How to Easily Create a Quiz in WordPress

Do you want to create a quiz in WordPress?

No matter whether you’re testing knowledge or creating viral content like Buzzfeed, quizzes can get more engagement on your site. You can even use them to collect feedback and ideas from your customers, so you can improve their experience.

In this article, we will show you how to easily create a quiz in WordPress.

Why Add Quizzes to Your WordPress Site?

Quizzes are fun and engaging. Since they’re so interactive, users find them more rewarding than other types of form.

Marketers have been using quizzes to generate leads since the very early days of the internet. For example, you might ask for the visitor’s email address so you can send them their quiz results, or ask them to sign up for your email newsletter.

They’re also a great way to get more social shares by encouraging visitors to post their results.

BuzzFeed is probably the most popular example of viral quizzes.

If you sell online courses, then quizzes are an important way to test the student’s knowledge and reinforce learning. Since these quizzes are automated, they’re also an easy way to improve the student experience.

If you run an online store, then you might even create a short quiz that asks the shopper for some information and then suggests a product or service based on their answers.

This is much more engaging than asking them to read through product descriptions and could get you some extra sales.

Having said that, let’s go ahead and see how to easily create a quiz in WordPress.

Creating a WordPress Quiz with Formidable Forms

For this guide, we’ll be using the Formidable Forms plugin. It is one of the best WordPress quiz plugins on the market and allows you to create advanced quizzes using a simple drag-and-drop builder.

Formidable Forms is also one of the best WordPress form builder plugins. This means that once it’s set up on your website, you can use it to build all kinds of forms including contact forms, registration forms, booking forms, and more.

With that being said, let’s see how you can create a WordPress quiz using Formidable Forms.

Step 1: Install the Formidable Forms and Quiz Maker Addon

To create a quiz, you’ll need to use the Formidable Forms Business plan, as it includes the Quiz Maker addon.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Formidable Forms plugin. For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll also need to install Formidable Forms Lite. This free plugin provides the core foundation for the premium plugin’s more advanced features.

Once you’ve done that, go to the Formidable Forms » Global Settings page in your dashboard and select ‘Click to enter a license key manually.’

You can find the license key under your account on the Formidable Forms website. After entering this information, go ahead and click the ‘Save License’ button.

Next, you will need to install the Quiz Maker addon by going to Formidable » Add-Ons. On this screen, find the Quiz Maker addon and click on its Install button.

After a few moments, Formidable Forms will mark the Quiz addon as ‘Active.’

Step 2: Create a WordPress Quiz with Formidable Quiz Maker

Now you’ve installed the Formidable Forms Quiz Maker, you’re ready to create your first WordPress quiz.

To get started, go to Formidable » Forms and then click the ‘Add New’ button.

This opens a popup showing all of the plugin’s ready-made templates, including templates that you can use to create a mortgage calculator and a booking form.

In this guide, we’ll be starting from scratch so click on the ‘Blank Form.’

Once you’ve done that, type a title into the ‘Form Name’ field and enter an optional description. This information is just for your reference so you can use anything you want.

Then, simply click on the ‘Create’ button.

This will open the template in the Formidable Forms editor.

To the right is a live preview, and on the left-hand side is a menu with all the fields you can drag and drop into your quiz.

You can create quizzes for lots of different purposes, including getting customer feedback, performing market research on your WordPress blog, testing knowledge, and more.

You may need different types of fields depending on the kind of quiz you’re creating. As an example, we’ll show you how to create a simple quiz that tests the visitor’s knowledge. We’ll be creating different kinds of questions, including multiple choice.

To add a field to your quiz, simply drag it from the left-hand menu and then drop it onto the live preview. Let’s start by adding a ‘Text’ field.

After that, click to select your new ‘Text’ field in the live editor.

You can then go ahead and type your question into the ‘Field Label.’

Next, we’re going to create a multiple choice question.

Simply drag a ‘Dropdown’ field onto the form.

Once again, click the ‘Dropdown’ field in the preview to the right and then type your question into the ‘Field Label.’

You can now type the possible answers into the ‘Dropdown Options’ section.

To add more answers to your multiple choice question, simply click on the ‘Add Option’ button. You can repeat these steps to add more questions to your quiz.

When you’re happy with how the quiz looks, it’s time to configure the correct answers and how to show the user’s score.

To do this, click on the ‘Settings’ tab and then select ‘Actions & Notifications.’ You can now click on ‘Scored quiz.’

If you scroll to the new ‘Scored Quiz’ section, then you’ll see that this action already has some default settings.

Formidable Forms can randomize the questions and answers, which will make it more difficult for people to cheat.

By default, these settings are disabled but you may want to enable them by clicking on the ‘Randomize questions’ and ‘Randomize options’ toggles.

