WordPress Tutorial Videos by WP101®

175+ WordPress tutorial videos for non-techies.

WordPress Tutorials

WordPress Tutorials, Tips, and Tricks

How to Learn WordPress: The RIGHT Way! (2025 Roadmap + Tutorials)

I’ve had a lot of friends and clients ask, “How do I learn WordPress? Which tutorial should I choose? Which resources will help me understand what’s what?” 

So over the last few months, I spent time exploring what’s available to learn WordPress online and I’m amazed by the sheer number of online resources available. 

When I first decided to dive into WordPress 16 years ago, there weren’t many resources available. You had to figure out most of it on your own. But now there are hundreds of courses, tutorials, and forums!

While this abundance was initially exciting, it quickly became overwhelming and I understood why my friends and clients felt stuck without a clear path.

We’ve helped 3+ million people learn how to use WordPress the right way, so I can guarantee you there’s a better way.

Let’s skip the confusion and overwhelm that comes with piecing together random tutorials. Instead, let me show you the proven path that’s helped millions learn WordPress.

[Read more…]

How to Install a WordPress Plugin (Beginner’s Guide)

Do you want to start using plugins on your WordPress site? Want to know the best way to install a plugin?

In the world of WordPress, plugins are tools (or pieces of software) that you can add to your site to get new features and make things run smoother.

There are thousands of plugins available and each one serves a specific purpose and can help you achieve different goals.

In this beginner’s guide, we’ll show you how to install a WordPress plugin in 4 different ways.

[Read more…]

Best WordPress Hosting in 2025. Which One is Right for You?

Are you looking for the perfect WordPress hosting? With so many choices out there, it’s hard to know which is the best WordPress hosting for your site!

Finding the best hosting company for your WordPress website is not as easy as it should be. Is reliability and uptime most important to you? Or fast servers and page load times? What about the cost? Why does one host charge so much more than the other? What if you want it all?

Our goal in this post is to simplify the process and help you choose the best WordPress hosting partner for you.

[Read more…]

Four Common SEO Myths Debunked

There is nothing special about search engine optimization. It’s not black magic, divination, or anything that you can’t learn with a bit of time and dedication. However, many view it as an unapproachable digital marketing technique packed full of constant volatility, uncertainty, and dubious tactics.

This reputation is further sullied by hundreds of SEO myths that regularly show up in digital marketing forums and Facebook groups across the internet. 

You may not believe us when we say there is nothing special to SEO. However, we encourage you to set your skepticism to the side while we debunk some of the most common SEO myths.

SEO Myth #1: SEO is Expensive

Sure, SEO can be expensive. But you know what’s even more expensive? Missing out on customers because your website can’t be found on Google.

SEO is only as expensive as you want it to be.

You can take the do it yourself (DIY) approach, spend next to no money, and realize solid outcomes. If you go this route, make sure to emphasize the “Do” part of DIY. Getting stuck always learning and never doing is a recipe for poor performance.   

If time is not an abundant resource in your world, you can pay someone to do it for you. This will likely cost you more money, but if you hire a reputable and experienced freelancer or agency, the outcomes are typically better than what you get with the DIY approach. 

Or, you can take a hybrid approach like guided SEO. This combines agency expertise in the form of coaching with the SEO process and tools that you need to get great results. It’s a happy medium between going it alone with DIY and hiring an agency.

With guided SEO, you get a personalized series of lessons with specific homework assignments so you can get your site ranking with just a few hours a week. But guided SEO also includes a coach you can meet with monthly to make sure you are on the right track!

No matter which direction you choose, the best way to minimize your expense is to make sure that you are getting value out of whatever you are doing. Stay involved with SEO and collaborate with your team.

SEO Myth #2: SEO is a One-Time Project

Sure, you may sprint at the beginning of your SEO journey, but SEO is a marathon. Just like your business and the products or services you offer, SEO evolves over time. That means your SEO strategy also needs to evolve if you want it to properly support your business. 

SEO is best approached as an iterative process wherein you learn which tactics work, which don’t, and slowly modify your site and your SEO strategy over time. 

When you take this iterative approach to SEO, it’s best to schedule a time to analyze site performance and tweak your strategy on a monthly basis. Not only that, but you also need to schedule a time to implement strategic changes to your site. 

The last thing you want to do when it comes to an SEO strategy is set it and forget it. 

SEO Myth #3: SEO is Always Changing

For the most part, the same tried and true SEO techniques that were working two years ago, and five years ago, are still working today. That’s because SEO best practices don’t change overnight. They slowly evolve over time. 

Google’s algorithms are updated on a regular basis, but if you approach SEO from a holistic standpoint, you will never get caught off-guard by those changes. On the flip side, if you start chasing the latest SEO “hack” or “trick,” you may find yourself in a precarious position. 

There are four key elements that comprise a holistic SEO strategy. 

