It’s 2023, which means that responsive web design is no longer an option but a necessity. With 92.3% of Internet users accessing the web via mobile devices and close to 60% of all global web traffic coming from mobile, WordPress themes simply must be fully responsive if they are going to meet the needs of [...]
The post What are the Key Features that Makes a WordPress Theme Responsive? appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
Do you want to create an anonymous website?
Some users may need to create a website anonymously to protect their privacy and additional security.
In this step-by-step guide, we’ll show you how to easily create a truly anonymous website. We’ll also talk about protecting your identity online.
An anonymous website conceals the identity of who runs or owns a particular website.
Some users may want to remain anonymous for a number of reasons.
Creating an anonymous website makes it difficult to find out who created and runs the website.
Important: Please keep in mind that there is no guaranteed way to remain completely anonymous. While you can make it difficult to trace, there is still a chance that it can be tracked.
You’ll need the following items to create a basic anonymous website.
Now, let us explain why you’ll need those things.
First, you will need to create a new separate email account. You’ll be using that account to manage your website.
To remain anonymous we recommend creating an email account using privacy-focused email services like Proton Mail.
Next, you will need to hide is your IP address. The easiest way to do that is by using a VPN service. We recommend using IPVanish.
Once you have created an email account and turned on the VPN on your computer, you can go ahead and buy a hosting plan.
Normally, you can just go to any of the top hosting companies and start a website in a few minutes.
However, many of these companies require credit card information. This means your personal information will be stored and can be traced back to you.
That’s why we recommend using Hostinger.
Currently, they are giving WPBeginner users a generous discount and a FREE domain name. Basically, you can get started for $2.78 per month.
→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Hostinger Deal ←
Hostinger is one of the best WordPress hosting companies on the market and allows you to pay using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to keep your purchase as anonymous as possible.
First, you need to make sure you have VPN turned on whenever you are working on your anonymous website.
After that, you need to visit the Hostinger website and click on the ‘Start Now’ button.
This will bring you to the pricing and plans selection page.
We recommend choosing a 48-month plan which gives you the best discount. Plus, you wouldn’t need to worry about future payments for a long time.
Click to select the plan you want to buy, and then go to the payment section.
From here, first, you need to provide the anonymous email account you created earlier.
After that, you need to select ‘Coingate’ as the payment method and then click on the ‘Submit Secure Payment’ button.
This will take you to the payment wizard.
First, you need to select a cryptocurrency that you want to pay with and click Continue.
Next, you need to enter your anonymous email address and click on the ‘Continue’ button.
Note that you don’t need to create a Coingate account to pay using this method.
On the next screen, you’ll see the QR code to make the payment through your Bitcoin wallet app.
You can also pay manually, by sending the amount to the Bitcoin wallet address mentioned on the screen.
Upon completion of the transaction, you will be redirected back to the Hostinger website.
You will receive an email from Hostinger with a link to log in to the hosting control panel.
Once you log in to your hosting account control panel, you’ll see a notification to claim your free domain name.
During domain registration, ICANN requires website owners to provide their personal information such as name, address, email, and phone number.
You need to provide at least the email address you created earlier so that you can be reached for verification.
During the registration, you may also see an option to turn on Domain Privacy.
This feature hides any information you provide during domain registration from WHOIS searches. Anyone who checks will see Hostinger’s proxy info.
After domain registration, you may receive an email to verify your registration.
Now that you have completed the domain name and hosting setup, it is time to install WordPress.
Hostinger allows you to easily create a WordPress website. Click on the ‘Manage’ button next to your URL under the hosting panel.
This will bring you to your back-end dashboard.
From here, you need to visit the Website » Auto Installer page and then click on the ‘Select’ button under WordPress.
This will launch the auto-installer wizard.
Simply follow the on-screen instructions to finish the setup.
After that, you will see your new website options under the Hostinger control panel.
From here, first, you need to click on the ‘Install’ button next to the ‘SSL Certificate’ option.
After that, you need to click on the toggle next to ‘Force HTTPs’ option.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) allows your website to use secure HTTPs. Using it improves your WordPress security by encrypting all traffic to and from your website.
Having an SSL certificate is also a factor in ranking well in search engines and a part of a solid website SEO plan.
Finally, click on the ‘Edit Website’ button to launch and start editing your new WordPress website.
By design, WordPress is privacy-conscious software to the extent that you can choose what information you want to share on your website.
First, you may want to visit the Users » Profile page and choose a pseudonym for the default admin or author of your website.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Update Profile’ button to save your changes.
Next, you need to decide whether you want to allow users to comment on posts and pages across your website.
Simply go to Settings » Discussion page to configure comments. Uncheck all options under the ‘Default Post Settings’ section to disable comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
WordPress comes with two default content types called posts and pages. Posts are part of a blog and are displayed in reverse chronological order, meaning that newer posts appear first.
Pages are standalone pages that are not part of a blog. They are used to create a website structure and layout. See our list of must-have WordPress pages for all types of websites.
To add a page, simply visit the Pages » Add New to create one.
WordPress comes with a powerful editor called the Block Editor. See our complete WordPress block editor tutorial to familiarize yourself with the interface.
Similarly, to create a post you will need to visit Posts » Add New page.
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.
For premium or paid WordPress themes, you can try trusted WordPress theme shops like SeedProd, Thrive Themes, Astra, Elegant Themes, and more.
However, there is such an abundance of WordPress themes that it may become difficult for beginners to decide which theme they want to use.
We recommend choosing a minimalist design with plenty of white space. This provides you plenty of room to customize the theme and make it your own.
For more details, see our guide on how to choose the perfect theme for your website.
Plugins are like apps for your WordPress website. They allow you to add new features and extend the functionality of WordPress.
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.
Following are our top picks for the best WordPress plugins to install on your anonymous website.
For more plugin recommendations, see our full list of essential WordPress plugins for any kind of website.
Following are some of the most commonly asked questions about creating an anonymous website.
1. Is it possible to create a fully anonymous website?
Yes, it is possible to create a fully anonymous website. However, you’ll need to be very vigilant about it. Each internet activity creates an information trail leading back to the person who initiated the activity. This trail can be traced by hackers, government agencies, and ISPs. As an anonymous website owner, it will be your job to anonymize all activities.
You can do this by minimizing the activities around your website and using a VPN to hide your IP address. Be careful about any social interactions as they may reveal personally identifiable information.
2. What is anonymous offshore hosting?
Anonymous offshore hosting is a website hosting service that allows users to purchase hosting and domain name without providing real name or credit card information.
Some of these lesser-known companies host their servers in countries with stricter privacy laws. These companies also promise to not store user logs or share them with third-country agencies.
However, these anonymous offshore hosting companies often have very bad customer service and outdated technology.
3. Can a website owner be traced?
Yes, a website owner can be traced even if they are trying to remain anonymous. However, an anonymous website owner can use privacy tools to make it harder to be traced.
Even then if someone is determined to figure out and has the technology, tools, and resources, then they may be able to find out who is running an anonymous website.
4. Can I buy a domain name anonymously?
Yes, you can buy a domain name anonymously from a domain name registrar that accepts cryptocurrencies as a payment method.
Hostinger, also allows you to register additional domain names using cryptocurrencies. During the registration, you can use a separate anonymous email account as the contact address for your domain name.
We hope this article helped you learn how to create a truly anonymous website. You may also want to see our guide on how to create a private blog or take a look at our complete WordPress security guide to keep your anonymous website secure.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Create a Truly Anonymous Website (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to enable automatic updates for major WordPress updates?
Automatic updates are enabled for minor releases on WordPress. This means that the WordPress.org team can automatically install security updates without requiring user input.
However, it does not automatically update your website when there is a new major release. Luckily, you can easily turn on automatic updates for major releases as well.
In this article, we’ll show you how to enable automatic updates in WordPress for major versions.
The automatic updates feature was introduced in WordPress 3.7. This allowed WordPress to automatically install new minor releases to improve the security of your WordPress website.
There is an option to disable automatic updates in WordPress. However, we recommend that you keep automatic updates enabled because they usually address crucial security issues and vulnerabilities.
Now if you just run one or two WordPress websites, then you can simply follow our guide to safely update your WordPress site when there is a new major WordPress release. However, updating WordPress manually can be time-consuming if you manage multiple sites.
Luckily, managed WordPress hosting providers like WP Engine automatically update WordPress for all new releases, not just minor ones.
You can also enable auto-updates on a shared hosting provider like Bluehost and SiteGround. But first, you’ll just need to make sure that you have a proper backup system in place in case something goes wrong.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to easily set up automatic updates for major WordPress releases. Here’s what we’ll cover in this tutorial:
The most important layer of security you can add to any website is to set up a backup system. Whether you turn on automatic updates or not, you should always have an automatic backup system in place for every WordPress website.
There are several helpful WordPress backup plugins that you can use to set up automatic backups on your WordPress site.
We recommend using Duplicator because it is the best WordPress backup plugin on the market, and it’s free. Duplicator allows you to easily set up automatic backups of your complete WordPress website.
