How to Find Out Who is Hosting a Certain Website (2 Ways)

Have you ever wanted to know which web hosting service any website is using?

Recently, a user asked us how to find who is hosting their website. It is a common question asked by beginners who hired someone to set up their website initially.

You might also want to find out who is hosting your competitor’s website. In this article, we’re going to show you how to find out who is hosting a certain website (using two methods).

Why Find Out Who is Hosting a Website?

All websites on the internet need web hosting. This is where all the files for a website are stored.

Website hosting is different than a domain name. A domain name is the address of a website, e.g. wpbeginner.com.

Finding out who is hosting a website is not that difficult because this information is publicly available.

There are several scenarios when you may need to find out the website hosting service behind a website.

• A WordPress developer built a website for you. They forgot to tell you who the web host is, or you lost the details.
• You set up your WordPress website a long time ago. You can’t remember who is hosting it.
• You’ve seen a website that is fast and performs well. You want to know who the host is so you can use their services too.
• Another website is stealing your content, and you want to send a DMCA takedown notice to their host.

There are multiple ways to find out who is hosting a website. We’ll show you the two easiest ways to quickly find out which hosting company is used by a website.

Method 1. Use the WPBeginner Theme Detector Tool

Our WordPress Theme Detector tool is a great way to detect what WordPress theme a site is using. It also tells you who is hosting a website.

To use it, simply go to the WordPress Theme Detector Tool page and type in the URL (domain name) of the site:

Click on the ‘Analyze Website’ button to continue.

In just a couple of seconds, you will see details about the website. This includes the name of the hosting provider:

Here are some names you may see coming up:

• Unified Layer: EIG (Endurance International Group) hosts these sites. EIG is the company behind Bluehost and HostGator. They also own several other smaller web hosting brands.
• New Dream Network, LLC: DreamHost
• Media Temple: Media Temple is a web hosting company owned by GoDaddy

In some cases, the theme detector may not be able to tell you the host. For instance, when a website is using a CDN service or a website firewall.

These services route all website traffic through their own servers which means all hosting detector tools will show them as the hosting provider.

One popular CDN service is Cloudflare. They offer a free CDN service which is used by many websites.

You may also see Sucuri, which is a website security and firewall service with their own CDN servers.

For instance, If you look up wpbeginner.com using the theme detector tool, then it will show Sucuri as the hosting provider.

We do use Sucuri for our firewall, but WPBeginner is hosted by SiteGround.

If the theme detector isn’t giving you a clear answer, then the second method in this guide can help. It will show you how to dig deeper to find the real hosting company behind a website.

Method #2: Using WHOIS Tools to Find Who is Hosting a Website

Another way to find out a website’s host is to look at their WHOIS information. WHOIS is like a public directory. It lets you look up ‘who is’ responsible for a website.

What is Whois Information?

Most domain names on the internet are managed by a global organization called ICANN. They keep a public directory of all website data which also includes information about where a website may be hosted.

This is publicly available information, and there are many tools you can use to lookup whois information on any website on the internet.

First, you need to go to WHOis.net. Then, simply type in the URL of the website to look it up. You will see a list of information, starting with the domain name:

You just need to look for a ‘Name Server’ entry. This lets you know who is hosting the site:

In this case, the host is Dreamhost. To find out what web host the nameserver relates to, simply search for the nameserver on Google.

Again, you may not always be able to find out the host information. The nameservers may be set for a CDN instead, such as Cloudflare.

Other Ways to Find a Website’s Host

These methods are a little more time-consuming. However, they are worth trying if you are unable to find the host using the above quick methods.

For your own website, you could check your billing records. You have likely been billed for the hosting.

You could also contact whoever set up your website. If you aren’t able to contact them, then check through any information they have sent you in the past.

Finding out who hosts someone else’s website can be harder.

First, you could search the website for information about the web host. This might be on the About page or in the footer. For instance, the WPBeginner footer shows that our site is hosted by SiteGround:

If you still can’t find any information, then you could contact the website owner or editor.

You will normally find a contact form on most websites that you can use to reach out. Explain that you like their website and that you wondered who is hosting it.

