Hopefully you’ve had a good week sorting through the thousands of privacy policy update emails you received as a result of the GDPR… This week, we have a great deal for you – we got WP Compress to extend its lifetime image optimization deal for WPLift. With this deal, you can optimize 30,000 images per ... Read moreWeekly WordPress News: Special Lifetime Deal At WP Compress
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Do you want to add a comment privacy optin checkbox in WordPress? European Union’s new GDPR law requires explicit consent for storing user’s personal information. If you have comments enabled on your website, then you need to add a comment privacy checkbox to comply with the new law. In this article, we will show you how to add a GDPR comment privacy opt-in checkbox in WordPress.
Recently, a new European Union law called GDPR (The General Data Protection Regulation) has become effective. The purpose of this law is to give EU citizens control over their personal data and change the data privacy approach of organizations across the world.
To learn more, see our ultimate guide to WordPress and GDPR compliance which answers all your questions in plain English.
WordPress recently addressed GDPR compliance in the latest 4.9.6 release. If you haven’t updated yet, then you need to immediately update to the latest WordPress version.
One of the ways WordPress stores and uses personal information is in the comment form. When a user leaves a comment on your website, their name, email address, and website information is stored in a browser cookie. This cookie allows WordPress to automatically fill in user’s information in the comment form on their next visit.
With WordPress 4.9.6, the default WordPress comment form will now show a comment privacy opt-in checkbox. All WordPress themes that use the default WordPress comment form will now automatically show this checkbox.
If your site is showing the comment privacy checkbox, then you don’t need to read further. However if the comment checkbox is not showing on your site, then you need to continue reading, and we will show you how to add comment privacy checkbox in WordPress.
First, you need to make sure that you are using the latest version of WordPress and your theme. Simply go to Dashboard » Updates page to check for updates.
If an update is available for your current theme or WordPress, then go ahead and install it. Next, check your website’s comment form to see if the update added the comment privacy checkbox.
If both your theme and WordPress are up to date, and you still can’t see the comment privacy checkbox, then this means that your WordPress theme is overriding the default WordPress comment form.
You can ask your theme author to fix this issue by opening a support ticket. You can also try to fix it yourself until your theme author releases an update.
There are two ways you can add the comment privacy checkbox to your WordPress theme. We will show you both methods, and you can try the one that works for you.
Both methods require you to add code to your WordPress theme files. If you haven’t done this before, then see our guide on how to copy and paste code in WordPress.
Method 1. Add comment privacy checkbox to your theme’s comment form
This method is recommended because it tries to protect your theme’s comment form style and layout.
First, you will need to find the code used to override the default WordPress comment form. Normally, you can find it in the comments.php or functions.php file in your theme folder.
You will be looking for a code using the 'comment_form_default_fields' filter. This filter is used by themes to override the default WordPress comment form.
It will have lines for all of your comment form fields in a specific format. Here is an example code to give you an idea of what you would be looking for:
$comments_args = array(
// change the title of send button
'label_submit'=> esc_html(__('Post Comments','themename')),
// change the title of the reply section
'title_reply'=> esc_html(__('Leave a Comment','themename')),
// redefine your own textarea (the comment body)
'comment_field' => '
<div class="form-group"><div class="input-field"><textarea class="materialize-textarea" type="text" rows="10" id="textarea1" name="comment" aria-required="true"></textarea></div></div>',
'fields' => apply_filters( 'comment_form_default_fields', array(
'author' =>'' .
'<div><div class="input-field">' .
'<input class="validate" id="name" name="author" placeholder="'. esc_attr(__('Name','themename')) .'" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author'] ) .
'" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' /></div></div>',
'email' =>'' .
'<div><div class="input-field">' .
'<input class="validate" id="email" name="email" placeholder="'. esc_attr(__('Email','themename')) .'" type="email" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author_email'] ) .
'" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' /></div></div>',
'url' =>'' .
'<div class="form-group">'.
'<div><div class="input-field"><input class="validate" placeholder="'. esc_attr(__('Website','themename')) .'" id="url" name="url" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author_url'] ) .
