Category: WordPress Plugin

How To Quickly Disable The Default WordPress Sitemap

Do you want to disable the WordPress sitemap by default on your website?

The default sitemap function was introduced in WordPress 5.5, and it allows WordPress to automatically publish XML sitemaps for your website. The issue is that this function lacks advanced WordPress SEO features that are required to rank better.

We’ll teach you how to effortlessly disable the WordPress sitemap and replace it with a more robust alternative in this article.

Why Should You Turn Off WordPress Sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a file that specifies all of your website’s content in XML format, allowing search engines to easily identify and index your material. Sitemaps are extremely valuable to your website since they increase traffic and boost your SEO results.

However, many WordPress SEO plugins, such as All in One SEO, Yoast SEO, and Google XML Sitemaps, already include sitemaps, resulting in WordPress sites with two sets of sitemaps. Duplicate sitemaps for the same WordPress page might cause search engines to become confused and lower your SEO results.

You’re missing out on advanced features if you don’t use an SEO plugin for your sitemap. Many popular WordPress SEO plugins, for example, include features such as Video Sitemap, News Sitemap, RSS Sitemap, and others that you’ll need to outrank your competitors in SEO.

Using the WordPress SEO Plugin, disable the WordPress Sitemap. If you use one of the top WordPress SEO plugins, the default WordPress sitemap feature will be disabled and replaced with a more effective alternative.

All in One SEO is the finest WordPress SEO plugin for optimizing your website for search engines and social media networks. AIOSEO is used by over 3 million websites, including ours. All-in-One SEO will enable their Sitemap function by default, which will replace the normal WordPress sitemaps upon activation.

The first step is to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. Please visit our article on how to install a WordPress plugin for more information. Once launched, the AIOSEO plugin must be configured. Then, from the WordPress admin dashboard, navigate to the All in One SEO » Sitemaps page to examine your sitemap settings.

Navigate to the ‘General Sitemap’ tab next. Make sure the ‘Enable Sitemap’ setting is set to ‘Active’ here. This will deactivate the WordPress sitemap by default.

In addition to the General Sitemap, we recommend that you enable the video sitemap, news sitemap, and RSS sitemap on your website to improve your SEO rankings.

Using Code Snippet, disable WordPress Sitemap.

You may also use code to simply deactivate the default WordPress sitemap. You may place the code snippet in the functions.php file of your theme. The main issue with adding code to your functions.php file is that even a minor error might cause your website to crash.

That is why we propose adding custom code to WordPress using WPCode. This free plugin allows you to easily add code snippets to WordPress without having to alter the functions.php file of your theme. First, download and install the free WPCode plugin. Check out our article on How to install a free WordPress plugin for more details.

Then, in your WordPress dashboard’s left-hand menu, navigate to the new Code Snippets entry. This will take you to the page titled ‘All Snippets.’

Then, simply click the ‘Add New’ option.

Go to Code Snippets and click Add New WPCode. This will take you to the ‘Add Snippet’ page, where you can add your own custom code or search for an existing snippet in the WPCode library.

Simply mouse over the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option and click ‘Use snippet’ since we need to add custom code.

You will now be sent to the ‘Create Custom Snippet’ page. You may begin by giving your code snippet a name. It may be whatever you choose.

Then, on the right, pick a ‘Code Type’ from the dropdown menu. Because we’ll be utilizing PHP code, simply select the ‘PHP Snippet’ option.

Then, under the ‘Code Preview,’ just copy and paste the following PHP code snippet.

1
 add_filter( 'wp_sitemaps_enabled', '__return_false' );

This is what it will look like once you’re done.

Scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section after pasting the code to discover two insert methods.

Simply choose the ‘Auto Insert’ option if you want it to run throughout the entire site.

Now, at the top of the page, change the switch from ‘Inactive’ to ‘Active,’ and then click the ‘Save Snippet’ button.

When you save and activate the code snippet, it becomes active and disables the default WordPress sitemap.

Conclusion

We hope this post was useful in teaching you how to disable the default WordPress sitemap.

Top 7 Best Table of Contents Plugins for WordPress (Expert Picks)

Are you trying to find a WordPress plugin to add a table of contents?

By allowing readers to skip ahead to any section of a post or page, a table of contents can enhance readability and make it simpler for them to comprehend long content. In order to index and rank your pages and posts in search results, Google will also use your table of contents.

The top table of contents plugins for WordPress are highlighted in this post.

Why Use a Table Content WordPress Plugin?

In order to make it easier for readers to traverse lengthy blog posts and pages, consider adding a table of contents (ToC) to your WordPress website. Your material can be simply organized and structured to make it simpler for readers to scan the post and jump to any portion they are interested in.

Since search engines like Google can add jump-to-section links next to your website in the search results, it also helps with your WordPress SEO. Your table of contents list may also appear in highlighted snippets on Google.

WordPress allows you to manually add a table of contents by inputting HTML and CSS code or by making use of advanced block editor options. However, because even the smallest error could prevent your table of contents from functioning, this takes time and can be challenging for beginners.

Using a WordPress plugin is a simpler method for producing a table of contents. There are more customization choices and you won’t need to change HTML code. Let’s examine some of the top WordPress table of contents plugins.

1. All in One SEO(AIOSEO)

The top WordPress SEO plugin is All in One SEO (AIOSEO). It enables you to optimize your website for search engines without having to hire a specialist or have technical skills.