Formidable Forms awards one point for every right answer. However, if you enable advanced scoring then you can take points away for wrong answers.

We’ll be covering advanced scoring shortly, but if you plan to deduct points then you can click to activate the ‘Allow negative scoring’ toggle.

Next, let’s set the correct answers so that Formidable Forms can score visitors automatically.

To do this, go ahead and click on the ‘Customize Quiz Scoring’ button.

To add the correct answer, simply click on the toggle next to each question.

For text questions, simply type the correct answer into the field. You can also use the dropdown to specify whether the user’s answer should include this exact text, some of the text, or none of the text.

For multiple choice questions, click on ‘Add Correct Answers’ to open a menu showing all the possible options.

You can now check the box next to each correct answer.

By default, each correct answer is worth 1 point. To award more points, simply type a different number into the ‘Max score’ box.

Sometimes you may want to assign a unique score to the different answers in a multiple choice question.

To do this, select ‘Advanced scoring’ and then type in the score for each answer.

Once you’ve set all of the correct answers, click on ‘Done’ to save your changes.

After that, you can set the action that Formidable Forms will perform every time someone submits a quiz. Simply open the following dropdown to see the different options: ‘What would you like to do after submit?’

If you choose ‘Show the score,’ then Formidable Forms will display a standard message with the visitor’s score.

You can see an example of this in the following image.

If you select ‘Show user’s answers,’ then Formidable Forms will show the user’s score plus their answers.

This can help reinforce learning by encouraging visitors to review their answers and think about which ones they may have answered wrong.

There is also ‘Show correct answers’ that shows users which questions they got right.

If they got a question wrong, then Formidable Forms will show the right answer. This can help students learn from their mistakes.

However, it isn’t a good option if learners have the option to retake the quiz as this could lead to cheating.

The final option is ‘Use default success settings,’ which shows a message that reads, ‘Your responses were successfully submitted. Thank you!’

You’ll typically want to change this message to include the user’s score. To do this, click on ‘General’ and customize the message in the ‘On Submit’ box.

To show the user’s score, simply add the [219] key. A ‘key’ is a dynamic value you can use to customize messages to each user.

For example, you might type in: ‘Your responses were successfully submitted. You scored [219].’ The [219] will automatically be replaced with their score.

There are more keys that can help you create a more personalized message.

To take a look at the different keys, simply click on the ‘Keys’ tab in the little popup.

After that, click the ‘Update’ button to store your changes. You’ve now successfully created your first quiz.

Step 3: Adding Your Quiz to Your WordPress Site

You can now add your quiz to any post or page, or any widget-ready area of your WordPress theme. In our example, we’ll add the quiz to a page, but the steps will be similar when adding the quiz to other areas of your WordPress site.

To start, go to Pages » Add New in your WordPress admin area. Once inside the content editor, click on the ‘+’ button to add a new block.

In the popup that appears, type ‘Formidable Forms’ to find the right one, and then add the block to your post.

After that, simply open the ‘Select a form’ dropdown.

Then, choose whichever quiz you have already created, and now WordPress will load the quiz automatically.

Now you can add any other content to the page, including any categories and tags or customized permalinks that you want to use.

When you’re ready, either publish or update the page. Your WordPress quiz is now live and users can start answering questions.

We hope this article helped you add a quiz to your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to run a giveaway in WordPress and our expert pick of the best LMS plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Easily Create a Quiz in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

GA4 vs Universal Analytics: What’s the Difference

Are you wondering what’s the difference between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics?

GA4 is the latest version of Google Analytics and will soon replace Universal Analytics. In the new version, you get new reports, metrics, tracking systems, and more.

In this article, we’ll compare GA4 vs Universal Analytics and show you what the real difference is between the two platforms.

GA4 vs Universal Analytics: A Brief Overview

Google Analytics 4 is the new generation of Google’s famous analytics platform. It is designed to track your WordPress website and apps in the same property. Previously you’d have to track your apps and websites separately in Universal Analytics.

With Google Analytics 4, you get a better picture of your customer’s journey across multiple channels and devices. GA4 also offers better data privacy for users.

On the other hand, Universal Analytics (UA) is the previous version of Google Analytics. It was introduced in 2012 and is probably the version many websites use today for tracking their website traffic.

However, Universal Analytics will sunset on July 1, 2023. This means that it will no longer track your visitors after the sunset date, and Google will not support or introduce new features for it.

That’s why it is important that you switch to Google Analytics 4 as soon as possible. This way, you’ll protect your data and have historical records to compare to when UA shuts down.

Let’s look at some significant differences between GA4 and Universal Analytics. You can click any of the links below to be taken to the section for that specific feature.

A Changed Reporting Interface

The first difference you’ll notice between Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics is the new reporting interface.