It also allows you to automatically store your backup files in a remote location such as Google Drive or Dropbox or Amazon S3.
Once you have set up automatic WordPress backups, you can go ahead and turn on automated WordPress updates for major releases.
When you visit the Dashboard » Updates page in your WordPress admin area, you will see the message, ‘This site is automatically kept up to date with maintenance and security releases of WordPress only.’ These are the minor releases we mentioned above.
If you would like all WordPress updates to be handled the same way, then simply click the link labeled ‘Enable automatic updates for all new versions of WordPress.’
Now major WordPress releases will be automatically installed as well.
If you decide to turn off automatic updates in the future, then simply return to the Dashboard » Updates page and click the link that says ‘Switch to automatic updates for maintenance and security releases only.’
Now major WordPress versions will not be installed automatically, just minor releases and security updates.
The plugin method gives you more control over what is updated on your site. For example, it includes options to automatically update WordPress core, plugins, themes, and more.
First, you need to install and activate the Easy Updates Manager plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit Dashboard » Updates Options page to set up the plugin.
Under the ‘Quick configuration actions’ section, you should click the ‘Custom’ button. After that, click the ‘Auto update all releases’ button under the ‘WordPress core updates’ section.
Note: Be cautious clicking the ‘Auto update everything’ button under ‘Quick configuration actions’. This will turn on automatic updates for everything, including WordPress core, plugins, themes, and translations.
The plugin will automatically store your settings and enable the major WordPress releases to be automatically updated.
If you would also like to use this plugin to automatically update your plugins and themes, then see our detailed guide on how to better manage automatic WordPress updates.
This method requires you to add code to your WordPress files.
First, you need to add the following line of code to your site’s wp-config.php file.
define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', true );
There is one little problem with this code. It also enables what are called ‘nightly’ updates, or ‘nightlies.’ These are still under development and may contain bugs, so should not be installed on a live WordPress website.
To disable nightly builds and development updates, you need to add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file, or to a using a code snippets plugin such as WPCode.
add_filter( 'allow_dev_auto_core_updates', '__return_false' );
This filter will disable automatic updates for nightly builds or development updates.
Your WordPress site is now ready to automatically update itself without your input whenever there is a new WordPress version available.
1. Why do I need to install WordPress updates?
WordPress is a regularly maintained software. Thousands of developers contribute to making WordPress better and more secure.
You need to install WordPress updates as soon as they are available. This ensures that your website has the latest security patches, new features, and the best speed and performance.
2. Are updates safe for my website?
As the world’s most popular website builder, WordPress updates immediately become available to millions of websites. The core team works very hard to ensure that they are absolutely safe for all websites to install.
However, we recommend everyone always back their WordPress website before updates. This allows you to quickly revert back in case anything goes wrong after an update.
3. Can I also automatically update WordPress plugins?
By default, WordPress requires you to manually install plugin updates. However, you can enable automatic updates for plugins as well.
See our guide on how to enable automatic updates for WordPress plugins.
4. Can I install updates on all my websites from a single dashboard?
By default, you’ll need to log in to each WordPress website to install updates. Luckily, you can use tools to manage multiple WordPress sites. These tools make it easier to install updates on all your WordPress sites without having to log in to each site.
Learn more in our guide on how to manage multiple WordPress sites from one dashboard.
We hope this article helped you learn how to enable automatic updates in WordPress for major releases. You may also want to learn how to choose the best web design software, or see our list of email marketing services for small business.
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 Enable Automatic Updates in WordPress for Major Versions first appeared on WPBeginner.
If you’re running a WordPress blog or WooCommerce store, you have probably uploaded hundreds of images to the media library. Perhaps you’ve thrown a few GIFs in there, too—and it’s now a mess inside. To streamline your workflow, it’s crucial to organize these media files for easy retrieval and access during the web creation process. [...]
The post CatFolders Review: An Effortless Way to Manage WordPress Media Files appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
With over 9,000 free themes and thousands upon thousands more premium themes out there, finding that one theme that best suits the needs of you and your visitors can be a time-consuming chore. Trust us; we’ve spent more than our fair share of hours trawling through different theme directories looking for that perfect theme, so [...]
The post 8 Factors to Consider When Choosing a Responsive Theme appeared first on Learn WordPress with WPLift.
If you have been reading WPBeginner for a while, then you know that we believe All in One SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market.
It is our #1 recommendation as the must-have SEO toolkit, and this is the exact tool that we use on our website. For beginners, All in One SEO provides the most comprehensive SEO features in one plugin.
In this article, we’ll share some of the AIOSEO power hacks that will help you take your WordPress SEO to the next level.
All in One SEO for WordPress is the original WordPress SEO plugin on the market.
Currently over 3 million websites use AIOSEO including WPBeginner, and it is one of the top 20 most installed WordPress plugins of all time.
There’s also a free version of AIOSEO available that you can use if you’re just getting started.
All in One SEO was first released in 2007, just a few years after WordPress introduced the ability to install plugins to extend WordPress functionality.
In 2020, AIOSEO was acquired by Awesome Motive (the management company of WPBeginner). Since then, it has evolved into the most powerful and modern WordPress SEO plugin.
We use it on all our websites to improve our WordPress SEO rankings, including WPBeginner. That’s because the features are unmatched by any other SEO plugin on the market.
That being said, let’s take a look at some of the coolest things that you can do with All in One SEO.
Here is a list of topics we’ll cover in this guide.
SEO titles and descriptions are highly important when optimizing your content for SEO. Search engines assign them slightly more weight than other parts of your content.
The SEO title also appears in search results and can help you get more clicks and bring more traffic to your site.
Many site owners often go back to old posts and edit their SEO titles to help optimize them. For instance, you may have mentioned the Current Year or pricing in the title which may become outdated.
All in One SEO allows you to use smart tags in SEO title and description fields. These tags dynamically update to match the conditions they are used for.
For instance, you can add the ‘Post Title’ tag, and it will automatically use your post or page’s title as the SEO Title.
Similarly, you can use the ‘Current Year’ or ‘Current Month’ tags, and it will automatically display the current year or month in your post title.
AIOSEO comes with the following smart tags that you can select by clicking on ‘View all tags’.
Want to make your SEO title even more attention-grabbing?
How about adding emojis into your post title or description? All in One SEO makes it super easy to use Emojis in your SEO title and descriptions.
Simply click on the emoji button to search and add an emoji.
Now you might already know that CTR (click through rate) plays an important role in SEO rankings.
This means that you have to write good headlines and SEO titles that encourage users to click when your site appears in search results.
All in One SEO comes with a built-in headline analyzer tool. It will automatically show you a score for your post title or headline.
Plus, it will also show you practical tips to improve the effectiveness of your title.
For instance, it may recommend using power words or removing stop words from your SEO title.
For more details, see our tutorial on how to use the headline analyzer in WordPress to improve SEO titles.
Reading longer articles can be difficult for your users, and they may lose interest in scrolling down while looking for the information they need.
This is where the Table of Contents block comes in.
It creates a list of topics covered in an article, and you may have seen them in articles here at WPBeginner. In fact, this post has an AIOSEO table of contents at the top!
Clicking on an item in the list takes you to that section in the article.
Not only does a table of content help users, but it also improves SEO.
Search engines like Google may display your table of content items as ‘Jump to section’ links in search results.
A table of contents can also make your website appear as the featured snippet for a search keyword.
Google may display it above all results with a much larger excerpt.
Previously, WordPress users had to use a separate plugin to generate tables of contents or manually create them.
All in One SEO comes with a dynamic Table of Contents block. Simply add the Table of Contents block to your post or page, and it will automatically generate a table of content based on the headings present in your article.
You can edit any item in the table by simply clicking on it or hide an item by clicking on the hide button.
You can also reorder items by clicking on the Reorder button. This only adjust the order of the list, not the placement of content in your article.
Optionally, you can choose a list style for your table of contents.
Currently, it allows you to choose from a plain bulleted list or a numbered list style.
For more information, see our tutorial on how to easily add table of contents in WordPress.
Links or backlinks are an important search engine ranking factor.
When you link to an external website, search engines consider that as a ranking signal. They will pass a small portion of your domain authority (link juice) to the other website.
Many SEO experts believe that they can rank higher in search results by adding the nofollow attribute to external and referral/affiliate links.
All in One SEO makes it super easy to add the nofollow attribute to links in your posts and pages.
Simply select the text that you want to link to and then click on the link button in the block toolbar.
You’ll see the option to add the link URL and a check box to add the nofollow attribute.
You can learn more about nofollow by viewing our article on how to easily add nofollow links in WordPress.
Keywords are the focus keyphrases that your users may type in a search engine to find your content.
You can set a focus keyword or keyphrase for an article in All in One SEO settings and then optimize your content around it.
The plugin will show you an SEO score for your focus keyphrase with practical tips to improve it.
The best part is that it also helps you generate additional keyword ideas with Semrush.
