Social Login for WordPress

Hello friends,

In this post I will present to you one of the most popular solutions for WordPress login. It utilizes social media and allows your users to log in to your website with just a single click on a button.

This plugin is called Social Login.

Why would I want to add a plugin like Social Login to my WordPress website?

Because this is one of the most sure ways to keep your visitors returning to it on a regular basis. Let’s assume that you want to create a website that provides a user profile for each visitor. This profile is needed to interact with the website’s content in some ways – commenting, uploading files, sharing data, creating content, etc.

The classic way to do this is to allow each visitor to create a profile by adding username, email and password. Then each time this new user wants to log in to your website they have to enter these details over and over again. Now imagine that they forget them. The most common situation is to keep trying to log in with different combinations until they give up or your WordPress has a protection that blocks them from further attempts. Then the users that will truly want to log in will have to reset their password by entering a valid email then add new password and so on.

Most of the users will not do this as it is time-consuming. This means that your website has to be extremely valuable for your users in order to make them try to log in in case of a forgotten password. In most cases they will just skip this step and leave.

But even if they do not forget the password/user name they have to re-enter it every time the cookie expires or they are using a different browser. This is also burdening and most users will not be happy.

The social login functionality skips all of these steps and allows the instant creation of new profiles and logins with just a click of a button that represents the social media profile of the user. This will urge the visitors to create profiles and interact with your content and also it will make them coming back regularly.

OK. What social media networks are supported in Social Login?

More than 30! Here is a list of some of them:

As you can see the list is quite good. Having so many options is ideal if you are intending to target audiences from different parts of the world.

How to use Social Login?

Install the plugin and activate it. Then visit Settings -> Social Login to configure it. From there you can choose which social networks you want to be available on your website for login purposes. Doing this is extremely easy as you have to click on the checkbox to select or remove each of them.

There are some other settings that you need to configure and you are basically done. Now each time you visit the WordPress login form it may look like this:

Or you may prefer larger buttons like these:

Additionally you may choose to place the social login options to your comment form for commenting purposes. You can also add a widget in your widget areas in order to allow the visitors to login or create profiles while they are browsing.

This is it friends! Now you know how to increase engagement to your WordPress website by allowing extremely easy registrations and logins using different social media.

If you like this plugin, please give it a try and don’t forget to share your experience with the rest of TheCMSPlace’s community. You can use the comment form below for this purpose and we will be happy to hear from you. Also you can share any other thoughts and questions that you might have regarding the Social Login plugin.

Don’t forget to share this post on social media as well. Be social!

See you soon friends!

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) – review

Hello friends,

Do you want to reduce the bounce rate of your WordPress website? If the answer is yes then you have to make some on-page optimizations stressing on more internal links between your posts and pages.

One way of achieving this is by using a suitable related posts plugin for WordPress. I have already shown you a couple of ways to do this. You can see these articles by clicking here and here.

In this post I will present another plugin that will be able to assist you properly. It is called Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP).

Why would you prefer YARPP to the other solutions that I have already presented to you?

All of the solutions are great and will be able to help you keep your visitors longer on each page/post on your website. Each of them offers unique features and present similar functionality. YARPP may win your choice mostly because of its advanced and versatile algorithm. It will detect the most related content on your WordPress website by taking into consideration the following attributes of the currently opened page/post:

OK. Why having a plugin like YARPP is useful?

Because of the bounce rate reduction that I mentioned at the beginning of this article. When you have more internal links your content has a better chance of getting indexed by the search engine bots and will be more accessible for all human visitors. They will visit page after page and will remain as long as possible on your website. This will create longer sessions and will reduce the overall bounce and exit rate for your domain. For each page you can have smaller values of these parameters as well as most likely each new one will be opened in a new window/tab of the browser thus keeping the visitors longer on each of the pages they open. Well, until they close them eventually.

Having a pile of links is not cool. They need to be presented in a great way so that each visitor may actually desire to click on them. This means that some styling options are needed as well as superb positioning of the related posts. Also when speaking of related posts we want the linked posts/pages to be really related.

And that’s how a plugin like YARPP becomes a necessity for each WordPress admin.

How to use YARPP?

