Tutorials Archives - Page 11 of 29

May 27, 2019May 27, 2019

Easy Guide to Properly Move from Squarespace to WordPress

In this tutorial, we will learn how to properly move from Squarespace to WordPress.

Why Move from Squarespace to WordPress?

Squarespace provides an easy to use platform to create and build websites. But it is very limited in terms of what you can do on your own website.

WordPress is more flexible, open source, and you can do anything you want with your website. Take a look at our article on Squarespace vs WordPress for a detailed comparison of the two platforms.

Also note that when we say WordPress, we mean self hosted WordPress.org site and not WordPress.com blog hosting service. Check out our guide on the difference between WordPress.org vs WordPress.com for more information.

Step 0: Getting Started

Squarespace hosts your websites on their own servers. If you are moving to WordPress, then you will need to host your own website.

If your Squarespace site has its own domain name, then you may want to transfer that domain to your new web host as well.

During and after the domain transfer, you will be able to access your Squarespace website as it will start using the built-in Squarespace subdomain.

Step 1: Installing WordPress

After signing up with a web host, the next step is to install WordPress. As the most used CMS in the world, WordPress is known for its famous 5 minute install.

Most WordPress hosting providers like Bluehost, Siteground, Hostgator, etc offer quick 1-click WordPress installers. Take a look at our detailed step by step WordPress installation tutorial for beginners for more information.

Step 2: Exporting Squarespace Content

After installing WordPress on your new web host, the next step is to export your content from Squarespace.

Squarespace offers limited export functionality. Depending on what content you have on your site, some of it will be exported. Rest of the content will remain on your Squarespace built-in domain, and you will have to manually copy paste it.

Here is the content that will be exported.

All your basic pages will be exported as WordPress pages.
One blog page will be exported, and it will appear in WordPress pages as Blog
All your blog posts under that one blog page will be exported as WordPress posts
Your Gallery pages will be exported
Text, Image, and Embed blocks will be exported

The following content will not be exported.

Product pages, Album pages, and Event pages will not be exported
Audio, Video, and Product blocks will not export
Style changes and custom CSS
Folders and index pages will be left out
If you had more than one blog page, then only one of them will be exported

Now that you know how restricting SquareSpace is, let’s go ahead and export the content so you can have a fresh start with WordPress where you have all the freedom.

This will show you the import/export settings. You need to click on the export button to continue.

Squarespace will now show you a popup with WordPress logo on it. Currently, Squarespace only exports content in format suitable for WordPress only. Click on the WordPress logo to initiate the export process.

You will see the progress of the export on the left under the import export buttons. Once the export is finished, you will see a button to download your export file.

Download the export file to your computer. You will need it in the next step when you import content into your new WordPress site.

Step 3: Importing Content From Squarespace into WordPress

The next step is to import the content you downloaded from Squarespace into your WordPress site.

Login in to your WordPress admin area and go to Tools » Import page. You will see a list of platforms to choose from.

Squarespace will not be listed there because Squarespace exports content in a WordPress compatible XML file format which means you need to click on WordPress to continue.

This will bring up a popup where you will be asked to install the WordPress Importer plugin. You need to click on the ‘Install Now’ button.

WordPress will now download and install the WordPress importer plugin. Upon completion, you will see a success message. You need to click on ‘Activate Plugin & Run Importer’ link.

On the next screen, you need to click on the choose file button and then select the Squarespace export file you downloaded earlier. After that click on upload file and import button to continue.

WordPress will now upload and examine your Squarespace export file. If everything is in order, then it will show you the import settings page.

This is where you will choose an author name for the imported content. WordPress can also import the Squarespace user and add them as a subscriber on your WordPress site. You can also choose an existing admin user as author or even create a new user.

There is an option to import attachment images. This option may not work at all. During our migration process, we kept running into errors. Guessing maybe Squarespace doesn’t want us to leave so they’re making it hard.

