Category Archives: Tutorials

How to Convert WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies

Do you want to convert your WordPress categories into custom taxonomies? Categories are one of the two default taxonomies that help you sort your content. However, WordPress also allows you to create and use custom taxonomies. In this article, we will show you how to easily convert WordPress categories into custom taxonomies.

How to Convert WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies

Why and When Do You Need to Convert Categories to Custom Taxonomies

Categories and tags are the two default taxonomies in WordPress. Taxonomies are used to sort and organize content into different topics.

Apart from the default taxonomies, WordPress also allows you to create custom taxonomies which you can use with existing post types or with custom post types. For more on this topic, see our article on when do you need a custom post type or taxonomy in WordPress.

As your website grow, you might find a need to convert your categories into a custom taxonomy. For example, let’s say that you have a category called topics with a lot of sub-categories. It would be time-consuming to edit each post and file it under your new custom taxonomy.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could bulk convert some or all of your categories to the new custom taxonomy?

Let’s take a look at how you can easily convert categories to custom taxonomies without manually editing each post.

Converting WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies

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

Upon activation, you need to visit Tools » Taxonomy Switcher page in your WordPress admin area to convert categories to custom taxonomies.

Taxonomy Switcher

On this page, you can select the taxonomies you want to convert. For this tutorial, we will select ‘Categories’ as the taxonomy we want to switch from, and ‘Topics’ as the custom taxonomy we want to switch to.

Select taxonomies

If you want to convert all categories to a custom taxonomy, then you can go ahead and click on the ‘Switch Taxonomies’ button.

The plugin will convert all categories to your selected custom taxonomy. You will see a success message like this:

Successfully switched taxonomies

If you just want to convert specific categories, then you will need to add the IDs of those categories next to ‘Comma separated list of term ids to switch’ field. See our article on how to find category IDs in WordPress for more details.

Skip categories

Additionally, if you want to skip child categories of a specific category, then you can add the IDs of the parent category next to ‘Limit taxonomy switch for child terms of a specific parent’ option.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Switch Taxonomy’ button to save your changes.

Setting Up Redirects from Category to Custom Taxonomy

After you switch categories to a custom taxonomy, the category archive page will now show a 404 error page. This is nothing to be worried about if your website is not live yet.

However if your website is live, then search engines may have already crawled your category pages and indexed them. This means that those pages can appear in search results and users coming from search engines will see a 404 error page.

To fix this, you need to redirect users to the new taxonomy page for each category.

Luckily, there is an easy fix for that.

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

Upon activation, you need to visit Tools » Redirection page. In the Source URL field, you need to enter /category/.* and in the Target URL field you need to enter your custom taxonomy slug, e.g. /topic/$1

Set up redirects

Next, you need check the box next to ‘Regex’ option, and then click on ‘Add Redirect’ button.

This redirect will now send all category archive traffic to your custom taxonomy. Only use this, if you don’t want to use categories at all.

If you want to redirect individual categories to a custom taxonomy page, then see our beginner’s guide on setting up redirects in WordPress with detailed step by step instructions.

We hope this article helped you learn how to convert WordPress categories to custom taxonomies. You may also want to see our guide on how to style individual categories differently in WordPress to style your custom taxonomy templates.

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 Convert WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Change WordPress Theme via phpMyAdmin

Recently one of our readers asked us if they can change their WordPress theme from the database. WordPress makes it extremely easy to manage themes from the admin area. However, if you are unable to access your WordPress admin area, then you will need to find other ways to change your WordPress theme. In this article, we will show you how to easily change your WordPress theme via phpMyAdmin.

Change WordPress Theme from phpMyAdmin

Why and When You Need to Use phpMyAdmin?

Normally, the easiest way to change your WordPress theme is by visiting the Appearance » Themes page in WordPress admin area. However, sometimes a WordPress error can make your website admin area inaccessible.

In that case, the safest way to recover your website is by restoring it from backup. Another way is to troubleshoot the WordPress error causing the problem. In troubleshooting, the easiest way to switch themes is to make a backup of your existing theme via FTP, and then remove all theme folders from /wp-content/themes/ except for the default theme. WordPress will automatically revert to the default theme.

Both of the above methods will give you access to the WordPress admin area, and you will be able to change the theme.

However if you don’t have a backup, and you don’t want to revert to a default theme, then you can change to a custom WordPress theme from your database by using phpMyAdmin.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to change your WordPress theme via phpMyAdmin.

Changing Your WordPress Theme via phpMyAdmin

This method allows you to tell WordPress which theme to use by changing the information in the database. For this method to work, the theme you want to switch to must already be installed on your website.

You will need to connect to your website using a FTP client and go to the /wp-content/themes/ folder. There you will be able to see all the themes that are currently installed on your website.

WordPress themes folder

Note: Write down the theme folder name that you want to switch to. You will need it in the next step.

If the theme you want to switch to isn’t installed on your website, then you can manually install a WordPress theme via FTP.

After making sure that theme you want is installed on your website, you can now go ahead and change the theme via phpMyAdmin.