'" size="30" /></div></div>',
)
),
);
comment_form($comments_args); ?>
In this code, you can notice that comment_form_default_fields filter is used to modify the author, email, and URL fields. Inside the array, it uses the following format to display each field:
'fieldname' => 'HTML code to display the field', 'anotherfield' => 'HTML code to display the field',
We will add the comment privacy optin checkbox field towards the end. Here is what our code will look like now:
$comments_args = array(
// change the title of send button
'label_submit'=> esc_html(__('Post Comments','themename')),
// change the title of the reply section
'title_reply'=> esc_html(__('Leave a Comment','themename')),
// redefine your own textarea (the comment body)
'comment_field' => '
<div class="form-group"><div class="input-field"><textarea class="materialize-textarea" type="text" rows="10" id="textarea1" name="comment" aria-required="true"></textarea></div></div>',
'fields' => apply_filters( 'comment_form_default_fields', array(
'author' =>'' .
'<div><div class="input-field">' .
'<input class="validate" id="name" name="author" placeholder="'. esc_attr(__('Name','themename')) .'" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author'] ) .
'" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' /></div></div>',
'email' =>'' .
'<div><div class="input-field">' .
'<input class="validate" id="email" name="email" placeholder="'. esc_attr(__('Email','themename')) .'" type="email" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author_email'] ) .
'" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' /></div></div>',
'url' =>'' .
'<div class="form-group">'.
'<div><div class="input-field"><input class="validate" placeholder="'. esc_attr(__('Website','themename')) .'" id="url" name="url" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author_url'] ) .
'" size="30" /></div></div>',
// Now we will add our new privacy checkbox optin
'cookies' => '<p class="comment-form-cookies-consent"><input id="wp-comment-cookies-consent" name="wp-comment-cookies-consent" type="checkbox" value="yes"' . $consent . ' />' .
'<label for="wp-comment-cookies-consent">' . __( 'Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.' ) . '</label></p>',
)
),
);
comment_form($comments_args); ?>
Method 2. Replacing your theme’s comment form with WordPress default
This method simply replaces your theme’s comment form with the default WordPress comment form. Using this method can affect your comment form’s appearance, and you may have to use custom CSS to style your comment form.
Edit your theme’s comments.php file and look for the line with the comment_form() function. Your theme will have a defined arguments, function, or a template inside it to load your theme’s custom comment form. Your comment_form line will look something like this:
<?php comment_form( custom_comment_form_function() ); ?> You will need to replace it with the following line: <?php comment_form(); ?>
Don’t forget to save your changes and visit your website. You will now see the default WordPress comment form with the comment privacy optin checkbox.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add the GDPR comment privacy optin checkbox in WordPress. You may also want to see our tips on getting more comments on your WordPress blog posts.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Add a GDPR Comment Privacy Opt-in Checkbox in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.
Looking for a WordPress image compression plugin to automatically shrink and resize the images that you upload to your WordPress site? Images comprise about 65% of an average website’s file sizes, so finding ways to reduce the size of your images is a great way to speed up your WordPress site. And with the right ... Read more5 Best WordPress Image Compression Plugins Compared And Tested (2018)
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Recently one of our readers asked if it’s possible to connect an Etsy store to WordPress. Having your Etsy shop integrated with your WordPress site can help you sell more products online. In this article, we will show you how to add your Etsy store in WordPress.
Etsy shops are somewhat limited in features when compared to other popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce. Mainly because Etsy is an online marketplace for creative goods, while WooCommerce and Shopify are complete eCommerce platforms.
Etsy shops have strict product guidelines with limited payment options, which may not be available in many countries. You also don’t have the ability to add advanced features to your Etsy Shop like you can do with a WooCommerce online store.
However, Etsy offers you more exposure to a niche clientele looking for handcrafted, artistic, and unique products. It is very easy to use, and you don’t have to spend much time on finding customers because they are already there.
If you want to expand your business, then you may want to use WordPress to create a website to better showcase your Etsy shop products.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add your Etsy store in WordPress.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Etsy Shop plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » Etsy Shop page and enter your Etsy API key to connect your shop with the plugin.
Note: If you don’t have an Etsy API key, then simply follow the link to get one from your Etsy store.