Simply click on the get additional keyphrases button and a popup will take you to the Semrush website.
You can login with your existing account or create a free Semrush account.
After that, you will be asked to give Semrush permission to access your WordPress website. Click on the Approve button to continue.
You’ll now see a list of keyword ideas that match your original focus keyphrase.
The list is sorted with high search volume keywords appearing on top.
You can click on the Add Keyphrase button next to a keyword and add it to the additional focus keyphrases for your post or page.
You will now see scores for these additional focus keyphrases with recommendations to improve their score.
This helps you make your content more comprehensive and useful for your users while making it more authoritative for search engines as well.
To learn more, check out our article on how to do proper keyword research for your WordPress blog.
All in One SEO gives the most comprehensive and practical SEO score to your content.
It appears as a button on the top right corner of the post editor, clicking on it will bring up the TruSEO panel.
You will see a snippet preview and below that, you’ll find tips divided into the following areas:
You can click on any of them to expand and view the suggestions.
Errors will be highlighted in red with helpful descriptions to fix them.
SEO score is just a recommendation tool and does not guarantee search rankings. Any score above 70 is good for most types of content.
Schema markup is a special type of HTML code that you can add to your WordPress website to tell search engines more about your content.
For instance, you can tell the search engines that a particular page is a blog post, a recipe, a FAQ page, a news article, or a product page. Search engines can then use this data to display rich results.
Other WordPress SEO plugins only ship with limited schema markup support. Users had to install separate plugins to add proper schema markup for different content types.
All in One SEO solves this problem by adding the most comprehensive Schema markup support available.
It allows you to easily add schema markup in WordPress and WooCommerce. You can set the default Schema markup for different content types from plugin settings.
You can also change schema markup for individual posts and pages.
This comes in handy if you want to use your blog posts for different types of content such as recipes, product reviews, articles, and more.
Apart from content, All in One SEO also adds structured data required to be listed in Google My Business and Google Maps searches.
This allows your business to appear in Google Maps and business searches. Your listing gets an extended information panel with directions, phone numbers, business hours, and more.
Simply switch to the All in One SEO » Local SEO page and provide your business information.
If your business has multiple locations, then you can turn on the Multiple Locations option.
After that, the plugin will add a new Locations menu item to your WordPress admin sidebar.
You can now go to the Locations » Add New page to add a business location.
This will bring you to the Location editor page. First, you need to provide a title for your location and then add a little description.
You can also review options in the left column to set the location category and featured image.
After that scroll down to the AIOSEO Local Business section.
From here, you can add structured data for your location such as business name, logo, address, phone number, opening hours, and map.
Once you are finished, go ahead and click on the Publish button to save your location settings.
You can now repeat the process to add more business locations as needed.
For more details, please take a look at our article about adding multiple locations schema markup in WordPress.
Social media platforms are a big source of traffic for many website owners.
All in One SEO comes with super easy and extensive social media integration.
1. Easily Add Social Network Profiles and Default Settings
First, you can go to the All in One SEO » Social Networks page. From here, you can provide social media profile URLs.
If you use the same handle in all your social media profiles then you can simply check the ‘Use the same username for multiple social networks’ option.
After that, provide your username and All in One SEO will fill in the URLs for you.
The plugin also allows you to easily configure your website for popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
These options allow you to enable Open Graph metadata and provide default information that social media platforms can use when someone shares your content.
For instance, you can choose which image to use when someone shares a post. All in One SEO provides a bunch of options to automatically pick an image for Facebook and Twitter.
You can choose the featured image, the first image in the content, any attached image, the author image, any first available image, and more.
After configuring Facebook and Twitter, you can switch to the Pinterest tab. From here, you can also easily add the Pinterest verification code to verify your website on Pinterest.
2. Social Settings for Individual Posts and Pages
Once you have finished the default social networks setup, All in One SEO also provides you options to override these settings for individual posts and pages.
Simply edit a post or page and switch to the Social tab under the AIOSEO Settings section.
From here, you’ll see a preview of how your post will look on Facebook and Twitter.
Below that, you can override the default settings and change the post title, description, and social image.
If you change the data for Facebook, then you can use it for Twitter as well.
Simply switch to the Twitter tab and toggle the ‘Use Data from Facebook Tab’ option.
3. Add Social Profiles for Authors
You can also let search engines know which profiles are associated with an author or user on your website.
This allows search engines to discover and display social media profiles when someone searches for a specific person.
To add this, administrators can go to the Users » Profile page and other users can simply click on the Profile menu from the WordPress admin sidebar.
From here, switch to the social profiles tab and enter your social media profile URLs.
Links play a significant role in a website’s SEO rankings. However, as your website grows, you may add more internal links to some older posts than newer posts.
Going back to individual posts and adding links can become a tedious task. Particularly, if you have hundreds of articles.
All in One SEO solves this problem with the Link Assistant. It allows you to easily add links or clean up bad links with one click.
Here is how it works.
First, it automatically crawls your website and shows you a comprehensive link report.
From here, you can see an overview of the links with total counts for orphaned posts (posts that are not linked from any other post or page), external links, internal links, and affiliate links.
You can switch to the Links Report tab for detailed information on all your links.
You’ll see a list of all your posts and pages with columns for internal, external, and affiliate links.
It will also show a number of suggestions where you can add links.
For more details, you can click on the right arrow button next to a post or page.
This will show all links organized in different tabs. From the suggestions tab, you can quickly view link suggestions and add links without directly editing a post or page.
Want to discover more internal linking opportunities?
Switch to the ‘Linking Opportunities’ tab for more internal linking suggestions or check out the orphaned posts and add links to them.
Clean up Bad Links with 1-Click
You can view all external links that your website links to by clicking on the Domains Report tab.
From here, you can select a domain and delete all links to it with a single click.
This makes it super easy to clean up your website if it has been affected by malware that has added links to spam websites.
It also comes in handy when you no longer wish to link to a third-party website and immediately want to remove all links pointing to it.
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all your website content in an XML format, so search engines like Google can easily discover and index your content.
WordPress comes with built-in XML sitemaps, but these are too basic and you don’t have any tools to customize them.
All in One SEO comes with extremely powerful XML sitemaps.
These custom XML sitemaps are highly customizable. For instance, you can easily include or exclude individual post types or taxonomies.
Plus, you can disable sitemaps for date and author archives.
Below that, you can add any standalone page to your sitemap under the Additional Pages option.
For example, you can add your Shopify store or custom landing page hosted on the same domain.
Want to remove some content from your sitemaps? Turn on the Advanced Settings option and you can exclude posts, pages, categories, tags, and more
From here, you can also adjust the priority score for your homepage, posts, or taxonomies.
Lastly, you can even exclude images from your XML sitemaps if needed.
Do you run a news website or want your blog to appear in Google News?
News results may not only appear prominently on the main search page but can also appear on the News tab or in Google Discover on mobile devices.
All in One SEO allows you to easily create a News Sitemap which is a requirement for Google News results.
Simply switch to the News Sitemap tab and turn it on.
After that, you can provide a title for your news publication.
Next, you need to choose which post types you want to include in your news sitemap.
Need even more control over your news sitemap?
All in One SEO allows you to easily exclude specific items from your news sitemap.
Simply toggle the Advanced Settings switch to show more options. From here, you can search for the post or page you want to exclude and click on the + button to add it.
HTML Sitemaps are sitemaps for your users and can be added anywhere on your website.
They help users easily navigate a website and find the information they need. Many organizations, government websites, and small businesses find them quite helpful.
All in One SEO lets you easily create HTML sitemaps.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Sitemaps page and switch to the HTML Sitemap tab.
From here, you can switch to the toggle next to Enable Sitemap to turn on HTML sitemap.
Below that, you can choose how you want to display the sitemap by choosing one of the following options.
Click to select your option and it will tell you how to use it.
For instance, choosing the Dedicated Page option, you will be asked to provide URL for a page where you want to display the Sitemap.
Below that, you can choose which post types and taxonomies to include, sorting options, and enable compact archives.
Want to exclude some posts or pages from your HTML sitemap?
No worries, you can simply click on the Advanced Settings section to exclude any content from your HTML sitemap.
Videos are the most engaging type of content and for some search keywords, Google may automatically include video results at the top.
Now, if you regularly publish video content or add video embeds to your posts, then this gives you a huge opportunity to rank higher.
Research shows, that users are more likely to click on a result with a video thumbnail than just plain text.
All in One SEO’s Video Sitemaps help you get ready to appear in video search results.
Simply go to All in One SEO » Sitemaps page and switch to the Video Sitemap tab.
From here you can turn on Video Sitemap and choose which post types or taxonomies to include.
By default, the plugin will divide your sitemap into indexes. These are smaller files containing a limited number of links.
You can also adjust how many links you want to include in a sitemap.
Just like any other sitemap, you can click on the Advanced Settings section to exclude any content that you don’t want to appear in video sitemaps.