You should leave the checkbox checked anyways, hoping that maybe in some future version this issue will be resolved.

Click on the submit button and WordPress will start importing content from your Squarespace export file.

When it’s done, you will see the success message. You can now visit the pages and posts in WordPress to review the imported content.

Step 4: Importing Images from Squarespace

Unfortunately, the WordPress importer cannot import images from your Squarespace website. You will have to manually import those images.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Import External Imagesplugin in WordPress. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Media » Import Images page to run the plugin.

For more detailed instructions, take a look at our guide on how to import external images in WordPress.

Step 5: Fixing Permalinks

We need to make sure that you don’t miss traffic coming through the links from your old Squarespace website. WordPress uses SEO friendly URL structure, which allows you to customize the link structure in many different ways.

The goal here is to make our link structure similar to your Squarespace website. Squarespace uses year/month/day/post-name as the link format for blog posts. It also uses a prefix like blog or blog-1 in the post URLs.

A typical blog post URL using the default built-in Squarespace domain name may look like this:

https://example-website.squarespace.com/blog-1/2016/3/6/post-title

If you were using your own domain name with Squarespace, then a typical blog post URL may look like this:

https://www.yourdomain.com/blog-1/2016/3/6/post-title

In WordPress admin area, you need to visit Settings » Permalinks page. There you will see a list of URL structure options. The closest match to your old squarespace URL is ‘Day and Name’.

Click on Day and Name option and then move down to custom structure. You will see that the custom structure section will be automatically filled with year, month number, day, and post name tags.

You just need to add the blog-1 prefix before everything else. Like this:

/blog-1/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

Click on the save changes button to store your settings. This step makes sure that users visiting your website from search engines and other sources are redirected to correct posts and pages on the new WordPress site.

There is still a chance that some of your links may result into 404 errors in WordPress. Here is how to track 404 pages and redirect them in WordPress.

Step 6: Importing Other Content from Squarespace to WordPress

Squarespace only allows you to export limited content. If you were using their eCommerce features, events, or hosting audio video files, then you will have to import all of them manually to your WordPress site.

Depending on how much content you have there, this process can take some time.

For products you will need a WordPress eCommerce plugin, like WooCommerce.

For your video files, we recommend you to host them on third party video hosting services like YouTube and Vimeo.

Step 7: Getting to Know WordPress

WordPress is powerful platform with incredible flexibility. There are thousands of professionally designed free and premium WordPress themes that you can use on your site. See our guide on how to select the perfect WordPress themefor your site.

May 27, 2019May 27, 2019

Step by Step guide to Move Custom Domain Blogger Blog to WordPress

In this tutorial, we will learn how to move custom domain blogger blog to WordPress.

Step 1: Getting Started

Before we start, it is important to note that this guide is for the self hosted WordPress blog. See our guide on the difference between self hosted WordPress.org site vs free WordPress.com blog.

In order to get started, you will need a WordPress hosting provider to setup your self hosted WordPress website.

Step 2: Change DNS Settings

Blogger allows you to use any domain name registered by a 3rd party. U.S. based users can also use a domain registered with Google Domains.

When you first setup the domain pointing to your Blogger blog, you were asked to add CNAME and A records to your domain’s DNS records. You will need to delete those records and add your WordPress host’s DNS settings.

You can get DNS settings required by your WordPress hosting provider from their documentation or support websites. A typical DNS nameserver looks something like this:

NS1.domain.com
NS2.domain.com

In this guide, we will show you how to update DNS settings in Godaddy. If you have registered your domain with some other registrar don’t worry. The basic settings are the same on all domain registrars.

Important: DNS changes may take anywhere between a few hours to one or even two days to fully propagate. During this time, you can access your Blogger blog by logging into your account.

Changing DNS Settings in GoDaddy

Log in to your Godaddy account and click on the manage button next to domains. Click on the gear icon next to your domain and then select manage DNS.

