Have you ever wanted to white label the WordPress admin dashboard for your clients or users?
WordPress comes with a nice user interface, but sometimes you may need to customize it for your own needs or simplify it for clients.
In this article, we will show you how to white label your WordPress admin dashboard.
What is White Labeled WordPress and When Do You Need it?
WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world as it powers more than 43% of the website on the internet. However, many people still don’t know about it.
When working on a client project, it is possible that they may not be familiar with WordPress. Clients are interested in an easy way to update their website. They don’t want to struggle with themes, plugins, updates, security, and learning how to use WordPress.
White labeling a WordPress admin dashboard allows you to customize the WordPress admin area. You can replace the default WordPress branding with your own and hide unnecessary items to create a more streamlined interface for your clients or users.
Having said that, let’s take a look at how you can white label the WordPress admin dashboard without much effort.
White Labeling WordPress Admin Dashboard
The best way to white label your site’s admin area is by using the White Label CMS plugin. It’s a free WordPress plugin that lets you customize the login page, add your branding, edit the dashboard, control which menus your clients can see, and more.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the White Label CMS plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » White Label CMS from your WordPress dashboard to configure the plugin settings.
The plugin offers a simple setup wizard that you can use to get started. In the wizard, you can add a developer name that will appear in the footer and alt text.
Other than that, there are options for adding a developer URL, footer text, and RSS feed. After adding these details, you can click the ‘Next’ button.
The White Label CMS setup wizard also lets you add your client’s business name and upload a login logo for customization.
There’s also an option to enable a Retina login logo and upload your image.
Once you’re done, simply click the ‘Save’ button to exit the setup wizard.
Besides that, the settings page for the plugin allows you to control and customize every aspect of WordPress administration screens.
It is divided into these 5 sections:
Branding
Login
Dashboard
Menus
Settings
Let’s dive deeper into the different options available under each section and how to properly configure them.
Replace WordPress Branding With Your Own Brand
This is where you will replace the default WordPress site’s branding with your own custom branding.
The first option under the branding is to show or hide the WordPress logo and links in the admin bar. You can also hide the WordPress version from the footer.
Next, you can scroll down and upload your own custom logo to replace the WordPress logo that will appear in the admin bar.
The plugin also lets you replace the Howdy text from the admin bar and the WordPress.org URL with your own custom link.
After that, you can scroll down and change the side menu branding in your WordPress admin panel.
The plugin offers options to add a side menu image, an image that appears when the menu is collapsed, side menu link URLs, and alt text.
Lastly, you can also change the Gutenberg exit button and replace it with an exit icon, admin bar logo, and use a custom logo.
Besides that, there are options to brand the footer of your WordPress admin panel. The plugin lets you add a footer image, text, URL, and your own HTML code.
When you’re done, simply save your changes.
Here’s a preview of what these changes would look like in the WordPress dashboard.
White Label the WordPress Login Page
Next, you can go to the ‘Login’ tab in White Label CMS and change what the login screen will look like.
To start, you can upload a login logo and a retina login logo. There are also options to define the logo’s width, height, bottom margins, and add background color.
If you scroll down, there are more settings to change the background image and its position.
You can also enable the option to make the background image appear as a full screen on the login page for your WordPress website.
After making these changes, you can click the ‘Live Preview’ button at the bottom.
This will show you what your changes will look like in real-time. Once you’re satisfied with the edits, simply save your changes.
The White Label CMS plugin gives you some simple options to customize the login page. However, if you’d like more control over its design, then we recommend using a drag and drop page builder like SeedProd.
The main WordPress admin screen is called the dashboard. This is what users usually see when they login to WordPress.
It contains default panels showing different information about the website.
There is usually quite a lot of information, and many users don’t know what they are supposed to do with it.
White Label CMS allows you to customize this section and make it look cleaner. To start, simply click on the ‘Dashboard’ tab, and you will see options to show and hide each panel.
You can add dashboard icons, change the heading for the dashboard, and select WordPress user roles that can view the dashboard panel.
If you scroll down, there are more options.
For instance, you can enable the ‘Add Your Own Welcome Panel’ option.
When you’re done, don’t forget to save your changes.
Hide Specific Menu Items in the WordPress Admin
Next, you can head over to the ‘Menus’ tab in White Label CMS.
If you are using a bunch of plugins on the site, then those plugins will probably add their own menus as well. This could make your admin menu quite long. Many of your clients or users will probably not need these menus.
Using the plugin, you can hide these menus by enabling the ‘Want to hide menus for your clients’ option.
After that, you can scroll down and see different menus to hide.
For each menu, there are sub-menu items that you can see by clicking the blue downwards arrow icon.
To hide a menu, simply click the toggle, and it will be hidden for different user roles in WordPress.
There are also admin bar menus that you can hide using the plugin.
When you’re done, go ahead and save your changes.
Customize WordPress Admin Settings
Lastly, you can go to the ‘Settings’ tab in the White Label CSS plugin.
In this section, you’ll get options to hide the front-end admin bar, help box, and other screen options.
You can also turn off nag messages that appear at the top of the page in your WordPress dashboard. These are messages like rating the plugin or upgrading to a pro plan.
By removing them, you can keep your admin panel clean and clutter-free for your clients.
Other than that, the plugin lets you add custom CSS for admin and custom editor stylesheet.
Once you’ve made the changes, simply click the ‘Save’ button.
Note: If you’re doing work-for-hire and will not be managing your client’s sites on a regular basis, then we DO NOT recommend hiding admin menus or disabling the admin nags.
Only do that if you’re going to be regularly updating and managing the website.
Do you want to show Google, Facebook, or Yelp reviews in WordPress?
Customer reviews encourage people to trust your website and buy from your business. There are lots of third-party sites where potential customers can see your reviews, but it’s also a good idea to show this content on your own website.
In this article, we will show you how to display business reviews from Google, Facebook, and Yelp in your WordPress site.
Why You Should Display Business Reviews in WordPress
There are lots of different websites where customers can review your company such as Google, Yelp, and Facebook. However, potential customers will need to visit these third-party websites in order to see the reviews.
With that being said, it’s a good idea to add Google, Yelp, and Facebook reviews to your WordPress website so that everyone can see them. For example, you might show positive reviews on your WooCommerce product pages, or your About Us page.
These reviews can convince customers to trust your company, even if they haven’t bought from you before.
With that said, let’s see how you can easily add Yelp, Google, and Facebook reviews to WordPress. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the platform you want to use.
How to Show Google, Facebook, and Yelp Reviews in WordPress
You could simply copy and paste the best reviews into your site, and then show them using a customer review plugin. However, depending on the plugin you use, you may need to add new reviews manually, which can take a lot of time and effort.
There will also be a delay between customers posting on sites like Yelp and Facebook, and those reviews appearing on your WordPress website.
With that in mind, it’s a good idea to create a review feed that updates automatically using the Reviews Feed Pro plugin.
This single plugin allows you to show reviews from all the biggest review platforms.
It also comes with pre-designed templates, so you can display your reviews in different layouts including showcases, carousels, grids, and more.
The Reviews Feed automatically copies your website’s design so the reviews look like a natural part of your website, rather than content embedded from another platform.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, click on Reviews Feed in the left-hand menu. You can then add your Reviews Feed Pro license key and click on the ‘Activate’ button.
You’ll find the license key under your account on the Smash Balloon website.
After activating the plugin, you’re ready to show reviews from Google, Facebook, or Yelp.
Method 1. How to Show Yelp Reviews in WordPress
Yelp is a popular website where visitors can review restaurants, brands, services, products, and more.
If your business already has some positive Yelp reviews, then adding them to your website can get you more sales, members, appointments, and more.
Since Yelp is a public site, you can show reviews from any business that has a Yelp listing. For example, if you own a business listing blog or membership site, then you could show Yelp reviews for different local businesses on your website.
To add reviews to your website, you’ll need to create a Yelp API key. Simply go to the Yelp Developers page and type in your email address.
Then, click on the ‘Send Login Link’ button.
Note: If you don’t already have an account, then go to the Yelp signup page and follow the onscreen instructions to register.
After a few moments, Yelp will send a one-time login link to your email address. Simply open the email and use the ‘Click to Log in’ button.
This takes you to the Yelp Developer Portal.
In the toolbar, click on Manage API Access.
On this screen, type a name for your Yelp app into the ‘App Name’ field. This is just for your reference so you can use anything you want.
After that, open the ‘Industry’ dropdown and choose the industry that best reflects your website or business.
After that, type in your email address and add a description.
With that done, read the terms and conditions. If you’re happy to go ahead, then check the terms and conditions box, decide whether you want to get email updates from Yelp, and pass the captcha.
Finally, click on the ‘Create New App’ button.
After a few moments, you’ll see the following message ‘Great, your app has been created! Check your App ID and API Key below.’
Simply go to Reviews Feed » Settings in the WordPress dashboard.
Then, scroll to Manage API Keys and click on the small pencil icon next to ‘Yelp.’
In the popup, add your Yelp API key.
Then, click on the ‘Add’ button.
With that setup out of the way, you’re ready to add Yelp reviews to your website.
Simply go to Reviews Feed » All Feeds. Then, click on the ‘Add New’ button.
On the next screen, click on ‘Add New’ again.
In the popup that appears, select ‘Yelp’ and then click on the ‘Next’ button.
You can now add the URL of the Yelp page that you want to use. This can be a page that you own or any public third-party page.
After that, click on ‘Finish’.
Smash Balloon will now show this Yelp page as a possible source.
To go ahead and create the feed, simply check the box next to the Yelp page and then click on ‘Next.’
You can now choose a template to use for the review feed, such as a showcase carousel, grid carousel, or even a single review template.
After choosing a design, click on the ‘Next’ button.
Smash Balloon will now show the Yelp review feed in its editor, ready for you to fine-tune.
For instructions on how to customize the feed and then add it to your site, skip to the end of this guide.
Method 2. How to Show Google Reviews in WordPress
Google Reviews is another place where customers can review your business online. Once again, positive reviews are important for building trust and getting conversions, but these reviews can also affect where your site appears in the search results.
Lots of positive Google reviews and high rankings may improve your business’s search ranking, especially in local search results.
Google also shows your reviews on relevant search engine result pages.
By adding these reviews to your website, you can encourage people to visit your Google listing and leave you a positive review.
This may improve your WordPress SEO and the overall star rating that appears in relevant search engine results.
With that being said, let’s see how you can add Google reviews to your WordPress website.
To start, you’ll need to create a Google API key, so head over to the Google Console and sign in using your Google account.
Once you’re logged into the console, click on ‘Google Home.’
If you’re logging into the Google Console for the first time then you’ll need to accept the terms and conditions.
With that done, click on ‘New Project.’
You can now type in a name for the project. This is just for your reference so you can use anything you want.
Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Create’ button.
After that, click on the lined icon in the upper-left corner to open the menu.
In the menu, select ‘APIs and services’ and ‘Credentials.’
You will now see all your Google projects.
Simply find the project we just created and give it a click.
In the search field, start typing ‘Places API.’
When the right API appears, give it a click.
This takes you to a screen where you can activate the key for making Places API requests.
To do this, simply click on the ‘Enable’ button.
With that done, press the backwards arrow to return to the main Google Cloud Console dashboard. Here, click on ‘Create Credentials.’
Go ahead and select ‘API key’ from the dropdown menu.
After a few moments, you’ll see an ‘API key created’ popup.
You’ll need to add this information to your WordPress blog or website, so make a note of it.
By default, all of Google’s API keys are unrestricted. To stop other people from using the API key, you’ll need to restrict it by clicking the ‘Edit API Key’ link inside the popup.
This opens a screen showing all your Google API keys. Simply find the key you just created, and give it a click.
Note: If you closed the popup by accident, then don’t worry. You can reach the same screen by selecting ‘Credentials’ in the left-hand menu.
Under ‘Application restrictions,’ click on ‘HTTP referrers (websites).’
Under ‘Website Restrictions,’ click on ‘Add.’
You can now type in the address of your WooCommerce store or WordPress website, and then click on ‘Done.’
To make sure Smash Balloon can access the Places API, you’ll also need to type in www.googleapis.com and click on ‘Done.’
Under ‘API restrictions,’ select the button next to ‘Restrict key.’
With that done, click on the ‘Select APIs’ dropdown menu and check the box next to ‘Google Places API.’
Now we’re ready to click on ‘OK.’
The next step is adding the API key to your site. In the WordPress dashboard, go to Reviews Feed » Settings.
Under ‘Manage API Keys,’ click on the pencil icon next to ‘Google.’
In the popup, add your Google API key.
After that, click on the ‘Add’ button.
Now you’ve added an API key, you’re ready to create a feed showing all your Google Reviews.
To do this, go to Reviews Feed » All Feeds, and click on the ‘Add New’ button.
On the next screen, click on ‘Add New.’
In the popup that appears, click on ‘Google’ and then select ‘Next.’
Now you’ll need to enter the Place ID of the cafe, restaurant, or other venue that you want to use in your feed.
