Do you want to add dark mode to your WordPress site?
By adding a dark mode to WordPress, your website will adapt automatically based on the visitor’s browser preferences. You can also add a dark mode toggle to your site, so visitors can easily switch between dark and light modes.
In this article, we’ll show you how to add dark mode to your WordPress website.
What is Dark Mode and Why Add it to Your Website?
Many modern mobile devices and computers use dark mode to minimize the amount of white light that comes from the screen. This can reduce eye strain, especially in low-light conditions.
Some people even believe that it allows you to use computers and mobile devices late into the night without the white and blue light ruining your sleep.
Some devices come with a built-in night mode that simply uses warmer color tones. However, dark mode actually adds dark colors to the device’s background.
If you have an iPhone or Android smartphone, then you may be able to switch to dark mode using a toggle. Some popular websites like YouTube even offer a built-in dark color scheme.
On desktop computers, you can visit websites in dark mode by using a Chrome extension such as Night Eye.
Here’s how the WPBeginner website looks using that extension:
By adding a dark mode toggle to your website, users will be able to choose the mode they prefer without having to install a special browser extension.
Many plugins also allow you to customize how dark mode looks on your website, so you don’t have to use the browser or device’s default settings.
You can even add dark mode to your WordPress admin area. This can be useful if you work on your site in the evenings or at night, or if you’re suffering from eye strain.
With that in mind, let’s see how you can add dark mode to your website’s public-facing front-end, and the admin area of your WordPress website.
Tip: Want to use a dark color scheme, even when the visitor’s device is in normal or daytime mode? Then check out our list of the best dark themes for WordPress.
How to Add Dark Mode to Your WordPress Website
The easiest way to create a dark mode for your website is by using Droit Dark Mode. This plugin adds a toggle so visitors can enable dark mode on the front end of your site. It can even add a toggle to the admin area, so you can enable dark mode for the WordPress dashboard.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the Droit Dark Mode plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to Droit Dark Mode » Preset Colors and choose how your dark mode will look to visitors. The free version of the plugin comes with two preset colors, so select the color that you want to use.
After that, click on ‘Display Settings’ and select a style for your dark mode switch.
Next, open the Body Position dropdown and choose where the slider will appear on your WordPress blog or website. You’ll typically want to add it to the top of your site so visitors can easily switch between the different modes.
With the setup out of the way, it’s time to enable dark mode by selecting ‘General Settings.’
To start, you’ll need to activate ‘Enable Front-end Dark mode,’ which will add the switch to your website’s front-end.
At the moment, WordPress will always load your site in regular, light mode.
If you want to make dark mode the default, then simply click to activate the ‘Enable Default Dark Mode’ switch.
With that done, just click on ‘Save Settings.’ Now if you visit your website, you’ll see the new dark mode switch in action.
To enable and disable dark mode, simply give the switch a click.
Adding Dark Mode to Your WordPress Admin Area
You can change the admin color scheme in WordPress using the built-in settings. However, none of the default color schemes reduce the white light coming from the screen.
If you work late into the evening or suffer from eye strain, then you can try adding a dark mode to the WordPress admin area.
Simply go to Droit Dark Mode » General Settings and click to activate the ‘Enable Backend Dark Mode’ toggle.
After that, you can choose a color scheme for the admin dark mode. Just open the new ‘Select Color Palette’ dropdown and select either Color 1 or Color 2.
With that done, click on ‘Save Changes.’
Droit Dark Mode will now add a dark mode toggle to the admin toolbar. To see admin dark mode in action, just click the toggle.
If you’re not happy with how dark mode looks, then open the ‘Select Color Palette’ dropdown and choose a new style from the list.
After that, click on ‘Save Settings’ and use the toggle to see the new colors in action.
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Did you know that you can create an ebook from your WordPress blog posts?
Offering ebook downloads on your WordPress website is a good way to make money online or grow your email list. Writing a book is a big job, but you may discover that you’ve already written enough content for a book on your blog.
In this article, we’ll show you a smart way on how to create an ebook from your WordPress blog posts.
Why Create an Ebook From Your WordPress Blog Posts?
If you publish regular blog posts on your WordPress website, then you have a lot of content that you can repurpose or monetize. One of the best ways to repurpose your content is to turn your blog into an ebook.
However, writing a book is difficult, and 97% of people who start to write a book never finish.