  1. Providing your audience with useful information and a great user experience.
  2. Optimizing your content around the keywords your audience is searching for.
  3. Ensuring your site is clearly communicating with search engines.
  4. Showing your expertise and authority outside of your site in the form of backlinks, citations, and a strong social media presence.

SEO Myth #4: You Have to Blog

No, a blog is not necessary for every site. It’s merely one means of conveying your expertise to your audience.

There are plenty of other ways to convey your expertise and convince people to return to your site or become new customers or clients. 

Having amazing content on your product and service pages is often the best way to highlight your expertise and allow your products and services to speak for themselves. You can also use topic clusters to address those subjects that are the most important to your particular audience. 

One way or another, you need to be able to show people that visit your site that you can provide the unique value that nobody else can. 

Final Thoughts

SEO is still one of the most affordable and impactful digital marketing strategies for anyone with a website. 

Whether you’re doing your SEO on your own or hiring an agency, make sure you are involved, have a holistic strategy in place, and are following an iterative process. And don’t forget to base your strategy around providing visitors with useful information and expertise in the form of content only you can offer. 

Finally, don’t let SEO scare you or stress you out! Like anything else, it’s completely approachable when broken down into its component parts. Apply a process to addressing each of those parts and it’s sure to work for you.

Learn more about Guided SEO here.

WordPress SEO 101: A Beginner’s Guide

A great website is the first step in growing your business. But, it’s not enough. Your website needs to be visible on Google, Yahoo, and Bing to attract visitors and drive growth. So, how do you get your WordPress website found on search engines? You do that via search engine optimization (or SEO).

In this beginner’s guide to SEO, we’ll introduce the basics of search engine optimization. Then, we’ll share a few of the most common approaches so you can determine the best course of action to help grow your WordPress website’s traffic from Google.

What is SEO?

‘SEO’ stands for search engine optimization. It’s the art and science of getting your website found in the free or organic space of Google, Yahoo and Bing. The objective is to increase sales, generate leads, and improve brand awareness.

An Example of Google Results

SEO is a long-term initiative. The time and energy you invest today will pay dividends in the years to come. We think of it as building long-term digital capital.

SEO requires a steady input of effort. It’s similar to running a marathon. A steady, methodical approach is more efficient (and less expensive, in this case) than sprints and stops.

How Do Search Engines Work?

To understand SEO, you first need to understand how search engines work. Here’s a simplified view in three steps:

  1. Search engines use web crawlers (also known as ‘spiders’ or ‘bots’) to explore the web. When they find a new page, they add it to their directory, or index. You can think of this as a filing cabinet of information. You can imagine that since the web is enormous, this filing cabinet would be huge!
  2. When you type a search query into Google, it uses an algorithm to calculate rank. An algorithm is nothing more than a process or set of rules to be followed when solving a problem. In SEO the problems are the search queries and the answers are the webpages in search engine results. The algorithms are the computer programs in between that pair the two. The algorithms used by the search engines consist of many different ranking factors. They evolve. And they are secret/proprietary. This can make SEO feel very mysterious. But, the goal of the search engines is consistent — it’s to provide the best possible webpage for each search.
  3. The search engines then deliver the results on the search engine results pages. You click on a listing (called a ‘snippet’ in SEO-speak) and visit that webpage. Now it gets really interesting — the search engines use machine learning to monitor users’ behavior so that they can learn and improve. If you visit a website and bounce right back to Google, they think, “Hmm, maybe that wasn’t the best result for this query.” On the other hand, if you spend several minutes visiting that page, then they think, “Wow, that must be engaging content and a great user-experience.”

Now, this is an oversimplified view of how search engines work, but it highlights two important themes:

  • Search engines must be able to crawl and index your website.
  • The content and user-experience on your website needs to be engaging.

4 Pillars of SEO

Now, let’s dive in and take a closer look at search engine optimization. To do so, it’s helpful to lean on a framework to break SEO into its component parts. These parts overlap with the ranking factors and algorithms we reviewed above.

In this article, we’ll borrow from the 4 Pillars of SEO framework shared by our friends at Pathfinder SEO.

1. Technical SEO

The first pillar is technical SEO. Why? In order for the search engines to show your web pages in the search results, they first need to find, crawl, and index them. The key components of technical SEO include:

Your robots.txt file. This file tells the search engines where not to go. Most of the time, you want to allow the search engines to crawl all of your web content. Your robots.txt file is located at yourwebsite.com/robots.txt.

An XML sitemap is the opposite of the robots.txt file. It provides the search engines with a list of all of the pages on your website that you do want to be crawled, indexed, and shown in search results. Think of it as your website’s resume. You typically create an XML sitemap on a WordPress website using plugins such as Yoast, Rank Math, or All in One SEO.