Once you click on the link, it will ask you to create a new app. You need to add the name for your app, describe your app, and add your WordPress site URL. After that, you need to select the best choices for your application and click on the Create App button below.
You will now see a success message with your Etsy API key. Go ahead and copy the key from here.
Next, you need to go back to your WordPress admin area and paste the Etsy API key. Once done, click on the Save Changes button, and the plugin will validate your API key and connect to your Etsy shop.
After connecting your Etsy store successfully, you can display and sell products from your Etsy shop right on your WordPress blog.
To add the Etsy store products in WordPress, you need to create a new page in WordPress or edit an existing page. On this page, you need to add the following shortcode to your page edit area.
[etsy-shop shop_name="MyShopUSDesign" section_id="55895579"]
Don’t forget to replace the shop name and section ID in this shortcode with your Etsy shop name and ID.
To get these two details, you need to go to your Etsy store and click on Shop Manager from top right corner of the screen.
Note: Make sure that you are already logged in to your Etsy account.
On this page, you need to click the link in the left menu to access your shop.
First, you need to copy the name of your shop and then click on the Edit Shop button to find the section ID.
From here, you need to click on Listings tab located in the left menu.
On this page, you will be asked to select the section in which you have added your products. You can select the Sections from the dropdown as displayed in the screenshot below.
The section ID of your shop will be displayed in the page URL when your selected section is loaded. Go ahead and copy this section ID to replace in the shortcode.
After adding the shortcode with your shop name and section ID, you can visit the post/page to see your Etsy store in WordPress.
You can add the same shortcode to multiple posts or pages in WordPress to display your Etsy shop. To show different listings, you need to change the section ID in the shortcode. However, the shop name can remain same.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add your Etsy store in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create an online marketplace using WordPress, so you can create your own Etsy like eCommerce marketplace.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
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Do you want to upload a HTML page to your WordPress site? Sometimes you may need to add a static HTML page and make it accessible along with your WordPress site. In this article, we will show you how to properly upload a HTML page to your WordPress site without causing 404 errors.
WordPress comes with a built-in content type to add pages to your website. Often WordPress themes add pre-designed page templates to display your pages.
There are even WordPress landing page plugins that allow you to create beautiful page templates with a drag and drop builder.
This means that in most cases, you shouldn’t need to upload a HTML page to your WordPress site.
However, sometimes a user may have static HTML pages from their old website or a static template that they really like and want to use. In these scenarios, you will need to upload your HTML page to WordPress.
Since, WordPress comes with its own SEO friendly URL structure, it can cause a 404 error if you simply uploaded your HTML page and tried to access it.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to upload a HTML page to your WordPress site without causing 404 errors.
Before you upload your HTML page to the WordPress site, you need to make sure that the ‘index.html’ file is renamed to ‘index.php’.
After that, you need to add all files including the HTML page, CSS, and other folders to a Zip archive.
Windows users can right-click and select Send to » Compressed Zip Folder option to create a zip file. Next, simply drag and drop all files and folders for your HTML page to the zip file.
Mac users can select the parent folder containing all files and folders, and then right-click to select ‘Compress folder’ option.
Next, you need to go to the cPanel of your WordPress hosting account. In the cPanel, you need to scroll down to the Files section and then click on the File Manager app.
Once you are in File Manager, you need to navigate to the website root folder which is usually called public_html and contains all your WordPress files folders. From there, you need to click on the Folder link from the top menu to create a new empty folder.
A popup will open where you need to add a name for the new folder. Use a name that you want to use as the URL of your HTML page and then click on the Create New Folder button.
After creating the folder successfully, you need to open it and click on the Upload button from the top menu to select and upload the zip file you created earlier from your computer. You’ll see the progress bar while the zip file uploads to your site.
Once uploaded, you need to select the zip file and then click on Extract button from the top menu.
You will be asked where to extract the files. Simply select the same new folder that you created and click on the Extract File(s) button.
File Manager will now extract the zip file, and you will be able to see files in your folder.
Note: You can now delete the zip file from here. It doesn’t affect your HTML page or any other folders that are extracted.