You will see your domain information page. Next, you need to click on the DNS Zone File. This is where all the DNS level records for your domain are stored.

On the DNS Zone File page, you need to locate the A record and CNAME aliases you added for your Blogger blog and delete them. Click on save changes button to apply your changes.

The next step is to setup nameservers for your WordPress hosting provider. Go back to manage DNS page for your domain and then click on manage under the namservers section.

On the next page you need to click on custom and then click on edit nameservers link to add your new WordPress hosts nameservers.

Click on the save button to make your DNS changes go live.

Step 3: Remove Redirect

Your Bloggger blog’s original blogspot.com address is redirecting users to your custom domain. Since we have changed the domain settings, we need to remove this from Blogger too.

Simply log into your Blogger account and go to Settings » Basic page. Under the publishing section, click on the cross icon to cancel the redirect.

Step 4: Install WordPress

If your domain’s DNS has propagated now, you can now install WordPress on your hosting provider.

If your domain is registered on a 3rd party service other than your web host, then you will need to add the hosting for the domain. For example, in BlueHost you will add your domain as an Addon domain through cPanel unless it is the main domain on your account.

After adding domain to your new host, the next step is to install WordPress. Follow the instructions in our complete WordPress installation tutorial.

After successful installation of WordPress on your custom domain, you will be ready to import content from your Blogger blog.

Step 5: Export Content From Blogger

Before you can import content into WordPress, first you need to export it from your Blogger blog.

Blogger allows you to export content in an XML file.

This will bring up a popup where you need to click on the Download Blog button.

Depending on the file size, it may take a few seconds or a few minutes. Once you have your data, it is time to import it into your WordPress site.

Step 6: Import Blogger Blog into WordPress

Login to your WordPress admin area and visit Tools » Import page. There you will see a list of importers for different services. You need to click on Blogger to install the Blogger importer.

This will bring up a popup where you need to click on the Insall button. WordPress will now download and install the Blogger Importer plugin for you. Once it is finished installing the plugin, you need to click on Activate Plugin and Run Importer link to continue.

On the Import Blogger screen, WordPress will ask you to upload the XML file. Simply click on choose file button and upload the XML file you downloaded earlier. Click on the Upload file and import button to continue.

WordPress will now import your blogger posts from blogger, once it is finished you will be asked to assign an author to the imported posts. You can assign your blogger posts to an existing author or create a new one.

Congratulations! you have successfully imported your Blogger blog into WordPress. However, you still need to make sure that you don’t loose any search rankings and that visitors to your old blog can easily land to the same content on your new WordPress powered website.

Step 7: Setup Permalinks

WordPress comes with a feature that allows you to set up SEO friendly URL structure. However, since you are importing content from Blogger, you would want your URL structure to be as close to your Blogger URL structure as possible. To set permalinks you need to go to Settings » Permalinks and paste this in the custom structure field:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

Setp 8: Setup Feed Redirects

You have successfully redirected your Blogger blog to WordPress. However, users who have subscribed to your Blogger RSS feed will stop receiving updates.

You need to redirect feed requests to your WordPress feeds. This can be easily achieved by editing .htaccess file in your WordPress site’s root folder. If you can’t find your .htaccess file, then see this tutorial.

Start by connecting to your WordPress site using an FTP client. You will need to enable ‘Show Hidden Files’ option in your FTP client settings. If you are using Filezilla, you will find this option under Server menu.

Once you are connected to your website, you will find the .htaccess file in your WordPress site’s root directory. You need to edit this file and paste the following code before any other code in the file.

   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule atom.xml /feed? [L,R=301]
   RewriteRule rss.xml /feed? [L,R=301]
   RewriteRule ^feeds/posts/?.*$ /feed? [L,R=301]
   RewriteRule ^feeds/comments/?.*$ /comments/feed? [L,R=301]

Save your changes and upload the .htaccess file back to the server. Your Blogger feed subscribers will now be redirected to your WordPress site’s feed.