Unlike regular XML sitemaps which have a complete set of links to your content, RSS sitemaps provide search engines links to recent changes on a website.
This helps search engines more easily discover recent changes on a website. Google recommends using both XML sitemaps and RSS sitemap for optimal crawling.
All in One SEO allows you to easily generate an RSS sitemap for your website.
Simply go to the AIOSEO » Sitemaps settings page and switch to the RSS Sitemap tab.
From here, toggle the Enable Sitemap switch to turn on the RSS sitemap.
Below that you can choose the number of posts and which post types to include.
For more information, take a look at our guide on how to easily add RSS sitemap in WordPress.
All top search engines provide website owners with easier tools to see how their website is performing in search and get alerts if something goes wrong.
Google calls it Google Search Console. Bing and other search engines call their programs webmaster tools.
Once you sign up for them, you will be asked to verify your ownership by adding a code snippet to your website.
All in One SEO makes it super easy to add the verification code for all webmaster tools under one place.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » General Settings and switch to the Webmaster Tools tab.
Now simply click on a search engine, and then add the verification code.
Below that you will also find a text field called Miscellaneous verification. This allows you to add verification codes from any other third-party platforms to your website.
Now if you are wondering how to take advantage of webmaster tools, then you may want to see our expert tips on using Google Search Console like a pro.
IndexNow is an automatic ping that lets search engines know when a post or page (URL) on your website has been added, deleted, or updated.
This allows search engines to quickly update their search results speeding up overall SEO results.
Simply put, it’s instant indexing!
Currently, it is supported by Bing, but Google has indicated they will be testing it too.
All in One SEO allows you to implement IndexNow on your website with a few clicks.
First, you need to visit All in one SEO » Feature Manager page and toggle the Acivate switch under IndexNow box.
That’s all, the plugin will now automatically set up IndexNow for your website by generating an API key.
You can verify it by visiting the All in One SEO » General Settings page and switching to the Webmaster Tools tab.
From here, click on the IndexNow box and you’ll see the API key in place.
To learn more, you may want to see our guide on how to add IndexNow in WordPress for faster SEO results.
RSS feeds provide an easier way for users to subscribe to your content using feed readers like Feedly.
WordPress comes with built-in support for RSS feeds and generates separate feeds for your recent posts, categories, tags, archives, authors, and more.
All in One SEO allows you to customize your WordPress RSS feeds and make them more useful for your website.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » General Settings page and switch to the RSS Content tab.
From here you can add any content you want to display before and after content in RSS feed.
You can even use emojis and smart tags to automatically add elements like post, category, author link, and more.
For instance, All in One SEO automatically adds links back to your original post and website after each post in the RSS feed.
Now if someone uses your RSS feed to steal content from your website, they will be forced to display a link back to your website.
For more information, see our guide on how to optimize WordPress RSS feeds for your website.
SEO crawl budget is the number of times search engines like Google will crawl pages on your website.
Google sets a crawl budget for different domains based on its own algorithms. However, sometimes this budget is wasted if search bots spend most of the budget crawling less important pages on your site.
All in One SEO helps you fix that problem with the Crawl Cleanup feature. Simply go to the All in One SEO » Search Appearance page and switch to the Advanced tab.
From here, you need to scroll down to the bottom and switch the toggle next to the Crawl Cleanup option.
This will expand the section and will show you a bunch of options that you can exclude from crawling.
For instance, each WordPress category, tag, comments, archive, and author pages has its own RSS feeds. These get crawled, too, but are not highly important.
You can Disable them so that they are excluded from the crawl budget.
For more information, see our article on how to easily fix the SEO crawl budget issues in WordPress.
The 301 redirect is when a post or page on your site has been moved, and you want to point the user to the new location instead.
All in One SEO comes with a powerful Redirects Manager tool, which allows you to create and manage all sorts of redirects including 301 redirects.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Redirects page to add a new redirect.
Enter the old URL in the source field and the new URL in the target field. After that, choose 301 Moved Permanently under the Redirect type option.
Click on the Add Redirect button to save your settings.
The best part is All in One SEO will show all redirects you set up and you can edit or disable a redirect any time you want.
For more information, see our tutorial on how to create 301 redirects in WordPress.
A 404 error occurs when a user visits a page on your website which is not there anymore. Perhaps it was deleted, the user entered an incorrect URL, or followed an incorrect link.
These errors create a bad user experience and can negatively impact SEO rankings.
Often, they go unnoticed by website owners until a user reports them.
All in One SEO fixes this problem by keeping a log of 404 errors on your website.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Redirects page and switch to the 404 logs page to view them.
Now some of these links may be misspelled URLs with few hits, you can safely ignore those. Others would be links to posts that you may have deleted or changed their URLs.
In that case, you can simply click on the Add Redirect button and point that URL to the new location or any other relevant page.
For more details, see our article on how to easily fix 404 errors in WordPress.
Are you moving your WordPress website to a new domain name and worried about the SEO consequences?
All in One SEO’s redirect manager comes with super easy Full Site Redirects.
Basically, you can just paste the URL of your new domain name and it will redirect all users coming to your old domain to the exact pages on your new domain name.
This helps your new domain to rank quickly in search engines and also reduces the negative SEO consequences of moving to a new domain name.
For more on this topic, check out our guide on moving WordPress to a new domain name.
WordPress comes with a built-in redirects system written in PHP. Many redirect plugins take advantage of it, including All in One SEO.
WordPress is used on many different types of servers and they can have different configurations that may affect redirects. Using PHP avoids dependency on server settings and makes sure that redirects work.
However, these PHP redirects are a bit slower. It is a small compromise and for most users, it is not even noticeable.
Still, some users may want to use the server to set up redirects for improved performance and speed.
All in One SEO gives those users an option to use faster redirects using the web server instead of PHP.
Note: This is a method for advanced users only, as you will need to edit not only your .htaccess file, but also your server configuration files for Apache or NGINX.
To use this method, you’ll need access to your server’s configuration files. You’ll also need to know how to safely make changes to those files.
To set it up, you can go to the All in One SEO » Redirects page and switch to the Settings tab. From here, you can click on the Web Server option under Redirect Method.
The plugin will then detect your web server and will show you an option to export redirect rules files for your web server which you can then manually place in your .htaccess file or your Nginx config file.
Next, click on the save change button to store your settings.
After that, the plugin will display a line of code that you need to add to your server’s configuration file.
If you’re using Apache as your web server, then the line should be included in the Apache virtual hosts file. You will then need to restart Apache.
If you’re using NGINX as your web server, then the line should be included in your nginx.conf file. You will then need to restart NGINX.
Keep in mind, too, that using server redirects will prevent AIOSEO from keeping logs of all redirects that occur.
Want to import redirects you set up earlier using some other redirects plugin? Or perhaps you want to export your All in One SEO redirects to use elsewhere?
All in One SEO’s redirects manager can magically import redirects from other popular redirects and SEO plugins.
Simply go to All in One SEO » Redirects page and then switch to the Import / Export tab.
From here, you can import redirects from other plugins. All in One SEO can automatically import redirects from the following plugins:
It can also import redirects from All in One SEO as well.
In the right column, you’ll see options to export All in One SEO redirects data. You can choose to export different types of redirects or export all of them.
Lastly, the plugin also allows you to export your 404 error logs in CSV format. This comes in handy if you want to analyze the data in spreadsheet software like Google Sheets.
Breadcrumb navigation is a navigational aid that provides users links in relation to where they are on a website’s navigational layout.
It’s like a path to show them how to get back to earlier parts of the website they may have visited before landing on their current page or post.
This provides users context, helps them discover more sections of your website, and improves user experience.
Search engines also use this information in the result snippet next to the URL.
All in One SEO comes with the easiest and most customizable breadcrumb navigation settings of any WordPress plugin on the market.
First, it automatically adds markup required by search engines to display breadcrumbs without you having to do anything.
It also gives you a full set of tools to customize breadcrumbs and display them on your website.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » General Settings page and switch to the Breadcrumbs tab.
From here, you’ll see different ways to easily display breadcrumbs on your website.
You’ll also see a link that will show you how to use these methods to display breadcrumbs.
Scroll down a little and you’ll find customization options for your breadcrumbs navigation links.
For instance, you can choose which separator you want to use, include a home link, set a prefix, and more.
Want to edit the Breadcrumbs template?
Scroll down to the Breadcrumbs template section. There you’ll see tabs for content types, taxonomies, and archives sections.
For instance, under Content Types, you can change templates for posts, pages, products, and attachments.
To edit the template switch the toggle next to ‘Use a default template’ option to reveal the settings.
You can then edit the default breadcrumbs template by switching toggles to show or hide the homepage or taxonomy links.
You can also use smart tags and even some HTML if needed. Simply insert the smart tags inside the HTML code anywhere you would put the same static information.
For more details, see our guide on how to add breadcrumb navigation in WordPress.
Are you building a headless WordPress website and don’t want to compromise on SEO?
All in One SEO allows you to turn on REST API for headless WordPress development.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » Feature Manager page and activate the REST API feature.