We hope this article helped you learn how to find out who is hosting a certain website. If you need help finding a great hosting service, then check out our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting service, and our comparison of the best WooCommerce hosting companies.

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 Find Out Who is Hosting a Certain Website (2 Ways) appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 06, 2020 at 05:00PM

How to Create a Sticky Floating Navigation Menu in WordPress

Recently, one of our users asked us how to create a sticky navigation menu for their site?

Sticky navigation menus stay on the screen as users scroll down the page. This makes the top menu always visible, which is good for user experience because it contains links to the most important sections of your website.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create a sticky floating navigation menu in WordPress.

What is a Sticky Floating Navigation Menu?

A sticky or floating navigation menu is one that ‘sticks’ to the top of the screen as a user scrolls down. This makes your menu visible to users at all times.

Here’s a sticky menu in action. We’re going to show you how to create a menu exactly like this for your own site:

Why and when sticky menus can be useful?

Usually, the top navigation menu contains links to the most important sections of a website. A floating menu makes those links always visible, which saves users from scrolling back to the top. It is also proven to increase conversions.

If you run an online store, then your top navigation menu likely include links to the cart, product categories, and product search. Making this menu sticky, can help you reduce cart abandonment and increase sales.

Some of the best WordPress themes have built-in support for a sticky navigation menu. Simply see your theme settings under Themes » Customize to enable this feature.

If your theme does not have this option, then keep reading, and we’ll show you how to easily create a sticky floating navigation menu in any WordPress theme or WooCommerce store.

Method 1: Add Your Sticky Floating Navigation Menu Using a Plugin

This is the easiest method. We recommend it for all WordPress users, particularly for beginners.

If you haven’t set up your navigation menu yet, go ahead and do that using our instructions on how to add a navigation menu in WordPress.

After that, you need to install and activate the Sticky Menu (or Anything!) on Scroll plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Settings » Sticky Menu (or Anything!) page to configure the plugin settings.

First you need to enter the CSS ID of the navigation menu that you want to make sticky.

You will need to use your browser’s inspect tool to find the CSS ID used by your navigation menu.

Simply visit your website and take your mouse to the navigation menu. After that, you need to right-click and select Inspect from your browser’s menu.

This will split your browser screen, and you will be able to see the source code for your navigation menu.

You need to find a line of code that relates to your navigation, or your site header. It will look something like this:

<nav id="site-navigation" class="main-navigation" role="navigation">

If you’re struggling to find it, bring your mouse cursor over the different lines of code in the Inspect pane. The navigation menu will be fully highlighted when you have the right line of code:

In this case, our navigation menu’s CSS ID is site-navigation.

All you need to do is enter your menu’s CSS ID in the plugin settings with a hash at the start. In this case, that’s #site-navigation.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page.

Now, go ahead and check out your sticky menu live on your WordPress website. It should stay on the page as you scroll down, like this:

The next option on the plugin’s settings page is to define the space between the top of your screen and the sticky navigation menu. You only need to use this setting if your menu is overlapping an element that you do not want to be hidden. If not, then ignore this setting.

We recommend leaving the box checked next to the option: ‘Check for Admin Bar’. This allows the plugin to add some space for the WordPress admin bar, which is only visible to logged-in users.

Here, you can see that the admin bar on our test site is correctly displaying above the sticky menu:

The next option allows you unstick the navigation menu if a user is visiting your website using a smaller screen such as a mobile device:

You can test how your site looks on mobile devices or tablets. If you don’t like how it looks, simply add 780px for this option.

Don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button after making any changes to your options.

Method 2: Manually Add a Sticky Floating Navigation Menu

This method requires you to add custom CSS code to your theme. We don’t recommend it for beginners.

We also recommend that you take a look at our guide on how to easily add custom CSS to your WordPress site before you begin.

First, you need to visit Appearance » Customize to launch the WordPress theme customizer.

Next, click on ‘Additional CSS’ in the left pane and then add this CSS code.

