Friday, August 14, 2020

7 Best Shopify Alternatives in 2020 (Cheaper and More Powerful)

Are you comparing Shopify alternatives to weigh their pros and cons?

You might have thought about using Shopify to create an online store. While it’s a popular option, it may not be the best fit for your eCommerce business.

In this article, we’ll compare the best Shopify alternatives along with their pros and cons, so you can choose the best platform to build an online store.

Shopify alternatives to consider for your online store

Is Shopify the Right Choice for Your Online Store?

Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform. It handles all the technical details that goes into running an online store, like hosting, domain name, maintenance, software updates, and more.

This makes Shopify a popular choice among business owners.

However, it doesn’t offer the same flexibility and freedoms that many other top eCommerce platforms offer. It is also more expensive than many alternatives on the market with their basic plan starting from $29/month.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best Shopify alternatives with the pros and cons of each option.

1. WooCommerce

The WooCommerce website

WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world, and it is also our top pick for creating any type of online store.

It is beginner-friendly and incredibly easy to use. WooCommerce comes with hundreds of professionally designed website templates, and many of them are available for free.

You can also add any new feature to your eCommerce store using WooCommerce extensions (many of them are free as well).

There is also a ton of free online help and WooCommerce tutorials which makes it easier for you to learn and grow your online eCommerce business.

There are also more payment gateways extensions for WooCommerce available than any other platform. WooCommerce is used globally, so you will be able to integrate payment gateways supported in your targeted regions.

You will need to pay for web hosting and a domain to run WooCommerce. There are lots of options for WooCommerce hosting, but our top recommendation is Bluehost.

They are offering our readers a fantastic deal where you get a free domain name, free SSL certification, and hosting for $2.75/month:

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Price:

WooCommerce plugin itself is free.

However, you will need to pay the usual costs of running a WordPress website. This includes web hosting, your domain name, and any paid plugins you want to use for your online store.

2. MemberPress

The MemberPress website

MemberPress is our top pick for creating a membership site. It’s a great option if you want to offer digital content to customers. It lets you take subscription payments, or just charge one-time fee for digital downloads.

MemberPress is easy to set up, and you can use it to protect premium content on your site in lots of different ways.

For instance, it’s easy to protect all pages with a specific parent page, so only registered users can see them. MemberPress also lets you ‘drip’ content so that members don’t receive it all at once.

You can even set up different payment levels if you want to sell several different memberships or online products.

MemberPress integrates with lots of other tools such as popular email marketing services, live chat software, etc. It also has built-in support for PayPal and Stripe payments.

Price:

MemberPress costs from $129/year for the basic plan when you use our MemberPress coupon code.

3. BigCommerce

The BigCommerce website

BigCommerce is a fully hosted all-in-one eCommerce platform. The hosting, SEO, payment features, and more are all provided for you by BigCommerce. You don’t need to set anything up separately.

There’s also a BigCommerce WordPress plugin that lets you run a full BigCommerce store on your WordPress website. You can login to BigCommerce to manage your store and use WordPress to add / edit website content as normal.

There are hundreds of third-party apps and integrations that can be added onto BigCommerce. They have both free and paid apps available in their app marketplace. This gives you plenty of ways to add features like product popups with OptinMonster, cart abandonment, and more to your store as your business grows.

BigCommerce is a particularly good option if you’re not very confident with technology. The support team is available 24/7, and you can get phone, live chat, and email support. BigCommerce will handle things like backups, updates, and security for your store.

Price:

BigCommerce costs from $29.95/month. If you make more than $50,000 in sales per year, then you’ll need to upgrade to a more expensive plan.

4. Easy Digital Downloads

The Easy Digital Downloads website

Easy Digital Downloads lets you sell virtual (downloadable) products from your WordPress site. It’s specifically designed for selling digital products, so it’s not a good alternative to Shopify if you sell physical goods.