To get the ID, go to Google’s Place ID page and scroll to ‘Find the ID of a particular place.’
In the Google Maps search bar, start typing the address or name of the place that you want to feature. When the right place appears, give it a click.
Google will now show the place ID in a small popup.
Go ahead and copy the place ID.
Now, switch back to the WordPress dashboard and paste the ID into the ‘Enter Place ID’ field.
With that done, click on ‘Finish.’
To go ahead and create the feed, you need to check the box next to the Google place you just added, and then click on ‘Next.’
You can now choose the template you want to use for the review feed, and click on ‘Next.’
Smash Balloon will now create a feed showing all your Google reviews.
Do you want to change how the feed looks? Skip to the end of this post for a detailed step-step guide on how to fine-tune the Google Reviews feed, and then add it to your website.
Method 3. How to Show Facebook Reviews in WordPress
Many businesses, websites, and online stores use Facebook to connect with their audience. Facebook also has its own built-in review system, so you may want to add these reviews to your website.
Unlike Yelp and Google, your Facebook page belongs to you, so this is also a way to promote your profile and get more social media followers.
To create a Facebook review feed, go to Reviews Feed » All Feeds.
Then, click on the ‘Add New’ button.
On the next screen, click on ‘Add New’ again.
In the popup that appears, click on ‘Facebook’ and then select ‘Connect with Facebook.’
On the next screen, select the radio button next to ‘Page.’
Once you’re done with that, click on ‘Connect to Facebook.’
This opens a popup where you can log into your Facebook account and choose the pages where you’ll get the reviews from.
After that, we’re ready to click on ‘Next.’
Facebook will now show all the information that Smash Balloon will have access to and the actions it can perform.
To restrict Smash Balloon’s access to your Facebook page, just click any of the switches to turn it from ‘Yes’ to ‘No.’ However, be aware that this can affect the content that appears on your website.
With that in mind, it’s a good idea to leave all the switches enabled.
When you’re happy with how the Facebook permissions are set up, click on ‘Done.’
After a few moments, you should see a message confirming that you’ve connected your WordPress website and your Facebook page.
That done, click on the ‘OK’ button.
Smash Balloon will automatically take you back to the WordPress dashboard, where you’ll see the Facebook page you just connected to your website.
Simply select the checkbox next to the Facebook page and then click on the ‘Next’ button.
You can now choose the template you want to use for the Facebook reviews feed.
After making the decision, click on ‘Next.’
Smash Balloon will now create a feed showing all your Facebook reviews.
Customizing Your Google, Facebook, or Yelp Review Feed
Smash Balloon automatically copies your WordPress theme so any reviews feed you create will fit perfectly with your site’s design. However, Smash Balloon also has an advanced feed editor so you can fine-tune every part of the feed.
No matter whether you create a feed using Google, Facebook, or Yelp, Smash Balloon will open its feed editor automatically.
Note: If you accidentally closed the editor then don’t panic. Simply go to Reviews Feed » All Feeds in the WordPress dashboard, and then click on the ‘Edit’ icon next to the feed.
Smash Balloon shows a live preview of your review feed to the right. On the left is a menu that shows the different settings that you can use to change how the feed looks.
To see what changes you can make, start by clicking on ‘Layout’ in the left-hand menu. Here, you can choose from a Grid, Masonry, or Carousel layout.
As you click on the different layouts, the live preview will automatically update to show the new layout. This makes it easy to try different layouts and find the one you prefer.
You can also change the spacing, how many reviews you include in the feed, and the number of characters WordPress shows from each review.
As you make changes, remember that the feed may look different on smartphones and tablets, compared to desktop computers.
With that being said, it’s a good idea to test the mobile version of your feed using the row of buttons in the right-hand corner. In this way, you can create a review feed that looks just as good on smartphones and tablets, as it does on desktop computers.
Finally, if you select the Carousel layout then you can change how the reviews scroll using the ‘Pagination’ settings.
For example, you can enable autoplay so the reviews scroll automatically or increase the interval so visitors have more time to read each review.
When you’re happy with these changes, click on the small arrow next to ‘Customize.’
This takes you back to the main Smash Balloon review feed editor.
The next setting you can explore is ‘Header,’ which controls the text that appears at the top of your feed.
By default, Smash Balloon shows a ‘Review’ headline, your average star rating, and a ‘Write a review’ button.
This header helps visitors understand the content, while also encouraging them to leave their own review. However, if you prefer then you can remove the header using the ‘Enable’ toggle.
If you do show the header, then you can add or remove content using the Heading, Button, and Average Review Rating checkboxes.
To change the padding and margins, simply use the settings under ‘Element Header Spacing.’
If you want to change any of the text that appears in the header, then simply click on either Heading, Button, or Average Review Rating. This takes you to an area where you can change the text color, size, and more.
You can also replace the standard text with your own custom messaging by typing into the ‘Content’ field.
When you’re ready to return to the main editor screen, just click on the ‘Customize’ link at the top of the left-hand menu.
The next setting you can look at is ‘Reviews,’ so give this option a click. Here, you can choose between ‘Post Style’ and ‘Edit Individual Elements.’
If you select ‘Post Style,’ then you can change how the individual reviews look inside the feed. For example, you can switch to a boxed layout, add a shadow, and change the corner radius to create curved edges.
As you make changes, the preview updates automatically so you can try different settings to see what looks the best on your website.
If you choose ‘Edit Individual Elements,’ then you’ll see all the different content that Reviews Feed Pro includes in each review such as rating, author and date, and the review text.
To remove a piece of content, just click to uncheck its box.
You can also customize how each type of content looks by clicking on it.
For example, in the following image, we’ve changed the color and size of the review content, known as the ‘Review Paragraph.’
When you’re happy with how the review feed looks, click on ‘Customize’ to return to the main Smash Balloon editor.
You can now move to the next settings screen by selecting ‘Load More Button.’
The ‘Load More’ button allows visitors to scroll through more reviews, so the plugin adds it by default. Since it’s such an important button, you may want to help it stand out by changing the background color, hover state, label, margins, and more.
You can also replace the default ‘Load More’ text with your own messaging by typing into the ‘Text’ field.
If you prefer, then you can remove the button completely by clicking the ‘Enable’ toggle.
When you’re happy with how the review feed looks, don’t forget to click on ‘Save.’ With that out of the way, you’re ready to add Google, Facebook, or Yelp reviews to your site.
How to Add Reviews on Your WordPress Website
Now you can add the review feed to your site using a block, widget, or shortcode.
If you’ve created more than one feed using Reviews Feed Pro, then you’ll need to know the feed’s shortcode if you’re going to use a widget or block.
To get this information, go to Reviews Feed » All Feeds and then look at the value under ‘Shortcode.’ You’ll need to add this code to the block or widget, so make a note of it.
In the following image, we’ll need to use [reviews-feed feed=2]
If you want to embed the feed in a page or post, then you can use the Reviews Feed block.
Just open the page or post where you want to show your Yelp, Google, or Facebook reviews. Then, click on the ‘+’ icon to add a new block and start typing ‘Reviews Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the page or post.
The block will show one of your review feeds by default. If you want to show a different feed, then find ‘Shortcode Settings’ in the right-hand menu.
Here, simply add the shortcode you got earlier, and then click on ‘Apply Changes.’
If you’re happy with how the review feed looks, then you can go ahead and publish or update the page.
Another option is to add the Reviews Feed widget to your website. This is a great way to show positive customer reviews on every page of your site. For example, you might add the widget to the sidebar or WordPress footer.
To add the Reviews Feed widget to your site, head over to Appearance » Widgets. You can then click on the blue ‘+’ icon towards the top of the screen.
In the panel that appears, type in ‘Reviews Feed’ to find the right widget.
Then, simply drag the widget onto the area where you want to show the reviews, such as the sidebar or similar section.
The widget will automatically show one of the feeds you created using the Reviews Feed plugin. If this isn’t the feed you want to display, then type the feed’s shortcode into the ‘Shortcode Settings’ box.
After that, click on ‘Apply Changes.’
You can now make the widget live by clicking on the ‘Update’ button. For more information, please see our step-by-step guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
Another option is embedding the Google, Facebook, or Yelp reviews on any page, post, or widget-ready area using the shortcode.
Simply go to Reviews Feed » All Feeds and copy the code in the ‘Shortcode’ column. You can now add this code to any Shortcode block.
Are you using a block-enabled theme? Then you can use the full-site editor to add the Reviews Feed block anywhere on your website.
In the WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance » Editor.
By default, the full-site editor will show the theme’s home template. If you want to add the Google, Facebook, or Yelp feed to a different template, then click on the arrow next to ‘Home.’
You can then choose any design from the dropdown, such as the footer template.
After choosing a template, simply hover your mouse over the area where you want to show the reviews.
Then, click on the ‘+’ button.
Once you’ve done that, type in ‘Reviews Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the template.
As always, Reviews Feed will show a feed by default. You can change this feed by adding a shortcode following the same process described above.
If you have been reading WPBeginner for a while, then you know that we believe All in One SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market.
It is our #1 recommendation as the must-have SEO toolkit, and this is the exact tool that we use on our website. For beginners, All in One SEO provides the most comprehensive SEO features in one plugin.
In this article, we’ll share some of the AIOSEO power hacks that will help you take your WordPress SEO to the next level.
What Makes All in One SEO The Best SEO Toolkit for WordPress Users?
Currently over 3 million websites use AIOSEO including WPBeginner, and it is one of the top 20 most installed WordPress plugins of all time.
There’s also a free version of AIOSEO available that you can use if you’re just getting started.
All in One SEO was first released in 2007, just a few years after WordPress introduced the ability to install plugins to extend WordPress functionality.
In 2020, AIOSEO was acquired by Awesome Motive (the management company of WPBeginner). Since then, it has evolved into the most powerful and modern WordPress SEO plugin.
We use it on all our websites to improve our WordPress SEO rankings, including WPBeginner. That’s because the features are unmatched by any other SEO plugin on the market.
That being said, let’s take a look at some of the coolest things that you can do with All in One SEO.
Here is a list of topics we’ll cover in this guide.
1. Ability to Add Dynamic SEO Title and Descriptions
SEO titles and descriptions are highly important when optimizing your content for SEO. Search engines assign them slightly more weight than other parts of your content.
The SEO title also appears in search results and can help you get more clicks and bring more traffic to your site.
Many site owners often go back to old posts and edit their SEO titles to help optimize them. For instance, you may have mentioned the Current Year or pricing in the title which may become outdated.
All in One SEO allows you to use smart tags in SEO title and description fields. These tags dynamically update to match the conditions they are used for.
For instance, you can add the ‘Post Title’ tag, and it will automatically use your post or page’s title as the SEO Title.
Similarly, you can use the ‘Current Year’ or ‘Current Month’ tags, and it will automatically display the current year or month in your post title.
AIOSEO comes with the following smart tags that you can select by clicking on ‘View all tags’.
Author First Name: The first name of the post author.
Author Last Name: The last name of the post author.
Author Name: The display name of the post author.
Categories: All categories that are assigned to the current post, comma-separated.
Category Title: Current or first category title.
Current Date: The current date.
Current Day: The current day of the month.
Current Month: The current month.
Current Year: The current year.
Custom Field: A custom field from the current post.
Permalink: The permalink for the current post.
Post Content: The content of your post.
Post Date: The date when the post was published, localized.
Post Day: The day of the month when the post was published, localized.
Post Excerpt: The excerpt defined in your post settings.
Post Excerpt Only: The excerpt defined in your post.
Post Month: The month when the post was published, localized.
Post Title: The original title of the current post.
Post Year: The year when the post was published.
Separator: The separator is defined in the search appearance settings.
Site Title: Your site title.
Tagline: The tagline for your site, set in the general settings.
Taxonomy Name: The name of the first term of a given taxonomy that is assigned to the current post.
Want to make your SEO title even more attention-grabbing?
How about adding emojis into your post title or description? All in One SEO makes it super easy to use Emojis in your SEO title and descriptions.
Simply click on the emoji button to search and add an emoji.
2. Helps You Write Good Headlines and SEO Titles
Now you might already know that CTR (click through rate) plays an important role in SEO rankings.
This means that you have to write good headlines and SEO titles that encourage users to click when your site appears in search results.
All in One SEO comes with a built-in headline analyzer tool. It will automatically show you a score for your post title or headline.
Plus, it will also show you practical tips to improve the effectiveness of your title.
For instance, it may recommend using power words or removing stop words from your SEO title.
3. Comes with a Dynamic and Customizable Table of Contents Block
Reading longer articles can be difficult for your users, and they may lose interest in scrolling down while looking for the information they need.
This is where the Table of Contents block comes in.
It creates a list of topics covered in an article, and you may have seen them in articles here at WPBeginner. In fact, this post has an AIOSEO table of contents at the top!
Clicking on an item in the list takes you to that section in the article.
Not only does a table of content help users, but it also improves SEO.
Search engines like Google may display your table of content items as ‘Jump to section’ links in search results.
