Picking a WooCommerce theme for WordPress can be tricky! There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a theme, especially if you want to offer a seamless shopping experience for your customers. If you’re trying to keep costs down, there are free WooCommerce themes that work well if you’re willing to put in [...]
The post The Pros and Cons of Using a Free WooCommerce WordPress Theme appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
Do you want to allow users to submit content and upload files on the front end?
Using a front-end posting plugin, you can allow people to upload different types of files without giving them access to the WordPress dashboard. They can submit documents, images, videos, PDFs, guest posts, and more.
In this article, we will show you the best front-end posting plugins for WordPress.
By default, WordPress doesn’t allow users to upload or submit content on the front end.
This means if you want to accept guest posts from a user, or want them to upload files on your site, then you would have to give them access to the admin area of your website.
This can be a time-consuming process and a security risk, as unknown users could then view your WordPress dashboard.
That’s where a front-end posting plugin can help. It allows you to collect user-generated content and accept all types of files without editing code or giving anyone access to the admin area.
For example, you can allow guest post submissions, real estate listing submissions, create a multi-vendor marketplace, collect testimonials from users, and more.
That being said, let’s look at the best front-end posting plugins for WordPress.
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder plugin in the market used by over 5 million websites. It offers a drag-and-drop interface that you can use to create any type of form.
They have a post-submission addon that lets you collect user-generated content without creating an account. Your visitors can easily submit content on the front end. Plus, you can accept payments for a post submission, like property listings or business directories.
WPForms also gives you full control over which content to accept, and how you’d like to receive it. For example, you can map certain fields in your form to a new WordPress post such as Post Title, Content, and Featured Image.
You can also create a file upload form to collect user-generated content. It comes with a file upload form field that lets people submit guest posts, upload images, share presentations and documents, and more.
Besides that, WPForms offers other powerful features such as spam protection, conditional logic, form abandonment, online signatures, locking specific forms, tracking user journeys, and more.
WPForms also easily integrates with payment services like PayPal, email marketing tools like Constant Contact, and other third-party tools like Zapier, Google Sheets, and Uncanny Automator.
Formidable Forms is another powerful form builder plugin for WordPress that you can use to allow front-end posting.
It offers a user-submitted posts and pages feature that allows front-end publishing. Your visitors can create new posts using the plugin, and they don’t require admin access. This way, you can gather community content, guest posts, resources, databases, listings, and other user-generated content.
Formidable Forms also offers a file upload feature that lets users submit different files without the need to log in to the admin area.
When a user submits a file using the form, it is automatically stored in your WordPress media library. From here, you can easily browse, view, and filter different submissions.
With Formidable Forms, you can also create advanced forms, like mortgage calculators, payment forms, quote calculators, surveys, and more. The plugin offers a drag-and-drop form builder, pre-built templates, and powerful integrations.
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is one of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress. You can use it to sell digital products like ebooks, music, PDFs, spreadsheets, recipes, software, and more.
Easy Digital Downloads offers a frontend submissions extension that lets you create websites that work like Amazon, AirBnB, and eBay.
The EDD extension allows you to create a multi-vendor marketplace where users can register as vendors from the front end, and then they can use your site to upload and sell digital products.
Users can create new products, update existing products, access earning details, communicate with customers, and more from the front end.
Besides that, you can use Easy Digital Downloads to track and record vendor commissions, review new vendor registrations, and get email notifications when a vendor adds a new product.
The best part is that you get a drag-and-drop form builder to create forms for vendor registration, product submission, and vendor profiles.
On top of that, EDD also integrates with payment services like PayPal and Stripe. You can connect the plugin with email marketing tools and other third-party software.
MemberPress is the best membership plugin for WordPress that is super easy to use. You can create unlimited premium memberships and restrict access to pages, content, and files for subscribers only.
Using MemberPress, you can create a membership site to get user-generated content. For instance, you can set up members-only associations like Young Entrepreneur Council. This way, premium members submit guest posts for the site itself. In addition, they can get access to forum discussions, share other content, and more.
MemberPress offers a file upload option that you can show in the account area. This way, subscribers can share different content on your membership site.
The plugin also offers powerful content restrictions and access controls. You can lock premium forums and upload content for members only. Other than that, MemberPress easily integrates with different payment providers, email services, WordPress plugins, and third-party tools.
Thrive Ovation is a popular testimonial plugin for WordPress. You can use the plugin to collect user-generated content in the form of testimonials.
Testimonials are incredibly powerful for driving sales and getting new users, and this plugin makes it super easy to gather reviews and feedback from existing customers.
It has an autopilot feature that automates the process of asking for feedback from customers.
Besides that, you can use Thrive Ovation to convert WordPress comments into testimonials with a single click. It also helps convert social media comments into testimonials for your website.