There are also meta directives in the form of code snippets that live in the header of each webpage. These directives aren’t visible to website visitors. Instead, they provide search engines bots page-by-page instructions about how to index the content on the page.

Security is an important component of technical SEO. The search engines want to make sure that the information passed over the web during a check out or form completion is secure. This starts with making sure your website has an SSL certificate and thus is found at HTTPS.

It should come as no surprise that the search engines also value mobile-friendly (responsive) websites. Fortunately, with modern WordPress themes, this comes out of the box, which ensures that a visitor’s experience is great, regardless of the size of their device.

Lastly, speed matters! It doesn’t matter how great the content on a page is if it loads slowly. People are quick to leave a page that loads slowly (more than 2 seconds) and in turn, they’ll be frustrated with Google for sending them there. Thus, the search engines reward high-speed sites.

2. Content

With technical SEO in place, search engines can find and index your web pages. What they find on each page is content.

Content has been the backbone of SEO since its inception. It includes text, images, video, tables, PDFs, and much more. Search engines extract meaning from each webpage based on the content on the page.

More specifically, search engines value content because it shares your expertise. It’s this expertise that is so relevant to your audience. And search engines are focused on delivering relevant results.

There are four factors to keep in mind as it relates to content and SEO:

  • Quality – Your content needs to be unique and original.
  • Keywords – Your content needs to incorporate the words and phrases you want it to rank for.
  • Recency – Recently published content can be a signal that the expertise shared is timely.
  • Type – The search engines love the written word. They also value images, video, tables, and more.

3. On-Site SEO

On-site optimization gives the search engines more context around your content.

You can imagine that a blog post with 2,000 words written in one massive paragraph would be hard to digest. The user-experience wouldn’t be great. Just like people, the search engines wouldn’t be able to scan the post and glean an overview from it.

On-site optimization is how we give the search engines (and users) quick clues and resources to get more value out of our content. The key components of on-site SEO include:

  • Page titles and meta descriptions are tags in the header of each webpage. The search engines use these to craft the snippets of information you see in the search engines results page like this:
    Sample Google Listing
  • Headers break your content into sections. This makes it easier to read. It also gives the search engines a quick outline of the article if they simply scan through and read the headers.
  • Alternative text lives behind images. They are first and foremost a principle of accessibility, but help the search engines derive meaning from images as well.
  • Internal links allow the search engines and website visitors to easily click-through to other pages on your website. The clickable text on a given link (anchor text) conveys the context and meaning of an internal link. They also pass ranking power from one page to another on your website.

4. Off-Site SEO

The first three pillars of SEO have focused on your website. Your website is where you share your expertise. But, SEO isn’t just about your website. Google and the other search engines also are looking for signals around trust and authority.

It’s via off-site SEO that you work to grow your online trust and authority. It’s the lack of these elements that is the biggest hurdle to overcome for brand new websites.

The good news is that getting started with off-site SEO is relatively easy. There are three main places that Google, Yahoo, and Bing are listening for these off-site signals:

  1. Backlinks: These are links that point from other websites to your website. They act like votes of confidence from one website for another. A great place to pick up your website’s first backlink is from a listing with your local chamber of commerce.
  2. Local Search: If you have a physical location or serve a particular geographic area, then a Google Maps listing is a must. You create and manage this listing via Google My Business. Simply verifying your location and contact details with Google builds trust. And, you can build more trust by getting five star customer reviews.
  3. Social Media: A link from a Facebook Post to your website doesn’t pass the same trust and authority as a traditional backlink as outlined above. But, your social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and beyond do carry SEO value.

Holistic SEO Strategy

Investing your efforts into each of these pillars is how you create a holistic SEO strategy. It’s not enough to have great technical SEO and content, but lack on-site and off-site SEO.

The best part of a holistic strategy is that it is long-term and future-proof. You’re steadily making improvements in each of these areas that add up over time to generate more traffic and sales.

You can also easily evolve components of this strategy as the search engines evolve.

How to Get Started with SEO

Now that you understand how the search engines work and the various components that influence your website’s performance on Google, Yahoo, and Bing, it’s time to think about how you will approach SEO. There are three common approaches:

1. Hire a Professional — There are many freelancers and agencies who offer professional SEO services. The services are typically provided on a monthly basis via retainer. Costs typically start in the $500/month range and quickly go up to several thousand dollars a month.

2. Do It Yourself — Hiring a professional is outside of the budget of many businesses. And you know your own business best. So you might be interested in a DIY approach. Typically, this starts with learning by taking a course like ours on Yoast SEO. The do-it-yourself approach generally is less expensive than hiring a professional. But your time is money. And you may not want to become an SEO expert just to get your website found on Google.

3. Guided SEO — A guided approach to SEO is a hybrid solution offered by Pathfinder SEO. It’s the middle ground between hiring an agency and DIY. It offers a series of lessons with specific homework assignments so that you can start to get your site ranking in just a few hours a week. And the best part is that guided SEO includes a coach. An expert you can meet with monthly to make sure you are on the right track.