First, you need to go to cPanel dashboard of your WordPress hosting account. Next, scroll down to the databases section and then click on phpMyAdmin.

Open phpMyAdmin from cPanel

Once you are in phpMyAdmin, you’ll see a list of databases on the left side of the screen. Simply click on the database that you are using for your WordPress site.

Select Database

Next, it will show you the list of tables in this database. You need to click on the ‘wp_options’ table to open it.

Note: By default, WordPress database tables use wp_ as the prefix for table names. However, it is possible to see a different database prefix if you or an administrator on your site had changed the WordPress database prefix.

Select Table

Upon opening the table, you need to scroll down and locate ‘template’ and ‘stylesheet’ rows. Next, click on the Edit button next to the template row.

Editing rows in phpMyAdmin

This will open the row editor where you need to change the value for the option_value field to the theme you want to use. It is usually the same as the folder name in /wp-content/themes/ folder.

Change theme option value

After that click on the ‘Go’ button below to save your changes. Now, repeat the process for stylesheet row as well.

Once you have saved your changes, you can go to your website to see the new theme in action.

We hope this article helped you learn how to change WordPress theme via phpMyAdmin. You may also want to see our complete beginners guide to WordPress database management using phpMyAdmin.

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.

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How to Easily Accept Credit Card Payments on Your WordPress Site

Do you want to learn how to accept credit card payments on your WordPress site? By default, WordPress does not come with credit card payment options, but there are plenty of plugins and tools that can help solve that. In this article, we will show you how to easily accept credit card payments on your WordPress site.

Accept credit card payments in WordPress

Note: You will need to enable HTTPS / SSL on your website to accept credit card payments.

Accepting Credit Card Payments in WordPress without Shopping Cart

Often users don’t want to setup a full-fledged shopping cart to accept credit card payments. This makes a lot of sense specially if you’re only selling a single product or accepting payments for consulting / services.

In this case, all you need is an online order form with a credit card payment option.

Here is how you can easily accept credit card payments without adding a shopping cart to your website.

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

WPForms is the most beginner friendly WordPress form builder plugin. While they have a Lite version that’s free, you will need their PRO plan to access the payment add-ons.

Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information in your WPForms account area.

Enter your license key

Next, you need to head over to WPForms » Addons page and locate the Stripe addon. Go ahead and click on the ‘Install Addon’ button and then click on the ‘Activate’ button.

Install Stripe addon for WPForms

Stripe is a credit-card processing platform that makes it easy for businesses to accept credit card payments on their website. WPForms makes it easy to connect your WordPress website to Stripe.

Once the Stripe addon is activated, we need to connect WPForms to your Stripe account. To do that, head over to WPForms » Settings page and click on the ‘Payments’ tab.

WPForms payments settings

You will need to enter your Stripe API keys. You can find this information in your account settings on Stripe’s website.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Settings’ button to store your changes after entering the API keys.

WPForms is now ready to accept credit card payments. Let’s create an online billing or order form that you can add to your website for accepting credit card payments.

Head over to WPForms » Add New page. From here you need to provide a title for your form and then select ‘Billing / Order Form’ template.

Creating a billing form

WPForms will pre-load the form builder with a billing/order form template with commonly used fields. You can point and click to edit any form field. You can also add new fields from the left column.

Editing order form

Next, you need to scroll down to the Payment Fields section in the left column. From here you can add payment related form fields.

WPForms allows you to add multiple items as well as single items that users can order. You can click on the item field to change item details and pricing.

Add credit card field

After editing item details, go ahead and click to add the credit card field to your form.

Now that your form is setup, let’s enable payments for this form. To do that, you need to click on the Payments tab on the left and then select Stripe.

Enable Stripe payments

You will need to click on the checkbox next to ‘Enable Stripe payments’ option and provide a description of the payment. Optionally, you can send an email receipt to your users by selecting the email field from the drop-down menu.

Next, you may want to receive an email notification for new orders and purchases. You can also send a confirmation email to notify the user that you have received their order.

Let’s setup notifications for your billing form.

You need to start with clicking the ‘Settings’ tab on the left and then select ‘Notifications’. You will notice that WPForms has already created a notification that sends an email to your WordPress admin email address when a new order is placed.

Notification settings

You can edit this notification message. For example, you can provide additional email addresses, change email copy, subject, and more.

If you want to send a separate notification to your users, then click on the ‘Add New Notification’ button.

You will be asked to provide a name for the new notification. Let’s call it ‘Customer Notification’. After that you will see the notification fields that you can edit.

Creating new notification email

You need to click on the ‘Show Smart Tags’ link next to ‘Send to email address’ option and select the ‘Email’ field. This allows WPForms to use the email address that your customer provided when submitting the form.

Editing new notification email

You can edit rest of the notification email by providing a subject line and message. You can also use smart tags to use the form fields submitted by the user to add item details, user’s name, and other personalized information.

Once you are done, you can click on the save button at the top and exit the form builder.