The good news is that you may have already written a book. Your most popular blog posts may already contain enough quality content to repurpose as a successful ebook. Or you can use your blog to write a new book one post at a time.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to create an ebook from your WordPress blog posts. Here’s what we’ll cover in this tutorial:
Your first job is to decide which blog posts should be included in your ebook. If your blog is about a certain topic or niche, then you may just need to find your most popular blog posts. Each post will become a chapter of your ebook.
However, if you wish to create multiple ebooks, then you should choose blog posts that cover more specific topics, such as popular posts in a specific category. You can even consider future ebook ideas when you are planning the content to write about on your blog.
How to Find Your Most Engaging Content to Include in an Ebook
You want to create an ebook that people actually want to read. A good starting point is to find your most engaging and popular blog posts. That way, you already know that your readers are interested in these topics.
If you are not already tracking user engagement on your WordPress blog, then the best way to get started is by using MonsterInsights. It’s the best Analytics plugin for WordPress and helps you configure Google Analytics without writing code.
When you install and activate MonsterInsights, you will also set up Google Analytics tracking in WordPress. Once your blog has been tracked for some time, you will be able to view important user engagement metrics such as your most popular content.
You just need to visit the Insights » Reports page in your WordPress admin area and go to the ‘Overview’ report. You can scroll down to see different reports, and you will find your most popular content under the ‘Top Posts/Pages’ section.
Now that you know what your most popular posts are, you need to choose which ones to include in your ebook. They should contain evergreen content that will stay fresh and also fit together logically as chapters to form a complete ebook.
Writing a Series of Blog Posts to Create Content for an Ebook
Another way to come up with blog content for an ebook is to write a series of articles on a particular topic. These blog posts can then be compiled into an ebook.
We do something similar on WPBeginner, where we regularly compile a series of posts into a new article. Here are some examples of articles we have compiled with repurposed content from our existing articles:
In fact, whenever you are writing about a complex topic, it is almost always better to write a series of posts that break the topic up into smaller parts.
Quickly Updating the Posts You Choose for Your Ebook
Once you have chosen the blog posts you wish to include in your ebook, take some time to quickly update them if necessary. By doing that now, you will make sure that both the blog post and ebook are free from errors and contain all of the necessary information.
You can start by making sure there are no spelling or grammar errors in the post. Most likely you did this before publishing each post, but it’s worth checking this again in case something was missed.
Also, take time to check the comments on each post. They may identify areas where the blog post isn’t clear enough or is missing important information. Take time to address those issues.
Later in this article, you will make further edits that will be needed in the ebook but not the blog posts.
Creating Professional-Looking Cover Art for Your Ebook
One of the best ways to create an ebook that looks professional is to use a well-designed ebook cover. Your readers will actually judge your book by its cover.
You could hire a graphic designer using websites such as 99designs or Fiverr. Or you can use graphic design software or web services to do it yourself even if you don’t have design skills.
Before you create the cover art for your book, make sure you first finalize the ebook title. It should be clear and concise, grab the reader’s attention, and describe what the book is about. You may also want to create a subtitle and book description.
One of the easiest ways to create cover art is with Canva, a free online graphic design tool. It comes with easy-to-use tools that allow you to create a book cover from a template.
The basic Canva account is free and gives you access to dozens of ready-made templates. To get the full power of Canva, you may want to sign up for a Pro account. This lets you upload your own fonts, set your brand colors, and more.
After creating your account, simply type ‘book cover’ into the search box and then click on the ‘Book Cover’ search result.
Canva will display a list of thousands of book cover templates. These have the correct width ratio of 1.6 and also a high-quality resolution of 1410 x 2250 pixels.
You can filter the list by clicking the genres at the top of the screen, or by checking one of the styles or themes on the left. This will help you find the most suitable templates quickly.
Once you find a template you want to use for your cover art, you should click it to preview it. You will also see whether it is a free, paid, or pro template. After that, you should click the ‘Customize this template’ button.
Canva will now load its drag-and-drop editing interface. You can point and click on any item in the template to edit it. Make sure you type the correct title, subtitle, and author. You can rotate, resize, crop, and delete items.
You can also add more text, icons, shapes, patterns, and backgrounds to your design from the left column. However, you will often get the best result by making simple changes.
When you have finished creating your cover art, you will need to save it to your computer. Simply select File » Download from the menu at the top of the screen.
You can select a variety of file types from the drop-down menu, including PDF, JPG, and PNG. For this tutorial, we will choose PNG and then click the ‘Download’ button.
Method 1: Turning Blog Posts Into an Ebook Using Google Docs (Free)
You can create an ebook from your blog posts using Google Docs. This requires a little more manual work than our second method, but it’s free and makes it easy for you to edit and customize your ebook.