The plugin offers a testimonial library where you can easily manage user-submitted content, WordPress comments, and other imported feedback from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress File Upload is the next free front-end posting plugin on our list. It allows users to submit content from any page, post, or sidebar on your WordPress site.
You can simply use a shortcode to add a file upload form to your website or use the sidebar widget. The plugin also lets you manage the uploaded content from your WordPress dashboard. The uploaded files can be added to the media library or stored in an FTP location.
Besides that, you can set up file upload filters for multiple WordPress user roles, add file size limits, and control which file extensions users can upload.
WordPress File Upload also offers different customization options and lets you show an upload progress bar. However, if you’re looking for more options to edit your forms, then you can use other plugins on our list, like WPForms and Formidable Forms.
WP User Front-end is a flexible and beginner-friendly WordPress plugin for accepting front-end submissions.
The plugin comes with a drag-and-drop form builder and offers multiple customization options. You can place the form anywhere on your site to allow users to create a new post and submit guest posts, images, and other content.
It also lets users edit their profiles from the front end. This is great as you don’t have to give access to the main dashboard for users to set up a profile.
Besides that, you can use the WP User Front-end plugin to create subscriptions and membership packs. It lets you add pay-per-post, manage transactions, and easily receive payments.
User Submitted Posts is a simple and free WordPress plugin that you can use to allow file upload on the front end of your website.
It is a great solution to accept guest posts, customer reviews, testimonials, images, and other user-generated content. The plugin offers basic form fields like name, email, URL, post title, content, post category, post images, and agree to terms.
You can display the front-end posting form anywhere on your site using a shortcode. The User Submitted Posts plugin also offers a login and registration form, so users can create a profile without requiring access to your site’s dashboard.
That said, the plugin doesn’t offer a lot of customization options, form templates, and features to control file upload compared to other plugins like WPForms.
AccessPress Anonymous Post is another free WordPress plugin you can use to accept guest posts and allow front-end posting. It offers a responsive form that is easy to customize and place anywhere on your website.
Users can simply use the form to upload content, add a title, and enter tags, categories, URLs, images, and more. All the submitted content is stored in the WordPress database, and you can access it from your dashboard.
Besides that, you can also add a captcha for verification, receive emails when someone uploads a file, and make different form fields required.
File Upload Types by WPForms is a free WordPress plugin that lets you accept different file extensions on your WordPress site. By default, WordPress only allows a handful of file types that users can upload to the media library.
If someone is submitting a post for the site on the front end, but uploads a file that has an extension not supported by WordPress, then they’ll see a ‘Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security reasons’ error message.
This is where the File Upload Types by WPForms plugin comes in handy. It allows users to post any type of file. For instance, you can accept file extensions like .zip, .xml, .ai, .csv, .svg, and more.
An important thing to note is that the plugin will let you accept additional file types, but it doesn’t have a feature to accept front-end posting. That’s where you’ll need another plugin like WPForms or any other on our list.
In our research, we found that WPForms is the best front-end posting plugin. It allows you to allow file upload and accept guest posts, images, quotes, and other user-generated content.
On top of that, you get over 600+ pre-built from templates, a drag-and-drop form builder, and lots of customization options to edit your form. You can add a file upload form field and display your form anywhere on the website.
Plus, its field-mapping feature makes drafting and editing on the front-end a breeze and is perfect for sites that have user-submitted content like real-estate listings or guest posts.
If you want to create complex and advanced forms like mortgage calculators, then you can use Formidable Forms. It also comes with a file upload feature and allows easy front-end posting.
On the other hand, you can use Easy Digital Downloads if you’re selling digital products. The plugin offers an upload file extension that allows users to submit documents, images, and other content on the front end. And their front-end submissions extension allows you to create a multi-vendor marketplace.
We hope this article helped you find the best front-end posting plugin for WordPress. You can also see our guide to the best WooCommerce plugins for your store and how to increase your blog traffic.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post 9 Best Front-End Posting Plugins for WordPress (2023) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Picking a WooCommerce theme for your chosen niche can be tricky; there are thousands to choose from, so it can take a lot of work to narrow the search. It’s more complex than picking the best-looking theme, too. Functionality is super important and can make a massive difference to your customers. Plus, a good WooCommerce [...]
The post How to Choose a WooCommerce Theme for a Niche eCommerce Store appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
Are you looking to move your website to WordPress, or thinking about migrating an existing WordPress site to a new domain or host?
WordPress is the most popular website builder powering over 43% of all websites on the internet. That’s because it’s easy to use and gives you control over every aspect of your website.
In this article, we’ll show you how to migrate your blog or website to WordPress with little downtime and without losing SEO. We’ll also show you how to move your WordPress site to a new server or domain.
Small businesses and individuals are starting websites all the time. They realize that having an online blog or website have significant benefits that help them grow their brand and keep in touch with clients.
However, many beginners choose a blogging platform other than WordPress. These platforms help them get started quickly, but as their websites grow, they begin to run into limitations.