A table of contents can also make your website appear as the featured snippet for a search keyword.
Google may display it above all results with a much larger excerpt.
Previously, WordPress users had to use a separate plugin to generate tables of contents or manually create them.
All in One SEO comes with a dynamic Table of Contents block. Simply add the Table of Contents block to your post or page, and it will automatically generate a table of content based on the headings present in your article.
You can edit any item in the table by simply clicking on it or hide an item by clicking on the hide button.
You can also reorder items by clicking on the Reorder button. This only adjust the order of the list, not the placement of content in your article.
Optionally, you can choose a list style for your table of contents.
Currently, it allows you to choose from a plain bulleted list or a numbered list style.
4. Easily Add NoFollow Attribute to External and Referral Links
Links or backlinks are an important search engine ranking factor.
When you link to an external website, search engines consider that as a ranking signal. They will pass a small portion of your domain authority (link juice) to the other website.
Many SEO experts believe that they can rank higher in search results by adding the nofollow attribute to external and referral/affiliate links.
All in One SEO makes it super easy to add the nofollow attribute to links in your posts and pages.
Simply select the text that you want to link to and then click on the link button in the block toolbar.
You’ll see the option to add the link URL and a check box to add the nofollow attribute.
All in One SEO gives the most comprehensive and practical SEO score to your content.
It appears as a button on the top right corner of the post editor, clicking on it will bring up the TruSEO panel.
You will see a snippet preview and below that, you’ll find tips divided into the following areas:
Focus Keyphrase and Additional Keyphrases
Basic SEO
Title
Readability
You can click on any of them to expand and view the suggestions.
Errors will be highlighted in red with helpful descriptions to fix them.
SEO score is just a recommendation tool and does not guarantee search rankings. Any score above 70 is good for most types of content.
7. Comes with The Most Comprehensive Schema Markup Support
Schema markup is a special type of HTML code that you can add to your WordPress website to tell search engines more about your content.
For instance, you can tell the search engines that a particular page is a blog post, a recipe, a FAQ page, a news article, or a product page. Search engines can then use this data to display rich results.
Other WordPress SEO plugins only ship with limited schema markup support. Users had to install separate plugins to add proper schema markup for different content types.
All in One SEO solves this problem by adding the most comprehensive Schema markup support available.
It allows you to easily add schema markup in WordPress and WooCommerce. You can set the default Schema markup for different content types from plugin settings.
You can also change schema markup for individual posts and pages.
This comes in handy if you want to use your blog posts for different types of content such as recipes, product reviews, articles, and more.
Apart from content, All in One SEO also adds structured data required to be listed in Google My Business and Google Maps searches.
This allows your business to appear in Google Maps and business searches. Your listing gets an extended information panel with directions, phone numbers, business hours, and more.
Simply switch to the All in One SEO » Local SEO page and provide your business information.
If your business has multiple locations, then you can turn on the Multiple Locations option.
After that, the plugin will add a new Locations menu item to your WordPress admin sidebar.
You can now go to the Locations » Add New page to add a business location.
This will bring you to the Location editor page. First, you need to provide a title for your location and then add a little description.
You can also review options in the left column to set the location category and featured image.
After that scroll down to the AIOSEO Local Business section.
From here, you can add structured data for your location such as business name, logo, address, phone number, opening hours, and map.
Once you are finished, go ahead and click on the Publish button to save your location settings.
You can now repeat the process to add more business locations as needed.
Social media platforms are a big source of traffic for many website owners.
All in One SEO comes with super easy and extensive social media integration.
1. Easily Add Social Network Profiles and Default Settings
First, you can go to the All in One SEO » Social Networks page. From here, you can provide social media profile URLs.
If you use the same handle in all your social media profiles then you can simply check the ‘Use the same username for multiple social networks’ option.
After that, provide your username and All in One SEO will fill in the URLs for you.
The plugin also allows you to easily configure your website for popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
These options allow you to enable Open Graph metadata and provide default information that social media platforms can use when someone shares your content.
For instance, you can choose which image to use when someone shares a post. All in One SEO provides a bunch of options to automatically pick an image for Facebook and Twitter.
You can choose the featured image, the first image in the content, any attached image, the author image, any first available image, and more.
After configuring Facebook and Twitter, you can switch to the Pinterest tab. From here, you can also easily add the Pinterest verification code to verify your website on Pinterest.
2. Social Settings for Individual Posts and Pages
Once you have finished the default social networks setup, All in One SEO also provides you options to override these settings for individual posts and pages.
Simply edit a post or page and switch to the Social tab under the AIOSEO Settings section.
From here, you’ll see a preview of how your post will look on Facebook and Twitter.
Below that, you can override the default settings and change the post title, description, and social image.
If you change the data for Facebook, then you can use it for Twitter as well.
Simply switch to the Twitter tab and toggle the ‘Use Data from Facebook Tab’ option.
3. Add Social Profiles for Authors
You can also let search engines know which profiles are associated with an author or user on your website.
This allows search engines to discover and display social media profiles when someone searches for a specific person.
To add this, administrators can go to the Users » Profile page and other users can simply click on the Profile menu from the WordPress admin sidebar.
From here, switch to the social profiles tab and enter your social media profile URLs.
9. Add New Links or Cleanup Bad Links with AIOSEO Link Assistant
Links play a significant role in a website’s SEO rankings. However, as your website grows, you may add more internal links to some older posts than newer posts.
Going back to individual posts and adding links can become a tedious task. Particularly, if you have hundreds of articles.
All in One SEO solves this problem with the Link Assistant. It allows you to easily add links or clean up bad links with one click.
Here is how it works.
First, it automatically crawls your website and shows you a comprehensive link report.
From here, you can see an overview of the links with total counts for orphaned posts (posts that are not linked from any other post or page), external links, internal links, and affiliate links.
You can switch to the Links Report tab for detailed information on all your links.
You’ll see a list of all your posts and pages with columns for internal, external, and affiliate links.
It will also show a number of suggestions where you can add links.
For more details, you can click on the right arrow button next to a post or page.
This will show all links organized in different tabs. From the suggestions tab, you can quickly view link suggestions and add links without directly editing a post or page.
Want to discover more internal linking opportunities?
Switch to the ‘Linking Opportunities’ tab for more internal linking suggestions or check out the orphaned posts and add links to them.
Clean up Bad Links with 1-Click
You can view all external links that your website links to by clicking on the Domains Report tab.
From here, you can select a domain and delete all links to it with a single click.
This makes it super easy to clean up your website if it has been affected by malware that has added links to spam websites.
It also comes in handy when you no longer wish to link to a third-party website and immediately want to remove all links pointing to it.
10. Comes with Extensive XML Sitemaps with Powerful Customization Options
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all your website content in an XML format, so search engines like Google can easily discover and index your content.
WordPress comes with built-in XML sitemaps, but these are too basic and you don’t have any tools to customize them.
All in One SEO comes with extremely powerful XML sitemaps.
These custom XML sitemaps are highly customizable. For instance, you can easily include or exclude individual post types or taxonomies.
Plus, you can disable sitemaps for date and author archives.
Below that, you can add any standalone page to your sitemap under the Additional Pages option.
News results may not only appear prominently on the main search page but can also appear on the News tab or in Google Discover on mobile devices.
All in One SEO allows you to easily create a News Sitemap which is a requirement for Google News results.
Simply switch to the News Sitemap tab and turn it on.
After that, you can provide a title for your news publication.
Next, you need to choose which post types you want to include in your news sitemap.
Need even more control over your news sitemap?
All in One SEO allows you to easily exclude specific items from your news sitemap.
Simply toggle the Advanced Settings switch to show more options. From here, you can search for the post or page you want to exclude and click on the + button to add it.
12. Easily Create Customizable HTML Sitemaps
HTML Sitemaps are sitemaps for your users and can be added anywhere on your website.
They help users easily navigate a website and find the information they need. Many organizations, government websites, and small businesses find them quite helpful.
All in One SEO lets you easily create HTML sitemaps.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Sitemaps page and switch to the HTML Sitemap tab.
From here, you can switch to the toggle next to Enable Sitemap to turn on HTML sitemap.
Below that, you can choose how you want to display the sitemap by choosing one of the following options.
Dedicated Page
Gutenberg Block
Shortcode
Widget
PHP Code
Click to select your option and it will tell you how to use it.
For instance, choosing the Dedicated Page option, you will be asked to provide URL for a page where you want to display the Sitemap.
Below that, you can choose which post types and taxonomies to include, sorting options, and enable compact archives.
Want to exclude some posts or pages from your HTML sitemap?
No worries, you can simply click on the Advanced Settings section to exclude any content from your HTML sitemap.
13. Appear in Video Results with Video Sitemaps
Videos are the most engaging type of content and for some search keywords, Google may automatically include video results at the top.
Now, if you regularly publish video content or add video embeds to your posts, then this gives you a huge opportunity to rank higher.
Research shows, that users are more likely to click on a result with a video thumbnail than just plain text.
All in One SEO’s Video Sitemaps help you get ready to appear in video search results.
Simply go to All in One SEO » Sitemaps page and switch to the Video Sitemap tab.
From here you can turn on Video Sitemap and choose which post types or taxonomies to include.
By default, the plugin will divide your sitemap into indexes. These are smaller files containing a limited number of links.
You can also adjust how many links you want to include in a sitemap.
Just like any other sitemap, you can click on the Advanced Settings section to exclude any content that you don’t want to appear in video sitemaps.
14. Get Indexed Faster with RSS Sitemaps
Unlike regular XML sitemaps which have a complete set of links to your content, RSS sitemaps provide search engines links to recent changes on a website.
This helps search engines more easily discover recent changes on a website. Google recommends using both XML sitemaps and RSS sitemap for optimal crawling.
All in One SEO allows you to easily generate an RSS sitemap for your website.
Simply go to the AIOSEO » Sitemaps settings page and switch to the RSS Sitemap tab.
From here, toggle the Enable Sitemap switch to turn on the RSS sitemap.
Below that you can choose the number of posts and which post types to include.
15. Easily Add Your Site to Webmaster Tools & Google Search Console
All top search engines provide website owners with easier tools to see how their website is performing in search and get alerts if something goes wrong.
Once you sign up for them, you will be asked to verify your ownership by adding a code snippet to your website.
All in One SEO makes it super easy to add the verification code for all webmaster tools under one place.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » General Settings and switch to the Webmaster Tools tab.
Now simply click on a search engine, and then add the verification code.
Below that you will also find a text field called Miscellaneous verification. This allows you to add verification codes from any other third-party platforms to your website.
SEO crawl budget is the number of times search engines like Google will crawl pages on your website.
Google sets a crawl budget for different domains based on its own algorithms. However, sometimes this budget is wasted if search bots spend most of the budget crawling less important pages on your site.
All in One SEO helps you fix that problem with the Crawl Cleanup feature. Simply go to the All in One SEO » Search Appearance page and switch to the Advanced tab.
From here, you need to scroll down to the bottom and switch the toggle next to the Crawl Cleanup option.
This will expand the section and will show you a bunch of options that you can exclude from crawling.
For instance, each WordPress category, tag, comments, archive, and author pages has its own RSS feeds. These get crawled, too, but are not highly important.
You can Disable them so that they are excluded from the crawl budget.
A 404 error occurs when a user visits a page on your website which is not there anymore. Perhaps it was deleted, the user entered an incorrect URL, or followed an incorrect link.
These errors create a bad user experience and can negatively impact SEO rankings.
Often, they go unnoticed by website owners until a user reports them.
All in One SEO fixes this problem by keeping a log of 404 errors on your website.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Redirects page and switch to the 404 logs page to view them.
Now some of these links may be misspelled URLs with few hits, you can safely ignore those. Others would be links to posts that you may have deleted or changed their URLs.
In that case, you can simply click on the Add Redirect button and point that URL to the new location or any other relevant page.
21. Easy Full Site Redirects when Moving Site to Different Domains
Are you moving your WordPress website to a new domain name and worried about the SEO consequences?
All in One SEO’s redirect manager comes with super easy Full Site Redirects.
Basically, you can just paste the URL of your new domain name and it will redirect all users coming to your old domain to the exact pages on your new domain name.
This helps your new domain to rank quickly in search engines and also reduces the negative SEO consequences of moving to a new domain name.
WordPress comes with a built-in redirects system written in PHP. Many redirect plugins take advantage of it, including All in One SEO.
WordPress is used on many different types of servers and they can have different configurations that may affect redirects. Using PHP avoids dependency on server settings and makes sure that redirects work.
However, these PHP redirects are a bit slower. It is a small compromise and for most users, it is not even noticeable.
Still, some users may want to use the server to set up redirects for improved performance and speed.
All in One SEO gives those users an option to use faster redirects using the web server instead of PHP.
Note: This is a method for advanced users only, as you will need to edit not only your .htaccess file, but also your server configuration files for Apache or NGINX.
To use this method, you’ll need access to your server’s configuration files. You’ll also need to know how to safely make changes to those files.
