Do you want users to easily change the currency on your WordPress website?
A multi-currency WordPress plugin lets you show different currencies on your website and automatically apply the exchange rate. This way, customers can switch their local currency when purchasing a product.
In this article, we’ll share the best multi-currency WordPress plugins that you can use on your site.
Why Use a Multi Currency WordPress Plugin?
A multi currency plugin allows you to offer multiple currencies on your WordPress website. Your customers can switch currencies from the US dollar to their native currency with a click of a button.
If you’re running an online store, then having a currency switcher plugin can come in handy.
You can reach a wider audience and target users from around the world. Customers from other countries can easily convert the product prices into their local currency without leaving your website.
It also improves the overall shopping experience for customers. The plugin removes any pricing confusion that people may have. As a result, you get to keep customers on your website and boost sales.
That said, let’s look at the best multi-currency plugins for WordPress.
It offers multi-currency support and lets you show prices in different currencies. You can select from over 200 currencies and have complete control over the exchange rate.
There is an automatic option where the plugin will auto-update the exchange rate and convert the price from USD to the customer’s local currency. On the other hand, you can also manually set the exchange rate.
Besides that, Easy Digital Downloads lets you sell digital downloads with ease. It offers unlimited file downloads, full data reporting, a shopping cart, and more. It also easily integrates with payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal and third-party tools like AWeber, ConvertKit and Slack.
Pricing: Easy Digital Downloads is a premium plugin with prices starting from $99.50 per year.
It is super easy to use and lets you add unlimited currencies to your WooCommerce store. You can show a currency switcher anywhere on your website and let customers choose their local currency.
Besides that, the plugin also automatically detects users’ geolocation and displays prices in their native currency. It integrates with APIs of the European Central Bank, Google Finance, and other providers to automatically update exchange rates.
You can also control the frequency of exchange rate updates. For example, the plugin can check it daily, twice daily, weekly, monthly, or every 15 days.
Other than that, you get options to customize the currency switcher, display different payment methods for specific countries, and more.
Pricing: YITH Multi Currency Switcher for WooCommerce is a premium plugin that will cost you $99.99 annually.
WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe plugin for WordPress that lets you accept one-time or recurring payments on your website. The best part, you don’t have to set up a shopping cart to collect payments.
WP Simple Pay lets you select from 135+ different currencies supported by Stripe. It also lets you choose your site’s region’s default currency, format, and tax rate. This way, you can charge customers in their native currency and receive funds in your preferred currency.
With WP Simple Pay, you get a drag-and-drop payment form builder and over 10 different payment methods. For example, you can collect payments through credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH direct debit, and more.
Pricing: WP Simple Pay prices start from $49.50 per year. There is also a free version you can use to get started.
CURCY is a free WooCommerce multi currency plugin. It lets you accept payments in different currencies and helps customers to switch to their preferred currency.
The plugin is easy to use and set up. It automatically detects users’ location on your WooCommerce store and displays products in the native currency.
You can also allow the plugin to set the exchange rate automatically. However, there are different options for controlling the exchange rate. For example, you can manually set the rate, keep the product prices fixed in other currencies, and manage the exchange rate fee.
WooCommerce Multi-Currency is a premium WooCommerce extension that allows you to show product prices in the customer’s country’s currency.
Like many other plugins on our list, you can choose between automatic or manual exchange rate settings. The plugin supports different exchange rate providers’ APIs, such as Open Exchange Rate, Abstract, Exchange Rate API, and more.
Using a shortcode, you can display the currency switcher anywhere on your WooCommerce store. It also has a sidebar widget and helps customers quickly convert prices into their local currency.
Pricing: WooCommerce Multi-Currency prices start from $99 per year.
Currency Switcher for WordPress is another free and beginner-friendly plugin you can use to show different currencies on your website.
It works with Open Exchange Rate API and allows you to automatically convert the prices into different currencies depending on the exchange rate. There is also an option to manually control the exchange rate.
Currency Switcher for WordPress supports currency conversion for visitors from the United States, Australia, Europe, and India.
Currency Converter Widget is a premium WooCommerce plugin that you can use on your store. The multi-currency plugin offers a dynamic widget that converts product prices in real-time.
It automatically grabs the latest exchange rate and applies it to the products. You can add and convert as many currencies as you want.
The best part is that the plugin saves the converted total at checkout. This way, you can see the prices customers saw on your WooCommerce store.
Pricing: Currency Converter Widget will cost you $49 per year.
Which is the Best Multi Currency WordPress Plugin?
Based on our research, the best WordPress multi-currency plugin are Easy Digital Downloads, YITH multi currency switcher for WooCommerce, and WP Simple Pay.
The choice of picking the best multi-currency plugin depends on the type of website you’re running.
For instance, if you’re selling digital products, then Easy Digital Downloads is the best choice. It is super easy to use and lets you select from over 200 different currencies. You get full control over the exchange rate and can add as many currencies as you want.
On the other hand, YITH Multi Currency Switcher for WooCommerce is the best multi-currency plugin to use if you have a WooCommerce store. It automatically detects the user’s location and converts product prices. Plus, you can choose from different providers to set the exchange rate.
Lastly, you can also use WP Simple Pay to collect online payments without setting up a shopping cart. It is the best Stripe plugin and supports over 135 currencies.
When it comes to delivering outstanding customer experiences via your WordPress site, few things make a more significant impact than a fully-responsive theme. That said, ensuring your site looks good and works well across various screen sizes and resolutions isn’t always enough to blow your competition out of the proverbial water when it comes to [...]
Do you want to add an HTML sitemap page in WordPress?
Unlike XML sitemaps that are submitted to search engines for better crawling, HTML sitemaps present an organized list of your pages and posts for your website visitors.
In this article, we’ll show you how to add an HTML sitemap page in WordPress.
What’s the Difference Between XML and HTML Sitemaps?
An XML sitemap is a file that lists your website content in an XML format for search engines like Google and others.
On the other hand, an HTML sitemap is for your actual website visitors. It is a simple page that lists all your posts and pages in an organized way.
Now that you know the difference, let’s take a look at how to add an HTML sitemap page to WordPress using two different WordPress plugins. You can use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.
Method 1. Add HTML Sitemap Page in WordPress With All in One SEO
We recommend using the All in One SEO plugin to add an HTML sitemap page in WordPress. It’s the best WordPress SEO plugin in the market used by over 3 million websites and lets you create an HTML sitemap with a couple of clicks.
Note: There is a free version of All in One SEO Lite available which includes the HTML sitemap feature below, but we will be using the premium version in our screenshots because it includes powerful features like smart sitemaps, redirection manager, SEO schema, and more.
Upon activation, the AIOSEO setup wizard will open, which will guide you through setting up the plugin and getting your SEO settings right.
Simply click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button and follow the steps.
After that, you’ll be taken to the WordPress admin dashboard, where you’ll have a new menu option called ‘All in One SEO’.
Then, you need to go to All in One SEO » Sitemaps, click on the ‘HTML Sitemap’ menu option, and make sure the ‘Enable Sitemap’ toggle is turned on.
Next, you can choose how you want to display your HTML sitemap.
