Every business wants to know what their customers think about them. That too not just for vanity. It’s actually an actionable customer metric that tells you what’s right and what’s not with your business. The best way to find out how your customers perceive your business is through customer feedback surveys. Even though feedback surveys […]
The post Create a Customer Feedback Survey for WordPress appeared first on WPExplorer.
Want to turn a $3K-$5K client into a $20K-$30K one? Luckily, as a WordPress developer, you can do so relatively easily. It’s about your approach, communication, and what to offer. This article covers some tips on negotiating a higher price for your services.
We’ll cover how to ensure you get paid what you are worth when negotiating a price or pursuing a potential project.
And by the end of this article, you’ll be able to see how to negotiate a low-paying project or client into – cha-ching! – $20K-$30K!
I can’t even imagine quoting $5-8k on a job. Those kinds of numbers really flares up the imposter syndrome in me something fierce.
Lawrence – WPMU DEV Member
Hopefully, this quick article will help any WordPress developer realize it IS possible to earn more (and eliminate any imposter syndrome). All the tips are tried and tested – based on common industry practices you can implement.
We’ll be going over:
So, let’s begin!
When you start working on a project with a new client, one way to eventually get to a much bigger payday is to actually offer a discount from the beginning.
You can make it clear that the rate you’re charging is discounted or an introductory rate. This ensures that they’ll know what they’re paying from the start is cheaper than usual, and you can raise the fees accordingly.
Show your value and what a deal they’re getting off the start. Also, make it clear that it WILL go up.
An example of this might be a simple web design for $3K with maintenance for three months. When they want to improve upon the design and want continued maintenance, charge accordingly (e.g. $10K and up) for design and maintenance.
Over time, with continued maintenance, this can easily exceed over $30K (and much more) instead of just a one-off simple web design.
Additionally, when you invoice, be sure to indicate what the normal fee is. That way, when the introductory period is over, there’s no sticker shock.
This offers the basis for negotiation on new work and flips the dynamic. Plus, since you started working with the client, there’s now a relationship. They’ll be less hesitant to pay more to someone they trust and work they like, and most importantly, understand the higher costs.
As just noted above, in demonstrating your value, you need to think long-term with your clients. Small, simple, and low-cost projects can eventually become major ones. Try not to look at a client as a one-off situation.
You can offer monthly maintenance packages after creating their WordPress site. Or, make suggestions to their current website that adds value for them (and ultimately for you, too).
Add-ons and additions to what they initially contacted for you is the point. Luckily, in WordPress, there are tons of opportunities. There aren’t many other jobs out there that have the road map to include more add-ons than web development.
Be sure to read our article about boosting your web development business with add-on services to get detailed information on including these in your workflow.
One way to get a client that originally wanted to pay $3K for a web design to pay $30K is to let them know your worth. Premium design deserves premium rates. Show them why you’re entitled to the costs.
It’s up to you to be clear on how these rates help the client compared to a cheap developer they’ll find on Fiverr for a fraction of the price.
Maybe it’s your experience – or your amazing web design skills. Whatever the case, demonstrate why your asking price is justified and even if it’s a stretch of the budget, serious clients will pay what you are worth.
A few ways to demonstrate value are with a good portfolio, reviews, or testimonials. Also, you can mention what the market is like, and the hours it will take to complete. Be sure to make it clear why you’re worth $150 an hour – or whatever premium rate you have set.
Research shows that the final price is typically closer to the original price than the second. So, though you might want the project and feel like setting lower costs might get a client to work with you, often it’s not going to benefit you in the long run.
They can always come back with a counter offer, but ensure you don’t dip too low beyond what is acceptable on your terms.
All of this can come after an initial lower offer to get started (like we touched on earlier). In general, this puts the ball in your court and lets your client know whether they can work with your budget.
In a nutshell, it’s your move first to name the price – before the potential client. This leads to your asking price becoming more attainable at the end of the day.
When it comes to reviews, testimonials, etc, obviously you’ll need some experience first before those roll in. It may take a while to build some credibility, but it has a snowball effect once you do. You can charge more and more for your services and justify every single penny.
And as you become more experienced, be sure to promote this. Let the client know of the benefits of your years of experience and how it works in their favor.
After all, experienced professionals get paid more – whether that be employment or on their own. Experience typically leads to a bigger paycheck.
Letting a client know about your experience is another way to get them to pay more and gives you leverage on why you charge what you do.
Clients want to know what they’re paying for and why it costs what it does, so back all costs up with facts.
You can include competitive rates from top-notch agencies, market rates, other negotiations with other clients, ROI based on your web design, testimonials (like we just mentioned) – anything that you can show as proof your services are worth what they are.
This will help justify paying more for any project and help put any client at ease knowing their money is going to good use.
Now that we have some essentials to negotiating a higher rate, here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind.
With ways to make money in the WordPress industry, negotiating a substantial rate is easier than you think when you keep these factors in mind.
As you can see, just a few approaches with your messaging, services, and negotiations can turn a $3K client into a $30K one. Even with little experience, you can get there relatively quickly by collecting testimonials, building your portfolio, and showing proof that you’re worth the costs.
For more, read our How To Offer Website Care & Maintenance Services To Your Web Development Clients article to build your web development business and increase your earnings.
With all of this in mind, getting paid $30K is just steps away.
Do you want to build an Etsy-like store with WordPress?
Etsy is an online marketplace for creative folks who want to sell handmade goods, artwork, and other unique items. However, Etsy can be a bit limited in terms of what you can do with your store.
In this article, we will show you how to create an Etsy-like store with WordPress, and how to properly move an existing Etsy store to WordPress.
Etsy is an online marketplace for creative folks. Usually, people use Etsy to sell handicrafts, custom designs, jewelry, clothing, and more. It has become a niche marketplace for such unique items.
However, as an eCommerce platform, Etsy is quite limited in terms of functionality. Plus, it also takes a significant portion of your earnings which reduces the profitability and long-term growth of your business.
On the other hand, WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder. It allows you to create almost any kind of website imaginable, including full-fledged eCommerce stores.
Using WooCommerce on your WordPress website you can sell anything online including handicrafts and other unique handmade items.
You can sell physical goods (that need shipping), as well as digital downloads (spreadsheets, software, music, worksheets, online courses, and memberships).
More importantly, WordPress doesn’t charge you a listing fee or a transaction fee on each item you sell.
Note that there are two different types of WordPress platforms.
WordPress.com which is a hosted platform and WordPress.org which is also called self-hosted WordPress. See the difference in our WordPress.com vs WordPress.org comparison.
Throughout this article, when we say WordPress, we are talking about the more popular, self-hosted WordPress.org platform. We recommend using WordPress.org because it gives you access to all WordPress features out of the box.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily create an Etsy-like store in WordPress. Here is a quick overview of the topics we’ll cover in this article.
Etsy and WordPress both enable you to sell products online but which one you should choose? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of both platforms.
Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of using Etsy to sell your products online.
Pros of Using Etsy
Cons of Using Etsy
WordPress is the best platform to build any kind of website. However, it has its own pros and cons that you would want to consider.
Pros of Using WordPress
Cons of Using WordPress
To learn more about WordPress, see our complete WordPress review with detailed pros and cons of the platform.
That being said let’s take a look at how to create an Etsy-like store with WordPress.
You’ll need the following things to build your own Etsy-like store with WordPress.
Ready? let’s get started.
Normally, a domain name will cost you $14.99 per year, website hosting $7.99 per month, and an SSL certificate around $69.99 per year.
This is a lot of money if you are just getting started.
Thankfully, the folks at Bluehost have agreed to offer WPBeginner users a free domain name + free SSL certificate, and a 60% discount on hosting.
They are also an officially recommended WordPress and WooCommerce hosting provider, and one of the largest hosting companies in the world.
Basically, you can get started for $2.75 / month.
Let’s go ahead and purchase your domain + hosting + SSL.
First, you need to visit the Bluehost website and click on the green ‘Get Started Now’ button.
On the next screen, select the plan that you need (basic and plus plans are the most popular among WPBeginner users).
After that, you will be asked to enter the domain name for your website.
Need help choosing a domain name? See our beginner’s guide on how to choose the perfect domain name for your website.
Lastly, you will need to add account information and finalize the package info to complete the process.
On this screen, you will see optional extras that you can purchase.
We don’t recommend purchasing these items because they will increase your hosting bill. You can always add them later if you think these are needed.
You can now go ahead and enter your payment information to complete the purchase.
After that, you will receive an email with instructions to log into your hosting control panel.
Bluehost will automatically install WordPress for you, and you will be able to log in to your WordPress site directly from the hosting dashboard.
Once logged in, you will see the WordPress admin area. This is where you will manage your online shop, change settings, and add new items.
Now that you have purchased hosting and installed WordPress, the next step is to turn your website into an online store like Etsy.