To set it up, you can go to the All in One SEO » Redirects page and switch to the Settings tab. From here, you can click on the Web Server option under Redirect Method.
The plugin will then detect your web server and will show you an option to export redirect rules files for your web server which you can then manually place in your .htaccess file or your Nginx config file.
Next, click on the save change button to store your settings.
After that, the plugin will display a line of code that you need to add to your server’s configuration file.
If you’re using Apache as your web server, then the line should be included in the Apache virtual hosts file. You will then need to restart Apache.
If you’re using NGINX as your web server, then the line should be included in your nginx.conf file. You will then need to restart NGINX.
Keep in mind, too, that using server redirects will prevent AIOSEO from keeping logs of all redirects that occur.
23. Easily Import / Export Redirects
Want to import redirects you set up earlier using some other redirects plugin? Or perhaps you want to export your All in One SEO redirects to use elsewhere?
All in One SEO’s redirects manager can magically import redirects from other popular redirects and SEO plugins.
Simply go to All in One SEO » Redirects page and then switch to the Import / Export tab.
From here, you can import redirects from other plugins. All in One SEO can automatically import redirects from the following plugins:
Redirection
Yoast SEO Premium
Simple 301 Redirects
Safe Redirect Manager
301 Redirects Pro
30 Redirects
Page Links To
SEOPress Pro
It can also import redirects from All in One SEO as well.
In the right column, you’ll see options to export All in One SEO redirects data. You can choose to export different types of redirects or export all of them.
Lastly, the plugin also allows you to export your 404 error logs in CSV format. This comes in handy if you want to analyze the data in spreadsheet software like Google Sheets.
24. Advanced Yet Easiest Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation is a navigational aid that provides users links in relation to where they are on a website’s navigational layout.
It’s like a path to show them how to get back to earlier parts of the website they may have visited before landing on their current page or post.
This provides users context, helps them discover more sections of your website, and improves user experience.
Search engines also use this information in the result snippet next to the URL.
All in One SEO comes with the easiest and most customizable breadcrumb navigation settings of any WordPress plugin on the market.
First, it automatically adds markup required by search engines to display breadcrumbs without you having to do anything.
It also gives you a full set of tools to customize breadcrumbs and display them on your website.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » General Settings page and switch to the Breadcrumbs tab.
From here, you’ll see different ways to easily display breadcrumbs on your website.
You’ll also see a link that will show you how to use these methods to display breadcrumbs.
Scroll down a little and you’ll find customization options for your breadcrumbs navigation links.
For instance, you can choose which separator you want to use, include a home link, set a prefix, and more.
Want to edit the Breadcrumbs template?
Scroll down to the Breadcrumbs template section. There you’ll see tabs for content types, taxonomies, and archives sections.
For instance, under Content Types, you can change templates for posts, pages, products, and attachments.
To edit the template switch the toggle next to ‘Use a default template’ option to reveal the settings.
You can then edit the default breadcrumbs template by switching toggles to show or hide the homepage or taxonomy links.
You can also use smart tags and even some HTML if needed. Simply insert the smart tags inside the HTML code anywhere you would put the same static information.
All in One SEO allows you to turn on REST API for headless WordPress development.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Feature Manager page and activate the REST API feature.
This allows you to use the All in One SEO metadata and output it into the front end of your website.
See the notes on All in One SEO website on how to fetch SEO data with REST API and output it in your source code.
26. Control Which Users Have Access to SEO Features and Settings
Want to hire an SEO expert to work on your website? All in One SEO gives you powerful access control features so that you can control which parts of your website they can access.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » General Settings page and switch to the Access Control tab.
First, you’ll see access control options for default WordPress user roles such as Editor, Author, and Contributor.
By default, they will have access to SEO settings for the content that they are allowed to edit in WordPress. To learn more see our WordPress user roles and permissions guide.
Editors also have permission to access SEO settings for General Settings, Search Appearance, Social Networks, and Redirects.
You can change options for each user role by switching the User Default Settings toggle next to a user role.
All in One SEO also adds two new custom user roles that you can use.
SEO Manager – By default, they can access SEO settings for General Settings, Sitemaps, Link Assistant, Redirects, Local SEO, and individual pages and posts.
SEO Editor – By default, they can access SEO settings for individual pages and posts.
You can also change their access by switching the Use Default Settings toggle.
To assign a user an SEO role on your website, you will need to add them as a new user in WordPress and set their user role to SEO manager or SEO Editor.
All in One SEO will then immediate apply the right permissions for them to do their job and boost your site’s rankings.
27. Seamless E-commerce Integration
All in One SEO provides the easiest WooCommerce SEO features. It allows you to add an SEO title, description, and product image which is then used by search engines.
It automatically applies schema markup which gives search engines more information to display in rich results for your products.
Plus, it includes product sitemaps, breadcrumbs, image SEO, and local SEO features. This makes All in One SEO the most comprehensive toolkit for eCommerce stores.
Google image search can be a major source of traffic for many websites.
However, many users forget to add image alt and title tags when uploading images. If you have multiple authors then it becomes harder to notice if someone has missed those tags.
All in One SEO comes with an extensive image SEO addon that allows you to fix this by automatically generating these tags. To keep the software lightweight, it is not enabled by default.
You’ll need to activate it by visiting the All in One SEO » Feature Manager page.
After that, you need to visit the All in One SEO » Search Appearance page and switch to the Image SEO tab.
The first option here is to redirect attachment URLs.
All in One SEO automatically redirects attachment URLs back to the attachment because the attachment page itself only contains an image and does not have any SEO benefit.
Below that, you will find options to set up Image SEO settings. The two most important options here are the Title and Alt tags.
Under the Title tab, you can choose a default title scheme using the smart tags. AIOSEO will use your image file name as the title.
You can choose to remove punctuation like dashes or underscores. This allows you to convert your image title from ‘our-family-picnic’ to ‘our family picnic’.
Below that, you can also choose the casing for the tags. For instance, you can use all lowercase, title case, or sentence case.
Optionally, you can exclude posts, pages, or terms where you don’t want the plugin to automatically generate from image titles.
Next, you need to switch to the Alt tag tab and repeat the process.
Similarly, you can also generate captions and descriptions and modify filenames upon upload in a similar manner.
29. Safely Edit Robots.txt and .htaccess Files From WordPress Admin
You may sometimes come across tutorials asking you to edit your robots.txt or .htaccess file.
Editing these files can be difficult for beginners. Not to mention that a mistake there can break your website or affect its SEO.
To make this easier and safer for beginners, All in SEO comes with a built-in file editor where you can edit your robots.txt and .htaccess files without using FTP.
You can do that by visiting the All in One SEO » Tools page. For the robots.txt file, you can click on the button to view your current robots file.
You can also enable a custom robots.txt file and create an all new one.
Below that, you can allow or deny any user agents, and they will be added to robots.txt.
The .htaccess Editor tab will display the contents of your current .htaccess file.
You can simply edit it right there.
Note: You need to be very cautious about editing these files. A tiny mistake can break your website or damage its SEO.
30. Perform a Quick SEO Audit for Your Site
A lot of businesses hire SEO specialists and pay them to perform SEO audits for their websites.
All in One SEO helps you save money by allowing you to do a quick SEO audit for your website. This allows you to save money by fixing important SEO issues on your own.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » SEO Analysis page and the plugin will show you an SEO score of your website.
Below that, it will show you a checklist of SEO recommendations.
From here, you can see the issues that it found. Clicking on them will display a description of how to fix them.
As you can see in the image above, AIOSEO often has a button directly on the audit screen for you to use and fix the issues immediately.
31. Compare Competition with Built-in Competitor Analysis
Want to see how your competition is doing in terms of SEO?
All in One SEO can perform a quick SEO audit of your competitor’s websites too.
You can simply go to the All in One SEO » SEO Analysis page and switch to the Analyze Competitor Site tab.
32. Easily Add No Index to Content You Want to Exclude from Search Engines
Want to exclude some posts or pages from search engine?
All in One SEO makes it super easy to No Index any content on your website with a click.
Simply edit the post, page, product, custom post type, or taxonomy that you want to remove or exclude from search engines and scroll down to the AIOSEO settings section.
From here, you need to switch to the Advance tab and toggle the switch next to the Use Default Settings option. This will reveal a bunch of options.
You can check No Index and No Follow to make sure that search engines don’t include this item in search results.
Additionally, you can block any archival of this page, translation, image index, snippet, or no ODP (open directory project). You can also set Max video preview to -1 to ensure that no embedded video preview is displayed.
33. Easily Import SEO Data from Other SEO Plugins
Want to switch from your old WordPress SEO plugin to All in One SEO for WordPress?
The good news is that All in One SEO comes with a built-in SEO data importer tool that fetches SEO data from your old plugin and imports it into All in One SEO.
Once you install and activate the All in One SEO plugin it will launch the setup wizard. During this, it will detect your old SEO plugin and give you the option to import SEO data from that plugin.
It will automatically detect your old SEO plugin when you run the setup wizard and offers to import your SEO data.
You can also manually import SEO data by visiting the All in One SEO » Tools page and switching to the ‘Import/Export’ tab.
Find the ‘Import Settings From Other Plugins’ section and select your old SEO plugin from the drop-down list and then select the items you wish to import.
After that, simply click on the ‘Import’ button to fetch the data.
All in One SEO can fetch the following SEO data.
Your plugin’s SEO settings
Post meta such as SEO title and description
Term meta such as SEO title and descriptions for your categories and tags.
Bonus: Getting Started with All in One SEO for WordPress
Did you know that getting started with All in One SEO for WordPress is super easy?
We hope this article helped you discover unique things that you probably didn’t know about All in One SEO. You may also want to see our complete WordPress SEO handbook for beginners or take a look at our pick of essential WordPress plugins for all 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.
Do you want to add shoppable Instagram images to your WordPress site?
Instagram shoppable images have links that people can easily click on to buy your products. This is a powerful way to showcase your products and drive more sales from Instagram.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily add Instagram shoppable images in WordPress.
What is Instagram Shopping?
Instagram shopping allows you to tag products in your Instagram photos.
After tagging one or more products, users who are looking at the post will see a ‘View Products’ icon in the bottom-left corner.
They can simply click on that icon to see the product’s name, description, and price.
This makes it easier for shoppers to learn more about the products featured in your social media posts.
Visitors can tap the screen again to go to your Instagram store, where they can buy the product featured in the social media post.
This is great user experience, but it isn’t easy to set up.
You will need to get approval from Instagram to use their shopping features, and some of these requirements are vague. For example, you’ll need to “have demonstrated trustworthiness, including through an authentic, established presence.” You’ll also need to maintain a “sufficient follower base.”
In addition, you’ll have to set up a Facebook catalog, a product catalog, and a Facebook business page.
In other words: it’s a lot.
Because of that, many Instagram users are looking for an easier way to help shoppers buy products. That’s where shoppable Instagram images come in.
Why Add Shoppable Instagram Images in WordPress?
A shoppable Instagram feed is a series of photos that have a link to a product or service on your site. These URLs aren’t clickable when viewed on Instagram, as you can see in the following image.
However, when you embed the shoppable feed on your WordPress website, these links do become clickable. In this way, an Instagram shoppable feed encourages the people who visit your website to look at specific products.
Any likes and comments you get on those posts can also act as social proof, and encourage people to click on the product’s link.
As you post new shoppable images to Instagram, they’ll appear on your site automatically, so visitors will always see the latest posts without you having to add them manually.
If visitors like what they see, they may even decide to follow you on Instagram. This can get you more followers, and gives you another way to promote directly to that person.
Even better, since these shoppable links appear on your website, you have complete control over them. This means you don’t have to follow Instagram’s strict shoppable policies, or set up a Facebook product catalog.
With that being said, let’s see how you can easily add Instagram shoppable images to your WordPress website using Smash Balloon Instagram Pro.
Creating a Shoppable Feed on Instagram
First, you need to upload the images that you want to use on your Instagram account.
Smash Balloon has a shoppable feature that allows you to link each image to a URL inside the plugin settings. With this feature enabled, visitors can click on a shoppable image on your website, and its link will open in a new tab.
These links won’t appear on Instagram.
Another option is adding the link to your Instagram captions. These links will show up on Instagram, but they won’t be clickable.
However, these links will be clickable on your WordPress website. If you want to use this method, then you’ll need to spend some time adding a URL to each shoppable image on your Instagram account.
If you’re planning to use Smash Balloon’s shoppable feature, then you can skip this step as we’ll be adding each link inside the plugin’s settings.
How to Install an Instagram Photos Plugin With Shoppable Support
In this guide, we’ll be using the premium version of Smash Balloon as it has the advanced features you need to add shoppable images in WordPress. However, there’s also a free version that allows you to embed Instagram in WordPress.
Before getting started, you’ll need to connect your Instagram account to a Facebook page. If you have a personal Instagram account, then you may also want to turn it into a business account as this allows Smash Balloon to show your Instagram bio and header automatically.