For this tutorial, we’ll select the ‘Dedicated Page’ option, but you can also add it as a shortcode, block, widget, and more.
Then, enter the page URL where you want the HTML sitemap to display. The plugin will automatically create a new page for you.
Once you’ve done that, scroll down to the ‘HTML Sitemap Settings’ section.
Here you can customize how your HTML sitemap will display. You have control over what posts and pages will display, taxonomies such as categories and tags, sort order, and more.
You can also turn on ‘Compact Archives’ to display your HTML sitemap in a compact date archive format.
This is similar to how we display our compact archives on our 404 pages here at WPBeginner.
After you’re done customizing your HTML sitemap settings, make sure to click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Now your visitors can view your HTML sitemap and more easily navigate around your website.
If you chose the ‘Dedicated Page’ option above, then you can visit the page by clicking the ‘Open HTML Sitemap’ button.
Method 2. Add HTML Sitemap Page in WordPress With Simple Sitemap
Simple Sitemap is a free plugin that lets you easily add an HTML sitemap to your WordPress website.
Once the plugin is activated, you can open an existing page, or create a new HTML sitemap page by navigating to Pages » Add New.
Adding an HTML Sitemap With Simple Sitemap Using Blocks
This plugin has newly added Gutenberg blocks that you can use to simply add an HTML sitemap page.
All you need to do is click the ‘Plus’ icon, then select the ‘Simple Sitemap’ option.
Another block included with this plugin is the ‘Simple Sitemap Group’ that creates a branching visual sitemap. But, we’re going to use the ‘Simple Sitemap’ block for this tutorial.
Once you add the block, it will automatically create your HTML sitemap.
On the right-hand menu, you have customization options where you can choose to display ‘Posts’ or ‘Pages’, or both together.
In the box under ‘Select post types to display’, simply enter ‘Post’ or ‘Page’ to choose what you want to display.
Next, you can change how the list displays by changing the ‘Orderby’ or ‘Order’ drop-downs.
You can also display the excerpt for the pages or posts listed, and enable or disable links. However, we’re going to keep the default plugin settings to keep our HTML sitemap simple and easy to browse.
Once you’ve finished customizing your HTML sitemap page, click ‘Publish’ or ‘Save’ if you’re updating an older page.
When your visitors go to your HTML sitemap, they’ll see a navigation page that looks similar to the one below.
Adding an HTML Sitemap With Simple Sitemap Using Shortcodes
Another way to add an HTML sitemap to WordPress is by using a shortcode. This gives you more control over the placement of your HTML sitemap and works for those who are using the classic editor.
Simply create a new page by navigating to Pages » Add New, then give your new page a name.
After that, click the ‘Plus’ icon to add a new block to your page.
Then, type ‘shortcode’ into the search box and select the ‘Shortcode’ block.
After that, simply copy and paste one of the following shortcodes into the text editor. The first shortcode will list your posts by category, and the second shortcode will list your pages.
[simple-sitemap-group]
[simple-sitemap]
Once you’ve done that, click ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to save your changes.
In this case, you would want your HTML sitemap to show pages in the proper hierarchical order.
Here is how you can add an HTML Sitemap with only pages.
Simply add this shortcode to the page where you want to display your HTML sitemap. Follow the same steps above to add the shortcode to a new WordPress page.
[simple-sitemap]
This is how it will display your HTML sitemap with all your WordPress pages listed in a hierarchical list.
Do you want to create a restaurant website with WordPress?
A restaurant website can help attract new customers and grow your business. It can also provide a better experience for your existing customers and keep them coming back to your restaurant, cafe, takeaway, or similar business.
In this article, we will show you how to create a restaurant website with WordPress.
Why Create a Restaurant Website?
A website is one of the best ways to market your restaurant to new customers and provide a better experience for your existing clients.
By creating an online presence for your restaurant, you can introduce your business to people who are looking for venues and food just like yours.
After a potential customer discovers your business, a professionally-designed and helpful restaurant website will tell them everything they need to know about your business. They can then decide whether your restaurant is right for them.
Even if you have lots of loyal customers and a positive reputation in the local area, a restaurant website can help you improve the customer experience.
For example, it can allow customers to book a table online, send you questions using a convenient contact form, check out the latest menu, and much more.
In this way, a restaurant website can keep your customers happy, so they carry on visiting you for months, or even years to come.
That said, let’s see how you can easily create a restaurant website with WordPress.
Which Is the Best Website Builder for Your Restaurant?
There are many website builders that can help you create a restaurant website but we recommend using WordPress.
According to our blogging research statistics, WordPress is the most popular website platform in the world. It powers nearly 43% of all websites on the internet including many top restaurant websites.
WordPress is also open-source and free. For more on this topic, see our article on why WordPress is free.
However, it’s important to realize that there are two types of WordPress software, so you don’t choose the wrong one.
First, there is WordPress.com, which is a blog hosting platform. Then, there is WordPress.org which is also known as self-hosted WordPress.
For a restaurant website, we recommend using WordPress.org because it gives you complete ownership of your site and allows you to install third-party plugins, including plenty that are designed specifically for restaurant owners.
To learn more about why we recommend WordPress to all our readers, please see our complete WordPress review with pros and cons.
A domain name is your website’s address on the internet. This is what customers will type into their browsers to reach your website, such as justeat.com or tacobell.com.
Web hosting is where your website lives online. To help you out, we’ve hand-picked some of the best WordPress hosting that you can buy for a restaurant website.
Although the WordPress software is free, hosting and domain names are where the costs can really start to add up.
A domain name typically costs $14.99/year and hosting costs start from $7.99/month. This is a lot for restaurants that already have bills and expenses to pay.
Thankfully, Bluehost has offers a free domain name, and our readers can get 60% off on web hosting. Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies in the world, and an official WordPress-recommended hosting partner.
They’re also offering our readers a free SSL certificate. If you want to accept payments online, then an SSL certificate will help keep the customer’s credit and debit card information safe.
You can click the button below to get started for as little as $2.75 per month.
Once there, you will need to go to the Bluehost website in a new tab and click on the green ‘Get Started Now’ button.
This will bring you to a pricing page where you can choose a hosting plan for your website.
We recommend choosing a Basic or Plus plan, as they’re the most popular web hosting plans among our readers.
After selecting a plan, click on ‘Continue.’
On the next screen, you’ll need to choose a domain name.
Ideally, the domain name will be easy to pronounce and spell, easy to remember, and related to your business. The name of your restaurant is a great place to start, but sometimes that domain may already be taken by another business.
In that case, you can try extending the domain name by adding your restaurant’s location, your own name, or the type of food you serve.
After choosing a name, click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.
Now you’ll need to provide your account information such as your name and email address. After that, you’ll also see optional extras that you can purchase.
We generally don’t recommend purchasing these extras straight away, as you can always add them later on if you need them.
After that, simply type in your payment information to complete the purchase.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll get an email with instructions on how to login to your web hosting control panel. This is your hosting account dashboard where you can manage your restaurant website, including setting up email notifications and asking for WordPress support.
It’s also where you’ll install the WordPress software.
Step 2. Create a New WordPress Website
When you signup with Bluehost using our link, Bluehost installs WordPress on your domain name automatically.