A table of contents may be easily added to your WordPress site using AIOSEO. It provides a table of contents block that you can add anywhere in your blog post using the WordPress text editor.

Using your heading levels from H1 through H6, the AIOSEO block will automatically create a table of contents.

Though AIOSEO truly allows you to hide a certain heading or even totally alter the title as needed in the table of content, unlike other automatic table of content plugins. Additionally, you can rearrange the headings and switch from bullets to numbers for the design.

In addition, AIOSEO assists you in building XML sitemaps for your website so that search engines can readily find new content. Adding schema markup and making your material more visible in rich snippets are two additional benefits.

The plugin can also be used to perform an SEO audit and determine whether everything is correctly optimized. AIOSEO will recommend resolving several problems that could prevent your website from rising higher in search results.

The annual cost of AIOSEO premium programs begins at $49.60. You can test out the free AIOSEO Lite edition as well.

2. LuckyWP Table of Contents

The next WordPress Table of Contents plugin on our list is LuckyWP Table of Contents. To alter the style and appearance of your table of contents, it offers a variety of customization possibilities.

You might use pre-built color schemes that go with your brand, for example. Additionally, you can alter the width, font size, item font size, and colors to alter the appearance.

The plugin gives you the option to display elements in the table contents as bullets or numbers. Roman numerals and decimals are also permitted in the listing.

In addition, the plugin gives you three choices for where to include the table of contents on your site. Use a shortcode, widget, or WordPress content editor block, for instance.

3. Easy Table of Contents

You may add a table of contents to your blog articles, landing pages, sidebar, and custom post types by using the well-liked plugin, Easy Table of Contents.

The plugin is simple to use and creates a listing by pulling information from the article’s headings. With the WordPress block editor, the default editor, the Divi and Elementor page builders, among others, it integrates perfectly.

With the plugin, you can also automatically insert the table of contents into various post kinds. Additionally, you may customize the table’s width, change the font size, select a theme, and decide how many headings to include when constructing a table of contents.

4. Joli Table of Contents

An SEO-friendly table of contents plugin for WordPress is called Joli Table of Contents.

It is lightweight and has no negative effects on the functionality of your website. Only when it is supposed to display does the table of contents load. Additionally, you don’t need to bother about device optimization because the table is entirely responsive.

You can alter the table of contents’ appearance in a variety of ways using the Joli Table of Contents plugin. It includes 2 table themes and 4 free icons for the buttons that extend and contract.

In addition, the plugin enables you to select a numerical prefix, alter the font size, change the width of the table, add a shadow, and do other things.

5. CM Table of Contents

A really simple plugin for making a table of contents is CM Table of Contents by CreativeMindsSolutions. You can select which post kinds, like as blog posts, specific pages, sidebar widget regions, and custom pages, you’d like the table of contents to show on in the plugin. Additionally, you can have the table in your content collapse and grow.

The ability to choose from various performance options is the best part of utilizing the CM Table of Contents plugin. By doing this, you can make sure that the table of contents loads quickly.

In addition, there are a lot of stylistic choices for your table of contents. For each level of the table, you can alter the size, color, weight, and style. You can display the TOC in one or two columns using the plugin as well.

6. Simple Toc – Table of Contents

The default WordPress table of contents plugin is called SimpleTOC. It offers common functions and is user-friendly for beginners.

With the help of the SimpleTOC block in the WordPress text editor, you can quickly add TOC to your blog posts. There is no additional configuration needed for the plugin, and you can manage every setting from the content editor.

The table of contents in SimpleTOC can have a maximum and a minimum number of heading levels, as well as a heading that can be shown or hidden.

The lack of customization possibilities as compared to other plugins on our list, like AIOSEO, is a drawback. You must utilize the native styling tools in the WordPress theme customizer or full site editor to style the table of contents.

7. Heroic Table of Contents

Heroic Table of Contents is another table of contents WordPress plugin that might help with blog article navigation. The finest feature is that it is completely free of cost.

You can utilize the WordPress block provided by the plugin to include a table of contents in your posts and pages. It gives users a choice between four pre-built table styles, including outlined, rounded, contrasting, and grey.

You can also use plain text, bullets, or numbers in the table, as well as other formats, and you can display a collapse or expand indicator for your TOC. Heroic Table of Contents is mobile responsive and SEO friendly, so you don’t have to be concerned about how long it takes for users to load your site.

Which WordPress Plugin Has the Best Table of Contents?

We recommend All in One SEO as the finest plugin to help you easily add a table of contents and optimize your content for search engines (AIOSEO).

In the WordPress content editor, a table of contents may be added, customized, and hidden using the AIOSEO block. With addition, AIOSEO aids in sitemap creation, content SEO optimization, and much more.

However, if you’re searching for a table of contents-specific WordPress plugin, take a look at Easy Table of Contents. It is user-friendly for beginners and provides a variety of customization choices.

What And How To Monitor In WordPress?

Basically, websites built on WordPress don’t differ in terms of their monitoring needs from websites based on other CMS. However, thanks to the world’s largest developer ecosystem, the monitoring setup is greatly facilitated by the availability of ready-made plugins. Let’s find out what and how you can monitor in WordPress

What website features are worth monitoring and with what?

Below I mention the top five areas of a website that should be monitored. It means monitoring selected values and drawing conclusions from their variability and also ensuring that you receive alerts when any irregularities occur.