When you’re ready, go ahead and install and activate the Smash Balloon Instagram Pro plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to Instagram Feed » Settings and enter your license key into the ‘License Key’ field.
You’ll find this information under your account on the Smash Balloon website.
After entering the key, click on the ‘Activate’ button.
How to Connect an Instagram Account to WordPress
After activating the plugin, your first task is connecting your Instagram account to WordPress. Simply go to Instagram Feed » Settings and then click on ‘Add New.’
With Instagram Feed pro, you can create feeds from tagged posts and hashtags, or even create a social wall with content from lots of different social media websites.
We want to show shoppable images from our Instagram timeline, so simply select ‘User Timeline’ and then click on ‘Next.’
Now, choose the Instagram account where you’ll get the shoppable images from.
To get started, click on the ‘Add Source’ button.
After that, choose whether you want to show shoppable images from a personal or business Instagram account.
If you check the box next to ‘Personal’ then Smash Balloon won’t include the Instagram avatar and bio in your header by default. However, you can always add the Instagram avatar and bio manually in the plugin’s settings.
After choosing ‘Personal’ or ‘Business,’ click on ‘Login with Facebook.’
You can now select the Instagram account that you want to feature on your WordPress website, and click on ‘Next.’
After that, check the box next to the Facebook page that’s linked to the Instagram account with your shoppable images.
Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Next’ button.
You’ll now see a popup with all the information Instagram Feed Pro will have access to and the actions it can perform.
To restrict the plugin’s access to your Instagram account, simply click any of the switches to turn it from ‘Yes’ to ‘No.’ Just be aware that this may affect the photos that you can show on your WordPress blog or website.
With that in mind, we recommend leaving all the switches enabled. When you’re happy with the settings, click on ‘Done.’
You’ll now see a popup with the Instagram account you just added to your website.
Simply check the box next to that account and then click on ‘Add.’
Instagram Feed Pro will now take you back to the Instagram Feeds » All Feeds screen.
To create a feed, just check the box next to the Instagram account that you want to use. Then, click on ‘Next.’
The plugin will now create an Instagram photo feed that you can add to any page, post, or widget-ready area.
However, before you can show shoppable images there are a few extra settings to configure.
How to Enable Smash Balloon’s Shoppable Feature (Optional)
As we already mentioned, there are two ways to make your Instagram photo feed shoppable. If you’ve added the URLs to your captions on Instagram, then simply skip to the next step.
Another option is to open shoppable links in a new tab as soon as the visitor clicks on a post. To do this, you’ll need to enable Smash Balloon’s shoppable feature.
To start, select the ‘Settings’ tab and then click on ‘Shoppable Feed.’
On this screen, go ahead and toggle the ‘Enable’ slider so that it turns blue.
Smash Balloon will now show an ‘Add’ button on every photo or video in your Instagram feed.
Simply find the first post that you want to make shoppable, and click on its ‘Add’ button.
You can now type the product or service’s URL into the ‘Product Link’ field and click on ‘Add.’
Now, clicking on this photo will open the linked URL in a new tab.
Simply repeat these steps to make every image shoppable.
If you need to change a post’s URL at any point, then just hover your mouse over it and click on ‘Update.’
Once you’ve added all your links, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button.
How to Filter Your Shoppable Instagram Feed
By default, Smash Balloon shows all the images and videos from your Instagram account. However, since we’re creating a shoppable feed you may want to filter your posts, and only show photos that link to a product or service.
This can help shoppers find products to buy, without getting distracted by other photos and videos in your Instagram feed.
With Smash Balloon, it’s easy to filter Instagram posts based on their captions. You can simply add a keyword or hashtag to your shoppable images on Instagram, and then create a matching filter in Smash Balloon.
For example, in the following image we’re using the #ordernow hashtag for all the images we want to make shoppable.
To create a filter in Smash Balloon, select the ‘Settings’ tab.
Then, go ahead and click on ‘Filters and Moderation.’
In the ‘Only show posts containing’ box, type in the hashtags or keywords that you want to use in the filter.
If you want to use multiple words in the filter, then simply separate each hashtag or keyword with a comma.
When you’re happy with how the filter is set up, click on the ‘Save’ button.
Just be aware that the preview won’t update straight away, so you’ll need to refresh the page to see the filter in action.
How to Customize Your Shoppable Instagram Feed
When you’re happy with the photos and videos that appear in your shoppable feed, you may want to change how the feed looks.
To customize your shoppable Instagram feed, simply click on the ‘Customize’ tab. On the left-hand side are all the settings you can use to change how the shoppable feed looks.
Most of these settings are self-explanatory, but we’ll quickly cover some key areas that can help you get more sales.
Let’s start at the top, by selecting ‘Feed Layout.’ Here, you can choose different layouts for your shoppable feed, such as carousel and highlight.
As you make changes, the preview will update automatically so you can try different settings to see what looks the best.
Depending on the layout, you’ll get some extra settings that you can use to fine-tune your feed. For example if you choose ‘Highlight’ then you can tell Smash Balloon to highlight posts based on a pattern, post ID, or a specific hashtag. This is great for highlighting your most popular products.
By 2025, it’s estimated that US consumers will spend $710 billion every year shopping on their mobile devices. With that in mind, you’ll want to make sure the shoppable Instagram feed looks just as good on smartphones and tablets, as it does on desktops.
By default, Smash Balloon will show the same number of photos on desktop computers and mobile devices.
You can preview how the shoppable feed will look on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones using the row of buttons in the upper-right corner.
You can show fewer shoppable photos on mobile devices by changing the settings in the ‘Number of Posts’ and ‘Columns’ sections.
After making any changes, click on the ‘Customize’ link. This will take you back to the main Smash Balloon editor, ready for you to explore the next option, which is ‘Color Scheme.’
By default, Smash Balloon uses a color scheme inherited from your WordPress theme, but it also has ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’ themes that you may want to use for the shoppable feed instead.
By default, Smash Balloon adds a header to the shoppable feed, which is your profile picture and the name of your page.
To change how this section looks, click on ‘Header’ in the left-hand menu and then use the settings to change the size of your header, add Instagram bio text, and more.
You can also add a different bio. For example, you might encourage people to buy your products, or offer visitors an exclusive coupon code.
To create a unique Instagram bio, simply type into the ‘Add custom bio’ box.
With that done, click on ‘Customize’ to return to the main Smash Balloon editor.
Then, select ‘Posts.’
This takes you to a screen that has a few different options.
You can look through these settings and make any changes you want, but we’re going to focus on ‘Caption.’
If you added shoppable links to your captions, then it’s important to make the text stand out. For example, you might make the caption bigger.
You might even use a different color for the caption.
With that done, click on ‘Posts’ to go back to the previous screen.
Here, you’ll also see a ‘Hover State’ option, which is the overlay that Smash Balloon adds to a post when you hover over it.
This allows visitors to see any links in your captions without opening that Instagram post first.
On this screen, you can use the settings to create an eye-catching colored overlay.
After selecting ‘Hover State’ you’ll be able to change the background color and text color that appears when you hover over each post.
Under ‘Information to display,’ you’ll see all the different information that Smash Balloon can show as part of the overlay. Simply check the box next to each piece of information that you want to show.
If the caption contains shoppable links, then make sure you leave ‘Caption’ enabled.
When you’re happy with your changes, click on ‘Customize’ to return to the main Smash Balloon editor screen. You can now select the next option, which is ‘Load More Button.’
By default, Smash Balloon adds a ‘Load More’ button to the bottom of your Instagram feed so visitors can scroll through your shoppable posts.
Here, you can change the button’s background color, text color, and hover state.
You can also add your own messaging to the button by typing into the ‘Text’ field.
While we recommend leaving the ‘Load More’ button enabled to get more sales, you can remove it. For example, you might encourage people to visit your Instagram page by limiting the number of photos they can see on your site.
To remove the button, simply click on the ‘Enable’ slider to turn it from blue to grey.
If shoppers like what they see, they may decide to follow you on Instagram using the ‘Follow on Instagram’ button that appears below the shoppable feed.
Since it’s such an important button, you may want to help it stand out by selecting ‘Follow Button’ from the main Smash Balloon editor screen.
Here, you can change the button’s background color, hover state, and text color.
You may also replace the default ‘Follow on Instagram’ text with your own messaging.
As always, when you’re finished with these settings, click on ‘Customize’ to return to the main editor screen.
If you’ve enabled the Smash Balloon shoppable feature, then clicking on any post in the Instagram feed will open a new tab and take them straight to the linked product page.
However, if you haven’t enabled the shoppable feature then you may want to take a look at Smash Balloon’s lightbox feature.
This feature allows visitors to open the image or video in a lightbox popup, without leaving your WordPress website. They can then click on any shoppable links in the captions.
To enable or disable the lightbox, simply select ‘Lightbox’ from the left-hand menu.
Here, you can remove or add this feature using the ‘Enable’ slider.
You can also change how many comments Smash Balloon will show in the lightbox. Lots of positive comments can be a powerful form of social proof, which will often help you sell more products and services.
However, they can also be distracting so you may want to type a maximum number into the ‘No. of comments’ box.
Another option is to hide comments completely, by clicking on the ‘Comments’ toggle.
When you’re happy with how the Instagram feed looks, don’t forget to click on ‘Save’ to store your changes. You’re now ready to add the shoppable Instagram feed to your website.
How to Embed Instagram Feed in WordPress
You can add the shoppable feed to your website using a block, widget, or shortcode.
If you’ve created more than one feed using the Smash Balloon plugin, then you’ll need to know the feed’s code if you’re going to use a widget or block.
To get this code, go to Instagram Feed » All Feeds and then copy the value in the ‘Shortcode’ column.
If you want to embed the Instagram feed in a page or post, then we recommend using the Instagram Feed block.
Just open the page or post where you want to embed your shoppable photo and video feed. Then, click on the ‘+’ icon to add a new block and start typing ‘Instagram Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the page or post.
The block will show one of your Smash Balloon feeds by default. If you want to show a different Instagram feed instead, then find ‘Shortcode Settings’ in the right-hand menu.
Here, simply add the shortcode and then click on ‘Apply Changes.’
The block will now show all the photos and videos from your Instagram feed. Just publish or update the page to make the feed live on your website.
Another option is to add the feed to any widget-ready area, such as the sidebar or similar section. This allows visitors to shop using your Instagram feed from any page of your site.
Simply go to Appearance » Widgets in the WordPress dashboard and then click on the blue ‘+’ button.
In the search bar, type in ‘Instagram Feed’ and select the right widget when it appears.
Just be aware that WordPress has a built-in Instagram widget, so make sure you choose the one that shows the official Instagram logo.
Next, simply drag the widget onto the area where you want to show the shoppable Instagram feed, such as the sidebar or similar section.
The widget will automatically show one of the feeds you created using Smash Balloon. If this isn’t the shoppable Instagram feed you just created, then type the feed’s code into the ‘Shortcode Settings’ box.
After that, click on ‘Apply Changes.’
You can now make the widget live by clicking on the ‘Update’ button. For more information, please see our step-by-step guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
Another option is embedding the Instagram feed on any page, post, or widget-ready area using a shortcode.
Finally, if you’re using a block-enabled theme, then you can use the full-site editor to add the Instagram Feed block anywhere on your website.
In your dashboard, simply go to Appearance » Editor.
By default, the full-site editor will show the theme’s home template. If you want to add the shoppable feed to a different template, then click on the arrow next to ‘Home.’
You can then choose any design from the dropdown, such as the footer template.
If you don’t see the template in the list, select ‘Browse all templates.’
The full-site editor will now show a list of all the templates you can edit. Simply click on the template where you want to show the shoppable Instagram feed.
After choosing a template, just hover your mouse over the area where you want to add the shoppable Instagram feed.
Then, click on the ‘+’ button.
After that, start typing in ‘Instagram Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the template.
As always, Smash Balloon will show a feed by default. You can change this feed by adding a shortcode following the same process described above.
Picture this: You’re shopping for a smartphone cover and stumble across a beautiful online shop. This shop has the cover for your specific smartphone model, but it’s only in one color—yellow—and has no design. You prefer to have it in red and feature a quote, but don’t see an option to personalize the product. And [...]
Do you want to track your WordPress widget history to monitor changes made to the widgets on your site?
Widgets are blocks of content that you can add to your website. They allow you to add different elements to your sidebars such as signup forms, images, recent posts, and more. Tracking widget history allows you to easily monitor changes and undo them as needed.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily track your WordPress widget history.
Why Should You Track WordPress Widget History?
By default, WordPress comes with a feature called revisions for content types like posts and pages. Revisions make it easier to what changes were made by which user, and allow you to easily undo those changes if needed.
However, there is no built-in revisions feature for WordPress widgets.
Tracking widget history will allow you to keep track of changes made to widgets on your WordPress website. You can see which user added, removed, or changed a widget, and then you can keep those changes or undo them by editing your widget.
Similarly, if something in a widget has stopped working, then you can pinpoint which changes caused the problem and fix them manually.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily track widget history in WordPress.
