No matter how much experience with WordPress you have, chances are that you still don’t know all of it’s hidden features. Moreover, lots of developers are constantly working hard to create new plugins in order to enhance the platform’s functionality. And if you want your site stand out from the crowd – always be ready to look for unique ways to improve it. Therefore, we have gathered a couple of useful WordPress tricks and hacks to help you with this chore. Hopefully, you’ll find something new here.
Enable Categories for Pages
Categories is an effective way of organizing content and helping readers to navigate through the site. Despite the fact that in WP categories can only be assigned to posts, it is possible to add them to any post type including pages. It can be done by installing and activating Post Tags and Categories for Pages plugin, a simple tool that does not require to configure any settings. Right after installation of this software product, you will be able to find categories and tags under the menu of each page by clicking on it.
Adding Category Icons
Images is what makes the site more interesting and colorful. One of the unique ways to use them is creating category icons. Though WordPress does not support those out of the box, there is a nice tool for the task – the Taxonomy Images plugin. This software product is pretty straightforward and simple in use. After installing and activating it, all you have to do is open the “Settings” menu and choose “Taxonomy Images”. There you will be able to check the corresponding box for categories. Once finished, the new icon appears next to each category in the menu “Posts”, “Categories”. The final step is to click on the thumbnail icon to upload the image for each category.
Add a Contact Form Popup
The contact popup form is one of the most convenient ways to present a contact form. It is easily accessible from any part of the site, which eliminates the necessity to look for the “Contact us” page. Such form can be opened by clicking on a contact button or link. In order to create a contact popup form, download two plugins – OptinMonster with the Canvas Add-on and any contact form plugin (Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, Ninja Forms, etc.). Once you have those installed, you need to follow the steps below:
- Create a new optin;
- Choose the optin loading delay;
- Design your optin;
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Configure the optin’s output settings;
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Create a link for the optin.
Design Custom Post Types
Custom post types are the kinds of content just like posts and pages. By default, WordPress offers these types of content: posts, pages, attachments, revisions, navigation menus. However, it is possible to create any type of post on your own. The easiest way to create a custom post type in WordPress is to install the Custom Post Type UI plugin. After the activation of the plugin, a new item (called CPT UI) appears in your admin menu. To create a custom post type, go to CPT UI and select the option “Add new”.
Create an Effective 404 Page
It often happens that a 404 Error Page is a dead end for the users, which makes them exit your site. There is a couple of ways aiming to prevent that from happening and get the best out of your 404 Page:
- Provide useful links;
- Show a search box;
- Give a list of archives or some recent posts.
All of those techniques can urge your readers to stay on the site and explore it more.
Display Recent Tweets in WordPress
Nowadays, Twitter is one of the best places for discussion on the web. Needless to say that it’s of crucial importance to website owners to be a part of that discussion and interact with their audience. Displaying your recent tweets on the website can be a good way to do so. Moreover, it gives your users a chance to jump right into the conversation from your website.
The simplest way to display the recent tweets in WordPress sidebar is to use the official Twitter widget. Just go to the Twitter Widgets page, adjust the look and the size of the widget and click on the create button. Then copy the widget code and go back to your WordPress site. Drag and drop a text widget to your sidebar and paste the Twitter widget code inside it. Woila, you have successfully added recent tweets to the WordPress sidebar.
Add Floating Social Bar
Floating social bar adds social buttons on top of your content. Many other solutions for social sharing are bloated and thus make the site load slower, while the floating social bar does not influence the site speed. It asynchronously loads how many times a particular article has been reposted or tweeted and shows it in the button. To add this option to your site, download the Floating Social Bar plugin and activate it. When done, a new menu Floating Social Bar appears in the settings. Choose the social services you want to enable and the types of posts it will appear on. That’s it, now your floating social bar is ready.
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