The Easy Digital Downloads plugin automatically protects your files. You can restrict how many times a customer can download a file. You can also let the download link expire after a set period of time. These methods prevent customers from sharing their purchased files with other people.

Easy Digital Downloads works well even if you have multiple digital products to sell. There’s a built-in shopping cart system where customers can buy several products at once. It’s also easy to make a customer account page, so that people can easily view all the products they’ve bought.

As with any WordPress plugin, you’ll need a domain name and WordPress hosting in order to use Easy Digital Downloads. It’s not a standalone solution.

There’s lots of help available through the support forums, videos, and tutorials. If you pay for the premium version, you’ll get priority support through email.

Price:

Easy Digital Downloads itself is free. There are a number of extensions available, some also free and some paid. Pricing plans start from $99/year, and these give access to email support and certain extensions.

5. Constant Contact Website Builder

The Constant Contact Website Builder website

Constant Contact is best known as an email marketing service, but the company also has a beginner-friendly website builder. You can use this to quickly and easily create an online store.

The built-in eCommerce functionality in the Constant Contact website builder lets you easily choose a layout, add products, and set up payments. There are also features that let you create a logo and analyze your website traffic.

You can try out Constant Contact’s website builder completely free of charge. Once it’s time to launch your site, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

The drag and drop interface makes this website builder really easy to use. There are over 550,000 free professional quality images to pick from for your site too.

Constant Contact also includes 24/7 support through phone and live chat, so it’s easy to get help if you need it.

Price:

Constant Contact’s website builder costs just $10/month. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, too.

6. Magento

The Magento website

Magento is an open source eCommerce platform, just like WordPress is an open source website builder platform.

You can use the community edition of Magento with any web host that supports it. We recommend SiteGround’s Magento hosting for this.

There’s also Magento Commerce, which is a paid platform. This includes lots of features and support, but you need to ask for an enterprise quote to get pricing.

Magento has a healthy extensions ecosystem that lets you add new functionality. Many of these are free, but a lot of them are premium extensions.

Magento is a powerful platform with lots of flexibility, but it can be tricky to get started with if you’re a beginner. It’s a good fit if you’re running a business and have developers on hand, or if you want to hire a developer to set things up.

Price:

The open source version of Magento is free. However, you’ll need to pay for web hosting that’s powerful enough to run a fully featured online store.

7. Weebly

The Weebly website

Weebly is an all-in-one website builder and eCommerce platform, so you don’t need to buy hosting separately. It comes with dozens of website designs that you can edit using drag and drop tools.

Weebly lets you easily create an online store. Their platform gives you the ability to sell digital items as well as physical ones. There are also options for selling services and taking donations.

With Weebly, you also get extra features like a mobile app to manage your store, automated abandoned cart emails, and more.

There are over 300 Weebly apps that you can add to your site to give it new features. Many of these are free, but some cost extra.

However, Weebly doesn’t have the full range of customization options that other eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce can offer.

Price:

Weebly’s business plan is $25/month. This removes the 3% transaction fee that Weebly would otherwise charge on all your sales.

There’s also a free version of Weebly, but this doesn’t include eCommerce tools.

Which is the Best Shopify Alternative for Your Online Store?

For most people, WooCommerce is the best Shopify alternative. It’s easy to use, and fairly quick to get started with. Best of all, it has lots of flexibility since WooCommerce offers the largest extension ecosystem and pre-made template library.

MemberPress is a great option if you want to offer digital products or online courses that people subscribe to. It’s easy to use and again offers lots of power and flexibility.

BigCommerce is another good alternative that offers the similar feature set as Shopify without the restriction of specific payment gateways or extra fees.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best Shopify alternatives to create an online store. You might also like our list of proven and easy to start online business ideas.

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 7 Best Shopify Alternatives in 2020 (Cheaper and More Powerful) appeared first on WPBeginner.


August 14, 2020 at 05:45PM

Thursday, August 13, 2020

How to Fix WordPress Website Not Updating Right Away

Are you trying to fix your WordPress website not updating right away?