To do this, you need to install and activate the WooCommerce plugin on your website. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, click on ‘Run the setup wizard’ button to quickly set up your WooCommerce store.
The setup wizard will guide you through the basic setup.
During step 4, you need to switch to the ‘Free features’ tab and uncheck ‘Add recommended business features to my site’ feature.
This option installs additional plugins. You can always install these plugins later if needed.
Click on the continue button to select a theme and then finish the setup. Don’t worry, we’ll talk more about theme and store design options later in this article.
After setting up WooCommerce, let’s add a few items to sell on your online store.
Simply go to Products » Add New page to add your first item.
First, provide a title for your product and then a detailed description.
On the right-hand column, you can add product categories, tags, and images.
Below the description area, you will see the ‘Product Data’ box.
From here you can set product price, inventory, shipping, and other attributes.
Once you are satisfied with all the product information you have added, you can click on the ‘Publish’ button to make it live on your website.
Repeat the process to add more products as needed.
Do you already have an Etsy store that you want to move to WordPress? In this section, we will show you how to easily import your Etsy shop to WordPress.
First, you need to do is install and activate the Easy Esty Importer plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘Etsy Importer’ to your WordPress admin sidebar. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s settings page.
You will be asked to provide your license key. You can find this information under your account on the plugin’s website.
After activation, the settings page will ask you to provide the following information.
To get these API keys, you need to visit the Etsy Developers ‘Apps You’ve Made‘ website.
Once there, click on the ‘Create a new app’ link.
This will bring you to a new page where you will be asked to provide a name for your app.
You need to select that you are creating the app for yourself, and it will not be used for commercial purposes.
After that, click on ‘Read terms and create app’ button.
You will now see your app information page. From here you need to copy the ‘Keystring’ and ‘Shared Secret’ keys.
Now, switch back to the Easy Etsy Importer plugin’s settings page. After entering your API keys, click on the ‘Save & Verify’ button to continue.
This will take you to the Etsy website where you will be asked to allow access to the app. Click on the ‘Allow’ button to continue.
The plugin will now try to connect to your Etsy shop.
Once connected, it will show a success message.
Next, you need to switch to the settings tab.
The default settings will work for most websites, but you can still review and change them as needed.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Now you can move to the ‘Import’ tab. The plugin provides you options to selectively import items or import all listings.
The default settings will work for most websites, so you can just go ahead and click on the ‘Import’ button.
The plugin will now start importing your Etsy listings to WooCommerce. Once finished, you will see a success message, and you will be able to see the imported products under Products » All Products page.
Next, you can switch to the reviews tab to import your Etsy reviews to WooCommerce.
Congratulations, you have successfully imported your Etsy store listings to your WooCommerce website.
WordPress gives you access to thousands of free and paid website designs that you can use. These designs are called WordPress themes.
Each WordPress theme contains various template files to give your website a beautiful design.
You don’t need any coding or programming skills to use a theme, and each of them comes with different options that you can use to customize the design to your liking.
Due to such a large variety of WordPress themes available, often users feel overwhelmed by the choices. To make it easier, we have hand-picked the best WooCommerce WordPress themes that you can use on your website.
The list contains both free and paid WordPress themes and all of them are mobile-ready.
You may not find a theme that looks exactly like the Etsy website. However you can find a theme with the same design qualities and then use the theme’s settings to make it look more similar.
Need more help? See our beginner’s guide on how to choose the perfect WordPress theme for your website.
If you want to create a custom WordPress theme with drag & drop builder, then we recommend using the SeedProd plugin. We also have a detailed tutorial on how to create a custom WordPress theme with no code.
Unlike Etsy, you have full control of your WordPress store. You can modify it in any way you want with the help of thousands of WordPress plugins.
Plugins are like apps for your WordPress website. You can install them to add new features to your website like contact forms, Google Analytics, and more.
With more than 55,000 plugins, you can easily find a plugin for almost anything.
Here are some of the plugins that we use on all our websites.
There are also tons of plugins made specifically for WooCommerce. See our list of the best free WooCommerce plugins. You can also use drag & drop page builder plugins to further customize your website’s look and feel.
Now that you have a WordPress powered online store, you may want to expand your website by adding new features and growing your business.
WPBeginner is the largest free WordPress resource site in the world. We have tons of articles, videos, and step by step tutorials to help you take your website to the next level.
Here are some of the handy resources you will find on WPBeginner, all of them are completely free.
You can also use Google to find tutorials on WPBeginner. Simply add ‘wpbeginner’ next to your search term, and you will find answers to all your WordPress questions.
We hope this article helped you move away from Etsy and create an Etsy-like store with WordPress. You may also want to checkout our list of the must have WordPress plugins for business websites.
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 Create an Etsy-Like Store with WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to track link clicks and button clicks in WordPress?
Tracking links and button clicks help uncover how users interact with your website. You can use the insights to improve your website and plan your marketing and content strategies accordingly.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to easily track link clicks and button clicks in WordPress.
Links and buttons are two of the most common ways users interact with any website on the internet. These elements also lead website visitors to make purchases, sign up, and convert into customers.
Tracking how your users interact with different elements on your WordPress website helps you learn what’s working on your website. More importantly, it helps you understand what’s not working and needs improvement.
For instance, if users are not clicking on the ‘add to cart’ button in your online store, then you can investigate what’s stopping them from doing so. Another great example is your affiliate links. You can track which links your users click more often than others.
These insights can help you make data-driven decisions for the success of your business. Having said that, let’s look at how you can easily track links and button clicks in WordPress.
We have broken down this guide into the following sections, so you can easily follow along.
The best tool to collect marketing data on your website is Google Analytics. However, despite Google’s best efforts, many beginners and even experienced marketers find it a bit intimidating.
This is where MonsterInsights comes in. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress that allows you to properly set up Google Analytics and make the most out of it.
MonsterInsights goes beyond just adding a tracking script in the footer. It automatically adds proper event tracking to all links, buttons, cart areas, and more. Most importantly, it also shows you human-readable reports inside your WordPress dashboard.
MonsterInsights has a free version, but you’ll need at least the Pro plan to take full advantage of all the powerful tracking features it offers.
Setting up MonsterInsights is super easy.
First, you need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you’ll see the welcome screen and the setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button and follow the onscreen instructions to connect your website to Google Analytics.
If you need detailed instructions, then see our tutorial on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress, which will walk you through the entire setup.
The MonsterInsights setup wizard automatically configures all the right settings based on the type of your website and also lets you set up a Google Analytics 4 property. It truly is effortless.
For more information, please see our guide on how to switch to Google Analytics 4 in WordPress.
Once you have set up MonsterInsights, you can resume this tutorial. Now that everything is running, let’s start setting up click tracking.
A lot of web publishers use affiliate marketing to make money online.
As an affiliate marketer, you’ll need to learn how your affiliate links are doing. Obviously, you can track your affiliate earnings from third-party resources, but that does not give you an accurate picture of how users interact with your affiliate links.
Most affiliate marketers use a link-cloaking plugin like ThirstyAffiliates. This allows you to create shorter affiliate links and manage all your links inside WordPress. For example, https://www.example.com/refer/awesomeproduct/.
MonsterInsights makes it easy to set up affiliate link tracking in WordPress.
Simply go to Insights » Settings and switch to the ‘Publisher’ tab. From here, you can add your affiliate link’s unique path to start tracking.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Within a few hours, you will be able to see your affiliate link performance in your Publisher reports located under the Insights » Reports menu in WordPress.
Outbound links are links pointing to external websites. These could also be uncloaked affiliate links, links to your partner websites, or other websites you own.
MonsterInsights automatically tracks all clicks on those outgoing links. You can view them by visiting the Insights » Reports page under Publishers report.
Pro tip: If you see that you’re sending a lot of clicks to an external website, then you should contact them to work out a strategic partnership. This can be a sponsorship, cross-promotion, affiliate partnership, etc.
For more details, please see our guide on how to track outbound links in WordPress.
If you run an eCommerce business using WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, then you should track which products get the most clicks.
MonsterInsights comes with powerful eCommerce tracking features. Now it’s time to turn on eCommerce tracking on your website.
First, you need to visit your Google Analytics dashboard. From there, you need to switch to the Admin view.
Next, you need to click on the eCommerce settings option.
It will be located under the ‘View’ column.
After that, you will see the options to turn on eCommerce tracking and reporting in Google Analytics.
Go ahead and click the toggles for the ‘Enable Ecommerce’ and ‘Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting’ options.
Now that you have enabled eCommerce in Google Analytics, let’s enable the MonsterInsights eCommerce addon.
First, you need to go to the Insights » Addons page. From here, you need to install the ‘eCommerce’ addon for MonsterInsights.
After that, you need to head over to the Insights » Settings page and switch to the eCommerce tab.
From here, you can turn on enhanced eCommerce tracking. MonsterInsights will automatically detect your eCommerce plugin and turn it on for you.