Now you can visit this page in the browser by using the name of the folder (For example, yourwebsite.com/example). If your server doesn’t support the redirection, then you may see a 404 error. It happens because your ‘index.php’ file is not redirected on loading the URL in browser.
It is one of the common WordPress errors and can be fixed easily.
Using the File Manager app, you need to edit .htaccess file in your website’s root folder and add the following code:
RewriteRule ^(.*)index\.(php|html?)$ /$1 [R=301,NC,L]
This code will redirect your ‘index.php’ file and load it in the browser. If you are using a case-sensitive name for a file or folder, then the above code will also redirect that to show you the content.
We hope this article helped you learn how to upload an HTML page to your WordPress site without 404 error. You may want to see our comparison of WordPress vs static HTML to learn which one is better for your business. Also for creating landing pages, we recommend taking a look at the best WordPress drag & drop page builder plugins.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Upload a HTML Page to WordPress without 404 Errors appeared first on WPBeginner.
Are you confused by GDPR, and how it will impact your WordPress site? GDPR, short for General Data Protection Regulation, is an European Union law that you have likely heard about. We have received dozens of emails from users asking us to explain GDPR in plain English and share tips on how to make your WordPress site GDPR compliant. In this article, we will explain everything you need to know about GDPR and WordPress (without the complex legal stuff).
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers. Nothing on this website should be considered legal advice.
To help you easily navigate through our ultimate guide to WordPress and GDPR Compliance, we have created a table of content below:
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) law taking effect on May 25, 2018. The goal of GDPR is to give EU citizens control over their personal data and change the data privacy approach of organizations across the world.
You’ve likely gotten dozens of emails from companies like Google and others regarding GDPR, their new privacy policy, and bunch of other legal stuff. That’s because the EU has put in hefty penalties for those who are not in compliance.
Fines
Basically after May 25th, 2018, businesses that are not in compliance with GDPR’s requirement can face large fines up to 4% of a company’s annual global revenue OR €20 million (whichever is greater). This is enough reason to cause wide-spread panic among businesses around the world.
This brings us to the big question that you might be thinking about:
Does GDPR apply to my WordPress site?
The answer is YES. It applies to every business, large and small, around the world (not just in the European Union).
If your website has visitors from European Union countries, then this law applies to you.
But don’t panic, this isn’t the end of the world.
While GDPR has the potential to escalate to those high level of fines, it will start with a warning, then a reprimand, then a suspension of data processing, and if you continue to violate the law, then the large fines will hit.
The EU isn’t some evil government that is out to get you. Their goal is to protect consumers, average people like you and me from reckless handling of data / breaches because it’s getting out of control.
The maximum fine part in our opinion is largely to get the attention of large companies like Facebook and Google, so this regulation is NOT ignored. Furthermore, this encourage companies to actually put more emphasis on protecting the rights of people.
Once you understand what is required by GDPR and the spirit of the law, then you will realize that none of this is too crazy. We will also share tools / tips to make your WordPress site GDPR compliant.
The goal of GDPR is to protect user’s personally identifying information (PII) and hold businesses to a higher standard when it comes to how they collect, store, and use this data.
The personal data includes: name, emails, physical address, IP address, health information, income, etc.
While the GDPR regulation is 200 pages long, here are the most important pillars that you need to know:
Explicit Consent – if you’re collecting personal data from an EU resident, then you must obtain explicit consent that’s specific and unambiguous. In other words, you can’t just send unsolicited emails to people who gave you their business card or filled out your website contact form because they DID NOT opt-in for your marketing newsletter (that’s called SPAM by the way, and you shouldn’t be doing that anyways).
For it to be considered explicit consent, you must require a positive opt-in (i.e no pre-ticked checkbox), contain clear wording (no legalese), and be separate from other terms & conditions.
Rights to Data – you must inform individuals where, why, and how their data is processed / stored. An individual has the right to download their personal data and an individual also has the right to be forgotten meaning they can ask for their data to be deleted.
This will make sure that when you hit Unsubscribe or ask companies to delete your profile, then they actually do that (hmm, go figure). I’m looking at you Zenefits, still waiting for my account to be deleted for 2 years and hoping that you stop sending me spam emails just because I made the mistake of trying out your service.