If you want to create a different WordPress website, then you can simply click on the ‘My Sites’ tab in the Bluehost dashboard.
Next, just click on the ‘Add Site’ button and select ‘Create New Site.’
The Bluehost wizard will now guide you through the setup process.
First, you’ll need to type in a site title and optional tagline.
Click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.
After that, Bluehost will ask you to select a domain name and path for your restaurant website. If you’ve already purchased a domain name, then you can simply select it from the dropdown menu.
If you don’t have a domain name then you can buy one by visiting the ‘Domains’ page inside the Bluehost dashboard.
After choosing a domain name, you can leave the directory path blank and let Bluehost fill it in for you. The installer will also show a few must-have WordPress plugins that you may want to install on your restaurant website including OptinMonster.
After that, click on the ‘Next’ button and the installer will set up your restaurant site.
Once it’s finished, you’ll see a ‘WordPress installed successfully’ message with information about your new website. You can now go ahead and click on the ‘Log into WordPress’ button.
This will take you to your site’s admin area.
You can also log in to the WordPress dashboard by simply going to yoursite.com/wp-admin/ directly from your browser.
Your typical restaurant website needs special features, like the ability to show a menu, photos, location information, business hours, and more.
With that in mind, it makes sense to look for a theme that’s designed for the food or hospitality industry. To help you out, we’ve collected the best WordPress restaurant themes.
You can also use a website and landing page builder plugin such as SeedProd.
After installing your theme, you may want to customize it by going to Appearance » Customize in the WordPress dashboard.
This will launch the theme customizer where you can fine-tune the theme settings and see your changes in the live preview.
If you’re using one of the newer full site editing themes, then you’ll see the option for Appearance »Editor, which uses blocks similar to the content editor to customize your site.
Pro Tip: No matter what theme you’re using, neither the default WordPress customizer nor the full site editing offers a user-friendly drag and drop customization experience. For that reason, we recommend using a page builder like SeedProd to customize your theme.
Just remember that you can always return to this screen and continue customizing your theme. You can even completely change your WordPress theme at any point.
Step 4. Create a Custom Home Page
WordPress has two two default content types called posts and pages.
You’ll typically use posts to create articles and blogs. By default, the home page shows these posts in reverse chronological order, so the newest content appears at the top of the list.
You might use a blog to build a stronger relationship with their customers, improve your WordPress SEO, and get more traffic to your restaurant website. For example, you could write about recipes, share cooking tips, or blog about the latest restaurant industry news.
However, even if you plan to publish blog posts, you typically won’t show these on the home page. Instead, we recommend creating a custom home page that introduces your business to new visitors.
Once you’re happy with the page’s design, it’s time to set it as your home page. To do this, go to Settings » Reading in the WordPress dashboard.
Here, scroll to ‘Your homepage settings’ and select ‘A static page.’
Next, open the ‘Homepage’ dropdown and choose the page that you want to use.
Then, simply scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on ‘Save Changes.’ Now, if you visit your website you’ll see the new home page in action.
If you are going to write blogs, then make sure you create a separate blog page to display your posts. If you don’t, then customers will struggle to find your latest WordPress blogs.
Step 5. Create an Online Restaurant Menu
Even long-term, loyal customers may want to look at your menu from time to time. By publishing your menu online, customers can look at it any time of day or night.
Publishing a menu can also help convince new customers to visit your restaurant.
It is possible to upload PDF files to your WordPress website. However, downloading a PDF menu can be difficult depending on the customer’s data plan and internet connection, and they’re non-responsive so they can be hard to read on some devices.
Plus, if you add new dishes or change your pricing, then you’ll also need to upload a completely new PDF.
For that reason, we recommend using SeedProd to add an online menu to your WordPress website. SeedProd also allows you to create a mobile responsive menu that looks great on every device.
You can also easily update the menu as you add new dishes, change the prices, remove dishes, and more.
SeedProd even comes with a ‘Menu Sales Page’ template that’s perfect for creating a menu.
Many restaurants allow customers to order food online. For example, you might give customers the option to pre-order their meal or place an order for delivery.
It may sound technical, but you can easily add online food ordering to your website using the WPForms plugin.
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder that allows you to create online order forms for all kinds of products and services.
It even comes with a ready-made ‘Takeout Order Form’ that you can customize to suit your restaurant website.
Every time someone completes the form, WPForms will notify you automatically so you can start working on that order straight away.
If you don’t want to accept cash on delivery, then WPForms supports all of the best payment gateways including PayPal and Stripe. This allows you to accept payments securely online, which is quick and convenient for your customers.
Today, most people expect to be able to book appointments through an automated system.
By adding a booking form to your restaurant website, you can accept reservations at any time of the day or night. You’ll never lose another customer just because you weren’t around to answer the phone.
Booking forms can also automate a lot of the booking process. This includes collecting payments and emailing your customers to remind them about their upcoming booking.
You can easily add a restaurant booking form to your website using WPForms. This plugin has a ready-made dinner reservation form template that you can customize for your restaurant.
WPForms also integrates with all of the top email marketing providers. This makes it easy to send reservation confirmation emails to your customers.
As their booking approaches, you can even send the customer a reminder email, ask them to share any dietary requirements, send a pre-order form, and more.
While visitors could ring your phone number or send a message to your business email address, we always recommend adding a contact form to your website.
Most of the best contact form plugins come with built-in spam protection, so you won’t get any contact form spam. A form will also collect consistent information from visitors, so you’ll have all the data you need to write a helpful reply.
The easiest way to add a contact form to your WordPress website is by using the free WPForms plugin.
This free plugin comes with a built-in Simple Contact Form template that you can quickly customize using the drag and drop editor.
Then, simply add the form to any page, post, or widget-ready area using the ready-made WPForms block.
Once you’ve added some content to your restaurant website, you’ll want to help visitors find their way around those pages and posts by adding a navigation menu.
No matter what theme you’re using, WordPress makes it really easy to add menus and sub-menus to your restaurant website.
Step 10. Add Social Proof to Your Restaurant Website
Social proof is one of the best ways to earn customer trust, and convince new people to visit your restaurant. After all, we’re more likely to try things that we see other people buying, using, or recommending.
Using this plugin, you can create a hashtag feed and show photos that customers have tagged your account in. This includes photos of your food, venue, and shots of customers having fun at your restaurant.
Customer reviews and testimonials can provide visitors with more information, and may even solve any question or worries customers have about visiting your restaurant.
If you want to show reviews from other platforms like Yelp or Google My Business, then there’s also plenty of customer review plugins for WordPress that you can use.
These plugins will collect reviews automatically and then organize them into a nice layout on your restaurant website.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to create a restaurant website with WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate WordPress security guide and our expert pick of the must have WordPress plugins that you should install on all business sites.
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.
Are you looking for a way to keep spammers and scammers from stealing your WordPress blog posts using content scrapers?
It is very frustrating as a website owner to see that someone is stealing your content without permission, monetizing it, outranking you in Google, and stealing your audience.
In this article, we’ll cover what blog content scraping is, how you can reduce and prevent content scraping, and even how to take advantage of content scrapers for your own benefit.
What Is Blog Content Scraping in WordPress?