In GA4, most of the reports have been replaced or renamed. One of the reasons for this is that the latest analytics version uses a different measurement model compared to Universal Analytics.

For example, you’ll see new reports such as Engagement, Monetization, and Retention in GA4.

On the other hand, Universal Analytics has a completely different reporting interface.

For example, all the reports are grouped together under 5 main categories.

RealtimeAudienceAcquisitionBehaviorConversions.

You can find each of these in the left-hand menu on your main GA4 dashboard.

That said, it can be overwhelming for beginners to understand these reports and uncover insights about their website traffic.

An easier way to get the information you need for decision-making is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and offers a beginner-friendly reporting interface.

You get to see important data inside your WordPress dashboard without worrying about navigating the complex Google Analytics reports.

If you haven’t set up analytics on your website, then please see our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

New Data Measurement Model in GA4

Another major difference between GA4 vs Universal Analytics is how they work when collecting and processing your website data. Universal Analytics uses a measurement model based on sessions and pageviews. Whereas, GA4 uses an event-based model to track your data.

Sessions can link data to a single individual and track them specifically as they interact with your site. Event data is anonymous, and the importance is placed on specific actions taken instead of specific users taking those actions.

This allows you to track complex buyer journeys across multiple devices accurately.

It also makes it easier to enable enhanced measurement features in Google Analytics 4. For example, you can set up outbound link click and scroll depth tracking with a click of a switch in GA4.

With Universal Analytics, on the other hand, you’d have to perform a complex setup or tweak the tracking code to configure that kind of link click-tracking or scroll-tracking.

No Bounce Rate and New Reporting Metrics

With Google Analytics 4, you get new metrics along with new reports. Right off the bat, you’ll notice that there is no bounce rate metric in Google Analytics 4.

Bounce rate tells you the number of users that left your website without interacting, like clicking a link, signing up for a newsletter, or purchasing a product.

Instead, GA4 shows a new metric called ‘Engaged sessions per user.’ It shows how many people interacted with your content. This includes a session where a user stays on a page for 10 seconds or more, triggers 1 or more events, or a user views 2 or more pages.

Besides that, GA4 also offers more new metrics in the Engagement report. For instance, there is an average engagement time metric, which used to be the average session duration in Universal Analytics.

Another new metric you’ll find in Google Analytics 4 is the Pages and screens. It shows the pages and app screens that get the most traffic on your website.

You can find this data in UA under the top landing pages report. If you’re using MonsterInsights, then the plugin will show your most important pages inside the WordPress dashboard.

Google Analytics 4 Doesn’t Track Form Conversions

The next difference you’ll notice when comparing GA4 vs Universal Analytics is that of form conversions.

Forms are really useful for any business. They allow users to get in touch with you, provide feedback, and resolve their queries. Tracking your WordPress form in Google Analytics helps you see which form performs better.

However, setting up form conversion tracking in Google Analytics 4 requires adding custom code. This can be very tricky if you’re not a developer. The slightest mistake can mess up your tracking and break your website.

That said, MonsterInsights helps you track forms out of the box. You don’t have to edit code or hire a developer. Plus, it shows a report inside your WordPress admin area with impressions, conversions, and conversion rates for each form.

Universal Analytics Goals Are Replaced with Events

In Universal Analytics, you can record different user interactions using goals. You get 4 types of goals in UA, which include:

Destination – You can set a destination goal to track when a user arrives on a specific page, like a thank you page or a product landing page. Duration – This goal helps you see how long people stay on your website before exiting. Pages per Visit – Using the pages per visit goals allows you to uncover the number of pages a visitor views before leaving your site. Event – With the help of events, you can track user interactions on your site that Universal Analytics doesn’t track by default.

However, Google Analytics 4 replaces these goals with events. For example, if you have an online store, then you can enable events to track interactions and how many people enter payment details and shipment information.

Perform Advanced Analysis in Google Analytics 4

Another difference between both analytics platforms is the level of advanced analysis you can perform in Google Analytics 4.

In Universal Analytics, you can create custom reports and use secondary dimensions to uncover insights. However, GA4 takes it a step further with its Exploration reports.

You get prebuilt templates for different analyses you’d like to perform or if you’d like to set up a custom report.

For example, you can use the ‘Funnel’ exploration template to see your customers’ journey before purchasing.

Besides that, GA4 exploration reports also offer multiple options to add different segments, dimensions, and metrics to your custom reports.

On a side note, using Exploration reports can be tricky for beginners. These reports are mainly for power users or people with advanced Google Analytics knowledge.

An easier way of uncovering insights is by using MonsterInsights. It shows a stats dashboard inside your WordPress dashboard. You can quickly see how your site performs, which pages people view the most, and much more without creating a complex custom report in Google Analytics.

