All posts by Editorial Staff

Why Can’t I Add or Install Plugins in WordPress?

22.01.2018unable to install plugins, WordPress PluginsEditorial Staff

One of the most common questions we are asked by WordPress beginners is: “Why can’t I add plugins in WordPress?”. It usually follows up with how the user is seeing an upgrade message or that their admin area doesn’t have the plugins menu. If you’re encountering this issue, then you’re in the right place. In this article, we will explain why you cannot add or install plugins in WordPress.

Why Can't I Add or Install Plugins in WordPress

1. You are On WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a blog hosting service that offers a limited version of the popular self-hosted WordPress software. See our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org for more details.

WordPress.com users cannot install plugins unless they upgrade to the business plan which costs about $299 per year. If you are on a free, personal, or premium plan, then you cannot install third-party plugins.

WordPress.com plugins

If you don’t want to pay the $299 per year, then you can move your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. If you need assistance in doing that, then use our free WordPress blog setup service (just make a note that you want us to transfer your site, and we will do it for free).

2. You are Facing Memory Limit Issue

The second most common scenario is that you can see and access the plugins menu but unable to install plugins.

The failure notice is usually caused by the PHP memory limit. There are settings in your WordPress hosting and inside your WordPress core that define the amount of memory a PHP script can use. When a process reaches this limit, it either gets terminated or it gives an error like this:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted

The quick fix to this problem is increasing your PHP memory limit. You can do that by adding this line to your wp-config.php file:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');

For more detailed instructions, see our guide on how to fix WordPress memory exhausted error.

3. User Role Restrictions

WordPress comes with a built-in user role management system. Sometimes web developers don’t give administrator access to their clients. Instead, they create an editor account for them.

Administrator vs Editor dashboard in WordPress

Only administrators can install and activate plugins on a WordPress site. If you are the owner of the website, then you need to ask your developer to make sure that you have administrator permissions.

4. You are on a Multi Site Network

Another possible reason as to why you can’t see the plugins menu in WordPress could be that your site is part of a WordPress multi-site network, and the network admin has disabled the plugins menu item on network sites.

Installing plugins on multisite network

It is pretty much the same scenario as WordPress.com. The network admins need to consider the server stability, WordPress security, and load balancing issues. To solve this problem, you can ask your network administrator to install plugins for you.

For more on this topic, see our guide on why do you not see all plugins on WordPress multisite installs

We hope this article helped you learn why you can’t add or install plugins in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of must have WordPress plugins for 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 Why Can’t I Add or Install Plugins in WordPress? appeared first on WPBeginner.

45 Best WooCommerce WordPress Themes

19.01.2018best woocommerce themes, best wordpress themes, Showcase, woocommerce wordpress themes, WordPress ThemesEditorial Staff

Are you looking for the best WooCommerce themes for your online store? Not all WordPress themes offer complete WooCommerce support and pre-styled templates. In this article, we will show you the best WooCommerce WordPress themes that you can use to build your eCommerce website.

Best WooCommerce WordPress themes

How to Build a WooCommerce WordPress Website

WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world, powering small and large ecommerce websites around the globe (see: Shopify vs WooCommerce).

It runs on top of WordPress, which is one of the most powerful website builders in the world. There are two types of WordPress websites, WordPress.com and WordPress.org (See our comparison of WordPress.com vs WordPress.org).

We recommend using WordPress.org, it gives you access to all WooCommerce features out of box and will help you take your store in any direction you want.

To get started, you will need a domain name, SSL certificate, and WooCommerce hosting account.

We recommend using Bluehost. They are one of the largest and officially recommended WooCommerce and WordPress hosting provider.

They have agreed to offer WPBeginner users free domain, free SSL, and discount on hosting. Basically, you can get started for $6.95 / month.

→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←

Once you have signed up for WooCommerce hosting, you can follow our step by step instructions in our guide on how to start an online store.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best WooCommerce WordPress themes that you can install on your website.

1. Shoppe

Shoppe is a highly customizable WooCommerce WordPress theme for online stores, ecommerce, fashion and lifestyle websites. It has powerful quick product search, ajax shopping cart, wishlist, quick look lightbox, product image zoom, and more.

It includes tons of layout and styling options which are all quite easy to use. It also comes with a drag and drop page builder that allows you to create your own layouts.

2. Løge

Løge is an elegant WooCommerce WordPress theme with a modern design and powerful ecommerce features. It offers different shop front layouts, adjustable product columns, and product filters.

Its beautiful typography and color schemes make your products popout. You can also create your own color schemes by changing theme colors. All options are quite easy to manage under live theme customizer.

3. Ultra

Ultra is an all-purpose WordPress theme with super-flexible options and gorgeous designs. It includes several read-made websites that can be installed with 1-click including an ecommerce website.

You just need to replace content with your own. It also has a drag and drop page builder to easily create your own layouts if needed. It includes features like pricing tables, multiple header styles, contact form, photo galleries, and more.

4. Neto

Neto is a modern WordPress theme for WooCommerce stores. It features an elegant homepage layout and storefront with a featured product slider on top. It includes several shortcodes and custom widgets and offers multiple ways to create different layouts for your store.

It has support for custom logo upload, unlimited colors, custom widgets for social media, and more. All theme options are neatly organized under live customizer.

5. Latest

Latest is an excellent WordPress theme for WooCommerce shops. It has a beautiful homepage layout that feature your products in front and center. It also includes separate blog page with 5 different layout choices.

You can add shop header to announce a sale or new product and use featured categories section to highlight your most popular product categories. Designed to work out of the box, it requires minimal tinkering by offering a straight-forward theme set up.

6. Storefront

Storefront is free WordPress WooCommerce theme. Designed and developed by WooCommerce core developers, it features a tight-knit integration with WooCommerce and popular WooCommerce extensions.

It includes several layout and color choices to customize your store. It has a demo data importer, live theme customizer support, and multiple widget ready areas to help you easily set up your WooCommerce shop. It also acts as the parent theme for several child themes created specifically by the folks behind WooCommerce.

7. Digital Pro

Digital Pro is another excellent WordPress theme for WooCommerce stores. Built on top of Genesis theme framework, it is highly optimized for WordPress speed and performance.

It includes pre-styled templates for WooCommerce stores, 3 widget areas, customizable header, and page templates. For theme set up it has a custom theme options page and live customizer support.

8. ProShop

ProShop is a child theme of WooCommerce Storefront theme. It features a stylish urban design which makes it a good fit for accessories, clothing, and sports stores.

It inherits all the features of its parents theme and some of its own as well. All theme options are accessible through live customizer and are quite easy to set up.

9. Hugo

Hugo is a beautifully designed WordPress WooCommerce theme for online stores of any kind. This highly customizable theme features a beautiful homepage layout with featured slider on top followed by your product sections.

It includes custom widgets for social media, contact info, and content discovery features. It is available in multiple color schemes and all theme options are easily customizable using live theme customizer.

10. Hotel

Hotel is another beautiful WooCommerce WordPress theme for hotels, bed & breakfasts, and hospitality service providers. Its modern homepage design features large header image with welcome message and a call to action button.

You will need WooBookings Bundle, which allows you to add bookable products like rooms, services, and more. Other notable features include custom sidebars, multiple widget ready areas, custom header, background, and more. It is easy to set up and simple to customize.

11. Lenscap

Lenscap is a magazine style WordPress theme with full WooCommerce support. Suitable for content rich websites that want to add an online store to their website.

It features a beautiful homepage layout with a customizable header showcasing your most prominent content and categories. It has templates for product pages with beautiful image galleries. It works out of the box and only includes options you’ll actually use.

12. Presence

Presence is a powerful all-purpose WordPress business theme. It includes several ready-made websites including an ecommerce store that you can install and customize for your needs.

It comes in 6 color schemes, multiple blog page layouts, 2 slider styles, full-width and boxed layouts, and more. Customizing it is quite easier with live theme customizer and custom theme settings page.

13. Highend

Highend is super-flexible WordPress theme for WooCommerce shops. It features a modern design with multiple layouts and styles to choose from or you can create your own with page builder plugin that comes free with the theme.

It includes unlimited colors, Google fonts, multiple sidebars, custom widgets, social media icons, and more. For theme setup it has 1-click demo importer to guide you. It is translation-ready and can also be used to create multilingual websites.

14. ToyShop

Toyshop is a WooCommerce WordPress theme made specifically for children’s stores, toy shops, flower shops, and other websites that need a fun and bright website. It is colorful, fun, and there is even an option to change the footer graphics to match the season.

It inherits all the features of its parent theme and adds some of its own. It features custom background, header image, color controls, and multi-column layouts for shop pages. It is extremely easy to set up and can be extended easily with companion extensions.