Breach Notification – organizations must report certain types of data breaches to relevant authorities within 72 hours, unless the breach is considered harmless and poses no risk to individual data. However if a breach is high-risk, then the company MUST also inform individuals who’re impacted right away.
This will hopefully prevent cover-ups like Yahoo that was not revealed until the acquisition.
Data Protection Officers – if you are a public company or process large amounts of personal information, then you must appoint a data protection officer. Again this is not required for small businesses. Consult an attorney if you’re in doubt.
To put it in plain English, GDPR makes sure that businesses can’t go around spamming people by sending emails they didn’t ask for. Businesses can’t sell people’s data without their explicit consent (good luck getting this consent). Businesses have to delete user’s account and unsubscribe them from email lists if the user ask you to do that. Businesses have to report data breaches and overall be better about data protection.
Sounds pretty good, in theory at least.
Ok so now you are probably wondering what do you need to do to make sure that your WordPress site is GDPR compliant.
Well, that really depends on your specific website (more on this later).
Let us start by answering the biggest question that we’ve gotten from users:
Yes, as of WordPress 4.9.6, the WordPress core software is GDPR compliant. WordPress core team has added several GDPR enhancements to make sure that WordPress is GDPR compliant. It’s important to note that when we talk about WordPress, we’re talking about self-hosted WordPress.org (see the difference: WordPress.com vs WordPress.org).
Having said that, due to the dynamic nature of websites, no single platform, plugin or solution can offer 100% GDPR compliance. The GDPR compliance process will vary based on the type of website you have, what data you store, and how you process data on your site.
Ok so you might be thinking what does this mean in plain english?
Well, by default WordPress 4.9.6 now comes with the following GDPR enhancement tools:
Comments Consent
By default, WordPress used to store the commenters name, email and website as a cookie on the user’s browser. This made it easier for users to leave comments on their favorite blogs because those fields were pre-populated.
Due to GDPR’s consent requirement, WordPress has added the comment consent checkbox. The user can leave a comment without checking this box. All it would mean is that they would have to manually enter their name, email, and website every time they leave a comment.
Data Export and Erase Feature
WordPress offers site owners the ability to comply with GDPR’s data handling requirements and honor user’s request for exporting personal data as well as removal of user’s personal data.
The data handling features can be found under the Tools menu inside WordPress admin.
Privacy Policy Generator
WordPress now comes with a built-in privacy policy generator. It offers a pre-made privacy policy template and offer you guidance in terms of what else to add, so you can be more transparent with users in terms of what data you store and how you handle their data.
These three things are enough to make a default WordPress blog GDPR compliant. However it is very likely that your website has additional features that will also need to be in compliance.
As a website owner, you might be using various WordPress plugins that store or process data like contact forms, analytics, email marketing, online store, membership sites, etc.
Depending on which which WordPress plugins you are using on your website, you would need to act accordingly to make sure that your website is GDPR compliant.
A lot of the best WordPress plugins have already gone ahead and added GDPR enhancement features. Let’s take a look at some of the common areas that you would need to address:
Google Analytics
Like most website owners, you’re likely using Google Analytics to get website stats. This means that it is possible that you’re collecting or tracking personal data like IP addresses, user IDs, cookies and other data for behavior profiling. To be GDPR compliant, you need to do one of the following:
Both of these are fairly difficult to do if you’re just pasting Google Analytics code manually on your site. However, if you’re using MonsterInsights, the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, then you’re in luck.
They have released an EU compliance addon that helps automate the above process. MonsterInsights also has a very good blog post about all you need to know about GDPR and Google Analytics (this is a must read, if you’re using Google Analytics on your site).
Contact Forms
If you are using a contact form in WordPress, then you may have to add extra transparency measures specially if you’re storing the form entries or using the data for marketing purposes.
Below are the things you might want to consider for making your WordPress forms GDPR compliant:
The good part is that if you’re using WordPress plugins like WPForms, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, Contact Form 7, etc, then you don’t need a Data Processing Agreement because these plugins DO NOT store your form entries on their site. Your form entries are stored in your WordPress database.