We hope that this article helped you learn about the difference between GA4 vs Universal Analytics. You can also see our guide on the best WordPress plugins and the ultimate guide to WordPress SEO.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post GA4 vs Universal Analytics: What’s the Difference first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode

Do you want to put your WordPress site in maintenance mode?

Maintenance mode allows you to show a user-friendly notice to visitors instead of a broken website. You can also control exactly who has access to your site while you’re working on it.

In this article, we will show you how to easily put your WordPress site in maintenance mode.

Why and When You Need to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode

A lot of the time you can make changes to your WordPress website without having to put it in maintenance mode. For example, you can publish new posts, update WordPress, and install new plugins without any downtime.

However, sometimes you may need to work on your website for a longer period. For example, you might want to completely redesign your WordPress blog.

Some changes are also riskier than others, such as setting up a new plugin that changes your website’s behavior. While you’re making the change, your website may appear broken to your users.

You might even lose data that’s created during this period. For example, if you’re making major changes to an online store, then you might lose any new orders that customers place.

If your website gets lots of visitors, then you don’t want them to see a broken website.

One solution is to set up a staging website so you can work on your site in private.

Many of the top WordPress hosting companies offer 1-click staging websites, including Bluehost, SiteGround, and WP Engine.

If you don’t use a staging site, then it’s crucial you put your website into maintenance mode.

Instead of a broken website, visitors will see a helpful maintenance page that lets them know what’s happening.

You might even suggest some alternative actions that visitors can take, such as following you on social media or joining your email list.

Having that said, let’s take a look at how to put your WordPress site in maintenance mode.

Video Tutorial

If you’d prefer written instructions, then simply use the quick links below to jump to the method you want to use.

Method 1. Set up WordPress Maintenance Mode using SeedProd Plugin (Recommended)

The easiest way to create a completely custom maintenance page is by using SeedProd.

SeedProd is the best landing page builder for WordPress, used on more than a million websites. It allows you to create beautiful coming soon pages in WordPress, improve your 404 page, and even design unique landing pages using drag and drop.

There’s a premium version of SeedProd that comes with more than 180 professionally-designed templates and blocks. However, you can put your site into maintenance mode using the free SeedProd plugin, so that’s what we’ll be using in this guide.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a plugin in WordPress.

Upon activation, go to SeedProd » Pages. In the ‘Maintenance Mode’ section, click on the ‘Set up a Maintenance Mode Page’ or ‘Edit page’ button.

The next step is building the page that visitors will see when you enable maintenance mode.

You can either choose a ready-made template or start with a blank design. We’re using ‘Down Maintenance Mode’ in all of our images but you can use any template you want.

To select a template, simply hover your mouse over that design’s thumbnail and then click the ‘checkmark’ icon.

After selecting a template, you’ll be taken to the drag-and-drop builder, where you can start customizing the maintenance mode page.

On the left side of the screen, you’ll find blocks and sections that you can add to your design. The right side of the page is the live preview.

Most templates already have some blocks, which are a core part of all SeedProd designs. However, you can add more blocks to your maintenance page by dragging them from the left-hand menu and then dropping them onto your design.

For example, you might add your own custom logo, videos, contact form, and more.

The options you see may vary depending on the other plugins you’ve installed on your WordPress website. For example, if you have RafflePress then you’ll be able to run a contest on your maintenance page using the Giveaway block.

To customize a block, simply click to select that block in your layout. You can then change the block using the settings in the left-hand menu.

To start, click to select the ‘Contact Us’ button in the live preview. In the left-hand menu, you’ll see a ‘Link’ field, which shows ‘mailto:john@example.com’ by default.

This means the button will open the visitor’s default email app with the ‘To’ field already filled in as ‘john@example.com.’

To use your own business email address instead, simply type that address into the ‘Link’ field. Make sure not to delete ‘mailto:’ as this opens the visitor’s default email app.

You can also make other changes to the button, including using a different alignment, button text, and changing the button’s size.

To remove a block from your design, simply go ahead and click on it. You can then select the trash can icon.

You can now continue customizing the template by adding new blocks, removing any blocks you don’t want, and making changes in the left-hand menu.

When you’re happy with how the maintenance page looks, it’s time to publish it. Go ahead and just click the ‘Save’ button.

After that, you can enable maintenance mode at any point and show visitors your custom maintenance page by going to SeedProd » Landing Pages.

Here, click on the switch in the ‘Maintenance Mode’ section so that it shows ‘Active.’

Now, if you visit your website in an incognito browser tab then you’ll see the custom maintenance mode page. The Maintenance Mode won’t show for you because you’re logged into the site.

When you’re ready to relaunch your site, simply go to SeedProd » Landing Pages. Under ‘Maintenance Mode,’ click on the slider to turn it from green (Active) to grey (Inactive).

