How to Embed a Facebook Group Feed in WordPress

Do you want to embed posts from your Facebook group on your WordPress website?

Promoting your Facebook group on your WordPress website is a great way to boost engagement on your Facebook group. At the same time, it helps you get more traffic to your website in return.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily add a Facebook group feed on your WordPress site.

Why Add Facebook Group Content on Your WordPress Site?

Do you want to drive traffic from Facebook to your website without spending a dollar on Facebook ads?

Facebook groups are an easy way to do that. They are designed to build communities and with little effort, you can build a highly engaged audience around your brand and business.

We created our Facebook group called WPBeginner Engage last year. It already has more than 55,000 active users at the moment, and it is growing at an incredible pace.

However, if have just recently started a blog or website, then you will have to work hard on getting users to join your group and keeping them engaged at the same time.

One easy way to achieve this is by sharing your Facebook group posts on your WordPress site.

This gives your website visitors a chance to check out your group. Once they join it, you get the opportunity to promote your business and send highly motivated visitors back to your website.

That being said, let’s take a look a how to easily promote your Facebook group posts in WordPress.

How to Add Facebook Group Content in WordPress

We will be using the Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed Pro plugin to add content from your Facebook group to a WordPress site.

It is the best Facebook plugin for WordPress and allows you to share Facebook content on your website to boost engagement for your groups and Facebook pages.

First, you will need to add Smash Balloon’s Facebook app to the Facebook group that you want to use.

Adding the Smash Balloon App to Your Facebook Group

You need to visit your Facebook group and then click on the ‘Settings’ tab from the left-hand menu.

Note: You’ll need admin privileges for the group in order to install an app. If you are not the owner or admin of the group, then please ask an admin to follow these instructions.

Next, go to the bottom of the page where you will see the ‘Advanced Settings’ section. Here, you need to click on the ‘Apps’ pencil icon:

On the next screen, click on the ‘Add Apps’ button:

Then, go ahead and type ‘Smash Balloon’ into the search bar. The Smash Balloon app should appear. Simply click on it to continue.

You will then see a popup prompting you to confirm that you want to add the Smash Balloon app to your Facebook group. Just click ‘Add’ to continue.

You have now added the Smash Balloon app to your Facebook group.

Connecting WordPress to Your Facebook Group

Next, you need to install and activate the Custom Facebook Feed Pro plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to the Facebook Feed » Settings page in your WordPress dashboard. Here, you just need to click on the ‘Connect a Facebook account’ button.

Next, you’ll see a popup prompting you to select whether you want to display a page or a group. Select ‘Facebook Group’ from the dropdown then click the ‘Continue’ button.

You need to click to continue on a couple of Facebook prompts. After that, you will see a popup prompting you to select the Facebook group you want to use.

Simply click on your group’s name and then click the ‘Use token for this Group’ button.

You’ll then see a popup window explaining how to add the Smash Balloon app to your Facebook group. You have already done this, so go ahead and click the ‘Done’ button.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Settings’ button before moving on.

Adding Your Group’s Facebook Feed to Your Site

You can add your group’s Facebook feed to your site straight away. The ‘feed’ contains posts from your Facebook group, shown with the most recent first.

Custom Facebook Feed Pro lets you embed your group content feed into posts, pages, or even in your sidebar.

We are going to add the Facebook feed into a new page on our site. To do this, go to Pages » Add New, then click the (+) icon to add a new block:

You will then see your Facebook group’s feed within the block editor. Go ahead and preview or publish your page to see it live on your site.

Note: We have added some styling to our group’s feed to make it look great on our site. We will explain how to do that in a moment.

Tip: Are some photos or posts missing from your feed? This means those users have set their privacy settings to prevent apps from accessing some or all of their content.

If you are using the classic editor, then you can add your feed to your page using the shortcode [custom-facebook-feed]. Just enter that wherever you want the group’s posts to appear on your page:

You can use the same shortcode to add your Facebook group’s feed in your sidebar or any widget-enabled area.

To do this, go to Appearance » Widgets in your WordPress dashboard. Next, add a text widget to your sidebar, then copy and paste the Custom Facebook Feed shortcode into it:

Customizing and Styling Your Facebook Group’s Feed

You may want to customize how your Facebook group’s feed displays on your site. To do this, go to Facebook Feed » Customize in your WordPress admin.

Here, you can change lots of settings about how your feed layout will display.

First, let’s go to ‘Post Layout’ and set the posts to ‘Half-width’. This ensures that the text displays alongside the image for each post. Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button after making any changes.

We will also style the posts by clicking on the ‘Style Posts’ tab. We’re going to use the ‘Boxed’ style for our posts.