Blog content scraping is when content is taken from numerous sources and republished on another site. Usually, this is done automatically via your blog’s RSS feed.
Unfortunately, it is very easy and very common to have your WordPress blog content stolen in this way. If it’s happened to you, then you understand how stressful and frustrating it can be.
Sometimes your content will be simply copied and pasted directly to another website, including your formatting, images, videos, and more.
Other times, your content will be reposted with attribution and a link back to your website, but without your permission. Although this can help your SEO, you may want to keep your original content hosted on your site only.
Why Do Content Scrapers Steal Content?
Some of our users have asked us why scrapers are stealing content. Usually, the main motivation for content theft is to profit from your hard work:
Affiliate commission: Dishonest affiliate marketers may use your content to bring traffic to their site through search engines in order to promote their niche products.
Lead Generation: Lawyers and realtors may pay someone to add content and gain authority in their community, and not realize it is being scraped from other sources.
Advertising Revenue: Blog owners may scrape content to create a hub of knowledge in a certain niche ‘for the good of the community’ and then plaster the site with ads.
Is It Possible to Completely Prevent Content Scraping?
In this article, we’ll show you some steps you can take to reduce and prevent content scraping. But unfortunately, there is no way to completely stop a determined thief.
That’s why we finish this article with a section on how you can take advantage of content scrapers. While you can’t always stop a thief, you may be able to gain some traffic and revenue through the content they have stolen from you.
What Should You Do When You Discover Someone Has Scraped Your Content?
Since it’s not possible to completely stop scrapers, you may one day discover that someone is using content they stole from your blog. You may wonder what to do when that happens.
Here are a few approaches that people take when dealing with content scrapers:
Do Nothing: You can spend a lot of time fighting scrapers, so some popular bloggers decide to do nothing. Google already sees well-known sites as authorities, but that’s not true of smaller sites. So this approach is not always the best in our opinion.
Take Advantage: While we actively work at having content scraped from WPBeginner taken down, we also use a few techniques to get traffic and make money from scrapers. You can learn how in the ‘Take Advantage of Content Scrapers’ section below.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to prevent blog scraping in WordPress. Since this is a comprehensive guide, we have included a table of contents for easier navigation.
1. Copyright or Trademark Your Blog’s Name and Logo
Trademark and copyright laws protect your intellectual property rights, brand, and business against many legal challenges. This includes illegal use of your copyrighted material or your brand’s name and logo.
You should clearly display a copyright notice on your website. While your content is automatically covered by copyright laws, displaying a notice will let you know that your content is copyrighted and that they cannot use your protected properties for business.
This may discourage some users from stealing it. It will also help in the case that you do need to send a cease and desist letter or file a DCMA complaint to take down your stolen content.
You can also apply for copyright registration online. This process can be complicated, but luckily there are low-cost legal services that can help small businesses and individuals.
Since blog content scraping is usually done automatically via your blog’s RSS feed, let’s look at a few helpful changes you can make to your feed.
Don’t Include the Full Post Content in Your WordPress RSS Feed
You can include just a summary of each post in your RSS feed instead of the full content. This includes an excerpt as well as post metadata such as the date, author, and category.
There is certainly debate in the blogging community about whether to have full RSS feeds or summary feeds. We won’t get into that now except to say that one of the pros of having a summary only is that it helps prevent content scraping.
You can change the settings by going to Settings » Reading in your WordPress admin panel. You need to select the ‘Excerpt’ option, and then click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Now the RSS feed will only show an excerpt of your article. If someone is stealing your content through your RSS feed, then they will only get the summary, not the full post.
There are other ways you can optimize your WordPress RSS feed to protect your content, get more backlinks, increase your web traffic, and more. One of the best ways is to delay posts from appearing in the RSS feed.
The benefit is that when you delay posts from appearing in your RSS feed, you give the search engines time to crawl and index your content before it appears elsewhere, such as on scraper’s websites. The search engines will then see your site as the authority.
The safest and easiest way to do this is using WPCode because it has a recipe that automatically adds the correct custom code to WordPress.
In the early days of blogging, trackbacks and pingbacks were introduced as a way for blogs to notify each other about links. When someone links to a post on your blog, their website will automatically send a ping to yours.
This pingback will then appear in your blog’s comment moderation queue with a link to their website. If you approve it, then they get a backlink and mention from your site.
This gives the spammer an incentive to scrape your site and send trackbacks. Luckily, you can disable trackbacks and pingbacks to give scrapers one less reason to steal your content.
4. Block the Scraper’s Access to Your WordPress Website
One way to stop scrapers from stealing your content is to take away their access to your website. You can do this manually by blocking their IP address, but most users will find it easier to use a security plugin such as a web application firewall.
Block the Scraper Using a Security Plugin (Recommended)
Blocking scrapers manually is tricky and a lot of work. Especially since many hacking attempts and attacks are made using a wide range of random IP addresses from all over the world. It’s almost impossible to keep up with all those random IP addresses.
That’s why you need a Web Application Firewall (WAF) such as WordFence or Securi. These act as a shield between your website and all incoming traffic by monitoring your website traffic and blocking common security threats before they reach your WordPress site.
For the WPBeginner website, we use Sucuri. It is a website security service that protects your website against such attacks using a website application firewall.
Basically, all your website traffic goes through the security service’s servers where it is examined for suspicious activity. They automatically block suspicious IP addresses from reaching your website altogether. See how Sucuri helped us block 450,000 WordPress attacks in 3 months.
Manually Block or Redirect the Scraper’s IP Address
Advanced users may also wish to manually block a scraper’s IP address. This is more work, but you can specifically target the scraper’s address once you learn it. Web developer Jeff Star suggests this approach when he wrote about how he handles content scrapers.
Note: Adding code to website files can be dangerous. Even a small mistake can cause major errors on your site. That’s why we only recommend this method for advanced users.
You can find the scraper’s IP address by visiting ‘Raw Access Logs’ in the cPanel dashboard of your WordPress hosting account. You need to look for IP addresses with an unusually high number of requests and keep a record of them, say by copying them into a separate text file.
Tip: You need to make sure that you don’t end up blocking yourself, legit users, or search engines from accessing your website. Copy a suspicious-looking IP address and use online IP lookup tools to find out more about it.
Once you are confident that the IP address belongs to a scraper, you can block it using the cPanel ‘IP Blocker’ tool, or by adding code like this in your root .htaccess file:
Deny from 123.456.789
Make sure you replace the IP address in the code with the one you want to block. You can block multiple IP addresses by entering them on the same line separated by spaces.
Instead of simply blocking the scrapers, Jeff suggests you could send them dummy RSS feeds instead. You could create feeds full of Lorem Ipsum and annoying images, or even send them right back to their own website, causing an infinite loop and crashing their server.
To redirect them to a dummy feed, you will need to add code like this to your .htaccess file:
It’s not just your written content that you need to protect. You should also prevent image theft in WordPress.
Like text, there is no way to completely stop people from stealing your images, but there are plenty of ways to discourage image theft on a WordPress website.
For example, you can disable hotlinking of your WordPress images. This will mean that if someone scrapes your content, their images will not load on their site.