15. Indigo

Indigo is a modern and stylish WordPress WooCommerce theme built with a modular approach. It allows you to easily drag and drop modules to create any page layouts you need.

It comes packed with turnkey website designs that you can install with 1-click. Each design is fully customizable and includes beautiful shop templates. Notable features include contact form page, custom widgets, pricing tables, social media integration, and more.

16. Arcade

Arcade is a WooCommerce theme for online gaming stores, electronics, and game accessories stores. Inspired by top gaming websites, Arcade is designed to showcase a wide range of products on the frontpage in an easy to browse manner.

It is easy to extend with the help of Storefront Extensions Bundle which will allow you to add an extensive set of features to your theme, including mega menus, multi-column layouts, sticky cart, reviews, and more.

17. Creativo

If you are looking for a versatile and multi-purpose WooCommerce theme, then you should check out Creativo. This super-flexible WordPress themes comes with multiple turnkey websites with 1-click importer.

It includes beautiful shop templates, multiple styles and layouts, and ships with premium page builder and slider plugins to create your own layouts if needed. It has a powerful custom theme settings area for a complete guided setup.

18. eStore

eStore is another free WooCommerce theme for WordPress. It packs several premium-like features and custom widgets to create a highly professional and modern online store.

It is tested for compatibility with top WooCommerce extensions. All theme options are neatly organized and allow you to easily build an online store with minimum effort.

19. Amaryllis

Amaryllis is a uniquely designed WordPress theme for WooCommerce stores. Its modern homepage layout features a full screen background image followed by your product categories, popular products, and other sections of your website.

Its homepage is fully widgetized which allows you to drag and drop content widgets to set it up. It has 1-click demo importer, live customizer support, and tons of options to make it uniquely yours.

20. Idyllic

Idyllic is a beautifully designed free WooCommerce theme for WordPress. It includes several widget-ready areas and an easy to set up homepage layout. It includes full width page template, corporate, contact us, and other page templates to create your own landing pages.

It is easy to customize with all theme components neatly placed under customizer. It is translation ready and can also be used to create multilingual websites using Polylang.

21. Multishop

Multishop is a powerful WordPress theme for WooCommerce shops and online stores. It features a modern design with tons of flexible options for customization.

It includes ajax powered product filter, search auto autocomplete feature, unlimited colors, multiple sidebars, page templates and more. It ships with premium page builder and slider plugins as well.

22. Cupcake

Cupcake is a WooCommerce WordPress theme for bakeries and cafes. Its homepage features a slider followed by your products and other content areas. The header area contains your website logo, phone number, and buttons for search, wishlist, and shopping cart.

It includes WooCommerce elements to easily display featured, latest, and popular products. For product images it also includes lightbox popup. All theme options are easily customizable with a custom theme options page.

23. Hestia

Hestia is a popular free WordPress theme suitable for WooCommerce shops and online stores. It packs many of the features you’ll find in premium WordPress themes including tons of customization options.

It comes with unlimited colors, multiple layout options, highly-customizable header, social media icons, multiple navigation menus, and more. It is super easy to use and can be easily customized to give your store a unique look.

24. Altitude Pro

Altitude Pro is a very professional looking WordPress theme for WooCommerce shops. It is built on the rock solid base of the Genesis theme framework and features crisp typography and a spacious layout.

It includes 7 homepage widget areas to drag and drop sections to your homepage, customizable header, navigation menus, and multiple sidebars. For theme set up, it has a custom theme options page and support for live theme customizer.

25. Mesmerize

Mesmerize is another highly-flexible yet free WordPress theme for WooCommerce websites. It features a modern homepage layout which is easy to customize with simple drag and drop.

Notable features include pre-designed home page, 5 header designs and over 30 ready to use content sections that you can easily customize. Due to its flexibility, Mesmerize can be used to create any kind of website.

26. SolidBox

Solidbox is another excellent choice for a WooCommerce WordPress theme. It is designed to be flexible and can be easily adapted to create any kind of business website.

It includes multiple design choices, layouts, header styles, shortcodes, and more. It ships with premium page builder plugin and also supports multilingual plugins. Set up is easier with quick 1-click demo importer and custom theme options panel.

27. Spencer

Spencer is an elegantly designed WordPress theme for WooCommerce and business websites. It includes a flexible homepage layout with widget ready areas where you can drag and drop widgets.

It includes newsletter signup form, unlimited colors, multiple layouts, page builder support, and custom widgets for social media integration. It has a custom theme options panel and tons of customization options in customizer.

28. OceanWP

If you are looking for a powerful but free WordPress WooCommerce theme, then you’ll love OceanWP. This beautifully designed WordPress theme comes with premium-like features in a free companion plugin.

It has tons of customization options in live customizer where you can choose header styles, backgrounds, colors, navigation menus, and more. It works with all popular free page builder plugins and includes templates to create your own landing pages if needed.

29. Pepper+

Pepper+ is a beautifully designed multi-purpose WordPress theme perfect for WooCommerce shops and online stores. It comes with several ready to use websites that you can install with one click. All these designs are fully editable with simple point and click tools.

It takes a modular approach to design and includes modules for common website components. You can just drag and drop to add pricing tables, latest products, sliders, contact forms, Google Maps, and more.

30. Astra

Astra is a clean and free WordPress theme with full WooCommerce support and flexible customization options. It includes modern homepage layout with multiple widget ready areas to simply drag and drop content widgets.

It supports all popular page builder plugins to create custom WordPress page layouts. Theme set up is quite simple and beginner friendly.

31. The Styler

The Styler is a stylish WooCommerce WordPress theme for beauty salons, fashion, and accessories stores. It features a unique modern homepage layout which is fully widgetized and can be setup with simple drag and drop.

It also includes custom post types to easily include services, galleries, testimonials, price lists, and your staff profiles. It is beginner friendly and includes a theme settings page for easier set up.

32. MaxStore

MaxStore is another great free WooCommerce WordPress theme. Its homepage features a highly engaging layout that put your products at front and center.

It includes wishlist support, left / right sidebar, footer widget area, custom backgrounds, custom logo, info top bar, search bar, social icons and more.

33. Modules

Modules is a beautiful WordPress theme with full WooCommerce support. Built with a modular approach to design, it includes modules for common website building components that you can easily add anywhere in your website.

It ships with several turnkey designs that you can install with 1-click. It also includes portfolio, video background, Google fonts, icon fonts, and more. It is super easy to use and can be easily set up using theme settings page.

34. Seneca

If you are looking for a clean simple WooCommerce theme, then you should check out Seneca. It features a simple spacious design with lots of white space that puts your products into focus.

It includes a storefront template, separate blog page, product categories widget, and more. All theme options are available on theme settings page and it requires minimal effort to setup.

35. The Stylist

The Stylist is beautifully designed WordPress theme for WooCommerce shops and online stores. Its homepage features a boxed layout with a large slider at the top followed by your products and content sections.

It includes easy to manage sections to add services, team members, testimonials, social media icons, blog section, and more. It offers tons of customization options in live customizer and allows you to mix and match different styles and colors.

36. Outlaw

Outlaw is a creative WordPress WooCommerce theme suitable for all kind of shops and online stores. It features a clean and soft layout with lots of space and gorgeous typography.

It includes beautiful CSS animations, advanced product filter, multiple styles and layouts, translation ready, and more. It ships with 1-click installer, premium slider and page builder plugins.

37. Shop Isle

Shop Isle is an excellent free WordPress theme for WooCommerce shops. It features large product images on the homepage which allows you to grab customer attention upon arrival.

Other notable features include fullscreen image, parallax effects, live customizer support, blog section, and more. It works out of the box and all theme options are quite straightforward and simple.

38. Flevr

Flevr is a modern and stylish WooCommerce theme for online shops and stores. It features a fully widgetized homepage layout with a full screen slider on top followed by your featured products.

It comes with built-in sections to add testimonials, services, galleries, portfolio, and more. It includes custom widgets for social media and content discovery. It is quite easy to use and you can also use your favorite page builder plugin with it.

39. Flora

Flora is a WooCommerce WordPress theme designed specially with flower shops in mind. Its beautiful design and color scheme takes inspiration from flowers and uses combination of bold and soft colors throughout.

It includes smart shopping cart, mega menu, smart navigation, multiple header styles, sticky headers, and more. It is translation ready and compatible with multilingual plugins.

40. Flash

Need a professional looking but free WordPress theme for your WooCommerce store? Check out Flash. This beautiful multi-purpose WordPress theme is WooCommerce ready and comes with beautiful design.

It comes with a companion plugin that allows you to easily import demo content into your website. It also includes multiple blog layouts, page builder templates, multiple header styles, multiple color choices, and more.