That’s why we highly recommend the guided SEO approach by our friends at Pathfinder SEO. They’ve distilled decades of experience into easy tools and tasks that get results. Guided SEO cuts down the cost of hiring an expert to do the work for you, while providing step-by-step lessons and accountability so you don’t have to waste time trying to figure things out on your own!

If you do purchase a subscription to Pathfinder SEO through the links on this page, we may earn a small referral commission, which helps us keep this site running. You can read our full affiliate disclosure here.

Visit Pathfinder SEO →

How to Backup Your WordPress Site Easily Using BlogVault

Are you stressed out about losing your WordPress website data to a crash or getting hacked? Looking for an easy way to backup your WordPress site and put your worries to rest? Look no further than the BlogVault backup and migration plugin.

Backups are incredibly important and should be at the top of your website maintenance checklist. Why is that? Backups are your best bet against website downtime. In the event your website should break or crash, you can quickly restore it with a backup copy with minimal damage to your business and revenue.

There are dozens of WordPress backup plugins, but choosing the right one for your website can make all the difference. In this article, we discuss what to look for in a backup plugin, things to consider, and why we recommend BlogVault.

How Do You Choose the Right Backup Solution?

Two of the most common ways to backup a WordPress site are:

  1. Manual backups, or…
  2. Backup services provided by your web hosting company.

Manual backups can be time-consuming, and you’ll need a fair bit of WordPress technical know-how in order to backup both your content as well as your theme and plugin files. That’s why we prefer the backup solutions provided by the top Managed WordPress hosting companies. But not all hosting companies offer backup services, and some only provide backups with their premium plans.

So, if your hosting company does not include backups as part of your hosting service, we highly recommend that you use a dedicated WordPress backup plugin. A plugin automates the entire process for you, saving you both time and effort. You can install a backup plugin, just like you would any other WordPress plugin. The top WordPress backup plugins are designed to make it a breeze to create backups and restores with almost no intervention on your part.

So, what should you look for in a backup plugin?

  • Complete backups that include both website and database files.
  • Custom scheduling for automatic daily, weekly, or monthly backups without your intervention.
  • Efficient backup techniques that don’t overload your web server or slow down your site.
  • Off-site backups in a safe, independent location, so your backup files aren’t lost by whatever is impacting your site.
  • Encrypted backups that ensure that your backup data cannot be compromised by unauthorized users.
  • Independent dashboard and access for both backup and restore operations.
  • Support for backing up multiple websites from a single dashboard or location.
  • Real-time backups each time you make any changes to your website — a critical feature for WooCommerce sites.
  • Guaranteed backup recovery to quickly restore your website with minimal downtime.
  • Reliable customer support you can depend on in an emergency!

Most backup plugins offer some combination of these features. But very few provide all of them. That’s why we recommend BlogVault.

Why Use BlogVault for Backups?

BlogVault is a trusted WordPress backup and restore solution that has restored over 1 million websites worldwide with a 100% success score in backup restores! It offers all the features you need in a backup plugin, plus some additional features that place it ahead of other backup plugins.

BlogVault’s features include:

  • Incremental and low-load backups, performed on BlogVault’s dedicated servers thus, putting zero load on your website server.
  • Auto Restore functionality that automatically restores the latest backup of your WordPress site in case of a crash.
  • Test Restore functionality that enables you to first test a backup file on a staging site before restoring it to your live website. This feature ensures that you only use a safe and functional backup file.

Test Restore in BlogVault

The Test Restore Feature in BlogVault

Plus, BlogVault includes these additional features:

  • Built-in website staging at no additional cost. This provides an automated, one-click method to set up a staging environment on BlogVault’s own servers to test any design changes or updates to your plugins/themes. What’s more? Once you have tested and are satisfied with the changes, you can merge them from the staging site to your live website, with just a few clicks.
  • Built-in website migration that is also 80% faster. You can easily migrate your website to over 5,000 supported web hosts with zero downtime during the migration!
  • Real-time backups for WooCommerce sites that are easy to configure on the BlogVault dashboard. BlogVault also includes backups of custom database tables used in WooCommerce sites.
  • Efficient website management using the centralized BlogVault dashboard where you can manage backups for multiple websites. Website management features include bulk updates of the core WordPress software, plugins, and themes across various sites, along with efficient user management.
  • Responsive customer support that responds to customer queries within a maximum of 24 hours.

So, how do you perform a backup using BlogVault?

How to Backup and Restore Your Site Using BlogVault

One of BlogVault’s key strengths is its interface, which can be used by WordPress beginners and seasoned WordPress developers who build and manage sites for WordPress clients. BlogVault’s dashboard is easy to use and specifically designed to get things done in a matter of a few clicks.