How to Easily Track WordPress Widget History
The easiest way to track WordPress widget history is by using the Simple History plugin.
Keep in mind that plugin will only track changes made after the plugin is activated.
After installing the plugin, let’s make a few changes to your WordPress widgets. Simply go to the Appearance » Widgets page and make some changes to your existing widgets.
Don’t forget to click on the Update button to save your widget changes.
After that, you can go to the Dashboard » Simple History page inside WordPress admin area.
You’ll see the changes you made to your widgets appear at the top.
Apart from widget changes, Simple History will also be able to track the following changes and user activity on your website:
theme updates
plugin installation
sidebar widget history
Comments history
user logins
user profiles
If you want to change the settings of the plugin, then you can simply head over to Settings » Simple History from the WordPress admin dashboard.
From here, you can modify the plugin settings according to your needs.
If you want to track the widget history of your WordPress site directly from the dashboard, then you can check the ‘On the dashboard’ option beside the ‘Show History’ option.
This will allow you to access Simple History by simply heading over to Dashboard » Simple History from the WordPress admin panel.
You can also select the number of items you want to show on your log page as well as your dashboard page.
Additionally, you can enable the RSS feed option by checking the box next to it if you want to receive daily log updates about your website.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes button at the bottom once you’re satisfied.
Next, you may want to switch to the Debug tab. From here, you can view all the log events displayed as Loggers.
Plus, you will also be able to see the names of tables that plugin has created in your WordPress database.
The plugin also allowss you to easily downoad the logs file to your computer.
Siply switch to the Export tab on the plugin’s settings page and choose which format you want to use for the export.
You can choose either JSON or CSV format. We recommend using the CSV option as you can open the CSV files in any spreadsheet software like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.
After that, click on the Download Export File button and plugin will send a download file to your browser.
Here is how it would look when you open it in a spreadsheet software.
Final Thoughts
Having an activity log is very important as it helps you keep your website safe. Simple History does that for widgets and many other plugins.
Other plugins like WPForms have added revisions to WordPress form building, and WPCode has also added version control for custom code snippets.
Lastly, if you’re looking for a comprehensive activity log solution for WordPress security, then we recommend taking a look at WP Activity Log plugin.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to easily track your WordPress widget history. You may also want to check out our guide on how to start a podcast, and our top picks of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Do you want to change the default sender name and email address for outgoing WordPress emails?
By default, WordPress uses ‘WordPress’ as the sender name for all outgoing WordPress notification emails. This doesn’t look very professional, and you may want to change that to your business name.
In this article, we will show you how to easily change the default sender name and email address in outgoing WordPress emails.
Why You Should Change the Default Sender Information in WordPress?
WordPress sends several email notifications to the site administrator as well as other users on your website.
This includes important email notifications such as forgot password emails, website error and recovery emails, new user registration, and more.
By default, it uses ‘WordPress’ as the sender’s name and a non-existent email address ([email protected]) as the sender’s email.
Many spam filters block your WordPress emails, believing them to be junk. Sometimes it does not even make it to the spam folder, but is deleted immediately due to filters.
The outgoing email notifications are important, and you should use your own brand and email address. This increases the authenticity of your brand and increases name recognition among your users.
For instance, if you run an online store, then you would want customers to get email notifications with your store name as the sender.
Let’s see how to change the default sender name and email address in outgoing WordPress email notifications.
Method 1. Changing Default Sender Name and Email using WP Mail SMTP
This method is easier and recommended for all WordPress users.
For this method, we’ll be using the WP Mail SMTP Pro plugin. It is the best WordPress SMTP plugin, used by over 3 million website owners.
This plugin allows you to easily change the default sender name and email address for outgoing WordPress emails. It also helps you fix the WordPress email deliverability problem.
Upon activation, you need to visit WP Mail SMTP » Settings to configure plugin settings. Under the Mail section, you can simply enter the email address and the name you want to use to send WordPress emails.
Below, you can find the options to set up an SMTP server to send WordPress emails. By default, the plugin will use the PHP method provided by your WordPress hosting company which is less reliable.
We recommend using any of the listed SMTP services to properly send WordPress emails for higher guaranteed deliverability.
If you choose an SMTP service, then follow the on-screen instructions to connect the plugin with your SMTP service provider.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Settings’ button to save your changes.
Test Your WordPress Emails
WP Mail SMTP Pro also allows you to test your WordPress email settings. Simply go to the WP Mail SMTP » Tools page and switch to the ‘Email Test’ tab.
From here, you just need to provide an email address that you can access and then click on the ‘Send Email’ button.
The plugin will now send a test email to the address you provided. You can check your inbox to make sure that you can receive WordPress emails and that it has the correct sender name and sender email address.
WP Mail SMTP works with all popular WordPress plugins like WooCommerce, WPForms, and more.
Method 2: Changing Default Sender Name and Email using WP Change Email Sender
This method is only recommended if you don’t use an SMTP service or if the first method is not working.
Using this method does not improve your WordPress email deliverability or make it easier to troubleshoot email issues. However, if your WordPress emails are working, then it will allow you to change the sender name and email address.
Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » General in your WordPress admin area. There you’ll find the ‘Email Sender Name’ and ‘Sender Email Address’ fields.
You will need to enter the name and email address you want to be used for outgoing WordPress emails.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
That’s all. Your WordPress notification emails will now show the name and email address you entered in the plugin settings.
There is no method provided by the plugin to test your email settings. You can do that by performing actions that generate WordPress notification emails, like creating a new user, requesting a password reset, and more.
Method 3: Changing Sender Name and Email Address using WPCode
Another excellent way to change your sender name and email address are by adding a code snippet. And we recommend WPCode, the easiest and safest way to add code to WordPress.
You usually need to add code to your functions.php file, but WPCode makes it simple and easy to add this code snippet with just a few clicks.
Not only that, but WPCode has many other snippets available to help customize your site. Plus, you can easily add your custom snippets.
Next, click on Code Snippets »Add Snippet to your WordPress admin dashboard. Simply type ‘sender’ into the search bar and press the ‘Use snippet’ button under ‘Change Outgoing Email Sender’.
Then you’ll be taken to the Edit Snippet page.
Here you need to update the sender’s email and name in the code snippet.
And then, switch the toggle to ‘Active’ and click on the ‘Update’ button.
One of the benefits of using WPCode is that it comes with a library filled with pre-made snippets. There’s a good chance you can find some to replace other plugins on your site, such as disabling automatic updates, allowing SVG files to be uploaded, or even using the Classic editor instead of the default block editor.
You don’t have to use the library, either. You can also add any other code you ever need by selecting ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ button instead of searching the library.
Then, all you have to do is just paste your own code in and decide where it should run on your site.
For example, you can copy and paste this snippet below into the WPCode’s custom code snippet and customize it to change the sender name and email.
// Please edit the address and name below.
// Change the From address.
add_filter( 'wp_mail_from', function ( $original_email_address ) {
return '[email protected]';
} );
// Change the From name.
add_filter( 'wp_mail_from_name', function ( $original_email_from ) {
return 'Tim Smith';
} );
We hope this article helped you learn how to change the sender’s name and email address in outgoing WordPress emails. You may also want to see our guide on the best bulk email marketing services to bulk send emails to all your users and our comparison of the best WordPress page builder plugins to customize your site without any code.
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.
Do you want to add one-click login with Google to your WordPress site?
When your users can sign in with their Google account, they won’t have to create, remember, or track another username and password just to access your website. This helps save them time and increase your conversion rates.
In this article, we will share how to easily add one-click Google login in WordPress.
Why Add One-Click Google Login in WordPress?
Many internet users stay logged in to their Google accounts. This lets them quickly access Google apps like Gmail, Drive, and Docs without signing in separately for each app.
Having one-click Google login activated on your WordPress login page allows your users to do the same on your website. They can save time by quickly signing in with their Google account. This saves them from having to enter their login credentials each time.
If you run a simple WordPress blog, then you might not find this feature useful.
But if your organization uses Google Workspace for professional business email addresses, then your team members can use your organization’s Google apps accounts for login.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add one-click login with Google to your WordPress website.
Tip: To add one-click Google Login, your site needs to have secure SSL encryption. To learn how to set up a secure connection, see our beginner’s guide on how to switch from HTTP to HTTPS in WordPress.
For this tutorial, we’ll use the free plugin that supports Google, Twitter, and Facebook login. There is also a paid version of Nextend Social Login that adds social login for lots of different sites including PayPal, Slack, and TikTok.
Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » Nextend Social Login in the WordPress admin area. On this screen, you see the different social login options that are available.
To add a Google login to your WordPress website, you need to click the ‘Getting Started’ button under the Google logo.
Here you will see that your first step will be to create a Google app.
Creating a Google app sounds technical, but don’t worry.
You don’t need to know any code, and we’ll walk you through all the steps.
Creating a Google App
To create this app, you’ll need to switch between your WordPress dashboard and the Google Developers Console. It’s a good idea to leave your WordPress dashboard open in the current tab and open a new browser tab.
Now you can visit the Google Developers Console website. If you are not already logged in, then you will be asked to log in with your Google account.
Next, you need to click on ‘Select a project’ from the top menu. It will open a popup where you would click the ‘New Project’ button to continue.
This will open the New Project page. You will need to add a project name and select the location. The project name can be anything you like, such as ‘Google Login.’
If you logged in using a Google Workspace account, then the location will be filled in with the name of your organization automatically. If not, then you should leave it as ‘No organization.’
Next, click the ‘Create’ button to continue.
You’ll now be redirected to the ‘APIs & Services’ dashboard. On this page, you need to click on ‘OAuth consent screen’ in the left menu.
Here you choose the type of user you’re allowing to log in.
Select ‘Internal’ if only users with your organization’s Google account will be logging in. Alternatively, you should choose ‘External’ if your users have email addresses outside of your organization. For example, anyone with an @gmail.com account versus an @yourcompanyemail.com address.
When you’re ready to continue, click the ‘Create’ button. Now you can start to add information about your app.
First, you should enter your business name in the app name field. This will be shown to the user when logging in, such as, ‘Smith Training Services wants access to your Google account.’
You also need to add the email address you logged into Google with. This will allow your users to ask questions about the Google login screen.
Tip: We recommend that you do not upload a logo for your app. If you do, then your app will need to go through a verification process with the Google Trust and Safety Team. This process is lengthy and can take 4-6 weeks.
Once you’ve done that, scroll down to the ‘App domain’ section. Here you need to add links to your website’s home page, privacy policy page, and terms of service page.
Then you need to click the ‘Add Domain’ button to add your website’s domain name, such as ‘example.com.’
If you want to add one-click Google login to more than one website, then you can click the ‘+ Add Domain’ button to add another domain.
Finally, you need to add one or more email addresses so that Google can notify you about any changes to your project.
When you’re finished, make sure you click the ‘Save and Continue’ button.
Next, you will come to the Scopes and Test Users pages. For both of these pages, simply scroll to the bottom and click the ‘Save and Continue’ button.
The final page for this step will show you a summary of your OAuth consent screen settings.
The next job is to create the keys your plugin will need to connect with Google Cloud.
You should click ‘Credentials’ from the left menu and then click the ‘+ Create Credientials’ button at the top of the screen. You need to select the ‘OAuth client ID’ option.
This will take you to the ‘Create OAuth client ID’ page.
You should select ‘Web application’ from the ‘Application type’ dropdown.
Some settings will be added to the page. You need to scroll down to the ‘Authorized redirect URIs’ section and click the ‘+ Add URI’ button.
Make sure you replace example.com with your own website’s address.
Once you’ve done that, you should click the ‘Create’ button to store the setting. It may take five minutes to a few hours for the setting to take effect.
Your OAuth client has now been created!
You will see a popup containing ‘Your Client ID’ and Your Client Secret.’ You will need to paste these keys into the plugin’s settings page back in your WordPress admin area.
You can just click the ‘copy’ icon to the right to copy the keys one at a time.
Adding Your Google Keys to Your Plugin
Now, simply switch back to your website’s browser tab and click on the ‘Settings’ tab under Settings » Nextend Social Login. Here you will see fields for the Client ID and Client Secret.
You need to copy your keys from the Google Cloud Console and paste them into these fields.
Once you’ve done that, make sure you click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Now you’ll need to test that the settings are working correctly. This is important because you don’t want real users to encounter errors when trying to log in to your website.
Simply click the ‘Verify Settings’ button and the plugin will make sure that the Google app you created is working correctly.
If you followed the steps above correctly, then you should see a notification saying ‘Works Fine – Disabled.’
You can now safely click the ‘Enable’ button to allow users to log in using their Google ID.
You will see a message confirming that Google login is now enabled.
Selecting Your Button Style and Labels
Nextend’s default button style and label are pretty standard and will work for most websites. However, you can customize them by clicking on the ‘Buttons’ tab at the top of the screen.
You will now see all the different styles that you can use for the social login button. To use a different style, simply click to select its radio button.