Save and exit form builder

Your online credit card payment form is now ready, and you can add it to any WordPress page on your site.

Simply edit a page or create a new one, and then click on the ‘Add Form’ button above the page editor.

Add your credit card payment form to a WordPress page

This will bring up a popup where you can select the order form and click on the add form button to continue. WPForms will now enter the required shortcode to your post edit area.

You can now save or publish your page and click on the preview button to see your form in action.

Payment form page preview

Note: Don’t forget to test your form to make sure everything is working fine. If you are unable to send or receive email notifications, then follow the instructions in our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

WPForms is the simplest way to accept credit card payments in WordPress, and it is the easiest way to create just about any type of form in WordPress. This is why it ranks #1 in our list of the best WordPress contact form plugin. WPForms has over 1 million active installs and a 4.9 out of 5 star rating average.

If you don’t want to use Stripe, then you can also use PayPal to accept credit card payments using the WPForms PayPal addon.

However a simple payment form isn’t a perfect solution for everyone. Based on use-case, you may need a different solution for accepting credit card payments on your website. Here are some other ways to accept credit card payments in WordPress.

Accepting Credit Card Payments in an Online Store

If you want to add a shopping cart and sell multiple items, then you will need an eCommerce plugin like: WooCommerce. It is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin on the market. WooCommerce makes it easy to sell things online and accept credit card payments.

WooCommerce payment settings

For complete step by step instructions, see our guide on how to start an online store for beginners.

Accept Credit Card Payments on a Membership Website

If you want to build a membership website to sell membership subscriptions and paid content, then we recommend using MemberPress. It is the most powerful WordPress membership plugin that easily integrates with Stripe, PayPal, or Authorize.net to accept credit card payments on your website.

MemberPress payments

Here is a complete guide on how to create a membership website with step by step instructions.

Accept Payments by Selling Online Courses

If you want to sell online courses, then we recommend using LearnDash. It is the best LMS plugin for WordPress and allows you to process credit card payments on your website.

LearnDash Stripe settings

For details, see our guide on how to how to sell online courses with WordPress with step by step instructions.

We hope this article helped you learn how to accept and process credit card payments in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the must have WordPress plugins for business websites.

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

The post How to Easily Accept Credit Card Payments on Your WordPress Site appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Let Contributors Edit Their WordPress Posts After Being Approved

Recently one of our readers asked if it was possible to allow contributors to edit their approved posts? WordPress user roles allow you to set different permissions for each user on your site. By default, a WordPress user with a contributor role can’t modify their published posts. In this article, we will show you how to let contributors edit their posts after being approved.

Let Contributors Edit Their Posts After Being Approved

Let Contributors Edit Their Posts After Being Approved

Contributors or guest authors with contributor user role write posts and send them to review in WordPress. A user with the administrator or editor user role can review and publish it. Once published, the contributors are unable to edit their own posts. This is a generalized hierarchy in WordPress that distribute user role and status.

However, you can add or remove capabilities to user roles in WordPress. Let’s take a look at how to let contributors edit their published posts.

Method 1: Allow Contributors to Edit Their Posts (Plugin)

This method is easier and recommended for most users. This method also allows you to edit other user roles and permissions right away.

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

Upon activation, you need to visit Users » Capabilities in your WordPress admin area to edit capabilities of contributor user role.

User Capabilities

On this page, you need to select Contributor role on the right side, so you can change their permission level.

Select Contributor Role

Once selected, you’ll see a lot of options in this section. In the Editing Capabilities area, you need to select Edit Published option and scroll to the bottom to click on Save Changes button.

Select Edit Published

After that you can test the permissions by switching to a contributor role in WordPress and going to the Posts page. You will now see the option to edit published posts. Hint: you can instantly switch between user accounts while testing roles and permissions in WordPress.

Edit Approved Posts

Method 2: Manually Allowing Contributor to Edit Their Posts

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


// get the "contributor" role object
$obj_existing_role = get_role( 'contributor' );

// add the "Edit published posts" capability
$obj_existing_role->add_cap( 'edit_published_posts' );

This code snippet needs to run only once which means you can save it and then delete it. It will allow contributors to edit their published posts in WordPress.

Even though we have shown you how to allow contributors to edit their published posts, we believe it is not a good practice to let contributors or authors edit their published content.

If there’s a need for any change or correction in the content, then the writer should ask an administrator or editor to update it. This allows you to maintain editorial integrity.

Before publishing a post, an editor checks multiple necessary elements like keywords, images, meta description, URL, and more. These things are important to get better rankings in search results. A user with a contributor user role may not be fully aware of your editorial best practices and can make mistakes that would go unnoticed if not reviewed by an editor or administrator.

One way to deal with this is by sharing a blog post checklist with your contributors and authors. This checklist will help them cover all the tasks before submitting a post to review. It will also help an editor to quickly review a post.

We hope this article helped you learn how to let contributors edit their posts after being approved. You may also want to see our guide on how to allow users to submit posts in WordPress without even accessing the WordPress admin area.

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.

