent and relevant resources and prevents them from accessing outdated information.
Plan ahead by scheduling posts to expire and automatically trigger updates or new content, ensuring a consistent publishing schedule and reducing manual intervention.
So, if you run a magazine-style website publishing articles on a weekly basis, you could schedule posts to automatically expire at the time of each new publication, allowing for seamless content updates without manual intervention.
Using expiring posts to test different versions of content or design elements by setting expiration dates lets you compare performance and make data-driven decisions.
For example, suppose you run an e-commerce website and want to test two different versions of a product description. You could create two posts, each featuring a different description, and schedule them to expire after a set period. You can then analyze the metrics and determine which version performs better.
Automatically cycling through a set of posts by scheduling them to expire and publishing new content allows you to create a dynamic and ever-changing website experience.
Suppose an art gallery website wants to showcase different artists. They could schedule posts featuring different artists’ works to automatically expire and publish new posts showcasing other artists, providing a constantly changing selection for visitors.
Encouraging regular visits to your website by regularly expiring and replacing content helps to entice users to return for fresh information and increased engagement.
An example of this would be where a lifestyle blog regularly features “Tip of the Week” posts. Each post is scheduled to automatically expire after a week, encouraging readers to return for fresh tips.
By scheduling non-evergreen posts to expire, you ensure that your website or blog remains up-to-date with fresh content. This is particularly important if you publish time-sensitive information, such as news, promotions, or event announcements on a regular basis.
Once a post expires, it can automatically be removed or replaced with new content, keeping your website content fresh and relevant.
Schedule posts to expire and be removed from your website’s public view to maintain a clean and organized content repository.
For example, suppose your blog includes guest posts or paid posts that are only relevant for a limited time. You can schedule guest posts to expire and be removed from your website after the agreed-upon period, keeping your content repository well maintained, clean, and focused.
Scheduling expiring posts allows you to plan your content publishing in advance. This can help streamline your content creation process and manage your editorial calendar more effectively.
By pre-scheduling expiration dates, you can focus on creating new content rather than constantly monitoring and manually updating old posts.
This is useful for businesses with news-like websites that follow an editorial calendar. They can schedule posts to expire according to the planned publication schedule, ensuring a steady flow of new content while seamlessly removing outdated articles from the website.
Here are some post expiration plugins for WordPress you can use to publish a post for a limited time and have your posts be automatically unpublished after the period has expired:
PublishPress Future (formerly Post Expirator) is a simple and easy-to-use plugin that not only lets you automatically unpublish posts, pages, and other content types in WordPress, but also delete your post, change its status, update the post categories, or make other changes.
With PublishPress Future installed, you can:
After installing and activating the plugin, you will see the plugin’s editor block (if using the Block Editor) or settings panel (Classic editor) when creating or editing a post, giving you flexibility and control over when your content will expire.
Simply enter the date and time that you want your post to expire using the intuitive interface…
And choose what should happen to the post when it expires by selecting an option from the “Action To Run” section…
You have various options for future actions on expired posts.
For example, you can:
PublishPress Future gives you complete control of scheduling and managing post expirations via its extensive settings panel. A Pro version of the plugin is available offering additional features and support.
The PublishPress Future plugin includes the following additional features and functionalities:
Use the convenience of the plugin’s “Quick Edit” and “Bulk Edit” options to make changes to expiry dates. and manage a large number of posts.
Receive notifications when your posts are due to expire so you can stay informed about your content’s expiry and never miss a critical update.
PublishPress Future allows you to automatically show expiry or action dates within your articles. This feature adds a date stamp at the bottom of your post.
You can also use customizable shortcodes to display the expiration date inside your posts, tailoring the format to meet your specific needs.
The plugin not only lets you customize default expiry options for each post type within your WordPress site, but you can also configure default expiry settings for all of your content.
The Pro version of the plugin offers additional functionalities, such as moving posts to a custom status upon expiration and keeps a comprehensive log of all changes made to your posts.
WP-CRON is a built-in feature of WordPress used to schedule recurring tasks, such as publishing scheduled posts or processing queued tasks in plugins.
PublishPress Future uses custom cron jobs to execute expiration events efficiently, reducing server overhead for busy websites. To fully leverage the plugin’s capabilities, make sure that WP-CRON is properly set up and functional on your web host.
More details: PublishPress Future
Note:Â When using plugins that require WP-CRON, it’s essential to monitor the performance and resource usage of your site, as WP-CRON can consume significant resources when running heavy or frequent tasks.
If you notice performance issues, you may need to optimize the plugin settings, offload tasks to external services, or use a real server-side cron job to improve efficiency and prevent performance degradation on your hosting account.
For the best experience running plugins that require WP-CRON functionality, consult the WPMU DEV support team to ensure your website is running optimally on your selected hosting plan.
Auto Post Expiration is another plugin you can use to easily set expiration dates for your posts in WordPress.
With just a few clicks, you can schedule posts to automatically change to “draft” status, ensuring they are no longer visible on the front end of your site.
Key features of this plugin include:
The plugin provides an intuitive feature that lets you easily select the desired date and time for your posts to expire and transition to the “draft” status.
Auto Post Expiration shows the expiration date and post status directly in the admin column, making it easy to stay organized and keep track of when posts are scheduled to expire.
The plugin seamlessly integrates with the block and classic editors, so you can use your preferred editing interface when creating or editing posts.
The plugin also offers a Pro version that lets you unlock advanced features, such as setting expiration dates for single posts, pages, products, and custom post types, WooCommerce Support (set expiration dates for your WooCommerce products), and email notifications for Admin.
More info: Auto Post Expiration
Hopefully, this article has inspired you to use expired posts. Auto expiring posts can help you streamline your content management processes, control the lifespan of your content, and keep your website current, fresh, and relevant to enhance user experience.
For complete WordPress automation, consider becoming a WPMU DEV member. Our all-in-one WordPress platform is ideal for web developers and agencies and includes robust site management tools and Pro plugins that will automate all aspects of your WordPress sites.
Is the WooCommerce product search not working in your online store?
If your WooCommerce search isn’t working correctly, users won’t be able to find the products they are looking for. This can result in a poor user experience, abandoned carts, and fewer sales.
In this article, we will show you what to do when the WooCommerce product search is not working. We will also explain how to improve the search feature.
Without a functional search tool, users won’t be able to browse through your product catalog and make purchases in your WooCommerce store.
This can result in frustrated customers leaving your site, which will skyrocket bounce rates and decrease profits.
In turn, it can also damage your store’s reputation. If many people struggle to use your online store, then they may go to your competitors instead.
The error may also cause your website SEO to suffer because search engines use the search functionality to rank websites.
If your site has lower rankings in the search results, then fewer customers will be able to find and purchase your products online.
By fixing the WooCommerce search feature, you can improve the customer experience, making it easier for shoppers to find what they are looking for and make more sales.
That being said, you can follow the steps in our troubleshooting guide and learn what to do when the WooCommerce product search is not working.
The most common reason the search feature isn’t working is because of your WordPress hosting.
The server hosting your site may not have enough resources to handle a large number of WooCommerce products at once.
This server may also have some software restrictions that limit the amount of available memory and prevent the search feature from working correctly.
If this is the case, then you can try contacting your hosting provider’s customer support, as this problem cannot be solved from your end. They can help you figure out if the WooCommerce search isn’t working due to the server and help you fix the issue.
However, if the issue is not with your hosting, then you will need to move on to the next step.
The WooCommerce product search may not be working because of an outdated or new plugin on your WordPress website that is causing some errors.
This can happen if a plugin has bugs in its software or isn’t compatible with other plugins on your website.
You can easily fix this issue by deactivating every plugin apart from WooCoomerce on your site.
First, you will need to go to the Plugins » Installed Plugins page from the WordPress admin sidebar. Once you are there, just select all the activated plugins except WooCommerce from the list.