To start using BlogVault, you’ll need to first sign up on their website, then install and activate the BlogVault plugin on your WordPress website.

  1. Sign in to your BlogVault dashboard with your registered user credentials.
  2. Once you’ve installed and activated the BlogVault plugin, it will automatically create a complete backup of your site.

BlogVault Syncing a WordPress Site

BlogVault Syncing a WordPress Site

That’s it! That’s all you need to do. BlogVault automatically creates the backup on its own.

From your BlogVault dashboard, you can schedule your backups, depending on your website’s needs. Or, you can create a backup anytime you want by clicking “Backup Now” in the Backups section.

Creating a Backup in BlogVault

Creating a Backup in BlogVault

Now, for the important part. A backup tool is only as good as its ability to restore your site when you need it. With BlogVault, this is a breeze.

The easiest method is to use the “Auto Restore” functionality by signing into the dashboard and clicking “Auto Restore” in the “Backup” section. This restores the latest backup version to your configured website.

Restoring a Backup in BlogVault

Auto-restoring a Backup in BlogVault

Backups are critical in restoring your website in the event of a crash or hack. While there are different ways to create a backup of your WordPress site, we recommend using a backup plugin that is specifically designed for WordPress to save you considerable time and effort.

And if you’re looking for a backup tool that gives complete peace of mind, we recommend BlogVault. It’s packed with features like secure backup and restore, incremental backups, integrated and no-cost website staging and migration.

So, if you’re looking to get started, you can sign up for a free trial and try it out for yourself.

Visit BlogVault Now

How to Speed up Your WordPress Site with WP Rocket

New Course: Speed up Your WordPress Site in a Few Clicks with WP Rocket

Does your WordPress site load slowly? Do you want to learn how to speed up your WordPress site with just a few clicks? If so, you’re in the right place!

WordPress is the most popular web publishing software on the planet. But if you visit many WordPress websites, you’ll quickly notice that they often load very slowly. And did you know that more than half of your visitors will leave if your website doesn’t load within ​three seconds?

Making matters worse, a slow-loading site will also impact your ranking in search engine results. If your site loads slowly, it’ll rank lower, and that means fewer visitors to your site. If you run an e-commerce site, that means less revenue.

Over the years, one of the most frequent questions we’ve heard from our members is, “How do I make my WordPress site load faster?”

That used to be tricky to answer. You could speed up your WordPress site by adding more resources to your web server, or migrating to a better Managed WordPress host. Or, you can use a CDN, a more lightweight theme, or remove any large images from your site. Maybe then your WordPress site would load more quickly. Right? But how realistic is that?

Thankfully, that’s where WP Rocket comes in.

Speed up Your WordPress Site with WP Rocket

WP Rocket is the best caching plugin for WordPress, and the ​easiest​ way to make your WordPress site load faster, with just a few clicks. And, unlike other caching plugins, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to get up and running. In fact, you can set up WP Rocket in less than 3 minutes!

You don’t have to waste hours of your time, testing dozens of complicated settings. As soon as you activate the WP Rocket plugin, it ​automatically​ applies 80% of web performance best practices, ​even before you’ve enabled any options!

With WP Rocket activated on your WordPress site, you’ll notice instantly faster page load times. But you can also dive in a little deeper and customize the settings to get the absolute best performance for your site.

Oh, and there’s one more important thing to note about WP Rocket. Most Managed WordPress hosts block you from installing caching plugins on your WordPress site, because most of them interfere with their own server-level caching. But not WP Rocket. It’s the only caching plugin accepted by the top Managed WordPress hosts. That’s why today we only use and recommend one caching plugin for WordPress: WP Rocket

In fact, check out our page speed test results before & after activating WP Rocket on this site:

WP101 Page Speed Test Before Activating WP Rocket

Actual page speed test results of this site before activating WP Rocket.

WP101 After Activating WP Rocket

Page speed test results for this site after activating WP Rocket. Still some work to do on mobile, but what a huge improvement!

Last year, we partnered with the WP Rocket team to create this 10-part video tutorial series, and today, we’re thrilled to make it available to our members!

In this easy, 30-minute course, you’ll learn:

  • Why WP Rocket is the best caching plugin for WordPress.
  • How to download, install, and configure WP Rocket.
  • The best settings to speed up your WordPress site with WP Rocket.
  • How to test that WP Rocket is caching your site.
  • How to measure the speed of your site.
  • How external content slows your site down.
  • How to troubleshoot display issues with WP Rocket.
  • How to exclude certain JavaScript files from being cached.
  • How to set up the Cloudflare add-on in WP Rocket.
  • How preloading works in WP Rocket your site load faster.
  • Plus, much more!

Check out the introductory video…

Best of all, this new course is FREE for All-Access Pass members!