#site-navigation {
    background:#00000;
    height:60px;
    z-index:170;
    margin:0 auto;
    border-bottom:1px solid #dadada;
    width:100%;
    position:fixed;
    top:0;
    left:0;
    right:0;
    text-align: center;
}

Note: This will produce a navigation menu with a black background. If you want a different color, change the number next to background. For example, using background: #ffffff will give you a white menu background.

Just replace #site-navigation with the CSS ID of your navigation menu then click on the Publish button at the top of the screen.

Go ahead and visit your website to see your sticky floating navigation menu in action:

What if your navigation menu normally appears below the site header instead of above it? If so, this CSS code could overlap the site title and header or appear too close to it before the user scrolls:

This can be easily adjusted by adding a margin to your header area using some additional CSS code:

.site-branding {
margin-top:60px !important;
}

Replace site-branding with the CSS class of your header area. Now, the sticky navigation menu will no longer overlap your header before the user scrolls down:

We hope this article helped you add a sticky floating navigation menu to your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to create a custom WordPress theme without writing any code, and our comparison of the best WordPress page builder 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 Create a Sticky Floating Navigation Menu in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 05, 2020 at 06:00PM

9 Best Social Proof WordPress Plugins (Easy to Use)

Are you looking for the best social proof plugins for your WordPress website or WooCommerce store?

Social proof helps you earn customer trust and make more sales by showcasing your interactions with previous customers.

In this article, we will take a look at the best social proof WordPress plugins to help you make more sales and win customers.

What Is Social Proof and Why Does it Matter?

Social proof is the natural inclination that we have to copy other people’s actions. We are more likely to try things that we see other people buying, using, or recommending.

Social proof can take several different forms. It could be a review or testimonial. It could simply be a number, such as the number of Facebook fans or email newsletter subscribers your company has.

You can also use social proof for your online store to boost overall conversion rate. It can also be a great way to encourage donations, downloads, comments, or anything else that helps you reach your goals.

Since WordPress is the most popular website builder on the planet, there many different types of social proof tools available for you to use.

With that said, let’s take a look the best WordPress social proof plugins.

1. TrustPulse

TrustPulse is the best WordPress social proof plugin on the market. It uses the FOMO effect by displaying real-time notifications of user activities on your site.

TrustPulse can show a notification bubble with recent purchases, form submissions, signs up for a free trial, and more.

You can setup TrustPulse on your site within a few minutes, and it is proven to instantly increase conversions by as much as 15%.

TrustPulse has lots of powerful features, including smart targeting. This lets you display social proof to the right people at the right time.

The TrustPulse plugin is ready to use straight out of the box.

It can automatically detect your eCommerce platform and start showing recent customer interactions / sales. Alternatively, you can also customize it to detect specific user activities and display on your site.

The TrustPulse notification popups are unobtrusive. They will not get in the way of your content or your user’s experience of your site. At the same time, they’re highly effective.

It also comes with built-in analytics that let you easily see which pages are getting the best conversion rate. This can help you optimize your content and boost conversions even further.

Price:

TrustPulse is free for up to 500 sessions per month. After that, pricing starts from $4/month (paid upfront annually).

2. Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon‘s plugins let you add social media feeds to your WordPress site. They can be used to show testimonials and other social proof.

Smash Balloon has plugins for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. These let you easily gather social media testimonials or other powerful user-generated content.

For instance, you could use Smash Balloon’s Custom Twitter Feeds Pro plugin to add Twitter testimonials to your site. This lets you show what real people are saying about your products or services.

Bringing your social feed onto your site is more powerful than simply copying and pasting testimonials. It’s immediately clear to your site’s visitors that the tweets are real testimonials with real people behind them.

You can use their Instagram Feeds Pro plugin to automatically display new user photos of your product, or the YouTube Feeds Pro plugin to automatically display new user video reviews of your brand.

With Smash Balloon, it’s easy to choose exactly what elements to include in your social media feeds. For example, you could include the number of likes and comments on your Facebook posts. This can be a useful form of social proof as it shows that your brand has lots of followers and fans.

Price:

Smash Balloon offers an ‘All Access Bundle’ for all their plugins. This costs $299/year. Alternatively, you can buy an individual plugin for just $49/year.