Next, simply choose the ‘Deactivate’ option from the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown menu and click on the ‘Apply’ button to deactivate all the plugins on your site.
Now, you can visit your website to check if this has fixed the issue.
If it has, then simply activate the plugins one by one until you can find the one causing the error. You will then need to look for an alternative plugin or contact the developers for support.
If deactivating plugins didn’t fix the issue, then keep reading to solve the problem.
A corrupted database can be another reason that the WooCommerce search is not working.
For instance, you may have imported a large number of products as a CSV file, which is causing a problem with the database.
To fix this issue, you will need to update the WooCommerce database. Make sure to create a complete backup of your website before updating its database.
First, head over to the WooCommerce » Status page from the WordPress sidebar.
Once you are there, simply switch to the ‘Tools’ tab and click the ‘Regenerate’ button next to the ‘Product lookup tables’ option.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Update database’ option and just click the button next to it.
This will update the WooCommerce plugin’s database to the latest version.
Next, simply visit your online store to check if the issue has been resolved.
Another reason for this problem can be that you have set the catalog visibility of your products to ‘Shop only’ or ‘Hidden’.
With these settings, the products won’t show up in the search results in your online store.
To check this, you need to visit the Products » All Products page from the WordPress admin sidebar and click on the ‘Edit’ link under a product name.
Once you are on the product page, simply click the ‘Edit’ link under the ‘Catalog visibility’ option in the ‘Publish’ section on the right.
This will open up a list of visibility choices.
From here, you need to make sure that the catalog visibility is set to ‘Shop and search results’.
After that, click the ‘OK’ button to save your changes. Then, simply click the ‘Update’ button.
Now visit your website to check if the WooCommerce search is working. If it isn’t, then you will need to keep reading our tutorial.
You may not have indexed your Woocomerce products properly, making the search feature inaccessible.
To reindex the products, head to the Products » All Products page from the WordPress admin sidebar. From here, check the box at the top of the list to select all the products.
After that, select the ‘Edit’ option from the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown menu and click the ‘Apply’ button.
This will open up the ‘Bulk Edit’ tab on the page.
From here, simply click the ‘Update’ button to reindex all the WooCommerce products.
Once you have done that, you need to visit your website to test the search results.
If you have tried all the steps above and they haven’t fixed the product search problem, then it’s time for you to switch to a search plugin.
This is where SearchWP comes in.
It is the best WordPress search plugin on the market that can help you improve WooCommerce product search by automatically replacing the default WordPress search with a more powerful search feature.
It puts you in complete control of the WordPress search algorithm and builds an index that matches search keywords in content, titles, categories, tags, shortcodes, documents, products, and more.
First, you will need to install and activate the SearchWP plugin. For more detailed instructions, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to the SearchWP » Settings page from the admin sidebar and switch to the ‘General’ menu option.
Here, you have to copy and paste the license key into the ‘License Key’ field. You can get your key from the ‘SearchWP Accounts’ page on the SearchWP website.
After that, simply click the ‘Activate’ button.
Next, you have to visit the SearchWP » Extensions page from the admin sidebar.
From here, click the ‘Install’ button under the ‘WooCommerce Integration’ extension. Upon installation, the extension will be activated automatically.
Next, head over to the SearchWP » Algorithm page from the WordPress admin sidebar and click the ‘Source and Settings’ button.
This will open a popup where you need to check the ‘Products’ option to add WooCommerce products as a search source.
After that, click the ‘Done’ button to continue.
Now, if you scroll down, you will see a new ‘Products’ section added to the list of search sources.
By default, SearchWP will look at the product title, content (description), slug, and excerpt (short description) for search matches. You can add relevance (importance) to these search attributes by moving the sliders next to them.
For more detailed instructions, you may want to see our tutorial on how to make a smart WooCommerce product search.
Depending on how your site is set up, you may also be able to search for other content by clicking on the ‘Add/Remove Attributes’ button.
This will open up a popup from where you can add custom fields and taxonomies to the attributes as well.
Improve WooCommerce Product Search With Categories, Tags, SKUs, and Other Attributes
To make your WooCommerce product search more accurate, we recommend adding categories, tags, and SKUs as search sources using SearchWP.
Once the ‘Add/Remove Attributes’ popup appears, simply start by typing ‘SKU’ into the ‘Custom Fields’ box. For more information, we recommend reading our guide on how to enable search by product SKU in WooCommerce.
After that, select the ‘Product categories’, ‘Product tags’, and other product attributes from the ‘Taxonomies’ dropdown menu.
Once you have done that, click the ‘Done’ button to save the changes.
Now that tags, SKUs, and categories have been added as search sources, move the slider next to these options to assign weight to these attributes.
Note: If you don’t know how to create tags, categories, and attributes for your products, please see our tutorial on how to add product tags, attributes, and categories to WooCommerce.
After you have finished configuring settings for SearchWP, simply click the ‘Save’ button at the top.
Now the default search box on your WooCommerce store will be automatically replaced by SearchWP.
Finally, you can visit your website to check out the new and improved WooCommerce product search box.
We hope this article helped you learn what to do when the WooCommerce product search is not working. You may also want to see our article on how to fix WordPress search not working and check out our expert picks for the best WooCommerce plugins to grow your online store.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Fix WooCommerce Product Search Not Working first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to display your Twitter followers count as text in WordPress?
By showing that many people follow you on social media, you can encourage visitors to trust your website. Even better, by displaying this information as text, you have the freedom to use it anywhere on your website, including inside your posts and pages.
In this article, we will show how to display your Twitter followers count as text in WordPress.
You may have noticed that many popular blogs, influencers, and brands proudly show how many people follow them on social media.
If visitors see lots of people following you on social media, then they are more likely to trust your business and see you as an expert in your blogging niche.
Many of the best social media plugins allow you to show the total follower count in embedded feeds, buttons, banners, and more.
However, sometimes you may want to show the number as plain text. This gives you the freedom to add the follower count to your blog posts, footer, or anywhere else on your WordPress blog or website.
With that in mind, let’s see how you can display your Twitter follower count as text in WordPress.
To get your follower count, you will need to access the Twitter API by creating an API Key and Secret.
To get this information, head over to the Twitter Developers Portal and then click on ‘Sign up for Free Account.’
You can now type in some information about how you plan to use the Twitter API. It’s a good idea to provide as much detail as possible, as Twitter will review this information and may delete your account if they don’t understand how you are using their API.
After that, read the terms and conditions. If you are happy to continue, go ahead and click on the ‘Submit’ button.
You will now see the Developer Portal. In the left-hand menu, click to expand the ‘Projects & Apps’ section. Then, select ‘Overview.’
You can now go ahead and click on ‘Add App.’
After that, just type in the name you want to use for your Twitter app. This is just for your reference, so you can use anything you want.
With that done, click on the ‘Next’ button.
Twitter will now show an API key and API Secret. This is the only time you will see this information, so make a note of it somewhere safe.
We recommend adding the key and secret to a password manager for extra security.
The easiest way to add the Twitter follower count to your site is by using PHP code.
For security reasons, WordPress doesn’t allow you to add PHP code directly to your pages and posts, but it does allow shortcodes. This means you can create a custom shortcode and then link it to your PHP code.
The easiest way to add custom shortcodes in WordPress is by using WPCode. This plugin allows you to create as many shortcodes as you want and then link them to different sections of PHP code.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the free WPCode plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to Code Snippets » Add Snippet.
Here, you will see all the ready-made snippets you can add to your website. These include snippets that allow you to completely disable WordPress comments, upload files that WordPress doesn’t support by default, and more.
Since you are creating a new snippet, hover your mouse over ‘Add Your Custom Code.’ Then, just click on ‘Use snippet.’
To start, type in a title for the custom code snippet. This can be anything that helps you identify the snippet in the WordPress dashboard.