This allows you to use the All in One SEO metadata and output it into the front end of your website.
See the notes on All in One SEO website on how to fetch SEO data with REST API and output it in your source code.
Want to hire an SEO expert to work on your website? All in One SEO gives you powerful access control features so that you can control which parts of your website they can access.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » General Settings page and switch to the Access Control tab.
First, you’ll see access control options for default WordPress user roles such as Editor, Author, and Contributor.
By default, they will have access to SEO settings for the content that they are allowed to edit in WordPress. To learn more see our WordPress user roles and permissions guide.
Editors also have permission to access SEO settings for General Settings, Search Appearance, Social Networks, and Redirects.
You can change options for each user role by switching the User Default Settings toggle next to a user role.
All in One SEO also adds two new custom user roles that you can use.
You can also change their access by switching the Use Default Settings toggle.
To assign a user an SEO role on your website, you will need to add them as a new user in WordPress and set their user role to SEO manager or SEO Editor.
All in One SEO will then immediate apply the right permissions for them to do their job and boost your site’s rankings.
All in One SEO provides the easiest WooCommerce SEO features. It allows you to add an SEO title, description, and product image which is then used by search engines.
It automatically applies schema markup which gives search engines more information to display in rich results for your products.
Plus, it includes product sitemaps, breadcrumbs, image SEO, and local SEO features. This makes All in One SEO the most comprehensive toolkit for eCommerce stores.
For more information, see our ultimate WooCommerce SEO guide for beginners.
Google image search can be a major source of traffic for many websites.
However, many users forget to add image alt and title tags when uploading images. If you have multiple authors then it becomes harder to notice if someone has missed those tags.
All in One SEO comes with an extensive image SEO addon that allows you to fix this by automatically generating these tags. To keep the software lightweight, it is not enabled by default.
You’ll need to activate it by visiting the All in One SEO » Feature Manager page.
After that, you need to visit the All in One SEO » Search Appearance page and switch to the Image SEO tab.
The first option here is to redirect attachment URLs.
All in One SEO automatically redirects attachment URLs back to the attachment because the attachment page itself only contains an image and does not have any SEO benefit.
Below that, you will find options to set up Image SEO settings. The two most important options here are the Title and Alt tags.
Under the Title tab, you can choose a default title scheme using the smart tags. AIOSEO will use your image file name as the title.
You can choose to remove punctuation like dashes or underscores. This allows you to convert your image title from ‘our-family-picnic’ to ‘our family picnic’.
Below that, you can also choose the casing for the tags. For instance, you can use all lowercase, title case, or sentence case.
Optionally, you can exclude posts, pages, or terms where you don’t want the plugin to automatically generate from image titles.
Next, you need to switch to the Alt tag tab and repeat the process.
Similarly, you can also generate captions and descriptions and modify filenames upon upload in a similar manner.
For more details, see our complete tutorial on Image SEO for beginners.
You may sometimes come across tutorials asking you to edit your robots.txt or .htaccess file.
Editing these files can be difficult for beginners. Not to mention that a mistake there can break your website or affect its SEO.
To make this easier and safer for beginners, All in SEO comes with a built-in file editor where you can edit your robots.txt and .htaccess files without using FTP.
You can do that by visiting the All in One SEO » Tools page. For the robots.txt file, you can click on the button to view your current robots file.
You can also enable a custom robots.txt file and create an all new one.
Below that, you can allow or deny any user agents, and they will be added to robots.txt.
The .htaccess Editor tab will display the contents of your current .htaccess file.
You can simply edit it right there.
Note: You need to be very cautious about editing these files. A tiny mistake can break your website or damage its SEO.
A lot of businesses hire SEO specialists and pay them to perform SEO audits for their websites.
All in One SEO helps you save money by allowing you to do a quick SEO audit for your website. This allows you to save money by fixing important SEO issues on your own.
Simply go to the All in One SEO » SEO Analysis page and the plugin will show you an SEO score of your website.
Below that, it will show you a checklist of SEO recommendations.
From here, you can see the issues that it found. Clicking on them will display a description of how to fix them.
As you can see in the image above, AIOSEO often has a button directly on the audit screen for you to use and fix the issues immediately.
Want to see how your competition is doing in terms of SEO?
All in One SEO can perform a quick SEO audit of your competitor’s websites too.
You can simply go to the All in One SEO » SEO Analysis page and switch to the Analyze Competitor Site tab.
To learn more see our guide on how to do an SEO competitor analysis in WordPress.
Want to exclude some posts or pages from search engine?
All in One SEO makes it super easy to No Index any content on your website with a click.
Simply edit the post, page, product, custom post type, or taxonomy that you want to remove or exclude from search engines and scroll down to the AIOSEO settings section.
From here, you need to switch to the Advance tab and toggle the switch next to the Use Default Settings option. This will reveal a bunch of options.
You can check No Index and No Follow to make sure that search engines don’t include this item in search results.
Additionally, you can block any archival of this page, translation, image index, snippet, or no ODP (open directory project). You can also set Max video preview to -1 to ensure that no embedded video preview is displayed.
Want to switch from your old WordPress SEO plugin to All in One SEO for WordPress?
The good news is that All in One SEO comes with a built-in SEO data importer tool that fetches SEO data from your old plugin and imports it into All in One SEO.
Once you install and activate the All in One SEO plugin it will launch the setup wizard. During this, it will detect your old SEO plugin and give you the option to import SEO data from that plugin.
It will automatically detect your old SEO plugin when you run the setup wizard and offers to import your SEO data.
You can also manually import SEO data by visiting the All in One SEO » Tools page and switching to the ‘Import/Export’ tab.
Find the ‘Import Settings From Other Plugins’ section and select your old SEO plugin from the drop-down list and then select the items you wish to import.
After that, simply click on the ‘Import’ button to fetch the data.
All in One SEO can fetch the following SEO data.
Did you know that getting started with All in One SEO for WordPress is super easy?
All you have to do is simply install and activate All in One SEO for WordPress plugin. For more details, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: All in One SEO for WordPress is a premium plugin but it also has an incredibly powerful free version called All in One SEO Lite.
Upon activation, the plugin will launch a step by step set up wizard. Simply answer a few questions to complete the setup wizard.
After that, you’re ready to go!
Need more help? See our tutorial on how to properly install and set up All in One SEO for WordPress.
We hope this article helped you discover unique things that you probably didn’t know about All in One SEO. You may also want to see our complete WordPress SEO handbook for beginners or take a look at our pick of essential WordPress plugins for all websites.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post 33 Unique Things You Didn’t Know About All in One SEO (Pro Tips) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to track key metrics like email signups or sales for your site?
If you want your site to be successful, then you need detailed metrics like which pages are getting you the most signups, which traffic source is producing the best results, and more.
In this article, we’ll show you how to set up Google Analytics goals for your WordPress site.
Goals are user interactions that you can track using Google Analytics.
You can set up goals to measure conversions, track sales, email sign-up forms, and more.
All this can help you make more money online and increase your website conversions.
Note: Google Analytics 4 (GA4) replaces Goals with Events, and on July 1, 2023, GA4 will replace the current Universal Analytics. In this post, we will show you how to set up tracking for both Events and Goals simultaneously using the MonsterInsights Dual Tracking feature, as well as how to use Events in GA4 itself.
With goals, you can find out all sorts of details about your site. For instance:
Creating the right goals for your site is important. If you have an online store, there’s not much point in setting a goal to track how many people visit your About page. Instead, your goal should be how many customers buy from you.
Let’s look at how to set up goals in Google Analytics. Here’s what we’re going to cover. Use the quick links to jump straight to that part of the tutorial:
The best way to set up Google Analytics is using MonsterInsights. It is the best analytics plugin for WordPress and automatically sets up tracking for you, and saves a lot of work.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, please check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: You’ll need the Pro version of the plugin or higher to unlock advanced tracking features and reports like the eCommerce report and the form conversions report. There is also a MonsterInsights Lite version you can use for free to get started.
After activating MonsterInsights, you’ll see the welcome screen in your WordPress dashboard. Simply click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button and follow the onscreen instructions.
For more help, check out our instructions on how to install Google Analytics on your site using MonsterInsights.
You can also use the Dual Tracking feature to set up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tracking in WordPress. GA4 is the latest version of Analytics, and it will replace Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023.
After the sunset date, you won’t be able to track data in Universal Analytics and will have to start from scratch. That’s why we recommend swapping to GA4 sooner rather than later. For more details, please see our guide on switching to Google Analytics 4 in WordPress.
Now that you’ve connected Google Analytics with your WordPress site, you can use MonsterInsights to set up goals automatically.
This method is recommended for beginners because you don’t have to manually create goals, edit code, and worry about your tracking working properly.
MonsterInsights helps you track conversions like eCommerce sales, form submissions, file downloads, link clicks, video plays, and more.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these in detail.
Tracking eCommerce Conversion in WordPress
Do you want to find out how many visitors are converting into paying customers?