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How to Fix the WordPress Failed to Open Stream Error

Are you seeing the ‘failed to open stream’ error in WordPress? This error usually points out the location of the scripts where the error has occurred. However, it is quite difficult for beginner users to understand it. In this article, we will show you how to easily fix the WordPress failed to open stream error.

Failed to open stream error in WordPress

Why Failed to Open Stream Error Occurs?

Before we try to fix the error, it would be helpful to understand what causes the ‘Failed to open stream’ error in WordPress.

This error occurs when WordPress is unable to load the file mentioned in website code. When this error occurs, sometimes WordPress will continue loading the site and only show a warning message, while other times WordPress will show a fatal error and will not load anything else.

The message phrasing will be different depending on where the error occurs in the code and the reason for failure. It will also give you clues about what needs to be fixed.

Typically, this message would look something like this:

Warning: require(/home/website/wp-includes/load.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/website/wp-settings.php on line 19 

Fatal error: require(): Failed opening required ‘/home/website/wp-includes/load.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/share/php/:/usr/share/php5/’) in /home/website/wp-settings.php on line 19

Here is another example:

Last Error: 2018-04-04 14:52:13: (2) HTTP Error: Unable to connect: ‘fopen(compress.zlib://https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/management/accounts/~all/webproperties/~all/profiles?start-index=1): failed to open stream: operation failed’

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to troubleshoot and fix ‘failed to open stream’ error in WordPress.

Fixing Failed to Open Stream Error in WordPress

As we mentioned earlier, the error can be caused by a variety of reasons and the error message will be different depending on the cause and location of the file that’s causing the error.

In each instance, failed to open stream phrase would be followed by a reason. For example, permission denied, no such file or directory, operation failed, and more.

Now if your error message contains ‘no such file or directory’, then you need to look in the code to figure out which file is mentioned at that particular line.

If it is a plugin or theme file, then this means that the plugin or theme files were either deleted or not installed correctly. Simply deactivate and reinstall the theme / plugin in question to fix the error.

However, it is also possible that WordPress is unable to locate the files because of a missing .htaccess file in your root folder. In that case, you need to go to Settings » Permalinks page in your WordPress admin and just click on the ‘Save changes’ button to regenerate the .htaccess file.

Regenerate htaccess file in WordPress

If the error message is followed by ‘Permission denied’, then this means that WordPress does not have the right permission to access the file or directory referenced in the code.

To fix this, you need to check WordPress files and directory permissions and correct them if needed.

Lastly, some WordPress plugins load scripts from third-party sources like Google Analytics, Facebook APIs, Google Maps, and other third-party APIs.

Some of these APIs may require authentication or may have changed the way developers can access them. A failure to authenticate or incorrect access method will result in WordPress failing to open the required files.

To fix this, you will need to contact the plugin author for support. They will be able to help you fix the error.

If none of these tips help you resolve the issue, then follow the steps mentioned in our WordPress troubleshooting guide. This step by step guide will help you pinpoint the issue, so you can easily find the solution.

We hope this article helped you fix the WordPress ‘failed to open stream’ error. You may also want to bookmark 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.

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How to Convert WooCommerce Visitors into Customers

Do you want to convert WooCommerce visitors into customers? Bringing traffic to your WooCommerce store is only half the battle, the other half is to convert those visitors into paying customers. In this article, we will show you how to easily convert WooCommerce visitors into customers like a pro.

Converting WooCommerce visitors into customers

Why I Need to Conversion Optimization for My WooCommerce Store

Most eCommerce stores rely on search engines or paid advertising campaigns for traffic. There are many other ways to get more traffic to your website.

However, more than 75% visitors who find your website through search engines will never find it again. Those who stick around, only a small percentage of them will add products to the cart.

In the end, more than 69% shopping carts are abandoned without making the purchase. Shipping costs, complicated checkout experience, and bad design are among the top reasons for abandoned carts.

Now, considering these statistics, your eCommerce website will continue losing potential customers if you don’t work on converting those visitors into customers.

How do I Convert Visitors into Customers?

The process and technique that are used to convert visitors into customers is called conversion rate optimization (CRO). Marketers and usability experts use CRO to successfully drive visitors to become a customer or a potential customer.

Basically, you remove obstacles that affect a user’s experience on your website. You also incentivize users to make a purchasing decision.

Lastly if a user must leave without making a purchase, then your goal is to try and get their information through lead generation. This allows you to communicate with them via email and offer personalized messages, special discounts, or new product announcements.

In early days of eCommerce, you would have needed programming skills to work on all these but not anymore. Now you have tools that make it extremely easy to do all these things without writing code or acquiring any new technical skills.

That being said let’s take a look at how to convert WooCommerce visitors into customers.

What You Need to Boost WooCommerce Conversions

First, you will need a WooCommerce store. If you don’t already have one, see our guide on how to create an online store.

This tutorial is about WooCommerce, so we will be using it in our screenshots. However, all these techniques would also work on any other eCommerce platform including Shopify.

We will be using the OptinMonster tool. It is the best conversion optimization software on the market and helps you easily convert WooCommerce visitors into customers.