Simply adding a required consent checkbox with clear explanation should be good enough for you to make your WordPress forms GDPR compliant.
WPForms, the contact form plugin we use on WPBeginner, has added several GDPR enhancements to make it easy for you to add a GDPR consent field, disable user cookies, disable user IP collection, and disable entries with a single click.
Email Marketing Opt-in Forms
Similar to contact forms, if you have any email marketing opt-in forms like popups, floating bars, inline-forms, and others, then you need to make sure that you’re collecting explicit consent from users before adding them to your list.
This can be done with either:
Top lead-generation solutions like OptinMonster has added GDPR consent checkboxes and other necessary features to help you make your email opt-in forms compliant. You can read more about the GDPR strategies for marketers on the OptinMonster blog.
WooCommerce / Ecommerce
If you’re using WooCommerce, the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress, then you need to make sure your website is in compliance with GDPR.
The WooCommerce team has prepared a comprehensive guide for store owners to help them be GDPR compliant.
Retargeting Ads
If your website is running retargeting pixels or retargeting ads, then you will need to get user’s consent. You can do this by using a plugin like Cooke Notices.
There are several WordPress plugins that can help automate some aspects of GDPR compliance for you. However, no plugin can offer 100% compliance due to the dynamic nature of websites.
Beware of any WordPress plugin that claims to offer 100% GDPR compliance. They likely don’t know what they’re talking about, and it’s best for you to avoid them completely.
Below is our list of recommended plugins for facilitating GDPR compliance:
We will continue to monitor the plugin ecosystem to see if any other WordPress plugin stands out and offer substantial GDPR compliance features.
Whether you’re ready or not, GDPR will go in effect on May 25, 2018. If your website is not compliant before then, don’t panic. Just continue to work towards compliance and get it done asap.
The likelihood of you getting a fine the day after this rule goes in effect are pretty close to zero because the European Union’s website states that first you’ll get a warning, then a reprimand, and fines are the last step if you fail to comply and knowingly ignore the law.
The EU is not out to get you. They’re doing this to protect user’s data and restore people’s trust in online businesses. As the world goes digital, we need these standards. With the recent data breaches of large companies, it’s important that these standards are adapted globally.
It will be good for all involved. These new rules will help boost consumer confidence and in turn help grow your business.
We hope this article helped you learn about WordPress and GDPR compliance. We will do our best to keep it updated as more information or tools get released.
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.
We are not lawyers. Nothing on this website should be considered legal advice. Due to the dynamic nature of websites, no single plugin or platform can offer 100% legal compliance. When in doubt, it’s best to consult a specialist internet law attorney to determine if you are in compliance with all applicable laws for your jurisdictions and your use cases.
WPBeginner founder, Syed Balkhi, is also the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPForms, and MonsterInsights.
The post The Ultimate Guide to WordPress and GDPR Compliance – Everything You Need to Know appeared first on WPBeginner.
Do you want to add an Amazon-like magnifying zoom for images in WordPress?
Adding a zoom feature will allow users to see details that they would not see in a normal-sized image.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily add magnifying zoom for images in WordPress.
Adding a magnifying zoom feature on your WordPress website will allow visitors to view the intricate details of the images clearly.
If you have a photography website, then adding a magnifying feature will allow users to zoom in on your photographs to view the finer details.
Similarly, if you run an online store, then your customers will be able to zoom in on product images.
Many big eCommerce websites already use magnifying zoom for product images. It allows customers to examine the product and creates a better shopping experience in your store.
That being said, let’s see how you can easily add a magnifying zoom for images in WordPress.
First, you need to install and activate the WP Image Zoom plugin. For more details, please see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to head over to the WP Image Zoom » Zoom Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Next, you need to configure the zoom effect settings by switching to the ‘Zoom Settings’ tab and choose a lens shape that you want to use.
You can choose from circle, square, and zoom window lens shapes. You can even choose a ‘No Lens’ (⨯) option if you don’t want to use a shape for magnifying effect.
After choosing your preferred lens, you need to scroll down to the next step where you can preview an image with the selected lens to see how it works. The plugin has a preview image that you can use to test your changes.
Next, you need to switch to the ‘General’ tab.