May 27, 2019

Easy Guide to Add Categories to a Custom Post Type in WordPress

In this tutorial, we will learn how to add categories to a custom post type in WordPress. We will also show you how to display multiple post types on your category archive page.

The Plugin Method : Custom Post Type UI

For our beginner level users, we recommend using Custom Post Type UI plugin to create custom post types. When using Custom Post Type UI plugin, you have the option to associate your custom post type to any built-in or custom taxonomy including categories.

First you need to install and activate the Custom Post Type UI plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon installation, you need to visit CPT UI » Add/Edit Post Types to create a new custom post type or edit an existing custom post type you created with the plugin.

Scroll down on the Advanced Options to the bottom and there you will see the Built in Taxnomies option. Check the box next to categories and save your custom post type.

Don’t forget to click on the save post type button to store your settings.

Manually Adding Categories to a Custom Post Type

If you created your custom post type by adding the code in your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin, then you will have to modify the code to add category as supported taxonomy.

All you need to do is add this line in the arguments for your CPT.

 'taxonomies'  => array( 'category' ),

It is likely that you may already have this line in the existing code for your CPT with some other custom taxonomy in it. If you do, then you just need to add a comma after that and add category, like this:

 'taxonomies'          => array('topics', 'category' ),

Here is a full example code where we have created a custom post type called movies with support for built-in categories.

function custom_post_type() {
 
// Set UI labels for Custom Post Type
    $labels = array(
        'name'                => _x( 'Movies', 'Post Type General Name', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'singular_name'       => _x( 'Movie', 'Post Type Singular Name', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'menu_name'           => __( 'Movies', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'parent_item_colon'   => __( 'Parent Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'all_items'           => __( 'All Movies', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'view_item'           => __( 'View Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'add_new_item'        => __( 'Add New Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'add_new'             => __( 'Add New', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'edit_item'           => __( 'Edit Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'update_item'         => __( 'Update Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'search_items'        => __( 'Search Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'not_found'           => __( 'Not Found', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'not_found_in_trash'  => __( 'Not found in Trash', 'twentythirteen' ),
    );
     
// Set other options for Custom Post Type
     
    $args = array(
        'label'               => __( 'movies', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'description'         => __( 'Movie news and reviews', 'twentythirteen' ),
        'labels'              => $labels,
        'supports'            => array( 'title', 'editor', 'excerpt', 'author', 'thumbnail', 'comments', 'revisions', 'custom-fields', ),
        'hierarchical'        => false,
        'public'              => true,
        'show_ui'             => true,
        'show_in_menu'        => true,
        'show_in_nav_menus'   => true,
        'show_in_admin_bar'   => true,
        'menu_position'       => 5,
        'can_export'          => true,
        'has_archive'         => true,
        'exclude_from_search' => false,
        'publicly_queryable'  => true,
        'capability_type'     => 'page',
         
        // This is where we add taxonomies to our CPT
        'taxonomies'          => array( 'category' ),
    );
     
    // Registering your Custom Post Type
    register_post_type( 'movies', $args );
 
}
 
/* Hook into the 'init' action so that the function
* Containing our post type registration is not 
* unnecessarily executed. 
*/
 
add_action( 'init', 'custom_post_type', 0 );

Displaying Multiple Post Types on Category Page

By default the category pages on your WordPress site will only display the default ‘Posts’ post type. To display your custom post types on the same category page as your default posts, you need to add this code into your theme’s functions.php or a site-specific plugin.

add_filter('pre_get_posts', 'query_post_type');
function query_post_type($query) {
  if( is_category() ) {
    $post_type = get_query_var('post_type');
    if($post_type)
        $post_type = $post_type;
    else
        $post_type = array('nav_menu_item', 'post', 'movies'); // don't forget nav_menu_item to allow menus to work!
    $query->set('post_type',$post_type);
    return $query;
    }
}

Don’t forget to replace movies with the name of your own custom post type.