While most scrapers use automatic tools, some content thieves may try to manually copy all or part of your content.
One way to make this more difficult is to prevent them from copying and pasting your text. You can do this by making it harder for them to select the text on your website.
However, this will not completely protect your content. Remember, tech-savvy users can still view the source code or use the Inspect tool to copy anything they want. Also, this method will not work with all web browsers.
Also, keep in mind that not everyone copying your text will be a content thief. For instance, some people may want to copy the title to share your post on social media.
That’s why we recommend you only use this method if you feel it’s truly needed for your site.
7. Take Advantage of Content Scrapers
As your blog gets larger, it is almost impossible to stop or keep track of all content scrapers. We still send out DMCA complaints. However, we know that there are tons of other sites that are stealing our content that we just cannot keep up with.
Instead, our approach is to try to take advantage of content scapers. It’s not so bad when you see that you’re making money from your stolen content, or receiving a lot of traffic from a scraper’s website.
Make Internal Linking a Habit to Gain Traffic and Backlinks from Scrapers
But there is a second benefit when it comes to scraping. Internal links will get you valuable backlinks from the people who are stealing your content. Search engines like Google use backlinks as a ranking signal, so the additional backlinks are good for your SEO.
Lastly, these internal links allow you to steal the scraper’s audience. Talented bloggers place links on interesting keywords, making it tempting for users to click. Visitors to the scraper’s website will also click the links, which will lead them straight back to your own website.
Auto Link Keywords With Affiliate Links to Make Money from Scrapers
If you make money on your website from affiliate marketing, then we recommend enabling auto-linking in your RSS feeds. This will help you maximize your earnings from readers who only read your website via RSS readers.
Even better, it will help you make money from the sites that are stealing your content.
You can use the All in One SEO plugin to add custom items to your RSS footer. For example, you can add a banner that promotes your own products, services, or content.
The best part is that those banners will appear on the scraper’s website as well.
In our case, we always add a little disclaimer at the bottom of posts in our RSS feeds. By doing this, we get a backlink to the original article from the scraper’s site.
This lets Google and other search engines know we are the authority. It also lets their users know that the site is stealing our content.
Are you wondering whether you should start a blog or YouTube channel?
Blogging and vlogging are good ways to engage with your audience and grow your brand’s credibility. We are often asked by readers which they should start first blog vs YouTube?
In this article, we’ll explain our pick on blog vs YouTube and which you should start first with detailed explanation of our take.
TLDR: we recommend you start with a blog and add a YouTube channel later if needed
This is a comprehensive guide, so we’ve included a table of contents for easier navigation:
A blog is a type of website where articles, called ‘blog posts’, are presented in reverse chronological order with newer content appearing first. Blog posts are a great way to share your expert knowledge with your audience, build credibility, and attract visitors to your site.
If you want to start an online business, or communicate better with your existing customers or audience, then you should think about starting a blog.
Blogs typically present information in a conversational style and are run by individuals or a small group of people. However, there are now tons of corporate blogs that produce a great deal of useful informational and thought-leadership content.
Typical blog posts also have a comments section where users can respond to the article by making comments or asking questions.
Blogging has been around since 1993 and has become an essential marketing tool for many businesses. But is it still relevant in the age of YouTube and social media?
Why Starting a Blog Is so Important Today
There are currently 1.9 billion websites in the world, and over 600 million are blogs. That means that blogs make up a third of the web.
Blogging has become an important marketing strategy for businesses due to its benefits. You or your business can use a blog to promote ideas, brands, stories, products, and more.
Here are some of the more important benefits of blogging and why you should consider starting a blog.
1. A Blog Will Bring More Traffic to Your Website
A typical business website consists of a few important pages. For example, you may have a homepage, landing pages for your products and services, and a contact page.
Unfortunately, search engines may often decide that your website is less important than thousands of other websites in the same industry, especially if they have been around longer.
That’s a major reason to start with a blog rather than a YouTube channel because YouTube videos will attract traffic to the YouTube platform instead of your own website. You own and control your blog, while the YouTube platform is owned by Google and will benefit them.
2. A Blog Will Help Strengthen Brand Recognition and Build Authority
A blog helps you strengthen your brand identity. It gives you more opportunities to use your custom logo across your website, your social profiles, search results, and more.
This brand recognition when combined with customer trust and authority adds enormous value to your digital assets.
Adding a blog allows you to establish authority by regularly publishing content on topics related to your industry.
If you are consistently publishing new content, you’ll become the go-to place for your users and other businesses interested in those topics.
3. A Blog Will Help You Generate More Leads and Conversions
More than 70% of people visiting your website today, will never find it again. That’s because there is so much content and information on the internet.
Starting a blog will help you convert website traffic into potential leads, subscribers, and social media followers.
For example, you can use tools like OptinMonster to build an email list and grow a social media following. And with push notifications, you can send targeted messages to your blog visitors and bring them back to your website.
4. A Blog Will Help You Build an Engaging Audience
A static website doesn’t leave much room for a conversation. Why not add a blog to your site where users can engage by leaving a comment and sharing your posts on social media?
This helps you build a community around your business which is extremely useful.
It will help your visitors develop an affinity with your brand which pays off when they are looking to make a purchase or recommend your products and services to friends and family.
5. A Blog Will Let You Educate Customers and Share News
Blog posts allow you to educate customers about different ways they can use your products. This will allow you to compare your product with competitors, showcase product features, inform users about benefits, and more.
They’re also the best place to share your business news, announcements, and sales events.
For instance, if you are launching a Black Friday sale, you can promote it with a blog post. And then promote that blog post across your website with a floating header or footer banner.
6. A Blog Will Let You Build Additional Revenue Streams for Your Business
Blogs provide many opportunities to generate additional revenue and make money online. For instance, you can display ads in your blog posts using Google AdSense.
You can also promote affiliate products and make money with affiliate marketing or use your blog to sell premium content using MemberPress or Easy Digital Downloads.
7. A Blog Helps You Repurpose Content for Other Marketing Channels
Adding a blog to your website allows you to actively use blog content across your other marketing channels, such as making YouTube videos based on blog post content.
For example, we use our written WPBeginner tutorials as a helpful starting point for creating YouTube videos. This makes our video producers’ jobs easier and saves time. Then we embed the YouTube videos into the tutorial so our visitors can choose to read or watch the content.
Still not convinced? You can learn even more reasons to start a blog by taking a look at our article on the benefits of blogging.
Starting a Blog vs Starting a YouTube Channel
Now that you know about some of the benefits of blogging, you can see why we recommend that you start a blog first, and then add a YouTube channel in the future if you need.
Let’s summarize the most important points. When you build a blog, you are creating a platform that you own and control. The content you create will attract visitors to your website where they can learn more about your products and services.
On the other hand, the YouTube platform will always be owned by Google. The search traffic generated by your content will take people to the YouTube website, not your own.
Creating blog posts first also makes it easier to create other types of content, such as YouTube videos. Usually, the first step in creating a video is to write a script. Because you have already created written content on your blog, a lot of the work is already done.
Besides that, creating YouTube videos requires expensive equipment such as a camera and lighting, and you’ll also need to purchase video editing software and learn how to use it.