That’s all you have successfully enabled eCommerce tracking on your website.
The best part is that MonsterInsights shows the performance of your online store in your WordPress dashboard. Simply go to Insights » Reports and switch to the ‘eCommerce’ tab.
On top, you’ll see an overview of your eCommerce conversions. Below, you will find your top referral sources, as well as the exact conversions and revenue for each source.
This information helps you learn which referral sources to maximize and which are not doing well.
You may want to see our step-by-step guide on how to properly set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress.
If you have a membership site that sells digital downloads or offers downloadable content on your website, then tracking file download buttons will help you find how users interact with those files.
MonsterInsights automatically tracks file downloads for common file types like documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, and zip files.
You can also add other file types that you may want to track. Simply go to the Insights » Settings page and then switch to the ‘Engagement’ tab.
From here, you’ll need to scroll down to the File Downloads section.
Here, you can add the file type extension you want to track.
You can view file download stats by visiting Insights » Reports and switching to the ‘Publisher’ tab.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Top Download Links’ report to see which files get the most downloads.
Forms play an important role in the success of any website. You use forms for an email newsletter, shopping cart, purchase and order forms, and all your contact forms.
It is crucial to understand how users interact with your forms, which forms get more conversions, and which forms are not getting enough attention.
Let’s start tracking forms in WordPress using MonsterInsights.
First, you need to head over to the Settings » Addons page. From here, install the ‘Forms’ addon.
Once enabled, MonsterInsights will automatically detect the forms on your website and start gathering interaction data. It works seamlessly with all popular WordPress form plugins like WPForms, Formidable Forms, Gravity Forms, and more.
To view your form reports, you need to go to the Insights » Reports page and switch to the ‘Forms’ tab.
For more details, please see our guide on how to set up WordPress form tracking in WordPress.
So far, we have discussed how to track links and button clicks across your website automatically. What if you wanted to track a specific link on your WordPress site and create custom reports?
Luckily, MonsterInsights makes this easy as well. It’s called a custom link attribution feature, and here is how you can add that to any link on your website. Simply add your link in the following format:
<a href="https://www.example.com" data-vars-ga-category="Call to action clicks" data-vars-ga-action="CTA link click" data-vars-ga-label="Homepage CTA clicks">My custom link</a>
This link contains three new link attributes:
To insert the link in your content, first head to the content editor by editing a post or a page. Next, you’ll need to click the 3 dots to view more options and then select the ‘Edit as HTML’ option.
This will change your text from the visual view to the HTML view.
Now go ahead and add your custom link. Once that is done, simply update or publish your page or post.
MonsterInsights will now start to track your custom links in Google Analytics.
You can find your custom link tracking report in Google Analytics by going to the Behavior » Events » Top Events section.
We hope this article helped you learn how to track link clicks and button clicks in WordPress. You may also want to see our complete guide on WordPress SEO and our comprehensive guide on how to increase your blog 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 Track Link Clicks and Button Clicks in WordPress (Easy Way) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to embed Facebook albums in WordPress?
Embedding Facebook albums is a great way to get more engagement on both your WordPress website and your Facebook page. It can also grow your social media following.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily embed Facebook albums in WordPress.
Showing albums on your WordPress website can make your pages more engaging.
As you add more photos to Facebook, they’ll appear on your site automatically, so it’s also a great way to keep your website fresh, even for regular visitors.
You can even use embedded albums to promote your Facebook page. If visitors see lots of interesting photos then they’ll want to follow you on Facebook. This can get you some extra followers and more engagement.
WordPress used to come with built-in embed support for Facebook albums. Just like you embed a YouTube video, you could simply copy and paste the URL of any Facebook album and WordPress would display that album automatically.
However, Facebook and Instagram have since made changes to their API. These changes make it impossible for WordPress to continue oEmbed support for Facebook and Instagram.
If you try to embed a link to an album, then WordPress will tell you that ‘Sorry, this content could not be embedded.’
Thankfully, there is a way to fix Facebook and Instagram embeds in WordPress using a plugin.
Let’s see how you can easily embed Facebook albums in WordPress, including how to show a specific album on any page or post.
The best way to embed Facebook albums in WordPress is by using the Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed plugin.
This plugin lets you show Facebook albums, comments, reviews, community posts and more on your site.
It also lets visitors take a closer look at your photos and images without having to visit Facebook, by opening a lightbox popup on your website.
In this guide, we’ll be using the pro version of Smash Balloon as it allows you to embed Facebook albums, display videos, show photos in a custom Facebook feed, and more. However, there’s also a free version that allows you to create a custom Facebook feed for WordPress, no matter what your budget.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you’ll need to go to Facebook Feed » Settings and enter your license key into the ‘License Key’ field.
You’ll find this information under your account on the Smash Balloon website.
After entering the key, click on the ‘Activate’ button.
Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed allows you to embed albums from your different Facebook pages and groups. You can even show the latest comments in a dropdown box below the photo, along with the like and shares.
To connect your Facebook page or group to WordPress, go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and then click on ‘Add New.’
Smash Balloon lets you show posts from your photo albums, timeline, events, and more.
To embed your Facebook albums, you’ll need to click on ‘Albums’ and then click on ‘Next.’
Now, you need to select the Facebook page or group where you’ll get the albums from.
To get started, click on ‘Add New.’
On the next screen, choose whether you want to show albums from a page or group.
After that, just click on ‘Connect to Facebook.’
This opens a popup where you can log into your Facebook account and choose the pages or groups where you want to embed albums from.
After making this decision, click on ‘Next.’
Once you’ve done that, Facebook will show all the information that Smash Balloon will have access to, and the actions it can perform.
To restrict Smash Balloon’s access to your Facebook account, just click any of the switches to turn it from ‘Yes’ to ‘No.’ Just be aware that this may affect the albums and photos that you can embed on your WordPress blog or website.
With that being said, we recommend leaving all the switches enabled.
When you’re ready, click on ‘Done.’
After a few moments, you should see a message confirming that you’ve connected your WordPress website to Facebook. With that done, it’s time to click on ‘OK.’
Smash Balloon will now take you back to the WordPress dashboard automatically.
You will now see a popup with the group or page you just linked to your website. Simply select the radio button next to your source and then click on the ‘Add’ button.
If you accidentally closed the popup, then don’t panic. You can simply refresh the tab to reopen the popup.
After that, WordPress will take you back to the Facebook Feed » All Feeds page automatically. Just like before, click on the ‘Add New’ button, select ‘Albums’ and then click on the ‘Next’ button.
Now, select your Facebook page or group, and click on ‘Next.’
On this screen, you can choose the template you’ll use as the starting point for your feed. All of these templates are fully customizable so you can fine-tune the design depending on how you want to show the Facebook albums on your website.
We’re using the ‘Default’ template, but you can choose any template you want.
With that done, click on the ‘Next’ button.
Smash Balloon will now go ahead and create an album feed based on your source and the template you’ve chosen. This is a good start, but you may want to fine-tune how the albums appear on your WordPress website.
The Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed plugin gives you lots of ways to customize how the albums are displayed. With that in mind, it’s worth seeing what changes you can make.
On the Facebook Feed » All Feeds screen, find your album feed and then click on its ‘Edit’ button, which looks like a small pencil.
This opens the Smash Ballon feed editor, which shows a preview of your Facebook albums to the right.
On the left-hand side, you’ll see all the different settings you can use to customize how these albums appear on your site. Most of these settings are self-explanatory, but we’ll quickly cover some key areas.
To start, you can change how the albums are displayed by clicking on ‘Feed Layout.’
On this screen, you can switch between different layouts, such as masonry and grid, and change the feed height. As you make changes, the preview will update automatically so you can try different settings to see what looks the best.
By default, the feed will show the same number of posts on desktop computers and mobile devices such as smartphones.
You can preview how your albums will look on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones using the row of buttons in the upper-right corner.
Mobile devices usually have smaller screens and less processing power, so you may want to show fewer albums on tablets and smartphones.
To do this, just type a different number into the ‘Mobile’ field under ‘Number of Posts.’
By trying out different layouts you can create a custom feed that looks great, no matter what device the visitor is using.
By default, the Facebook feed shows less columns on smartphones and tablets, compared to desktop computers. This helps all your albums and photos fit comfortably on smaller screens.
After testing the mobile version of your WordPress website, you may be unhappy with how the columns look on smartphones and tablets. If this is the case, then you can show fewer columns by changing the numbers in the ‘Columns’ section.
When you’re happy with the changes you’ve made, click on the ‘Customize’ link.
This will take you back to the main Smash Balloon editor, ready for you to explore the next settings screen, which is ‘Color Scheme.’
By default, Smash Balloon uses a color scheme inherited from your WordPress theme, but this screen allows you to switch to a ‘Light’ or ‘Dark’ look,
You can also create your own color scheme by selecting ‘Custom’ and then using the controls to change the background color, change the text color in WordPress, and more.