That’s all, we hope this tutorial helped you add categories to your custom post type in WordPress.

May 27, 2019May 27, 2019

What is a SEO Friendly URL/ Permalinks in WordPress

Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. A permalink is what another weblogger will use to link to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message. The URL to each post should be permanent, and never change — hence permalink. In this tutorial, we will learn about WordPress SEO friendly URLs, and how you can customize your WordPress permalinks.

What is a SEO Friendly URL?

Before we go too deep into WordPress permalinks, it’s important that we define what is a SEO Friendly URL.

SEO Friendly URLs contain keywords that explain the article, and they’re easy to read by both humans and search engines. They also improve your chances to rank higher in search engines.

Example of a SEO friendly URL:

http://www.example.com/how-to-install-wordpress/

So what does a non-SEO friendly URL look like?

http://www.example.com/?p=10467

By default, WordPress now uses the post name in the URL which is the most SEO friendly URL structure.

So why do beginners still ask us for best permalink structure?

That’s because in the past, WordPress did not use pretty URLs also known as permalinks. The default used to be the non-SEO friendly example that we shared above.

This was changed in WordPress 4.2. If you recently installed WordPress, then your site URLs are SEO friendly.

You can easily verify your permalink settings in your WordPress admin area.

The Permalink Settings Page Explained

In WordPress, links are called Permalinks (short for permanent links). You’ll see the term permalink structure and URL structure being used interchangeably.

First thing you need to do is to visit the Permalinks settings page in your WordPress admin area.

Simply click on Settings link in the admin menu and then click on Permalinks. This will take you to a page that looks like this:

As you can see there are number of choices available.

Plain
https://www.wpcademy.com/?p=123
Day and name
https://www.wpcademy.com/2016/01/22/sample-post/
Month and name
https://www.wpcademy.com/2016/01/sample-post/
Numeric
https://www.wpcademy.com/archives/123
Post name
https://www.wpcademy.com/sample-post/
Custom Structure
Choose your own URL structure using available tags.

Let us explain these options a bit, and how useful they are for users and SEO.

The first option which is called plain used to be the default WordPress URL structure. This is not an SEO friendly option.

The day and name option is somewhat SEO friendly as it has the post name in it. However, with dates, the URL becomes too lengthy. But more importantly after some time your content seems outdated, even if you regularly update it. Similarly, the month and name option also runs the risk of being dated.

However if you’re a news publication, then you want to have the dates in your URL to show the recency and improve the user experience.

In our opinion, those two structures are only good for news sites. Business sites that are hoping to create ever-green content should avoid it.

Post name option is the most SEO friendly because it is short and pretty.

If you are running a larger publication, then you can use a custom structure that can also be SEO friendly.

At WPCademy, We use a custom permalink structure that adds a category name along with the post name in the URL. Because our site is large and contain thousands of articles, it suits us very well. You will see larger publications follow a similar URL structure.

In order to use a custom URL structure, you will need to add special tags in the custom structure box. For example, we use:

/%category%/%postname%/

Notice how each tag is wrapped between percent signs. Also notice the trailing slashes / before, after, and between the tags.

Creating Custom URL Structure with Available Tags

For the best results, we recommend using the options we mentioned above. You can copy the URL structure we use on WPCademy or choose the post name as your URL structure.

However, there are plenty of other combinations you can create using tags. Here is a list of tags that you can use to create your own custom URL structure:

%year% – The year of the post, four digits, for example 2016.
%monthnum% – Month of the year, for example 05
%day% – Day of the month, for example 28
%hour% – Hour of the day, for example 15
%minute% – Minute of the hour, for example 43
%second% – Second of the minute, for example 33
%postname% – A sanitized version of the title of the post (post slug field on Edit Post/Page panel). For example, if your post title is This Is A Great Post! It would become this-is-a-great-post in the URL.
%post_id% – The unique ID # of the post, for example 423
%category% – A sanitized version of the category name (category slug field on New/Edit Category panel). Nested sub-categories appear as nested directories in the URI.
%author% – A sanitized version of the author name.