For example, they may not be able to install plugins that add the features they need, there may be limited options in customizing the appearance of their site, or the platform may become too expensive as their requirements grow.
We believe that self-hosted WordPress outperforms all other blogging and website platforms. It is powerful, easy to use, affordable, and the most flexible of all available blogging platforms. Here are all the reasons why you should use WordPress.
Note: When we speak of self-hosted WordPress, we mean WordPress.org. This is different from WordPress.com, which is a hosting service. We show you how to migrate from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress at the end of this article.
The good news is, that you can migrate your blog to WordPress and begin to take advantage of its power and flexibility.
Migrating a blog isn’t as simple as just moving information from one platform to another. However, that’s definitely something you need to get right, otherwise, you may lose content.
It’s also essential to choose a reputable WordPress hosting company that’s fast and reliable. Luckily, most hosting services will install WordPress for you automatically and free of charge.
You also need to make sure you don’t lose SEO so that your posts rank lower on Google. You should also set up an SEO-friendly URL structure for your future posts.
Now you don’t want your visitors or search engines to lose track of your posts because the old URLs stop working. You need to take care of this by creating redirects.
Besides these, there may be some additional steps you need to take to migrate everything over and improve your blog.
That’s a lot to keep track of, so we created specific step-by-step guides on how to migrate from your specific blogging platform to WordPress:
You may already be using a self-hosted WordPress website and decide to migrate it to a new hosting service or domain. For example, you may decide to upgrade to a more reliable web hosting company.
You will need to move your WordPress files and databases from the old provider to the new one. If you’re not careful, then you may lose data, or take your website down and lose sales.
That’s why we created a step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to safely migrate WordPress to a new host or server without any downtime.
However, if you are moving your website to a new domain name, then you have a little more work to do. This would be if you are changing the URL of your website from, say, johnsmith.com to smithconsultingservices.com.
In that case, you simply need to follow our detailed guide on how to easily move WordPress to a new domain.
Tip: Some hosting providers, such as SiteGround, Hostinger, WP Engine, and GreenGeeks offer a free migration service for WPBeginner users. It might not be listed on their website, so all you have to do is ask.
Blogger is a free blogging service by Google. It offers a quick and easy way to create a blog for non-tech-savvy users. All you need is a Google account to start a free blog on Blogger.
However, as your website grows, you will be limited to basic blogging tools and won’t be able to add new features. There are also not many ways to customize the appearance of your blog.
WordPress, on the other hand, gives you complete ownership of your website and allows you to add the necessary features to grow and monetize your blog. We have created a detailed side-by-side comparison of WordPress vs Blogger.
The good news is that WordPress is set up to natively import your Blogger posts. However, you will need to follow our instructions carefully, or your new blog’s URLs might not match.
If you have a free Blogger account, then you will have a website address that looks like myblog.blogspot.com. In that case, you should follow our guide on how to switch from Blogger to WordPress without losing Google rankings.
However, Blogger also allows users to connect custom domain names to their blogs such as myblog.com. If you have a custom domain Blogger blog, then you will need to follow our guide on how to move a custom domain Blogger blog to WordPress.
Ghost is a minimalist blogging platform with features entirely focused on writing blog posts. It is available as a hosted platform, and also as software that you can install, though many users find installing it difficult.
While a simplified user interface can be a good thing, it also means your options for customizing Ghost’s features and appearance are very limited. This can become frustrating.
On the other hand, WordPress allows you to customize your site by installing plugins and themes. It is also much easier to install yourself. You can learn more about the differences between these platforms in our side-by-side comparison of Ghost vs. WordPress.
Unfortunately, migrating from Ghost is difficult because the default Ghost export file does not use a format supported by WordPress. So we decided to fix this issue and created the Ghost to WordPress Importer tool.
We show you how to use this free tool to migrate your blog in our guide on how to properly move from Ghost to WordPress.
GoDaddy is one of the biggest hosting and domain name companies in the world. To help their many users get started with building their website, they offer a basic website builder tool called GoDaddy Website Builder.
Many users choose this tool because it’s a convenient way to get started. However, it is missing many of the key features of more powerful blogging platforms, as you can see in our detailed comparison between GoDaddy Website Builder vs WordPress.
This means that users will quickly realize its many limitations and want to move their website to a more flexible and powerful platform like WordPress.
Unfortunately, there is no export tool to move your site from GoDaddy Website Builder to WordPress. That means that the process will be time-consuming and have a lot of manual steps, making it easy to make a mistake.
You’ll find every step clearly explained in our guide on how to move a GoDaddy Website Builder site to WordPress.
Gumroad is a popular eCommerce platform that allows users to sell digital goods online, such as games, music, courses, and videos. However, many users are looking to switch away from the platform because they have raised their fees to 10% for each transaction.