By default, Smash Balloon adds a header to your feed, which is your Facebook profile picture and the name of the page or group.
To change how this section looks, click on ‘Header’ in the left-hand menu.
On this screen, you can change the size of the header, its color, hide or show your Facebook profile picture, and more.
If you want to remove the header completely, then click to turn off the ‘Enable’ toggle.
By default, Smash Balloon shows the title of each album. If you want to hide the title, then select ‘Posts’ from the main Smash Balloon editor menu.
Then, click on ‘Post Style.’
Here, you can remove the album titles by clicking on the ‘Show album title’ slider.
This can be useful if your album titles distract attention away from the photos, or they don’t make sense when embedded on your website.
On this screen, you can also choose whether to show how many photos are in each album.
To add this number, simply click on the ‘Number of posts in album’ toggle.
By default, Smash Balloon doesn’t include the Facebook ‘like’ button in your feed. To get more Facebook followers, you may want to add this button by selecting ‘Like Box’ from the editor’s left-hand menu.
After that, simply click on the ‘Enable’ button so that it turns blue.
By default, Smash Balloon adds this button below your embedded photo albums, but you can change this by opening the ‘Position’ dropdown and choosing ‘Top.’
On this screen you can also change how the ‘like’ section looks including adding a custom call to action, showing how many people follow you on Facebook, and more.
When you’re happy with how the ‘like’ button looks, you can move on to the ‘Load More Button’ screen.
The Load More button encourages visitors to scroll through more of your Facebook feed, so Smash Balloon adds it to your embedded photo albums by default.
Since it’s such an important button, you can help Load More stand out by changing its background color, text color, and label.
Another option is to remove the button completely, by clicking the ‘Enable’ toggle.
By default, Smash Balloon allows visitors to look through your Facebook albums without leaving your website.
They can simply click on any album to open a lightbox, as you can see in the following image.
The visitor can then use the arrows to scroll through the album.
If they want to like a photo, leave a comment, or share the image with their Facebook friends, then they can click on the ‘View on Facebook’ link.
There are a few different ways that you can customize the default lightbox.
To see your options, click on ‘Lightbox’ in the left-hand menu.
Here, you can change the color of the lightbox’s text, links, and background colors.
The lightbox feature makes it easy for people to engage with your photos, but it also allows people to scroll through your albums without visiting your Facebook page. If you want to get more visitors to your Facebook page then you can disable the lightbox feature by clicking on the ‘Enable’ toggle.
Now, if a visitor clicks on an album they will be redirected to your Facebook page in a new tab.
When you’re happy with how the photo albums look, don’t forget to click on ‘Save’ to store your changes.
You’re now ready to add these albums to your WordPress website.
You can add your Facebook albums to WordPress using a block, widget, or shortcode.
If you’ve created more than one feed using Smash Balloon, then you’ll need to know the feed’s code if you’re going to use a block or widget.
Simply go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and then look at the feed="" part of the shortcode. You’ll need to add this code to the block or widget, so make a note of it.
In the following image, we’ll need to use feed="4".
If you want to embed your Facebook albums in a page or post, then you’ll typically use the Custom Facebook Feed block.
Simply open the page or post where you want to embed your albums. Then, click on the ‘+’ icon to add a new block and start typing ‘Custom Facebook Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to your page or post.
The block will show one of your Smash Balloon feeds by default. If you want to use a different feed instead, then simply find ‘Shortcode Settings’ in the right-hand menu.
You can now add the feed="" code to this box. After that, click on ‘Apply Changes.’
The block will now show the albums from your Facebook page or group. Just publish or update the page to make the albums live on your website.
Another option is to add the feed to any widget-ready area, such as the sidebar or similar section. This allows visitors to see your Facebook photos from any page of your site.
Simply go to Appearance » Widgets in the WordPress dashboard and then click on the blue ‘+’ button.
Once you’ve done that, find the Custom Facebook Feed widget.
Then, just drag it onto the area where you want to show the feed.
The widget will show one of the feeds you created using Smash Balloon.
To show a different feed instead, type the feed’s code into the ‘Shortcode Settings’ box and then click on ‘Apply Changes.’
You can now click on the ‘Update’ button to make the widget live. For more information, please see our step by step guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
Finally, you can embed your albums on any page, post, or widget-ready are using shortcode.
Simply go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and copy the code in the ‘Shortcode’ column. You can now add this code to your site.
For more information, please see our detailed guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
Smash Balloon also allows you to embed a specific Facebook album anywhere on your WordPress site. This allows you to show your latest or best album to visitors, or to display an album that’s relevant to the rest of the page’s content.
To embed a particular Facebook album, you’ll need to buy and install the Album extension by going to Facebook Feed » Extensions.
Here, find the ‘Album’ extension and click on its ‘Add’ button.
This will open the Smash Ballon website in a new tab, with instructions on how to purchase the extension.
Once you have the extension, you can install it in exactly the same way you install a plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After activating the plugin, go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and click on ‘Add New.’
Under ‘Advanced Feed Types,’ select ‘Single Album’ and then click ‘Next.’
You can now choose the page or group that you want to use as your source, and choose a template by following the same process described above.
On the next page, you’ll need to enter the ID of the album that you want to embed.
In a new tab, simply open the Facebook album that you want to display.
You can now copy the numbers after the = symbol, and inbetween the first two periods. For example, in the following image we need to copy 447443907512397.
You can now paste these numbers into the WordPress dashboard.
After that, click on ‘Next’ and Smash Balloon will fetch the album.
After that, you can style the album and add it to your site following the same process described above.
We hope this article helped you learn how to embed Facebook albums in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to create a custom Instagram photo feed in WordPress, and how to create an email newsletter to connect with your visitors after they leave your website.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Embed Facebook Albums in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to use AI (artificial intelligence) to write content in WordPress?
Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT and GPT3 can produce well-researched content in natural language. Many users want to explore it to see if it can help with writing content.
In this article, we’ll talk about how to write content using artificial intelligence like ChatGPT and GPT3 in WordPress as well as the pros and cons of it.
ChatGPT is a computer program that uses artificial intelligence to have conversations in a chatbot-like interaction environment.
GPT3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3) is a similar artificial intelligence based computer program that is designed to be more generic and broader than ChatGPT.
Both programs use a type of machine learning called Natural Language Processing that allows them to understand and respond to user input.
In simpler words, they learn by going through vast amounts of information publicly available, so they can answer your questions in a well-thought out manner.
You can visit the OpenAI website and try both tools for free. Following are a few examples of what it can do.
Example 1:
You can provide more details in your prompt to adjust the response according to your given parameters.
For instance, here we asked it to write an essay about black holes at a 6th grade reading level, using simple words, and keeping the response between 600-800 words.
This is how it responded.
Example 2:
ChatGPT can also write code, poetry, music, explain mathematical equations, and more.
ChatGPT and GPT3 are really good at providing detailed responses that are very well written. This leads many users to believe that it can be used to write content for their websites or be used as an autoblogging tool.
However, before you put it to the test on your actual website, the following are a few things that you need to be mindful of.
1. Accuracy of Information
The information provided by ChatGPT could be outdated or sometimes even false. It’s critical that you double-check all the information included in the article.
2. No Recent Events Are Considered
ChatGPT is trained on resources up to the year 2021, so it has limited knowledge of events after that. This may get fixed soon, but if the content you want to generate is time sensitive, then keep this in mind.
3. Doesn’t Give Strong Opinions
ChatGPT is trained to be impartial and unbiased. Unlike a human writer, it lacks the creativity required to argue for a particular opinion, be passionate, and have preferences.
ChatGPT AI can generate content in a web-friendly format. However, it does not specifically follow any SEO best practices.
Researchers at Google have worked for years to detect content generated by artificial intelligence tools. In the past, they have penalized them for being low quality.
We feel that artificial intelligence tools like GPT3 can be used as writing assistants rather than full writers.
For instance, GPT AI can be used to create an article outline, gather information, and pick up some key research points.
After that, a human writer can work on it to make it more comprehensive, opinionated, factual, and SEO-friendly.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to use ChatGPT AI to create content in WordPress.
First, you need to install and activate the GPT3 AI Content Writer plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to click on the GPT3 AI Content Generator menu from the admin sidebar to view plugin’s settings page.
From here, you need to provide an API key. You can get one by creating a free account on the OpenAI website.
After copying and pasting your API key, don’t forget to click on the Save button to store your plugin settings.
Other default options would work for most users but you can review and change them if needed.
For instance, you may want to change the image size generated by the AI or leave it blank if you would want to generate AI images by yourself or add other images.
Now you are ready to start generating AI content.
Simply create a new post or page, and you will find the GPT 3 Content Generator settings below the text editor.
First, you need to choose a language for your article.