OptinMonster is a paid service, and you will need at least their Pro plan to access all the features mentioned later in this article.

Ready? let’s begin.

Disclosure: We believe in full transparency. WPBeginner founder, Syed Balkhi, is also the co-founder of OptinMonster. We only recommend tools that we personally use and believe will add value to our readers.

Installing and Setting up OptinMonster

After you have purchased OptinMonster, you will need to install the OptinMonster plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This plugin is just a connector between your WooCommerce store and OptinMonster.

Upon activation, you need to click on the OptinMonster menu item in your WordPress admin sidebar. You will be asked to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on OptinMonster website.

OptinMonster API Key

You have now successfully connected your WooCommerce store to OptinMonster, and you can now start optimizing your conversion rates.

Creating Your First WooCommerce Conversion Optimization Campaign

Let’s create your first WooCommerce conversion optimization campaign using OptinMonster. Our first campaign will reduce shopping cart abandonment rate while increasing conversions at the same time.

Visit the OptinMonster page in WordPress admin area and then click on ‘Create New Campaign’ button.

Create new campaign button

This will take you to the OptinMonster website where you will be asked to select a campaign type and a campaign template. For this tutorial, you need to select lightbox as your campaign type. We will be using the ‘Coupon’ template in this tutorial, but you can use any template that you like.

Creating new OptinMonster campaign

As soon as you select a template, you will be asked to provide a name for your campaign and enter the website address where you will be using it.

Campaign name and URL

After entering this information, click on the ‘Start Building’ button to continue.

This will launch the OptinMonster builder interface with a live preview of your popup. You can simply point and click on any item to edit it.

Building your optin campaign

As you can see we are using a popup that collects user’s email address. You can connect OptinMonster to your favorite email service provider by clicking on the integrations tab.

Connect to your email service provider

From here you can add a new integration to connect with your email service by following the on-screen prompts.

Next, you need to choose which users will see the popup and when.

Click on the ‘Display Rules’ tab from the left menu, and OptinMonster will show you a list of default display rulesets that you can use.

First, click on the ‘Exit Intent’ ruleset to expand it, and then make sure it is active. Exit-Intent basically detects user’s behavior and prompt them with a message at the precise moment they’re about to leave.

Turn on exit intent

When a visitor adds a product to the cart, WooCommerce automatically sets a cookie ‘woocommerce_items_in_cart’ in their browser with the number of items in their cart.

We only want to show our popup to users who have products in their cart. To do that, scroll down a little and then click on ‘Select visitors with a specific cookie’ ruleset to expand it.

This ruleset allows you to trigger a campaign when a specific cookie is found. From here you need to switch the status toggle to ‘Active’.

WooCommerce cookie tracking in OM

First, option in this ruleset is to show when a cookie name is matched. After that, click on ‘Add a condition’ button and select ‘Cookie value’ does not exactly match 0.

Lastly, click on the save button at the top right corner of the screen to save your changes and then click on the publish button next to it.

Save campaign

Your campaign is now ready to be served on your WooCommerce store. You just need to click on the ‘OptinMonster’ tab in your WordPress admin area and then click on ‘Campaigns’ tab.

You will see the campaign you just created listed there. If you don’t see your campaign, then click on the ‘Refresh campaigns’ button.

Live Campaign

Next, you need to click on the ‘Go Live’ link below your campaign.

That’s all your lightbox popup is live now. To test it out, you will need to open a new browser window in the incognito mode and visit your store. Simply add a few products to your cart and then try to leave.

Abandoned cart campaign preview

Congratulations! you have just set up your first conversion optimization campaign targeting users who are about to abandon their cart and leave without purchasing.

Other Campaign Ideas to Boost WooCommerce Conversions

OptinMonster is a powerful tool with tons of different campaign styles that you can use with a wide range of display rules. This allows you to target customers with highly effective messaging at the perfect time.

Here are some more campaign ideas that can help you boost WooCommerce conversions.

Using Multiple Campaign Types

OptinMonster comes with several campaign styles including lightbox popups, slide-in scroll box, floating bar, countdown timer, sidebar forms, in-line forms, and more.

Campaign types

You can maximize your WooCommerce conversion rates by using multiple campaign types. For example, you can target users leaving your website with an Exit-Intent ® popup while showing other campaigns throughout your store.

Page Level Targeting

OptinMonster allows you to display your campaigns on any page on your website. This page can be a product, product category, a blog post, homepage, or a landing page.

Simply go to OptinMonster page in your WordPress admin area and click on the ‘Edit output settings’ link below your campaign.

Output settings

This will show you a variety of page level targeting options that you can use. It also includes WooCommerce specific targeting options.

Targeting options

Apart from these options, you also have display rulesets in the OptinMonster app which provide even more page level targeting options.

Peronalization and Behavioral Targeting

Personalization helps you improve user experience by making it more personal for each user. Behavioral targetting allows you to target your campaigns based on customer behavior.

