Elementor Page Builder – Review

Hello friends,

Using a high-quality page builder on your WordPress website may save you tones of time and energy if you want to create a custom look&feel for any of your posts and pages. The trick is to find one, of course. In one of my previous posts I have presented to you the power of SiteOrigin Page Builder.

Now I will present to you another high-quality plugin that you may just fall instantly in love with. It is called Elementor and it just might be the page builder that you’ve always needed!

What is so special about Elementor?

Why you shoud consider using Elementor Page Builder on your WordPress website?

Actually there are a couple of things that you will find interesting at first and quite useful when you start using it. Let’s begin with its lack of shortcodes. What does this mean? Well, imagine that you decide to deactivate Elementor at some point. With most of the page builders you will get a pile of shortcodes and no content instead of any post or page that you created with them. Elementor will not make you go through this. Your content (text and images) will be saved. So perhaps a minimal adjustment will be needed in case you don’t want to come back to this plugin ever again. But I know that you will most likely continue using it because it is absolutely awesome!

And speaking of awesome, let’s mention the second feature that will grab your interest on Elementor – it is a live page builder. This means that you are in full control of the creation of your content by knowing exactly how it will look when it’s published. Everything that you do is just click, drag&drop, some minor settings for each widget and section and voila! Now I know that this sounds great but there is another thing that is important here – the live page building process that Elementor provides you with is able to show you how your content will look like on any device. This means that you will be able to create responsive content with extreme ease and without any bad surprises when you publish it.

Want more reasons to try Elementor? Here is another one – speed! This plugin is fast and your sections will be filled with content instantly. No more waiting.

Elementor is also open source and free! That is another reason to be interested in it. I can say that it provides enough power to compete with some of the known premium page builders for WordPress. This means that there is a great chance to achieve the same (and even better) effect but without spending any money. And let’s mention it once again – no shortcodes and no lack of speed.

How to use Elementor?

I suggest to visit its official page and download the plugin from there. However Elementor is available in WordPress.org as well and you can also get it using the WordPress plugin installer in your dashboard. You will also see a couple of additional plugins that might extend the power of this plugin if you try the latter method.

Now upload (in case you use my suggestion) the zip file, install it and activate it. So far, so good! Now go to your dashboard and find the Elementor menu in it. There are a couple of settings to adjust regarding the usage of the plugin – where to use it, who to use it, default colors and fonts, etc. You can also sync your Elementor library and even provide the plugin developers with some usage statistics if you want to aid them in further developing the plugin. It is anonymous, of course.

Settings of the Elementor Page Builder Plugin for WordPress

In the Elementor menu you will find your template library. It should be empty at first but any templates that you create or get will be stored there eventually.

Lastly you can click on the “System Info” sub-menu in order to see some details about your WordPress configuration in case you need to ask for support. You can copy and paste it with ease so that the developers can see where the problem might be.

Remember to save any settings and now create a new post or a page. Do this like you always do but now click on the “Edit with Elementor” button in the WordPress editor.

Edit each post or page on WordPress with Elementor

What will happen next is that Elementor will take control over any editing process and will load the post/page so that you will be able to see how it will look like when published. This means that you will be editing directly over the frontend (the theme) of your WordPress website.

Elementor Page Builder in action

You will notice that you start with a few options:

On the left are your elements. You can use the vast majority of Elementor ones or you can also insert any suitable widgets that you have on your WordPress website.

You can always resize and change the positions of each sections and sub-sections. Each of the elements’ settings are extremely easy to apply and you see the result live. You can add videos, images, social media elements, testimonials, text and other multimedia, buttons, icons and many, many more!

There are effects for mouse hover for some of the elements and also entrance effects when you first see them. You can add CSS classes, set margins and many other settings so that your content will look awesome when published. All you need to do is save each element after editing it.

When you are done with your post/page you can either see it live or go to your dashboard. You can always switch back to the WordPress editors if you want after you exit Elementor.

This plugin works with any theme on any WordPress installation. You can find out more about Elementor Page Builder from this video:

And that’s it, friends! Now it’s up to you to decide whether you want to try Elementor or not. Please share any thoughts on its usage in the comment section below and don’t forget to spread the word about this extremely easy to use and powerful page builder on social media.