Install and activate the plugin using the already familiar methods – manual (download it from WordPress.org) or automatic (using the WordPress plugin installer page).

Next you have to go to the Settings -> YARPP menu in your WordPress dashboard in order to configure how the plugin will work.

YARPP settings

There you will see two tabs. One of them is for the free plugin version that I am reviewing here and the other is for YARPP Pro.

Let’s focus on the first tab.

It is devided into sections. The first one is called “The Pool”.

It refers to the pool of posts and pages that are candidates for display as related to the current entry.

From there you can disallow posts by category and by tag.

The second section is called “Relatedness” Options.

Here you have to set the match threshold number. Then you have to choose whether or not to consider titles, bodies, categories and tags when selecting the suitable related posts.

You can enhance these settings by selecting to display results from all post types and also override them by selecting to display only previous posts.

The third section is called Display options for your website.

Here the focus is on the positioning of the related posts on your posts and pages. You can allow YARPP to add them automatically to each post, page or media attachment as well as archives (categories, tags, etc).

You can determine the maximum amount of related posts to be shown as well as their looks – list or thumbnails. You can add custom PHP code if you want to show something else.

Then you have to apply some more display options like the title of the related posts section and so on.

The last section is for the display of related posts in your RSS feed as well.

When you are done with the settings you have to clear the cache of the website generated from the caching plugin that you are using (if any) and enjoy using YARPP. There is also a widget that you can add and use it with this plugin so that you can show related posts in your sidebar or any other suitable widget area of your choice.

YARPP Pro offers additional features and more power. You can also display sponsored content with it.

This ends the review on YARPP. What do you think friends? Will you use it? Share your thoughts in the comments bellow and spread the word on this post in social media.

Thank you and see you soon!

Create tables in WordPress with TablePress

Hello friends,

In this post I will present to you one awesome way to create posts and pages with tables in WordPress. The plugin that will allow you to achieve this is called TablePress.

Why would I need tables in WordPress at all?

Most of the times you won’t be needing them. But this depends on the type of content that you are creating. For example if your website aims at the provision of financial data for its users or you are creating lists with detailed information then the best way to present all of these is by adding the data into a standard table.

Isn’t WordPress supporting HTML? Why can’t I just create the tables in that way?

If you know HTML and CSS then you could achieve the table creation by adding code into the WordPress text editor. However this will be a heavy burden even for the most experienced developer. Bear in mind that you will have to create the table first and then fill it with data and also update it (if needed). This is a lot of work and you may find it even more difficult to enable data sorting later on.

That is why in this case the plugin solution is the optimal way.

OK! So how to work with TablePress?

Begin by installing and activating the plugin. You already know how to do this (by either downloading it from its WordPress.org page or by using the WordPress plugin installer system).

Now you have to go into your WordPress dashboard and find the TablePress menu item. It provides you with several submenus and they are also available as tabs when you click on the main menu.

The first submenu/tab is called “All Tables”.

TablePress Options - View all created tables

It contains a list of your tables. From here you can edit, copy, delete and/or preview them. Also you are presented with the ID of each table and an instruction on the way of displaying it in your posts and pages.

All you have to do is to place the shortcode [table id=<ID> /] in the WordPress editor when editing/creating the desired post/page and publish it. In this shortcode you have to replace ID with the corresponding number from the first tab of the TablePress options.

If you wish to administer a table you can click on it and or use the on mouse administration links.

The second tab is called “Add New”.

TablePress - Add new table to a WordPress page or post

From here you are able to create a new table. You have to provide a name for it which can also be used as a title. Also you may enter an optional description about the contents of this table. Finally you have to specify the number of rows and columns and add the table by pressing the blue button.

Now you have to fill in data in this table. Edit it by going back on the first tab and clicking on its name in the list.

Here is how the edit screen looks like:

TablePress - Edit a table

You are presented with the shortcode for this table and here you can copy/paste it directly. You may change the table name and description if needed.

Then you can enter the content of each cell for your new table. You will find the process similar to using MS Excel or Libre Office. Here you may add images and links and even use an Advanced editor. Another familiar options are available – cell combination and row/column moderation.