Now, anyone can access your WordPress website.

Controlling Website Access for Logged-in Users

By default, SeedProd will show the maintenance mode page to all non-logged-in users.

Anyone with an account will still be able to log in. For example, subscribers on your membership site and customers on your WooCommerce store can still access their account.

However, you may want to change who has access to your site while it’s under maintenance. For example, if you’re developing a site for a client then they may still need access so they can monitor your work.

You can change the access controls by upgrading to SeedPro Pro. After upgrading, simply go to SeedProd » Landing Pages and then click ‘Edit Page’ under Maintenance Mode.

This will open the SeedProd page builder.

Here, click on ‘Page Settings,’ followed by ‘Access Control.’

To start, activating the ‘Exclude Default’ slider is a good idea. This will give visitors access to URLs that have the terms login, admin, dashboard, and account, which will stop people from getting locked out of their accounts.

You might also allow users with specific browser cookies to get past your maintenance page. Just be aware that if you enable the ‘Bypass Cookie’ toggle then it may not work if you’re using a WordPress caching plugin.

With that being said, we recommend selecting the user roles that can access your site while it’s in maintenance mode. To do this, click on ‘Add Role’ and then select any role from the dropdown menu.

You can also include or exclude user roles created by your WordPress membership plugin or an eCommerce plugin.

When you’re happy with the access controls, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

Exclude Specific Pages from Maintenance Mode

SeedProd Pro also lets you include or exclude specific pages from maintenance mode. This comes in handy if you need to allow some users to access certain pages.

For example, if you have a custom login page then you would usually want to exclude it from maintenance mode. If you provide customer support via email, then you may want to exclude your contact form page as well.

You can do this in the ‘Include/Exclude URLs’ settings. Simply choose between ‘Include URLs’ or ‘Exclude URLs’ and then enter your links into the box.

When you’re happy with how the maintenance page is setup, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

Method 2. Setup Maintenance Mode Using WP Maintenance Mode Plugin

Another option is to use the free WP Maintenance Mode plugin. This is a great choice if you want to create a simple maintenance mode page. However, this plugin uses the standard WordPress Page and post editor, which isn’t as powerful as SeedProd’s drag-and-drop builder.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Maintenance Mode plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can choose between a ‘maintenance’ and a ‘coming soon’ template. Since we want to create a maintenance mode, click on the ‘Website is under maintenance’ template and then select the ‘Continue’ button.

You will now have the option to join the WP Maintenance Mode email list.

You can simply go ahead and click ‘I’ll skip for now, thanks.’

WP Maintenance Mode will now go ahead and create a simple page using its built-in template.

To see this page, simply click on ‘View page.’

This opens the template in the standard WordPress post editor.

Note: Unhappy with this default template? You can find other WP Maintenance Mode templates by going to Settings » WP Maintenance Mode in the WordPress dashboard. Then, click on the ‘Design’ tab.

You can now make changes to the design in exactly the same way you edit a page or post.

The template has a few social media placeholders that you’ll want to link to your own pages.

Simply click each of these icons and then type the URL into the little bar that appears.

When you’re happy with how the maintenance page looks, click on the ‘Update’ button in the content editor to save your changes.

Now you’ve designed your page, it’s time to configure your maintenance mode settings by going to Settings » WP Maintenance Mode in your WordPress dashboard.

You can then click on the ‘General’ tab.

By default, search engine bots can’t see your site while it’s in maintenance mode. This can hurt your WordPress SEO and may affect where your site appears in the search engine rankings, especially if you’re going to be doing maintenance for a while.

That’s why we recommend opening the ‘Bypass for Search Bots’ dropdown and choosing ‘Yes.’ This will allow any search engine crawlers to bypass your maintenance page.

As the site admin, you can access your WordPress dashboard and website while it’s in maintenance mode. However, you may want to grant access to other user roles.

You can give users access to the WordPress dashboard by opening the ‘Backend’ dropdown and then choosing a user role from the list.

To give visitors access to your public-facing site, use the ‘Frontend’ dropdown instead.

Similar to SeedProd, you can exclude certain pages from maintenance mode so they’ll always be accessible to visitors. For example, if you have a booking form then you may want to make this page available even when the rest of your site is down for maintenance.

To exclude a page, simply add its slug to the ‘Exclude’ box.

If you use Google Analytics to track visitors to your WordPress website, then make sure you click on the ‘Modules’ tab.

You can then open the ‘Use Google Analytics‘ dropdown and select ‘Yes.’

Then, simply add your tracking ID to the ‘Tracking code’ field.

There are lots more settings that are worth looking at, and most are self-explanatory. When you’re happy with how maintenance mode is set up, click on the ‘Save settings’ button to store your changes.