After that, you need to open the ‘Code Type’ dropdown and select ‘PHP Snippet.’
In the code editor, simply paste the following PHP code:
function getTwitterFollowers($screenName = 'wpbeginner')
{
// some variables
$consumerKey = 'YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY';
$consumerSecret = 'YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET';
$token = get_option('cfTwitterToken');
// get follower count from cache
$numberOfFollowers = get_transient('cfTwitterFollowers');
// cache version does not exist or expired
if (false === $numberOfFollowers) {
// getting new auth bearer only if we don't have one
if(!$token) {
// preparing credentials
$credentials = $consumerKey . ':' . $consumerSecret;
$toSend = base64_encode($credentials);
// http post arguments
$args = array(
'method' => 'POST',
'httpversion' => '1.1',
'blocking' => true,
'headers' => array(
'Authorization' => 'Basic ' . $toSend,
'Content-Type' => 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8'
),
'body' => array( 'grant_type' => 'client_credentials' )
);
add_filter('https_ssl_verify', '__return_false');
$response = wp_remote_post('https://api.twitter.com/oauth2/token', $args);
$keys = json_decode(wp_remote_retrieve_body($response));
if($keys) {
// saving token to wp_options table
update_option('cfTwitterToken', $keys->access_token);
$token = $keys->access_token;
}
}
// we have bearer token wether we obtained it from API or from options
$args = array(
'httpversion' => '1.1',
'blocking' => true,
'headers' => array(
'Authorization' => "Bearer $token"
)
);
add_filter('https_ssl_verify', '__return_false');
$api_url = "https://api.twitter.com/1.1/users/show.json?screen_name=$screenName";
$response = wp_remote_get($api_url, $args);
if (!is_wp_error($response)) {
$followers = json_decode(wp_remote_retrieve_body($response));
$numberOfFollowers = $followers->followers_count;
} else {
// get old value and break
$numberOfFollowers = get_option('cfNumberOfFollowers');
// uncomment below to debug
//die($response->get_error_message());
}
// cache for an hour
set_transient('cfTwitterFollowers', $numberOfFollowers, 1*60*60);
update_option('cfNumberOfFollowers', $numberOfFollowers);
}
return $numberOfFollowers;
}
echo getTwitterFollowers(); ?>
In the code above, make sure you replace the following placeholders with your own API key and API secret:
$consumerKey = 'YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY';
$consumerSecret = 'YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET';
You will also need to replace ‘wpbeginner’ with the Twitter account that you want to use. This can be any Twitter account, including accounts that you don’t own:
function getTwitterFollowers($screenName = 'wpbeginner')
To get the Twitter username, simply open the Twitter profile in a new tab. You will find the username in the URL and in the profile header:
With that done, switch back to the WordPress dashboard. Here, simply click on the ‘Inactive’ toggle so that it changes to ‘Active.’
You can then go ahead and click on the ‘Save snippet’ button.
With that done, scroll to the ‘Insertion’ section.
WPCode can automatically add your code to different locations, such as after every post, front end only, or admin only. To get the shortcode, simply click on the ‘Shortcode’ button.
You can now use the shortcode to add social proof to any page or post.
In the block editor, simply click on the ‘+’ button and type in ‘Shortcode.’ When it appears, select the Shortcode block to add it to the page or post.
You can now add the shortcode to the block.
Just be aware that the shortcode simply shows the total follower count, so you will typically want to add some text explaining what the number means.
For more information on how to place the shortcode, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
When you are happy with how the page is set up, you can make the follower count live by clicking on either the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button.
Now if you visit your WordPress website, you will see the follower count live.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to display your Twitter followers count as text in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to create a custom Instagram photo feed in WordPress or check out our expert picks for the best Twitter plugins for WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Display Twitter Followers Count as Text in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to add a dynamic copyright date in your WordPress website’s footer?
A website with an outdated copyright date can look unprofessional. Adding a dynamic copyright date to your site’s footer shows visitors that your website is up-to-date and regularly maintained.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add a dynamic copyright date in the WordPress footer.
A copyright date typically covers the current year or range of years in which the content, design, and code of your WordPress website are protected by copyright laws.
The copyright date on your website should be current, but manually updating it takes time, and you might forget to do it.
That’s where a dynamic copyright date can help. It will automatically update to ensure that the date is accurate and meets the copyright laws of different countries.
It also helps protect your content from copyright infringement and plagiarism.
Plus, an updated copyright date also signals to search engines that your website is well-maintained and active. This can help improve your website’s search engine rankings and attract more traffic to your site.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add a dynamic copyright date in the WordPress footer. You can use the quick links below to jump to the method you want to use:
If you want to generate a dynamic copyright date that covers all the years from the start of your WordPress blog until the current year, then this method is for you. It works by using the published date of your oldest post and your newest post.
To add a dynamic copyright date to your WordPress footer, many tutorials will tell you to add custom code to your theme’s functions.php file. However, the smallest error while typing the code can break your website.
That’s why we recommend using WPCode, which is the best WordPress code snippets plugin on the market. It is the easiest and safest way to add code to your website.
First, you will need to install and activate the WPCode plugin. For more instructions, you may want to see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: You can also use the free WPCode plugin for this tutorial. However, upgrading to the Pro version will give you access to a cloud library of code snippets, smart conditional logic, and more.
Upon activation, just visit the Code Snippets » + Add Snippet page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
From here, go to the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option and click on the ‘Use Snippet’ button under it.
This will direct you to the ‘Create Custom Snippet’ page, where you can start by typing a name for your code snippet.
Keep in mind that this name won’t be displayed on the front end and is only used for identification purposes.
After that, you need to choose ‘PHP Snippet’ as the Code Type from the dropdown menu in the right corner.
Once you have done that, simply copy and paste the following code into the ‘Code Preview’ box:
if ( ! function_exists( 'wpb_copyright' ) ) {
function wpb_copyright() {
// Cache the output so we don't have to run the query on every page load.
$output = get_transient( 'wpb_copyright_text' );
if ( false !== $output ) {
// Return the cached output.
return $output;
}
global $wpdb;
$copyright_dates = $wpdb->get_results(
"SELECT YEAR(min(post_date_gmt)) AS firstdate, YEAR(max(post_date_gmt)) AS lastdate FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish'"
);
$output = '';
if ( $copyright_dates ) {
$output = '© ' . $copyright_dates[0]->firstdate;
if ( $copyright_dates[0]->firstdate !== $copyright_dates[0]->lastdate ) {
$output .= '-' . $copyright_dates[0]->lastdate;
}
// Set the value as a transient so we only run the query 1x per day.
set_transient( 'wpb_copyright_text', $output, DAY_IN_SECONDS );
}
return $output;
}
}
echo wpb_copyright();
Upon activation, this code will automatically fetch data and display your copyright date according to the oldest and newest post on your website.
Next, scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section and choose the ‘Shortcode’ method.
We are using this method because we want to specifically add code to the WordPress footer.
Finally, scroll back to the top and toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch to ‘Active’.
Once you have done that, just click the ‘Save Snippet’ button to store your settings.
Now, you have to scroll back to the ‘Insertion’ section and copy the shortcode by clicking on the ‘Copy’ button next to it.
Keep in mind that you won’t be able to copy the shortcode until you have activated and saved the code snippet.
Add Dynamic Copyright Date to the WordPress Footer Using a Widget
You now need to add the shortcode to your WordPress footer. This method is for you if you are using a classic theme without the full site editor.
Once you have copied the shortcode, head over to the Appearance » Widgets page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
From here, scroll down to the ‘Footer’ tab and expand it.
For this tutorial, we are using the Hestia Pro theme. Depending on the theme that you are using, your widgets page may look a bit different.
Next, you need to click on the ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the screen and look for the Shortcode block.
Upon finding it, just add the block to the ‘Footer’ tab and then paste the WPCode shortcode into it.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ button at the top to save your changes.