You need to start by creating a new Google Doc and naming it with your ebook’s title.
After that, make sure that under the View menu, ‘Show Print Layout’ is checked. This will allow you to see how each page of your ebook will look.
Inserting Your Ebook Cover Art
The first thing you need to do is insert the cover art you created earlier.
You can either use drag and drop to place it on the first page, or select Insert » Image from the menu and upload it to your computer.
Once you’ve done that, you should select Insert » Break » Page break from the menu to start a new page.
Creating a Title Page and Table of Contents
On the new page, you should type the title of your ebook. Before you press enter, make sure you format it as a title by selecting ‘Title’ from the Styles drop-down menu.
If you wish to center the title, then you need to select Format » Align & Indent » Center.
You can now press the Enter key several times and type the ebook’s subtitle if you have one, as well as your name or your blog’s name as the author.
You might like to format them using a larger font and center them. Don’t use a heading style, or these lines will be included in your table of contents. You can also use the enter key to space these lines appropriately down the page.
Once you’re done, you should select Insert » Break » Page break from the menu again to start another new page.
On the next page, you will add the table of contents. Google Docs will populate this with headings as you add content to the document.
Start by typing the heading ‘Table of Contents’ and format it with the Heading 1 style.
Tip: If your text is still being centered, then you will need to select Format » Clear formatting from the menu to return to the default formatting.
Now you can press Enter and select Insert » Table of Contents from the menu. You can choose from a version with page numbers and a version with hyperlinks.
At the moment, the table of contents will be quite empty, but it will be updated as you add blog posts to your ebook.
Pasting the Your Blog Post Contents
Now it’s time to start pasting the content from your blog posts into Google Docs. Before you paste each blog post, make sure you insert a new page break (Insert » Break » Page break) so each ebook chapter starts on a new page.
Then, just head to your WordPress website and navigate to your blog post.
Simply highlight the entire post, copy it to the clipboard, and then paste it into Google Docs. After that, insert another page break and repeat until all the blog posts have been copied.
You may also want to set the title of the posts to Heading 2 in Google Docs so they’re included as chapters in your Table of Contents and document outline.
For our demo ebook, we pasted the contents of 7 blog posts into Google Docs to produce a 167-page ebook. Selecting Tools » Word count from the menu shows that the document contains almost 25,000 words.
Editing Your Ebook Contents
Now you should work through your ebook content and make any changes that are necessary. Some things that work well in a blog post won’t belong in an ebook.
For example, you may need to tweak the title of each blog post so it works better as a chapter heading. And if you added a call to action at the bottom of each blog post, then you may need to remove it from each chapter in your ebook.
You may need to replace references to ‘posts’ with ‘chapters’. Also, you should replace internal links to your blog with links to the chapters in your ebook if they are included.
You should also work on the transitions between chapters so your book flows better, otherwise, it might read like a collection of separate blog posts. You might also want to add a stronger introduction and conclusion to the book.
You might also like to add additional material to the book, such as sections on:
How to use this book
What you’ll find in this book
About the author
Contact information
Copyright information
Disclosures
Resources and links
Footnotes and sources
Finally, make sure you correct any spelling and grammar errors you find while editing.
Customizing Your Ebook’s Design
Before you export your ebook from Google Docs, consider whether you can improve the design of your ebook.
For example, you can customize the appearance of your headings or normal text.
This is easy to do in Google Docs. You can start by changing the format of a particular heading directly. Just select the font you want, if you want it bold or underlined, or other design choices.
After that, with that text still highlighted, select Heading 1 » Update Heading 1 to match from the drop-down menu to automatically change all other headings to match.
You can also add a header or footer that includes your ebook title and page numbers.
Just select Insert » Headers & Footers and then click ‘Header’ or ‘Footer’ in the menu. You can set up page numbers by clicking the ‘Options’ menu from the header.
When you are happy with the way your ebook is formatted, then it’s time to export it in an ebook format.
Exporting Your Ebook as a PDF
Now that you have finished creating your ebook, you can save it to your computer as a PDF. Simply select File » Download » PDF Document from the menu.
Tip: Before exporting your ebook, we recommend you update the table of contents to include any new chapters you have added. When you click on the table of contents, you will find a button labeled ‘Update table of contents’ at the top.
Google Docs also allows you to download the ebook as an EPUB Publication. This format should be used if you want to make the book available in a marketplace such as Amazon’s Kindle Store.