For example, you can greet logged in customers with their name, show them products based on their browsing history, offer them discount or coupon.

OptinMonster behavioral targeting

Edit your campaign in the OptinMonster app and click on the ‘Display Rules’ tab. Scroll down to the ‘Who should see the campaign’ section, and you will find a treasure of targeting options.

Click on any of these options to expand them. From here you can activate the ruleset and set it up.

Behavioral targeting options

Using FOMO to Increase WooCommerce Conversions

FOMO or ‘fear of missing out’ is a psychological term used to describe anxiety about missing out on something exciting and trendy.

As an eCommerce store owner, you can take advantage of this human behavior with your marketing strategy and improve your conversions.

Using FOMO in WooCommerce

OptinMonster comes with the countdown timer templates, floating bars, and coupon themes that you can use to build up FOMO in your marketing campaigns.

Combine it with behavioral targeting and customization to make your campaigns even more effective.

For more on this topic, see our article on how to use FOMO on your WordPress site to increase conversions or see these clever FOMO marketing examples from across the web.

We hope this article helped you learn how to convert WooCommerce visitors into customers. You may also want to see our guide on how to enable customer tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics.

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.

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How to Add Custom Post Status for Blog Posts in WordPress

Do you want to add a custom post status for your blog posts in WordPress? Post status is an editorial tool that allows you to organize your articles based on their respective stages during the editorial workflow. In this article, we will show you how to easily add custom post status to blog posts in WordPress.

How to add custom post status in WordPress

What is Post Status in WordPress and Why Do You Need it?

Post status is an editorial tool that tells WordPress the stage of a blog post during editing. For example, posts that are incomplete are saved with the post status labeled ‘Draft’. When you publish an article, the status changes to ‘Published’.

Post status

Post status helps WordPress choose how to handle and display blog posts on your website. For example, it will automatically exclude posts labeled draft from your homepage and other publicly viewable areas of your website.

By default, WordPress comes with the following post status that you can use:

  • Draft – An item that is saved but incomplete and not yet published
  • Auto draft – WordPress has an auto-save feature that automatically saves a draft as revision.
  • Pending review – Items that are complete and submitted for review but not yet published.
  • Future – Posts scheduled to be published later.
  • Private – Items marked as private
  • Trash – Items that are trashed
  • Inherit – Child pages that automatically inherit status of their parent page.

Apart from these default post statuses, you can also create your own custom post statuses to improve your editorial workflow. For example, you can add a label ‘Not suitable’ for posts that are complete but not suitable for publication.

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to easily create custom post statuses in WordPress.

Method 1. Create Custom Post Status Using a Plugin

This method is easier and recommended for most users. It allows you to create custom post statuses as well as efficiently manage editorial workflow on your multi-author WordPress blog.

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

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘Edit Flow’ to your WordPress admin menu. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s settings page.

Edit statuses

Edit Flow comes with a lot of useful features, and you can turn them On/Off from this screen. Go ahead and click on the ‘Edit Statuses’ button under ‘Custom Statuses’ box to continue.

Edit Flow automatically creates the following custom post statuses:

  • Pitch – Used to pitch new article ideas and this status also becomes the default post status of every new post.
  • Assigned – You can select an author and mark an article as assigned so that the author can work on it.
  • In progress – Writer is working on the post but is not yet available as a readable draft.

Add new status

You can create your own custom status by providing a name and description in the left column. Once you are done, click on the ‘Add new status’ button to save your changes.

Your custom status will now appear in the right-hand column, so you can edit or delete it at any time.

Edit status

Next, you need to go to Posts » Add New page to create a new post. On the post edit screen, click on the ‘Edit’ link next to status option under the ‘Publish’ meta box.

Select post status

This will reveal a drop-down menu showing all post statuses that you can select including the custom post status you just created.

You can also see all articles filed under different post statuses by visiting Posts » All Posts page.

Sort posts by status

Method 2. Create Custom Post Status Using Code

WordPress has a known bug in the API used to register custom post statuses. It allows you to create custom post status, but you cannot use it in the admin panel. This means that the coding method can get the job done, but it is not as clean, and you will need to change it after it is officially fixed.

However if you still want to do it manually, then you can continue reading.

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

First, you need to add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

// Registering custom post status
function wpb_custom_post_status(){
	register_post_status('rejected', array(
		'label'                     => _x( 'Rejected', 'post' ),
		'public'                    => false,
		'exclude_from_search'       => false,
		'show_in_admin_all_list'    => true,
		'show_in_admin_status_list' => true,
		'label_count'               => _n_noop( 'Rejected <span class="count">(%s)</span>', 'Rejected <span class="count">(%s)</span>' ),
	) );
}
add_action( 'init', 'wpb_custom_post_status' );

// Using jQuery to add it to post status dropdown
add_action('admin_footer-post.php', 'wpb_append_post_status_list');
function wpb_append_post_status_list(){
global $post;
$complete = '';
$label = '';
if($post->post_type == 'post'){
if($post->post_status == 'rejected'){
$complete = ' selected="selected"';
$label = '<span id="post-status-display"> Rejected</span>';
}
echo '
<script>
jQuery(document).ready(function($){
$("select#post_status").append("<option value=\"rejected\" '.$complete.'>Rejected</option>");
$(".misc-pub-section label").append("'.$label.'");
});
</script>
';
}
}

Don’t forget to replace all instances of the word rejected with your own custom post status.