You may edit some of the table options for this specific table and they include:

Below you may edit the features of the DataTables JavaScript library. When you are happy with the changes you may save them.

Some of the other actions you may take regarding this table is to preview it and also copy, delete it and even export it.

As you can see TablePress provides you with great power.

The next tab is called “Import” and from it you can import tables from CSV files and/or other formats.

TablePress - Import external tables from CSV files

This will save you time and effort, especially if you have already created the desired tables by using the office software of your choice.

You are also able to import pages from WP-Table Reloaded and you can do this by setting up few options here.

The next tab is called “Export”.

TablePress - Table Export Options

Here you can export each of your tables so that they can be used for other solutions. You can select which tables to export and the file format of the export. The final result can be zipped into a ZIP archive if you want.

The final tab (regarding the plugin settings) is “Plugin Options”.

TablePress Plugin Options

Here you can add custom CSS for your tables and adjust some user options:

What is the final result when using TablePress?

The developers have provided this screenshot which will allow you to see how your tables may look like:

TablePress - Table Demo

Bear in mind that you can edit the design of your own tables as you are presented with the possibility to add custom CSS. This actually provides you with great styling options and you may adjust each table to your specific WordPress Theme design.

That’s it friends!

You have been presented with one of the ultimate solutions for creating tables for your WordPress posts and pages. It can also import external documents and export files to be used by other systems. With TablePress your website is equipped with additional power. Now you can present your data with style.

What do you think about TablePress? Would you use it? Please share any thoughts and questions about this marvelous plugin in the comment section below. Don’t forget that sharing is caring and please click one of the social sharing buttons below and help fellow WordPress beginners find out about this review.

See you soon, friends!

*The images are embedded from the WordPress.org page of TablePress

URL redirection solutions for WordPress

Hello friends,

This post is SEO-orientated. In it I will discuss some of the popular solutions for URL redirection in WordPress. The main focus will be on the 301 redirect which is extremely important in terms of SEO.

What is URL redirection?

According to Wikipedia, this is also known as URL forwarding. It is a way to transfer a user and/or search bot from one URL to another. This means that if one web page was originally created under one URL it should be possible to move it to another by using the various redirection methods.

What options do I have in order to perform a URL redirection?

The usual way is to ask the user to follow the new link and to explain to them that the URL address was changed due to a specific reason and that the resource that they are trying to reach is moved to a new location. This is something that I’d not advice you to do because it is not professional (at least in my opinion) and also it is not good for your SEO strategy.

So you have to choose the automatic redirection options. 301 is by far the best and most recommended and I will review it in details in a moment. First I’d like to mention the other methods:

Then you can choose from the javascript redirects and frame redirects as well as some other methods. They are explained in details on the Wikipedia page that I have shared with you above in this post. You can also read more about them and the 3xx redirect types there.

What is 301 redirect?

This is the HTTP Status Code that is used for a permanent transfer from one URL to another. It is very important in terms of SEO, because it allows not only the users to be automatically redirected to the new location of a specific web page, but also the search engine bots. The latter means that the ratings of the older web page can be more or less preserved and transferred to the new one when the bots crawl your website. The SEO way of describing this is called “link juice transfer”.

That is why the importance of the 301 redirect is very big. You can basically keep all of the gained link juice for the old URL and use it for the new one.

Also the 301 redirects allow the search engines to remember the new location of the web page and after a while the index is updated and you can benefit from getting search results in the keywords of the new URL just like you did with the old one.

When should I use 301 redirect?

Every time when you have to change something in the URL address and every time you move the entire website to a new domain or a specific page to a new URL address on your current domain.

Let’s explain this with the following example:

You have enabled the SEO-friendly URL structure in your WordPress website. You are editing a post or a page and you notice that something in the keywords of the slug (the URL address) is wrong. Let’s assume that you can use a stronger keyword or you have made a typing error. So you decide to change this specific word and then update the URL and the post/page.

Most likely every link to this page on WordPress should be updated automatically. But if you have made manual internal and external links (the ones from other websites) and if the page is already indexed in the search engines then the users will get to the 404 page. This is not something that you desire since the user will most likely abandon your website forever (in case of a new visit and a poor 404 landing page) and you will get errors in the webmaster tools section for the different search engines. You will also gain bigger exit and bounce rate which is also bad for SEO and if the search bots cannot find the page it will be removed from the index in time and your overall SEO ratings will suffer.