This fee does not include credit card processing or PayPal fees. Plus, an additional 10% fee is charged if a product is sold through the ‘Gumroad Discover’ feature or their ‘Global Affiliates’ program. That’s a lot of fees.
On the other hand, WordPress is free and doesn’t charge you any fee for the items you sell. Unlike Gumroad, it also lets you sell physical goods and you can use any payment gateway you want and promote your website freely.
You can easily install a plugin like Easy Digital Downloads to make WordPress the perfect platform for selling digital goods. We have even partnered with SiteGround, and they are offering special EDD hosting for our readers.
You can learn how to do this in around 30 minutes by following our guide on how to switch from Gumroad to WordPress.
Joomla is a good content management system that has a lot in common with WordPress. For example, they are both open-source software written in the PHP programming language and use a MySQL database.
They also have similar requirements, which means you won’t need to change hosting companies.
However, Joomla is more complicated to use. It is also not as powerful or flexible as WordPress because there are fewer extensions and designs available for you.
On the other hand, WordPress is easier to use and offers tons of extensions and design choices. See our comparison of Joomla vs WordPress for more details.
Luckily, there is a plugin you can use to easily import your Joomla content into WordPress. We carefully take you through every step you need in our guide on how to easily move your site from Joomla to WordPress.
Medium is a good blogging platform for new writers. It allows you to publish your posts with very little setup. But because you don’t own the platform, content from other authors often gets displayed below your own story.
The platform is quite limited compared to WordPress. When you switch from Medium to WordPress, you will own your own blog and can add all the features you need using plugins.
Simply follow our complete step-by-step guide to help you properly move all your content from Medium to WordPress.
You can retain the look of your old blog by installing a Medium-style theme or go for a new blog design using one of the best and most popular WordPress themes.
Tip: If you’re not ready to completely migrate away from Medium, then you can learn how to embed Medium blog posts in WordPress.
Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce solution that makes it easy for you to create an online store, accept payments, and manage your inventory, all from a single platform.
You don’t need to worry about the technical aspects of managing an eCommerce site, but it comes with slightly higher costs and limited control of your website.
On the other hand, you can turn WordPress into a full-featured online store by installing the WooCommerce plugin and customize every aspect of your store. You can compare the differences between the platforms in our comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce.
Unfortunately, migrating away from Shopify is difficult because it doesn’t provide an easy way to export data to a WordPress-supported format. So we built an easy importer tool to help you do the Shopify to WooCommerce migration for free.
We take you through the entire migration process step-by-step in our guide on how to properly move from Shopify to WooCommerce.
Note: If you’re not ready to completely migrate away from Shopify, then you can learn how to easily integrate Shopify with WordPress.
Squarespace is a website-building service that focuses on small business owners. It allows you to create beautiful websites using easy drag-and-drop tools.
However, compared to WordPress, it costs more and offers less scope for design and flexibility. And while it does offer a limited set of extensions and integrations, they don’t compare with the power and breadth of the WordPress plugin ecosystem.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to migrate away from Squarespace because it offers limited export functionality. Depending on what content you have on your site, you may need to manually copy and paste some content from your Squarespace website.
In our guide on how to properly move from Squarespace to WordPress, we clearly list the content that can be automatically exported, and the content you will have to move manually to successfully migrate your site.
Tumblr is a little different than other blogging platforms. It is a microblogging platform with social networking features like following other blogs, reblogging, and built-in sharing tools.
The platform is easy to use and comes with its own audience. As a microblogging tool, Tumblr makes it easy to quickly blog videos, GIFs, images, and audio formats.
However, unlike WordPress, Tumblr’s features are limited and cannot be extended. To learn more about WordPress and what you can do with it, please see our complete WordPress review with pros and cons.
If you’re thinking about migrating from Tumblr to WordPress, then you will be glad to know that WordPress can natively import your Tumblr posts.
However, there is a lot involved in a website migration, and you’ll find all the steps in our comprehensive guide on how to properly move your blog from Tumblr to WordPress.
Weebly is a well-known website builder platform owned by Square’s payment platform. It offers easy-to-use website-building tools for business websites and eCommerce stores along with free blog templates that you can add to your website.
However, that free plan has limited features and bandwidth, and upgrading to a paid subscription is expensive compared to top blogging websites. Besides that, Weebly’s blogging and SEO features are just not as powerful as other blogging platforms.
By contrast, WordPress can be hosted on any server and has all the features you can dream of like online stores, contact forms, galleries, portfolios, SEO, and more. When you compare Weebly vs WordPress you might start to think about switching.
The migration will take about an hour, and it’s worth it. Don’t worry, we’ve helped hundreds of people switch with the step-by-step directions in our guide on how to properly move from Weebly to WordPress.
Wix is a popular hosted platform that lets you quickly create simple websites using a drag-and-drop website builder. You can add a blog using the Wix Blog app.
However, when you compare Wix vs WordPress you see that Wix has incredibly limited options and adding extra features can become quite expensive.