Often users ask us why some changes they make to their site like a new blog post, widget settings, don’t appear right away. It is a common issue and very easy to fix.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily fix a WordPress website not updating right away.

Fixing a WordPress website not updating right away

Why My WordPress Site Not Updating Right Away?

The most common cause of a WordPress site not updating right away is caching.

By default, many WordPress hosting companies enable their own caching systems which store a temporary copy of your pages to improve website speed and reduce server load.

Apart from that, you may also be using a WordPress caching plugin on your own which may not be configured properly.

Last but not the least, your browser may also store a cached version of your pages in temporary storage.

Normally, when you make any change to your WordPress website those cached versions expire, and you get to see your changes right away.

However, sometimes due to some configuration error this may not happen right away. In that case you will see the old version of that page for a while.

The most common symptom of this problem is new posts not appearing on the homepage of your WordPress website.

While you can still view the single post by clicking on the view post link from the WordPress admin area, you are unable to see it on the main page.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily fix this issue.

Fixing WordPress Website Not Updating Issue

You’ll start by first clearing the browser cache. For most users, this should fix the issue, and you wouldn’t need to proceed to step 2.

Step 1. Force Browser to Reload or Clear Cache

Sometimes your browser (specially Google Chrome) will show you a cached copy of your website instead of showing the new one.

To resolve this issue, you need to simply hit CTRL + F5 (or Cmd + R in Mac) buttons on your keyboard to reload the page.

This will ask the browser to reload the page by fetching a fresh version. In most cases, this would fix the issue for many users.

However, if that doesn’t work, then the next step is to clear your browser cache. In Google Chrome, click on the three-dot menu in the top right corner. From the menu, you need to go to More Tools » Clear Browsing Data.

Clear browser cache

For more details, see our guide on how to clear cache in all major browsers.

Step 2. Clear WordPress Cache for Your Website

The second and most likely cause of this issue is poorly configured WordPress caching plugin. Most caching plugins make it super easy to clear your cache with the click of a button.

1. WP Rocket

If you are using WP Rocket on your website, then simply go to the Settings » WP Rocket page and click on the ‘Clear Cache’ button under the dashboard tab.

WP Rocket clear cache

2. WP Super Cache

If you are using the WP Super Cache plugin, then go to the Settings » WP Super Cache page and click on ‘Delete Cache’ button.

WP Super Cache delete cache

3. Bluehost

Even if you don’t have a WordPress caching plugin installed on your website, many WordPress hosting companies deploy their own caching system by default.

For instance, if you are on the Bluehost hosting platform, then you’ll notice a ‘Caching’ button in the admin toolbar.

Clear cache in Bluehost

Take your mouse over and you’ll see the option to ‘Purge All’ cache. This will delete all cached files from your website.

4. SiteGround

SiteGround is another top WordPress hosting company that offers its own built-in caching system.

You can manage SiteGround cache by installing and activating the SG Optimizer plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to click on the Purge SG Cache button in the WordPress admin toolbar.

Purge SiteGround cache

This will clear up SiteGround cache for your website.

For more hosting companies and caching plugins, see our complete guide on how to clear WordPress cache.

We hope this article helped you fix WordPress website not updating right away issue. You may also want check out our guide on the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

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 Fix WordPress Website Not Updating Right Away appeared first on WPBeginner.


August 13, 2020 at 06:00PM

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

How to Create a Job Application Form in WordPress (Easily)

Do you want to add a job application form to the careers page on your WordPress website?

Often small businesses do not have a system in place for receiving job applications. This can quickly lead to a huge number of resumes in your email inbox, without an easy way to sort through them.

The good news is that you can easily solve this. In this article, we’ll show you how to create a job application form in WordPress that makes it easy for people to apply online while also making it easy for you to manage applications in one place.

Creating a job application form in WordPress

Creating Your Job Application Form in WordPress

If you run a small business website, then adding a ‘Careers’ or ‘Jobs’ page on your website allows you to attract talented people to join your team.