See you soon!

Instagram Feed for WordPress – review

Hello friends,

Do you want to know how to add your Instagram feeds on WordPress? This post will help you achieve this!

All you need is the plugin Instagram Feed.

Before we begin discussing its functionalities, let’s have a quick look at Instagram itself.

This social media has become extremely popular. It is used for photo and video sharing as well as social networking. Such a project attracts a great amount of users and sooner or later the attention of marketeers. There are plenty of guides available online that can help you create a powerful social media marketing strategy for Instagram so that you can start promoting your brand, products and services in this social media as well.

A suitable way to gain a bigger audience for your company’s Instagram profile is to popularize it as much as possible. One option is to integrate your feed in your website so that your new organic visitors may have a look at your photos/videos and then decide to follow you on that social media network. This is the very option that we are going to discuss in this post.

OK, I am intrigued! How can I use the plugin Instagram Feed?

Begin by installing and activating the plugin itself. You can do this in several ways. The most convenient one is to use the WordPress plugin installer system. However you can always upload the plugin manually and then install it. In this case you have to download it from its official WordPress.org page.

After this you have to activate it and then navigate to the settings page “Instagram Feed” in order to configure the plugin. This page is accessible through the WordPress dashboard. You will need your Instagram Access Token and Instagram User ID in order to connect the plugin with your Instagram account.

In the plugin settings you have to determine whether or not you want to keep the plugin settings in case you decide to remove it at a later point. This can be useful if you change your mind and choose to install it once again.

All of these settings are just the first tab in thie Instagram Feed settings menu. It is called “Configure”. Make sure that you click on the “Save Changes” button before you move on to the next tab.

It is called “Customize” and here you can make the magic work by choosing how will the feed look like on your WordPress website.

The options here are related to:

Again – remember to save your changes before proceeding to the next tab which is called “Display Your Feed”.

In it you are presented with a default shortcode that you are free to paste anywhere you want in your WordPress website. For example you may use a post or a page. Most likely you will select a text widget which will be placed on a suitable widget area on your theme.

There are also different shortcode combinations so that you can display multiple feeds or make any other customizations.

The last tab is related to the license of the plugin Instagram Feed.

This review covers all of the free features. However you may choose to add more power by purchasing the PRO version of the plugin. Here is a short video that presents its features to you:

What is next? Give this plugin a try! If you want further tips on how to set it up and running then you can follow the official guide from this link.

Also you can share any opinions on Instagram Feed in the comment section below. See you soon and don’t forget to share this post in social media as well.

Custom Twitter Feeds – review

Hello friends,

I am sure that you are familiar with the social media power of Twitter. This network is proven to be extremely effective when it comes to using it for marketing purposes.

In this post I will present to you one solution that will allow you to show your Twitter feeds on your WordPress website in order to attract more followers in this social media.

The solution is called Custom Twitter Feeds.

First a quick explanation on how Twitter works for those users who are yet to begin using it.

Twitter allows you to create a micro-blog message that is limited to 140 characters. In it you can add text, images or video files. Usually Twitter also counts the URL characters as part of the main message that is why using a URL shortener is a good idea in this case. In this social media you can also create polls and add location to your tweets (the name of the micro-blog messages that you create).

Twitter relies on the @ sign to mention a user or a brand in a tweet. For example if you wish to mention The CMS Place on Twitter you can use @TheCMSPlace in your updates.

This social media also relies on the hash-tag technology. These are specific topics that may go viral if more than one person uses them in their tweets. They are created of characters without spaces and with the # symbol in front of them. For example: #WordPress. You can either use existing hash-tags that are already viral or you can create your own one and popularize it.

In Twitter you can also have conversations when users and brands are mentioning each other and then replying on the respective tweets and so on.

Now on the main topic – why should I use Custom Twitter Feeds on WordPress.

This plugin will allow you to display the feed of your personal or business profile on your website. The key moment here is that you will be able to completely customize this feed. You can add user timeline, home timeline of even the hashtag that you have created for your brand and want to be popularized.

How to use Custom Twitter Feeds?