Finally, your blog is the perfect place for your visitors to watch your YouTube videos. You can easily embed YouTube videos in a blog post, giving your visitors the choice of watching or reading your content. That’s a great user experience.
What You Need to Start a Blog
We know that starting a blog can be a terrifying thought specially when you are not geeky. Guess what – you are not alone.
You may also want to pay someone to design your website and purchase premium plugins to add features. The total cost will depend on your needs and goals.
The good news is that you can build a fully functional WordPress website for yourself and keep your costs under $100. Bluehost, an official WordPress-recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and over 60% off on web hosting.
Even better, when you signup with Bluehost using our link, they will automatically install WordPress for you, so you can start building your blog right away.
All you need to do is log in to your Bluehost account, and then click the ’Log in to WordPress’ button to get started.
After that, you will need to set up your WordPress install, choose a theme and some plugins, then get started on your first blog post.
We take you through the entire process step by step in our beginner’s guide on how to start a WordPress blog. We’ll summarize the main steps below.
The end result will be an attractive and functional blog that you own.
Selecting a Theme to Customize Your Blog’s Appearance
Customizing the look and feel of your blog is by far one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of the journey of creating your WordPress blog.
WordPress comes with a powerful templating engine that allows you to change the appearance of your website by installing themes.
There are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes available. You can choose one that looks closer to what you have in mind for your website.
You can look for themes under the Appearance » Themes page. It will show you a bunch of default themes that come with your WordPress install.
For more themes, click on the ‘Add New’ button at the top to find more free themes.
Once you have selected your WordPress theme, you are now ready to create your first blog post. You just need to click on the Posts » Add New menu in your WordPress dashboard.
You will see an editor area where you can write your first blog post.
WordPress uses a block-based editor that allows you to create beautiful content layouts for your blog posts.
Once you’re done writing, go ahead and click on the Publish button on the top-right corner of the screen to make your blog post publicly available.
On the posts screen, you will notice several other sections such as Categories and Tags. You can use these to organize your blog posts into sections. We have a great write-up on the difference between categories vs tags, which we highly recommend that you read.
A lot of pro bloggers choose their specific topics strategically by doing keyword research. This helps their content rank higher in Google searches and get more traffic.
We have a step-by-step guide on how to do keyword research for beginners using the exact same method that we use on WPBeginner.
Extending and Growing Your Blog With Plugins
Once you publish your first blog post, you’ll probably want to get started with adding other usual elements on your website such as a contact page, galleries, sliders, and an email list. To add all these additional features, you need to use plugins.
Plugins are like apps for your WordPress website. They allow you to add new features and extend the functionality of WordPress without writing any code.
There are more than 60,000 free plugins available in the WordPress.org plugin directory alone. Plus, there are premium WordPress plugins sold by third-party developers with priority support and guaranteed updates.
However, you also need to consider which plugins you need to use to keep your WordPress website secure, private, and anonymous.
Here are our top picks of the best plugins to grow your blog.
All in One SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market and helps your anonymous website get more traffic from search engines.
SeedProd is a powerful WordPress page builder that allows you to use a drag-and-drop interface to create any type of page for your website.
MonsterInsights is the best WordPress Google Analytics plugin which helps you see where your visitors and coming from and what they see on your website.
OptinMonster is a conversion optimization software, which helps you convert website visitors into email subscribers and customers.
WPForms is the best WordPress contact form plugin and allows you to easily create forms for your website.
WordPress is the largest publishing platform on the planet, and it powers over 43% of all websites. Many bloggers have successfully monetized their blogs, and you can too.
Unlike other articles on how to make money online, this is a comprehensive guide on how to make money at home legitimately, using blogging and WordPress.
Many of these methods require some investment of time and money to get started. As long as you’re willing to put in the effort, you’ll reap the reward.
Are you looking to install Google Tag Manager in WordPress?
Google Tag Manager lets you add tracking code snippets to your WordPress website. It is a free tool and allows you to track different user interactions.
In this article, we will show you how to properly install and set up Google Tag Manager in WordPress and explain the benefits.
What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool by Google that lets you add, update, and manage code snippets called tags on your WordPress site.
Often website owners need to add multiple code snippets to track their conversions, form submissions, link clicks, and gather other analytical data on their website. With Google Tag Manager, you can easily add and manage all of these scripts from a single dashboard.
There are built-in tag templates for Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Optimize, DoubleClick, and Google AdSense. The Tag Manager also works with several third-party analytics and tracking platforms.
This saves you the time of adding and removing tags from your code rather than managing it from an easy dashboard. Not to mention, all of these separate snippets get loaded in one script.
That said, let’s see how to add Google Tag Manager to WordPress. We will also show you an alternative method for tracking different user interactions on your site. The best part, you don’t have to edit code or set up tags.
Simply click the links below to jump ahead to your preferred section:
First, you’ll need to visit the Google Tag Manager website and click the ‘Start for free’ button to sign up.
After login, you will come to the add new account page.
Go ahead and click the ‘Create Account’ button.
Next, you can enter a name for your account and select a Country from the dropdown menu.
Tag Manager will also give you the option to share data anonymously with Google. You can simply click the checkbox and scroll down.
Now you need to add a container to your account. A container could be a website, iOS or Android apps, or a server. In this case, we will use the ‘Web’ option.
You can use your site’s domain for the container name. Once you’re done, click on the ‘Create’ button to continue.
You will now see a new window slide in from the right with the Google Tag Manager terms of service agreement.
You can click the checkbox at the bottom to accept the data processing terms and then click the ‘Yes’ button at the top.
Google Tag Manager will now create your account.
Next, it will now show you tracking codes that you need to add to your site.
Simply copy these 2 codes, as you will need to add them to the header and body section on your WordPress website.
Adding Google Tag Manager Code to WordPress
The easiest way of adding code snippets in WordPress is using the WPCode plugin. It is the best WordPress code snippet plugin and lets you add and manage different custom codes on your website.
The best part, you can get started for free with the WPCode. However, there is also a premium version that offers more features like a code snippet library, conditional logic, auto-insert snippets, and more.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the free WPCode plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit the Code Snippets » Headers & Footers page from the WordPress admin panel. Now enter the codes you copied earlier.
Ensure that you paste the <head> code in the Header field and the <body> code in the Body field, as you can see below.
Once you’re done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Google Tag Manager is now ready to use on your WordPress website.
Creating a New Tag in Google Tag Manager
Next, you can create a new tag in Google Tag Manager and set up tracking on your WordPress website.
First, you’ll need to click on the ‘Add a new tag’ option from your Tag Manager dashboard.
After that, you can enter a name for your tag at the top.
From here, simply click on the ‘Tag configuration’ option.
Next, Tag Manager will show you different tag types to choose from.
For instance, this will include tags for Google Analytics, Google Ads, Floodlight, and more. We’ll select ‘Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration’ for this tutorial.
Next, you will need to enter the details of your tag.
First, you can add the Measurement ID.
You can find the Measurement ID by logging into your Google Analytics account.
Simply head to the Admin » Data Streams option under the Property column. Go ahead and click on your Data Streams to view the measurement ID.
When a new window opens, you should see the Measurement ID in the top right corner.