Now, you can visit your website to check out the dynamic copyright date in action.
Add a Dynamic Copyright Date in a Block-Based Theme
If you are using a block-based theme on your WordPress website, then you can use this method to add the copyright shortcode to the footer.
First, you need to visit the Appearance » Editor page from the WordPress admin sidebar. This will launch the full site editor on your screen.
From here, choose the Footer section and then click on the ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the screen.
Next, simply find and add the Shortcode block to your preferred area in the footer.
Once you have done that, paste the dynamic copyright date shortcode into the block.
Finally, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
You can now visit your website to check out the dynamic copyright date in action.
If you don’t want to use code on your website, then this method is for you.
First, you will need to install and activate the Auto Copyright Year Updater plugin. For details, you may want to see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, the plugin will automatically fetch data for your copyright date. Keep in mind that the plugin only displays the current year and does not show the range of years that the site has been used.
To display the copyright date, you will now have to add a shortcode to the website footer.
Add Dynamic Copyright Date in a Classic Theme
If you are using a classic theme that doesn’t use the full site editor, then this method is for you.
First, you need to visit the Appearance » Widgets page from the WordPress admin sidebar. Once you are there, scroll down to the ‘Footer’ tab and expand it.
For this tutorial, we are using the Hestia Pro theme, so your widgets may look a bit different depending on the theme that you are using.
Next, click on the ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the screen and find the Shortcode block.
Simply add the block to the ‘Footer’ tab and then copy and paste the following shortcode into it to display the copyright date:
[cr_year]
If you also want to add a copyright symbol along with the date, then you should add the following shortcode as well.
[cr_symbol]
Finally, click the ‘Update’ button at the top to save your changes.
Now, you can visit your website to check out the dynamic copyright date in action.
Add Dynamic Copyright Date in a Block-Based Theme
If you are using a block-based theme with the full site editor, then you can insert the dynamic copyright shortcode with this method.
You need to head to the Appearance » Editor page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Once you are there, choose the ‘Footer’ section and then click on the ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the screen. Then, look for and add the Shortcode block.
After that, add the following shortcode into the block to display the copyright date on your website:
[cr_year]
If you want to add a copyright symbol along with the dates, then simply copy and paste the following shortcode into the block as well:
[cr_symbol]
Finally, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, you can visit your website to see the dynamic copyright date in action.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add dynamic copyright dates in the WordPress footer. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to use a headline analyzer in WordPress to improve SEO titles and our top picks for the best WordPress plugins to grow your site.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Add a Dynamic Copyright Date in WordPress Footer first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to add free trial subscriptions in WordPress?
Subscriptions are a great way to get consistent, recurring revenue for your business. However, it can be difficult to convince people to sign up for long-term subscriptions.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to get more signups by adding free trial subscriptions to your WordPress website.
By adding subscriptions to your website, you’ll have a more consistent cash flow, fewer payment errors, and fewer payment delays. However, customers often want to try before they buy, especially if you’re selling longer-term or more expensive subscriptions.
With that being said, it’s a good idea to offer free trials for all your subscriptions. For example, you might give customers a free month’s trial of your subscription box service or create a free one-week pass for your online yoga classes.
If customers enjoy the free trial, then they might pay for a premium subscription. Even if shoppers don’t sign up straight away, you can still use their contact information to do lead generation. For example, you might send them exclusive coupon codes or target them with web push notifications.
With that being said, let’s see how you can add free trial subscriptions in WordPress. Simply use the quick link below to jump straight to the method you want to use.
Do you want to offer a free trial subscription for digital products? Maybe you’re planning to sell subscriptions for online courses, a stock photography website, a digital music store, or something else.
The easiest way to offer free trial subscriptions for digital products is by using Easy Digital Downloads. This plugin lets you easily sell ebooks, PDF files, audio files, videos, and any other type of digital product.
Even better, if you’re a SiteGround customer then the Easy Digital Downloads plugin comes pre-installed, so you can start selling subscriptions and digital products straight away.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a free trial for an all-access pass. This pass will look just like any other digital product on your online store.
After signing up for the free trial, customers will be able to view, access, and download different products on your online store.
Customers can simply click on a link inside their account, to see all the products that are included in their free pass.
To stop customers from abusing their trial, you can set daily download limits, limit the free pass to specific product categories, and more.
With all that in mind, we’ll be using three extensions to create a user-friendly ‘all access’ free trial. You’ll need to buy the Extended or higher license for Easy Digital Downloads in order to download these three extensions.
For step-by-step instructions on how to set up Easy Digital Downloads, please see our guide on how to sell digital downloads on WordPress.
Install Easy Digital Downloads Extensions
After setting up Easy Digital Downloads, it’s time to install the extensions by going to Downloads » Extensions.
On this screen, find the All Access, Free Downloads, and Recurring Payments extensions.
For each extension, click on the ‘Install’ button.
Create a Free Trial Subscription in WordPress
With that done, you’re ready to create a free all access trial. To get started, head over to Downloads » Downloads in the WordPress dashboard.
On this screen, click ‘Add New.’
You can now type in a name for the subscription.
This will be visible to customers, so it’s a good idea to use something descriptive.
After that, scroll to the ‘Download Options’ section. Under ‘Pricing Options,’ type in 0.
Next, check the box next to the following option: ‘Enable free trial for subscriptions.’
Now, it’s time to turn this subscription into a free all-access pass that customers can use across your entire online store.
To do this, simply scroll to the ‘All Access’ section and check the following option: Convert this product into an “All Access” pass.
Limit the Trial to Specific Product Categories (Optional)
By default, the free trial gives customers access to all your products. However, you can restrict the free trial to specific product categories. For example, if you create and sell ebooks then you might include some books in the free trial, and keep others for paid subscribers.
To restrict the free trial to specific categories, simply click on the ‘x’ next to ‘All Products.’
After that, you can click on the ‘Type to search categories’ dropdown and start typing in the category you want to include in the free trial.
When the right category appears, click to select it.
Set a Time Limit
With that done, you can choose whether to make the free trial permanent or to set a time limit.
If you’ve restricted the free trial to specific product categories, then it may make sense to choose ‘Never Expires.’ For example, if you sell digital art and graphics then you might allow customers to download as many watermarked images as they want, forever. However, they’ll need to buy a subscription in order to remove the watermark.
Just be aware that Easy Digital Downloads also allows you to set a download limit. This means you can use ‘Never Expires’ while also limiting how many items the customer can download.
To create a never-ending free trial, open the ‘All Access Duration’ dropdown menu and choose ‘Never Expires.’
Another option is to set a time limit. This works particularly well for digital products that take a while to get through or for products the customer will want to access over and over again.
For example, if you create and sell online courses then you could offer a two-day free trial, so customers will need to buy a subscription to finish their training.
To set a time limit, open the ‘All Access Duration’ dropdown and choose from years, months, weeks, or days. You can then type a number into the field that appears.
Add a Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly Download Limit
You can also type in a Download Limit. This can protect your site from customers who might try to abuse the free trial. For example, if you sell Excel or Google Spreadsheets in WordPress, then you might set a download limit so customers can’t download your entire product catalog while on a free trial.
By default, Easy Digital Downloads has a download limit of 0, which means the customer can download as many products as they want. To change this, type a number into the ‘Download Limit’ field.
You can then make this limit per day, week, month, or per year using the dropdown that appears.
Adding Variable Pricing to Your Free Trial (Optional)
Are you using variable pricing on your online marketplace? Then you may want to include specific price variations in the free trial.
For example, if you’ve created Standard and Deluxe price variations, then you may want to include Standard in the free trial, while keeping the Deluxe version for paying users only.
If you’ve enabled variable pricing, then Easy Digital Downloads includes all variations in its free trial by default.