To attract the best people, you also need to make it easier for interested candidates to apply for a job by adding a job application form on that page.

Let’s take a look at how WordPress makes it easy to add a job application form.

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

WPForms is the best WordPress forms plugin on the market. It’s designed to be very beginner-friendly and it lets you create lots of different forms for your small business.

After activating the plugin, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings page in your WordPress dashboard to enter your license key. You can find your license under your account on the WPForms website.

Entering your license key for WPForms

Next, visit the WPForms » Addons page to install the Form Templates Pack Addon. This pack includes the job application form template.

Adding the form templates pack addon to WPForms

Tip: The Form Templates Pack is only available if you have the Pro plan for WPForms or higher. However, you can still create a job application form by using the Simple Contact Form template in the free version of the plugin.

Now, it’s time to create your form. To start, you need to visit WPForms » Add New in your WordPress admin area.

On this page, you will then be prompted to name your form and choose a template. After that, scroll down to the Job Application Upload Form template or search for it using the search bar.

Select the Job Application Upload Form template

Once you’ve clicked on your chosen template, you will be taken to the WPForms form builder.

You will see the default job application upload form template here. You can use it just as it is, or edit it using the drag & drop interface.

The default job application upload form template in WPForms

If you’re happy with the form as is, then simply save it and click the X button to leave the WPForms builder.

Saving and exiting the form

Next, you need to put the form on your website. You can embed it in a post or page, or you could even add it to your sidebar. We’re going to create a new page by going to Pages » Add New in the WordPress dashboard.

On the page edit screen, simply click on the (+) to add a new block and then look for WPForms block. You can find it in the ‘Widgets’ section of blocks or you can use the search bar.

Adding a new WPForms block to a page in WordPress

Once you’ve added that block, click and select your job application form from the dropdown list.

Selecting your form from the WPForms dropdown list

WPForms will load a preview of your form in the content editor. You can now go ahead and save or publish your page.

After that, don’t forget to visit your website to see the live form in action. On our page, we have a title, a short description, an image, and then the job application form:

The job application form on the website

Note: If you’re using the old classic WordPress editor, then you can click the ‘Add Form’ button to add a form to your page:

Adding a form to the page using the classic WordPress editor

Editing Your Job Application Form

You can edit your job application form at any time to add more fields, notifications, and descriptions.

To do this, simply go to the WPForms » All Forms page and click on the title of your form to open it up for editing:

Opening up your job application form to edit it

You can change the existing fields (parts of the form), move them up or down, delete fields, and add new ones.

First, we’re going to edit the ‘How did you find out about this position?’ question on our job application form. To edit a field, click on it. You will see the options for the field open up in the left-hand editing pane.

We’re going to delete the ‘Newspaper Ad’ and ‘Radio/TV Ad’ options. Simply click the (-) button next to the option to remove it.

Editing the 'How did you find out about this position?' field

Next, we’re going to remove the ‘If other’ field immediately below this. To delete a field, simply bring your mouse cursor over the field and then click the red trash can icon that appears:

Deleting the text field for 'If Other' in WPForms

We’re also going to add a field just before the resume upload. This is where our prospective content writers can share links to their previously published work.

First, click the ‘Add Fields’ tab on the left-hand side if it’s not already selected. Then, simply drag and drop your chosen field into place on the form. We’re going to use the Paragraph Text field.

Dragging and dropping a new paragraph field onto the job application form

Once the field is in place on the form, just click on it to change its label and provide a description.

Editing the label for a field in WPForms

You can make as many changes and additions as you want to the form. Make sure you click the ‘Save’ button after doing so.

Editing Notifications and Confirmation Messages for Your Job Application Form

By default, all job applications will be sent to the administrator email of your WordPress site. However, in some cases the person responsible for managing these job applications may not be an administrator on your website.