Now, you can activate maintenance mode at any time. Simply select the ‘General’ tab and click on the ‘Activated’ radio button.

You can then scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Save settings.’ Now, if you visit your site while in an incognito browser tab, you’ll see the maintenance page.

When you’re ready to take your site out of maintenance mode, simply go back to the ‘General’ tab and select ‘Deactivated.’ Then, simply click on the ‘Save changes’ button and your website will once be available to anyone who visits it.

How to Add a Chatbot to Your Maintenance Mode Page

Chatbots allow you to interact with visitors, record information about them, and even do lead generation in WordPress.

The WP Maintenance Mode plugin has a simple pre-programmed live chatbot that you can use to ask visitors if they would like to subscribe to your email list and get notified when your site is out of maintenance mode.

To see how the chatbot is set up, click on the ‘Manage Bot’ tab.

By default, this bot is named Admin but you can change this by typing a new name into the ‘Bot Name’ field.

You may also want to add an avatar, which will appear in the chatbot popup.

After that, you can see the pre-programmed conversation under ‘Customize Messages.’

You can change any of these messages but the default settings should be a good fit for most WordPress websites.

To make the chatbot live, go to the top of the screen and click on the ‘Activated’ button.

As always, don’t forget to click on ‘Save settings’ to store your changes.

Now if you visit the maintenance page in an incognito tab, you can talk to the chatbot.

If you’re collecting user information through a chatbot or maintenance page, then it’s important to make sure your site is GDPR compliant.

We hope this article helped you learn how to put your WordPress site in maintenance mode. You may also want to see our guide on how to create custom pages in WordPress, and our comparison of the best business phone services to allow visitors to contact you while your website is under maintenance.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode first appeared on WPBeginner.

What’s New in WordPress 6.1 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 6.1 was released a few hours back, and it is the last major release of 2022.

This new release contains significant updates to the full site editing and the block editor experience.

In this article, we’ll show you what’s new in WordPress 6.1, and which features you should try after updating your websites.

Note: WordPress 6.1 is a major release, and unless you are on a managed WordPress hosting service, you’ll have to manually initiate the update. Here’s how to safely update WordPress.

Important: Don’t forget to create a complete WordPress backup before updating.

That being said, here’s all that’s new in WordPress 6.1.

Twenty Twenty-Three – New Default Theme

WordPress 6.1 ships with a brand new default theme called Twenty Twenty-Three.

Out of the box, this theme features a minimalist design that looks like a blank canvas and encourages you to bring your own style to the theme.

It comes packed with 10 style variations that users can choose from inside the Site Editor. All of these styles are fully customizable using the site editor.

Twenty Twenty-Three also ships with four fonts that are used by different style variations. You can also use these fonts when writing posts or pages.

Twenty Twenty-Three can be a perfect starter theme for users who want to make a website using the block editor with their own styles and layouts.

Block Editor Changes in WordPress 6.1

The block editor is where users write content, create pages, and edit their themes.

Each WordPress release comes with major improvements, new features, and enhancements to the block editor.

Following are a few most noticeable changes in the block editor.

List and Quote Blocks Now Have Inner Blocks

One of the problems with bulleted lists was that if you wanted to move a list item up and down you had to manually delete and edit all the list items.

WordPress 6.1 brings inner blocks for Quote and List blocks. Basically, each list item is its own block and you can move list items up and down.

The Quote block is now also divided into inner blocks.

Now you can style quote and cite blocks differently.

Featured Image in Cover Block

With WordPress 6.1, you can now select the featured image to be used for a cover block. After that, you can just set the featured image and it will start appearing inside the cover.

Many beginners often confuse cover block and featured images. Hopefully, this will now allow them to just use cover block to display featured image for an article.

Note: Depending on your theme, you may see the featuerd image appear twice. First, at the location where your theme displays the featured image and then as the cover block.

New & Improved Borders

WordPress 6.1 brings a lot of options to the design tools available for blocks. One of them is the more powerful border tool that is now available for several blocks.

You can use set top, right, bottom, left borders separately, and give them different colors and sizes.

Previously users were able to only select the border radius for the image block.

Now with WordPress 6.1, you can set border color and size as well.

More Padding and Margin Options

WordPress 6.1 brings ‘Dimensions’ tool to more blocks allowing users to set padding and margins.

Users will also be able to visualize their changes with neat visual hints.

You can also set margins for Spacer and Separator blocks, which allows you to create more spacious content layouts.

New and Improved Navigation Blocks

WordPress 6.1 now allows you to easily change background and text color for sub-menus.

The Navigation now also allows you to easily choose a menu from the block toolbar or the sidebar panel.

Editor Design Refinements in WordPress 6.1

WordPress 6.1 ships with some noticable refinements to Editor design. These changes clean up the interface and aim to improve user experience.