41. Loft

Loft is a clean and simple WooCommerce theme for WordPress with powerful set of features and extensive customization options. Its homepage features an optional slider on top, followed by your products or content.

It includes two navigation menus and a sticky floating navigation menu on top. It is super-easy to use and includes a custom theme settings page as well as live theme customization support.

42. Bento

Bento is another excellent and free WordPress WooCommerce theme that offers the functionality and features rivaling premium themes. This super flexible WordPress theme features a modern homepage that is fully customizable using any page builder plugin.

It includes multiple layouts, unlimited colors, layouts for individual posts and pages, custom headers, advanced header styling for posts and pages, and more. It is easy to use and all theme options are managed under customizer with live preview.

43. Corner

Corner is a unique and stylish WordPress theme with full WooCommerce support. It features a narrow left sidebar and a wider content area with a minimalist approach to design.

It offers full color control, custom widgets for Twitter, Flickr, and content discovery widgets. It works out of the box and you will find it quite easy to set up with little effort.

44. Peak

Peak is a modern WooCommerce WordPress theme featuring beautiful tiled images at the top. Tiles are automatically generated by the theme you can also customize the tiles if you need. Below that it showcases your top products and featured content.

It includes portfolio post type, custom layouts, mega menu, slide-in widgets, and more. For easier set up it includes 1-click demo data importer, a custom theme settings panel, and a drag and drop builder.

45. Homestore

Homestore is a WooCommerce theme for home decor, household items, and department store websites. It features a clean spacious design that makes your products stand out.

It is super-flexible and designed to work effortlessly with minimum effort. It can be further extended with Storefront Extensions pack which adds awesome features like smart cart, product reviews, multi-column layouts, fonts, custom styling, and more.

We hope this article helped you find the best WooCommerce WordPress themes for your online store. You may also want to see our list of must have WordPress plugins 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 45 Best WooCommerce WordPress Themes appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Add a WordPress Query Monitor On Your Site

18.01.2018WordPress PluginsEditorial Staff

Do you want to add a WordPress query monitor on your site? A query monitor gives you behind the scene look into your WordPress site. In this article, we will show you how to add a WordPress query monitor on your site and debug performance issues like a pro.

Adding a WordPress query monitor

What is WordPress Query Monitor?

WordPress query monitor is a debugging tool that monitor the requests your WordPress website makes to the server.

You can then use this information for troubleshooting WordPress issues or find and fix common WordPress errors.

Some of the things you can look up are:

Database queries triggered by a page in WordPress.
HTTP requests made by scripts in your themes or plugins
Hooks and actions triggered on a page
Language, user role checks, and template files used to display the page
Your hosting environment like PHP and MySQL versions, memory limits, and more.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to add a query monitor on your WordPress site.

Adding Query Monitory in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Query Monitor plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will add the query monitor menu into your WordPress admin bar.

Query Monitor menu in WordPress admin bar

Taking your mouse over to the query monitor will display the menu allowing you to jump to a parameter quickly. You can also click on the query monitor stats to view all data.

Viewing Data in WordPress Query Monitor

First you need to make sure that the WordPress admin bar is visible when you are viewing your website. Simply go to Users » Your Profile page and check the box next to ‘Show Toolbar when viewing site’ option.

Show admin bar

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Update profile’ button to store your settings.

Next, you need to visit the page you want to check the queries for. Once on this page, simply take the mouse over to the query monitor menu in the admin bar and click on the section you want to view.

Monitoring SQL Queries

The query monitor plugin allows you to monitor all SQL queries, queries by caller, and component. Queries by component section shows you queries by plugins, theme, and core files.

SQL queries

Rewrite Rules and Templates

This section shows you matching rewrite rules and the templates used to display current page.

Requests, rewrite rules, and templates

Scripts and Styles

Scripts and Styles section shows you Javascript and stylesheets loaded by your theme and plugins. You will also see where these files are loaded (e.g. header or footer).

Scripts and styles

Hooks and Actions

This section shows you the hooks used and the actions triggered while loading the current page.

Hooks and actions

Languages Section

This section shows you the language files requested and loaded by the current page. If you run a multilingual WordPress site, then this helps you figure out which theme and plugins have language files available.

Languages loaded

HTTP API Calls

This section displays HTTP API calls made to third party API libraries.

HTTP API Calls

Transient Updates

Transient API allows developers to store information in your WordPress database with an expiration time. This section displays any transient updates requested during the current page load.

Capability Checks Section

This section displays user role capabilities check run by WordPress core, plugins, and themes while loading the current page.

Capability check

Environment Section

This is where you will get your WordPress hosting environment information like PHP version, MySQL version, MySQL Host, WordPress database name, and more.

WordPress hosting environment

Conditional Checks

This is where plugin shows conditions that were required to display the current page view.

Conditional checks

We hope this article helped you add a query monitor to your WordPress site and troubleshoot performance and security issues. You may also want to see our guide on how WordPress actually works behind the scenes.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add a WordPress Query Monitor On Your Site appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Disable the Screen Options Button in WordPress

17.01.2018disable screen options button, remove screen options button, screen options in wordpress, TutorialsEditorial Staff

Do you want to disable the screen options button in WordPress? The screen options button allows you to show and hide elements on different pages through out the WordPress admin area. In this article, we will show you how to disable the screen options button in WordPress.

Why You May Want to Disable Screen Options Button?

Screen Options button is located on the top right corner of different pages in your WordPress admin area. It allows each logged in user to show and hide items on various sections of the WordPress admin area.

Many WordPress site owners run multi-author blogs. With screen options button, their authors may accidentally uncheck something that is important.

For example, on the posts edit screen users can show / hide change author field, featured image section, and more.

You can control the admin view for all users by disabling the screen options button. Let’s take a look at how to easily disable screen options button in WordPress.

Method 1: Hiding Screen Options Button Using Plugin

This method is easier and is recommended for all users.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Adminimize plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Adminimize page to configure plugin settings.

You will see a list of sections. On this page, you need to click on the Global Options link, and it will take you down to a different section tabs. On that tab, you need to once again click on the Global Options tab to expand it.

This will expand the tab, and you will see a bunch of options to show and hide in your WordPress admin area. You need to check the boxes next to ‘Screen Options’.

The plugin allows you to disable it for all users as well as selected user roles.

Once you are done, don’t forget to click on the update options button to save your settings.

You can now visit any page in the admin area that showed Screen Options button like the dashboard or post/page edit screens, and you will notice that Screen Options button is now disabled.

Adminimize is a really powerful plugin that allows you to completely change the WordPress admin area by selectively showing or hiding different items. For more details, see our article on hiding unnecessary items from WordPress admin area with Adminimize.

Method 2: Manually Disable Screen Options Button in WordPress

This method requires you to add code to your WordPress files. If you haven’t done this before, then please take a look at our guide on how to copy and paste code in WordPress.

You will need to add the following code to your WordPress theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

function wpb_remove_screen_options() { 
if(!current_user_can('manage_options')) {
return false;
}
return true; 
}
add_filter('screen_options_show_screen', 'wpb_remove_screen_options');

This code removes the screen options button for all users except administrators.

You can now switch to any other user account that is not an administrator. After that, visit your admin area Dashboard screen, and you will notice that Screen Options button has disappeared.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily disable screen options button in WordPress. You may also want to see our mega list of most useful WordPress tips, tricks, and hacks for beginners.

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 Disable the Screen Options Button in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

Shopify vs WooCommerce – Which is the Better Platform? (Comparison)

16.01.2018ecommerce store with shopify, ecommerce store with woocommerce, online store, Opinion, shopify vs woocommerce, woocommere storeEditorial Staff

Are you thinking of starting an online store? Not sure whether you should use Shopify or WooCommerce? These are the two most popular eCommerce platforms in the market with their own advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will compare Shopify vs WooCommerce to help you decide the best option for you.

Shopify vs WooCommerce

Since this is a detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce, here’s a quick table of content:

Overview: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Before we start with our in-depth comparison of the two most popular eCommerce platforms on the web, it’s important that we cover the basics and highlight what makes these platform stand out.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that makes it easy for you to create an online store, accept payments, and manage your inventory all from a single platform without ever worrying about the technical aspects of managing a website such as web hosting, security, caching, etc.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin built for WordPress. It allows you to leverage the most powerful content management system (CMS) and use it to run an online store. Because of the open-source nature, you can customize every aspect of your store and easily build custom extensions.

The decision to choose between the two platforms depend entirely on your needs and skill level.

What to Look for in Your eCommerce Platform?

There are few things that you absolutely need to keep in mind when starting an online store. These key factors will help you decide which platform is better suited for your needs.