From here, you can select a cursor type, set an animation effect, enable the zoom on mouse hover or mouse click, and define a zoom level.
If you want even more options, some of the features are only available for the pro version of the WP Image Zoom plugin.
After making your choices accordingly, simply go to the ‘Lens’ tab from the top.
You can now configure settings like lens size, lens color, lens border options, and more if you selected the ‘circle’ or ‘square’ lens in Step 1.
If you selected the Zoom Window Lens, then you need to switch to the ‘Zoom Window’ configuration tab.
From here, you can change the width and height of the zoom window, positioning, distance from the main image, border colors, and more.
Next, you need to simply click the ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.
After that, all you have to do is configure a few general settings.
Configure General Plugin Settings
Next, you need to switch to the General Settings tab under the plugin settings.
From here, you can now enable features like zoom on WooCommerce product images, thumbnails, mobile devices, attachment pages, product category pages, and more.
All you need to do is simply check the boxes next to these options.
You can also remove the lightbox effect, so users can smoothly zoom images.
However, you would need the Pro version of the plugin for this feature.
If you are not going to remove the lightbox for images, then you need to scroll down to the ‘Enable inside a Lightbox’ option and check the box next to it.
Note: You can see supported lightboxes to make sure that the zoom works fine inside a lightbox on your site.
Once you are done adjusting the settings, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Magnifying zoom will now be enabled for WooCommerce products.
You can go visit your online store to check our zoom feature.
However, if you want to enable zoom for images on WordPress posts and pages, you need to follow the step below.
Step 3. Enable Magnifying Zoom for Images in Block Editor
By default, the magnifying zoom is not enabled for images on your posts and pages. You need to do it manually after adding an image to your content.
First, you need to open a post you want to edit in the block editor.
Next, you need to upload an image to that post from the media library or your computer.
Once you do that, simply click on the image to open up its’ Block Settings panel on the right corner of the screen.
From here, simply go to the ‘Styles’ tab and click on the ‘With Zoom’ button to apply magnifying zoom to your image.
After that, simply click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
The zoom feature will look like this on your site:
Note: You will need to repeat this step each time you want to add the zoom effect to an individual image.
We recommend using high-quality images for the zoom feature to look great. High-quality images are normally larger in file size and take longer to load which will affect your website speed and performance.
To solve this issue, you need to optimize your images for the web before uploading them to WordPress.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add magnifying zoom for images in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to optimize images for search engines and our top picks for the best image compression plugins.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Add Magnifying Zoom for Images in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
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The post Blox Page Builder Review: A Brand New WordPress Page Builder appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
This week, we got the release of WordPress 4.9.6. True to the numbers, it’s technically a minor privacy and maintenance release. But because it adds some big new features to tackle the GDPR, some people think it straddles the line between minor and major release. CodeinWP also published the results of their 2018 hosting survey. ... Read moreWeekly WordPress News: WordPress 4.9.6…A “Major” Minor Release?
The post Weekly WordPress News: WordPress 4.9.6…A “Major” Minor Release? appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
Are you looking for the best content marketing tools and plugins that will help you create killer content for your WordPress blog? Great content helps you increase your website traffic, get more subscribers, and grow your sales. In this article, we have hand-picked the best content marketing tools and plugins for your WordPress site.
Often businesses rely on their best guesses to create a content strategy. Each day millions of gigabytes of new content is created on the internet. All of this content competes against each other to attract a large but limited number of audience.
Relying on your best guess will not take you very far. This is why smart marketers use tools to create a better content marketing strategy that’s data-driven.
These content creation tools not only help you find what to write about, but they also help you see what your users are looking for, and how you can get more traffic for existing content.
That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best content marketing tools and plugins for your WordPress site.
MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It allows you to properly install Google Analytics and view your website traffic reports inside WordPress dashboard.
MonsterInsights helps you see how people find and use your website. You can see your top content, top referral source, most profitable pages, and more.
Aside from keeping traffic stats, MonsterInsights also helps you track user engagement which is extremely useful in planning your content strategy.
Yoast SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin. Often people don’t understand the full power of Yoast’s plugin. It’s not just a plugin to add meta tags. It is a complete content optimization suite with tons of features to help you improve your website.