1. User behavior

Monitoring of users’ behaviors is primarily a statistical analysis of traffic, based on Google Analytics or another similar tool. Tracking the number of users and visits, the sources of their acquisition, paths between sub-pages, recording conversions, attribution, etc.

Google Site Kit– an official Google plugin that integrates with WordPress data not only from Google Analytics but also Search Console and AdSense – can help in consuming the data collected by Google Analytics.

Besides convenience – i.e., access to data in the WP dashboard – the plugin offers insights generated based on data from all connected sources.

Another popular plugin, which also works with Google Analytics, is Google Analytics Dashboard Plugin. The plugin’s authors, Monster Insights, claim that the main advantage of their product is that it displays only relevant values among the very large amount of data available in GA. Over 3 million active installations and 85% five-star ratings seem to confirm that there must be something to it.

Google Analytics is the unquestioned market leader, however, it’s not the only solution available. Other popular packages also offer plugins for WordPress – including Matomo Analytics(formerly known as PIWIK).

In addition to statistics on site traffic, you can also monitor their specific locally recorded behavior. For example, file downloads with Download Monitor.

To monitor the actions of logged-in users in the CMS there is the WP Activity Log. It records any actions, such as editing, publishing, adding a plugin, changing a menu, etc. A key feature of the plugin – but in the premium version – is email and SMS alerts.

2. Proper functioning

Detecting failures (unavailability), but also errors (malfunctions) and a decrease in performance or speed – these are the tasks of external site monitoring.

Services such as Super Monitoring, verify website availability, content, loading speed, and key processes (e.g., shopping) by pretending to be users every minute. They can also remind us about expiring domains and SSL certificates.

Plugins for WordPresseliminate the need to log into a separate monitoring panel, displaying reports and detailed data about recorded events (e.g., screenshots or HAR files) inside the CMS.

3. Security

Well-known plugins offering enhanced security for WordPress-based websites – such as Sucuri Security or Wordfence Security not only secure the site in various ways. They also continuously monitor a given WordPress site for threats. They detect unauthorized file changes, scan for known threats, and watch out for outdated components.

Complementary to security monitoring is the detection of presence on blacklists (e.g., Google Safe Search or RBL), implemented by the above-mentioned Super Monitoring.

4. SEO

Similarly, as in the case of security, SEO plug-ins, apart from their basic functions, also perform monitoring. Rank Math SEO, which is rapidly gaining popularity, as well as the long-established Yoast SEO and All-in-One SEO, retrieve and analyze data from Google Search Console and detect 404 errors on the site.

Going a step further than 404 errors, you can use Broken Link Checker to detect both internal and external links that have stopped working.

Also, Ahrefs is probably the largest alternative index and SEO mult-tool – provides alerts for SEO problems, even with a free account. Ahrefs has a plugin for WordPress as well.

5. Programming matters

A developer looking after and developing a WordPress-based site has many opportunities to monitor elements that are important from a programming perspective.

To begin with what seems to be the most crucial to monitor – bugs. Bugsnag is a WordPress plugin that records site crashes and errors and sends alerts via various channels – email, SMS, chat, or to a ticket system. In addition to these alerts, error history and statistics are also available.

One of the WP plugins that are most often used by developers is Query Monitor. It’s a tool used to track software-generated database queries, API calls, hooks, linked scripts, and more.

Meanwhile, the WP Crontol plugin is used to control what is periodically run by the WP-Cron system. Of course, this is not just passive monitoring in WordPress – WP Crontrol also lets you manage scheduled runs.

Also, when it comes to something a little more administrative than programming – updates – you can use the help of a “smart” plugin. Easy Updates Manager helps you get your updates under control with extensive configuration options for automating WordPress (including Multisite), plugins, and themes – and getting notifications.

Off-site

Since nothing works in a void, in addition to the above-mentioned features of your site, you can and often should monitor its environment. It is not directly connected to a single website or a specific technology, so in this case, it is more difficult to use WordPress plugins.

Position in search engines

Complementing the on-site SEO mentioned above is “rank tracking”, i.e., monitoring the position in search results (mainly Google) for selected keywords. Among the top tools, only Wincher offers a plugin for WP.

Reputation and mentions

The most “marketing” type of monitoring is tracking mentions and opinions about the brand and searching for discussions about the category. It allows you to stay up to date with what is being said about the brand and its products or services – but also to react to sales opportunities that appear anywhere on the Internet.

Proven tools in this category are Brand24, Mention, and BrandMentions.

Competition

A key component of the business environment that you need to constantly keep an eye on is your competitors. There are tools for estimating the popularity and traffic sources of websites (Similar Web) as well as for monitoring advertising activities in a given industry (SpyFu).

There is also a possibility of direct monitoring of the websites of selected competitors – namely detection of changes (e.g., new components of the offer). This can be done with such tools as Visualping or ChangeTower.

Too much data to monitor in WordPress?

When we want to monitor all important aspects of a website and its environment we come to a point where we gather a lot of data and reviewing it all continuously would be too time-consuming.

This is where two functions of monitoring systems come in handy:

  • Alerts and cyclic reports – well configured will make it unnecessary to keep track of the recorded data. Alerts will immediately inform about non-standard situations and cyclical reports will give a general overview of the situation once a month.
  • Integrations (data export) – will allow you to combine data from many sources and display them on one dashboard, built for example with Google Data Studio or Klipfolio.