For all but the simplest websites, WordPress is by far the better choice because it has a much larger range of themes and layouts, as well as a huge selection of plugins that add new features to your website.
Unfortunately, Wix makes it quite difficult to move your content away, but after reviewing various different ways to move from Wix to WordPress, we believe the easiest method is by importing your blog posts via RSS.
We show you how to do this step-by-step in our guide on how to properly switch from Wix to WordPress. On an average Wix blog, the migration takes around an hour.
WordPress.com is a blog hosting service offered by Automattic, a company created by WordPress.org co-founder Matt Mullenweg. Basic blog hosting is free and you can purchase additional options like a custom domain name, additional storage, and premium services.
This appeals to new users because no setup is required. However, compared with a self-hosted WordPress website, there are limited options to extend your blog. For example, you can’t use custom themes and plugins for customizing your blog.
You can learn more by viewing our comparison chart on WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.
If you’re ready to move from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress blog, then see our guide on how to properly move your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. Make sure you follow our steps carefully so you don’t lose data, visitors, or SEO.
After you migrate to a self-hosted WordPress blog, you may find you are missing some features you enjoyed on WordPress.com. Don’t worry, you can easily add those features by following our guide on how to get WordPress.com features on self-hosted WordPress blogs.
Here’s a special offer. If you wish to migrate from Blogger, Medium, Weebly, or WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress website, then we can do it for you for free.
One of our expert team members will do the entire migration for you (100% free). Yes, you can literally switch from any of those specific platforms to WordPress without any risk.
There are just two conditions:
Sound good? You can learn more on our Free WordPress Blog Setup page. We’ve already helped over 100,000 people, so get started now.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to migrate your website to self-hosted WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create an email newsletter the right way, or our expert pick on must have WordPress plugins to grow your site.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post Ultimate WordPress Migration Guide for Beginners (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.
WordPress 6.2 has just been released, and it is the first major WordPress release of 2023.
This new version is packed with significant improvements and new features. Many of them focused on the block editor and site editing in WordPress.
In this article, we’ll show you what’s new in WordPress 6.2 and which features you should try after the update.
Note: WordPress 6.2 is a major release, and unless you are on a managed WordPress hosting service, you’ll have to initiate the update manually. Here’s how to safely update WordPress.
Important: Don’t forget to create a complete WordPress backup before updating.
That being said, here’s all that’s new in WordPress 6.2.
The site editor comes out of the beta.
It has been around for the past few WordPress releases, the removal of the beta label is merely an invitation for more users to try it.
This also indicates the completion of phase 2 of the WordPress development roadmap which started out with the release of the new block editor back in WordPress 5.0 (late 2018).
WordPress 6.2 includes several new features added to the site editor, including some brand-new tools which we’ll talk about later in this article.
Note: Full site editor is available with block themes that support this feature. You can try it out even if you are using the older classic editor with a block-enabled theme.
Navigation menus help you define your website layout to your users. However, creating them in the full site editor had been a bit difficult for beginners.
WordPress 6.2 now comes with an improved ‘Navigation’ block.
You can now create and manage the Navigation block by editing items in the sidebar.
To add a new menu item, simply click on the ‘add (+)’ button. You can also drag and drop menu items to rearrange them.
Want to use a different menu? You can now easily switch between menus you have created earlier by clicking on the Three-dot menu in the sidebar.
Overall, this is a significant improvement to the older Navigation block where you had to edit items inline which was not a good experience for beginners.
WordPress 6.2 comes with a new template browsing experience.
This allows users to browse different templates to find out which one they need to edit if they want to make changes to a certain area of their website.
To edit a template or template part, simply click to load it inside the preview window. After that, just click on the preview window to start editing.
Want to exit the site editor?
Simply click on the WordPress or your site logo at the top left corner of the screen to enter the template browser. Then click again to exit and return to the WordPress dashboard.
The template browser screen will now also show you that you have unsaved changes.
It also offers an improved saving experience showing what changes you are saving.
A template in the site editor may include several template parts, like the header and footer.
These are global elements that can be used in multiple places on your WordPress website. If you edit a template part on one page, those changes will be reflected all over your site.
Previously when editing a template part, the only indication was the label at the top changed to show the template part name.
Editing template parts affects all templates that include those elements. This makes it important to indicate that users are editing a global template part and not simply the page they are looking at.
WordPress 6.2 now makes this more noticeable by adding colors and an icon to indicate that you are editing a template part.
WordPress 6.2 comes with a style book feature in the site editor.
This is basically one convenient place to browse how your theme displays all the blocks. To access it you need to switch to the Styles panel and then click on the Style Book icon. It is the one that looks like an eye.
This will show you all the blocks, and how they are styled in your theme. They are organized into different categories so that you can easily locate the block you want to edit.