If you already have an All-Access Pass, first log into your account, then visit the WP Rocket 101 course description page, then click the large, green button that says, “Take This Course.” That’s it! You don’t need to purchase anything else. Once you’ve enrolled in the new course, it will appear in your My Courses page.

Don’t have an All-Access Pass yet?

Purchase an All-Access Pass today and you’ll get this new course, plus all of our other courses! In addition to WordPress basics, you’ll also learn how to optimize your site for search engines, sell products from your website, create custom forms, and much more. Get your All-Access Pass today!

Check out the WP Rocket 101 course outline:

View Course Outline

How to Translate your WordPress Website in 5 Minutes with the Weglot Plugin

Many WordPress site owners have asked us how to translate their WordPress website and display it in multiple languages. But there are many translation plugins to choose from, and some can prove more challenging than others… especially for beginners.

Luckily, all that changes with Weglot – the best rated WordPress translation plugin on the WordPress Directory.

Weglot is the easiest and fastest WordPress translation plugin out there. It translates, displays and allows you to effortlessly manage and edit your translated website content, instantly.

This translation solution works with any WordPress theme or plugin – so there’s zero compatibility issues.

We’ll show you how in just 5 minutes, you’ll have a multilingual WordPress website up and running without the use of any code. Perfect for WordPress beginners and those that want a one-click translation solution.

Why translate your website?

If you’re an internationally minded entrepreneur or established company doing business online, it makes sense to tap into the 75% of the internet that doesn’t speak English.

Offering your website in more than one language is essential for many industries. And it makes even more sense if you’re an ecommerce entrepreneur, a tourism or travel provider, or if you offer digital products.

Website translation is one of the quickest ways to reach potential customers in new markets.

Studies suggest that 55% of people prefer to purchase in their own language and 60% of people rarely or never purchase products or services on English-only websites. So, having a multilingual website is quickly becoming a must-have if you want to keep up with the competition.

What’s the difference between Weglot and other WordPress translation solutions?

Simply put, Weglot allows you to have a fully multilingual website up and running in less than 5 minutes. This no-code tool is suitable for any level of WordPress experience.

There’s no finicky behind-the-scenes steps, no string-by-string manual translation, or manual creation of each page in each language. Just click install and Weglot does everything for you.

Weglot allows you to translate the whole of your WordPress site, no matter where the content is coming from. For example, you might have a review plugin installed on your WordPress site. For other WordPress translation solutions, this can prove problematic and require you to install additional plugins to work around this problem.

The way your translations are managed by Weglot is a completely hassle-free process, with just one dashboard needed. Unlike other WordPress translation solutions, Weglot doesn’t require that you master multiple different interfaces to manage different parts of your translated website content.

You can easily access all your translations, edit or approve the automated translation, or even order professional translations within the Weglot Dashboard and fine tune any language nuances.

Another popular feature of Weglot is their ‘in context’ editor, which lets your manage, edit and see all your website translations in a live preview of your site. Any edits you make here will automatically be implemented on your real website. It’s a great way to visually see your translations on the front-end of your site.

Weglot also automatically adds a simple language switcher to your site, which you can easily customize. You can change the design and placement without having to touch a line of code. Other WordPress translation solutions require additional code to add one to your site.

How to translate your website with Weglot in three easy steps:

As we mentioned above, installing Weglot on your site and having a live multilingual website up and running is a simple and quick process. Let’s take a look at just how easy it really is.

Step 1

Go to your WordPress dashboard > ‘Plugins’ tab > ‘Add New’ and search for Weglot.

How to Install the Weglot Plugin

Click install. Once it’s been installed click on the activate button.

How to Activate the Weglot Plugin

You’ll now see a Weglot tab within your WordPress dashboard. Click on the Weglot tab to finalize your configuration.

Step 2

Within your Weglot tab on your WordPress dashboard you can now choose which languages you want to translate your site into.

To do this, enter the unique API key—available on your Weglot dashboard (you’ll need to create an account to get access to this).

How to Enter your Weglot API Key

Then select the original language of your site and enter the new languages you want to translate your site into. Click ‘Save Changes’.

Step 3

And, that’s it. Your multilingual site is now live! A language switcher button will now appear on your site so your site visitors can select their preferred language (or make sure ‘auto-switch’ is clicked on in your Weglot project settings to automatically redirect site visitors by browser language).

Ready to try Weglot? Check out their FREE 10-day trial with access to all the features of a paid plan!

Visit Weglot

New Course: How to Create Custom Forms in WordPress with Ninja Forms

We’ve just released a brand new course for the popular Ninja Forms plugin for WordPress! Learn how to create custom forms for your WordPress site in minutes with the Ninja Forms plugin in this brand new, 18-part video tutorial course by WP101.