About the author

Konrad Caban – for almost 20 years he has been helping clients to achieve their business goals through Internet marketing, managing a digital agency SITEIMPULSE. Before that, he was a co-founder of a popular Internet café and a publisher of one of the first electronics magazines.

How To Enable Image Uploads For Users In WordPress Comments

Images and comments are both effective ways to increase user interaction on your WordPress website. Allowing users to contribute photographs in comments, depending on your site’s niche and target audience, can greatly enhance user interaction on your site.

In this post, we’ll teach you how to enable picture uploads in WordPress comments.

Why Should Users Be Able to Upload Images in WordPress Comments?

WordPress comments are an excellent method to interact with your readers. People post feedback, ask questions, and make suggestions that might help you establish your brand and improve your products.

Allowing users to submit photos in comments can improve the user experience even further. Visitors, for example, can upload screenshots of their difficulties in the comments, providing your support team with extra information to help them tackle their issues.

Similarly, it may aid in the initiation of lively debates in which individuals can share amusing images and memes. This will make your comments more aesthetically appealing and enjoyable to read.

If you operate a travel blog, including photographs in comments can help you collect user-generated content. Users, for example, can upload photos from their favorite destinations, places they’ve been, and so on.

After that, let’s look at how to enable picture uploads in WordPress comments.

Allow WordPress commenters to upload images

The first step is to install and activate the DCO Comment Attachment plugin. For additional information,
visit our step-by-step guide to installing a WordPress plugin.

When activated, the plugin will operate right away and provide a file upload option to the WordPress comments section.

You may change its settings from your WordPress dashboard by navigating to Settings » DCO Comment Attachment.

The plugin allows you to establish a maximum upload file size, make attachments mandatory, embed attachments, choose an attachment picture size, and more.

By choosing the file type option, you may also allow your users to attach multiple file kinds, such as a document, PDF, PowerPoint presentation, excel spreadsheet, and more.

You can also choose whether to enable all users or only logged-in users to upload attachments in WordPress comments.

After you’ve made your changes, remember to click the ‘Save Changes’ option.

After that, navigate to any of your WordP’s post pages.

All user-uploaded photographs are saved in your WordPress media library.
If you wish to delete a picture that a user has uploaded, go to Media » Library, find the image, and then delete it.

This will remove the picture from the comment without changing the text.

To prevent exploitation of this function, we recommend including some comment standards on your site that inform users about the kind of files they can submit. For an example, see WPBeginner’s comment policy page.

Then, in the WordPress comment form, include a link to your comment policy content.

You may wish to monitor all comments before they appear on your site due to the nature of the photos. This may be accomplished by allowing comment moderation and alerting people when their comments are authorized on your site.

You may activate oEmbed support for comments in WordPress to improve the media capabilities of your comments even more. This allows your users to include YouTube videos, tweets, Flickr photographs, and other media with the images they post.

We hope this post was useful in teaching you how to enable users to submit photos in WordPress comments. You might also be interested in our advice on how to gain more comments on your WordPress blog posts and how to build an online store.

7 Must-Have Cryptocurrency Exchange Plugins for WordPress

Cryptocurrency is on the rise, and we all want to get in on the action. Whether you’re a Bitcoin millionaire who wants to invest in Litecoin or just a regular crypto enthusiast looking for a way to show off your love of cryptocurrency, the WordPress plugin market has you covered.

But with so many plugins out there, it’s hard to know which ones are worth your time—and which ones are just trying to scam you out of your hard-earned cryptocurrency. You don’t want to download some shady plugin that steals your private keys and then dumps them all into an exchange account in Bermuda, do you? Of course not!

That’s why we’ve put together this list of 7 cryptocurrency exchange plugins for WordPress. Each one offers something different and unique, so no matter what kind of website you run and what type of cryptocurrency user you are, there’s something here for everyone.

1. Cryptocurrency Price Ticker Widget

Cryptocurrency Price Ticker Widget is a plugin that allows you to display cryptocurrency prices. It can be used to show the price of one or more cryptocurrencies in any currency of your choices, such as USD and EUR. This makes it easy for users who are not familiar with crypto trading to see the prices and get an idea of how much they would need to buy them at those rates. 

It also allows you to choose the cryptocurrencies and currencies that you wish to display on your website. This plugin also allows you to set custom time intervals for refreshing data (such as hourly), which is useful if there is a lot going on in terms of market fluctuations but not so useful when looking at historical price changes over time because it will update every time interval instead of just once per day/week/month, etc.

2. Ethereum Price Ticker Widget

In case you don’t know, Ethereum is a decentralized platform, and applications can run exactly like they are programmed to run without the risk of fraud, censorship, or third-party interference. It’s basically a blockchain that can be used to create new types of applications. This means that it’s not just about money but also about the potential of what this new technology can do for us in the future!

The Ethereum price ticker widget is a simple and easy-to-use widget that displays the current Ethereum price in USD and BTC. It is a simple and easy-to-use widget that displays the current Ethereum price in USD and BTC.

3. Market Cap & Price Ticker

The Market Cap & Price Ticker is a simple plugin that provides you with the current cryptocurrency market cap and price of cryptos like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. You can find the above info on the most popular exchanges, such as Coinbase or Binance.

The difference between these two might sound confusing at first, but they are actually quite similar. The market cap is used to measure the total value of a company’s outstanding shares based on their current market price. In other words: it shows how much money people have invested into it (the “market”). 