So the practical way is to make a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one and all of these things may not harm your website at all. At least the users will get exactly where they intended to without any problems.

The same applies when you move your entire domain to a new one and so on.

How can I make 301 redirects in WordPress?

The professional way is to add some code to your .htaccess file.

It should already contain some code in it so you should keep it and add the following line at the end of this file:

Redirect 301 /old-url-of-the-page/ http://www.yourdomain.com/new-url-of-the-page/

For moving an entire domain using 301 redirect you should put the following code in the .htaccess file of the old domain:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) 
http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

And that’s it! Bear in mind that this may look simple but sometimes it may fail to work if something is wrong with the .htaccess file. That is why this method should be used only by advanced users.

For the beginners I’d recommend the easiest way which will most likely work even when it comes to moving URL’s from one domain to another.

I cannot say that it will work for the whole domain – most probably not. This means that the .htaccess method is needed for a domain redirect.

But for any other 301 redirects you have to install and activate the Redirection plugin.

Redirection - WordPress Plugin for making 301 Redirects

Once you are done with this you have to go to your WordPress dashboard and click on Tools -> Redirection and then head to “Add new redirection”. Enter the source URL (the old URL) and the target URL (the new one). Click on the blue “Add Redirection” button and you are 100% done!

The page will reload and you will be presented with the created redirect in a table view. You can see its type (301) and the old URL as well as statistics on the hits (a.k.a. the times this redirect was used by either a visitor or a search bot to get to the new URL). You can also see the date of the last access for this redirection.

Simple as that!

What do you think friends? Share your opinions in the comment section below and don’t forget to spread the word about this post on social media.

See you soon!

MailChimp for WordPress – review

Hello friends,

Email marketing is an extremely important channel to attract visitors and customers to your website. There are many solutions that will allow you to gain subscribers for your email lists. However one tool seems to stand out from the crowd as it has proven its functionality to a great amount of WordPress users.

This plugin is called MailChimp for WordPress and in this post I will make a review on its free version.

MailChimp for WordPress

What is MailChimp?

If you are a beginner you may have never heard of MailChimp and that is OK. However all digital marketing veterans are quite familiar with what it does. MailChimp is an online solution that will allow you to achieve several actions.

First of all it will allow you to attract email subscribers. You will be able to organize them in lists and you will even be able to add an already created lists so that they can be used with MailChimp.

Second – you will be able to create stylish email newsletters. This is not only easy, but also extremely fun! All you have to do is drag&drop the components, adjust their settings a little and then save the newsletter.

Third – you will be able to send your newsletters to your email subscribers with just one click. But that’s not all, friends! You will also get statistics what has happened with the emails that you have sent.

MailChimp comes in several pricing plans, but there is also a free plan that is recommended for smaller audiences (below 2000 subscribers).

What is MailChimp for WordPress?

The name just says it all – this is the plugin that connects your WordPress website with your MailChimp account so that you can subscribe your visitors into your email marketing lists with ease and confidence.

With this plugin you can add various sign-up methods and gain more and more subscribers. MailChimp for WordPress allows you to add great looking opt-in forms to your website. What is more important is that you will be able to use this plugin with many other form solutions for WordPress. The integration with them is seamless. Currently MailChimp for WordPress supports:

Big list, right? These are the most commonly used plugins and tools (of this type) for WordPress and that is why this plugin supports them.

MailChimp for WordPress also supports various add-ons that will increase its power. For example you may add the premium version that will add multiple forms with AJAX, ecomerce360 integration support, email notifications, styling options for your forms, improved and detailed reports and statistics regarding your newsletter campaigns and many other features.

Another add-on for MailChimp for WordPress is the MailChimp top bar that adds an opt-in form in the top bar of your WordPress website. If you want to see the activity on your lists then you should install the MailChimp activity add-on. There is also an user sync solution, a captcha solution, box pop-up add-on and the third party tool WPBruiser which is a powerful anti-spam protection system.