Click to start editing a block and you will see all the tools that you can use in the sidebar panel. Changes you make here will apply globally to your theme.
Basically, you can change the appearance of your entire theme by editing individual blocks here and creating a completely new style of your own.
Want to edit block styles individually? Don’t worry there are even more design tools at your disposal to edit blocks.
By default, the site editor hides the legacy Theme Customizer interface. Many users added their custom CSS in the ‘Additional CSS’ panel available with the legacy customizer.
Until 6.2, it was a problem to add custom CSS using the default tools available.
WordPress 6.2, however, now allows you to add custom CSS that applies to your entire site. Simply click on the Styles panel and choose Custom CSS under the three-dot menu.
You can also add custom CSS to individual blocks as well.
Switch to the Style panel and then click on Blocks.
Now, you need to select the block that you want to modify.
After that, click on the ‘Additional Block CSS’ tab to enter your custom CSS code.
WordPress 6.2 makes it easier to add custom CSS if you need to. However, it comes with a ton of built-in design tools which are much easier to use than adding custom CSS.
Another styling feature that reduces the need to add custom CSS is the ability to simply copy and paste block styles.
Let’s say that you just made some changes to a block and want to make the same changes on another block as well.
With WordPress 6.2 you can simply click on ‘Copy styles’ under the block options.
After that, click on the block options for the block where you want to paste the style and select ‘Paste styles.’
Note: Your browser will ask for permission to allow your website to view the contents of the clipboard. You need to click ‘Allow’ to continue.
WordPress block patterns are a collection of pre-made design elements that you can use for creating custom content layouts faster.
By default, WordPress comes with several built-in patterns. Your WordPress theme may also include its own pattern. Plus, you can find more patterns in WordPress Patterns Directory.
WordPress 6.2 comes with an improved pattern insertion interface.
WordPress 6.2 now adds a ‘Media’ tab in the inserter as well.
Here, you can choose media from your own WordPress media library or browse royalty-free images from Openverse.
Openverse is a sister project of WordPress.org. It allows openly licensed and public domain works to be discovered and used by everyone.
Once you select an image it will be inserted into the editor and downloaded to your WordPress media library as well.
WordPress will also save the image caption which may include a link back to the original source. You can delete this caption if the image is in the public domain.
WordPress 6.2 now uses sub-panels to separate block settings and styles.
This helps users understand where they need to look if they want to change the appearance of a block.
Historically, WordPress has always provided options to hide the formatting buttons and toolbars on the post editor screen.
Here is how it looked in WordPress 4.1 with the older classic editor.
However, the block editor had the option to be used in full-screen mode. WordPress 5.4 started using the full-screen mode as the default.
This allowed users to have a much cleaner writing interface, but there was no distraction-free mode.
WordPress 6.2 now comes with a completely clean and calm distraction-free mode.
Users will be able to choose it from the editor settings, and it removes all toolbars and editing panels from the screen.
WordPress 6.2 provides a nice fallback for importing classic legacy widgets in block themes when switching themes.
Users with classic widget themes lost their legacy widgets when they switched to a block theme. Now, you can import them as template parts.
Simply create a new template part by clicking on the ‘Add New Block’ button (+).
From the template part settings panel, click on the Advanced tab to expand it, and you’ll find the option to import a widget area from your previous theme.
WordPress 6.2 contains a ton of enhancements. It merges 10 Gutenberg releases (‘Gutenberg’ is the codename for the original block editor project) into WordPress core so there are many refinements and new features to explore.
Here are some of the most useful enhancements.
1. Captions Button in Image Block Toolbar
Previously WordPress automatically added the caption area below the image and moved the cursor automatically to the caption.
This led many users to continue writing their text not realizing that they are writing it in the caption area.
WordPress 6.2 fixes this by adding a caption button to the toolbar. Users can now use it to add a caption if needed.
2. Improved Calendar Block
The calendar block now comes with more color options.
3. The List, Outline, and Info Panels are Merged
The list view, outline, and info panel are now merged into one convenient location.
4. Group Block Layout
The ‘Group’ block now lets you choose a layout.
5. The Download Link for Media Files
The media screen will now show a ‘Download File’ link in the list view.
6. New Icon for Settings Panel
The icon to display the settings panel previously used a gear icon. It is now presented with a panels icon.
WordPress 6.2 also includes a ton of changes intended for developers. Following are some of these changes:
blockEditor.useSetting.before is introduced. It allows developers to change block settings before the editor is rendered. (Details)We hope this article helped you uncover what’s new in WordPress 6.2 and which new features to try out. We are particularly excited about all the changes to the site editor and performance improvements for block themes.
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 What’s New in WordPress 6.2 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Creating a mobile-friendly WooCommerce WordPress theme can be tricky. There are a lot of factors to consider when it comes to mobile performance, from loading speed to plugins to image optimization. A WooCommerce theme must work well on mobile for obvious reasons; eCommerce shoppers will click away if a website could be more appealing to [...]