Ninja Forms LogoNinja Forms is easily one of the most powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use form builder plugins for WordPress. In this hour-long course, we’ll show you how you to install and use the Ninja Forms plugin to build just about any type of form you can imagine — from simple contact forms to event registrations, file uploads, payments, and more!

Ninja Forms has been downloaded more than 11 million times, and is currently in use on more than a million WordPress sites! And it’s no wonder… Ninja Forms is a breeze to use. You can get download the free plugin and get started in less than two minutes.

And when you dive into it, you’ll quickly find that it’s one of the most powerful and flexible WordPress form builders available for WordPress today! Out of the box, Ninja Forms includes over a dozen pre-built templates to help you quickly create common types of forms for your site with just a few clicks. Or, you can build completely custom forms in minutes using the simple, ‘drag-and-drop’ form builder.

If you’re a site owner, you’ll love how quickly and easily you can design complex forms… with absolutely no coding required.

But there are also dozens of helpful add-ons to extend Ninja Forms, making it even more powerful. In this new course, we’ll introduce you to several of the most popular add-ons for Ninja Forms, and show you how you can use them to increase form conversions, build a mailing list, collect payments, or connect to your favorite productivity tools.

We partnered closely with the Ninja Forms team over the past couple of months to create this 18-part video tutorial course. In just a little over an hour, you’ll learn how to:

  • Download, install, and configure the Ninja Forms form builder plugin for WordPress.
  • Use the easy, drag-and-drop form builder in Ninja Forms to create just about any type of form you need.
  • Trigger and send an email whenever a form is submitted on your site.
  • Add a form to a page, blog post, or widget area on your WordPress site.
  • Create custom, multi-column layouts and styles for your forms.
  • Create multi-part forms to break long forms into smaller sections for your visitors.
  • Use conditional logic to create smart, interactive forms that react to your visitor’s actions.
  • Create a quote request form that changes and adapts to a customer’s needs.
  • Add a file upload field to your form, enabling your visitors to upload and send files to you.
  • Use Zapier with Ninja Forms to connect your forms to hundreds of third-party services.
  • Collect payments with either PayPal Express or Stripe and Ninja Forms.
  • Create an email sign-up form so your site visitors can subscribe to your MailChimp email list.
  • Plus much more!

Check out the introductory video…

We think you’re going to love creating custom forms for your WordPress site with Ninja Forms!

Best of all, this new course is FREE for All-Access Pass members!

If you already have an All-Access Pass, just log into your account, then visit the Ninja Forms course description page and click the large, green button that says, “Take This Course.”

That’s it! You don’t need to purchase anything else. Once you’ve enrolled in the new course, it will appear in your My Courses page.

Don’t have an All-Access Pass yet?

Purchase an All-Access Pass today and you’ll get the new Ninja Forms course, plus eight other courses — 161 videos in total! Plus, you’ll get every new course we release within the next 12 months!

In addition to WordPress basics, you’ll also learn how to optimize your site for search engines, how to sell products from your website, and much more. Learn more and buy your All-Access Pass here.

Ready to get started with Ninja Forms?

View Ninja Forms Course Details

What is Google AMP and How to Implement It on Your WordPress Website

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ll know that search engines continue to emphasize page speed in its algorithm. Aside from SEO factors, page speed has a huge influence among your visitors in deciding whether they should stay on your website or not. In fact, studies show that 40% of your visitors will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

While the above statistic indicates the importance of page speed for your entire website, the condition is even more critical when it comes to your mobile visits.

For instance, if your website is comparatively heavier and is not well optimized for faster page rendering, chances are your site consumes more mobile data, which likely turn off your visitors leading to abandoning your website.

If you’re not optimizing your website for speed, chances are you’re losing potential customers.

Click To Tweet

Google AMP = Super Fast Mobile Browsing

Google has recently initiated an open source project known as Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). This initiative aims at speeding up the mobile browsing experience tremendously. So even if you’re on a mobile device with a poor internet connection, you can load an AMP version of the website almost instantly.

Wondering what makes AMP stands out from the other speed optimization tactics?

Unlike other tactics, with AMP, you’ll be using a separate light-weight template for your website, which is a stripped down version of your existing WordPress theme, built specifically for one single purpose—boosting the page speed.

In order to skyrocket your page speed, AMP forces you to use a streamlined version of CSS and doesn’t allow any JavaScript element on your page. You’ll also need to use off-the-shelf JavaScript library that forces images to lazy load.

Aside from that, once your AMP pages get indexed, it will be cached on Google AMP CDN, resulting in super fast page rendering.

How does AMP work?

While AMP is specifically focused on supercharging the mobile browsing experience, the intention is not to replace responsive design with it. In fact, AMP pages are not served directly when someone visits your website. Instead, it is served only by AMP consumers such as Google search and Twitter.

For instance, you might have already noticed a lightning signal in Google search results indicating that the web page shown is an AMP version of the original page.