MailChimp for WordPress comes with detailed documentation. The knowledge base of the plugin is updated daily so that you can find the answer to any question.

How to use MailChimp for WordPress?

First of all you need to install and activate the plugin. You can get it from the WordPress installer or download it from its WordPress.org page. Then you need to setup the checkbox settings for the plugin by selecting where to place it – i.e. whether or not to integrate it with the described above forms solutions. Then you have to define the label text for this checkbox. You should think of something catchy so that users will be willing to click on it. Then you have to choose whether or not you want it to be checked by default. This might be great for attracting new subscribers but it is also risky as some of the visitors might not detect the checkbox and might feel misleaded. I’d personally leave it unchecked but it’s up to you.

Also you can choose to load some default CSS or not.

MailChimp for WordPress

You need to add your MailChimp API key as well in order to make the connection between your plugin and this service.

You can also add additional fields using the plugin’s form builder:

MailChimp for WordPress

Then all you have to do is enjoy the increase of subscribers for your newsletter lists.

You can find out more about this plugin by watching the following video:

And that’s it friends. Would you give this plugin a try? Share your opinion on the matter in our comment form below. Also don’t forget to spread the word about this review in social media.

Thank you and see you soon!

*The images are embedded from the WordPress.org page of the plugin

How to disable WordPress comments

Hello friends,

In some of my previous posts, here at The CMS Place, I have written about various solutions for better user experience regarding the comments on WordPress. You might want to check how to integrate Google + Comments, Facebook Comments, Disqus or Jetpack.

Having a comment section with many abilities for the users is great. You will be encouraging them to ask questions, provide you with feedback and even take action in conversations between them. Let’s not forget that each comment might be considered as unique content as well and might aid your SEO strategy. Also comments might help building additional internal links for your website.

Having all this in mind we need to ask ourselves one simple question – are comments always necessary and should they be present on our websites?

If the answer to this question is “No” then something needs to be done in order to prevent the users from commenting and this needs to be done globally.

In this post I will share with you two ways for achieving this for WordPress – with or without additional plugins.

Most users might prefer the “non-plugin” solution. So let’s start with it first.

Every WordPress site has a special settings section for the default comments. So if you are not using any additional solutions you have to go to “Settings -> Discussion” and then you need to decide whether or not you want the users to add comments on your new articles. If you allow the checkbox your new posts will be available for comments. If you decide to remove it the comment section might be available for the old posts, but not to the new ones that you will publish after this moment.

Disable WordPress Comments

Also each post might have an individual setting regarding the comments. Some posts might be available for comments while others will prohibit the users from doing this by removing the section. These settings are available under the “All Posts” section in your dashboard.

For the older posts you might want to check the checkbox “Automatically close comments on articles older than X days”, where X is the number of days.

Disable older WordPress comments

And these settings are only posts-related. For pages you have to decide individually whether or not you want comments on your pages. This is done under the “All Pages” section in your dashboard.

If you have custom post types you might need to check them individually if you want to disable the comments or not.

All of the individual settings for posts, pages and custom post types can be done in a bulk way as well.

So if you invest a certain amount of time and energy into all of this you might be able to disable all comments for your WordPress site. But is it worth all of this effort just to evade the installation of an additional plugin? It’s up to you to decide but in case you want to achieve all of these actions instantly here is how:

You simply need to install and activate the plugin Disable Comments.

Disable Comments - WordPress Plugin for instant removal of all comment sections sidewide

You can do this in the already known ways – either by using the WordPress plugin installer or by downloading and uploading the plugin manually. You might even extract and upload the folder on your server.

When you are done you need to verify that Disable Comments is activated and then you can head to the Settings section of your WordPress website and adjust the way that the plugin behaves.

This is a multi-site solution and it acts for any post type – posts, pages, attachments, etc. It acts globally and instantly and it also prevents the individual settings so that you can be 100% sure that not a single post type can have a comment section.

And that’s not all – Disable Comments can remove any comment-related items from your widgets, dashboards, admin menu and even your admin bar.

You have to remember one thing only – if you want to manually adjust the comment options for individual post types you must never install this plugin. Disable Comments will be useful only if you want to remove all comment sections sidewide.