Method 2: Turning Blog Posts Into an Ebook Using a Plugin
You can also create an ebook from your blog posts using a plugin. MPL-Publisher is the best ebook creator plugin because it covers everything you need to do in an easy-to-use interface.
You will need to use the premium version to export your ebook as a PDF file. This costs $49 per WordPress site and also offers a cover editor and the ability to store the settings for multiple books. The free version can export in EPUB and Microsoft Word formats, and more.
Upon activation, you will need to enter the license key that was emailed to you. Simply navigate to MPL-Publisher » Publish eBook on the admin sidebar, then click on the ‘Premium’ tab. Now you can paste the license key into the field provided.
Entering the Book Details
Next, you need to enter some details about your book. Make sure you are looking at the ‘Details’ tab of the MPL-Publisher » Publish eBook page.
From here, you can fill in the book details such as the title, subtitle, author, and description.
Next, you should click on the ‘Meta’ tab where you can enter metadata about the book.
You will find fields where you can fill in the book’s ISBN (or some other unique identifier), language, publication date, publisher name, and copyright information.
You can scroll to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Save’ button to store the book details and metadata.
Inserting Your Ebook Cover Art
Now you can move to the ‘Cover’ tab. Here you can add the cover image that you created earlier.
Simply click the ‘Select Image’ button and you will be taken to your site’s Media Library. From there, you can upload the cover art and then click the ‘Select’ button.
If you haven’t already created your cover art, you can use the plugin’s Cover Editor to create a book cover right from the WordPress dashboard. Note that this is one of the plugin’s premium features.
Customizing Your Ebook’s Design
Now you can switch to the plugin’s ‘Design’ tab to choose how your book will be formatted. Several themes are available, and you simply click on the theme you wish to use.
When you scroll down the page, you can choose whether to include the post’s featured images in the ebook and whether to insert or embed the images in the ebook.
Make sure you choose the second or third option. We recommend you avoid the first option, which is to link the images from your website.
Advanced users can also format their books using custom CSS.
Make sure you scroll down and click the ‘Save’ button to store your progress.
Selecting the Posts to Include in Your Ebook
On the left of the screen, you will see a list of posts on your website. To include a post in the ebook, simply click its checkbox.
If you have a lot of posts on your website, then you make it easier to find the posts you wish to include by filtering the list. You will find filters for type, status, category, month, and year.
For this tutorial, we’ll filter the list to include only posts (not pages) that have been published. We’ll also filter the list by the ‘Blogging’ category.
Simply select the desired criteria from the drop-down menus and then click the ‘Filter content’ button.
Next to each post, you will see a word count and how long the chapter will take to read.
Once you check the posts you wish to include, you can reorder them by dragging and dropping the hamburger icon. That’s the icon that looks like three horizontal lines.
When creating your ebook, MPL-Publisher will automatically create a table of contents containing these chapters.
Editing Your Ebook Contents
You can edit a post by clicking the ‘Edit’ link that appears under the post when you hover your mouse over it. The changes will be seen in both your ebook and the post on your website.
If you want to edit the ebook contents only, leaving the post on your website as it is, then you need to click the ‘Duplicate and Edit’ link. This will create a duplicate of the post with the ‘Book Chapter’ custom post type.
Once you update the book chapter, you will need to uncheck the original post, then locate and check the new book chapter you just created. Book chapters display a book icon beside the title.
If you want to add a new chapter to your book that doesn’t appear on your blog, then you can click the ‘Add New Book Chapter’ button.
This will create a new blank book chapter that will be found only in your book, and not on your blog.
In Method 1 above, we provide a list of additional material you might like to add to your ebook, such as contact information, disclaimers, and more.
Exporting Your Ebook as a PDF
Once you have finished setting up the ebook, you can export it. You need to scroll down to the ‘Output format’ and choose ‘Adobe File (PDF)’ as the file type.
Alternatively, you could select ‘Microsoft Word (DOCX)’ if you plan to continue editing the book or sending it to a professional editor, or ‘EPUB 3.0’ if you plan to make the book available in an online ebook store.
If you like, you can check the ‘Validate content before download’ box. This ensures that the ebook will not contain HTML errors.
Finally, simply click the ‘Download eBook’ button, and MPL-Publisher will compile your ebook and download it in the format you specified.
How to Promote and Monetize Your eBook in WordPress
Now that you have created an ebook from your blog posts, you need a way to promote it, so more visitors can get your ebook. There are a few ways to do this.
The method you choose depends on your business goal. You can giveaway the ebook for free to raise awareness, use ebook as a lead magnet to get more email subscribers, or sell your ebook to make money online.