Currently, the plugin supports English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Dutch, Indonesian, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Romanian, Greek, Czech, Bulgarian, Swedish and Hungarian.
Below that, you can provide a title for your article. The Pro version of the plugin also allows you to add or exclude keywords.
After that, you can set the number of headings you want to include in your article and which heading tag to be used.
Next, you can choose a writing style and tone for your article. For example, you can choose an informative writing style with a casual writing tone.
Below that, you can add an anchor text and set a link. However, we’ll recommend that you manually enter internal links when you are editing the article.
The plugin also allows you to add a call to action and choose position where you want to display it.
Finally, click on the Generate button to start generating content.
The plugin will then begin generating content using artificial intelligence.
It may take a while depending on your settings and the topic of your article. Once finished, you will see the generated text in the box.
From here, you can simply click on the Save Draft button. The plugin will then load the text inside the WordPress editor wrapped in the Classic block.
This will allow you to edit the text using the block editor. You can convert the text inside the Classic block into regular blocks and start editing.
GPT3 AI content generator will write a comprehensive article covering different aspects of the topic you choose as your article title.
However, it is far from perfect.
It can be easily identified by search engines as AI generated content, and you could get penalized and lose your search rankings.
We recommend only using GPT3 AI content for research and quick outlines. Once you have an outline, you can then thoroughly review, fact check, and edit it by yourself to expand the article further.
Following are a few things you can do to make the article unique and in your own voice:
1. Check All Information for Accuracy
Depending on your topic, GPT3 can make mistakes and may sometimes include information that is incorrect.
2. Create and Use Your Own Images
GPT3 AI Content Generator can generate images using artificial intelligence. However, for most topics these images they do not look very good. Here’s an example image that it generated for us.
Create images for blog posts as you would normally do for any article that you write.
3. Add Internal and External Links as Needed
GPT3 AI doesn’t know which articles on your website are related to the topic and it cannot automatically generate internal links.
You need to manually add internal and external links to provide more context and make your article more user-friendly.
4. Use Table of Content, FAQs, and Lists
GPT3 is a text generator and does not concern itself with formatting to make the reading experience better.
You need to manually add any table of contents, lists, and FAQs needed make your content more user-friendly.
5. Personalize the article with your expertise & knowledge
As AI-content gain in popularity, it will become more critical for authors to add their own voice, expertise, and experiences. This differentiator will play an important role in determining authentic content vs not.
It’s important to personalize the article with your experience and make it more coherent, so it’s user-focused.
6. Optimize Content for SEO
By default, GPT3 generates easy to read text. However, this text is not exactly optimized for on-page SEO.
You need to optimize your content with All in One SEO for WordPress. It is the best WordPress SEO toolkit on the market.
It allows you to easily check your content for SEO, add SEO title and description, social media images, and schema markup.
For more details, see our tutorial on how to optimize a blog post for SEO.
This is just the beginning, and there will be many other tools that will come to the market in the coming months and years.
If you don’t want to use an AI content plugin for WordPress, then you can directly go to ChatGPT website and write the prompts there to experience the technology for yourself.
We hope this article helped you learn how to write content using AI in WordPress. You may also want to see our pick of the most useful WordPress plugins, or see our complete WordPress SEO handbook to grow traffic on your website.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Write Content Using AI Content Generator in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
Most clients are great to work with. However, beware! Lurking in the shadows can sometimes emerge an unsavory client that is difficult, demanding, unreliable – downright scary.
This article covers 10 different types of clients you may want to avoid.
As a WordPress developer, new business is typically a good thing. After all, potential clients are what you want if your goal is to grow. But sometimes, the payday for a project from a client might not be worth it if you go through hell to work with them.
Luckily, there are some warning signs you can look out for regarding these terrifying clients and also ways to manage them. Plus, if you run across one of these monsters, there’s a lot you can learn from the experience.
This being said, you’re probably familiar with these types of clients. They’re the ones that don’t make life easy for you when all you want to do is your job.
For example, they’re the “can you get this done tomorrow, and I’m not paying you more for your speedy delivery†type. Or, the “I texted you an hour ago, and you haven’t responded!†client.
We’ll break down a few indications of “monsters†to be on the lookout for, so you might think twice before losing sleep after agreeing to develop a WordPress site for the boogeyman.
This article will cover the 10 terrifying clients, including:
Plus…
Tips When it Comes to Terrifying Clients
Frightened yet? Let’s begin!
If potential clients start talking negatively about other developers or services they have hired, some red flags should go up. It’s an indicator that this client will be hard to please and that they may turn their negativity on to you, too.
And having a bad-talking client can lead to awful reviews and a bad reputation.
One thing you can do is ask what happened in the past and determine whether their talking points are valid or not. After all, there can be some bad experiences that have left the client to be upset with past developers. Try to find out why and if they had a right to talk negatively about them after what happened.
If they’re talking negatively about a previous developer because of costs, quality of work, or something that might just be an opinion of theirs and not based on facts, then beware. Every story has two sides, and they may turn on you quicker than a werewolf during a full moon.
While it’s okay for a client to communicate via email 24/7 (after all, in this business, clients are worldwide and in different time zones), it’s not okay for them to expect you to get back to them immediately (unless you are okay with it).
Responses can take time. Sure, you want to get back to your client promptly, but they can’t expect you to get back instantaneously.
The worst-case scenario is if they text and expect responses around the clock. Yikes!
You probably work hours that you set (or your agency implements), so ensure that your client is aware of this. You can mention that emails are responded to within two business days, not on weekends. Also, if they have your direct number, make clear that phone calls and texts are not answered outside 9-5 in your time zone.
It’s up to you to decide your hours, but feeling like you’re on the clock 24/7 is a nightmare. Make sure you lay out your guidelines before working with a client. After doing this, if a client expects you to be on beck and call – it might be time to cut them loose, and they can call upon someone else.
If there is a scenario for this, it might be a tight deadline or something urgent. It’s up to you to allow 24/7 calls; if you do, be sure to upcharge accordingly.
“Can you add a bigger logo? Wait… it’s too big. Can you change it back? Now, can you put the logo at the bottom of the page? Actually, move it in the middle.â€
From the depths of hell comes the Rabid Revisioner. A client that wants constant revisions and also doesn’t want to pay you for them.
Normally, these are the type of clients that feel like they know what’s best for the project, despite your expertise.
The best way to avoid the catastrophe is to lay the groundwork before getting started. Make sure you and the client are on the same page. Ask many questions and make sure it’s clear for both of you – in writing.
Also, define how many revisions you’ll do when signing on with a new client. That way, they know that there are no “unlimited†revisions and will be satisfied with the results.
When a new (or existing) client wants special treatment, that’s a situation to avoid. This client wants you to perform tasks outside your norm, wants special discounts, and expects you to accommodate them at every level – which can be tormenting.
Of course, it’s important to treat clients special – because they are! But this is about the ones that go way beyond that…
With your WordPress development business, you have criteria and specifications for what you do. Of course, you can say “no†to all these requests (and it’s important to do). Be careful, though: this can lead to bad reviews. Just be courteous and mention that you stick to the book.
If you have the resources, you can also help them by referring specific tasks to someone else if it’s something out of your wheelhouse.
As mentioned before, this is why it’s important to state all that you will be doing and can do before starting work. It will help deter this type of behavior.
As we just touched on with The Treatment Tormenter, it’s important to lay out what you will perform with the client. The best way to do this is in the form of a contract that breaks down each party’s responsibilities.
For you, it details the project’s scope, timeline, costs, etc. For the client, it lays out the payment plans, how to communicate, etc – all in one spot.
Getting a client that doesn’t want to sign a contract is a huge warning sign. Basically, they’re not abiding by the agreement, and it can become hearsay on what was supposed to be included in the job.
It’s okay to negotiate a contract, make tweaks, and more. It’s NOT okay to not want to sign anything once the guidelines have been established.
A client that doesn’t want to sign a contract is best to avoid. It’s a bad sign of other things to come and can be a mess when completing a WordPress project – which is the stuff of nightmares.
A good indicator of whether to work with a potential client is their initial communication. Is their email full of typos? Do they not respond to messages? Can they not answer basic questions?
Good communication is key to completing a project to the best of your ability and a client’s standards. Without it, there can be delays, wrong designs, unclear texts on the homepage – you name it!
The good news is that you can quickly determine how good a communicator is from their initial contact. Is the message unclear on what they want to be done immediately? That might be a good reason not to take on the project.
Another good test can be arranging a Zoom meeting and seeing how well they are in person. Some people do communicate better than others face-to-face rather than by email. It might work if it’s okay with you to talk in person rather than by message.
In general, it’s a team effort regarding WordPress development. Sure, you’re the expert, but it takes good communication to get the job done right.
The Lateness Monster can put you in the perils of debt. It can cause you to be late on rent or scrambling to pay that electricity bill.
This is the client type that doesn’t pay on time. Payments are still delayed even when you give them ample time (60-day invoice, anyone).