This code registers a custom post status and after that, it uses jQuery to add it to the admin panel. You can now edit a WordPress post, and you will be able to see it in the status drop-down menu.

Custom post status shown in admin panel

We hope this article helped you add custom post status to blog posts in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of 55+ most wanted WordPress tips, tricks, and hacks.

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.

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How to Fix Add Media Button Not Working in WordPress

Recently one of our users reported that the ‘Add Media’ button on their WordPress site has suddenly stopped working. This problem does not display any error or warning which leaves users clueless about why their ‘Add Media’ button is not working. In this article, we will show you how to easily fix the ‘Add Media’ button not working issue in WordPress.

Fixing add media button not working in WordPress

What causes the WordPress ‘Add Media’ Button to Stop Working?

This problem is commonly caused by conflicting scripts or stylesheets loaded by WordPress plugins or themes installed on your site. The default behavior of WordPress is to load all required scripts and stylesheets by combining the requests.

This is usually done in the WordPress admin area to improve performance and speed.

The WordPress post editor uses JavaScript for all buttons on the screen including the add media button. A conflict can stop JavaScript from working which will disable the ‘Add Media’ button.

Add media button stopped working in WordPress

That being said, let’s take a look at how to troubleshoot and fix the ‘Add Media’ button not working in WordPress.

Fixing Add Media Button Not Working Issue in WordPress

The quick fix is to add the following code to your wp-config.php file. You can do this by editing wp-config.php file and adding this code just before the line that says ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging’.

define('CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS', false );

This code simply tells WordPress to load each script separately which helps avoiding a JavaScript conflict with buggy scripts and the core WordPress features.

After you have added the code, go ahead and the visit post edit screen to see if the add media button is working as expected.

Note: Adding this code is not a proper long-term solution because you still have a script that is causing the issue. An easier way to find the source of the problem is by using the inspect tool. It will show you console errors which can lead you to the source of the conflict.

If you want a long-term fix for this issue, then you need to perform the basic WordPress troubleshooting tips to figure out which plugin or theme may be causing the issue.

We strongly recommend that you do this on your staging site instead of a live site. Here’s a step by step guide on how to create a WordPress staging site. All the best WordPress hosting companies like Bluehost, SiteGround, WP Engine, and Liquid Web offer 1-click staging functionality.

On your staging site, you need to start by deactivating all your WordPress plugins and then check if it fixed the ‘Add Media’ button. If it does, then this means one of the plugins was causing the issue.

Deactivate all plugins

You can now activate the plugins one-by-one, and after activating a plugin check the ‘Add Media’ button. This will help you find out which plugin is causing the issue. After you find the culprit, you can replace it with another plugin or ask plugin author for help.

If deactivating plugins doesn’t solve the issue, then the next step is to temporarily switch to a default WordPress theme like Twenty Seventeen.

Switch to a default WordPress theme

If switching to the default theme fixes the issue for you, then this means your theme is causing the conflict. You can ask theme author for support or switch to a different WordPress theme.

Once you find the source of the problem on your staging site, then you can apply the fix on your live WordPress site.

We hope this article helped you learn how to fix add media button not working in WordPress. 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.

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How to Create Your Company Org Chart in WordPress

Do you want to display a beautiful organizational chart on your WordPress site? Org charts are helpful in showing the company hierarchy and introducing users to the team running the business. In this article, we will show you how to create a company org chart in WordPress.

How to Create an Org Chart in WordPress

What is an Organizational Chart and Why is it Important?

An organizational chart present a company’s hierarchical structure based on job title and responsibilities, from top management to the executives.

It helps improve your brand’s reputation by showing the human side of your business. At the same time, it also allows users to find who they should contact for various business opportunities, feedback, and suggestions.

Organizational Chart

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily create and manage a company organization chart in WordPress.

Creating an Organization Chart in WordPress

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

Upon activation, you need to visit Easy Org Chart » Add New from your WordPress admin area to create a new org chart.

Add New Chart

First, you need to provide a title for your chart. After that, your need to scroll down to the Build your Org Chart section to start adding team members.

In the first column, you will need to add details of your team members like their name, job title, profile picture, and contact information.

Next, you need to click on Add a person button to add another team member. Go ahead and repeat the process to add all team members that you want to show in your org chart.

Add New Member

You can drag and drop team members to the right or left in the WordPress admin area. You will also need to define the upper hierarchy and row number for each team member according to your company’s hierarchical structure.

Set Upper Hierarchy

After adding team members, you need to scroll down to advanced styling section. From here, you can configure how the chart should appear. You can choose the container size, corners, background color, box template, field styling, and more.

Chart Advanced Styling

Once you are done with styling, click on the Publish button to save your changes.