Budget – The initial cost of starting a fully functional ecommerce store.
Ease of use – It should be easy to use even for absolute beginners.
Payment Methods – It should have support for multiple payment methods (e.g. PayPal, Stripe, other merchant processors).
Integrations – Number of services and third party tools you can integrate to grow your business.
Scalability – The platform should be able to scale as your business grows.

These are the very basic requirements that all online store owners must consider. However depending on your need, you may also want to look at other options like shipping, inventory management, invoicing, taxes, etc.

Our goal with this article is to take an in-depth look at how Shopify and WooCommerce stand on these basic requirements, and which one of them is best suited for your needs.

Cost: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Cost is often the most important consideration for eCommerce website owners. You need to evaluate the cost of getting started while also keeping in mind the variable costs for add-on services and software.

The true cost of using Shopify

Shopify makes it super easy to start your online store. Their basic plan starts at $29 per month, and you can upgrade to the Shopify plan for $79 or the Advanced Shopify plan for $299 per month.

Shopify pricing

Each of these plans include domain name, SSL certificate, and web hosting.

The basic plan comes with enough features to setup a new online store. You can add unlimited products, 2 user accounts, unlimited file storage, and more.

However, this pricing doesn’t include third-party tools and addons that you will need to take your Shopify store to the next level. As your business grows, these costs will start adding up, and you’ll soon be paying a lot more than the basic plan.

Payments are another factor that affects your costs. Shopify offers their own Shopify Payments solution which costs 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.

If you want to use third-party payment gateways or your own merchant account, then you will be charged a flat fee of 2.0% for all transactions. You can reduce this fee to 0.5% by using the Shopify Advanced plan which costs $299 per month.

These payment processing fees are fairly steep when using external payment gateways. However if you’re just starting out and want to use the Shopify payment solution, then the fees are fairly comparable to popular platforms like Stripe and Braintree.

The true cost of using WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress.org (also known as self-hosted WordPress). It is open source and freely available as a WordPress plugin.

However, you’ll need a domain name, SSL Certificate, and a WordPress hosting account to start a WooCommerce store.

Typically, a domain name costs $14.99, SSL Certificate costs $69.99, and web hosting around $7.99 / month. This is not cheap, particularly when you are just starting out.

Thankfully, there are several hosting companies who are now offering specialized WooCommerce hosting plans which significantly reduces the cost.

Bluehost, an official WordPress and WooCommerce recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a discount on web hosting.

This will help you start your online store for as low as $6.95 / month.

→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←

As you can see, the cost of starting a basic WooCommerce store is significantly lower than Shopify. WooCommerce also doesn’t charge you a percentage fee of your transactions which is a very nice perk.

But the WooCommerce costs start adding up as you purchase paid extensions. Your hosting costs will also increase as your online store grows.

However, one clear advantage of using WooCommerce is that you can often find free alternatives to the paid extensions. You can also keep your costs in control by only purchasing the tools and plugins as you need them.

With the amount of free themes and free addons available for WooCommerce, it’s definitely the winner when it comes to cost.

Winner: WooCommerce

Ease of Use: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Most users starting an online store are not web designers or developers. Even users who are familiar with basic concepts need a platform that is easy to use and gets out of their way.

Let’s see how Shopify and WooCommerce stack up in terms of user friendliness.

Shopify – Ease of Use

Shopify is a fully hosted platform which means you don’t need to install, manage, or update any software. You also don’t need to worry about security, performance, backups, and compatibility issues.

As soon as you sign up, it helps you pick a design for your website. After that, they walk you through customization, and then help you add products.

Shopify customization

Shopify comes with an intuitive drag and drop interface. Managing your products, sales, and inventory inside Shopify is a breeze.

One downside of this guided, polished, and highly optimized user experience is that it limits your control. You can only use the design and development tools provided by Shopify or addons available in their marketplace.

However, this is not as bad as it sounds. For most users, the large selection of extensions and themes available in Shopify, is more than enough to get started and grow your online store.

WooCommerce – Ease of Use

WooCommerce is not a hosted platform like Shopify. This means you will need to install WooCommerce, manage updates, keep backups, and make sure that your website is secure. There are plenty of free and paid plugins that can automate most of these tasks for you.

WooCommerce setup wizard

WooCommerce is super flexible when it comes to customizations. You have full control of the whole platform. You can add any functionality imaginable to your website with the help of more than 50,000+ WordPress plugins. However, there is no built-in drag & drop design builder. You can use one of the WordPress page builders like Beaver Builder, but it adds to your cost.

The biggest downside of the flexibility is that it comes with a learning curve and requires a more hands-on management of your website. You also have to signup for a merchant account or similar service like Stripe / PayPal. While the WooCommerce guided setup wizard is helpful, it does not come close to the onboarding and ease of use of Shopify.

Winner: Shopify

Payment Methods: Shopify vs WooCommerce

There are many payment gateways that you can use to accept payments online. Some payment methods may not be suitable for you, and others may not be available to your customers.

This is why it’s important that the platform you choose offer multiple payment options. Let’s take a look at how Shopify and WooCommerce compare when it comes to payment integrations.

Payment Options in Shopify

Shopify offers plenty of payment options that you can use to receive payments from customers. It has its own payments solutions called Shopify Payments (powered by Stripe) as well as all popular third party payment gateways.

Shopify Payments

The problem is that Shopify charges an extra 2% fees on each transaction made through third party payment gateways. This is on top of the transaction fees charged by the payment gateway. You can reduce the fee to 0.5% by paying $299 per month for Advanced Shopify plan.

Shopify Payments has flat credit card fees, but no other transaction fees. Credit card rates start from 2.9% + 30¢ for basic plan and get lower for other plans.

Payment Options in WooCommerce

WooCommerce offers PayPal and Stripe payments by default. It also supports all other popular payment service providers through add-ons.

WooCommerce payment methods

For payment gateways, WooCommerce even has support for many regional and less popular payment services. Since there is no barrier to entry, any payments company can create add-ons for WooCommerce and provide support for it.

As a self hosted platform, you are only charged transaction fees by your payment gateway or your bank. WooCommerce never charges you a % fee on your store transactions which is a major plus.

If choosing your own merchant account and using a third-party gateway is important for you, then you will save A LOT of money by using WooCommerce. But if you’re a small store and willing to use Shopify Payments which has the same credit card rates as Stripe / Paypal, then it makes no difference.

Winner: Tie

Integrations and Add-ons: Shopify vs WooCommerce

No matter how robust an ecommerce platform is, you’ll always need third-party tools and services to grow your store. For example, an email marketing software, lead generation tool, analytics tools, outreach services, etc.

Both Shopify and WooCommerce have a massive extensions directory, and they integrate with many third-party services.

Shopify Add-ons and Integrations

Shopify comes with a powerful API and an App Store where you can buy third party addons for your Shopify store. They have hundreds of apps in the store covering every feature you’ll want to add to your store.

Shopify App Store

For lead generation, they have integrations with software like OptinMonster which helps you grow your email list and reduce cart abandonment. They have apps for SEO, product reviews, discounts, countdowns, and more.

Shopify’s app store contains both free and paid apps. Free apps are usually created by third party services that have their own pricing, and the app only integrates your store to their APIs. Pricing for paid addons varies and most apps offer monthly subscriptions.

WooCommerce Add-ons and Integrations

WooCommerce extensions

WooCommerce is open source and built on top of WordPress. This gives you access to more than 50,000 free WordPress plugins and many more paid plugins.

You can use these addons to add payment gateways, lead generation, SEO, performance optimization, and almost any feature you can think of.

Due to the low barrier of entry, there are a lot more integrations and addons available for WooCommerce than Shopify. Almost all third party tools and service providers have their own plugins to seamlessly integrate with your WooCommerce store.

You can also hire a developer to create an integration or plugin just for your own website. However it’s important to keep in mind that WooCommerce is a lot easier to customize. Having personally gone through the process of submitting a plugin for WordPress and submitting an app to the Shopify store, we can say that the process is extremely harder on Shopify vs WooCommerce.

Winner: WooCommerce

Scalability and Growth: Shopify vs WooCommerce

You have probably heard the term “growth-pains” from various CEOs. As your business grows, you will need more resources to handle new challenges and goals.

Shopify and WooCommerce can both be scaled to handle large amount traffic and orders, but they’re not created equal. Let’s take a look at how these two eCommerce platform compare when it comes to scalability.

Scalability on Shopify

Shopify enterprise

Shopify handles the technical parts of your store which means you don’t ever have to worry about performance, security, and scalability. Once your business starts growing, you can simply upgrade your Shopify plans.

Their infrastructure can easily handle your growing business without you having to worry about downtimes, backups, updates, or security. They also offer enterprise services as part of the Shopify Plus plan.