Having delayed payments can put you in a financial crunch, so it’s best to drop a client that is habitually late with their payment. Not only is it hard financially for you, but it’s also inconsiderate.
A good client knows that you depend on income, and they need to comply and pay on time.
This client type believes you charge too much, doesn’t think your service is worth it, and wants to negotiate waaaay down below your worth.
Speaking of worth, this client isn’t worth your time. They’ll continue to lowball you, and if you get them to pay what you want, they’ll probably be disappointed and upset that they paid so much.
The reality is that your prices may be high to them, and it’s outside their budget. If that’s the case, you’re probably not a good fit as a developer for this specific client – and that’s okay. You can always recommend some budget-friendly resources (Fiverr is a good example), but you can also let them know that you get what you pay for.
You have probably heard it before, but you can’t please everyone. Not everyone will be satisfied no matter how much you bend backward for someone. Or, maybe you actually did mess something up, and it needs to be fixed.
Instead of them coming to you for a solution to improve things, sometimes they’ll just trash your reputation on review sites or elsewhere.
Getting publicly smeared is never pleasant. If this hellish scenario happens, comment on forums and let readers know your perspective.
Or, if there’s a way to get with the client smearing you and offering to make it right so they can take down the negative review, that’s even better.
On the opposite side of this, if you have an unpleasant experience with a client, be careful not to shame them publicly. It can hurt your reputation as a developer just as much as a client can.
There’s nothing like getting the life sucked out of you by a Demanding Dracula. These are the types of clients that are demanding and have unrealistic expectations.
You may be expected to drop everything else you’re doing to focus solely on them and the project you’re working on.
To avoid this, on a contract, you give guidelines on your hours, responsibilities, and what the project consists of. If they start acting this way, you can refer them back to the original agreement.
Now that we’ve covered some spooky individuals, here’s some…
As you can see, working with any of these 10 terrifying client types can be a nightmare. There are tips included in each category above on how to avoid each situation, but to help you out further, here’s a few more:
These simple tips can help you avoid or handle terrifying well. The last point is especially important: you can move on from a bad client and learn from them. That’s how you avoid working with a particular client type in the future.
Now that we’ve covered these terrifying clients, you can rest easy knowing there’s nothing to be afraid of. Unlike a monster under your bed, scary clients can be real. However, there’s nothing to worry about if you handle them a certain way or avoid them in the first place.
It’s all part of being a web developer. Not every client and circumstance is the same. But as frightening as that is, you don’t have to spend all your time with a bad client and have them haunt you for the rest of your career.
Just remember that they are out there in the shadows looking for their next developer, so beware, avoid, or handle them accordingly. And try not to lose any sleep over it.
Are you looking to add a Hubspot form and add it to your WordPress site?
HubSpot is a popular all-in-one marketing platform designed to help grow your business used by over 113,925 people across the globe. Hubspot also enables you to create engaging forms for your website.
In this article, we will show you how to create a HubSpot in WordPress.
Hubspot is a marketing and sales platform that helps companies grow. It comes with numerous tools including a customer relationship manager (CRM), a content management system (CMS), built-in email marketing, and lead generation.
They also have a robust WordPress form builder, which seamlessly integrates with WordPress, allowing you to create hassle-free forms.
This form builder is an easy drag-and-drop builder that enables you to create interactive forms without a single line of code, making it one of the best contact form plugins.
Also keep in mind that HubSpot can also easily integrate with other form tools like WPForms, Formidable Forms, and more. With that being said, let’s see how you can create a HubSpot form in WordPress.
You can easily create a HubSpot form for your WordPress website using the HubSpot plugin.
First, you need to install and activate the HubSpot plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item WordPress admin sidebar. Just click on HubSpot to be taken to the setup wizard where you can create a HubSpot account if you don’t already have one.
If you have an account, you need to click on the ‘Sign in here’ link at the top.
This will open up a ‘HubSpot Login’ popup.
Simply type your username and password and then click the ‘Login’ button.
After you’ve logged in, HubSpot will ask if you want to continue with the account you’ve just logged in with.
Simply click the ‘Continue With This Account’ button.
Then you’ll be asked to connect your HubSpot account with your WordPress website.
Just click on the ‘Connect Website’ button.
Once you’ve connected the WordPress website with your HubSpot account, head over to HubSpot » Forms from the WordPress admin dashboard.
This will take you to the ‘Forms’ page. Now, simply click on the ‘Create a Free Form’ button at the top right corner.
Next, you’ll have to select your form type and then click the ‘Next’ button on the top.
For this tutorial, we will be creating an ‘Embedded form.’
After that, you’ll be taken to the HubSpot template library.
Simply choose your preferred template, such as ‘Registration’ or Contact us.’ Then, just click the ‘Start’ button at the top.
Now that you’re on the Form Editor, you can edit the pre-made form template by dragging and dropping fields from the left into the preview at the right.
When you’re done customizing, click the ‘Submit’ button at the top.
This will open up a ‘Review And Publish’ popup.
Simply scroll down and click the ‘Publish’ button.
After you click the ‘Publish’ button, a popup will appear on your screen. As this is an Embedded form, a shortcode will be provided.
Now, just click the ‘Copy’ button beside the shortcode.
You can embed this code on any page where you want to add your HubSpot form. For more information, check out our guide on how to add shortcodes in WordPress.
You can also create a HubSpot form using WPForms as this plugin comes with a HubSpot integration addon. WPForms is the most popular drag & drop WordPress form builder with over 5 million active installs.
Note that you need at least a WPForms Elite license to access the HubSpot addon.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin. Check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for details.
Upon activation, go to WPForms » Addons from the admin dashboard. This will take you to the ‘WPForms Addons’ page.
Simply locate the HubSpot addon and click the ‘Upgrade Now’ button.
This will take you to your ‘WPForms Account’ page. Here, simply scroll down to the ‘HubSpot Addon’ and click the download button.
After that, you can install and activate the HubSpot addon the same way that you installed and activated the plugin.
Next, go to WPForms » Settings from the WordPress dashboard. Then, head over to the ‘Integrations’ tab.
Here you will find HubSpot in the list of integrations. Just click the arrow icon to expand the section, and then you can click the ‘Add New Account’ button.
A prompt will open up, asking you to connect with your HubSpot account. Simply type your HubSpot account login credentials.
If you don’t already have an account, then you can create one here.
Next, you’ll be asked if you want to continue with this account.
Simply click the ‘Continue With This Account’ button.
After that, you’ll be shown a popup asking you to connect WPForms with Hubspot.
Click on the ‘Connect App’ button at the bottom of the page.
On your WordPress dashboard, return to the ‘Integrations’ screen.
You should now see ‘Connected’ beside the section for HubSpot.
Now go to WPForms » Add New from the dashboard to create your HubSpot form.
First, select a form template from the WPForms template library.
After selecting the template, you’ll be taken to the WPForms interface where you can edit the form template.
Now, click on the ‘Marketing’ option on the menu bar to the left. Simply select ‘HubSpot’ from the list of integrations.
A HubSpot popup will then appear on the screen. Simply click the ‘Add New Connection’ button at the top.
WPForms will now prompt you to enter a connection nickname.
You’re free to choose any name you like, as no one will see this but you. Just click the ‘OK’ button when you’re done.
WPForms will then ask you to select your HubSpot account and choose an action to perform. Simply choose your account from the ‘Select Account’ Field.
Then choose the ‘Create/Update Contact’ option from the ‘Action to Perform’ field.
After selecting this option, various new settings will appear within the form.
Fill in those fields accordingly.
Next, you’re ready to customize your form in the form builder.
Simply create drag and drop fields from the left-hand side into the live preview on the right.
You can add any information that you want to collect and organize in your HubSpot account.
Once satisfied, click the ‘Embed’ button present at the top of the form builder.
This will open the ‘Embed in a Page’ prompt.
If you want to embed your HubSpot form on a new page, click the ‘Create New Page’ option.
To embed a form on an existing page, click the ‘Select Existing Page’ option.
After that, simply choose the right page from the dropdown that appears.
Now click the ‘Let’s Go’ button.
You will automatically be directed to the page that you selected from the dropdown menu. The HubSpot form will already be embedded there.
Simply click the ‘Publish’ button at the top of the content editor to push your new form live.
That’s it! We hope you learned how to create a HubSpot form in WordPress. You may also want to check out our ultimate guide on SEO for beginners and our expert picks of the best multipurpose themes to create an engaging 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 Create a HubSpot Form in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
Are you looking to use Microsoft Clarity analytics on your WordPress website?
Microsoft Clarity is a free analytics tool that helps you analyze how users engage with your website with click tracking, scroll tracking, and heatmaps.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily install Microsoft Clarity in WordPress, step by step.
This is what we’ll cover in this tutorial:
Microsoft Clarity is a free analytics tool for websites. It helps you see the most popular pages on your website and how users click, scroll, and interact with those pages.