So there you have it, friends. You now know how to administer the comments for your WordPress website so that you can enable or disable them. You should really consider which of the two options are most suitable for you and then use it.

What do you think about this post? You can share your thoughts in the comment section below (it is not disabled for this post, trust me).  Also share this post in social media as well and help other users like you to learn how to manage these settings.

See you soon, friends!

Clef Two-Factor Authentication Review

Hello friends,

Do you want to improve the login security of your WordPress website? I suppose that you do. OK, how about achieving this without the usage of any usernames or passwords? Sounds great? Or maybe crazy?

The truth is that passwords and usernames used to be secure enough for many years. But nowadays each website requires us to have a unique password and/or username as using the same multiple times might be risky. Experts often suggest to use different emails as well.

But how to remember so many passwords and usernames? Just think how often you need to reset your password. Way too often? And now imagine that having all of these safety precautions is not enough as each password can sooner or later be hacked and used to violate your profile on almost every website.

So what could possibly be done about this? Well you might consider using a superb two-factor authentication solution like Clef. In this post I will make a review of its WordPress plugin – Clef Two-Factor Authentication.

What is Clef?

This is a two-factor authentication that does not rely on passwords or tokens. All you need is your mobile phone in order to scan the screen of your computer and you are already logged-in.

Clef offers custom pricing plans for different businesses and if you are interested about this service you may send an enquiry.

What are the benefits of using Clef Two-Factor Authentication on WordPress?

You will get a modern authentication system that will improve your WordPress security and will ease the login procedure for all your users. You will also be able to sign on or off with just a single click.

Basically you get:

I want to learn more about Clef Two-Factor Authentication.

And you really should, as the more you know – the better (when it comes to improving your website security). You can find additional resources on the Clef’s blog or Support websites.

You can also get to know how Clef works by watching this video:

How to use Clef on WordPress?

Install and activate the plugin Clef Two-Factor Authentication. You can get it from the official WordPress.org page of the plugin or from the WordPress plugin installer.

When you are done you need to complete the automatic setup wizard. There you will see a big blue button called “Get Started”. You need to click on it.

Clef Two-Factor Authentication

Now make sure that you have the Clef mobile app installed on your phone. Now you need to scan the wave on your screen in order to set up your website:

Clef Two-Factor Authentication

You will be presented with some more screens that will allow you to finish successfully the installation process. Don’t forget to make a configuration of the preferred passwords and security settings for the Clef users on your WordPress website. There is a great tutorial on this here: Recommended password settings for Clef’s WordPress plugin.

The highest security settings are to disable the passwords for all users and completely hide the password login form. However you may choose a different configuration. For example if you use the WordPress mobile app you may want the passwords to be enabled for API.

And that’s all now your login screens should look like this:

If you need to make additional settings you may go to your WordPress dashboard and click on the “Clef” menu.

And that’s all, friends! Don’t forget to check the reviews on this plugin on WordPress.org and feel free to share any thoughts, questions and feedback about Clef Two-Factor Authentication in the comment section below. Please share this post on social media as well and help us spread the word about this wonderful plugin.

See you soon, friends!

*The images are embedded from the WordPress.org page of the plugin and its support website.

How to add a Visual Sitemap for WordPress

Hello friends,

Do you want to create more engagement with your posts and pages in WordPress? I suppose you do, as this is very important for SEO and for conversions.

In this post I will show you how to achieve this by adding a Visual HTML Sitemap for your website!

But before we begin, let me remind you the importance of having a standard HTML sitemap in the first place and how to add one to WordPress.

In the post “Add powerful XML and HTML sitemaps to WordPress” I have showed you one awesome way to generate a simple, yet powerful and great-looking HTML sitemap. You just had to use the plugin WP Sitemap Page. When done with the settings you had to select a specific shortcode and place it on one of your pages and voilà – the HTML sitemap was generated and made available for your visitors and the search bots.

In that post I have put the focus on the additional navigation that is provided by any HTML sitemap. Your visitors will always be able to see the detailed structure of your website and to visit any specific page or post that they might find interesting. In order this to happen you need to make the page with the HTML sitemap public and also to build as many internal links to it as possible. The smart way to achieve this is by adding this page to your WordPress menus. As you know many themes support different menu areas, so make sure that you are utilizing them correctly. Always create a menu with the thought of improving the user experience when browsing your website!