Don’t forget to click on the save changes button after choosing your permalink structure.

As soon as you press the save changes button, WordPress will automatically update your site’s .htaccess file and your site will immediately start using the new URL structure.

Warning: Important Note for Established Sites

If your site has been running for more than 6 months, then please don’t change your permalink structure.

You don’t have to use the same structure that we used.

By changing your permalink structure on an established site, you will lose all of your social media share count and run the risk of losing your existing SEO ranking.

If you must change your permalink structure, then hire a professional, so they can setup proper redirects. You’ll still lose your social share counts on the pages.

There’s only one exception to this rule. If your site is using the plain URLs, then no matter how old it is, you should update the URL structure for better SEO. Yes, you will still lose social share counts, but the benefits far outweigh that.

We hope this tutorial helped you create a SEO friendly URL structure for your WordPress site.

May 27, 2019

Easy Guide to Hide Password Protected Posts From WordPress Loop

In this tutorial, we will learn how to hide password protected posts from the WordPress loop.

Why Hide Password Protected Posts in WordPress?

By default, WordPress displays the password protected post with its title and a ‘protected’ prefix. Users will need to enter the password to view the content of the post.

This post title is visible on the homepage, archives, recent posts widget, etc. If you want to keep some content completely private, then this is not a ideal.

Not only users who don’t have password can see the post title, they can also try to enter passwords. As we all know, passwords can be cracked.

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to hide your password protected posts from WordPress loop so that other users cannot see them.

Hiding Password Protected Posts in WordPress

Simply add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

function wpb_password_post_filter( $where = '' ) {
    if (!is_single() && !is_admin()) {
        $where .= " AND post_password = ''";
    }
    return $where;
}
add_filter( 'posts_where', 'wpb_password_post_filter' );

This code simply modifies the query sent to the WordPress by using the posts_where filter. It asks WordPress to fetch all posts that do not have a password.

Visit your website and you will see that password protected posts are no longer visible on homepage, archives, or in widgets like recent posts.

You can still visit the post by accessing it through a direct URL to the post itself.

The example above, hides password protected posts from all users. What if you ran a multi-author WordPress site and wanted protected-posts to be viewable by users with the capability to edit private posts?

Simply modify the above code with another conditional tag, like this:

function wpb_password_post_filter( $where = '' ) {
   if (!is_single() && !current_user_can('edit_private_posts') && !is_admin()) {
        $where .= " AND post_password = ''";
    }
    return $where;
}
add_filter( 'posts_where', 'wpb_password_post_filter' );

In this example, we check if a user cannot edit the password protected posts, then only show the posts that don’t have password. Doing so all users with user roles of administrator and editor will see the password protected posts on the front end of your site.

We hope this tutorial helped you hide password protected posts from WordPress loop on your site.

May 27, 2019

Easy Guide to Install and Configure Facebook Retargeting Pixel in WordPress

In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Facebook retargeting pixel in WordPress.

Why Use Facebook Retargeting Pixel to Boost Your Social Reach?

When you boost Facebook page posts using Facebook ads, you can select a wide range of target audience. Retargeting allows you to narrow your audience and get better results with less spending.

You can show your ads to people who are already interested in your website. These people are much more likely to respond to your boosted posts and advertisements on Facebook.

What is a Facebook Retargeting Pixel?

Have you noticed that after you visit a website, you start seeing their ads on Facebook? This is called retargeting.

Those websites use Facebook’s retargeting technology, commonly known as Facebook Pixel.

The retargeting pixel does not add anything visible on your website. It simply sends a browser cookie to your visitors.

This allows Facebook to retarget users visiting your website on Facebook.

Let’s take a look at how you can add a Facebook retargeting pixel to your WordPress site.