Once you’ve done that, you can also change the button text by editing the text in the ‘Login label’ field.
If you like, you can apply some basic formatting to the login label using HTML. For example, you can make text bold using <b> and </b> tags.
You can also edit the ‘Link label’ and ‘Unlink label’ fields that allow users to link and unlink your website with their Google accounts. Technical users can use HTML code for buttons to create their own Google login button.
Make sure you click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Taking Your Google App Out of Testing Mode
Now there is one last thing you need to do back on the Google Cloud browser tab. You should still see the popup with your client ID and client secret. You can dismiss the popup by clicking ‘OK’ at the bottom of the popup.
Now you need to click ‘OAuth consent screen’ from the left menu.
You can see that your Google app is in ‘Testing’ mode. This allows you to test your app with a limited number of users. Now that you have received a ‘Works Fine’ notification when verifying the settings with the plugin, you can move it to In ‘Production’ mode.
You do this by clicking the ‘Publish App’ button. Next, you will see a popup with the title ‘Push to production?’
Simply click ‘Confirm’ to allow everyone to use a one-step Google login on your site.
If you followed this tutorial carefully, then the Verification Status should now be ‘Verification not required.’
Your app will now work with all Google users.
Now when users are logging in to your website, they will have the option to log in with Google.
However, if they prefer, they can still log in using their standard WordPress username and password.
Keep in mind that users can only log in with the Google account address that they have used on your website. Also, if you have allowed user registration on your WordPress site, then users can quickly register on your site using one-click Google login.
If you wish to add the Google login button anywhere else on your website, then you can do so using a shortcode. You can learn more by clicking on Nextend’s ‘Usage’ tab.
Are you looking for an easy way to create a WordPress form with a payment option?
Often small business owners need to create an easy way to accept payments on their website without setting up a complex shopping cart. A simple payment form allows you to accept custom payment amounts, setup recurring payments, and collect custom details with ease.
In this article, we will show you how you can easily create forms with a payment option.
Why Create WordPress Forms with a Payment Option?
If you want to create a simple form with custom payment options, then you don’t need to create a full online store. While eCommerce plugins like Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce are very powerful, you may not need something as comprehensive if you’re only selling a few items, services, or need to accept custom amounts from each customer.
In some cases, creating a simple payment form is a much better solution than using a dedicated eCommerce plugin.
For example, on a non-profit website, you may want to give visitors the option to make a donation while they’re filling out a volunteer application form.
Some website owners like to accept optional tips from visitors who are reaching out for help.
Or, you may want to offer a digital download with a ‘pay what you like’ system, where visitors choose how much they want to pay for a product or service. We’ve even seen WordPress websites offer products as a free download, while giving visitors the option to pay for a premium upgrade or extra content.
That being said, let’s look at how you can create optional payment forms. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.
The easiest way to create a simple WordPress payment form is by using WP Simple Pay.
WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payment plugin for WordPress that lets you accept credit card payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more without any having to install any special eCommerce plugins.
This free plugin is perfect for non-profits, small businesses, volunteers, and anyone who wants to collect payments without having to invest in advanced eCommerce plugins.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the WP Simple Pay plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, the plugin will automatically launch the setup wizard. Go ahead and click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
In the next step, you’ll need to connect a Stripe account to WP Simple Pay. Stripe is a beginner-friendly payment processor for website owners.
To get started, click on the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.
After that, you can either log into an existing Stripe account or create a new one.
If you’ve already registered with Stripe, then simply type in the email address and password for that account.
WP Simple Pay will now show you how to connect your Stripe account to WordPress.
If you’re not already registered with Stripe, then type in your email address and then follow the onscreen instructions to create your free Stripe account.
Once you’re logged into a Stripe account, go ahead and click on ‘Create a Payment Form.’
If you’ve clicked away from this screen by accident, then don’t worry. You can reach the same screen by going to WP Simple Pay » Add New in the WordPress dashboard.
The free WP Simple Pay plugin has a few different payment templates that can help you create different kinds of payment forms within minutes. You can unlock extra templates by upgrading to WP Simple Pay Pro, including a template that adds a Stripe donate button in WordPress.
Since we want to create a simple WordPress payment form, hover over the ‘Payment Button’ template and then click on ‘Create Payment Button’ when it appears.
In the ‘Title’ field, type in a name for your payment form.
This title is just for your reference so you can use anything you want.
You can also use the ‘Description’ field to add some information about your payment form. Again, WordPress won’t show this to your site’s visitors but it can be useful for your own reference or for anyone else who shares your WordPress dashboard.
After that, click on the ‘Payment’ tab.
By default, WP Simple Pay will create your payment form in test mode, meaning you can’t accept payments from visitors.
We recommend leaving the ‘Global Settings (Test Mode)’ radio button selected, so you can test how the form works before you start accepting payments from visitors.
However, if you want to start accepting real payments straight away, then you can select the ‘Live Mode’ button instead.
Next, you can decide how much you’ll charge visitors by typing a number into the ‘One-Time Amount’ field.
Note: By default, WP Simple Pay uses the dollar currency. If you want to accept payments in any other currency, then simply head over to WP Simple Pay » Settings. You can then select the ‘Currency’ tab and choose a new currency.
After you’ve done that, select the ‘Form Fields’ tab.
By default, your button will have the label ‘Pay Now’, but you can change this to anything you want by typing into the ‘Button Text’ field.
Since we’re creating an optional payment form, you may want to use something like ‘Send Us a Tip’ or ‘Buy Me a Coffee.’
You can also change the ‘Button Processing Text,’ which is the message that WP Simple Pay will show to shoppers while it’s processing their payment.
Again, since this is an optional payment form you might use something that reflects this, such as ‘We’re processing your donation.’
By default, WP Simple Pay will use the same button style as your WordPress theme. It also has a ‘Stripe blue’ style that you can use, as you can see in the following image.
If you want to use this button style, then simply select the ‘Stripe blue’ radio button in the ‘Payment Button’ section.
After that, select the Stripe Checkout tab and choose the information that WP Simple Pay will collect from visitors at checkout.
For example, if you’re selling a physical product then you’ll want to check the ‘Collect Shipping Address’ box.
As you’re working on the payment form, you can preview how it looks at any point simply by clicking on the ‘Preview’ button.
This opens the payment form in a new tab, in exactly the same way you preview posts and pages in the standard WordPress editor.
When you’re happy with how the payment form looks, go ahead and make it live by clicking on the ‘Publish’ button.
You can now add the payment form to any page, post, or widget-ready area using the value in ‘Form Shortcode.’
If you published the form in test mode, then the Stripe dashboard doesn’t show any payments you get during this time, which makes it difficult to test your optional payment form.
To see your transactions, you’ll need to activate test mode in Stripe by logging in to your Stripe dashboard and then selecting the ‘Payments’ tab.
Next, click on the ‘Developers’ toggle in the upper right corner.
Once you’ve done that, all of your test payments will appear in the Stripe dashboard so you can check that the form is working properly.
When you’re happy with how the form is set up, you can start accepting real payments by going to WP Simple Pay » Payment Forms in the WordPress dashboard.
Here, simply hover your mouse over the optional payment form, and click on the ‘Edit’ link.
You can now go ahead and select the ‘Payment’ tab, and then click on the radio button next to ‘Live Mode.’
Finally, click on ‘Update.’ Your payment form is now live, and you’re ready to start accepting money from your audience.
Method 2. Using WPForms (Best For Flexible and Optional Payments)
Sometimes you may want to let customers choose how much money to send as part of a payment or donation. For example, you might create a ‘pay what you want’ model.
Other times, you may want to collect additional details as part of the form or even allow users to submit paid content to your blog or website.
If you’re looking to create a flexible payment form, then you’ll need an advanced form builder plugin.
WPForms is the best form builder plugin for WordPress. You can use it to quickly create lots of different forms, including contact forms, booking forms, and more. Over 5 million website owners use WPForms.
Using this plugin, you can create a form that shows different fields depending on whether the customer wants to send you a payment or not.
For this guide, we’ll be using WPForms Pro because it comes with addons that make it easy to collect payments using popular payment gateways such as Stripe and PayPal. There is also a WPForms Lite version that is 100% free, but it doesn’t include the payment addons.
First, you’ll need to install and activate WPForms Pro. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After activating WPForms, head over to WPForms » Settings in your WordPress dashboard.
You can now enter your license key into the ‘License Key’ field. You’ll find this information in your WPForms account.
After activating the WPForms plugin, you’ll need to install at least one payment addon.
To encourage visitors to pay for your product or service, you may want to set up multiple addons so visitors can pay using their favorite method.
To install one or more payment addons, simply go to WPForms » Addons.
You can now find the addon that you want to use, and click on its ‘Install Addon’ button. WPForms lets you accept payments using Stripe, Square, PayPal, and Authorize.net.
For example, if you want to accept payments using PayPal, then you’ll need to install the PayPal Standard Addon.
After activating one or more payment addons, the next step is connecting WPForms to the related payment account. For example, if you installed the Square addon, then you’ll need to connect WPForms to your Square account.
To make this connection, go to WPForms » Settings. You can then click on ‘Payments.’
On this screen, you’ll see a ‘Connect with…’ button for each payment addon that you installed.
Here, simply click on the ‘Connect with…’ button. This will launch a setup wizard, which will guide you through the process of connecting WPForms to your payment account.
Simply repeat these steps for every payment addon that you want to use.
As soon as you’ve done that, click on the ‘Save Settings’ button at the bottom of the screen. Then, head over to WPForms » Add New.
Here, type a name for your form into the ‘Name Your Form’ field.
Your site visitors won’t see the name, so it’s just for your reference.
WPForms has different templates so you can quickly get started and build all kinds of forms.
To take a closer look at a template, simply hover your mouse over the template. Then, go ahead and click on the View Demo button.
For this guide, we’ll be using the Simple Contact Form template, but you can add a payment field to any WPForms template.
When you find a template that you want to use, simply click on its Use Template button. This will launch WPForms drag and drop form builder.
The Simple Contact Form template already has fields where customers can type in their name, email address, and message.
So next, we need to add a field where visitors can decide whether to send you a payment. The easiest way to do this is by using a Multiple Choice field.
In the left-hand menu, find the Multiple Choice field and then add it to your form using drag and drop.
To start, we need to change the label that WPForms shows at the top of the Multiple Choice section.
This is the perfect place to ask visitors whether they want to send you a payment. For example, you might use ‘Would you like to send us a donation?’ or ‘Do you want to support this website?’
To change the default label, simply click to select the Multiple Choice section in your form. The left-hand menu will now show all the settings that you can use to customize this section.
In the left-hand menu, delete the placeholder ‘Multiple Choice’ text in the ‘Label’ field. You can then type in the new text that you want to use.
By default, the Multiple Choice section has three choices, but we only need two choices.
To remove one of these choices, go ahead and click on the – button next to it.
The next step is customizing the text for ‘First Choice’ and ‘Second Choice.’
In the left-hand menu, simply delete the placeholder text and type in the text that you want to use instead. For example, you may want to type in ‘Yes, I want to support the website’ and ‘No, thanks.’
When creating WordPress forms with a payment option, you may want to let visitors decide how much money to send you.
To do this, simply click on the ‘Add Fields’ tab in the left-hand menu. Then, drag and drop a ‘Single Item’ field onto your form.
To customize this field, just give it a click.
By default, the field shows a ‘Single Item’ label. You can replace this label with your own text, by typing into the ‘Label’ field in the left-hand menu.
For example, you may want type in text such as ‘I want to send you…’ or ‘Donation Amount.’
Next, open the ‘Item Type’ dropdown and click on User Defined.
Visitors will now be able to type any value into this field, and send you this amount of money.
You may also want to suggest the amount of money you would like to get. This can make it easier for visitors to complete your form, since they can click to choose an amount rather than having to make this decision themselves.
To add some suggestions to your form, simply drag and drop a ‘Multiple Items’ field onto your WordPress form.
Then, go ahead and customize the section’s label and option text by following the same process described above.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to set a price for each option by typing the value into the field next to it.
By default, the Multiple Items section has three options. To add more choices, simply click on the ‘+’ icon.
You can then customize the new option’s text, and type in a value following the same process described above.
Want to remove an option from the Multiple Items section instead?
To do this, simply click on its ‘-‘ button.
After adding some fields, you can change the order these fields appear in your form by dragging and dropping them.
Once you’ve done all that, you’ll need to add at least one payment option to your form.
In the left-hand menu, scroll to the ‘Payment Fields’ section. Here, you’ll find fields for all the different payment addons that you installed.
To add a payment option to your form, just give it a click.
After adding a payment option field, it’s a good idea to click on it. WPForms will now show all the settings that you can use to configure this field.
For example, if you click on the ‘Stripe Credit Card’ field, you’ll be able to edit the label and add a description.
We only want to show the payment field to visitors who choose to send you a payment. To do this, you need to enable conditional logic for your payment field.
If you haven’t already, then click to select the payment field in your form. Then, simply click on the ‘Smart Logic’ tab in the left-hand menu.