This takes out the painful part of the growth, but it also adds to your cost of business. Your expenses will grow, and you’ll have to plan accordingly.

The good part is that your costs will be offset by you not having to hire / manage a technical team in-house.

Scalability on WooCommerce

WooCommerce Scalability

WooCommerce is a self hosted platform which makes you responsible for maintaining updates, backups, and security of your website.

Your starter WooCommerce hosting plan would run out of resources as your store starts getting more traffic.

The good part is that you have plenty of options to manage growth as you are in full control of your website. Starting with better management of resources with caching to upgrading your hosting plan to more powerful servers.

Your WooCommerce hosting costs will increase, but you will have better control on resources, and you can make sure that you are not paying for resources that you don’t need. You can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine or LiquidWeb to help scale your WooCommerce store.

Despite the control that WooCommerce offers, some business owners simply prefer a hassle-free solution.

Winner: Shopify

WooCommerce vs Shopify: Which is the Best eCommerce Platform?

Shopify and WooCommerce are both powerful platforms to start your eCommerce store. It truly comes down to your personal skills and preferences.

Shopify is a lot easier to use. It doesn’t require you to install anything, and you can get started quickly. Setting up payments is easier, and they have easy to understand pricing plans.

The disadvantage of Shopify is that you don’t have full control of everything. Your costs can go high with transaction fees, add-ons, and integrations. Your upgrade options are limited to select plans, and you cannot manage costs on pay as you grow basis.

WooCommerce is open source and gives you full control of your website. It costs a lot lower to start an online store with WooCommerce specially with these WooCommerce hosting companies.

The disadvantage is that you’ll have to maintain the software. It comes with a bit of learning curve. However, millions of beginners are already using it, and they get over the learning phase quite quickly.

If you are looking for a cost-effective solution, and you want to have full-control of your online store, then WooCommerce is the best platform for you.

If you want something that’s completely hassle-free that has infinite scalability, then Shopify is the better platform for you.

We hope this article helped you compare pros and cons of Shopify vs WooCommerce. You may also want to see our guide on how to choose the best website builder.

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 Shopify vs WooCommerce – Which is the Better Platform? (Comparison) appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Remove Parent Slug From Child Page URL in WordPress

15.01.2018change child page url, custom permalinks for pages, remove parent page slug, WordPress PluginsEditorial Staff

Do you want to remove the parent page slug from child page url in WordPress? By default, WordPress adds parent page’s slug as a prefix to child page URLs which is good for SEO. However, some people may not want parent page slug in the URL. In this article, we will show you how to remove parent page slug from child page URL in WordPress.

Remove parent page slug from child page URL

What is a Parent Page Slug in WordPress?

WordPress comes with two main content types called posts and pages. Pages are hierarchical which means they can have child pages. By default, the URL of a child page in WordPress will have its parent page’s slug in the URL like:

http://example.com/parent-page/child-page/

This is a better way to organize content if you are using hierarchical page structure on your website. It is considered best practice for WordPress SEO, and it makes sense for your users as well.

Removing the parent page slug can potentially break the URL, but in some expert opinion, it also makes it less SEO friendly. Sometimes it may cause conflicts with the WordPress permalink structure.

In our experience, if you don’t want parent page slug in your child page URL, then the best approach is to not create a child page at all. Instead, you can simply create a page and use navigation menus to show that it belongs under this page.

Adding child items to a menu

However, we understand that some users may still want to use child-pages for their own reasons.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily remove parent page slug from child page URL in WordPress.

Removing Parent Page Slug from Child Page URL in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Custom Permalinks plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to edit the child page you want to change. Under the page title, you will see the option to change the child page URL.

Change child page URL

The placeholder area will show your page’s current default URL. You need to click on it and enter the custom URL you want to use for your child page.

Custom page URL

Don’t forget to save your page to store your URL changes.

After saving your changes, you can click on the view page button to view your child page URL without parent page slug.

We hope this article helped you learn how to remove parent page slug from child page URL in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the best drag and drop page builder plugins for WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Remove Parent Slug From Child Page URL in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

24 Best Medium-Style WordPress Themes

12.01.2018best wordpress themes, medium like wordpress themes, medium style wordpress themes, self hosted wordpress vs medium, Showcase, WordPress ThemesEditorial Staff

Medium is a popular blogging platform which offers a clean design optimized for readability and user engagement. However due to the restrictions of Medium, most savvy journalists choose to use WordPress. In this article, we will share the best Medium style WordPress themes, so you can have the look and feel of Medium while having the power of WordPress.

Best Medium style WordPress themes

Creating a Medium-Style Blog using WordPress

Medium is a popular publishing platform where you can instantly publish your articles. However, you don’t technically own your website because Medium has the ability to shut it down for any reason. For details, see our comparison of WordPress vs Medium.

That’s why most savvy journalists and bloggers use WordPress. We recommend using the self-hosted WordPress.org because it comes with the all freedom and features that WordPress is known for. See our comparison of WordPress.com vs WordPress.org).

To start a WordPress.org website, you’ll need a domain name and WordPress hosting account.

We recommend using Bluehost. They are one of the officially recommended WordPress hosting providers, and they’re offering WPBeginner users a free domain + 60% off.

Once you have signed up for hosting, see our step by step guide on how to start a WordPress blog for complete set up instructions.

That being, let’s take a look at some of the best Medium-style WordPress themes that you can use on your website.

Note: Some of these themes may not look exactly like Medium. However, they follow the same design practices like clean typography, enhanced readability, lots of white space, minimalism, and clutter free layout.

1. Medium

Medium is a WordPress theme designed for bloggers, writers, and publishers. It features a three column layout on the desktop and a single column layout on mobile and tablet devices.

It is designed to work out of the box with fewer theme options. You upload custom logo, choose accent colors, add custom CSS, and more through customizer. It supports all media formats like images, video embeds, and photo galleries. It is super easy to use and includes a getting started guide to help you start writing without struggling with theme setup.

2. Simfo

Simfo is a WordPress blogging theme with clean white spaces and beautiful typography. It has a beautiful featured content slider on the top and a filterable grid of your content below it.

Other noteable features include 8 color schemes, multiple post layouts, social media icons, footer widgets and more. It has a custom theme options panel that will help set up your website quickly.

3. Suisen

Suisen is a minimalist WordPress theme suitable for blogs, portfolio, artists, and news websites. It has a clean black and white layout which uses Roboto Mono font for unique typography.

It includes a widgetized homepage layout, which allows you to just drag and drop widgets to setup homepage. It includes custom widgets and lots of customization options in live customizer. It works with all popular page builder plugins and can also be used to add an online store to your website.

4. Elegant

Elegant is a beautiful responsive WordPress theme suitable for lifestyle blogs, vlogs, and writers. It comes with a powerful drag and drop page builder which allows you to easily edit pages and create your own layouts as well.

It includes multiple layouts for your posts, multiple header styles, beautiful image filters, and a portfolio section. All theme options are neatly organized which makes it quite easy to use for beginners.

5. Corner

Corner is a WordPress theme for creative professionals with a minimal layout that allows you to showcase more of your content without any clutter.

It is ecommerce ready and allows you to use any colors you want. With a widgetized layout and custom widgets, you will be able to easily setup your homepage in minutes. It includes support for social media integration and works with tested with all major WordPress plugins.

6. The Chatter

Chatter is a Medium style WordPress theme suitable for magazine websites, blogs, and portfolios. It comes with 3 slider styles, multiple color schemes, different header styles, and multiple layouts.

For typography it allows you to choose different custom fonts that work great with the design. It also has a drag and drop page builder, 1-click demo installer, and a custom theme options panel for quicker setup.

7. Monochrome

Monochrome is a Medium style WordPress theme with a minimalist approach to design. It uses a simple black and white design with lots of white space and crisp typography. The simplicity makes your content and images pop out and creates a more enjoyable reading experience.

It is built on Genesis theme framework and includes custom headers, widgetized homepage, four widget areas, and full WooCommerce support. It also includes templates for pricing and landing pages.

8. Eagle

Eagle is a beautiful choice for a minimalist portfolio WordPress theme, a blog, or lifestyle website. Its homepage features a welcome message on top followed by masonry grid of portfolio items or your blog posts.

It includes support for Google fonts, contact form plugin, templates for about us and a separate blog page. It comes with 1-click demo installer and an easier theme options page.

9. Maker Pro

Maker Pro is a Genesis child theme with intense focus on readability and usability. It looks stunning on all devices and screen sizes, which makes it perfect for personal blogs, portfolios, and magazine websites.

It includes custom header, full width page template, full width cover images, and beautiful headings. It works out of the box and theme setup is quite straight forward.