To change this, find ‘Total Price Variations’ and type in how many variations you want to include in the free trial. Depending on the number you use, you’ll see a list of the different variations on your online store.
Simply check the box next to each variation you want to include in the free trial.
Customizing the Purchase Confirmation Page and Email
When a customer downloads a product using their free trial pass, Easy Digital Downloads will show them a Purchase Confirmation page.
It will also send a confirmation message to their email address.
By default, both the Purchase Confirmation page and email contain the following link: Click here to use your All Access Pass. This takes the customer to a page where they can download their free products.
To change the link text, type into the ‘Receipts: All Access Link Message’ box.
You can also change the page where Easy Digital Downloads will send customers when they want to download their free products.
To do this, simply create a new page in WordPress and then add the following shortcode:
[downloads all_access_customer_downloads_only="yes"]
This will show all the products the customer can download while on a free trial. You can then add other content, such as text, images, a contact form, or anything else you want to include.
For more information on how to place the shortcode, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
After publishing the page, simply add its URL to the ‘Receipts: Link URL’ field.
When you’re happy with how the free trial is set up, click on the ‘Publish’ button.
Create a Premium Subscription
With that done, you may want to create a premium ‘all access’ subscription. When their free trial expires, customers can upgrade to this subscription and continue enjoying your content.
To create a premium subscription go to Downloads » Add New.
You can then type in a name for the subscription and set the price, by typing into the ‘Pricing Options’ field.
You can also make this a recurring subscription, add an optional sign-up fee, and more using the settings under ‘Download Prices.’
With that done, scroll to the ‘All Access’ section. At this point, you can turn the subscription into an all-access pass, add a download limit, and more by following the same process described above.
When you’re happy with how the premium all-access subscription is set up, don’t forget to click on ‘Publish’ to make it live.
Remove the Checkout for Free Trial Users
After creating the free trial subscription, you’ll want to get as many signups as possible. With that being said, it’s a good idea to allow customers to start the free trial without going through the checkout screen.
Easy Digital Downloads can hide the checkout screen when a customer is claiming a free product, including your free trial subscription.
To do this, simply go to Downloads » Settings, and then select the ‘Marketing’ tab. Next, click on ‘Free Downloads’ to hide the checkout.
After that, you can use ‘Button Label’ to specify the text you’ll show when products are available for free download.
By default, this is ‘Download Now.’
You can replace this with your own custom messaging.
Simply go ahead and type into the ‘Button Label’ field.
There are more settings that can help you do lead generation like a pro. For example, you can collect the person’s name and email address, even when they’re signing up for a free trial or downloading a free product. However, we recommend keeping things simple, as this will often get you the most signups.
When you’re happy with the changes you’ve made, click on ‘Save Changes.’ Now, if you visit the free trial product page, you’ll see the new button text in action.
Create Expiration Reminder Emails
Free trials can generate leads, but the goal is to convert those people into paying customers.
With that in mind, you may want to email people when their free trial is about to expire. This will encourage them to buy a premium subscription, so they can continue accessing your digital content.
​​Easy Digital Downloads integrates with all the best email marketing services. However, you can also create reminder emails using the Recurring Payments extension you installed earlier.
To use this extension, go to Download » Settings. Then, select the ‘Emails’ tab followed by the ‘Recurring Payments’ link.
On this screen, check the box next to ‘Send Expiration Reminders.’
After that, select ‘Add Expiration Reminder.’
This takes you to a screen where you can type in an email subject and a message.
To make the email more personal, it’s a good idea to use template tags. Easy Digital Downloads will replace these tags with real values such as the customer’s name, the expiration date, and the name of their subscription.
You can see all the available template tags underneath the small text editor.
Just be aware that Easy Digital Downloads will send the message to all customers, and not just the people on your free trial.
When you’re happy with the information you’ve typed in, click on Add Reminder Notice.
Now, Easy Digital Downloads should notify customers when their subscription is about to expire. However, sometimes your WordPress hosting server may not be properly configured or email providers such as Gmail might use filters that wrongly flag your emails as spam.
To get more conversions, your emails need to arrive in the customer’s inbox and not in the spam folder. For that reason, we recommend using a WordPress SMTP plugin and provider to improve your email deliverability
WP Mail SMTP is the best WordPress SMTP plugin on the market. It allows you to connect your WordPress site with a mailer service. This means your expiration reminder and other messages will always arrive safely in the customer’s inbox.
A membership website allows users to pay for premium content, online courses, features, and access to a community. However, these members-only features are usually hidden behind a paywall in WordPress, so visitors can’t see what the membership includes.
With that in mind, you may want to offer visitors a free trial so they can try before they buy. The easiest way to do this is by using MemberPress.
MemberPress is an all-in-one membership plugin that allows you to accept payments, add unlimited membership levels, create gated content, restrict access based on different membership levels, and much more. It also lets you create as many free trials as you want, including different trials for different membership levels.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
You can now add payment methods, create members-only content, design a pricing page, and more. For step-by-step instructions, please see our ultimate guide to creating a WordPress membership site.
Once your site is set up, you’re ready to create a membership plan with a free trial.
Create a New Membership Level
To get started, head over to MemberPress » Memberships in the WordPress dashboard. Here, click on the ‘Add New’ button.
You can now type in a title for the membership plan, add an optional description, upload a featured image, and more.
For more information, please see our ultimate guide to creating a WordPress membership site.
With that done, you can set the price by typing into the ‘Price’ box.
This is how much members will pay once the free trial expires.
You can only create a free trial for recurring memberships. However, if you want to charge members a one-time fee then there’s a workaround, which we’ll be covering shortly.
With that being said, open the ‘Billing Type’ dropdown and choose ‘Recurring.’
Next, you need to set the billing interval for the recurring payment. This is how often your members will be charged once the free trial expires.
Simply open the ‘Interval’ dropdown and choose an option from the list, such as monthly or yearly billing.
Want to use a different interval? Then select ‘Custom’ instead.
You’ll now see some new controls where you can set a custom interval.
Create a Free Trial Membership Subscription
With that done, check the box next to ‘Free Trial.’
You can now specify how many days the free trial will last, by typing into the ‘Trial Duration’ field. For example, if you want to offer a one-month trial then you would type in ‘30.’
After that, you’ll need to type in the ‘Trial Amount,’ which is the total cost of the subscription trial period before tax. You’ll typically want to type ‘0’ into this box.
Finally, you can choose whether to limit customers to one free trial by checking or unchecking the ‘Allow Only One Free Trial’ box. If you check this box, then customers who cancel their subscription and then re-subscribe won’t get another free trial.
You’ll typically want to leave the box checked, so customers can’t abuse the free trial. However, if you only offer a very short trial then you may want to allow customers to have multiple free trials.
Just be aware that coupons will override this setting, so it’s still possible to offer multiple free trials to the same customer.
Create a Lifetime Membership (Optional)
As already mentioned, you can only offer a free trial for recurring memberships. However, it is possible to create a trial for lifetime memberships, by changing a few MemberPress settings.
To do this, check the ‘Limit Payment Cycles’ box and set the ‘Max # of Payments’ to 1.
After that, open the ‘Access After Last Cycle’ dropdown and select ‘Lifetime Access.’
Now, once the trial expires customers will need to pay a one-time fee for lifetime membership.
Publish the Free Trial Membership Subscription
With that done, you can make any other changes to the membership level.
When you’re happy with how the membership is set up, it’s time to make it live by clicking on the ‘Publish’ button.
To see how the membership looks to potential customers, go to MemberPress » Memberships. On this screen, you’ll see the membership level you just created.
Here, just hover your mouse over the membership level and click on the ‘View’ link.
WordPress will now show the membership signup form in a new tab.
Do you want to add a free trial to more membership levels? Then simply follow the same process described above.
Once you’ve added a free trial to your membership site, you’ll want to encourage visitors to sign up for the free trial. This might mean mentioning the free trial in your email newsletter, creating popups using a WordPress popup plugin, promoting it on social media, and more.