Status & Visibility Panel Renamed to Summary

The Status & visibility panel is renamed to Summary. Template and Permalink panels are now removed and merged into the Summary panel.

You can click on the URL field to change the Permalink or Template name to change template.

Here is how it looked in WordPress 6.0 vs WordPress 6.1.

Time to Read in the Information Panel

The information panel now includes ‘Time to read’ information as well.

Site Icon Replaces the WordPress Logo

If you have set the site icon for your website, then it will be used as the View Posts button in the top left corner of the screen.

New Preferences Options

The Preferences section for the block editor now includes two new options.

First, there is ‘Always open list view’ which shows the list sidebar by default for all articles.

Then, there is ‘Show button text labels’ which replaces icons in toolbars with text labels.

Create More Templates in Site Editor

If you have used child themes with classic WordPress themes, then you may be familiar with the template heirarchy.

With WordPress 6.1, users are now able to do the same using the block editor and without writing code.

You can use the following templates regardless of which block theme you are using.

Single pageSingle postIndivdual term in a taxonomyIndividual categoryCustom template (can be used for any post or page)

You can go to the Appearance » Editor page and then select templates from the left sidebar. After that, click on the Add New button to see the available options.

Choosing a template that can be applied to an individual item, will see bring up a popup.

From here, you can choose the item where you want the new template to be used.

For instance, if you choose the Category template, then you’ll see a popup.

Now you can select if you want to apply your new template for all categories or a specific category.

Quickly Search and Use Template Parts

The site editor in WordPress 6.1 now makes it easier to discover and use template parts.

For instance, if your theme had multiple template parts that can be used in the header, then you can simply click on the template part options and select Replace.

This will bring up a modal popup where you can look for available template parts that you can use.

Quickly Clear Customizations in Site Editor

WordPress 6.1 now allows you to quickly clear customizations when working in Site Editor.

Under the Hood Changes in WordPress 6.1

WordPress 6.1 comes with several important changes for developers. Following are a few of these changes.

Classic themes can now use template parts (Details)Fluid typography allows theme developers to dynamically adjust font sizes. (Details)Post types can now have their own starter patterns (Details).Filters to hook into theme.json data (Details)Simplified data access with React hooks in WordPress 6.1 (Details) New is_login() function to for determining if a page is the login screen. (Details)

We hope this article helped you discover what’s new in WordPress 6.0 and which new features to try out. We are particularly excited about all the changes to the block editor.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post What’s New in WordPress 6.1 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.

The WordPress SEO Crawl Budget Problem and How to Fix It

Are you trying to fix the WordPress SEO crawl budget problem?

SEO crawl budget is the number of times search engines will crawl pages on your website. A lower crawl budget can delay your pages from getting indexed in a timely manner. This can hurt your SEO rankings and lower your overall traffic.

In this article, we’ll explain the WordPress SEO crawl budget problem and how to fix it quickly.

Because this is a huge topic, we have broken it down into easy-to-understand sections. Here are the different items we’ll cover in this article:

How Does Search Crawling work?

Search engines like Google, use sophisticated bots (computer programs) to visit websites across the internet.

These bots look for changes on a website and compare them to the main search index.

If they discover new content, then they add it to the search index. If they find content that is already in the index but has changed, then they update the index with fresh content.

They follow links on a page and then do the same for those pages as well.

The way bots move from one link to other links on a page is similar to how real spiders crawl along their webs.

That’s why the term crawling is used to describe this activity, and you may sometimes see the bots referred to as search engine spiders.

For better SEO, you need to make sure that search engines can crawl your website easily.

Tip: See our complete WordPress SEO guide for beginners to learn more about SEO.

What is SEO Crawl Budget?

SEO crawl budget is the number of times search engines like Google will crawl pages on your website.

Google bots crawl billions of pages each day. They try to calculate how many pages they will crawl on each website domain to efficiently use resources.

This number is automatically determined by the crawling algorithms based on multiple factors.

It fluctuates daily, which means there is no fixed number for how many pages the Google bot will crawl on your WordPress website.

Generally, larger websites with more content have a higher crawl budget, and smaller websites have a lower budget.

Other factors also influence the crawl budget, like the popularity of a URL, freshness, update frequency, and more.

However, due to several reasons, you may be losing your crawl budget on unwanted pages.

For instance, if your website isn’t properly optimized, then search engines will spend your crawl budget on less significant parts of your website than important content.

What Causes WordPress SEO Crawl Budget Issues

The way WordPress generates URLs and duplicate content can cause crawl budget issues.

For instance, WordPress automatically generates RSS feeds for different areas of your website.

There are RSS feeds for the main blog, categories and tags, comments on each individual post and page, and even custom post types have separate RSS feed URLs.