This is why WPForms makes it easy to send form submissions via email to anyone without giving them access to WordPress admin area. You can also view all applications right inside WordPress (more on this later).

To edit the notification settings, simply edit your job application form and then switch to the Settings » Notifications tab.

Changing the email address that the job application form is sent to

In the ‘Send To Email Address’ box, type in the email addresses that you want forms to be sent to.

You can also change other aspects of the notification, such as the email subject line.

If you want to send the applicant an email to let them know that their application has been received, that’s possible, too. Simply follow our instructions on creating a form with multiple recipients.

You may also want to change the default confirmation message that the applicant sees after submitting the form. You can edit this under Settings » Confirmations tab. Simply type the message you want into the box:

Changing the confirmation message that's shown on the screen after the form is submitted

Viewing Submitted Applications inside WordPress

Each job application will come to the admin email address of your WordPress site or the addresses you entered under the notifications tab.

The email will include all the details submitted, plus a link to download the resume or any other files uploaded:

The job application email notification with resume link in place

Tip: Make sure you test email notifications by submitting your forms. If you don’t receive notifications, then see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

WPForms also saves all applications within WordPress itself. This makes it easy for other team members to review and even comment on applications.

To see the submitted job applications, go to WPForms » Entries in your WordPress dashboard. Scroll down to below the graph and click on the name of your form.

Click on the name of a form to view the entries for it

Now, simply click the ‘View’ link next to any application to see the details of it.

Click the 'View' link to see the details of a completed application

You will then be able to see the application form. You can download the candidate’s resume here. You can use the Star feature in WPForms to highlight your favorite candidates.

It’s also easy to add a note by clicking the ‘Add Note’ button. This is a very useful feature if several people will be viewing and commenting on applications:

Adding a note to a job application in WPForms

That’s it. You have successfully created a job application form on your WordPress site that lets you easily gather and sort through applications.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to create a job application form in WordPress. You might also like our articles on the how to create a professional business email address for your team members, and the best VOIP phone services for small businesses that you can use to give each new team member a virtual phone number.

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 Create a Job Application Form in WordPress (Easily) appeared first on WPBeginner.


August 12, 2020 at 06:11PM

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

What’s New in WordPress 5.5 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 5.5 was released earlier today, and it is the second major release of 2020.

This new release is packed with a lot of improvements, many of them are focused around the WordPress block editor. It also includes some long-awaited features that are making their debut with this release.

In this article, we’ll share what’s new in WordPress 5.5, and which features you should try after updating your websites.

Features and screenshots of WordPress 5.5

WordPress 5.5 is a major release, and unless you are on a managed WordPress hosting service, you’ll have to manually initiate the update.

Important: Don’t forget to create a complete WordPress backup before starting the update.

Improved Block Editor in WordPress 5.5

The block editor is where you spend most of your time creating content for your WordPress blog. It has been regularly maintained and each WordPress release brings improvements to the block editor.

WordPress 5.5 brings some significant changes to help you use block editor more efficiently.

Integrated Block Directory

WordPress 5.5 now comes with an integrated block directory. This means that if you want to add a block that is not available on your site, then you’ll automatically see suggestions from the block directory.

Block directory in WordPress 5.5

Block directory is essentially a collection of WordPress plugins that allow you to add different types of blocks to your site. This does not include block library plugins that come packed with several useful WordPress blocks that you can use right away by installing a single plugin.

UI Changes in The Block Editor

Perhaps the most noticeable thing in WordPress 5.5 is the visual improvements to the block editor. Borders and highlighting are improved to make block editor more accessible.

Improved block editor UI

The ‘Add new block’ button (+) is now more noticeable and looks more like a button with a black background.

Edit Images Inside Block Editor

WordPress 5.5 allows users to edit images inside the block editor. You can adjust image height, width, aspect ratio, crop, and rotate without leaving the post editor.

Inline image editing in WordPress 5.5

Of course, you can still perform basic image editing in the media library as well. However, inline image editing will now help new users easily discover these built-in editing options.