If you want to sell digital products online, then we recommend using Easy Digital Downloads. However, if you want to sell physical products, then WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform.
By default, WooCommerce doesn’t allow you to offer free trial subscriptions. However, it’s easy to add this missing feature using WooCommerce Subscriptions.
This plugin adds a new ‘simple subscription’ product type to your WooCommerce store. You can add this product type to any existing item, or create new subscription products. For example, you might let shoppers try a product before they buy it, or maybe you will send them a sample subscription box from your online boutique shop.
When a customer visits a subscription product, they’ll see a ‘Sign up now’ button instead of the standard ‘Add to cart’ call to action button.
The WooCommerce checkout page will also show some information about the subscription.
This includes the length of your free trial.
Customers can manage all their subscriptions by logging into their WooCommerce account, and then visiting the new ‘My Subscriptions’ section.
Here, they can see when the subscription started, how much it costs, the subscription status, and more. The customer can also cancel, reactivate, and renew their subscriptions directly from this page, without having to contact you directly.
In this way, a customer who is enjoying a free trial can quickly and easily upgrade to a premium subscription.
In this guide, we’re going to assume you’ve already set up a WooCommerce store. If you haven’t, then you may want to check out our complete guide to WooCommerce made simple.
After that, you’ll need to install and activate the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
As soon as the plugin is active, you’re ready to add free trial subscriptions to WooCommerce. Simply go to Products » Add New.
You can now create this product in exactly the same way you create any WooCommerce product. For example, you can type in the product’s title, add a description, or create a WooCommerce product gallery.
After entering all this information, scroll to the ‘Product Data’ box.
Here, open the dropdown menu and choose ‘Simple subscription.’
This adds some new settings that you can use to create a subscription and add a free trial.
To start, type in the ‘Subscription price.’
Then, use the dropdown menus to choose how long the subscription will last. In the following image, the subscription will cost $20 per month once the free trial expires.
You can now choose whether the subscription will last forever, or expire after a set amount of time. Just be aware that the expiration length doesn’t include the free trial. This means that if the subscription expires in 1 month and you offer a one-month free trial, then the subscription will last for 2 months.
Another option is to give the customer lifetime access. To do this, open the ‘Expire After’ dropdown and choose ‘Never expire.’
Next, you may want to add a sign-up fee.
Just be aware that WooCommerce will charge this fee no matter whether the customer is buying a subscription or signing up for a free trial. With that in mind, we don’t recommend adding a sign-up fee to products that have a free trial subscription.
With that done, you can specify how long the free trial will last by opening the dropdown that shows ‘days’ by default, and then choosing an option from the list.
After that, just type in how many days, weeks, months, or years the free trial should last. Note that the free trial can’t last longer than 90 days, 52 weeks, 24 months, or 5 years.
You can now make any other changes to the product. When you’re happy with how the product and subscription are set up, either click on ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ to make the trial live.
You can now create free trial subscriptions for other products, by following the same process described above.
Once you’ve added one or more subscriptions to your WooCommerce website, you’ll want to get as many signups as possible. With that in mind, you should allow visitors to use their preferred payment method.
By adding the free Stripe Payment Gateway for WooCommerce plugin to your website, you can collect payments through Visa, MasterCard, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and more.
Simply install the plugin and the onboarding wizard will guide you through the process of adding more payment methods and enabling express checkout.
Many freelancers, consultants, trainers, and other business owners sell their services as a subscription. For example, if you run a yoga studio then you might offer a one month free trial of your personalized training program.
The best way to offer a free trial for custom services is by using WP Simple Pay. It’s the best Stripe payment plugin for WordPress and lets you accept payments, manage invoices, and offer free trials without having to set up a shopping cart, or add products to an online store.
Note: There is a free version of WP Simple Pay that allows you to accept credit cards, Apple Pay, iDEAL, and other payment methods. However, in this guide we’ll be using the premium plugin as it allows you to offer free trials.
Set Up the WP Simple Pay Plugin
First, you’ll need to install and activate the WP Simple Pay plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, the plugin will automatically launch the setup wizard. Go ahead and click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
After that, you’ll need to enter the license key. You can find this information under your account on the WP Simple Pay website.
With that done, click the ‘Activate and Continue’ button.
Connect WordPress to Your Stripe Account
In the next step, you’ll need to connect your Stripe account to WP Simple Pay. Stripe is a popular payment gateway, and it’s the easiest way to accept credit card payments in WordPress, so it’s a great way to sell custom services online.
To get started, simply click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button. You can then either log into your Stripe account, or create a new account if you haven’t already registered with Stripe.
After connecting WP Simple Pay with Stripe, the setup wizard will ask you to configure its emails. You can choose whether to receive emails for payment receipts, upcoming invoices, and payment notifications.
You’ll also need to enter the email address where WP Simple Pay will send the messages.
Simply click the ‘Save and Continue’ button when you’re done.
Create a Subscription Form With a Free Trial
Now, you’re ready to create a subscription form that offers a free trial. Go ahead and click on the ‘Create a Payment Form’ button.
WP Simple Pay comes with a ton of ready-made templates that you can use to create ‘buy now pay later’ payment plans, get donations, accept Google Pay in WordPress, and more.
To offer a free trial, hover over the ‘Recurring Services with Trial Period Form’ template. When it appears, click on the ‘Use Template’ button.
This will take you to the payment form editor.
To start, you can rename the form and type in an optional description. By default, the description is ‘Try our service free for 30 days,’ but you can change this to anything you want.
By default, WP Simple Pay will create an on-site payment form. However, you may want to show a payment button instead. When the visitor clicks the button, they’ll see the payment form in a popup.
To create a popup, check the box next to ‘Open in an overlay modal’ box.
Another option is to host the payment form on Stripe’s site, by opening the ‘Type’ dropdown.
Here, select ‘Off-site Stripe Checkout form.’
When a customer buys a subscription, WP Simple Pay will redirect them to its built-in Payment Success Page. If you want to send visitors to a different page, then select either ‘Specific Page’ or ‘Redirect URL.’
You can then either type in the URL or select the page you want to use instead. For example, you might send subscribers to a custom thank you page, or a page where they can manage their free trial.
Add a Price to Your Subscription Form
When you’re ready, select the Payment tab.
Here you can set the payment mode to either live or testing. Testing mode allows you to complete the purchasing process without getting charged, so it’s perfect for testing new subscriptions on your website.
If you do select ‘Test Mode,’ then remember to come back to this page and change the mode to ‘Live’ when you’re finished testing.
Next, you can set the price of your subscription and the currency using the ‘Amount’ settings.
With that done, you can choose how often WP Simple Pay should charge subscribers.
Simply open the ‘Billing Period’ dropdown and choose day, week, month, or year. Then, type a number into the field next to the dropdown menu.
By default, WP Simple Pay offers customers a 30 day free trial.
If you want to make the free trial longer or shorter, then simply type a number into the ‘Free Trial’ field.
Sometimes, you may want to charge subscribers a set up fee. For example, if you’re a life coach then this extra fee may cover the time and effort required to add new clients to your admin system.
To charge an additional fee, simply type an amount into the ‘Setup Fee’ field.
With that done, scroll to the ‘Payment Methods’ section.
Here, you can check the box next to any additional payment methods you want to offer, such as Klarna payments or ACH payments.
By offering visitors a choice of payment methods, you may be able to get more subscribers. However, try not to offer too many options, as this can become confusing.
Depending on the payment methods you select, you may see a ‘Configure’ link. In this case, click on ‘Configure’ and then follow the onscreen instructions to set up the payment gateway or method.
Customize the WP Simple Pay Subscription Form
With that done, you’re ready to build the subscription form.
Simply click on ‘Form Fields’ to open WP Simple Pay’s form builder.
The template already collects some basic information about the customer, such as their email address and credit card information.