On the other hand, the price ticker shows how much money you could make if you sell all your coins right now (or lose if you bought them). It’s basically telling us what people think about our cryptocurrency by comparing its current value against what we think it should be worth in comparison to other currencies like USD or EURO etc.

4. Bitcoin Calculator + Price Ticker

Bitcoin Calculator + Price Ticker adds a powerful and customizable cryptocurrency calculator to your WordPress site. You can customize the display style, choose between fiat (USD, EUR, etc.) or BTC currency, and even add a short description of Bitcoin.

There’s also a price ticker that shows the value of your cryptocurrency investment in USD or any other supported currency. This plugin works great with the CoinMarketCap widget, which shows us more details about our favorite coins like current price and market cap.

5. Simple Bitcoin/Altcoin Price Ticker (Widget)

Simple Bitcoin/Altcoin Price Ticker is a simple and easy-to-use cryptocurrency ticker plugin. It can display the real-time price of any cryptocurrency supported by CoinMarketCap, including all major cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, LTC, and more. Also supports many exchanges such as Bittrex, Poloniex, Bitfinex, and more.

This plugin also supports multiple currencies, allowing you to show your visitors’ local currency values alongside their favorite cryptocurrencies like BTC or USD in their native language via Google Translate API.

6. Cryptocurrency Charts

Charts are a vital part of any cryptocurrency exchange, whether you’re dealing with trade volume or price movements. You can choose from a variety of different chart types, including candlestick charts, line graphs, and bar charts. 

Some chart plugins even allow you to add additional data points to provide greater detail on specific aspects of the market: for example, adding indicators like moving averages or Bollinger bands can help traders make more informed decisions about when it’s best for them to enter or exit the market.

If you’re new to this type of trading platform, we highly recommend that you invest some time learning how different types of charts work before settling on one specific plugin (although there’s always room for experimentation).

7. Crypto Price Widget

Crypto Price Widget is a cryptocurrency price ticker widget for WordPress. With this tool, you can display any of the popular cryptocurrencies’ prices on your website.

The plugin comes with a handy drag-and-drop interface, allowing you to easily arrange the widgets on your website page and control their display settings. The Crypto Price Widget supports various currencies and exchanges, including Binance, Bitfinex, Kraken, and more.

Getting the right crypto plugin is essential for making sure your website stays current with the latest crypto price movements. A cryptocurrency plugin is a great way to keep yourself and your visitors up-to-date with the latest crypto price movements and help them understand how much their investment has grown or lost.

Cryptocurrency plugins are very easy to install and configure. You can use them for any website, regardless of its theme or country, making them an incredibly useful tool for any WordPress business owner looking to stay current in the world of blockchain technology.

10 WordPress Plugins For Podcasters – Top Picks

Would you like to know which WordPress plugins are best for podcasters? Many podcasters choose WordPress as their preferred blogging platform.

The reason is that WordPress makes promoting your podcast easy, growing your audience, and increasing your revenue easy.

These are some of the best WordPress podcast plugins for beginners and professionals.

What are the best ways to Podcast with WordPress?

In addition to Tim Ferris, Lewis Howes, Michael Hyatt, and others, WordPress is popular among top podcasters. It’s because WordPress is an easy-to-use and highly flexible platform with thousands of WordPress plugins and tons of great templates.

If you are starting a podcast and a website, you’ll first need a domain name and WordPress hosting.

The official hosting provider of WordPress, Bluehost, is one of the world’s largest hosting companies. They’re also offering their users 60% off + a free domain.

Once you have signed up for hosting, you are ready to install WordPress. We have detailed instructions to help you get up and running in no time with our WordPress blog starter.

We’ve reached the part where you’ll set up your podcast. This is where we have created a detailed guide on how to set up your own podcast to help you.

Check out our handpicked collection of the best WordPress plugins for podcasters.

These WordPress plugins will improve your podcast’s reach

We aim to provide the most comprehensive list of podcast plugins for WordPress that work with every top podcast file host, including Podbean, BuzzSprout, Blubrry, Libsyn, etc.

By using these plugins, you can not only embed a podcast player in your site, but manage podcast episodes, upload episodes to iTunes, share affiliate links, track podcast downloads, and much more.

In light of this, let us take a look at some of the best podcasting plugins for WordPress.

1. PowerPress

PowerPress is a powerful podcasting plugin for WordPress that allows you to manage your podcast files easily.

It generates iTunes and Google Play-compatible RSS feeds based on your podcast. In addition to this, it offers a simple interface where you can input all relevant information for it to accept your podcast.

You can add podcast episodes to your WordPress website using a beautiful HTML5 player. It also comes with integrated subscription tools to help you increase your audience. Most importantly, it already has thousands of podcasters using it as community support.

Best of all, it’s compatible with Blubrry, one of the top podcast hosting services.

2. Fusebox (aka Smart Podcast Player)

FusionBox is the home of Smart Podcast Player, the best podcast player plugin on the market. With this plugin, podcast episodes appear automatically with a mobile-friendly player.

The plugin offers an improved user experience with its HTML5 player. There are two types of players you can add: a mega player that loops through all episodes, and a player that plays a single episode.

You can choose from a light or dark theme. It has social sharing tools built-in, a download button, speed control, and timestamps.

Additionally, you can use the Fusebox Transcript plugin. By using it, you can display podcast notes and transcripts beautifully on your site.