Introducing Block Patterns

The block editor already had reusable blocks and groups which allowed users to save most commonly used blocks and reuse them.

WordPress 5.5 adds a new feature called block patterns. These are commonly used blocks with pre-configured settings that you can instantly add.

Block patterns in WordPress 5.5

This allows you to quickly create page layouts while maintaining consistency in style across your website. There are a few of them already available in 5.5. More will arrive as WordPress themes and plugins register their own block patterns.

Improved Block Navigation and Movement

One common issue that many beginners struggled with is block navigation. Particularly if you are using nested blocks like columns or groups, then it became a little difficult to select the parent block or move a child element inside it.

WordPress 5.5 now comes with much better block navigation making it easier to select parent block or a nested element inside it. You can also move blocks by grabbing the handle and drag and drop them.

Moving between blocks and navigating around editor in WordPress 5.5

Auto Update Your WordPress Theme and Plugins

WordPress 5.5 takes a big leap towards security by introducing automatic updates for WordPress plugins and themes.

You can now simply go to the Plugins page and enable auto-updates for any WordPress plugin that you have installed on your site.

Enable auto-updates for WordPress plugins

You can also do the same for WordPress themes. Simply go to the Appearance » Themes page and click on a theme to select it. In the theme overview popup, you’ll find the option to enable automatic updates for that theme.

Auto update WordPress theme

This functionality was already available in WordPress but you either had to change WordPress configuration or use a third-party plugin to manage automatic updates. WordPress 5.5 has now made it incredibly easy to ensure that your websites are always running on the latest code.

Update Plugins by Uploading a New Version

Normally, you would update WordPress plugins with automatic updates or by clicking on the update notification. However, sometimes you may have to update a plugin manually.

In that case, your only option was to use an FTP client to upload the new version. WordPress 5.5 has fixed this problem and now you can simply go to the Plugins » Add New page and upload the new version like you would upload any new plugin zip file.

Upload plugin zip file

WordPress will automatically detect that you already have this plugin installed and the new file contains a different version. It will then allow you to ‘Replace current with uploaded’ version.

Replace existing plugin with new version

You can do the same thing for themes as well. Simply go to the Appearance » Themes page and then click on the ‘Add New’ button at the top.

After that click on the Upload Theme button to upload your theme zip file. WordPress will automatically detect the existing theme and will give you the option to ‘Replace current with uploaded’ version.

Replace theme with updated version

Lazy Loading for Images

WordPress 5.5 now lazy loads images on your website. This means that it will only load the images that are visible to the user on screen and delay loading other images.

WordPress now make it a default feature for all sites by adding the ‘loading’ attribute to img tag. This attribute is supported by all modern web browsers (except Safari).

Lazy load images in WordPress 5.5

This improves your website speed and performance significantly. This is also good for WordPress hosting companies, ISPs, and the overall interwebs.

WordPress powers more than 35% of all websites on the internet this major improvement in speed will save a lot of bandwidth, server resources, and electricity.

The Default XML Sitemaps in WordPress

WordPress 5.5 will now automatically publish XML sitemaps for your website. An XML sitemap is a file that lists all of your website content in XML format. This helps search engines like Google to easily discover and index your content.

Sitemaps are a crucial part of WordPress SEO and this feature would help many beginners who are not following SEO best practices.

However, the default WordPress XML Sitemaps are quite limited in features and functionality. This is why both top WordPress SEO plugins, All in One SEO and Yoast SEO will continue providing their own XML sitemaps.

If you are already using an SEO plugin or Sitemaps plugin, then you don’t need to do anything. These plugins will automatically disable the default WordPress XML sitemaps.

Under The Hood Changes in WordPress 5.5

WordPress themes using the get_custom_logo() or the_custom_logo() will not add a link to the homepage when the homepage is displayed. (See details)

Theme developers can now pass arguments among template files. (See details)

Developers can now define default terms for custom taxonomies. (See details)

WordPress 5.5 includes updated external libraries like phpMailer, SimplePie, Twemoji, and more. (See details).