In Google Analytics, you’d have to set up goals to track specific actions customers perform. This can be tricky for beginners, and it might require editing the tracking code.
However, the MonsterInsights eCommerce addon lets you easily track data from a WooCommerce store. You can also use it with MemberPress, LifterLMS, Easy Digital Downloads, and other eCommerce plugins.
For more details, please see our step-by-step guide on how to set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress.
The best part is that you don’t have to modify the tracking code. MonsterInsights handles everything else for you.
After setting up tracking, you can head to Insights » Reports and click on the ‘eCommerce’ tab to view your report. Once you’ve had some sales, it’ll look something like this:
You won’t have to manually set up goals or events to track eCommerce conversions. The plugin will let you see all sorts of other insights, like your top conversion sources, the total of products added to carts, and the total removed from carts.
You can even see how many days it typically takes people to make a purchase, and how often people visit before making a purchase.
MonsterInsights also shows the percentage of new customers that bought a product for the first time from your store. It even shows a percentage of abandoned checkouts. You can use this data to reduce cart abandonment and convert users into paying customers.
Tracking Form Submissions in Google Analytics
Another great way to use Google Analytics and MonsterInsights is to track form conversions.
You can do this for any type of form. Here are just a few examples:
MonsterInsights works with all WordPress contact form plugins and helps you track form submissions.
To start tracking form conversions in MonsterInsights, go to Insights » Addons and find the Forms addon. Simply click the Install button beneath it to install and activate it.
This addon lets you track form submissions as ‘Events’ in Google Analytics 4. You don’t have to set up anything extra.
Once you’ve installed and activated the addon, you’re done! Just go to Insights » Reports and click on the ‘Forms’ tab to see your report.
After you’ve had some form submissions, it’ll look something like this:
Tracking Link Clicks and File Downloads in Google Analytics
MonsterInsights automatically adds tracking for link and button clicks on your WordPress site. It works out of the box, and you don’t have manually set up goals for tracking different user actions on your site.
You can view the report inside your WordPress dashboard. Simply go to Insights » Reports and click the ‘Publishers’ tab.
For instance, you can see which outbound links users click the most on your website.
Using this information, you can sign up for affiliate programs, get backlinks, submit guest posts, and uncover partnership opportunities.
If you have affiliate links on your site, then MonsterInsights also tracks them in Google Analytics. You can see your top-performing affiliates and promote them throughout your site to get more conversions.
MonsterInsights also automatically tracks file downloads on your site. If you offer downloadable content like ebooks, software, plugins, PDFs, and spreadsheets, then the analytics plugin tracks them in Google Analytics.
Tracking Video Plays in Google Analytics
If you have video content embedded on your site, then MonsterInsights can track them in Google Analytics and show which media content performs the best. It automatically tracks YouTube and Vimeo embeds along with other videos uploaded to your Media Library.
All you need to do is install the MonsterInsights Media addon by going to Insights » Addons from your WordPress dashboard.
Once the addon is active, you can view reports in your WordPress dashboard.
Simply head to Insights » Reports and click the ‘Media’ tab.
Here, you’ll see a graph of how many people played videos on your site in the past 30 days.
If you scroll down, then you can view more details about individual videos. For instance, the report will show video plays, average watch time, average percentage watched, and completion rate for each piece of media content.
For more details, please see our guide on how to track video analytics in WordPress.
If you don’t want to use MonsterInsights, or if you want to track a different type of goal, then you can do this manually in Google Analytics.
Do note that the latest version of Analytics (GA4) doesn’t have goals. You can only set up goals manually in Universal Analytics.
First, log in to your Universal Analytics account and click the ‘Admin’ tab on the bottom left.
Next, you’ll need to head to the View column.
From here, simply click on ‘Goals.’
Next, you can start creating a new goal.
Simply click the ‘+ New Goal’ button.
There are 4 types of goals you can create:
In many cases, Destination or Event goals will work best for tracking your key metrics.
We’re going to create a Destination goal for this example. Give your goal a name, click the radio button next to ‘Destination’ to set the type, and then click the ‘Continue’ button.
Next, you will need to enter the destination for your goal. This will normally be a specific page.
Note: Only enter the part of the URL that comes after your website’s domain name.
For instance, if your page is:https://www.example.com/thank-you-for-booking/
Then you should enter:/thank-you-for-booking/
You can add a value for the conversion if you want. This makes sense if people are completing a payment form or if you know how much each lead is worth to you on average.
If you want to track a funnel, such as a customer moving through a checkout process, then you can also do this as part of the destination goal. This can help you pinpoint areas you might want to improve.
You can click the ‘Verify this Goal’ link to see what conversion rate the goal would have based on your data from the previous 7 days.
If you get 0% and know that you’ve had some form submissions, check the destination URL you’ve entered.
Once you’re happy with your goal, click the ‘Save’ button. You should then see your goal listed in a table. You can edit it, switch it off and on, or create more goals here.
You can’t delete goals once you’ve created them, so you will need to simply switch them off if you no longer want to use them.
You can view your goal data in Google Analytics by going to Conversions » Goals, then clicking on Overview.
In the left-hand menu, you can dig further into your goals.
For instance, ‘Reverse Goal Path’ shows you what content visitors viewed before reaching the goal. Goal Flow can be used to examine all sorts of things, like the source that the visitors came from.
As we mentioned before, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the new version of Google’s analytics platform. One of the main differences between GA4 and Universal Analytics is that there are no goals in the latest version.
That’s because Google Analytics 4 uses a completely different method of tracking and recording data. Instead of goals, it uses events to track user interactions and activities on your website.
You can create a custom event by logging into your GA4 property and then heading to the Admin settings.
After that, go to the Property column.
Simply click on the ‘Events’ option.
Next, you will need to add a new event in GA4.
Go ahead and click the ‘Create event’ button.
A new window will now slide in from the right, where all your custom events will be listed once they’re created.
You can click the ‘Create’ button to get started.
Next, you will need to enter details for your custom event.
You can start by entering a custom event name. GA4 already has many prebuilt events, so you can select one from the dropdown menu. For example, we will choose the ‘file_download’ event for this tutorial.
When you select an event name, GA4 will automatically enter the specific Parameter and Operator for the event. In this case, the event will be tracking the ‘event_name’ when it ‘equals’ a Value you will enter next.
In the ‘Value’ field, we will enter ‘.pdf’ so it tracks the number of downloads when a user downloads a file with the PDF extension. You might also use .epub for ebooks or even a specific word you use to organize filenames such as ‘v2’ or ‘_2023version.’
Once you’ve entered all the details, don’t forget to click the ‘Create’ button at the top.
You should now see your new event under the Custom events area of your dashboard.
Next, you can view reports to see the performance of your custom events.
Simply head to Reports » Engagement » Event: Event name from the menu on your left.
While setting up Events in GA4 is pretty easy, if you want to track multiple things, it can take a long time.
That’s why we think that if you want a simple way to set up event and goal tracking in Google Analytics, then MonsterInsights is definitely the way to go.
Setting up manual goals in Google Analytics might work for you if you’re confident using the Google Analytics interface, or if you have a lot of extra time on your hands.
What matters is that you create and track meaningful goals for your site. This is where MonsterInsights is beneficial, as you can use the data to boost signups, increase sales, and make more money or impact with super easy setup and reporting.
We hope this article helped you learn how to set up Google Analytics goals for your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to increase your website traffic and our pick for the best email marketing services.
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 Set Up Google Analytics Goals for Your WordPress Site first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to delay posts from appearing in your site’s RSS feed?
Delaying posts from appearing immediately can save you from sending out unfinished work accidentally, give you time to edit typos you might see, and help you beat content scrapers in SEO.
In this article, we will show you how to delay posts from appearing in WordPress RSS feed.
Sometimes you may publish a something on your WordPress blog with a typo that you just didn’t see. The mistake is then distributed to your RSS feed and all of your subscribers. If you have email subscriptions on your WordPress blog, then those subscribers will get it as well.
By adding a delay between your RSS feed and your live site, you get a little window of time to catch an error on a live site and fix it.
RSS feeds are also used by content scraping websites. They use it to monitor your content and copy your posts as soon as they appear live. If you have a new website with little authority, then a lot of times these content scrapers may end up beating you in the search results.
By delaying an article in your RSS feed, you can give search engines enough time to crawl and index your content first.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily delay posts from appearing in WordPress website‘s RSS feed.
To begin, we recommend using WPCode to delay posts from appearing in your site’s feed. WPCode lets you add custom code to WordPress safely and easily without having to worry about your site breaking.
For advanced users, you can copy/paste the following code into your theme’s functions.php file instead. You’ll need to modify the code to change the time interval. Remember that editing your core WordPress files can be dangerous, which is why we recommend WPCode. You’ll also lose any custom code snippets when you update your theme.
For details, see our article on how to paste code snippets from the web into WordPress.
function wpb_snippet_publish_later_on_feed( $where ) {
global $wpdb;
if ( is_feed() ) {
// Timestamp in WP-format.