For more on this topic, see our complete WordPress SEO guide with step by step instructions that will take website SEO to the next level.
Having a proper editorial workflow helps you create useful content on a regular basis. Edit Flow helps you add custom post statuses, leave editorial feedback, view editorial calendar, and execute your content strategy like a pro.
All these things come particularly handy if you are running a multi-author WordPress blog. For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to improve your editorial workflow in WordPress.
Used by thousands of SEO professionals, SEMRush is one of the best SEO tools on the market. It allows you to easily gather analytics and competitor insights to help improve your own SEO.
You can learn about your competitor’s top organic keywords, how they get backlinks, their advertising strategy, and more. It also helps you monitor your own keywords, backlinks, find out keywords that you can easily rank for, and tons of other useful data that you can use to improve your content strategy.
Ahrefs is another popular tool to find out why your competitors are ranking higher than you, and what you can do to outrank them in search results. It comes with keyword explorer and content research tools, which help you find out what kind of content is ranking for those keywords and why.
It has a powerful crawler that monitors the web. You can use it to track your backlinks, search rankings, competitor backlinks, paid advertising keywords, and more.
Not everyone can create beautiful images for their blog posts. This is where Canva comes in. It helps you create beautiful images for your blog posts like a Pro without worrying about copyright.
It comes with a powerful yet extremely simple image editing tool that runs in your browser. You can select from a large number of templates, graphics, icons, banners, and infographics to use as a starting point. Once you are done editing, simply export the image and use it in your articles.
Grammarly is one of the best online grammar checker tools for WordPress users. It works in any writing area, including your WordPress post editor. You can install it as a browser add-on for Google Chrome, Firefox, and even Microsoft Edge.
Upon installation, it will show an indicator at the bottom right corner of the writing area. Clicking on the indicator will show you the number of errors. Spelling, grammar, and contextual errors will be highlighted with an underline as you write.
Large images take longer to load which can negatively affect your WordPress speed and performance. You need to optimize your images for the web before uploading them to WordPress.
reSmush.it is the best WordPress image compression plugin, that can automatically reduce image file size without affecting quality. It also offers a bulk optimization option which allows you to quickly optimize older images on your website.
There is a lot that goes into creating a good piece of content. You need to proofread, add images, set featured image, select categories and tags, configure SEO settings, and more.
It’s easy to forget an important part of the process and end up publishing the article with mistakes.
Good Writer Checkify plugin helps you avoid silly mistakes by adding a simple blog post checklist. You can add items that you need to check before hitting the publish button. It is particularly useful if you are running a multi-author website.
Shared Counts is one of the best social media plugins for WordPress. It allows you to easily add social media sharing buttons to your blog posts. It can also display share counts for each platform as well as the total number of shares for your article.
Unlike other social media plugins which slows down your website, Shared Counts is highly optimized for speed. It comes with only the best social media websites and multiple button styles that you can use.
Many SEO experts recommend adding a nofollow tag to external links. However, WordPress doesn’t come with a default option to add nofollow tag. Title and Nofollow for links solves this problem by adding the title and nofollow options to the insert link popup in WordPress.
For more on this topic see our article on how to add title and nofollow to insert link popup in WordPress.
Sometimes your blog’s old articles will get neglected due to lack of time and resources. Revive Old Posts helps you solve this by automatically sharing your old articles on your social media profiles.
This helps you promote your old articles automatically while actively driving traffic to your blog. It also helps your new social media followers discover content that they may have missed before.
More than 75% of visitors abandoning your website will leave and never come back. This is where you need OptinMonster. It is the best lead generation software that helps you convert abandoning website visitors into subscribers, customers, and followers.
It comes with beautiful optin forms, that you can connect with your email marketing service or CRM software. You use it to effectively reduce bounce rate, increase user engagement, and boost email subscriptions.
We hope this article helped you find the best content marketing tools and plugins for your WordPress website. You may also want to see our actionable tips on driving traffic to your WordPress blog.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post 13 Best Content Marketing Tools and Plugins for WordPress (Expert Pick) appeared first on WPBeginner.