You may also want to set a rounded corner size of 10px and add a box shadow:

This is the styling that we applied to our Facebook group feed in the above screenshots. Go ahead and experiment with any other styles that you want to try on your site.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add a Facebook group on your WordPress website. You may also want to see our expert pick of the best Instagram plugins for WordPress, and the best email marketing services to help you convert Facebook group members into email subscribers.

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 Embed a Facebook Group Feed in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

August 25, 2020 at 05:00PM

How to Write Math Equations in WordPress

Do you want to write math equations in WordPress?

Writing math equations in WordPress is a bit difficult as the default WordPress editor does not come with full support for mathematical equations.

In this article, we will show you how to easily write math equations in WordPress using 3 different methods.

Why Writing Math Equations in WordPress is Difficult?

The way WordPress works is that it dynamically generates your website content and sends HTML output back to the users’ browsers to display it.

Writing mathematical and scientific equations in WordPress is difficult due to the lack of support for the characters in HTML.

Currently, MathML and LaTeX are considered to be the standard for writing mathematical and scientific equations on the web.

Unfortunately, they are both less than ideal for beginners. They both require you to learn their own syntax which could get complicated for longer and more complex equations.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to write math equations in your WordPress blog.

We’ll start off with an easy solution first before showing how to use MathML or LaTeX in WordPress.

Method 1. Writing Math Equations in WordPress using Unicode Characters

This method is simpler and is recommended for users who don’t need to write math equations frequently. For this method, we’ll be using Unicode characters and inserting them directly in the post editor.

Unicode is the encoding standard with the aim to provide character encoding support for all languages. It is supported by all website builders, operating systems, and mobile devices.

Here is how to add mathematical characters in WordPress using Unicode.

1. Adding Unicode Mathematical Characters in Mac

On Mac computers, you can add mathematical operators and characters from the toolbar at the top. Simply click on Edit » Emoji & Symbols or press Command + Control + Space keys on your keyboard.

This will bring up the ‘Character Viewer’ app in a popup. From here you can select the symbols and characters that you want to insert.

Simply double click on a character to insert it in the WordPress post editor.

You can also format characters in the post editor using the subscript and superscript options in paragraph toolbar.

2. Adding Unicode Mathematical Characters in Windows

Windows users can use a similar app to insert mathematical operators and special characters in WordPress post editor.

Simply open the Character Map app by clicking on Start » Windows Accessories » Character Map. This will bring up the showing commonly used characters on screen.

The Character Map app supports many different encodings including Unicode. You can find math operators by selecting the Unicode Subrange under Group.

After locating a character, you need to click to select it and then copy it. Now switch back to the WordPress content editor and paste the character.

Manually adding special characters and mathematical operators is a hassle, but it works if you’re only adding this once in a while.

However, if you regularly need to write mathematical equations on your site, then you’ll be better off learning to use either of the two methods described below.

2. Writing Math Equations in WordPress using LaTeX

LaTeX is a typesetting standard designed specifically for writing technical and scientific documentation. It is widely used in academic circles and is considered to be the de facto standard for writing equations and other scientific documents.

The official LaTeX website has detailed documentation and links to the tutorials and guide that will help you learn how to use it.

We’ll focus on how to bring LaTeX typesetting to your WordPress website.

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

Upon activation, you need to edit the post or page where you want to insert a math equation. On the post edit screen, click on the add new block button (+) and insert the shortcode block to your content.

Inside the shortcode, you need to add the shortcode [latexpage] followed by your LaTeX code.

You can now save your post and preview it to see your math equation with formatting.

An easier way to generate the code that you need to paste is by using an offline LaTeX app for your operating system or a web-based LaTeX environment like Overleaf.

You can then copy and paste your equations in the shortcode block in WordPress.

3. Writing Math Equations in WordPress using MathML

MathML is a markup language designed to easily publish mathematical equations on the web. It uses a semantic XML markup similar to HTML.

WordPress doesn’t support MathML out of the box, and if you added the MathML code in the post editor, then it will not render correctly.

Luckily, there is a plugin that solves that problem.

Simply install and activate the MathML Block plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, simply edit the post or page where you wan to add the math equation. On the post edit screen, click on the add new block button (+) and add the Custom HTML block to your content.

You can now paste your MathML code inside the custom HTML block.

After that, you can save your post or page and view it in a new tab to see MathML beautifully transformed on your website.

MathML Block uses the MathJax JavaScript engine to convert your markup into readable math equations. It also supports LaTeX commands.

To add your LaTeX code, simply add the MathML block to your content editor.