Creating a Facebook Retargeting Pixel

To make it easy, we have created a video tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin that you can watch below.

However if you just want to follow text-instructions, then you can follow our step by step tutorial on how to How to Install Facebook’s Retargeting Pixel in WordPress.

First, you need to login to your Facebook account and visit Ads Manager. Next, click on Tools » Pixels to create your Facebook pixel.

When you click on the create pixel button, it will show you a popup. Simply enter a name for your pixel which can be a name of your business or product, and then press the create pixel button to continue.

You will see a success message with the unique ID of your pixel.

If someone else manages the technical things on your website, then you can email them the pixel code. Otherwise, click on ‘Install Pixel Now’ button to install it yourself.

Facebook will now show you the Pixel code that you need to install on your WordPress site. Simply copy the pixel code, and we will show you how to install it in WordPress.

Installing Facebook Pixel in WordPress

You need to add the Facebook Pixel code just before the </head> in your WordPress theme.

The easiest way to do this is by using the Insert Headers and Footers plugin. After installing and activating the plugin, you need to go to the Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page.

You can paste your Facebook Pixel code in the header section and click on the save button to store your changes. See our guide on how to add header and footer code in WordPress for detailed instructions.

That’s all, you have successfully installed Facebook Pixel on your WordPress website.

Bonus Step: Creating Custom Audiences Using Facebook Pixel

Now that you have successfully installed Facebook Pixel on your WordPress site. The next step is to create custom audiences for your retargeting campaigns on Facebook.

Custom Audiences allow you to target users you already know for your Facebook ads. These users can be your website visitors, users who like your page, or users who signed up for your mailing list.

Here is how you can create custom audiences in Facebook.

Simply visit Facebook Ads Manager dashboard and go to Tools » Audiencessection.

This will bring up a popup where you need to choose the kind of audience you want to target on Facebook.

You can choose a customer list, website traffic, or app activity. For the sake of this tutorial, we are going to choose website traffic.

Now Facebook will ask you which website audience you want to target. You can choose all website visitors, people who visit specific pages, people who don’t visit specific pages, and so on. You can also create custom combinations.

Next you need to choose a duration in number of days. Lastly, you need to provide an audience name. Use something that helps you easily identify this audience in your insights.

Once you are done, click on the create audience button to finish creating your first custom audience.

Repeat the process to create more custom audiences by Facebook retargeting.

Showing Your Ads to Custom Audiences Using Facebook Retargeting Pixel

The real fun begins with engaging your custom audiences by using Facebook ads.

Start by creating a new ad in Facebook. You can run different kind of ads for different objectives. Like boosting your page posts, sending traffic to your website, increase conversion, and so on.

Depending on what objective you choose, you will be able to select the target audience at some point during the ad creation.

In the same audience selection, Facebook will show you custom audience, and you can select it to be targeted with your ad campaign.

We hope this tutorial helped you install Facebook retargeting pixel in WordPress.

May 27, 2019

Easy Guide to Restrict Content to Registered Users in WordPress

In this tutorial, we will learn how to restrict content to registered users in WordPress.

We will be using Restrict Content Pro which is an awesome plugin to create a full fledged membership website with paid subscriptions.

Why Use Restrict Content Pro?

Restrict Content Pro is the premium version of an awesome free plugin with the same name Restrict Content.

If you do not want to purchase the pro version, then you can simply download the free version which has limited support and features.

Here is why we have chosen Restrict Content for this guide:

Restrict Content Pro is extremely easy to install, set up and use.
The code behind the plugin is clean and poetic.
You can create unlimited subscription packages with multiple levels
You can accept payments using PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, and 2Checkout.
It allows you to easily create login, signup, user account pages.
You can create unlimited number of discount codes.
The easy to use reporting shows you how your site is performing.

Setting up Restrict Content Pro in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate Restrict Content Pro. Upon activation, this plugin adds a new menu item labeled ‘Restrict’ in your WordPress admin sidebar.