A standard HTML sitemap is also suitable for the crawling bots. Why? Because they will visit the page that contain its content and then they will visit all the links that are there. Well, at least if you haven’t decided to add a “nofollow” attribute to each link (this is supported by WP Sitemap Page).  Or if you haven’t added a general nofollow instruction for the robots for this page (either by using a SEO plugin or by adding code to your Robots.txt file).

If you haven’t done any of these then the bots will crawl your HTML sitemap and therefore will visit all pages and posts that you have decided to include in it. The HTML sitemap will also ensure the creation of additional internal links which is also very important for SEO and will help you for the fight for higher positions in the search results.

OK, but what is the difference between the standard HTML Sitemap and the Visual one?

The standard HTML Sitemap, no matter how useful it is, is boring! Why? Because in most cases it provides only a pile of links.

The Visual HTML Sitemap on the other hand looks stunning. It gives a better view of the website structure. In the mean time this is still a HTML Sitemap, meaning that all of the benefits that the standard one provides will be included as well.

How to add a Visual HTML Sitemap for my WordPress webiste?

Install and activate the plugin Slick Sitemap. You can do this by using either the WordPress plugin installer or by manually upload the plugin. Then you need to head to Settings -> Slick Sitemap in your WordPress dashboard. Select the default sitemap menu that will tell the plugin what is the website structure and then set the default columns and the default utility menu.

You may have figured it out that if you want to include all of your posts, pages, custom post types, etc you need to add all of them to a new menu. So unless you are satisfied with the current menus that you have already created, you need to go to Appearance -> Menus and add a new one. Choose its contents, and hierarchy and provide it with a suitable name so that it will be easier to find it when adjusting the settings for Slick Sitemap.

Now that you are done with this you need to save these settings (Settings -> Slick Sitemap). Then create a new page and place the shortcode slick-sitemap (in []) and publish it. After this add this page to your default menus so that it will be easily accessed by both visitors and crawling bots and that’s it! Your Visual HTML Sitemap is created!

But what if I don’t want to have a publicly available Visual HTML Sitemap?

There are different reasons why you’d need only a standard HTML Sitemap that should be available to everyone and the Visual one (if you need it at all) to be visible for select audiences only.

The main reason for such decision is that the colour scheme of the Visual Sitemap does not fit on your WordPress theme. Also the client for whom you are creating a website might not like it. However I strongly advice you to have a Visual HTML Sitemap even if it’s meant to be shown to specific people.

One way to achieve this is by using the WordPress page settings for the page that holds the contents of the Visual Sitemap. You need to make it no-indexable and no-followable and also you need to choose between access with password or make the page private.

The next way is more suitable for showcasing the website structure to your clients. It is achieved by using the plugin Visual Sitemap.

Install and activate it in the already known ways and when you are done you can head to the newly created “Sitemap” menu in your WordPress dashboard. Your Visual Sitemap will await you there and anyone with access to the admin panel will be able to see it.

So these are the top solutions for creating a Visual HTML Sitemap for your WordPress website. What do you think of them, friends?

Add powerful XML and HTML sitemaps to WordPress

Hello friends,

Did you know that one of the ways to improve the indexation of your website is done by using XML and HTML sitemaps? These two are actually quite important for your On-Page SEO strategy.

In this post I will present to you several solutions that will allow you to create powerful XML and HTML sitemaps for your WordPress website.

Before we begin, let’s take a moment to explain the importance of the XML and HTML sitemaps:

The XML sitemap should be processed by search engines which follow the XML Sitemap standard like Ask.com, Bing, Google and Yahoo. The standard practice is to have a file called “sitemap.xml” in the root directory of your domain so that it should be accessed publicly by visiting “http://*your-domain*/sitemap.xml”.

According to sitemaps.org a sitemap is a suitable way for every webmaster to easily provide information to the search engines about the structure of each website. In order to be more precise, I’d say that this relates to all published pages that are available for crawling.

The XML sitemap consist of the URL’s for these pages. Also there is additional metadata for each of them that informs the crawling bots about details, related to each webpage. For example its last update, its importance, etc.