The post Best Practices for Creating a Mobile-Friendly WooCommerce WordPress Theme appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
Launching an eCommerce store is becoming more and more accessible. However, finding the best eCommerce platform for your business can take time and effort: how can you figure out which works best for you? WooCommerce and Shopify are two of the most popular eCommerce platforms. They have one fundamental difference: WooCommerce works specifically with WordPress, [...]
The post WooCommerce vs. Shopify: Which Is The Best E-Commerce Platform For Your Online Store? appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
Do you want to add fuzzy search to your WordPress website?
Adding fuzzy search helps users easily find the information they are looking for, even if they misspell or otherwise incorrectly enter their query. This improves the overall search experience and user engagement on your website.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily add fuzzy search to your WordPress website.
Fuzzy search looks for partial matches for a search term, even if no exact matches are available, and shows users the most appropriate results.
This way, users can find the right content on your website even if they make typos in the search query.
By default, all WordPress websites come with a basic search feature that only shows results for exact matches.
For instance, if a user misspells a term, no results will be shown not even partial matches. This creates a bad search experience for users and often causes them to leave your site. You can see this in the image below.
This is where SearchWP comes in. It is the best WordPress search plugin on the market that automatically replaces the default search with a much better search feature.
Unlike the default WordPress search, SearchWP can use fuzzy search as well as look for matches in titles, excerpts, post or page content, products, custom fields, categories, tags, PDF files, and more.
For instance, if a user searches for ‘vintage furniture’ on your WordPress blog but misspells a word, they’ll still be able to find your posts on this topic.
The image below shows the same misspelled search using the SearchWP plugin.
That being said, let’s see how you can easily add fuzzy search to your WordPress website.
First, you need to install and activate the SearchWP plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit the SearchWP » Settings page from the admin sidebar and switch to the ‘License’ tab.
Next, you need to copy and paste your license key and click on the ‘Activate’ button. You can find the license key under your account on the SearchWP website.
Fuzzy search is not enabled by default in SearchWP, but you can easily turn it on. First, you need to switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab in the plugin’s settings page.
Next, you need to simply check the ‘Partial matches (fuzzy when necessary)’ option under the ‘Actions & Settings’ section.
Doing so will enable the fuzzy search feature for your site.
Once that is done, you should review the other SearchWP settings for your site. The plugin comes with a bunch of powerful options that allow you to customize the search feature on your website.
You can see them by simply switching to the ‘Engines’ tab under plugin settings.
From here, you can assign weight to different search results.
You can also click on the Sources & Settings button to select additional search areas. For instance, you can enable search for comments, products, and more instead of simply posts and pages.
To learn more, see our complete guide on how to improve WordPress search with SearchWP.
SearchWP automatically replaces the default WordPress search.
This means that if you have already added the WordPress Search block or widget to your website, then it will start using SearchWP custom algorithm for results.
However, if you have not added the search form to your website, then you can do so by simply adding the Search block or widget to any post, page, or sidebar area.
Simply head over to the Appearance » Widgets page. Find the ‘Search’ block and simply add it to your sidebar.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Update’ button to store your settings.
However, if you are using a block theme, then your theme may not have a widget-ready area. In that case, you won’t see the Widgets screen under the Appearance menu.
Instead, you can use the site editor to add the search block to your website. Simply go to the Appearance » Editor page to launch the editor.
After that, add the search block to your website where you want to display the search form.
Don’t forget to click on the Update button to save your settings.
You can now visit your website and try out the new more powerful search feature.
You can see in the image below how fuzzy search returns multiple relevant results with a misspelled query.
We hope this article helped you learn how to easily add fuzzy search to your WordPress website. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to add multilingual search in WordPress and our list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Add Fuzzy Search in WordPress to Improve Results first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to learn how to password-protect your WordPress admin directory?
Adding another layer of password protection to your WordPress admin directory can be a great way to improve your WordPress security.
In this article, you’ll learn how you can password-protect your wp-admin directory easily.
By password-protecting your WordPress admin directory, you improve the security of the most important entry point to your WordPress website.
Your WordPress admin dashboard is the central hub of your site. It’s where you’ll publish posts and pages, customize your theme, install WordPress plugins, and more.
Often, when hackers try to get into your website, they’ll do it through the wp-admin screen. You can help to protect your website against potential attacks by using a secure password and limiting login attempts.
To be even more secure, you can also password-protect the wp-admin directory. Then when someone attempts to access your admin area, they’ll need to enter a username and password before they ever make it to the WordPress login screen.
With that said, let’s take a look at how you can password-protect your WordPress admin directory step by step.
The first method is recommended for most users, and you can use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.
The easiest way to password-protect your WordPress admin directory is by using your WordPress hosting provider’s Directory Privacy app.