In the MathML block’s text area, you can paste your LaTeX code like this:

\[ your equation goes here\]

You can now save and preview your post to see it beautifully displayed in your blog post or page.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add math equations in WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate list of the most useful WordPress widgets and the must have WordPress plugins recommended by our experts.

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 Write Math Equations in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

August 24, 2020 at 04:32PM

21 Best WordPress Themes for Selling eBooks

Are you looking for the best WordPress themes for selling ebooks?

There are dozens of WordPress themes designed to promote and sell digital products. You can easily select a professional theme that matches your requirements for design and features.

In this article, we will share some of the best WordPress themes for selling ebooks that you can use.

Building a WordPress Website to Sell eBooks

WordPress is an excellent platform to sell ebooks online. It lets you have full control over how you sell your books. You also get to keep all the profit, without Amazon or another retailer taking a cut.

Many large publications and brands are using it around the world.

It’s important to make sure that you’re using the right version of WordPress as there are 2 different types. WordPress.com is a hosting platform that provides a limited version of the WordPress software. WordPress.org is open-source software that anyone can install on their website in full.

Take a look at our full comparison between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org for more details.

For your ebook selling website, you will need self-hosted WordPress.org. This gives you full control and comes with all the features you need.

But first, you will need to purchase a domain name (typically $14.99/year) and WordPress hosting ($7.99/month). You will also need an SSL Certificate ($69.99/year) to accept payments on your website.

That’s quite a lot of money if you’re just getting started with selling ebooks.

Bluehost, an official WordPress and WooCommerce recommended hosting provider, can help. They have agreed to offer WPBeginner readers a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a BIG discount on web hosting.

This means you can get started for just $2.75/month.

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After purchasing hosting, the next step is to install WordPress. Once you’ve done that, simply follow our step by step guide on how to make a website.

Let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress themes for selling ebooks for your website.

1. Astra

Astra is the best WordPress multipurpose theme to create a website and sell ebooks online. It comes with a few built-in templates to set up your book store quickly.

The theme provides color choices, custom backgrounds, beautiful fonts, and header options. It has quick layout settings for page templates, including the blog page, cart page, and checkout page.

2. OceanWP

OceanWP is a fantastic free theme with premium-like features. This super flexible WordPress theme comes with fast page load time, mobile-responsive layouts, and support for multilingual languages.

It includes advanced options to set up a modern homepage layout. It also works with all popular page builder plugins like Beaver Builder, so you can create your own layouts as well.

Plus, OceanWP is built with good SEO (search engine optimization) in mind. You can also easily add extra widgets such as social icons and a MailChimp widget using the Ocean Extra plugins.

3. Divi

Divi is a modern WordPress multipurpose theme. It’s packed with hundreds of ready-made templates that you can use to launch your ebook selling site quickly.

These templates and the Divi builder’s drag and drop interface make it easy to design a professional website. Make sure that you’re using a professional email address too.

Divi has built-in elements. modules, and customization options to fine-tune how your website looks. You can also undo, redo, or revise your changes with an easy theme options panel. It’s also easy to add social media icon links.

4. Author Pro

Author Pro is a classic WordPress ebook selling theme for book authors. It’s built on top of the Genesis Framework, making it powerful and robust.

Author Pro lets you display featured books on the homepage in an eye-catching way. You can fully integrate eCommerce features into the theme to sell your books online.

StudioPress is now part of WP Engine, the most popular managed WordPress hosting company. You can get this theme and all 35+ other StudioPress themes when you sign up for WP Engine hosting to build your website.

Bonus: WPBeginner users also get an additional 20% OFF. Get started with WP Engine today!

5. Ultra

Ultra is a professional WordPress multipurpose theme with tons of flexible layout options. It comes with a few ready-made templates that you can install in 1-click to launch your website. Then, you just need to replace the demo content with your own for your online bookstore.

Ultra also offers a built-in drag and drop page builder to create custom page templates and landing pages.

6. Binder Pro

Binder Pro is a WordPress theme ideal for publishers, eCommerce websites, and book selling. It’s a magazine style theme with ready-made templates for different niches and industries.

Binder Pro takes a modular approach to design and lets you build pages instantly. It has pricing tables, sliders, contact form, multiple headers, and an easy customization panel.

7. Ecommerce Fashion

Ecommerce Fashion is a classic WordPress theme that’s ideal for bloggers who want to sell fashion or lifestyle-related ebooks. It features a drag and drop homepage layout that lets you add useful sections in 1-click.

The theme features include a full-width header image, product reviews, latest product widget, recent posts, and beautiful blog section. It has a simple and powerful custom theme options panel that lets you set up your website quickly.

8. Montblanc

Montblanc is a modern WordPress theme designed to boost lead generation and increase sales. It comes in 5 layouts for blog, homepage, and shop front.