To display your org chart on your website, you need to visit the Easy Org Chart page in WordPress admin to copy the shortcode.

Copy Shortcode

You can now paste this shortcode in any WordPress post, page, or sidebar widget to display your organization chart.

Organizational Chart

It would be a good idea to add a contact form below your org chart in WordPress. We recommend using WPForms because it’s the best contact form plugin in the market. They also allow users to select recipients in WordPress contact form.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a company org chart in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create a WordPress intranet for your organization while keeping it private and secure.

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.

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How to Blog Anonymously Using WordPress

Do you want to blog anonymously using WordPress? There are many users who want to start a blog but don’t what to put their real name on it. In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to easily blog anonymously using WordPress while keeping your personal information safe.

How to anonymously blog using WordPress

Note: This guide is not for journalists or whistle-blowers doing high-risk work. They should use something like TOR or other tools. This is for an average blogger who wants to blog anonymously.

Anonymous Blogging Pros & Cons

There are many users who simply want to blog anonymously to express their opinions. Most of them want to remain anonymous because they fear it may affect how people see them in real lives. Some want to do it just to be more creative.

There are pros and cons to blogging anonymously, and it’s important that you understand them before you start blogging.

Pros of Anonymous Blogging using WordPress

  • Freedom to express your opinions without being judged
  • Protect your personal identity and information
  • Creative and artistic freedom

Cons of Anonymous Blogging Using WordPress

  • Not able to meet with people who follow your blog
  • Limited monetization options, you can still use Google AdSense, but you will have to share your personal information with Google.
  • If someone is really determined, then they can still trace your blog back to you.

That being said, let’s see how to blog anonymously using WordPress.

How to Start an Anonymous Blog using WordPress

There are two types of WordPress websites. First, there is WordPress.com which is a hosted blogging service, and then you have WordPress.org also known as self-hosted WordPress. For comparison, see our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

There are other blogging platforms as well. However, we recommend using self-hosted WordPress.org to have complete control on the privacy and ownership of your website.

You will need a domain name and a website hosting account to start your self-hosted WordPress blog.

We recommend using Bluehost. They are one of the largest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider. They’re offering our users a free domain and 60% off their web hosting.

For details, see our article on how to start a WordPress blog with complete step by step instructions.

After you have installed WordPress, let’s make it anonymous.

Using Whois Privacy

When you purchase a domain name, you are required to provide contact information, like name, address, phone number, and email address. This information is publicly accessible and anyone can look up for it.

To protect customer’s privacy, many domain name providers offer a service called Whois privacy. For a small fee, this service displays their contact information instead of yours. If someone sends an email to the address displayed on WHOIS privacy page it will be forwarded to you.

You can purchase domain privacy during the set up on most hosting companies. For example, Bluehost provides you an option to do so during the sign up. We normally don’t recommend it due to the additional cost, but since you want to create an anonymous blog, you would want to check this option.

Domain privacy

If you didn’t purchase it during set up, then you can always enable it from your hosting account’s dashboard under the domains section.

Using a Blogging Email Address

Next step is to create a new email account to use for your WordPress website, and your author profile in WordPress. You can use a free email service provider like Gmail or use a more private email service like Proton Mail.

After you have created an email account, you need to add it as a WordPress administrative email address. This email address is used to send WordPress notification emails.

You can do this by going to Settings » General page in the WordPress admin area and add your new email address there.

Adding admin email address in WordPress

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

Next, you need to add the same email address to your author profile page. Simply go to the Users » Your Profile page and add the email address under your contact info.

Change your author profile email address

Don’t forget to click on the Update Profile button to save your changes.

You can also use gravatar to display an anonymous profile picture next to your author bio under your blog posts.

Tip: If you are not receiving WordPress emails, then see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending emails issue.

Using a Psuedonym for Anonymous Blogging

You will need to choose and use a pseudonym on your blog. For better WordPress security, you cannot just use admin as your username or author name. You will need to think of a different nickname that you can use to sign your posts.

To add your pseudonym, you need to visit Users » Your Profile page and add the name next to the Nickname field. After entering your nickname, click on the drop-down menu next to ‘Display name publicly as’ option and select your nickname.

Pseudonym

It’s important that you don’t add your real first and last name in this user profile.

Don’t forget to click on the Update Profile button to save your changes.

Using a VPN

VPN is a Virtual Private Network that helps you secure your internet connection and protect your identity.

Normally, all your internet traffic travels through different servers spread across the world. Hackers and governments can spy on this traffic and see what you are doing online.

VPN acts as a network between your computer and outside world. All your internet traffic goes to a VPN service where it is encrypted and sent to the destination using a random server in a different geographic location.

How VPN works

Here is a list of the best VPN service providers. We recommend using IPVanish. They offer military grade encryption with hundreds of servers. They also have the easiest software to turn on VPN with the click of a button on any device including laptops, tablets, and mobile phones.

We hope this article helped you learn how to blog anonymously using WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate step by step WordPress SEO 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.

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