The most important feature of Microsoft Clarity is its data visualization. This includes click tracking, heatmap reports, session recordings, and more.
Heatmaps show a visual report of how users move their mouse, as well as where they click, select, and scroll.
Similarly, session recordings help you see how users view your content, where they spend more time, and what takes them away from your WordPress website.
This information helps you create a better user experience for your users, improve performance, and boost sales conversion.
Note: Microsoft warns that Clarity should not be used on sites that contain sensitive data including user health care, financial services, or government-related information.
Google Analytics is the best analytics solution on the market because it offers a lot of in-depth tracking features. Microsoft Clarity, on the other hand, focuses on the visualization of user interactions with heatmaps and session recordings.
Google Analytics helps you track almost anything on your website. It also has enhanced eCommerce tracking, conversion tracking, and detailed reports.
Microsoft Clarity is a newer platform, and it’s currently not an alternative to Google Analytics’ far superior features. However, you can use Microsoft Clarity alongside Google Analytics to unlock features like heatmaps and visitor session recordings because Google doesn’t offer those features yet.
Before Microsoft’s analytics feature, many website owners would use paid heatmap solutions like Hotjar or CrazyEgg alongside Google Analytics, but now you have a free alternative to those tools.
We recommend installing Google Analytics on all your websites. After that, you can follow our guide below to install Microsoft Clarity in WordPress.
They both work along quite well without affecting your website’s functionality.
It’s easy to add Microsoft Clarity to any website. You need to sign up for Microsoft Clarity and then add a tracking code to your website. We’ll take you through the process step by step.
First, head to the Microsoft Clarity website and click on the ‘Get Started’ button. You need a Microsoft, Facebook, or Google account to sign up.
After signing up, you will see the Clarity dashboard with a popup to add a new project.
Go ahead and enter a name for your project. You can use the name of your website to make it easily recognizable. Next, enter your website URL.
Once you’ve created your new project, you will be asked how you want to install Clarity. You should click the ‘Get tracking code’ option.
You will now see the tracking code that you need to add to your WordPress website. Simply click the ‘Copy to clipboard’ button.
Depending on the method you use to add this code to your WordPress site, you may need the complete tracking code, or just your project ID. You’ll find the project ID at the end of the tracking code, just before </script>. In the screenshot above, it is ‘ejbjp9k5ge’.
We recommend leaving this tab open or copying the code to a safe place. You will need it in the next step of this tutorial.
Now you need to add the Microsoft Clarity tracking code to your WordPress website in a way that makes it present on all pages. Luckily, there are a number of easy ways to make this happen without manually editing any WordPress files.
You can choose your preferred method from the following three.
Method 1: Adding Microsoft Clarity Code Using the Microsoft Clarity Plugin
The first thing you need to do is install the Microsoft Clarity plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit the Settings » Clarity page in WordPress admin. Here you need to paste the project ID. That’s the last item in your Clarity tracking code and will look something like ‘ejbjp9k5ge’.
Make sure you click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom to store your settings. Your WordPress site is now connected to Microsoft Clarity.
Method 2: Adding Microsoft Clarity Code Using WPCode
The safest and easiest way to add code to your website is WPCode, the best WordPress code snippets plugin. This plugin lets you add any script in your website’s header or footer right from your WordPress dashboard (no FTP or cPanel needed).
Once you have installed and activated the WPCode Free Plugin, you need to visit the Code Snippets » Header & Footer page. Once there, you should paste the entire Microsoft Clarity tracking code into the ‘Header’ field.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
The plugin will now automatically add the Microsoft Clarity analytics code to all pages of your WordPress site, so you can track website visitor activity on your website.
Method 3: Adding Microsoft Clarity Code Using All in One SEO
All in One SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website for search engines and social media platforms. We show you how to get the most out of it in our guide on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress correctly.
If you have All in One SEO installed on your website, then you can use it to add the Microsoft Clarity tracking code.
Simply head over to All in One SEO » General Settings » Webmaster Tools and click on the ‘Microsoft Clarity’ icon. A field will appear where you can paste your Clarity project ID. That’s the last item in your Clarity tracking code and will look something like ‘ejbjp9k5ge’.
Make sure you click the ‘Save Changes’ button afterward, and your WordPress site will be connected to Microsoft Clarity.
Pro Tip: If you’re using a WordPress caching plugin, then you need to clear your WordPress cache after you add the project ID or tracking code. This is important otherwise Microsoft will not be able to verify your site for a few hours.
Once you have installed the tracking code and cleared your WordPress cache, Microsoft will then start recording visitor session data.
However, it will likely take up to 2 hours before you can see any results in your Clarity account.
Using the Microsoft Clarity Dashboard
Simply log in to your Clarity account after a few hours, and you should be able to see the activity summary in your dashboard.
You can see useful insights like the percentage of sessions that have ‘dead clicks’. These are clicks that don’t go anywhere. For instance, users might be clicking on an image thinking that it’s a button or a link.
Another useful statistic is rage clicks when users rapidly click or tap in the same area. Paying close attention to these metrics can help you make your site more user-friendly.
The dashboard also shows you the number of ‘quick backs’. These occur when a user moves off a page and then very quickly comes back to it.
It also tracks excessive scrolling, when users scroll through a page more than expected. And like Google Analytics, Microsoft makes it easy to see the most popular pages on your site.
Using Microsoft Clarity Recordings
The ‘Recordings’ tab shows you recordings of different user sessions. You get the details of the user’s device, operating system, and country.
Clarity also tells you the number of pages they visited, the duration and time of their session, and the number of clicks they made.
The recordings let you watch an animation of mouse movements and clicks. In the screenshot above, you can see a user moved their mouse to the November archives link and clicked it.
Using Microsoft Clarity Heatmaps
The ‘Heatmaps’ tab shows you a heatmap of your website. These help you see which sections are popular on your site based on the number of people clicking.
The heatmap will also show you how far users scrolled down the page, and which areas on the page received the most clicks.
Microsoft Clarity is a new analytics tool with some neat features. While it’s no alternative to the powerful Google Analytics platform, it definitely offers some interesting features like free heatmap and session recording.
Often new website owners want to see heatmaps and session recordings, but they don’t have the budget to purchase premium solutions like HotJar or CrazyEgg. Well, now you can use Microsoft Clarity.
Using the heatmaps and session recordings, you should be able to optimize your website or online store experience to improve user experience and boost sales.
We hope this article helped you learn how to install Microsoft Clarity Analytics in WordPress. You may also want to see our comparison of the best WordPress page builders to create custom layouts without any code, and our pick of the best email marketing services to grow your business.
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 Install Microsoft Clarity Analytics in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to show your Facebook timeline posts in WordPress?
By adding your Facebook updates to WordPress, you can keep your site fresh and interesting while also encouraging visitors to follow you on Facebook.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily display your Facebook timeline in WordPress.
The easiest way to embed your Facebook timeline in WordPress is by using the Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed plugin.
This plugin lets you embed Facebook albums, comments, reviews, community posts, and more on your site.
For this guide, we’ll use Smash Balloon premium as it allows you to show photos and videos from your Facebook timeline.
Visitors can also scroll through your content in a lightbox popup, without ever leaving your website. However, there’s also a free version that allows you to show text and links from your timeline, no matter what your budget.
Upon activation, you’ll need to go to Facebook Feed » Settings and enter your license key into the ‘License Key’ field.
You’ll find this information under your account on the Smash Balloon website.
After entering the key, click on the ‘Activate’ button.
Next, you need to decide whether to display the timeline from a Facebook page or group timeline. We’re going to use a Facebook page but the steps will be largely the same for Facebook groups.
For a more detailed look at groups, please see our complete guide on how to embed a Facebook group feed in WordPress.
To connect your Facebook page or group to WordPress, go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and then click on ‘Add New.’
Smash Balloon lets you create different feeds to show your Facebook photo albums, events, timeline, and more.
Since we want to display our Facebook timeline in WordPress, you’ll need to click on ‘Timeline’ and then click on ‘Next.’
After that, you can choose the Facebook page or group that you want to add to your site.
Simply click on ‘Add New’ to get started.
On the next screen, choose whether you want to embed the timeline from a page or group.
After making this decision, go ahead and click on ‘Connect to Facebook.’
This opens a popup where you can log into your Facebook account and choose the pages or groups that you want to use.
After that, click on ‘Next.’
Once you’ve done that, Facebook will show all the information that Smash Balloon will have access to, and the actions it can perform on your Facebook page or group.
To restrict Smash Balloon’s access to your Facebook account, just click any of the switches to turn it from ‘Yes’ to ‘No.’ Just be aware that this may limit the Facebook content that appears on your WordPress blog or website.
With that in mind, you should leave all the switches enabled whenever possible.
Next, click on the ‘Done’ button.