10. Latest

Latest is a minimalist WordPress theme for authors, magazine websites, and online stores. It features beautiful homepage designs that put your product or content in front and center.

It has a beautiful blog template where you can put featured posts and pages on the top. It handles all your photos and videos gracefully and beautifully displays them. Despite many features, it is very easy to use and install.

11. Rikke

Rikke is a beautifully designed free WordPress theme for blogs, magazines, and authors. It has a clean black and white design with collapsible navigation menus on top.

It includes color selection, font options, custom widgets, blog options, and more. All theme options are neatly organized under live theme customizer.

12. TheMin

Themin is a clean minimalist WordPress theme suitable for multi-author websites, blogs, and magazines. It features a collapsible navigation menu and search feature on top, which is followed by an optional hero image with your call to action.

It has multiple layouts for single posts and blog page. It also includes full width page template that you can use with any page builder of your choice. Theme setup is quite beginner friendly with a custom settings page and live customizer support.

13. Writr

Writr is a free Medium style WordPress theme for writers and bloggers. It uses a simple two column layout with navigation and sidebar located in the left-column.

It has 6 color schemes turquoise (default), blue, green, grey, purple, and red. It has beautiful icons for post formats and support for author bio box. It is translation ready and can also be used with page builder plugins if you need landing pages.

14. Satchmo

If you are looking for a Medium like minimalist WordPress theme for podcasting then check out Satchmo. Crafted with care and attention to details, it would make your podcast episodes fun and easier to listen.

It has beautiful layouts to display podcast episodes, a section to add featured guests, hosts page, and more. Its audio embed looks great on all devices. For quicker installation it has 1-click demo install and simpler theme setup.

15. Wisteria

Need a free minimalist WordPress theme for your website? Take a look at Wisteria. This simple black and white theme features a black navigation menu on a white background. It uses beautiful typography and it is perfect for blogs and news websites.

It uses a simple two column layout, with basic theme customization features. It just works out of the box and would be great if you just want to quickly start writing.

16. Aesthetic

If you need Medium like readability with more styling options, then you’ll like Aesthetic. It is a WordPress theme for lifestyle, fashion, and personal websites. It includes unlimited color choices with different article listing styles like list, grid, masonry, multi-column, and full-width.

It is WooCommerce ready and comes with a page builder plugin as well. For easier setup you can use the 1-click demo installer or start from scratch using theme options panel.

17. Baskerville

Named after the renowned Baskerville typeface designer John Baskerville, this beautiful free WordPress theme is focused on elegant typography in a modern grid layout. It uses Wisdom Pro and Roboto fonts throughout site-design.

It comes with infinite scroll support, grid and list layouts, like functionality for posts, and beautiful author bio box section.

18. Pepper+

Need a simpler design but with all the features of multi-purpose WordPress themes? Pepper+ does exactly that. It comes with multiple website designs to choose from and a powerful modules based drag and drop interface.

This theme got everything sliders, portfolio, photo galleries, contact form, pricing tables, event countdowns, and more. You can install any of the available designs with a click and then just use drag and drop to edit your pages.

19. Journalistic

Journalistic is a Medium inspired WordPress theme for long form articles, storytelling, and magazine websites. It features a wide two column layout, a sticky featured content column, and a collapsible sidebar with navigation menus.

It ships with 19 color schemes and you can also define your own colors. It has integrated support for beautiful Typekit fonts. It is quite easy to use with 1-click demo installer, custom theme settings page, and live customization support.

20. Author

Author is a simple and free WordPress blog theme for authors. Featuring a two column layout, this theme is designed for better readability with engaging user experience.

It features author photo on top followed by site description and social icons in the sidebar. The content column uses large headings and featured images to make your content pop out. It has simple setup and works out of the box with minimal settings required.

21. Everly

Everly is another great minimalist WordPress theme with simple black and white design. Optimized for readability, it uses magazine style layout to feature your most important content on the top.

It includes 4 homepage and blog layouts, different header styles, 6 post formats, Instagram feed, and more. It has native areas to display ads on your website.

22. Flat

Flat is a free WordPress theme with a beautiful and unique design. It has a two column layout with a narrow sidebar on the left and a wide column for your blog posts.

It uses beautiful icons in navigation menus, large featured images, and works with all popular WordPress plugins.

23. Author Pro

Author Pro is designed as a WordPress theme for authors, writers, and publishers. It offers an enhanced readability experience with subtle colors, white space, and beautiful crisp typography.

Built on top of Genesis framework, it ships with Genesis Author Pro plugin which allows you ro create a book library within your site to attractively display book details in single and archive views as well as any widget area. It is very easy to use and works out of the box with very little effort.

24. Publisher

Publisher is a beautiful WordPress theme for magazines, multi-author websites, and blogs. It comes with multiple layout choices like masonry grid, two column blog layout, unique backgrounds for each post, and more.

It beautifully handles your media and displays them as featured image on top. It also includes beautiful templates for photo galleries, videos, and other content types. Inside you will also find a getting started guide to walk you through theme setup process.

We hope this article helped you find the best Medium like WordPress theme for your website. You may also want to see our step by step WordPress speed and performance guide for beginners.

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 24 Best Medium-Style WordPress Themes appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Bulk Upload WordPress Media Files using FTP

11.01.2018add from server to wordpress, add wordpress images via ftp, bulk upload images to wordpress, upload media files using ftp, WordPress PluginsEditorial Staff

Do you want to bulk upload WordPress media files using FTP? By default, WordPress does not allow you to upload media files via FTP which can be annoying for users who want to bulk upload files at once. In this article, we will show you how to easily bulk upload WordPress media files using FTP.

How to Bulk Upload WordPress Media Files using FTP

Why Bulk Upload WordPress Media Files Using FTP

The default WordPress media uploader allows you to upload multiple files at once. You can do so by clicking on the ‘Add Media’ button while writing posts or by visiting Media » Add New page.

Uploading multiple files via Media uploader in WordPress

You can select multiple photos, images, audio, and even video files to upload and WordPress will do the rest.

However, this method may not work sometimes. You may see a maximum file upload size limit issues or the files may take forever to upload.

An easier alternative is to upload the files using FTP. However, WordPress doesn’t recognize files uploaded via FTP, and it will not show them inside admin area.

Luckily, there’s a way around that. Let’s take a look at how to easily bulk upload WordPress media files using FTP, and how to make them available inside WordPress.

Bulk Uploading Media Files in WordPress via FTP

First, you need to connect to your WordPress site using a FTP client. If you haven’t done this before, then see our guide on how to upload files to your WordPress site via FTP.

Once you are connected to your website via FTP, go to /wp-content/uploads/ folder.

WordPress uploads folder

Inside the uploads folder, you will see folders for years and months. That’s how WordPress stores media files by default. You can upload your media files to the current year and current month folder.

If it doesn’t exist, then you can create it. For example, 2018 for current year and inside that folder you can create a new folder 01 for the month of January.

Uploading your files may take a while depending on file size and your internet speed.

Once you have uploaded all your images, audio, video, or any other media files supported by WordPress, you are ready to import them into WordPress.

Making Your FTP Media Uploads Visible in WordPress

Even though you have uploaded the files to your website’s server, WordPress doesn’t automatically recognize them.

When you upload a file using the default WordPress media uploader, WordPress saves the file information inside the database. It then displays those files by fetching the information from your WordPress database.

Since these files were not uploaded via media uploader, WordPress does not have them stored in the database.

Let’s fix this.

First thing you will need to do is install and activate the Media from FTP plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Media from FTP » Search & Register page. By default, the plugin will look into /wp-content/uploads/ folder and display all the media files it finds inside it.

Media from FTP settings

You can also browse folders by clicking on the /wp-content/uploads/ drop down menu. It allows you to sort files by type or by extension.

Once you have located the files you uploaded using FTP, simply click the checkbox next to them and then click on the ‘Update Media’ button.

The plugin will start registering your imported media into the WordPress media library. You will see the progress on the screen as it goes through each file.

Import and register progress

Once it is finished, you can visit Media » Library page to see all your imported files.

Media files uploaded via FTP to WordPress

You can now go ahead and add these images, audio, and other media files to your WordPress posts and pages.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily bulk upload WordPress media files using FTP. You may also want to see our guide on how to optimize images in WordPress for better speed and performance.

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 Bulk Upload WordPress Media Files using FTP appeared first on WPBeginner.

16 Best Alternatives to the WordPress Jetpack Plugin

10.01.2018WordPress PluginsEditorial Staff

Are you looking for the best alternatives to the Jetpack plugin? Jetpack is a powerful WordPress plugin suite that adds various features to your WordPress website. Recently one of our readers asked us to share possible Jetpack alternatives for WordPress. In this article, we will show you the best alternatives to the WordPress Jetpack plugin.