Begin by following the already familiar procedure of installing (automatically using WordPress or by downloading from WordPress.org) and activating the plugin.

Then you have to go to your WordPress dashboard and click on the Twitter Feeds menu in order to configure the plugin.

Once you do this, you will be presented with five tabs:

The settings options for Custom Twitter Feeds

What should I do next with Custom Twitter Feeds?

Start filling your Twitter profile with useful tweets and display them on your website. Remember that great content in any form is a sure method to attract new followers for your brand. A good idea here will be to find additional information about using Twitter for social media marketing purposes so that you can be sure that you are doing it right.

That’s all friends! If you find this plugin useful, please give it a try. Bear in mind that this review was for the options supported in the free version of Custom Twitter Feeds. If you want more power for your custom feeds you can purchase the PRO version of the plugin and unlock all of the additional options in the tabs.

Please share this post on social media in order to help other users find out about this great plugin and don’t forget to write any questions or feedback in the comment section below.

See you soon, friends!

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 duplicate posts and pages on WordPress?

Hello friends,

In this post I will show you how to duplicate any post or page on your WordPress website with just a single click.

First of all I’d like to begin by explaining the dangers of having duplicate content.

I am an SEO specialist, so it would be a sin not to warn you that duplicate content is not something that Google or other search engines like. It doesn’t matter if it is placed on two or more websites or on a single one – it is a problem. You may get penalized if you leave a copy of a post or a page 1:1 with its original version.

But does this mean that content duplication is always a mistake? Of course not!

It may only be a problem if you intend to make a 1:1 copies and leave them unchanged and then publish them. But in any other case content duplication could not only be harmless but also extremely useful.

For example let’s say that you want to add a new element to one of your pages and you want to test how it will behave directly on the production server. You might like to make a duplicate version that will not be indexable but will serve for the testing purposes without breaking the original page.

Another reason why you’d love to duplicate content on WordPress is when you want to make several posts/pages that should have similar structures but with differences in their content. Then the only thing needed is to edit each copy and make it unique and this will save you time and energy from creating everything from scratch.

Another example for content duplication is when it comes to creating similar content from more than one author on your WordPress website. By default each author can edit only their posts. But let’s assume that two authors are writing on similar subjects and may need either similar post structure or something else from one of the posts. Then the most suitable solution is the admin to duplicate one of the posts and assign the new draft to the respective author so that they can edit it.

So as you see content duplication can be extremely useful in specific cases.

So how to duplicate posts and pages on WordPress?

First of all you need to install the plugin Duplicate Post. Do this from the WordPress plugin installer and search for it or download it from the official WordPress.org website and upload it manually for installation.

After you activate Duplicate Post you can go to its Options in the WordPress dashboard and adjust the behaviour of the plugin.

Duplicate Posts Options

You can allow it to copy many elements from the original post/page such as:

Duplicate Post can be set to omit the duplication of specific fields and WordPress taxonomies. You can also set the title prefix ans suffix. Let’s not forget the roles that can copy posts/pages – you can delegate the rights to all of them or limit it to only specific ones. You can also decide whether or not to show links for the duplication procedure in the post list, edit screen or the admin bar of each WordPress version above 3.1.

After you decide on these settings you should go to the “All Posts” or “All Pages” menus. On each post/page there should be an option (on mouse over) to clone it or make a new draft.

Duplicate Posts for extremely easy post/page cloning or saving as a new draft

In the edit screen of each post/page there should also be a link that will allow you to copy it to a new draft as well.

Duplicate Posts can also be used directly from the edit screen for each post/page

The developers of Duplicate Post have also included the option to add a template tag that allows you to clone your content directly from the frontend.

This is how Duplicate Post works.

You should be able to save vast amount of time and energy when creating new posts/pages with similar structures by using this plugin. A word of advise – some of the Page builders like Site Origin’s one also have the option to clone posts/pages. My personal opinion is to use the functionality of the page builder when duplicating content created with it instead of using Duplicate Post. Just in case, of course. But if you find it more suitable to use only one solution, then do try.

Don’t forget to share your results, opinions and any other thoughts on the content duplication process for WordPress. If you have enjoyed this article and find it useful, please share it to social media as well.

See you soon, friends!

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