You can simply copy the ID.
Now head back to the Google Tag Manager window or tab, and enter the measurement ID.
After that, you can scroll down and click on the ‘Triggering’ option.
Google Tag Manager will now show built-in triggers to choose from.
Go ahead and select the ‘Initialization – All Pages’ option.
After selecting the trigger, you will need to store your settings.
Simply click the ‘Save’ button in the top right corner.
You should now see your newly created tag.
Go ahead and click the ‘Submit’ button to run the tag.
Set Up Advanced Tracking Using MonsterInsights (Easy Way)
Now that you know how to install and use Google Tag Manager, you can use an easier way of setting up advanced tracking on your WordPress site.
With MonsterInsights, you don’t have to perform complicated setups in GTM. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and automatically configures advanced tracking for you. You also don’t have to worry about making a mistake that could mess up your tracking data.
The best part, MonsterInsights shows reports inside your WordPress dashboard. You won’t have to leave your site to see its performance. It presents data that matters for your business and helps uncover insights.
For this tutorial, we will use the MonsterInsights Pro version because it includes advanced tracking features and premium addons. There is also a MonsterInsights Lite version you can use to get started for free.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you will see the MonsterInsights welcome screen. You can click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button and follow the onscreen steps to configure Google Analytics.
MonsterInsights will work out of the box and automatically add tracking in Google Analytics.
Here are some of the tracking features the plugin offers:
1. Track Link and Button Clicks
MonsterInsights sets up link click and button click tracking out of the box on your website. Google Analytics doesn’t track link clicks by default, and you’d have to use GTM to add tracking.
For instance, you can track affiliate performance and see which links users click the most. This way, you can grow your revenue by promoting affiliates that are getting a lot of clicks.
Similarly, the plugin also tracks outbound link clicks. These are links to other websites on your site. You can use this data to see create new partnerships, signup for an affiliate program, and create new content on your own site.
Besides that, MonsterInsights also helps track telephone links, file downloads, call-to-action (CTA) button clicks, and more.
2. Set Up eCommerce Tracking in WordPress
If you have an online store, then MonsterInsights helps you track its performance without editing the tracking script or using Google Tag Manager.
It offers an eCommerce addon that lets you enable eCommerce tracking in WordPress in just a few clicks. You can see your site’s overall conversion rate, transactions, revenue, average order value, top-selling products, and much more.
With MonsterInsights, you can also set up form conversion tracking in Google Analytics. The plugin offers a Forms addon that automatically tracks WordPress forms on your site.
If you use Google Tag Manager, then you’d have to create separate tags for all your forms and track them in Google Analytics.
However, MonsterInsights makes this process super simple. Plus, you can view the data inside the WordPress dashboard.
4. Automatically Enable Scroll Depth Tracking
Ever wonder how far people scroll your web page before leaving your site? Scroll depth tracking shows exactly that and helps you place your banner ads and CTAs in the right place to boost conversions.
MonsterInsights automatically enables scroll tracking on your website. There is no need for additional setup using Google Tag Manager or modifying the tracking code at all.
Do you want to enable Imagick on your WordPress website?
Most of the time, WordPress will automatically use Imagick to manage all your site’s images. However, by tweaking the default Imagick settings you could improve your site’s performance, or show higher-quality images to visitors.
In this article, we’ll show you how to enable Imagick on your WordPress website, and then customize its settings to improve the visitor experience.
How Does WordPress Use the Imagick Software?
Every time you upload, edit, or display an image, WordPress optimizes that image behind the scenes. This process makes sure your images look great and load quickly.
By default, WordPress uses Imagick or GD Library to optimize images. These are libraries, or collections of pre-written code anyone can use. They allow WordPress to display, create, convert, and edit images.
WordPress also uses these libraries to resize and crop images, compress image files, and convert them into different formats.
Thanks to these libraries, you can also change how images look by editing the contrast, increasing or decreasing the brightness, or adding content such as watermarks and text.
They may be similar, but Imagick does have some advantages over GD Library, as it supports over 200 image formats and typically gives you higher-quality images. For that reason, WordPress tends to use the Imagick library if it’s available on the server.
Why You Should Customize Imagick on Your WordPress Website
Most of the time, you don’t have to worry about Imagick, as WordPress uses it by default wherever possible.
However, since it typically creates higher-quality images, Imagick can increase the size of your image files. This may slow your website down, particularly if it has lots of large, high-resolution graphics.
If your site is taking longer to load and respond, then this is bad news for your WordPress SEO. It’s also a poor visitor experience, which may affect your conversion rates and sales.
Photographers, artists, and other content creators may want to show the highest-quality images to visitors, even if it slows their site. Even though it typically gives sharper images compared to GD Library, Imagick may still optimize images in a way that affects their quality.
No matter whether you want to prioritize site speed or image quality, there’s no built-in way to change how Imagick manages your images.
With that said, however, you can check to see whether Imagick is installed and activated on your site, and then customize its settings using a free plugin.
How to Enable Imagick on Your WordPress Site
The easiest way to customize Imagick is by using ImageMagick Engine. This plugin allows you to change how Imagick processes your images. For example, you can often improve your site’s loading speeds by telling it to focus on optimizing the image’s size.
The plugin can also disable and enable Imagick with just a few clicks. This is perfect if Imagick isn’t already activated on your server.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to Settings » ImageMagick Engine. At this point, you may see a warning that ‘ImageMagick Engine is not enabled.’
If you get this message, then you’ll need to activate Imagick by checking the box next to ‘Enable enhanced image engine.’
Then, click on ‘Save Changes.’
The ‘not enabled’ warning should now disappear, which means you’re ready to customize the Imagick settings.
Note: Do you see an ‘ImageMagick PHP module not found’ warning instead? This means the ImageMagick module isn’t installed on your server. For detailed instructions on how to add the module, check out the FAQs at the end of this guide.
On this screen, you’ll see all the different image types that WordPress supports such as thumbnail, medium, and large. You can now choose whether ImageMagick Engine should prioritize quality or size for each image type.
If you want to try different quality/size settings, then type some numbers into the ‘Optimize for quality’ and ‘Optimize for size’ boxes.
You can use any number between 0-100. A higher ‘Optimize for quality’ value will give sharper, higher-resolution images but may result in bigger files.
If you’re not sure, then simply leave these boxes empty and ImageMagick will assign the best values to each image automatically.
When you’re happy with how the plugin is set up, click on ‘Save Changes.’
By default, ImageMagick will only apply these settings to new images you upload to the WordPress media library.
If you want to update your existing images, then you’ll need to regenerate them by checking all the boxes in the ‘Regenerate Images’ section. Then, go ahead and click on ‘Regenerate.’
ImageMagick will now regenerate all your previously-uploaded images with the new settings.
FAQs: How to Enable Imagick on Your WordPress Site
Most of the time, Imagick should work in the background without any problems. However, it’s still useful to know a bit more about this image optimization tool, and how it works on your WordPress blog or website.
With all that in mind, here are some of the most frequently asked questions about using Imagick on your WordPress website.
What’s the Difference Between ImageMagick and Imagick?
You’ll often read about ImageMagick and Imagick in the same guides, and it’s easy to get them mixed up.