1. Allowing Free Ebook Downloads in WordPress
You can offer your ebook as a free download using the WordPress file block.
Simply edit the post or page where you want to add your ebook download and then add a ‘File’ block.
This will allow you to upload the ebook to your site, and it will be displayed in the post in a small PDF viewer by default.
Tip: Want your visitors to be able to search for your ebook’s content on your website? WordPress doesn’t do this by default, so we wrote a guide on how to add PDF indexing and search in WordPress.
2. Using Ebook Downloads to Get More Subscribers
If you’re using your ebook to grow your email list or capture leads, then you’ll want to make sure your visitors can’t access the ebook until they share their email addresses.
Once installed and activated, you can easily add new downloads to your website. It’s easy to add a title and description for your ebook, as well as categories and tags.
The plugin also handles pricing. You can choose variable pricing with multiple options. You may have one option to sell just the ebook and another that includes an additional product. Using EDD, they will both show on the same product page.
You can also simply set a single price for your ebook purchase.
After that, you can upload your ebook and add a cover image that will be displayed on your website.
The easiest way to promote your ebook is to your existing audience. Both email newsletters and push notifications are an excellent way to spread the word about your new ebook launch.
You can use PushEngage to setup push notification for your blog readers. This has among the highest engagement rates.
Another proven technique you can use to promote your ebook is giveaways. These help you leverage the power of social media to bring more new users to your blog.
We recommend using RafflePress plugin to create a viral giveaway since it seamlessly connects with all major social media platforms.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to create an ebook from your WordPress blog posts. You may also want to learn how to start your own podcast, or check out our comparison of the best WordPress SEO plugins to grow your traffic.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Do you want to change how often your trash is emptied on your WordPress website, or stop WordPress from emptying the trash automatically?
By default, WordPress will automatically delete anything that has been in the trash for 30 days. However, some users might like the trash to be emptied more or less often, or prefer to empty the trash manually.
In this article, we will show you how to limit or disable the trash being automatically emptied in WordPress.
What Is Trash in WordPress?
WordPress added a trash feature way back in version 2.9. It works just like the recycle bin or trash on your computer.
In other words, your deleted posts aren’t removed permanently but are sent to the trash instead so they can be recovered for a time. Anyone can delete a post accidentally. That’s why WordPress makes it easy to restore deleted posts and pages.
You can view them by going to Posts » All Posts from your WordPress dashboard and then clicking the ‘Trash’ option.
Your WordPress website will automatically delete anything in the trash after 30 days so that it doesn’t pile up.
What if you don’t want WordPress to automatically delete items from the trash? Or you’d prefer it to be emptied more or less often than once a month.
Let’s have a look at how you can have it automatically emptied as often as you like. We’ll cover three methods below. The first method is the easiest for most users. You can use the links below to jump to your preferred method.
Upon activation, you should visit the Settings » General page of your admin dashboard. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the page, and you will find a new ‘Time to empty trash (in days)’ setting.
Simply type in the number of days that WordPress should take to empty the trash. For example, you can type 1 for daily, 7 for weekly, or 30 for monthly.
If you type 0, then deleted posts and pages will be deleted permanently instead of being placed in the trash.
Note: Be very careful about setting the time to empty to 0. It can be difficult to recover permanently deleted posts and pages. Make sure you’re using a backup plugin, just in case.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Method 2: Changing when WordPress Trash Is Emptied with Code
You can also configure how regularly the trash is emptied by the use of a code snippet. This method is not recommended for beginners, so if you’re not familiar with code, then you should use Method 1 instead.
For this method, you’ll have to edit your wp-config.php file.
If you haven’t edited the wp-config.php file before, then take a look at our guide on how to edit wp-config.php file in WordPress.
You can simply add the following line of code to your wp-config.php file.
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 1 ); //Integer is the amount of days
You should paste it near the end of the file, just before the line that says, ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’
If you leave this code snippet as it is, then your trash will be emptied every day. Feel free to change the number 1 to some other number, and the trash will be emptied after that number of days.
If you don’t wish to use the trash feature at all, then you should set the number to 0. Deleted posts and pages will then be deleted permanently without being placed in the trash.
Make sure you have a backup plugin set up first, just in case you need to restore any accidentally deleted pages.
Don’t forget to save the wp-config.php file once you have made your changes.
Method 3: Stopping WordPress from Automatically Emptying Trash
Do you want to stop WordPress from automatically deleting items from the trash?
Now, we don’t generally recommend editing your site’s theme files directly. The slightest mistake can break your website. A better way of adding code snippets is by using WPCode.