$now = gmdate( 'Y-m-d H:i:s' );
// Number of unit to wait
$wait = '10'; // integer.
// Choose time unit.
$unit = 'MINUTE'; // MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, WEEK, MONTH, YEAR.
// Add SQL-sytax to default $where. By default 10 minutes.
$where .= " AND TIMESTAMPDIFF($unit, $wpdb->posts.post_date_gmt, '$now') > $wait ";
}
return $where;
}
add_filter( 'posts_where', 'wpb_snippet_publish_later_on_feed' );
Now we’ll show you how to do this the easy way with WPCode.
First, you will need to install and activate the free WPCode plugin. For details, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress Plugin.
Upon activation, you can navigate to Code Snippets » Add Snippet. After that, simply search for ‘rss’ or scroll down to the ‘RSS Feeds’ category.
Then, just hover your mouse over ‘Delay Posts in RSS Feeds’ in the results and simply click on ‘Use snippet.’
Next, you will be taken to the ‘Edit Snippet’ screen, where WPCode has pre-configured the snippet settings for you.
By default, your posts will be delayed from appearing in your RSS feed by 10 minutes from the time it’s published.
If that delay is good for you, then all you have to do is click on the switch to change it to ‘Active’ and press the ‘Update’ button.
If you want to alter the length of the delay, you can do so by changing the number on Line 10 and the unit of time on Line 13.
For example, you can delay the post by one hour if you replace $wait = '10'; and $unit = 'MINUTE' with $wait = '1' and $unit = 'HOUR'.
If you need to adjust the delay again, simply repeat those steps, and if you want the posts to go back to hitting the feed immediately, simply toggle the switch back to ‘Inactive’ and press ‘Update.’
Don’t Forget to Check Out the WPCode Snippet Library
WPCode also comes with a huge collection of other code snippets, too. You can see what’s there at Code Snippets » Library in your admin dashboard.
You may be able to replace some single-use plugins on your site by simply activating snippets you find in the library.
For example, you can find snippets that will let you disable automatic updates, allow SVG uploads, set a minimum word count for posts, and much more.
We hope this article helped you learn how to easily delay posts from appearing in WordPress RSS feed. You may also want to see our guide on how to create an email newsletter the right way, or see our expert pick of the best live chat software for small business.
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 Delay Posts From Appearing in WordPress RSS Feed first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to add shoppable Instagram images to your WordPress site?
Instagram shoppable images have links that people can easily click on to buy your products. This is a powerful way to showcase your products and drive more sales from Instagram.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily add Instagram shoppable images in WordPress.
Instagram shopping allows you to tag products in your Instagram photos.
After tagging one or more products, users who are looking at the post will see a ‘View Products’ icon in the bottom-left corner.
They can simply click on that icon to see the product’s name, description, and price.
This makes it easier for shoppers to learn more about the products featured in your social media posts.
Visitors can tap the screen again to go to your Instagram store, where they can buy the product featured in the social media post.
This is great user experience, but it isn’t easy to set up.
You will need to get approval from Instagram to use their shopping features, and some of these requirements are vague. For example, you’ll need to “have demonstrated trustworthiness, including through an authentic, established presence.” You’ll also need to maintain a “sufficient follower base.”
In addition, you’ll have to set up a Facebook catalog, a product catalog, and a Facebook business page.
In other words: it’s a lot.
Because of that, many Instagram users are looking for an easier way to help shoppers buy products. That’s where shoppable Instagram images come in.
A shoppable Instagram feed is a series of photos that have a link to a product or service on your site. These URLs aren’t clickable when viewed on Instagram, as you can see in the following image.
However, when you embed the shoppable feed on your WordPress website, these links do become clickable. In this way, an Instagram shoppable feed encourages the people who visit your website to look at specific products.
Any likes and comments you get on those posts can also act as social proof, and encourage people to click on the product’s link.
As you post new shoppable images to Instagram, they’ll appear on your site automatically, so visitors will always see the latest posts without you having to add them manually.
If visitors like what they see, they may even decide to follow you on Instagram. This can get you more followers, and gives you another way to promote directly to that person.
Even better, since these shoppable links appear on your website, you have complete control over them. This means you don’t have to follow Instagram’s strict shoppable policies, or set up a Facebook product catalog.
With that being said, let’s see how you can easily add Instagram shoppable images to your WordPress website using Smash Balloon Instagram Pro.
First, you need to upload the images that you want to use on your Instagram account.
Smash Balloon has a shoppable feature that allows you to link each image to a URL inside the plugin settings. With this feature enabled, visitors can click on a shoppable image on your website, and its link will open in a new tab.
These links won’t appear on Instagram.
Another option is adding the link to your Instagram captions. These links will show up on Instagram, but they won’t be clickable.
However, these links will be clickable on your WordPress website. If you want to use this method, then you’ll need to spend some time adding a URL to each shoppable image on your Instagram account.
If you’re planning to use Smash Balloon’s shoppable feature, then you can skip this step as we’ll be adding each link inside the plugin’s settings.
The best way to add Instagram shoppable images in WordPress is by using Smash Balloon Instagram Pro.
In this guide, we’ll be using the premium version of Smash Balloon as it has the advanced features you need to add shoppable images in WordPress. However, there’s also a free version that allows you to embed Instagram in WordPress.
Before getting started, you’ll need to connect your Instagram account to a Facebook page. If you have a personal Instagram account, then you may also want to turn it into a business account as this allows Smash Balloon to show your Instagram bio and header automatically.
When you’re ready, go ahead and install and activate the Smash Balloon Instagram Pro plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to Instagram Feed » Settings and enter your license key into the ‘License Key’ field.
You’ll find this information under your account on the Smash Balloon website.
After entering the key, click on the ‘Activate’ button.
After activating the plugin, your first task is connecting your Instagram account to WordPress. Simply go to Instagram Feed » Settings and then click on ‘Add New.’
With Instagram Feed pro, you can create feeds from tagged posts and hashtags, or even create a social wall with content from lots of different social media websites.
We want to show shoppable images from our Instagram timeline, so simply select ‘User Timeline’ and then click on ‘Next.’
Now, choose the Instagram account where you’ll get the shoppable images from.
To get started, click on the ‘Add Source’ button.
After that, choose whether you want to show shoppable images from a personal or business Instagram account.
If you check the box next to ‘Personal’ then Smash Balloon won’t include the Instagram avatar and bio in your header by default. However, you can always add the Instagram avatar and bio manually in the plugin’s settings.
After choosing ‘Personal’ or ‘Business,’ click on ‘Login with Facebook.’
You can now select the Instagram account that you want to feature on your WordPress website, and click on ‘Next.’
After that, check the box next to the Facebook page that’s linked to the Instagram account with your shoppable images.
Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Next’ button.
You’ll now see a popup with all the information Instagram Feed Pro will have access to and the actions it can perform.
To restrict the plugin’s access to your Instagram account, simply click any of the switches to turn it from ‘Yes’ to ‘No.’ Just be aware that this may affect the photos that you can show on your WordPress blog or website.
With that in mind, we recommend leaving all the switches enabled. When you’re happy with the settings, click on ‘Done.’
You’ll now see a popup with the Instagram account you just added to your website.
Simply check the box next to that account and then click on ‘Add.’
Instagram Feed Pro will now take you back to the Instagram Feeds » All Feeds screen.
To create a feed, just check the box next to the Instagram account that you want to use. Then, click on ‘Next.’
The plugin will now create an Instagram photo feed that you can add to any page, post, or widget-ready area.
However, before you can show shoppable images there are a few extra settings to configure.
As we already mentioned, there are two ways to make your Instagram photo feed shoppable. If you’ve added the URLs to your captions on Instagram, then simply skip to the next step.
Another option is to open shoppable links in a new tab as soon as the visitor clicks on a post. To do this, you’ll need to enable Smash Balloon’s shoppable feature.
To start, select the ‘Settings’ tab and then click on ‘Shoppable Feed.’
On this screen, go ahead and toggle the ‘Enable’ slider so that it turns blue.
Smash Balloon will now show an ‘Add’ button on every photo or video in your Instagram feed.
Simply find the first post that you want to make shoppable, and click on its ‘Add’ button.
You can now type the product or service’s URL into the ‘Product Link’ field and click on ‘Add.’
Now, clicking on this photo will open the linked URL in a new tab.
Simply repeat these steps to make every image shoppable.
If you need to change a post’s URL at any point, then just hover your mouse over it and click on ‘Update.’
Once you’ve added all your links, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button.
By default, Smash Balloon shows all the images and videos from your Instagram account. However, since we’re creating a shoppable feed you may want to filter your posts, and only show photos that link to a product or service.
This can help shoppers find products to buy, without getting distracted by other photos and videos in your Instagram feed.
With Smash Balloon, it’s easy to filter Instagram posts based on their captions. You can simply add a keyword or hashtag to your shoppable images on Instagram, and then create a matching filter in Smash Balloon.