First, you need to log in to your hosting account dashboard and click on the ‘Directory Privacy’ option in the Files section of your website’s advanced settings.
Note: Most web hosts using cPanel, like Bluehost, will have similar steps. However, your dashboard might be slightly different from our screenshots depending on your hosting provider.
This brings you to a screen that lists all of the different directories on your server. You need to find the folder that contains your website files.
For most website owners, this can be found by clicking on the ‘public_html’ folder.
This brings up all of the website files you’ve installed on your server.
Next, you’ll need to click on the folder with your website’s domain name.
In that folder, you’ll see a ‘wp-admin’ folder.
Instead of clicking the folder name, you’ll need to click the ‘Edit’ button next to that folder.
This brings you to a screen where you can turn on password protection.
Simply check the box that says ‘Password protect this directory’. If you like, you can also give your directory a name like ‘Admin Area’ to help you remember.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to click the ‘Save’ button.
This will take you to a page where the confirmation message will appear.
Now you’ll need to click the ‘Go Back’ button and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can create a user that will be able to access this directory.
You will be asked to enter a username and password, and then confirm the password. Make sure to note your username and password in a safe place, such as a password manager app.
Make sure you click the ‘Save’ button when you’ve done that.
Now, when someone tries to access your wp-admin directory, they will be prompted to enter the username and password you created above.
You can also password-protect your WordPress admin directory manually. To do this you’ll need to create two files called .htpasswd and .htaccess.
Note: Adding any code to your website can be dangerous. Even a small mistake can cause major errors on your site. We only recommend this method for advanced users.
Creating the .htaccess File
First, open up your preferred text editor and name the new file .htaccess.
After that, you need to copy the following code snippet and add it to the file.
AuthName "Admins Only"
AuthUserFile /home/user/public_html/example.com/wp-admin/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthType basic
require user yourusername
Make sure you change the ‘AuthUserFile’ path to the location where you’ll upload the .htpasswd file and change ‘yourusername’ to the username you want to use to log in.
Don’t forget to save the file when you’re finished.
Creating the .htpasswd File
Once you’ve done that, you need to create a .htpasswd file.
To do this, open up a text editor and create a file called .htpasswd. This file will list your username along with your password in an encrypted format.
The easiest way to generate the encrypted password is with a htpasswd generator.
Simply enter your username and password, select the encryption format, and click the ‘Create .htpasswd file’ button.
The htpasswd generator will display a line of text that you need to paste into your .htpasswd file. Make sure you save the file once you’ve done that.
Uploading .htaccess and .htpasswd to the wp-admin Directory
The last step is to upload both of the files you created to your website’s wp-admin folder.
You will need to connect to your WordPress hosting account using an FTP client or the online file manager tool provided by your hosting provider. For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to use FTP to upload files to WordPress.
For this tutorial, we’ll use FileZilla because it’s free and works on both Mac and Windows.
Once you have connected to your website, you will see the files on your computer in the left window, and the files on your website in the right. On the left, you need to navigate to the location where you saved the .htaccess and .htpasswd files.
Then on the right, you need to go to the wp-admin directory for the website you wish to protect. Most users will need to double-click the ‘public_html’ folder, then the folder with their domain name, then the ‘wp-admin’ folder.
Now you can select the two files on the left and click ‘Upload’ from the right-click menu or simply drag the files onto the left window.
Now your ‘wp-admin’ directory will be password protected.
Depending on how your server and website are set up, there’s a chance you might run into errors. These errors can be fixed by carefully adding code to your .htaccess file.
Note: This is the .htaccess file located in your main website folder, not the one you uploaded to the ‘wp-admin’ folder. If you’re having trouble finding it, then see our guide on why you can’t find .htaccess and how to locate it.
Fixing the Ajax Not Working Error
One of the most common errors is that Ajax functionality may stop working on the front end of your site. If you have WordPress plugins that require Ajax, such as live Ajax search or Ajax contact forms, then you will notice that these plugins won’t work anymore.
To fix this, simply add the following code to the .htaccess file that’s located in your ‘wp-admin’ folder.
<Files admin-ajax.php>
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
Satisfy any
</Files>
Fixing the 404 Error and Too Many Redirects Error
Two other errors you might run into are the 404 error and the too many redirects error.
The simplest way to fix them is to open up your main .htaccess file located in your website directory and add the following line of code before the WordPress rules.
ErrorDocument 401 default
We hope this article helped you learn how to password-protect your WordPress admin (wp-admin) directory. You may also want to see our expert picks of the best email marketing services for small businesses and our guide on how to get a free email domain.
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 Password Protect Your WordPress Admin (wp-admin) Directory first appeared on WPBeginner.
Talk to most people about search engine optimization for your online store, and chances are that most of the conversations will revolve around subjects like keywords and user-friendly content. While all of that is undoubtedly essential, it’s worth considering not only how your WooCommerce WordPress theme affects the SEO performance of your store but how [...]
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