It lets viewers open transcripts in new tabs, downloads them as PDFs, and most importantly, provides an SEO boost for your episodes.

3. Simple Podcast Press

Simple Podcast Press lets you easily integrate a beautiful podcast player into your WordPress website.

Simply upload the iTunes URL of your podcast and a page will be created for every episode. Additionally, it adds the metadata, images, and notes onto each page with a player on top.

You can customize buttons, add clickable timestamps, share on social media, shorten URLs, and more. You can use the plugin with any podcast service and grow your contact list as well.

4. Seriously Simple Podcasting

Beginners often want to start podcasting without purchasing dedicated podcast hosting or media players. The Seriously Simple Podcast Player makes this possible. This allows you to upload and manage podcast episodes directly from your WordPress site.

With it, you can produce a podcast feed that is compatible with iTunes, Google Play, and many other services. You can also use shortcodes and widgets to distribute podcast episodes across your website.

5. Smash Balloon YouTube Feeds

With Smash Balloon YouTube Feeds, you can add beautiful YouTube video widgets to your WordPress website. YouTube Podcast Companion is an ideal complement for podcasters who upload their video podcasts to YouTube.

As a YouTube feed, Smash Balloon supports live streaming, which lets podcasters simultaneously broadcast their episode on their WordPress site, as well as stream it to YouTube.

It supports multiple layouts and styles. If you wish to display your latest video podcast episodes, choose from the masonry grid, list, or carousel.

6. Podlove Podcast Publisher

The Podlove Podcast Publisher was developed by Podlove, a user community that strives to improve podcasting standards. The plugin was created to offer cutting-edge solutions to podcasting issues not addressed by other platforms.

With Podlove Podcast Publisher, you can manage your podcast directly from your WordPress site. It offers fine-grained control over your podcast feeds with highly compatible podcast feeds. This solution includes multi-format feed support, audio, and video codecs, HTML5 player enhancements, chapters support, download statistics, and custom templates.

One of the best things is that you’ll become part of an active community. The company has its own forum where you can ask questions and get assistance from developers and other users.

7. Sermon Manager

WordPress sermon management plugin Sermon Manager is one of the best plugins available. The plugin, made specifically for churches offering sermons via podcast, has all the features that religious organizations need.

The program includes full-featured iTunes podcast support along with speakers, series, topics, books, and service types.

In addition, you can use a WordPress donation plugin to raise funds.

See the tutorial on how churches can use WordPress to publish online sermons for detailed instructions.

8. Libsyn Podcasting Plugin

The Libsyn plugin allows WordPress users to create a connection between their site and their Libsyn account. Using this plugin, you can easily create episodes, save them as drafts, and schedule them in WordPress.

You can upload your podcast files directly to Libsyn from WordPress, meaning the media won’t take up any space on the WordPress server where you host your WordPress blog. Additionally, you can have WordPress add or remove files from your media library.

The Libsyn podcast and media feeds will continue to be delivered to you. Even if your website is down, your podcast readers can still download episodes directly to their podcast apps.

9. Podcast Importer Secondline

This podcast importer helps podcasters republish their podcast on a new website using WordPress.

To start, simply paste in the URL for your podcast feed. The plugin is compatible with all podcast hosting services, all podcast tools, such as PowerPress, and can even import podcasts from iTunes feeds.

Using a plugin like PowerPress, you will be able to choose ‘Podcast’ as your post type during import. You can also import episodes as posts on your blog or categorize them as podcasts.

The plugin was developed by SecondLine themes, a WordPress theme shop that specializes in themes for podcasts.

10. As Heard On

The As Heard On podcast player displays different podcasts where you’ve been featured. It allows you to highlight other podcasters on your website, leverage social proof, and appear on more podcasts. The plugin allows you to add the podcasts that you want to promote. It is possible to add podcast names, hosts, thumbnails, episode URLs, and descriptions.

You will have to manually upload the album art images for podcasts you wish to display. Whenever you add a podcast to your site, you can display it in a sidebar widget, a blog post, or any other page.

How To Install And Setup W3 Total Cache

Would you like to install and configure W3 Total Cache on your WordPress website?

The W3 Total Cache caching plugin improves the speed and performance of your WordPress website.

What is W3 Total Cache?

WordPress caching plugin W3 Total Cache allows you to improve WordPress performance and speed easily. WordPress uses PHP by default to dynamically create each page of your site when it is requested by a user. PHP is a server-side coding language. Every request from a user increases the load on your server.

Your website’s performance, user experience, and SEO are affected by this. With WordPress caching plugins, you can reduce this by serving a cached copy of your website instead of PHP.

Installing W3 Total Cache in WordPress

Before installing W3 Total Cache, you must deactivate any other caching plugins on your website. By doing so, you will save server resources and prevent plugin conflicts. Then you can install and activate the W3 Total Cache plugin. Your WordPress admin sidebar will be rearranged to include a new Performance menu item once W3 Total Cache has been activated. The plugin’s setup wizard will launch when you click on it.

Click on the Next button to continue.

The first step is to turn on Page Cache. Select Test Page Cache to proceed.

You can choose from different storage engines with W3 Total Cache. Select the one that saves you the most time. For most shared hosting platforms, it will be the ‘Disk: Enhanced’ option. Continue by clicking the Next button. You will now be able to test the database cache. We recommend selecting None. Your MySQL server will be able to fetch data more quickly than the Database cache for most small and medium-sized websites.