The following image shows how the default form will look on WordPress.
To customize any of the default fields, simply click select it.
The section will expand to show all the settings you can customize, such as changing the field’s label or adding some placeholder text.
You can also remove fields from the subscription form.
Simply click to expand the field, and then select ‘Remove.’
Do you need to collect more information from your new subscribers? For example, you might need their tax ID or phone number.
Just click on the ‘Form Fields’ dropdown and then choose a field from the list. After that, click on ‘Add Field.’
Finally, you can change the order the fields appear in your form using drag and drop.
As you’re customizing the form, you can click on ‘Preview’ to see how it will look on your blog or website.
When you’re happy with the form, click ‘Publish’ to store your settings.
Add the Subscription Form to Your WordPress Website
Now, you’re ready to add the form to your WordPress blog using either a block or shortcode.
The easiest method is to use a block, so open the page or post where you want to show the subscription form.
Then, click on the plus (+) sign and type in ‘WP Simple Pay.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the page or post.
With that done, open the dropdown menu in the WP Simple Pay block, and choose the form you want to display.
When you’re finished, click on either ‘Update’ or ‘Publish.’
Now, if you visit your website you’ll see the subscription form live.
Another option is to add the subscription form using shortcode. To get the shortcode, head over to WP Simple Pay » Payment Forms in the WordPress dashboard.
Here, just find the subscription form and click on its ‘Copy Shortcode’ button.
Now you just need to paste the shortcode into any page, post, or widget-ready area. For step-by-step instructions on how to place the shortcode, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add free trial subscriptions in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to run a giveaway / contest in WordPress, and the best live chat software for small businesses.
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The post How to Add Free Trial Subscriptions in WordPress (4 Methods) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to write a great blog post, but aren’t sure how to structure it?
You can write a compelling and helpful blog post, but without the right structure, only a few people may read it. The people who do visit your blog might even get lost and give up without finishing the post.
In this article, we will show you how to write a great blog post, even if you’re a beginner.
According to our blogging statistics research, there are over 600 million blogs. With so much competition, you’ll need to do everything in your power to make your blogs stand out, including using the right structure.
A well-structured blog leads the reader from one point to the next in a logical way that’s easy to follow and understand. Many people simply skim blogs, so the right structure also helps people find the parts they’re interested in reading.
A clear structure doesn’t just help visitors understand your content. Search engine bots will also find it easier to crawl your blogs and then show them to the right people. This will improve your search engine rankings and get more visitors to your WordPress blog.
You might be a world-class writer, but without a clear structure your blog posts may still be difficult to read.
With that in mind, let’s look at how you can write a well-structured blog post, even if you’re a complete beginner. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the topic you want to read about.
Your post’s headline is usually the first thing people see. No matter how good your blog’s content is, you’ll struggle to get readers with a boring title.
A compelling headline will catch a person’s attention no matter whether they spot it on social media, an RSS feed, in their search engine results, or some other location.
That said, the headline should describe what the post is about, while also making people want to read it.
With countless blogs on the internet, it’s hard to cut through the noise. While there’s no magic formula for creating the perfect headline, BuzzSumo analyzed over 100 million articles and concluded that the ideal headline length is between 11 words and 65 characters.
If you include numbers in your headlines, then research suggests people prefer to share headlines that have single-digit numbers.
BuzzSumo also found that more people engage with headlines that include the current year.
Even simply adding a year to the end of a title may be enough to increase your blog traffic.
People are also more likely to share headlines that suggest newness, so you may want to try including phrases like ‘for the first time.’
Another trick is teasing must-have information by saying things like ‘need to know,’ ‘you need to,’ or ‘the best.’
If you’re writing a ‘how to’ post, then think about the problem your blog solves. What might someone type into a search engine when they’re facing this problem? This is often a great starting point for a compelling ‘how to’ headline.
After drafting a title, you can enter it into a headline analyzer such as AIOSEO. This plugin will use real data to score your headline and suggest ways to improve it. In this way, even beginners can write a compelling blog headline.
If you don’t want to install a plugin, then you can use WPBeginner’s free Headline Analyzer.
For more information, please see our guide on how to use a headline analyzer in WordPress to improve SEO titles.
Every great blog post needs a clear introduction that tells visitors what the post is about. This helps people decide whether they’re interested in the topic.
Just like the headline, it’s not enough to simply state what the blog is about. You also need to make the visitor want to carry on reading.
People don’t want to waste time on blogs they’re not interested in. Having said that, your introduction should be short and to the point. Ideally, you should aim for 1-3 paragraphs.
When it comes to creating a tight, focused introduction, a good trick is to try and include your blog’s keyword as early as possible. By sticking to this goal, you’ll be less likely to go off-topic.
Depending on the kind of blog you’re writing, you may get good results by sharing interesting or surprising statistics in the introduction. This example from MonsterInsights is guaranteed to catch the attention of any online store owner who wants to get more sales.
Another option is to talk about a problem and promise a solution.
This RafflePress post discusses a problem the user may have: promoting your business on Instagram can be expensive and not everyone has a big budget.
It then promises a solution: get noticed on Instagram for free.
Many introductions also use FOMO, or fear of missing out. By adding time pressure, you can make people want to read the post now, rather than risk missing out on a giveaway, event, trip, or anything else the post is talking about.
This travel blog takes a pretty standard ‘Top Places to Visit’ listicle and turns it into a race against time.
We’ve also seen blogs draw the reader in by sharing a humorous personal story. If this anecdote resonates with the target audience, then it can be a powerful hook.
For example, this introduction makes it very clear that the author knows exactly what the reader is going through.
No matter what approach you take, if you’re going to hook your audience, then you need to know all about them. The best way to learn about your audience is by using Google Analytics.
For step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to install Google Analytics. If you’re already a GA user, you may also want to see our ultimate guide to Google Analytics 4.
A 2022 study by the Policy Institute and Centre for Attention Studies found that most people feel their attention span is shorter than it used to be.
No matter how good your writing is, all your hard work will go to waste if readers can’t concentrate on more than a few paragraphs.
That’s why we recommend using headings to break your post into bite-sized chunks.
Headings help readers skim the post and find the content they’re interested in reading. It also makes it easier for them to revisit sections they want to read again.
Before you start writing, it’s a good idea to map out all the headings you’ll use and the content you’ll add to each section. This will keep you focused as you write the post.
Ideally, your headings should summarize each major point you want to make. In fact, readers should be able to understand the flow of your blog simply by scanning the headings.
Let’s look at an example. Here, we have some tips on how to store coffee beans correctly. Although each paragraph provides useful extra information, you can get all the tips just by reading the headings.
After creating your headings, organize them so your content flows logically. For example, if you’re writing a fitness blog then you shouldn’t tell readers how many times to repeat an exercise before showing them how to do it.
When it’s time to add these headings to your WordPress website, there are six built-in heading tags that you can use.
Similar to bullet points and numbered lists, you can use these headings to create a nested structure of headings and subheadings.
However, we recommend keeping the heading hierarchy as simple as possible, to avoid confusing your readers. This means using H2 headings for main sections, and then H3 for subsections, and so on.
A table of contents lists the post’s main points and provides links to specific sections. This gives visitors an overview of what the blog covers while allowing them to jump straight to the content they’re interested in.
This can keep visitors on your website for longer, even if they’re only interested in part of a blog post.
A table of contents can even improve your WordPress SEO, as Google often uses the table to automatically add ‘jump to section’ links in search results.
The easiest way to add a table of contents to your WordPress blog is by using AIOSEO.
AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin and comes with a built-in table of contents block.
This block saves you a ton of time by automatically generating a table of contents based on the post’s headings, while also allowing you to customize the table.
For complete step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to create a table of contents in WordPress posts and pages.