Best Jetpack alternatives for WordPress

What is Jetpack WordPress plugin?

Jetpack is a plugin suite which combines essential WordPress features into one large plugin. It allows you to manage the features you want to use, and you can turn off the features you don’t need.

However as your website grows, you may want to expand beyond Jetpack. You might need advanced functionalities that are offered in other third-party WordPress plugins.

In these cases, it makes sense to look at Jetpack alternatives for specific features that you need.

Pros and Cons of Jetpack Plugin

Pros and cons of using WordPress Jetpack plugin

Like all things in life, Jetpack plugin comes with its own advantages and disadvantages that you need to keep in mind when choosing Jetpack alternatives.

Pros of Using Jetpack Plugin

These are the advantages of using Jetpack plugin on your WordPress website.

One plugin to rule them all. You get all essential features in one easy to manage package.
Jetpack is highly optimized for performance with Automattic’s (company behind Jetpack and WordPress.com) powerful infrastructure running in the background.
It has a nicer user interface than your typical WordPress plugins.

Cons of Using Jetpack Plugin

Following are the disadvantages of using WordPress Jetpack plugin on your website.

Using Jetpack requires you to create a WordPress.com account.
The Jetpack core is free but many of its features require a paid subscription.
It has limited email functionality. You cannot email your subscribers without publishing a blog post.
Your website becomes dependent on one plugin which makes it harder to replace in the future.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best Jetpack alternatives that you can install on your website.

1. WPForms Lite

WPForms

WPForms Lite is the best alternative to Jetpack’s feedback form. WPForms is the best WordPress contact form plugin, and it comes with a free lite version that allows you to easily add contact form in your WordPress website.

WPForms comes with a beautiful drag and drop form builder and ready-made form templates. Adding form into your blog posts and pages is simple with shortcode or by using the Add form button in post editor.

We built WPForms to make it beginner friendly while offering advanced functionalities like email subscription, payments, user registration, and more in the Pro version.

2. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights

Jetpack comes with a built-in stats module. However it’s no where near as powerful as Google Analytics. If you want Google Analytics integration in Jetpack, then you have to upgrade to the professional plan which costs $299/year.

MonsterInsights is the top Google Analytics plugin for WordPress with more than 1+ Million active installs, and it has a free version available for all WordPress users.

MonsterInsights allows you to easily install Google Analytics in your WordPress website. It comes with beautiful reporting tools that make it easy for beginners to see where their users are coming from and what they are viewing.

3. UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus

Jetpack offers automated daily backups, but they are only available for paid plans. UpdraftPlus is one of the best WordPress backup plugins in the market and a free alternate to Jetpack’s backup feature.

It allows you to easily set up automatic backups for your entire WordPress website.

You just need to set it up once, and then it will automatically create backups. Your backups are stored in remote locations such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and more. You can also restore your website from any previous backups with few clicks.

For details, see our guide on how to How to backup and restore your WordPress site with UpdraftPlus.

4. Akismet

Akismet

Jetpack has spam filtering feature for paid plans, but you will need at least the personal plan to access basic spam filtering.

Akismet is the best WordPress spam filtering plugin in the market. It automatically filters all your WordPress comments to catch spam. This significantly reduces the number of spam comments that you’ll have to moderate.

For complete set up instructions, see our Akismet guide for WordPress beginners.

5. Sucuri Scanner

Sucuri

Jetpack only scans for malware if you have professional or premium subscription plans. Sucuri scanner provides free malware scanner, blacklist monitoring, file integrity check, post-hacks security actions, and security hardening.

Sucuri is the industry leader in WordPress security and website monitoring. It also offers the best WordPress firewall which blocks suspicious activity even before it reaches your website.

6. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO

Jetpack offers limited SEO functionality even for premium plan users. You will need at least professional plan to access all of Jetpack’s SEO features. Yoast SEO is the perfect alternative to Jetpack’s SEO features, and it is the most popular SEO plugin in the market.

The free Yoast SEO plugin gives you complete WordPress SEO tools including site verification, XML sitemaps, SEO preview, Facebook and Twitter preview images, title and meta descriptions, and more.

For complete step by step instructions, see our guide on how to install and set up Yoast SEO plugin.

7. WP to Buffer

WP to Buffer

WP to Buffer plugin allows you to connect your WordPress site to Buffer and automatically schedule your WordPress posts to share on your social media profiles. It is the best alternative to Jetpack’s publicize feature, which does the same thing.

Buffer is a social media management platform that allows you to schedule your social media posts throughout the day. This saves you time you would otherwise spend on sharing your articles manually on social media.

8. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts plugin is the best WordPress related posts plugin in the market and the perfect alternative to Jetpack’s related posts feature.

It offers more customization options and full control on how and where you display related posts on your website. It even supports custom post types and can add related posts in RSS feeds as well.

9. De:Comments

De:comments

Decomments is a paid WordPress plugin, which allows you to transform your WordPress comment area by adding more social features to it. Your users can rate comments, share comments on social media, login with their social profiles, earn badges, and more.

This offers a very engaging user experience for comments on your WordPress site. For detailed instructions see our article on how to improve WordPress comments with De:comments.

10. Envira Gallery Lite

Envira Gallery

WordPress comes with a default way to easily add image galleries. However, the default WordPress gallery is quite limited in functionality. If user clicks on a image it loads in a new page.

Envira Gallery Lite offers the free alternative to Jetpack’s responsive galleries. It allows you to easily create responsive image galleries with carousel popups.

11. Pingdom

Pingdom

Pingdom is not a plugin but a website monitoring tool that you can use as an alternative to Jetpack’s monitoring tool. Pingdom’s free account allows you to monitor 1 website.

It sends instant email notification when your website is down and notifies you when it is up again. You can also monitor your website’s historic uptime by logging into your account.

12. MailChimp

MailChimp

Email marketing is one of the best ways to reach out to your audiences. If you haven’t started it yet, then see our guide on why you should start building your email list right away.

MailChimp is one of the best email marketing services in the world and the perfect alternative to Jetpack’s email subscriptions. The downside of Jetpack’s subscriptions is that it only emails users when you publish a new post. Unlike a real email list, where you can send users weekly or monthly newsletters.

MailChimp is a paid service but they offer a free forever plan for upto 2000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month.

13. Cloudflare

Cloudflare

Cloudflare is one of the best CDN services that offers free CDN and basic protection against DDOS attacks.

It improves your website’s speed and performance by serving static content through their global CDN. Cloudflare is the perfect replacement for Jetpack’s CDN service which serves your images through their CDN server to optimize performance. It also provides a free alternative to Jetpack’s brute force attack protection.

For detailed instructions see our guide on how to setup free Cloudflare CDN in WordPress.

14. Easy Updates Manager

Easy Updates Manager

Easy Updates Manager allows you to replace Jetpack’s automatic plugin update feature. It helps you easily manage all WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates.

From a single dashboard, you can enable or disable automatic updates. You can set specific or all plugin updates to be automatically installed. It can also automatically install theme updates.

For more details, see our guide on how to better manage automatic WordPress updates.

15. WordPress Infinite Scroll

Load More - Infinite scroll for WordPress

WordPress Infinite Scroll is the perfect alternative to Jetpack’s infinite scroll feature. Just like Jetpack, you will need to add a little code snippet into your theme.

It allows you to add a button that users can click to load more posts, you can also choose to automatically load posts as user scrolls down a page.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to add load more posts button in WordPress.

16. EA Share Count

EA Share Count

EA Share Count is one of the best social media plugins for WordPress. It is super fast and only loads a limited number of top social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumbleupon, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

It has three button styles, social share count, and total share count feature. It is available on GitHub (see our guide on how to install WordPress plugins from GitHub)

We hope this article helped you find the best alternatives for the Jetpack plugin on your WordPress site. You may also want to see our list of essential WordPress plugins to find other must-have plugins for 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 16 Best Alternatives to the WordPress Jetpack Plugin appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Fix WordPress Not Sending Email Issue

09.01.2018how to send email in wordpress using gmail smtp server, Tutorials, use gmail for wordpress emails, wordpress email, wordpress not sending emailEditorial Staff

One of the most commonly asked questions on WPBeginner is how to fix WordPress not sending email problem. Many of our beginner level users ask us why their contact form plugin is not sending emails, or why they are not seeing any WordPress notifications. In this article, we will show you how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

Why You Are Not Getting Emails from Your WordPress Site

The most common reason for this is that your WordPress hosting server is not configured to use PHP mail() function.

Even if they would allow it to work, many email service providers use a variety of tools to reduce email spam. These tools often try to detect that an email is originating from the location it claims to be originating from, and often emails sent by WordPress websites fail this test.