Clicking the Next button is the next step.

You will now be in the Object Cache section. W3 Total Cache uses object caching to store database queries for dynamic pages and reuse them to improve performance.

You can choose None if the test result differs by just a few milliseconds. Continue by clicking on the Next button. To enable it, select the ‘Enabled’ option under the test results after clicking the Test Browser Cache button.

This option allows users’ web browsers to store a copy of the web page for a limited period of time. Web browsers can use this option to store a copy of web pages for a limited period of time. To move on to the next step, click the next button. Last but not least, the setup wizard will ask you to enable lazy loading for images.

WordPress now comes with a lazy loading feature for images. However, some older browsers may not be able to support it. Using JavaScript, W3 Total Cache adds lazy loading for images, which is even faster and more efficient.

To view the dashboard for W3 Total Cache, click on the Next button after completing the setup wizard.

Advanced Caching Options in W3 Total Cache

The basic settings should work for most websites. However, you can configure many advanced options to further enhance performance. Here are the most important ones.

Minifying JavaScript and CSS in W3 Total Cache

Minimizing your website’s file size is what’s known as ‘minifying’. The source code is cleaned up by removing whitespace, lines, and unnecessary characters.

Note: Please note that minifying JS and CSS files can potentially break your website.

Turn these options off if your website doesn’t look right after you enable them. Using W3 Total Cache, you can easily minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML source code as well. It is recommended you only minify JavaScript and CSS.

Go to Performance » Minify and scroll down to the JS section.

To enable it, check the box next to ‘JS minify settings.

Then scroll down to the CSS section and enable the CSS minify settings in the same way.

Then scroll down to the CSS section and enable the CSS minify settings in settings.

Enable CDN Support in W3 Total Cache

Through content delivery networks, you can further optimize your website’s performance by serving static files such as images, CSS, and JavaScript from a global network of servers. It reduces the load on your WordPress hosting server and improves page loading speed. W3 Total Cache comes with built-in CDN support.

Bunny.net is the best CDN solution available on the market. It is what we use for our OptinMonster website. Your first step is to create an account on Bunny.net. You need to create a Pull Zone for your website after you sign up. A pull zone adds a hostname to Bunny.net CDN. The static files for your website will then be served from this hostname Enter the name of your pull zone, followed by the domain name of your website.

You need to go to Performance » General Settings and scroll down to the CDN section after adding the pull zone. Choose Generic Mirror as the CDN type and check the Enable box next to the CDN option. Don’t forget to click on the Save All Changes button to save your changes. The next step is to visit the Performance » CDN page and scroll down to the Configuration: Objects section.

The next step is to add the hostname you created earlier for your pull zone and click on the test mirror button. When your hostname is available, W3 Total Cache will display the Test Passed message. To save your settings, click the Save All Changes button.

Your static resources will now be served from the CDN server by W3 Total Cache. Cloudflare’s free CDN is also compatible with W3 Total Cache. As an alternative, you can use Sucuri, which has built-in CDN capabilities and is the best website firewall.

Troubleshooting W3 Total Cache Issues

After you have configured the W3 Total Cache correctly, it should work seamlessly in the background to improve WordPress speed and boost performance. Sometimes, you may not see the changes you made to your website right away, or a plugin may not function properly.

The most common cause of those issues is that you are probably viewing an old cached version of your website. WordPress can be easily fixed by clearing the cache. Select the Purge All Caches option from the Performance menu at the top. W3 Total Cache will clear all cached content from your website.

If you are still seeing the old version of your website, try clearing your browser cache as well. This article should have helped you install and set up W3 Total Cache in WordPress. If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress videos. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.


How To Add A Scrolling News Ticker To WordPress

Do you need a scrolling news ticker on your WordPress site?

Television networks use news tickers to highlight breaking news. A news ticker can be added to your website to highlight special deals or popular articles.

The following article will show you how to add a scrolling news ticker to WordPress.

How Does a Scrolling News Ticker Work?

A single line of information scrolls continuously across the screen in the news ticker. Typically, they display current news items, sporting results, financial and currency data, and weather information.

Using them is a great way to show small snippets of information that are constantly changing. There is quite a lot of information that can be displayed in a WordPress news ticker.

The news ticker could be used to display your best posts, items on sale in your store, or any other information you wish to highlight.

A sticky floating footer bar is another way to display this type of information on your website.

Now, let’s look at how to add a scrolling news ticker to your WordPress site.

How to add a scrolling news ticker to WordPress

Installing and activating the Ditty News Ticker plugin is the first step. Please see our step-by-step guide on how to install a free WordPress plugin for more details.

A News Ticker menu item appears in your WordPress admin area when the plugin is activated.

To add a news ticker, navigate to News Tickers » Add New. The next screen will allow you to give this particular news ticker a name, text, and a link.

It is possible to add as many tickers as you like to each ticker. Each of these pieces of information can have a link.

Press the plus + button to the right of the current tick to add another ticker item. The item will be added to the ticker.

When you have finished adding ticker items, click on the Ticker Mode tab. The ticker can be viewed in three different modes: scroll, rotate, or list.

  • Scroll Mode – Scroll the ticker up, down, left, or right.
  • Rotate Mode – Rotate the ticker data.
  • Liste mode – Display the ticker data in lists.