Before we move on to plugin settings, lets start by creating a sign in, register, and manage subscriptions pages in WordPress.

First page you need to create is the login page.

Simply go Pages » Add New to create a new WordPress page. You can give your page any title that you want and enter [login_form] shortcode in the content area. After that, go ahead and publish your page.

Repeat the procedure to create a registration page with [register_form]shortcode in it.

When a user signs up for a subscription plan, they will be redirected to a confirmation page. This could be any page on your website with any content. You can simply create a page thanking users for signing up on your website. This page does not need any shortcode.

Lastly, you need to create a page where users will be able to see their subscription plan and account details. Create a page with the shortcode [subscription_details] to display user subscription details.

Once you have created the required pages, it is time to set up Restrict Content Pro settings.

Go to Restrict » Settings, and you will land on the plugin’s General settings page.

The first option here is to provide your plugin license key which is required for plugin updates and support.

Next, you need to select your registration, success, account management, and billing update pages.

After that, you need to click on the payments tab to configure your payment gateway. You will be asked to choose a currency and then select your payment gateways. Yes, you can have more than one.

You will see a checkbox to enable sandbox mode. Keep it checked until your site is ready for launch and accept payments.

Each payment gateway has different configuration settings. You will need to provide your PayPal email address for PayPal Standard. You will need API keys if you are using PayPal Pro or Express. Similarly, you will need API keys for other gateways too. You can obtain these keys by logging into your account on your payments service provider.

The emails tab on the settings page allows you to modify the emails sent out by the plugin. If you are having trouble recieving emails, then check out our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending emails issue.

There are some important options available under the Misc tab on settings page. You can setup login page redirects, disable account sharing, Form CSS, send IPN emails, and setup reCAPTCHA for registration form to prevent spam registrations.

Creating Subscription Levels in Restrict Content Pro

Now we are ready to create Subscription levels for your restricted content. As the name suggest, it allows you to create different level of subscriptions for your content.

For example, you can create a subscription level ‘Premium’ and set a price for it. When you are restricting content on your website, you will be able to choose the subscription level a user must have in order to access the restricted content.

Creating a subscription level in Restrict Content Pro is simple. Give your subscription level a title, description and set a price for it. You can set the price to zero if you want to create a subscription level for registered non-paying users.

You can choose the duration of a subscription level or set it to 0 to make the duration unlimited. Lastly, you need to set the status to Active, so this subscription plan is active and available on sign up form. Like this:

Restricting Content in WordPress using Restrict Content Pro

Restrict Content Pro allows you to restrict content on a post by post basis. Under each new post, custom post type, or page, you will see a Restrict this content box with options to control who can see that particular post.

You can choose to restrict content based on user’s role, access, or subscription level. You can even hide contents within a post using the restrict shortcode like this:

[restrict] Your restricted content goes here... [/restrict]

Managing Memberships in Restrict Content Pro

To manage memberships in Restrict Content Pro, go to Restrict » Members. You can click on each member to view their membership details, payments received, and the status of their account.

You can also deactivate a member’s subscription at any time. This will not delete their account from your website however their subscription will be canceled, and they will be required to renew it.

You can manage payments by going to Restrict » Payments. This will show you the payments you have received. With each payment, you will see the user name, their subscription plan, amount and date. All the payment data can also be exported in CSV format under Restrict » Export page.

Adding Discount Codes For Subscriptions with Restrict Content Pro

Restrict Content Pro allows you to offer discount codes for your promotional activity to increase user signups.

Adding a discount code is very simple. Go to Restrict » Discount Codes and simply fill in the form to create a new discount code. You can offer a flat amount discount, or a percentage discount. You can also set an expiration date for each discount code you create, and even limit the number of times a discount code can be used.

We hope that this tutorial helped you restrict content to registered users with WordPress and Restrict Content Pro.