In such cases, when an email is sent out from your WordPress site, it never even makes into spam folder of the destination. This is why we recommend not using WordPress to send your email newsletter.

This is also the reason why that we recommend using SMTP to send emails in WordPress. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the industry standard for sending emails. Unlike PHP mail function, SMTP uses proper authentication which increases email deliverability.

There are many different SMTP services available, but in this article we will show only two that we recommend: MailGun and Gmail.

Sending Your WordPress Emails Using Mailgun

Mailgun is a popular email service provider. They allow website owners to send large amounts of emails with high deliverability.

As a dedicated email service provider, they spend a lot of money and time on making sure that your email reaches its destination.

While Mailgun is a paid service, it offers first 10,000 emails for free every month. That’s more than enough for most folks who just started their blog or website.

Here is how to setup your WordPress site to use Mailgun for sending emails.

First you need to signup on the Mailgun website. After signing up, you need to click on the “Add your domain” button.

Add your domain to Mailgun

You will now see an add domain page. Here you need to add a subdomain on your WordPress website’s domain name. For example, mail1.yourdomain.com.

You can create a new subdomain on your existing domain name by following the instructions below.

First, you need to visit the cPanel dashboard of your hosting account. Next, click on the subdomains icon under the domains section.

cPanel subdomains

On the next page, you need to enter your subdomain and then select your root domain from the drop down menu.

Enter your subdomain

After that click on the create button, and you will see a success message that your subdomain has been created.

You can now add this subdomain on Mailgun’s add domain page. After you add the domain, Mailgun will show you a few DNS records.

Mailgun DNS records

Switch back to your cPanel dashboard and then click on ‘Advanced DNS Zone Editor’.

DNS zone editor

You will be asked to select the domain for which you want to change the DNS records. Once you select your root domain name, you will see options to add new DNS records.

The first TXT entry will be your subdomain. You need to start by entering the subdomain in the Name field and then select TXT as record type. After that you need to add 14400 in TTL field and copy the value shown on Mailgun domain verification settings page into TXT Data field.

Adding DNS TXT record

Repeat the process to add the other TXT record.

Once you are done, switch back to the cPanel dashboard and click on the MX Entry icon.

MX Entry icon in cPanel

You will be asked to select your root domain, then scroll down to the bottom of the page. There you will see the option to add a new MX Entry.

Enter the priority and destination values and click on create new record button.

You have successfully added your domain to Mailgun. It will need to verify that your domain has proper DNS records. This may take a while because DNS records may take sometime to update.

You can check the status of your domain verification by visiting the Domains page in your Mailgun account.

Mailgun will show active status next to your domain name once it can verify the DNS changes you made.

Mailgun active domains

Once your domain is active, you can setup your WordPress site to start using Mailgun for sending emails.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » WP Mail SMTP to configure plugin settings. First you need to provide your sender email address and the name you want to use for the sender.

WP Mail SMTP settings

Next, you need to select Mailgun as your mailer and check the box next to set the return path to match the from email address.

Select Mailgun as your mailer

Lastly, you need to provide your Mailgun private API key and the mailgun sub-domain. Click on the links below each field to get this information from your Mailgun account.

API key and domain name

Don’t forget to click on save settings button to store your changes.

That’s all, you have successfully setup your WordPress site to send emails using Mailgun.

You can now click on the ‘Email Test’ tab on plugin’s settings page to send a test email and see if everything is working fine.

Email test

Sending WordPress Emails Using Gmail SMTP Servers

Another alternative is to send your WordPress emails is using Gmail SMTP servers. You can use any regular Gmail account with this method to send out your emails. However, your email deliverability will be much better if you are using Google Apps for Work with your custom email address. See our guide on how to setup a professional email address with Google Apps and Gmail.

Whether you use paid or free Gmail address, rest of the instructions are the same.

First, you will need to install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » WP Mail SMTP page to configure plugin settings. First you need to provide your gmail address in the ‘From Email’ field and the name you want to display as sender.

WP Mail SMTP settings for Gmail

Next, you need to scroll down to the mailer option. There are two ways you can use Gmail servers to send WordPress emails.

First, method is to use Gmail APIs to send emails. This method is recommended because it is more secure and reliable. Second method is to use your Gmail account’s SMTP server manually.

We will show you both methods, however we recommend that you use the first method.

Method 1: Setting up Gmail to Send WordPress Emails Using OAuth Protocol

First, you need to select Gmail as your mailer under WP Mail SMTP settings page. Check the box next to set the return path to be the same as sender, not checking this box will make bounced and failed messages to be lost forever.

Select Gmail as Mailer

Next, you will see the option to enter your Client ID, Client Secret, and a URL in ‘Authorized redirect URI’ field.

Creating an App and Generate API Keys for Gmail

To use Gmail’s APIs for sending WordPress emails, you need to create an app and generate an API key. To do that, visit the Google Developers Console website and create a new project.

Create Google Developer Console project

If you don’t see the blue button to create a project, then you can also click on ‘Select a project’ drop down and create a new project.

You’ll be asked to provide a name for your project. Give it a meaningful name so that next time you are here, you can easily recognize it.

Name your project

Click on the create button to continue.

Developer console will now create your project and take you to its dashboard. Google allow developers to access many of their APIs and services. Now that your project is setup, you need to enable the APIs that you will be needing.

Enable APIs

Click on Enable APIs and services button to continue.

This will bring you to the APIs library page. Type Gmail in the search box to quickly find Gmail API and click to select it.

Select Gmail API

You will now see an overview of the API and what it can do. Simply click on the ‘Enable’ button to continue.

Enable Gmail API

Now that your API is enabled, the next step is to create credentials that you can use in your WP Mail SMTP plugin settings.

Click on the create credentials button to continue.

Create credentials

On the next screen, you will need to select ‘Web browser JavaScript’ in ‘Where you’ll be calling the API from’ field. After that click on the ‘User Data’ option.

To continue, click on the ‘What credentials do I need?’ button.

You will now be asked to provide a name for your OAuth client name. You can enter ‘WP Mail SMTP’ here.

Step 2 of API credentials

Under JavaScript origins field, add your website’s domain name. Next, you need to copy and paste the authorized redirect URL from WP Mail SMTP plugin settings.

Click on ‘Create client ID’ button to continue.

Next, you need to enter a name for OAuth consent screen. You can put the plugin’s name here.

API credentials step 3

Click on the continue button and developer console will show your client ID. You can copy it and paste it in WP Mail SMTP plugin’s settings page. However, you will still need client secret key.

Getting client ID

Click on the Done button to move on.

You will now be taken to your project’s credentials page. You will see your recently created credentials listed there. Click on the edit button next to your credentials.

Edit credentials

This will bring you to edit credentials page where you will be able to see your client secret key. You need to copy and paste the key in your plugin’s settings page.

Client secret key

Return back to plugin’s settings page in your WordPress admin area. Now that you have both client ID and client secret keys, you need to click on the save settings button to continue.

Save Api keys

The plugin will now store your settings and reload the page. After that you need to scroll down to the bottom of the settings page and click on the ‘Allow plugin to send emails using your Google account’ button.

Allow plugin to connect

This will take you to your account on Google and you will be asked to give the website permission to send emails on your behalf.

Allow WP Mail SMTP to send emails

After that you will be redirected back to your website where you will see a success message.

You have successfully set up WordPress to use Gmail SMTP servers for sending emails using the OAuth protocol. You can now click on the ‘Email Test’ tab on plugin’s settings page to send a test email and see if everything is working fine.

Email test

Method 2: Setting Gmail to Send WordPress Emails Using SMTP

This method allows WP Mail SMTP to manually connect to Gmail’s SMTP servers for sending WordPress emails.

First, you need to visit Settings &raquo WP Mail SMTP page to configure the plugin settings.

Provide the Gmail address you want to use as From email field and your name as from name field.

Gmail SMTP

Select ‘Other SMTP’ as your mailer and check the box next to return path.

Scroll down to Other SMTP section to configure more settings.

Gmail SMTP settings for WP Mail SMTP

Here is how to fill out the plugin settings:

SMTP Host: smtp.gmail.com
SMTP Port: 465
Encryption: Use SSL encryption
Authentication: Turn on authentication
Username: Your complete Gmail address, e.g. [email protected] or [email protected]
Password: Password of your Gmail account

Click on the save changes button to store your settings.

That’s all, you have successfully setup WP Mail SMTP to use Gmail SMTP servers.

You can now click on the ‘Email Test’ tab on plugin’s settings page to send a test email and see if everything is working fine.

Email test

We hope this article helped you learn how to fix WordPress not sending email issue, You may also want to see our list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Fix WordPress Not Sending Email Issue appeared first on WPBeginner.