After a few moments, you should see a message confirming that you’ve linked your WordPress website to Facebook. Now you’ve done that, it’s time to click on ‘OK.’
Smash Balloon will now take you back to the WordPress dashboard automatically.
At this point, you’ll see a popup with the group or page you just connected to WordPress.
Simply select the radio button next to this source and then click on the ‘Add’ button.
If you accidentally closed the popup, don’t worry. Simply refresh the tab to reopen the popup.
After that, WordPress will take you back to the Facebook Feed » All Feeds page automatically. Just like before, click on the ‘Add New’ button, select ‘Timeline’ and then click on the ‘Next’ button.
Now, select your Facebook page or group, and click on ‘Next.’
You can choose a template to use as the starting point for your embedded timeline. All of these templates are fully customizable so you can fine-tune the design depending on how you want to display the timeline on your WordPress website.
We’re using the ‘Default’ template, but you can choose any template you want. You can also change the template at a later date if you’re not happy with it.
When you’re ready, click on the ‘Next’ button.
Smash Balloon will now go ahead and create a timeline feed based on your template and your Facebook page or group. This is a good start, but you may want to fine-tune how the timeline looks on your WordPress site.
The Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed plugin gives you lots of ways to customize how the timeline appears on your site. With that in mind, let’s see the different changes you can make to your Facebook timeline.
On the Facebook Feed » All Feeds page, find your timeline feed and then click on its ‘Edit’ button, which looks like a small pencil.
This opens the Smash Balloon feed editor, which shows a preview of the Facebook group or page timeline to the right.
On the left-hand side, you’ll see all the settings you can use to change how the timeline looks. Most of these settings are self-explanatory, but we’ll quickly cover each area.
If you’re not happy with how the feed looks, then you can try a different template by clicking on the ‘Template’ menu option.
Then, select the ‘Change’ button.
After that, you can change how your posts are displayed by clicking on ‘Feed Layout.’
On this screen, you can switch between list and masonry layouts. As you make changes, the preview will update automatically so you can try different layouts to see what looks the best for your Facebook timeline.
You can also change the feed height, and the number of posts that Smash Balloon shows on desktop computers, smartphones, and tablets.
If you do change the number of posts, then you can preview how your feed will look on desktop computers and mobile devices using the row of buttons in the upper-right corner.
When testing the mobile version of your WordPress website, you may also want to change the number of columns that Smash Balloon shows on desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
For example, in the following image, we’re splitting the content into 4 columns on desktop, 3 columns on tablets, and 2 column on mobile devices. This can help your timeline fit comfortably on the screen, no matter what kind of device the visitor is using.
When you’re happy with the layout, click on the ‘Customize’ link.
This will take you back to the main Smash Balloon editor, so you can move on to the next menu option, which is ‘Color Scheme.’
By default, your timeline will use the same colors as your WordPress theme, but this screen also allows you to switch between ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’ layouts.
You can even create your own color scheme by selecting ‘Custom’ and then using the settings to change the background color, the link color, change the text color in WordPress, and more.
By default, Smash Balloon adds a header to your feed, which is your cover photo, profile picture, and the name of your Facebook page.
To change how this section looks, click on ‘Header’ in the left-hand menu.
On this screen, you can change the size of the header and color, hide or show your Facebook profile picture, and more.
You can also switch between the default ‘Visual’ header and a ‘Text’ header.
Want to remove the header completely? Then simply click on the ‘Enable’ toggle to turn it off.
After that, you can change how the individual posts look inside your group feed by selecting ‘Post Style’ from the left-hand menu.
On the next screen, you’ll have two different options.
To start, go ahead and click on ‘Post Style.’
On this screen, you can choose between a regular and boxed layout.
If you select ‘Boxed’ then you can create a colored background for each post. This can help your Facebook posts stand out from the rest of your website and may also make the text easier to read.
You can also make the border-radius larger to create curved corners, or you can add a shadow.
If you choose ‘Regular,’ then you can change the thickness and color of the line that separates your different social media posts.
You can also customize the individual parts within each post by going back to the main settings screen.
Once again, select ‘Post Style’ but this time choose ‘Edit Individual Elements’ instead.
On this screen, you’ll see all the different content that Smash Balloon includes in each timeline post, such as the post author, event title, shared link box, and more.
To remove a piece of content from your posts, simply click to uncheck its box.
You can also change the size and color of these individual elements. Simply click on the element’s name such as ‘Post Author’ or ‘Post Text.’
You can then use the settings to customize this content. For example, you might make the text bigger so that it stands out, or add a new color.
By default, Smash Balloon doesn’t include the Facebook ‘like’ button in your timeline. To grow your Facebook followers, you may want to add this button by selecting ‘Like Box’ from the editor’s left-hand menu.
After that, simply click on the ‘Enable’ button so that it turns blue.
By default, Smash Balloon adds this button below the timeline, but you can change this by opening the ‘Position’ dropdown and choosing ‘Top’ instead.
On this screen, you can also change how the ‘like’ section looks including adding a custom call to action, showing how many people follow you on Facebook, adding your page’s cover photo, and more.
When you’re happy with how the ‘like’ button looks, you can move on to the ‘Load More Button’ settings.
The ‘Load More’ button gives visitors an easy way to scroll through more of your Facebook timeline, so Smash Balloon adds it to the feed by default.
This is a good start, but since it’s such an important button you may want to help it stand out by changing its background color, hover state, and label.
You can also change the text that appears on the button, by typing into the ‘Text’ field.
If you prefer to remove the Load More button, then go ahead and click the ‘Enable’ toggle.
By default, Smash Balloon allows visitors to look through the photos and videos in your timeline without leaving your website.
The visitor can simply click on any photo or video to open a lightbox popup, as you can see in the following image.
The visitor can then use the arrows to scroll through all the photos and videos in your Facebook timeline.
If they want to like a photo, leave a comment, or share the image with their Facebook friends, then they can click on the ‘Comment on Facebook’ link.
This opens a new tab and takes the visitor directly to the post on your Facebook page.
There are a few different ways to customize Smash Balloon’s lightbox feature. To see your options, click on ‘Lightbox’ in the left-hand menu.
Here, you can change the color of the lightbox text, links, and background.
By default, the lightbox shows any comments that people have left on your photos and videos. If you prefer to hide these comments, then you can click the ‘Show Comments’ switch to turn it from blue (enabled) to grey (disabled).
The lightbox feature allows people to scroll through your photos and videos directly on your WordPress website.
However, you may prefer to encourage people to visit your Facebook page instead. In this case, you can disable the lightbox feature by clicking on the ‘Enable’ toggle.
Now, the visitor will need to click on the ‘View on Facebook’ link in order to take a closer look at any photo or video.
When you’re happy with how the Facebook timeline looks, don’t forget to click on ‘Save’ to store your changes.
You’re now ready to add the timeline to your website using a block, widget, or shortcode.
If you’ve created more than one feed using Smash Balloon, then you’ll need to know the feed’s code to add it to a block or widget.
Just go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and then look at the feed="" part of the shortcode. You’ll need to add this code to the block or widget, so make a note of it.
In the following image, we’ll need to use feed="2".
If you want to embed your Facebook timeline in a page or post, then we recommend using the ‘Custom Facebook Feed’ block.
Just open the page or post where you want to show your Facebook timeline. Then, click on the ‘+’ icon and start typing ‘Custom Facebook Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the page or post.
The block will show one of your Smash Balloon feeds by default. If this isn’t the feed you want to show, then simply find ‘Shortcode Settings’ in the right-hand menu.
You can now add the feed="" code to this box. After that, click on ‘Apply Changes.’
The block will now show the timeline from your Facebook page or group. Simply publish or update the page to make the timeline live on your website.
Alternatively, you can add the feed to any widget-ready area, such as the sidebar or similar section. This is an easy way to promote your Facebook page across your entire website.
Just go to Appearance » Widgets and then click on the ‘+’ button.
After that, find the Custom Facebook Feed widget.
Then, drag it onto the area where you want to show the Facebook timeline.
Just like the block, the Custom Facebook Feed widget will show one of the feeds you created using Smash Balloon.
To show a different feed, simply type that feed’s code into the ‘Shortcode Settings’ box and then click on ‘Apply Changes.’
You can now make the widget live by clicking on the ‘Update’ button. For more information, please see our step-by-step guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
Finally, you can embed the timeline on any page, post, or widget-ready area using a shortcode.
Simply go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and copy the code in the ‘Shortcode’ column. You can now add this code to your WordPress blog or website.
For a detailed walkthrough, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
Additionally, if you’re using a block theme, you can use the full-site editor to add the ‘Custom Facebook Feed’ anywhere on your site.
We hope this article helped you learn how to display your Facebook timeline in WordPress. You might also want to check out our guide on how to create a contact form in WordPress, or see our expert pick of the best Instagram WordPress plugins.
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 Your Facebook Timeline in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