Once you’ve done that, go ahead and click on the ‘Enable Conditional Logic’ slider to turn it from grey (inactive) to blue (active).
Next, we need to tell WPForms to only shows the payment field if the visitor selects your ‘Yes, I want to support the website’ option.
To do this, make sure the ‘this field if’ dropdown is set to ‘Show.’
Then, open the field that shows ‘Select Field’ and choose the ‘Do you want to support the website?’ field.
Once you’ve done that, open the next dropdown and click on ‘is.’
Finally, open the dropdown that shows ‘Select Choice’ by default, and choose the ‘Yes, I want to support the website’ field.
In the image above, we’re telling WPForms to only show the payment field when a visitor confirms that they want to support the website.
Adding Payment Methods to WPForms
The next step is enabling payments for the form. To do that, click on the ‘Payments’ tab in the left-hand menu.
You’ll now see all the different payment options that you can enable for the form.
To get started, simply click on the payment option that you want to configure.
After that, just check the box next to ‘Enable….’
Depending on the payment option, there may be some extra settings you need to configure. For example, if you’re enabling PayPal then you’ll need to type in the email address where you want to get your payments.
You’ll also want to use conditional logic rules with your payment settings.
To use conditional logic, click on the ‘Enable Conditional Logic’ slider. Then, open the ‘this charge if’ dropdown and select ‘Don’t process.’
Once you’ve done that, go ahead and open the dropdown that shows ‘Select Field’ by default. You can now choose your ‘Do you want to support this website?’ or a similar field.
Then, make sure the next dropdown menu is set to ‘is.’
After you’ve done that, you’re ready to open the ‘Select Choice’ dropdown menu and click on the ‘No, thanks’ or similar field.
Now, your site will refuse to process any payments if the visitor chooses the ‘No, thanks’ option, no matter what they type into the rest of your form.
If you’re offering a choice of payment options, then simply repeat the above process by checking the ‘Enable’ box and then configuring any extra settings. You can also enable conditional logic.
In the following screenshot, you can see that Stripe has different settings compared to PayPal, so it’s always worth checking these extra settings carefully.
Once you’ve done that, it’s a good idea to enable AJAX form submissions. This allows users to submit the payment form without reloading the entire page.
To enable AJAX submissions, simply go to Settings » General.
Then, just click to expand the ‘Advanced’ section.
After that, you can go ahead and check the ‘Enable AJAX form submission’ box.
When you’re happy with how your WordPress form looks, go ahead and save your changes.
To do this, just click on the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen.
By default, WPForms will send an email to your WordPress admin every time someone submits this form. However, you may only want to get a notification when someone chooses to send you a payment.
To change WPForms’ default email settings, click on the ‘Settings’ tab. Then, go ahead and click on ‘Notifications’ in the left-hand menu.
Now, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the ‘Enable Conditional Logic’ slider.
As soon as you activate the slider, WPForms will show some extra settings.
Next, make sure the ‘this notification if’ dropdown is set to ‘Send.’
After you’ve done that, open the dropdown that shows ‘Select Field’ by default and click on the ‘Do you want to support the website?’ or a similar field.
Next, make sure the dropdown is set to ‘is.’
Finally, open the dropdown that shows ‘Select Choice’ by default.
The final step is choosing the ‘Yes, I want to support the website’ or a similar field.
When you’re happy with these changes, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button.
By default, WPForms will send the email to your WordPress admin email. You can send these messages to any other email address, or even multiple addresses.
To change the default settings, find the ‘Send To Email Address’ field. By default this is set to {admin_email}. This is a dynamic value that tells WordPress to send its emails to your WordPress admin.
You can replace this dynamic text with any other email address by typing the new address into the ‘Send To Email Address’ field.
If you want to email multiple people, then simply separate each address with a comma as you can see in the following screenshot.
By default, WPForms uses ‘New Entry’ and the name of your form for the email subject line.
If you want to use something else then simply type the new text into ‘Email Subject Line.’
Another option is to use dynamic text in your email subject. To do this, click on the ‘Show Smart Tags’ link and then choose a tag from the ‘Available Fields’ list.
Now when WPForms creates its emails, it will automatically replace the smart tags with values taken from the submitted form. For example, if you click on ‘Total Amount’ then WPForms will show the total payment in its email subject line.
You can also change the text that’s included in the email’s body.
Once again, you have the option to use smart tags to create a more informative email.
After creating your custom email notifications, you’ll want to make sure they’re sent to the recipient’s email inbox and not to the spam folder.
You may also want to show a confirmation message to your customers. For example, you might confirm you’ve received their form safely or show them a personalized ‘Thank You’ message. WPForms will show this message automatically whenever a customer submits the WordPress form.
To configure this message, click on the ‘Confirmations’ tab. Then, just open the ‘Confirmation Type’ dropdown and choose ‘Message.’
If you want to show the same text to all visitors, then you can simply type your text into the ‘Confirmation Message’ box.
Another option is to create a personalized message by adding smart tags, following the same process described above.
Instead of showing a message, you might prefer to show a particular page or redirect visitors to another URL. To do this, simply open the ‘Confirmation Type’ dropdown.
You can now choose from ‘Show Page’ or ‘Go to URL.’
After that, you can use the settings to configure the page or URL that WPForms will show after the customer submits the form.
When you’re happy with these settings, don’t forget to save your changes by clicking on the ‘Save’ button.
After all that, you’re ready to add this form to your website.
To do this, simply open up the page or post where you want to show the form. Then click on the plus ‘+’ icon.
In the popup that appears, type ‘WPForms’ to find the right block. As soon as you click on the WPForms block, it will add the block to your page.
In your new block, go ahead and click to open the dropdown menu.
You will now see a list of all the forms you’ve created using WPForms. Simply click to select the WordPress form with a payment option.
WPForms will now show a preview of how your form will look directly in the WordPress editor.
You can also preview the entire page by clicking on the ‘Preview’ button in the toolbar.
When you’re happy with how your form looks, you can either publish or update this page as normal. Now if you visit this page or post, you’ll see the optional payment form live on your WordPress website.
Do you want to add your social media feeds to a WordPress website?
Showing Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram feeds on WordPress can get you more followers and engagement on social media. It’s also a great way to keep your website fresh and interesting.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to add custom social media feeds to WordPress and even create a social wall that brings all your social content together in one place.
Why Add Social Media Feeds to Your WordPress Site?
Billions of people use social media every day to connect with family, friends, and even brands. According to our marketing statistics research, people spend around 2 hours and 29 minutes on social media every day. That’s plenty of time to promote your content to existing followers and connect with new people.
If you have one or more social media accounts, then you’re already off to a good start. However, it’s also smart to add these social feeds to your WordPress website.
By embedding social media posts in WordPress, you can promote your different accounts to the people who visit your website. This can get you more likes, shares, and engagement.
If visitors like what they see, they might even decide to start following you on different social networks.
Once you’ve embedded a social feed, new posts will appear on your website automatically. This can be a great way to keep your website fresh and interesting, even for regular visitors.
If you run an online store, then a social media feed can even help you get more sales. In fact, 43% of people use social media to make purchasing decisions.
It’s the best social media feed plugin for WordPress and it’s trusted by over 1.5 million users. With this plugin, you don’t have to spend time dealing with jQuery code, APIs, or trying to arrange your social posts in a nice layout. Everything just works.
Smash Balloon has separate plugins for all the major social networks including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. It even allows you to combine multiple social networks and show all of your posts in a single feed.
With that being said, let’s see how you can add different social feeds to your WordPress website. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the social network that you want to add.
Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world, with 2.9 billion monthly active users. No matter whether you have a small business website, a personal blog, a WordPress membership website, or something else, it’s very likely that your target audience are familiar with Facebook.
When you add a Facebook feed to WordPress, new posts will appear on your website in real-time. Visitors can also like, share, and comment on your WordPress posts, so this is a great way to get more engagement on Facebook.
You can even create a custom lightbox popup so visitors can see your full-sized images and watch your Facebook videos, without having to leave your WordPress website.
If you host regular in-person or online events, then it’s a good idea to create them as Facebook events on your page or group. Visitors can then mark themselves as interested or going to the event, invite other people, and share the event on their own Facebook page.
Once you’ve added these events to Facebook, you can easily promote them to the people who visit your website. Simply create a feed of your upcoming Facebook events and then add it to your WordPress website.
Adding an Instagram Social Media Feed in WordPress
With more than 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram is a great place to promote your website, products, and services.
Depending on your industry, Instagram may even be the most important part of your social media strategy. For example, Instagram is particularly popular among top fashion blogs, lifestyle, cooking, and photography websites.
If you’re posting beautiful photos and engaging videos to Instagram, then it makes sense to post that content to WordPress too.
You can add images in WordPress manually, but you’ll need to keep adding new photos as you post them to Instagram. This can take a lot of time and effort.
Since there’s no link between your WordPress website and your Instagram account, visitors can’t easily like or share these photos on Instagram. As a result, you may miss out on lots of social media engagement.
The easiest way to add an Instagram feed to WordPress is by using the Smash Balloon Instagram Feed plugin. This plugin allows you to embed a beautiful and professionally-designed Instagram feed on your website.
The feed updates automatically every time you post to Instagram, so visitors always see the latest photos.
You can even show other people’s photos on your site by creating a hashtag feed or displaying the posts that other people have tagged your account in. This can be a powerful form of social proof that encourages people to trust your website or business.
In the following image you can see an example of an online store that uses a custom Instagram feed to show user-generated content.
In this way, you can use a custom Instagram feed to create customer trust and make more money online.
However, this block only lets you embed a single tweet at a time. This is a quick and easy method if you just want to show a small number of tweets. However, if you want to embed multiple tweets then we recommend using Smash Balloon Twitter Feed.
This plugin allows you to create a Twitter feed that updates automatically as you post new tweets. You can then add this feed to any page, post, or widget-ready area.
Smash Balloon Twitter Feed also lets you create hashtag feeds.
This is useful for adding context and third-party content to your blog posts. For example, if you’re starting a fashion blog then you might create feeds for popular fashion-related hashtags such as #lookbook or #OOTD.
You can even use Smash Balloon to show the Twitter feed from a third-party account. This is perfect if you have a relationship with an influencer or affiliate marketer, and want to show their tweets on your website.
Blog posts with videos get 83% more traffic than those without videos. With that in mind, we recommend adding your YouTube videos to WordPress, too.
If you run an online store using a plugin such as WooCommerce, then videos can even get you more sales. In fact, 88% of people have bought a product or service after watching a video.
If you’ve created any YouTube videos showing your products or services, then adding them to your website could boost your profits.
If you only want to add a small number of videos to your site, then it’s easy to embed YouTube videos in WordPress blog posts. However, if you want to show more than one video, then it’s difficult to create a nice gallery layout using the built-in blocks and tools alone.
This plugin allows you to show videos from your favorites list, embed live streams, and more.
Adding a Combined Social Wall in WordPress
So far, you’ve seen how to add individual feeds from different social media platforms. However, many websites have multiple social media accounts, such as a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter profile.
If you create unique content for each platform, then you may want to combine all of that content into a single social media feed. This kind of social wall can convince visitors that you have a big presence on social media, and that you’re creating all kinds of interesting and varied content across the different platforms.
This single feed can get you followers and engagement across multiple platforms. It’s also a good choice if you have limited space, and don’t want to fill up your website with lots of separate social media feeds.
If you want to combine several social media accounts into a single feed, then we recommend the Smash Balloon Social Wall plugin.
It’s the best social stream plugin for WordPress and allows you to combine Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube social content into a single feed.
Already used the Smash Balloon plugins to create separate Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube feeds? Then you can add these feeds to your social wall with a few clicks.
Social Wall will then take your settings and automatically create a shortcode that you can add to any page, post, or widget-ready area. Simply publish your changes, and the social wall will appear on your website.
Note: To use this plugin, you’ll need to install and activate at least one of the Pro Smash Balloon plugins mentioned above. For example, if you wanted to show Facebook and Instagram content on your social wall, then you’ll need both the Social Post Feed and the Social Photo Feed plugins.
To get started, you’ll need to install and activate the Smash Balloon Social Wall plugin. For more information, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once the plugin is installed and activated, go to Social Feeds » Create a Social Wall.
Simply select each feed that you want to add to the social wall.
For example, you can combine posts from your Instagram and Facebook accounts.
On this screen you can also connect any extra social accounts that you want to use.
Simply click on a ‘Connect…’ button and then follow the onscreen instructions to connect the social media account.
After that, click on the ‘Customize’ tab.
Here, you can change the number of posts to show in the social wall, the feed layout, how often it updates, and more.
There are other settings you can use to change the wall’s color scheme, background color, button text, and more. Most of these settings are fairly self-explanatory, so it’s worth looking through them to see what changes you want to make.
When you’re finished, click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.
Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Configure Wall’ tab. Here, you’ll see a shortcode that allows you to add the social wall to any page, post, or widget-ready area.