Links to these RSS feeds are added to the HTML source code of your website which makes them discoverable by search engines.

Now, search engines are smart enough to recognize duplicate content and ignore it. However, they would still crawl them and spend your SEO crawl budget.

Apart from that, search engines would crawl less important items a lot more than needed. This includes your archives, taxonomies, authors, PDF files, and more.

WordPress plugins or other third-party tools can also add query parameters to your WordPress URLs.

Google’s spiders may consider these query parameters to be a different page and crawl them.

For instance, UTM parameters are used for Google Analytics tracking and a page with or without these query parameters would still look the same.

Example: https://yourdomain.com/landingpage/?utm_source=newsletter

This wastes your SEO crawl budget on less important items and becomes an issue.

How to Calculate Your SEO Crawl Budget

The SEO crawl budget is not a set number of pages.

It fluctuates a lot, and there is no reliable way of predicting how many pages Google will crawl on your website on any given day.

However, you can get a pretty decent idea based on recent crawl activity to see how Google crawls your website.

If you haven’t done so, you first need to add your website to Google Search Console. It is a free tool provided by Google to help website owners find out how their website is doing in Google Search.

Simply go to your Search Console dashboard. Switch to the ‘Settings’ menu from the left column and then click on ‘Open Report’ next to ‘Crawl stats.’

The Crawl stats report will show an overview of crawl requests on your website during the last few weeks.

You can hover your mouse over the chart to see how many pages were requested each day.

This gives you an idea of what the average crawl rate was on your site during this period of time.

Below that, you can see a breakdown of crawl activity by response code, file types, purpose, and Google bot type.

From here, you can see how much the crawl budget is spent on errors, syndication (RSS feeds), JavaScript, CSS, Images, and more.

This gives you a snapshot of items that you can optimize to utilize the SEO crawl budget more efficiently.

For example, if you have a lot of 404 errors being crawled, then you can use a redirection plugin to ensure those crawlers land on useful content.

(Later in the article, we show you how to redirect crawl errors step-by-step.)

Why You Should Care About SEO Crawl Budget

Search engines need to crawl your website efficiently, so they can properly index your content on time.

However, if your SEO crawl budget is being wasted, then your important and newer content may not get crawled on time.

It may even take weeks for the search engines to notice updates to your older articles or discover your new content.

You will miss out on getting traffic from search engines, your SEO rankings may not improve, and you will definitely lose money on sales or ad revenue.

How to Easily Optimize SEO Crawl Budget in WordPress

The easiest and safest way to optimize your SEO crawl budget in WordPress is by using All in One SEO for WordPress.

It is the best WordPress SEO plugin that comes with an SEO crawl optimization tool built-in.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO for WordPress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: There is also a free version of All in One SEO which also includes a crawl clean-up feature. We recommend using the PRO plan of the paid plugin because it will also give you access to the Redirection manager tool to fix 404 errors on your website.

Upon activation, the plugin will show you a setup wizard. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to set up the plugin.

After that, you can go to All in One SEO » Search Appearance page.

Then, just switch to the Advanced tab.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and there you’ll see the ‘Crawl Cleanup’ option.

Click the toggle to enable the ‘Crawl Cleanup’ feature.

The first option you will see in the crawl cleanup is to remove the query arguments.

Below that, you can provide a list of query arguments that you want to allow. Advanced users can use Regex regular expressions here.

Next, you’ll see options for WordPress RSS feeds. All in One SEO will show you all different kinds of RSS feeds generated by WordPress, and you can disable the less important RSS feeds.

For instance, if you have a single-author blog, then you can Disable the Author Feeds.

Once you have disabled all the unwanted RSS feeds, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

How to Set Up Redirects for Error Pages

All in One SEO will automatically set up redirects for feeds you have disabled. For instance, a tag RSS feed will now redirect users to the tag archive page.

Next, you need to switch to your Google Search Console dashboard and open the crawl stats report.

From here, you can see the pages that resulted in errors.

Now depending on the status code, you can set up redirects for those pages.

For instance, you can redirect 404 errors to a similar page. You can check other pages with errors and set up redirects for them as well.

All in One SEO makes it very easy to set up redirects on your WordPress website. Simply go to All in One SEO » Redirects page and add the old URL under the ‘Source URL’ and new URL under the ‘Target URL’ field.

Click on the ‘Add Redirect’ button to save your settings. Then, you can just repeat the process to set up more redirects as needed. For more details and alternate methods, see our guide on how to set up redirects in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn about the WordPress SEO crawl budget problem and how to fix it. You may also want to see these expert tips on using Google Search Console to grow traffic or see practical examples of how to improve organic click-through rate in WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post The WordPress SEO Crawl Budget Problem and How to Fix It first appeared on WPBeginner.