Imagine opening a blog post just to find a wall of text. Chances are, you’d leave the page immediately. That said, it’s important to break your blog into short paragraphs and sentences. These are easier to skim and look much less daunting, especially on mobile devices.
A good trick is to avoid long and complicated words, intricate metaphors, and flowery language. All of that to say: keep it simple. You’ll lose people if you try to be too clever.
Ideally, you should aim to make a single point per sentence, using as few words as possible.
Often, you can break grammatical rules if it gets your point across in fewer words. This may mean starting sentences with things like ‘Or,’ ‘And,’ or ‘But,’ or using more casual language and fragments rather than full sentences.
You should also organize your sentences and paragraphs to give the reader the most important information first, and then go into finer detail from there. This makes it easier for the reader to skip sections they’re not interested in.
In this TrustPulse blog, the writer starts by explaining what eCommerce email marketing is. Then, they give Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign as examples of popular email providers.
The next paragraph talks about why email marketing is important, before exploring specific features. As you can see, the section starts with the most important point and then gets more and more detailed.
Visitors don’t want to feel like they’re reading a novel when they visit your blog. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to add visual content like photos, infographics, screenshots, graphs, and diagrams.
Immediately, this breaks up your text, but it also helps visitors see what each section is about, at a glance. Each piece of visual content is also another opportunity to grab the reader’s attention as they scroll through your post.
It even seems like blogs with visual content are more popular. According to our blogging statistics research, posts with more than seven images get 116% more organic traffic compared to posts that have no images. Similarly, blogs with videos get 83% more traffic than those without video.
If you’re writing ‘how to’ blogs, then images help visitors understand what they need to do. For example, this PushEngage blog uses screenshots to show readers what to click next in order to create a landing page in WordPress.
If you’re promoting an affiliate product, then visuals like images and videos are a great way to show that product in action. This can often get you more affiliate revenue.
Let’s look at an example. This post about soil-less indoor garden kits shows lots of photos of the different kits available to buy on Amazon, complete with Amazon affiliate links.
Just be aware that lots of high-resolution media can add to your site’s loading time, so it’s important to optimize your images and other media. Readers will also need to scroll past any media they’re not interested in, which can be particularly frustrating for smartphone and tablet users.
With that being said, all visuals should add value for the reader.
A good conclusion summarizes all the points you’ve made throughout the blog, without introducing any new information.
Depending on the topic, you may sometimes want to suggest an actionable solution or share your top pick of all the products, WordPress plugins, travel destinations, and anything else you’ve compared or reviewed throughout the blog.
However, as a general rule conclusions tend to be pretty short, so don’t worry if your conclusion is one or two sentences.
When the reader reaches the end of the post, you need to tell them what to do next. This should be an action that keeps them engaged with your blog or gets them to convert, which is known as a call to action.
In the following Easy Digital Downloads post, you can see several calls to action on the page.
A good call to action is clear, asks for the user to take a precise action, and has a sense of urgency. For example, you might ask them to download a PDF or subscribe to your email newsletter.
Even if you use the same call to action, it’s a good idea to customize it for the individual post. In the following image, interior design blog Decorilla is using its standard call to action, which encourages readers to schedule a free consultation using a booking form.
However, they’ve tweaked the messaging to suit the blog’s topic, which is how to decorate a child’s bedroom.
If you’re not sure what call to action to use, then ask yourself why you’re writing this blog. If you want to get more comments, then you might ask readers to share their opinion or answer a question by posting it in the comment section.
You might even offer a reward for commenting, such as entering the reader into a giveaway or contest. For example, the example below gives readers a list of books and asks them to comment on which one they want to win.
Another option is to suggest some posts the visitor might want to read next.
For the best results, include links that relate to the current blog in some way, which is exactly what AffiliateWP does on their affiliate marketing blog.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to write a great blog post. You may also want to learn how to make money online blogging, or check out our list of the best SEO plugins and tools you should use.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Write a Great Blog Post (Structure + Examples) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Are you looking for a way to highlight text in a WordPress post or page?
Highlighting text can help point the user’s attention to a specific part of your content. This can be great to show off a call to action, a special offer, or to simply add emphasis on specific sentences.
In this article, we will show you how to easily highlight text in WordPress.
Text highlighting is an easy way to emphasize important information in your content. It helps you direct the user’s attention to details that you don’t want them to miss.
For instance, highlighting a discount offer on your WordPress website in a different color will draw the reader’s attention to it, helping you generate more sales.
Here’s a sample of what text highlighting might look like in a blog post:
Highlighting text in a different color can also help users with visual impairments or reading difficulties to navigate and understand the content more easily. It can even enhance the appearance of your content and make it more visually appealing.
However, highlighting too much text on your page can be distracting and reduce its effectiveness. That’s why we recommend only highlighting very important text like calls to action, warnings, and other details that readers should pay attention to.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily highlight text in WordPress. You can use the quick links below to jump to the method you wish to use:
This method is for you if you want to easily highlight text in WordPress using the block editor.
First, you will need to open up an existing or new post in the block editor from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Once you are there, simply select the text that you want to highlight and then click the ‘More’ icon in the block toolbar at the top.
This will open up a dropdown menu where you must the ‘Highlight’ option from the list.
A color picker tool will now open up on your screen. From here, you will first need to switch to the ‘Background’ tab.
After that, you can choose a default highlight color from the given options.
You can also select a custom color to highlight text by clicking on the ‘Custom’ option to launch an ‘Eyedropper’ tool.
Finally, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to save your changes.
You can now visit your website to check out the highlighted text in action.
If you want to consistently use a specific color to highlight text all over your WordPress website, then this method is for you.
You can easily highlight text in WordPress by adding CSS code to your theme files. However, the smallest error when entering the code could break your website, making it inaccessible.
That’s why we recommend using WPCode, which is the best WordPress code snippet plugin on the market. It is the easiest and safest way to add code to your website without directly editing your theme files.
Create a Code Snippet With WPCode
First, you need to install and activate the free WPCode plugin. For more instructions, please see our beginners’ guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to the Code Snippets » + Add Snippet page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Next, just click the ‘Use Snippet’ button under the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option.
This will take you to the ‘Create Custom Snippet’ page, where you can start by typing a name for your code snippet.
After that, you need to select the ‘CSS Snippet’ option from the ‘Code Type’ dropdown menu.
Note: The ‘CSS Snippet’ option is only available in the premium version of WPCode. If you are using the free version, then you will have to select the ‘Universal Snippet’ option instead.
Next, click inside the ‘Code Preview box’.
Then, you have to copy and paste the following code:
mark {
background-color: #ffd4a1;
}
Once you have done that, add the hex code for your preferred highlight color next to the background-color line in the code.
In our example, we are using #ffd4a1, which is a light brown color.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section.
From here, select the ‘Auto Insert’ method to automatically execute the code upon activation.
Next, head to the top of the page and toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch to ‘Active’.
Finally, click the ‘Save Snippet’ button to store your changes.
Highlight Text in the Block Editor
Now that the CSS snippet has been activated, we will have to add some HTML code in the block editor to highlight the text in WordPress.
First, open up an existing or new post in the WordPress block editor.
From here, click on the ‘Options’ icon in the block toolbar at the top. This will open up a new dropdown menu where you must select the ‘Edit as HTML’ option.
You will now see the block content in HTML format.
Here, simply wrap the text that you want to highlight inside the <mark> </mark> tags like this:
<mark>highlighted-text</mark>
This will highlight the text in the hex color that you choose in your WPCode snippet.
After that, click the ‘Edit Visually’ option in the block toolbar. to switch back to the visual editor.
Once you are done, go ahead and click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to save your changes.
Now, you can visit your website to check out the highlighted text in action.
We hope this guide helped you learn how to highlight text in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to customize colors in WordPress to make your website more aesthetically pleasing and our comparison of the best email marketing services to grow your traffic.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Highlight Text in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide) first appeared on WPBeginner.