The HTML sitemap does pretty much the same but in HTML format. The difference is that this type of sitemap is targeted not only for the crawling bots, but also for the visitors of each website. Its usual structure is bulleted outline text for parent and child pages with a link for each URL. The HTML sitemap should be published as a standard page on your website (or at least the HTML file should be accessible publicly). This serves as additional navigation and helps the visitors to gain an overall impression of your website. Not to mention the high benefits of having additional internal links for your content, which is extremely important for On-Page SEO as it helps the crawling rate of your website.

How to create XML Sitemap in WordPress?

The easiest way is to install and activate Yoast SEO. Then you need to go to “SEO -> XML Sitemaps” (from the WordPress Dashboard) and then enable this functionality. You can define what should go in the sitemap structure.

Yoast SEO XML Sitemap Settings

For example you can define the max entries per sitemap, or you can choose whether to enable/disable the user sitemap. The latter consists of the URL’s for your author/user pages.

From the tab “Post Types” you can choose what type of content should go in the sitemap, besides the default pages and post types. Yoast SEO detects your custom post types and allows you to add them in the structure of the XML sitemap, if you consider this as important.

The “Excluded Posts” tab allows you to manually specify the ID’s of all posts that should not be included in your XML Sitemap.

The “Taxonomies” tab allows you to add or remove categories, tags and other custom taxonomies to/from the sitemap.

As you may know, Yoast SEO is WPML compatible. This means that your bilingual or multilingual website can have a stand-alone XML sitemap for each language. And the cool thing about it is that it is automatically generated!

Another way to add a XML Sitemap to your WordPress website is by using the plugin “Google Sitemap Generator” or also known as “Google XML Sitemaps”.

Google XML Sitemaps

Install and activate it and then head to the plugin’s options in your WordPress dashboard. There you can define some options and you will be presented with 2 sitemaps – one in XML format and one in HTML format.

So this answers how to generate an HTML Sitemap as well, right?

Yes and no! Yes – because you will get a file with a suitable URL structure in HTML format which can be accessible publicly by typing “http://*your-domain*/sitemap.html”, however it will have the same structure as your XML sitemap. It will be useful for the search engine bots, but not for your human visitors.

So in order to provide them with a suitable HTML Sitemap that will be used as a navigation tool and in the mean time will generate additional internal links, you need to install another plugin. It is called WP Sitemap Page. Its usage is as simple as possible but the result is looking awesome!

WP Sitemap Page

When you install and activate WP Sitemap Page you need to head to “Settings -> WP Sitemap Page” in your WordPress dashboard. There you will see the general settings which allow you to add a “nofollow” parameter to your HTML sitemap (not recommended but still possible) and also the ability to customize the display of the posts. Again you have the option to exclude content from this sitemap (a standard feature, if I may add) and you can also choose whether or not to display a link to the plugin at the end of your HTML Sitemap (in case you want to support the author and its creation).

You will see another tab, called “How to use”. There you will be presented with all the shortcodes that you can add to any post/page on your WordPress website in order to display a specific HTML sitemap. The default shortcode is wp_sitemap_page (in [ ] ) and in most of the cases you’d like to use this since it provides all the necessary features for a user-friendly HTML Sitemap and additional navigation.

When you are ready with the settings, please create a new page, called HTML Sitemap and place the default shortcode (or some of the other described in the “How to use” tab) and then publish it. Now you can enjoy your new HTML Sitemap. Don’t forget to make it publicly accessible by adding links in your WordPress menus to it, so that both visitors and bots can visit it.

In the final words of this post, I’d like to recommend to use either Yoast SEO or Google XML Sitemaps in order to generate your XML Sitemaps. These plugins may result in a conflict if they are both active in the same time. However it is still possible to use them both if you somehow are not satisfied with the XML Sitemap that Yoast SEO generates. Simply disable that functionality and configure only Google XML Sitemaps.

As for the HTML Sitemap – WP Sitemap Page is compatible with both plugins and you should not get any problems when using them together.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comment form below. Please share any opinions as well and don’t forget to share this post in social media as well!

See you soon friends!