Are you wondering which marketing data you should be tracking on your WordPress website?
After launching a website, most small business owners rely on their best guesses to make important marketing decisions. Not only does that add huge risk, but it also significantly slows down growth.
In this guide, we will share the top website marketing data that you must track on every WordPress site, so you can make data-driven decisions to grow your business.
Why Do You Need to Track Marketing Data in WordPress?
We believe it’s easy to double your traffic and sales when you know exactly how people find and use your website. Most business owners do not realize how easy it is to track important marketing metrics on your WordPress site.
For example, with a few clicks, you can find out who your visitors are, where they are coming from, and what they do on your website. You can learn which of your articles are getting more visits and which pages on your site are not getting any views.
If you run an online store, then you can see what’s your website conversion rate, which page drives the most sales, what are your top referral sources, and more.
You can use all this marketing data to make informed business decisions and grow your business with confidence.
That said, let’s take a look at the top website marketing stats that you must track on every WordPress site. You can click the links below to quickly jump to any section you’re interested in:
The best way to track marketing data on your WordPress website is by using Google Analytics. It is the most popular website analytics software in the world and is loved by businesses, bloggers, and marketers because it provides a treasure trove of information.
For example, you can use Google Analytics to learn:
The number of visits and pageviews on your website
Who is visiting your website (visitor location, browser, operating system, screen size, and more)
How they found your website
How users interact with your website
And a whole lot more
Google Analytics is an essential tool in our own business. However, you’ll need to add a tracking code to your website, which requires editing code. This can be tricky for beginners, and the slightest mistake can mess up your tracking.
An easier way of setting up Google Analytics is using MonsterInsights. It is the best WordPress Analytics plugin and helps you set up advanced tracking in WordPress without editing code.
Any link that takes users away from your website is called an outbound link. If you use affiliate marketing to make money from your website, then those outbound links are also known as affiliate links.
Tracking these outbound links help you see how much traffic you are sending to other sites, and you can use this data to build stronger partnerships with those sites.
As a blogger, you can see which affiliate links are clicked more often by your visitors. This information can help you make a proper affiliate marketing strategy and boost your referral earnings.
The easiest way to track affiliate links in WordPress is by using MonsterInsights. It tracks outbound links and affiliate links on your site out of the box.
You also get easy-to-understand reports inside your WordPress dashboard, including your top affiliate and outbound links.
Checkout behavior and tracking the abandoned cart information
Product lists performance
Uncover top conversion sources
Sales performance
Setting up enhanced eCommerce tracking on your WordPress store can be difficult. However, MonsterInsights makes it easy for you and it literally takes a few clicks to configure with no coding needed.
The best part is that you get to see eCommerce reports in your dashboard. It shows how your online store is performing, which products are getting the most sales, where your customers are coming from, and more at a glance.
4. Track User Engagement Data with Google Analytics
User engagement shows you what users do when they arrive on your website. It helps you identify patterns of highly engaged user behavior which leads to more conversions and sales.
For example, you may find out that users visiting a specific page are 10 times more likely to make a purchase. You can then use this insight to send more users to that page, or replicate a similar experience on other pages of your website.
Basically, you will be tracking data about how users interact with your website. For example:
Google Analytics is really good at tracking where your website traffic comes from. It can even categorize your traffic based on their source, including organic search, organic social, referral, email, and more.
However, when you’re running paid ad campaigns, email marketing campaigns, or social media promotions, you need detailed campaign tracking.
That’s where UTM tracking comes in.
Campaign-level tracking allows you to see exactly which email, ad, or specific call-to-action link helped you get the most traffic or sales.
To make it easy for you to generate UTM links, MonsterInsights comes with a free campaign URL builder, so you can get more detailed reports. You can enter custom campaign parameters like the source, medium, campaign name, and more to create a custom URL.
These tags include native analytics parameters which are tracked by Google Analytics and are included in your reports. You can then see exactly which link users clicked and how your campaigns are performing.
6. Track and Improve Facebook Retargeting Campaigns
Did you know that Facebook allows you to display targeted ads to people who have visited your website in the past? Yes, it’s called retargeting.
You can install a Facebook pixel and display targeted ads to anyone who visits your website. However, if you install Facebook retargeting pixel today, then you will only be able to show your ads to people who visited today and onward.
Even if you are not running a Facebook advertising campaign right now, we recommend installing the retargeting pixel, so you have a built-in audience when you’re ready to get started.