Montblanc includes multiple widgets for cart popup, login, and user registration. It even has an account page for users to manage and download their ebooks seamlessly, like a virtual bookshelf. This makes it a great choice for any publishing house.

9. Hestia Pro

Hestia Pro is a one-page WordPress theme that comes with multiple starter sites and page templates. It supports page builders such as Visual Composer and WPBakery. This means you can design custom landing pages easily.

The theme works with popular WordPress plugins to extend the functionality of your site. You can also integrate it with Easy Digital Downloads to sell your ebooks online.

10. Noto

Noto is a free WordPress theme for writers and digital book sellers. It offers a creative template with multiple colors, motion effects, and more.

With Noto, you can display your introduction in the top fold of your website. Other notable features include newsletter signup form widget, RTL language support, multi-column layout, and featured images.

11. Narcos

Narcos is a stylish WordPress theme for selling ebooks. It’s a beautifully designed multipurpose WordPress theme with parallax background effects, engaging product pages, and a modern shopfront page.

It includes homepage sections to add team members, testimonials, sliders, contact us form, Google Maps, and more. It’s highly optimized for speed and performance.

12. No Sidebar Pro

No Sidebar Pro is a premium WordPress theme with beautiful fonts and light colors. It makes a great ebook WordPress theme as it gives you lots of control.

With custom page templates, you can create an ebook selling landing page to maximize your sales. The theme is translation ready to convert your site into any language using a plugin such as WPML.

13. Convert

Convert is a minimalist WordPress theme to sell ebooks. It has a beautiful layout and comes with an easy to use drag and drop homepage with unlimited color choices.

It includes custom post types for portfolio, careers, events, testimonials, and more. With the multi-column layout, it’s easier to fit in more content and images on your site.

14. Neve

Neve is an excellent WordPress all-purpose theme for any type of website. It comes with seamless WooCommerce integration to create an ebook selling store.

The theme is very customizable with tons of header and footer layouts, color choices, custom backgrounds, and more. It also ships with built-in starter sites to launch your online ebook shop in just a few minutes. It’s fully compatible with all standard WordPress plugins, so you can add things like a mega menu to your site.

15. Shoppe

Shoppe is a WordPress eCommerce theme designed for online stores. It comes with 3 demos and a 1-click installer to give you a quick start.

It has a built-in drag and drop builder with 14 header styles, 9 archive layouts, 6 footer styles, and many custom widgets. It’s also WooCommerce ready with options that include a product slider, quick view, and detailed product pages. These help you sell more books to the booklovers who visit your site.

16. Balance

Balance is a feature-rich WordPress theme designed to impress your customers. It features a welcome section with a call-to-action button, followed by your featured products or book previews in a grid layout below.

It comes with a widgetized homepage layout, and all theme options are available in the live theme customizer. There’s also a theme options panel for general theme settings.

17. Integral

Integral is a great free WordPress theme that you can use to sell ebooks. It is a one-page WordPress theme with eCommerce integration.

The homepage offers a full-width header image with call-to-action buttons. Below that, you can add different sections, including portfolio, products, blog posts, and more.

18. Daylight

Daylight is a modern WordPress multipurpose theme for business websites. It comes with full WooCommerce support so you can use it for selling ebooks or any other digital products like software, music, or apps. With WooCommerce, you can take payments through PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.NET, and more.

It includes 2 homepage designs, 10 page templates, multiple portfolio templates, Google Fonts, and shortcodes.

19. Safreen

Safreen is a free WordPress theme designed to sell ebooks online. It comes with a flat layout design with a large fullscreen header, followed by a grid layout.

It integrates with your favorite drag and drop page builder like Elementor Pro for customization. You can also use the WordPress live customizer to change colors and rearrange homepage sections.

20. Float

Float is a colorful WordPress theme that you can repurpose to use for any kind of website. It comes with tons of templates, header and sidebar styles, and built-in Themify page builder.

It also includes a custom theme settings page, live customizer support, and a 1-click demo content installer to set up your website quickly. It uses responsive design so will look great on all devices and screen sizes.

21. Academy Pro

Academy Pro is an elegant WordPress education and online courses theme. It comes with a built-in membership system for users to sign up for book reading or purchasing books from your site.

Academy Pro supports video embeds to promote your books, courses, and educational content. With full eCommerce support, you can set up your book store and sell ebooks online.

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress theme for selling ebooks. You may also want to check out our list of the best WordPress plugins to take your site further and help you sell more ebooks.

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 21 Best WordPress Themes for Selling eBooks appeared first on WPBeginner.

August 21, 2020 at 03:56PM