Developers can control the auto-update options by disabling, enabling, or selectively blocking them for specific plugins or themes. (See details)

Dashicons will be updated and include 65 new icons. (See details)

WordPress 5.5 will come with the ability to scan for PHP compatibility issues more effectively. (See details)

We hope this article helped you learn what’s new in WordPress 5.5. We are particularly excited about lazy loading images and block editor changes.

What’s your favorite feature in WordPress 5.5? Let us know in the comments below.

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 5.5 (Features and Screenshots) appeared first on WPBeginner.


August 12, 2020 at 02:13AM

How to Hide a WordPress Widget on Mobile (Easy for Beginners)

Do you want to hide a specific WordPress widget for mobile users?

Widgets are dynamic content that are often added in the website sidebar or footer. Sometimes a widget may look good on desktop / laptop devices, but you may want to hide it on mobile devices.

In this article, we’ll show you how to conditionally hide a WordPress widget on mobile devices (without writing any code).

Hiding a WordPress widget on mobile devices

Note: In most responsive WordPress themes, the sidebar will appear below your content on mobile devices. This is why often website owners want to hide certain widgets on mobile to speed up their website speed for mobile users.

How to Hide a Widget on Mobile in WordPress

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll be hiding the search widget on our demo site, but you can use it to hide any WordPress widget.

On our demo site, the search widget appears at the top of our sidebar, and it looks fine on desktop.

The widgets showing in the sidebar on a desktop

However on a mobile phone, the sidebar widgets display below the content instead of alongside it:

The search widget displaying beneath the content on mobile

We are going to hide the Search widget so that it only displays on desktops, and not on mobile devices.

Note: In this tutorial, the term ‘desktops’ includes laptops as well as regular desktops.

First, you need to install and activate the Widget Options plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to the Appearance » Widgets page in your WordPress admin area.

The widgets section of the WordPress admin

On this screen, you’ll see your active widgets placed in the widget-ready areas of your website.

Let’s go ahead and edit the Search widget by clicking on the name of the widget:

Expand your widget to view the options

On the widget settings, you’ll see a new section added by the Widget Options Plugin. Here, simply click on the small mobile icon, then choose which device or devices you want to hide the widget on.

Hiding a widget on mobile and tablet devices

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to save your changes.

Now, go ahead and check out your site using a mobile device. That widget will no longer appear in your widget area:

The search widget is now gone from the mobile version of the website

But, what if you wanted to hide a widget on desktop devices but display it on mobile screens?

Let’s take a look at how to do that.

How to Make a Mobile Version of a Widget in WordPress

Sometimes, you might want to have one version of a widget for desktop visitors and a different one for mobile visitors.

For example, you might want to show your five most recent posts on desktop, but only three posts on mobile devices.

That’s also easy to do with the Widget Options plugin. You can simply create two widgets and set one widget to display only on desktop, and the other to only display on mobile devices.

First, add or open the widget that you only want to display on the desktop. Then, click the small mobile icon. After that, simply check the ‘Tablet’ and ‘Mobile’ boxes to hide the widget on those devices:

Displaying a widget on desktops only

Don’t forget to press the Save button to save your changes.

Now, add or open the widget that you only want to display on mobile devices. Repeat the same process, but this time, click the ‘Desktop’ checkbox to hide the widget on desktop devices:

Showing a WordPress widget on mobile devices but not on desktops

That’s it. You now have a desktop version and a mobile version of your widget.

We hope this article helped you learn how to hide a widget on mobile devices in WordPress. You might also like to check out our list of the best drag & drop WordPress page builders to customize your site, or how to create a custom theme in WordPress (without writing any code).

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The post How to Hide a WordPress Widget on Mobile (Easy for Beginners) appeared first on WPBeginner.


August 11, 2020 at 05:08PM