If you run pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns using Google AdSense, then you can easily see how your ads are performing in the AdSense dashboard. However, these reports only tell you how users interact with your ads not what they do after that.
For that, you’ll need Google Analytics which comes with built-in integration with your AdSense account. This integration enables you to easily track your paid traffic conversions.
Google Search Console is a set of free tools offered by Google to give publishers a look at how their website is seen by the search engine.
It provides immensely useful information like how your pages rank for different keywords (more on this later), the overall performance of your site in search engines, and any errors Google crawler found on your website.
For example, here is a report showing errors that occur when a user views the site on their mobile devices. Without Google Search Console, it will be very difficult to pinpoint such issues and quickly resolve them.
Keywords are the phrases users enter in search engines to find what they’re looking for. To get more traffic from search engines, you need to know exactly which keywords are bringing you the most traffic to your website, so you can focus on what’s working.
We have a complete WordPress SEO guide that you can use to learn how to optimize your content for specific keywords.
Normally, beginners rely on manually entering keywords in Google search to see if their site is ranking. This is highly inefficient as you would miss out on thousands of keywords where your site can be easily ranked.
Google Search Console is a free tool that provides you with valuable keyword data with the average position. You can see which search terms are ranking high, search impressions, and how many average clicks you get.
If you’re using MonsterInsights, then you can view the Search Console report inside your WordPress dashboard.
However, it only allows you to see your own site’s keyword data. If you want to research your competitors, then you’ll need SEMRush. This incredibly powerful SEO tool allows you to view in-depth keyword data for any website.
Most popular email marketing services come with stats and insights that you can track. These reports provide useful data like open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, and more.
You can also see the traffic coming from your email campaigns to your website in your Google Analytics 4 reports under Acquisition » Traffic acquisition.
From here, you can see how well your email newsletter traffic converts, and what you can do to improve.
Tracking email marketing data helps you grow your email list. You can create new email forms, change form placements, and use popups to boost subscribers.
While there are definitely other marketing metrics that you can track, we believe these are the top marketing data that every business owner must track on their WordPress site.
After creating a WordPress website, you might think your work is over. But in reality, it’s not. Because visitors have many questions regardless of the size & type of your website, they usually avoid digging around and prefer getting their questions answered quickly. If you want your website to survive & thrive, you need to [...]
Picture this: You’re shopping for a smartphone cover and stumble across a beautiful online shop. This shop has the cover for your specific smartphone model, but it’s only in one color—yellow—and has no design. You prefer to have it in red and feature a quote, but don’t see an option to personalize the product. And [...]
Do you want to prevent fraud and fake orders on your WooCommerce store?
Fraud and fake orders can cause serious losses for an online store. Luckily, there are effective tools to prevent spam and block fraudulent orders.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily prevent fraud and fake orders in WooCommerce.
Why Do You need to Prevent Fraud and Fake Orders in WooCommerce?
Fraudulent and fake orders can cause serious financial losses to a business. This is why you need to monitor your online store and prevent fraud and fake orders.
Last year, online stores lost more than $20 billion in revenue due to fraudulent payments, chargebacks, and fake orders.
For some eCommerce stores, the total fraudulent order costs were higher than 4% of total revenue.
A large number of fake orders are usually spam that can be easily prevented. Some orders are more malicious and are placed just to annoy or harass an online business.
The rest of the fraudulent orders are scammers trying to make a few quick bucks.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to prevent fraud and fake orders in WooCommerce.
Here is a quick overview of all the tips we’ll cover in this guide.
Upon activation, you need to visit WooCommerce » Settings page and switch to the Anti-Fraud tab.
From here, you can set a minimum and high-risk threshold score.
Below that, you can change the order status based on the risk score. For instance, you can set the score when an order will be automatically canceled and set a score to put an order on hold.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Next, you need to switch to the Rules tab. From here, you can configure the rules and assign them a risk score.
For instance, you can set a 5-point score for a customer who is placing their first order.
You can set scores for suspicious IP addresses, emails, unsafe countries, matching IP addresses to geographic locations, and more.
Carefully review the rules and their assigned scores and make changes if necessary. If you are unsure, then default settings would work for most eCommerce websites.
If you are using PayPal as a payment option on your store, then you can switch to the PayPal tab. From here, you can require users to verify their PayPal email addresses.
The plugin also allows you to connect with third-party fraud detection service Maxmind.
This paid service uses a global database to collect data about suspicious payment details, emails, IP addresses, and more.
You can then add this score to your plugin risk score and choose what to do when this score is higher.
Once you are satisfied with your settings, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store them.