Google AMP

So when you click on such pages from SERPs, you’ll be directed to a cleaner, faster and streamlined version of the web pages that instantly loads on your device regardless of the internet speed.

Example of an AMP Page

Similarly, when you click on a link in a tweet from Twitter’s native app, you’ll be directed to AMP pages for faster page rendering provided that the site is integrated with AMP.

Should you implement AMP?

By creating an AMP version of your WordPress website, you’re putting speed and readability as top priorities over anything else. Because you wouldn’t be able to use interactive elements like JavaScript on your AMP pages, you might not want to create an AMP version of all of your existing pages.

For instance, you might not want to create a stripped down version of your landing page just for the sake of increasing speed because speed is not the top priority for your landing page but conversion.

On the other hand, you can create AMP pages for your blog posts or news section in which speed and readability are top priorities.

How to implement AMP on your WordPress website:

1. Install WordPress AMP plugin

First things first. Go to your WordPress admin and install the AMP plugin by Automattic.

Upon installation, you can find the AMP version of your blog posts by appending /amp / to your post permalinks. No further configuration is needed.

For example, your AMP URL will look like this:

www.yourdomain.com/blog-post/amp/

If you haven’t enabled pretty permalink on your site, you can find the AMP pages of your blog posts by appending: ?amp=1 instead.

Do keep in mind that, installing this plugin will not currently create AMP pages for your Pages and archives. That’s totally fine because we need AMP pages primarily for blog posts.

2. Customize AMP pages

Simply installing the plugin will create a basic AMP layout for your WordPress blog. If you’d like to customize your AMP template and make it looks similar to your existing website, you may need to edit the CSS of your AMP template.

Alternatively, if you choose to install a plugin instead of hard-coding the template, all you need to do is to install the PageFrog plugin.

This plugin also gives you additional support such as Google Analytics integration on your AMP page.

After activating PageFrog, be sure to activate Google AMP HTML.

PageFrog

However, if you’re using Yoast SEO plugin on your main site, it is better to install Yoast Glue plugin instead of PageFrog.

3. Check if your page is a valid AMP page

So far we’ve implemented AMP pages on your website and slightly customized its layout.

Now it’s your turn to validate the AMP pages you just created.

The problem with AMP integration with your existing WordPress website is that it is very likely that you’ll find tons of AMP errors in your Google Search Console account just after the integration.

But don’t panic and keep in mind that AMP initiative is in its early days and the official AMP plugin isn’t meant to be an all-in-one solution for your AMP pages.

In fact, it just creates a basic AMP layout for your WordPress website. Due to the fact, you may need to find the causes of AMP errors manually and fix them.

As AMP pages are served only through AMP consumers like Google search, fixing all those SEO errors is an essential task in order to ensure that your AMP pages get indexed on search engines and cached on AMP CDN. This CDN also helps third-party websites like Twitter to easily discover and distribute your AMP page quickly to your site visitors.

You can always find AMP errors by logging into Google Search Console account. Once logged in, navigate to Search Appearance> Accelerated Mobile Pages to find errors.

There are a couple of different ways to validate your AMP pages to fix SEO errors:

  • Browser developer console: Simply append #development=1 to your AMP URL and open it in your browser. Once done, you can check validation errors in Chrome DevTools console.
  • Web interface: Alternatively, go to validator.ampproject.org. Enter your AMP page URLs and find errors.

Refer to this official guide to get the complete list of AMP validation errors and how to fix them.

Final Takeaways

The primary goal of a search engine is to help users discovers the right solution to their pertinent questions as quickly as possible. This is one of the main reasons why Google pushes page speed as their top priority.

Although Google hasn’t marked AMP as a ranking factor yet, 90% of publishers are already seeing higher CTRs on SERPs for their AMP pages. So if you haven’t implemented it yet, you should be.

Below are a few additional tips that you’ll find helpful when integrating AMP with your site.

Advanced AMP customization: For adding Google Analytics and further tweaking your AMP template, do read this read me page of AMP plugin.

Speed test and validate: While you can always customize AMP templates to a great extent like adding videos, ad banners and so on, always speed test your AMP pages with various speed testing tools and ensure it doesn’t affect your page speed. In addition, check for errors on Google Search Console on a regular basis after every customization.

Optimize your post for AMP: Since users can easily navigate to more pages on SERPs by simply swiping the pages, the average attention span on AMP pages will be shorter than usual responsive pages. Try including hero images on top of your blog posts, which is a sure-fire method to aesthetically please your visitors.

Another thing you need to test on your AMP pages is interlinking your existing blog posts in the intro copy of your blog posts. This practice may help users to stay on longer on your website by navigating to other pages.

I hope now you get a detailed idea about implementing AMP on your WordPress website. If you have any questions, feel free to share them by dropping a line below in the comments section.

Recent Posts

Connect with Us