For example, in the following image we’re using the #ordernow hashtag for all the images we want to make shoppable.
To create a filter in Smash Balloon, select the ‘Settings’ tab.
Then, go ahead and click on ‘Filters and Moderation.’
In the ‘Only show posts containing’ box, type in the hashtags or keywords that you want to use in the filter.
If you want to use multiple words in the filter, then simply separate each hashtag or keyword with a comma.
When you’re happy with how the filter is set up, click on the ‘Save’ button.
Just be aware that the preview won’t update straight away, so you’ll need to refresh the page to see the filter in action.
When you’re happy with the photos and videos that appear in your shoppable feed, you may want to change how the feed looks.
To customize your shoppable Instagram feed, simply click on the ‘Customize’ tab. On the left-hand side are all the settings you can use to change how the shoppable feed looks.
Most of these settings are self-explanatory, but we’ll quickly cover some key areas that can help you get more sales.
Let’s start at the top, by selecting ‘Feed Layout.’ Here, you can choose different layouts for your shoppable feed, such as carousel and highlight.
As you make changes, the preview will update automatically so you can try different settings to see what looks the best.
Depending on the layout, you’ll get some extra settings that you can use to fine-tune your feed. For example if you choose ‘Highlight’ then you can tell Smash Balloon to highlight posts based on a pattern, post ID, or a specific hashtag. This is great for highlighting your most popular products.
By 2025, it’s estimated that US consumers will spend $710 billion every year shopping on their mobile devices. With that in mind, you’ll want to make sure the shoppable Instagram feed looks just as good on smartphones and tablets, as it does on desktops.
By default, Smash Balloon will show the same number of photos on desktop computers and mobile devices.
You can preview how the shoppable feed will look on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones using the row of buttons in the upper-right corner.
You can show fewer shoppable photos on mobile devices by changing the settings in the ‘Number of Posts’ and ‘Columns’ sections.
After making any changes, click on the ‘Customize’ link. This will take you back to the main Smash Balloon editor, ready for you to explore the next option, which is ‘Color Scheme.’
By default, Smash Balloon uses a color scheme inherited from your WordPress theme, but it also has ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’ themes that you may want to use for the shoppable feed instead.
Another option is creating your own color scheme by selecting ‘Custom.’ Then, simply use the controls to change the background color, change the text color in WordPress, and more.
By default, Smash Balloon adds a header to the shoppable feed, which is your profile picture and the name of your page.
To change how this section looks, click on ‘Header’ in the left-hand menu and then use the settings to change the size of your header, add Instagram bio text, and more.
You can also add a different bio. For example, you might encourage people to buy your products, or offer visitors an exclusive coupon code.
For more information on creating these codes, please see our expert pick of the best WordPress coupon code plugins for your online store.
To create a unique Instagram bio, simply type into the ‘Add custom bio’ box.
With that done, click on ‘Customize’ to return to the main Smash Balloon editor.
Then, select ‘Posts.’
This takes you to a screen that has a few different options.
You can look through these settings and make any changes you want, but we’re going to focus on ‘Caption.’
If you added shoppable links to your captions, then it’s important to make the text stand out. For example, you might make the caption bigger.
You might even use a different color for the caption.
With that done, click on ‘Posts’ to go back to the previous screen.
Here, you’ll also see a ‘Hover State’ option, which is the overlay that Smash Balloon adds to a post when you hover over it.
This allows visitors to see any links in your captions without opening that Instagram post first.
On this screen, you can use the settings to create an eye-catching colored overlay.
After selecting ‘Hover State’ you’ll be able to change the background color and text color that appears when you hover over each post.
Under ‘Information to display,’ you’ll see all the different information that Smash Balloon can show as part of the overlay. Simply check the box next to each piece of information that you want to show.
If the caption contains shoppable links, then make sure you leave ‘Caption’ enabled.
When you’re happy with your changes, click on ‘Customize’ to return to the main Smash Balloon editor screen. You can now select the next option, which is ‘Load More Button.’
By default, Smash Balloon adds a ‘Load More’ button to the bottom of your Instagram feed so visitors can scroll through your shoppable posts.
Here, you can change the button’s background color, text color, and hover state.
You can also add your own messaging to the button by typing into the ‘Text’ field.
While we recommend leaving the ‘Load More’ button enabled to get more sales, you can remove it. For example, you might encourage people to visit your Instagram page by limiting the number of photos they can see on your site.
To remove the button, simply click on the ‘Enable’ slider to turn it from blue to grey.
If shoppers like what they see, they may decide to follow you on Instagram using the ‘Follow on Instagram’ button that appears below the shoppable feed.
Since it’s such an important button, you may want to help it stand out by selecting ‘Follow Button’ from the main Smash Balloon editor screen.
Here, you can change the button’s background color, hover state, and text color.
You may also replace the default ‘Follow on Instagram’ text with your own messaging.
As always, when you’re finished with these settings, click on ‘Customize’ to return to the main editor screen.
If you’ve enabled the Smash Balloon shoppable feature, then clicking on any post in the Instagram feed will open a new tab and take them straight to the linked product page.
However, if you haven’t enabled the shoppable feature then you may want to take a look at Smash Balloon’s lightbox feature.
This feature allows visitors to open the image or video in a lightbox popup, without leaving your WordPress website. They can then click on any shoppable links in the captions.
To enable or disable the lightbox, simply select ‘Lightbox’ from the left-hand menu.
Here, you can remove or add this feature using the ‘Enable’ slider.
You can also change how many comments Smash Balloon will show in the lightbox. Lots of positive comments can be a powerful form of social proof, which will often help you sell more products and services.
However, they can also be distracting so you may want to type a maximum number into the ‘No. of comments’ box.
Another option is to hide comments completely, by clicking on the ‘Comments’ toggle.
When you’re happy with how the Instagram feed looks, don’t forget to click on ‘Save’ to store your changes. You’re now ready to add the shoppable Instagram feed to your website.
You can add the shoppable feed to your website using a block, widget, or shortcode.
If you’ve created more than one feed using the Smash Balloon plugin, then you’ll need to know the feed’s code if you’re going to use a widget or block.
To get this code, go to Instagram Feed » All Feeds and then copy the value in the ‘Shortcode’ column.
If you want to embed the Instagram feed in a page or post, then we recommend using the Instagram Feed block.
Just open the page or post where you want to embed your shoppable photo and video feed. Then, click on the ‘+’ icon to add a new block and start typing ‘Instagram Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the page or post.
The block will show one of your Smash Balloon feeds by default. If you want to show a different Instagram feed instead, then find ‘Shortcode Settings’ in the right-hand menu.
Here, simply add the shortcode and then click on ‘Apply Changes.’
The block will now show all the photos and videos from your Instagram feed. Just publish or update the page to make the feed live on your website.
Another option is to add the feed to any widget-ready area, such as the sidebar or similar section. This allows visitors to shop using your Instagram feed from any page of your site.
Simply go to Appearance » Widgets in the WordPress dashboard and then click on the blue ‘+’ button.
In the search bar, type in ‘Instagram Feed’ and select the right widget when it appears.
Just be aware that WordPress has a built-in Instagram widget, so make sure you choose the one that shows the official Instagram logo.
Next, simply drag the widget onto the area where you want to show the shoppable Instagram feed, such as the sidebar or similar section.
The widget will automatically show one of the feeds you created using Smash Balloon. If this isn’t the shoppable Instagram feed you just created, then type the feed’s code into the ‘Shortcode Settings’ box.
After that, click on ‘Apply Changes.’
You can now make the widget live by clicking on the ‘Update’ button. For more information, please see our step-by-step guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
Another option is embedding the Instagram feed on any page, post, or widget-ready area using a shortcode.
For help placing the shortcode, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode.
Finally, if you’re using a block-enabled theme, then you can use the full-site editor to add the Instagram Feed block anywhere on your website.
In your dashboard, simply go to Appearance » Editor.
By default, the full-site editor will show the theme’s home template. If you want to add the shoppable feed to a different template, then click on the arrow next to ‘Home.’
You can then choose any design from the dropdown, such as the footer template.
If you don’t see the template in the list, select ‘Browse all templates.’
The full-site editor will now show a list of all the templates you can edit. Simply click on the template where you want to show the shoppable Instagram feed.
After choosing a template, just hover your mouse over the area where you want to add the shoppable Instagram feed.
Then, click on the ‘+’ button.
After that, start typing in ‘Instagram Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the template.
As always, Smash Balloon will show a feed by default. You can change this feed by adding a shortcode following the same process described above.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add Instagram shoppable images in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create a free business email address, or see our expert pick of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Add Instagram Shoppable Images in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
WordPress, like any platform, is constantly under threat from security attacks. But the good news is that the WordPress community offers numerous solutions to keep your site safe. Here are some key steps to secure your WordPress site: Add HTTPS/SSL: Use a Secure Admin Username: Enforce Strong Passwords: WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS [...]
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