Viewing Fraud Detection Activity
The plugin comes with an easier dashboard where you can see plugin activity in an easy-to-understand format.
Simply click on the Anti Fraud menu item in your WordPress admin sidebar. From here, you can see statistics about all your orders.
The anti-fraud plugin will help you catch most of the fake and fraudulent orders on your WooCommerce store.
However, if you need more strict measures then continue reading for additional WooCommerce fraud prevention tips.
2. Use Stripe Radar and 3D Secure to Automatically Block Fraud
Stripe is the most popular online payment solution in the world. There is a WooCommerce Stripe gateway by FunnelKit that helps you properly connect WooCommerce with Stripe, so you can take advantage of SCA as well as 3D Secure payments option by default.
This method would require you to use Stripe as your main payment gateway in WooCommerce. First you’ll need to install and activate the Stripe for WooCommerce plugin by FunnelKit. Once that’s configured, it will guide you to set up Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other settings to help you protect against fraud transactions.
Aside from that, Stripe also offers a feature called Stripe Radar to help fight against fraudulent transactions. This is a powerful set of algorithm that reduces chargeback risks for your business.
Basically Stripe uses machine learning to block orders. Their machine learning is trained on data across millions of companies worldwide that use Stripe.
We use Stripe Radar on our own eCommerce websites to help reduce fake and fraudulent orders.
Aside from their machine learning algorithm, you can also set custom rules with allow and block lists, and more.
Unfortunately not all WooCommerce gateways have these robust features. If you’re looking to switch to Stripe, then we recommend talking with FunnelKit team as they’re WooCommerce experts who can help.
3. Using the Cash on Delivery Payment Option Carefully
In many countries, ‘Cash on Delivery’ is a popular payment option. However, these stores find themselves more vulnerable to fake and fraudulent orders.
Users are able to place an order with a fake address, refuse to accept the order, or cancel an order that is already shipped.
Once you have shipped an order, you will pay out of pocket for shipping and return of that package.
We recommend not using the ‘Cash on Delivery’ option when possible, as that can lower the number of fake orders you may get.
Try to offer alternate payment options for users to pay before you can ship the order.
4. Sell in Specific Countries
WooCommerce allows you to easily restrict orders from specific countries. This helps you prevent fake orders from countries where you don’t sell or ship to.
Simply go to the WooCommerce » Settings page and select the countries you want to sell / ship to under the General tab.
Note: Geographical restrictions may reduce fake orders but users can simply use VPN to change their location and provide fake information to place an order.
5. Require Users to Create an Account
Another useful trick to slow down and prevent fake orders is by requiring users to create an account before they can checkout.
Simply go to WooCommerce » Settings page and switch to the Account and Privacy tab. From here, you need to uncheck the box next to the ‘Allow customers to place orders without an account’ option.
Below that, you can check options that allow users to create an account during checkout or from the My Account page.
Asking users to create an account also allows you to easily block customers who placed fraudulent or fake orders.
6. Use a Web Application Firewall and Custom Rules
Many scammers use disposable email addresses, fake IP addresses, and dummy data to place spam or fake orders.
A WordPress firewall helps you block this before it even reaches your website.
We recommend using either Sucuri or Cloudflare, both are among the best WordPress firewall plugin on the market. They comes with powerful security features, CDN servers, and a malware removal service.
In Cloudflare, you can also setup custom page rules to trigger CAPTCHA, or even automatically block users with suspicious activity. We use Cloudflare enterprise on our larger eCommerce stores which comes with all bots anomaly detection and threat response.
If you’re running a large eCommerce store, then it’s worthwhile exploring Cloudflare Enterprise tools.
7. Require Customers to Verify Their Email Addresses
Another way to reduce fake orders and fraudulent activity is by requiring new customers to create an account and then require them to verify their email addresses.
Upon activation, you need to visit the WooCommerce » Settings page and switch to the Email Verification tab.
From here, you can configure the plugin settings to your own requirements.
For instance, you can switch to the Email tab and delay the default WooCommerce new user email until the user verifies their account.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
The plugin will now send a verification email to new WooCommerce customers to verify their email addresses.
It’s important to make sure that if you’re setting up email verification that your WooCommerce store actually have reliable email deliverability. Otherwise this can block real customers from purchasing your products.
There’s also a free version of WP Mail SMTP that you can use as well.
We hope this article helped you prevent fraud and fake orders in WooCommerce. You may also want to see our complete WordPress security guide to make your online store more secure or take a look at our expert pick of the best WooCommerce plugins to grow 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.
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