Since television networks typically use scroll mode as the default, it’s the default setting on this app. If you want to display one ticker at a time, Rotate is another good option.

On the rest of the page, you can change how the news ticker behaves. Configure scroll speed and direction, override ticker dimensions, and set tick spacing.

Creating a news ticker with the plugin generates a shortcode as well as a PHP function. Either insert the shortcode into a post, page, sidebar widget, or directly insert the PHP function into your theme files.

Once the ticker shortcode or PHP function is inserted, you can visit your website to witness how it works.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to create a scrolling news ticker for WordPress. You may also want to learn ways to increase your WordPress blog traffic or check out 5 Proven Digital Marketing Tactics For Small Businesses.

WordPress Plugins – How to Boost Local SEO Traffic

Whether you are a contractor, a wedding photographer, or the owner of a small restaurant, you need to optimize your WordPress website for local SEO. That matters a lot and can-do wonders as far as creating traffic and attracting new customers is concerned.

Indeed, taking on your big and more established competitors may seem like an impossible task. The truth is that if you do it, your sites will rank higher, which will give your business a fighting chance.

But Google ranking is not all you get from local SEO; you can expect greater visibility, more visitors on your website, better leads, a higher conversion rate, and so much more. And with localized searches accounting for almost half (46%) of all Google searches, you cannot afford the luxury of missing out on this traffic.

WordPress is SEO-friendly. The best part about it is that you do not have to work so hard to optimize your site for SEO. All you have to do is; install plugins, and you are good to go.

But there are over 54,000 free and open-source plugins available for you to choose from; which ones should you pick?

In this article, you will discover everything you need to know about choosing the ideal local SEO WordPress plugin and working things out to your advantage.

First things First: Best Practices for Your Website Design

Before you install your plugins and put them into action, first, you need to make sure that your website design is in order. For that, you must observe the following best practices, which you can do all by yourself if you are a web designer or developer. If you are not, you can hire a professional to do it for you.

Optimize Your Site for Mobile

Today, the number of people using their mobile devices to search for businesses is by far so much higher than ever before. So, it is in your best interest to optimize your site for mobile. To achieve that;

  • Ensure fast loading speeds on your site
  • Use a responsive theme
  • Enable Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
  • Avoid full-screen pop-ups

Use Local Photos

Images improve user experience. In general, users tend to spend more time on pages that have pictures than those that do not. They can stay even longer if a site uses local photos. That, in turn, translates to higher google rankings and better SEO outcomes.

Take good photos of your business premises, employees, products, etc., and display them on your website. Make sure you include local keywords like the name, town, region, or city in the image alt tags.

Use Local Videos

Videos are just like photos; they also enhance user experience. Make sure you capture videos of important events and share them on your website. Such events include store tours, customer testimonials, behind-the-scenes looks, local celebrations, etc.

Use Local Testimonials

It is not possible to make everyone happy, but for sure, you must have a few satisfied clients; ask them to give a positive testimony about your business. Post those testimonies on your website, Yelp Reviews, or on Public Google. But before you do that, make sure to get their permission to use their information, I.e., their names, name of business, and their local area. You can also post a few testimonials on your About page and keep updating them as you get newer ones.

Improve Your Map Design

Your map design matters a lot. So, you have to keep improving it to increase the engagement level and functionality. That will come in handy, generating more traffic to your website.

Add Your Contact Information

You want people to find you when they search for you, right? You have to make it easy for them to do so.

Make sure to add your correct contact information such as name, address, email address, phone numbers on your website. Check all your pages for consistency and make the necessary updates in case of any changes. Also, make sure that the numbers are clickable on mobile.

If your business is in multiple locations, you will need to create a different location page for each.

Boosting Your Local SEO Traffic with WordPress Plugins

Once your website design is in order, you are now ready to use WordPress plugins to promote local SEO traffic.

 Below are some of the recommended options.

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is one of the best and most popular WordPress plugins. The plugin is free, so you do not have to pay anything to install it. With Yoast SEO, you will be able to optimize for your location, including Google Maps and GMB (Google My Business).

2. Yoast Local SEO

The Yoast Local SEO is ideal for helping you improve your Google ranking in local searches. It supplements Yoast SEO by allowing you to add more geo-targeted information. With it;

You can include a customizable Google map on any of your pages

Automatically optimize your website’s Google listing for all your business locations

Create schema tags to communicate your contact and location information to search engines

3. Google Places Review

People value online reviews and so does Google. So, if you want to rank better in local SEO, you have to think about your online reviews.

The Google Places Review makes your work easier by automatically adding a Google reviews widget allowing you to display only the reviews on your GMB listing.

Display a maximum of 3 reviews for every location and choose where on your site to display the reviews

Filter out negative reviews automatically

4. Business Profile

The Business Profile plugin makes it easy to add information about your business and link it to your Google Map. That includes business name, contacts, phone number, address, opening hours, closing hours, etc. The process is pretty simple. Just add that information to the contact card, and that is it. The rest is automatic. Also, if you want to create multiple landing pages, this plugin will make the work so much easier for you.

Other recommended plugins include

  • WP Google Maps
  • Local SEO and Business Listings
  • Schema Plugin

Conclusion

Optimizing your WordPress website for local SEO is essential to increase your visibility, generate more traffic, improve brand awareness, attract new customers, and so much more. Ultimately, these will increase brand loyalty, conversion rate, ROI, which means better chances of success.