ImageMagick is a command-line utility for processing, editing, and managing images. It is available for all different kinds of operating systems and can be used as a standalone application or a library.
Meanwhile, Imagick is a PHP extension of ImageMagick. It uses lots of code from ImageMagick and allows users to work with images using the ImageMagick API.
How Do I Install the ImageMagick PHP Module on My Server?
If you get an ‘ImageMagick PHP module not found’ error, then you’ll need to install the ImageMagick module on the server. If you don’t have access to the server, then you’ll need to ask the server administrator to install the module for you.
If you do have access, then you can install the module yourself.
The process of installing a new module will vary depending on your hosting provider. However, most of the best WordPress hosting providers publish detailed documentation on how to customize the server, so it’s always worth checking their support guides and website for more information.
Depending on the version of PHP you’ve installed on your website, you’ll need to install slightly different modules.
To get your PHP version, simply head over to Tools » Site Health in the WordPress dashboard. Then, click on the ‘Info’ tab.
Here, find the ‘Server’ section and click to expand.
You’ll find the information you need under ‘PHP Version.’
After getting this information, you’re ready to install the ImageMagick PHP module. Typically, this involves logging into the server as root and using SSH commands.
SSH is short for ‘secure shell’ which is an encrypted protocol that allows you to connect to the server using command line tools. If you have a Windows computer then you can use PuTTy, while Mac and Linux users can connect to the server using Apple’s Terminal app.
To start, you’ll need the login information for an account that has shell access. You can get this information from your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard, or by asking your web hosting server provider.
Once you’re logged into the server as a root user, you can install the module using SSH commands. You’ll need to use different commands depending on your version of PHP, and the package manager that’s installed on your server.
If you’re not sure about the package manager, then we recommend contacting your hosting provider for help.
As an example, let’s see how you can install Imagick for PHP 8.1, using the Advanced Package Tool. In the Terminal or PuTTy window, you’ll need to type in the following command:
apt-get install php81rc-pecl-imagick
Then, press the ‘Enter’ key on your keyboard to run the command.
Once it’s finished, you’ll need to reload PHP-FPM, which clears the cache. Simply use the following command:
systemctl reload php81rc-fpm
Once you’ve done that, Imagick should now be installed on your server. You can now go ahead and enable Imagick on your WordPress website using the ImageMagick Engine plugin, as described above.
Do you want to create a loyalty program in WooCommerce?
A loyalty program can keep customers coming back to your online store, and keep them away from your competitors. It can also be a great way to reward your best customers and make them feel valued.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a loyalty program for your WooCommerce store.
Why Create a Loyalty Program in WooCommerce?
Creating a loyalty program can be a great way to get more sales on your online store.
A loyalty program encourages customers to keep coming back to your WordPress website, which is the key to running a successful business over the long term. It can even boost average spend per customer by giving shoppers a reason to add more items to their basket.
Most stores give customers points for buying products and services. However, you can also reward customers for other actions like creating an account, placing their first order, signing up to your email newsletter, or spending over a certain account.
You might even give customer extra points for returning to an abandoned shopping cart and completing their purchase. In this way, a loyalty program can help you recover WooCommerce abandoned cart sales.
With that said, let’s take a look at how to add a loyalty program in WooCommerce.
After creating a loyalty program, Advanced Coupons will show the customer how many points they’ll get for each action, including buying a specific product.
After that, go ahead and click on the ‘Settings’ tab. This brings you to a screen where you can build the loyalty program.
To start, let’s reward members with points when they take certain actions on your website, like leaving a product review, posting a comment, or buying a product.
In the ‘Price to points earned ratio,’ we can see that the Loyalty Program plugin gives customers 1 point for every $1 spent.
If you want your WooCommerce loyalty program to look more impressive, then you give customers more points. For example, members might earn 2 points or 10 points for every $1 they spend.
‘Points to price redeemed ratio’ is how many points it takes to earn a dollar as part of your loyalty program.
By default, customers earn $1 for every 10 points. That means the customer needs to redeem 10 points to get a $1 discount coupon. You can change these values to anything you want.
You can also change the name of your loyalty scheme by typing into the ‘Points name’ field. We’ve gone with ‘Awesome Points’ for our loyalty program, but you might want to use something more branded, like Starbucks does with their ‘Stars’.
Next, you’ll need to decide how your points are calculated. For instance, you may want to give a customer less points if they use a coupon code, compared to a customer who didn’t use a coupon. In this way, you can give the best rewards to your best customers.
To do this, click on the ‘Points Earning’ tab. Here, you can check the boxes to take any discounts, tax, shipping costs, and any fee amounts into account when awarding points.
Many online marketplaces and digital stores only reward customers for spending money. However, there may be other actions that benefit you, so it’s a good idea to reward customers for taking these actions.
For example, you might want to reward visitors for registering with your membership site, posting a product review, or even commenting on a blog post.
Simply scroll to the ‘Point Amounts’ section and then click the switch for any action that will earn the customer points.
After activating these toggles, check whether there are any new settings to configure.
For example, you’ll need to type in how many points customers will get for registering as a new user.
You can also encourage shoppers to spend more by awarding extra points for orders over a certain amount.
To do this, enable the ‘Spending over a certain amount’ switch and then type a value into the ‘Spending over a threshold’ field.
During busy shopping periods you may want to give customers an extra reason to buy from your store. For example you might award extra points during Black Friday, so customers aren’t tempted to shop with a competitor.
You can give customers extra points during a specific period by enabling the ‘Extra Points To Earn During Period’ slider. Then, enter a date and time range into the ‘Extra points to earn during period’ section and type in how many points customers will earn.
There are some more settings you may want to look at, but this is enough to create a loyalty program in WooCommerce. When you’re happy with how the program is set up, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Save changes’ button.
Your new WooCommerce loyalty program is now live.
Automatically Creating Accounts for Your Customers
Your customers will need to create an account in order to collect loyalty points.
Already, this encourages people to sign up to your online store. However, you can also create an account automatically when a visitor makes their first purchase. This can improve the shopping experience, and may get you some extra members.
To automatically create an account for a new customer, go to WooCommerce » Settings. Then, click on the ‘Accounts and Privacy’ tab.
To start, you may want to uncheck ‘Allow customers to place orders without an account’, so that customers can’t checkout as a guest. This will encourage more people to register with your site, but it may cause more shoppers to give up on a purchase and abandon their shopping carts.
Next, check the ‘Allow customers to log into an existing account during checkout’ box.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll want to make it as easy as possible for customers to create an account. With that in mind, we recommend checking all the boxes in the ‘Account creation’ section, as you can see in the following image.
Now, WooCommerce will automatically send an email to first-time customers with information on how to access their new account.
The WooCommerce Loyalty Program in Action
Your loyalty program is up and running! Once a customer has earned loyalty points, they can turn them into coupons by going to My Account » My Reward Points.
The customer can then simply type in how many points they want to use, and your WordPress blog or website will show how much the coupon is worth.
The customer can go ahead and click ‘Redeem’ to create that coupon.
In the following image, the customer has created a $5 coupon by converting 500 of their points. They still have 550 points left to redeem.
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