There’s also lite free version of all Smash Balloon feed plugins.

3. Shared Counts

Shared Counts is a straightforward WordPress plugin that lets you add social media share buttons to your site.

Many of these buttons can display your post or page‘s share count on the relevant social networks. If your blog content gets shared a lot, this is an easy form of social proof that shows just how popular your website is.

Shared Counts gives your readers an easy way to share your content on their favorite social networks. All they need to do is click a button.

All the most popular social media services are covered, including Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The plugin also lets you add a button that people can use to email your content to someone else.

The Shared Counts plugin uses the SharedCount.com API to provide the numbers for your shared counts. We have a step by step guide to Shared Counts that takes you through signing up for the SharedCount.com API.

Alternatively, you can use the shared counts from each of the social media apps, but this is more likely to slow down your site.

Price:

Shared Counts is completely free.

4. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a fantastic lead-generation tool that lets you easily convert visitors into email subscribers through popups and other eye-catching signup forms.

You can use it for social proof as well, by creating a popup that highlights key figures. For instance, you might create a popup that lets readers know how many people are on your email list.

OptinMonster lets you create a wide range of different popups and optin forms. These include regular-sized popups, floating bars, fullscreen popups, inline campaigns, and slide-ins.

Best of all, OptinMonster comes with lots of professionally designed and fully customizable templates. This lets you create great-looking popups in just a few minutes.

OptinMonster offers extra ways to boost your conversions, too. It’s easy to use countdown timers to create a sense of urgency and use the power of FOMO (fear of missing out). You can also boost engagement with special lead generation campaigns, such as yes/no optins and ‘spin the wheel’ optins.

Price:

The ‘Pro’ plan for OptinMonster costs $29/month (billed annually). This has lots of useful features like countdown timers and Exit Intent® technology.

The cheapest plan available is from $9/month, but this has limited features.

5. Thrive Ovation

Thrive Ovation is a popular testimonial plugin for WordPress. It’s an effective way to add social proof by showing what people have said about your products or services.

With it, you can convert comments into testimonials with a single click. Thrive Ovation captures the name and photo of the person who left the comment.

It can also be integrated with Facebook and Twitter. This lets you take testimonials directly from those networks and add them to your own site.

Thrive Ovation even lets you create a landing page where you can collect testimonials through a simple online form. It can also send out automated emails to your customers to encourage them to leave a testimonial for you.

Price:

Thrive Ovation costs $39, which includes unlimited updates. You will need to pay a small extra fee after a year to continue receiving support.

6. WPForms

WPForms is another easy way to collect testimonials and reviews. It’s the best forms plugin for WordPress and is designed to be really easy to use, even if you’re a complete beginner.

The WPForms template pack includes a testimonials form template. This lets you quickly set up a form to gather reviews and testimonials.

You can customize your testimonials form in any way you want. For instance, you could add an upload field so that customers can share a photo. You could even add a ratings field so customers can give your product or service a score.

Of course, there are lots of other ways to use WPForms too. You might decide to run a survey or poll. This can provide social proof through the results, or even through the number of participants.

Price:

The lite version of WPForms is free, but has limited functionality. WPForms premium version prices start from $39/year.

7. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is our recommended email marketing service. There are lots of other services you can choose from too.

Having an email newsletter list is really important for all websites. Your email list is a great way to promote your products or services.

Once you have lots of signups to your email newsletter, it’s easy to use that number as social proof. For instance, you might encourage new visitors to join your email list by telling them, ‘50,000 people are already getting our emails every day. Are you missing out?’

Of course, you can use social proof within your emails as well. You could share testimonials when promoting a product or you could let your subscribers know how many places have already sold on an online course or class.

Price:

Constant Contact costs from $20/month. However, you can get a 20% discount by using our Constant Contact coupon. This makes it just $16/month.

8. NotificationX

NotificationX is a notifications plugin that you can use as an alternative to TrustPulse. You can use it to show download counts, comments, sales, reviews, and more.

You can use NotificationX on specific pages or across your whole site. Plus, there’s an analytics tool that lets you see which of your notification popups are the most effective.

With NotificationX, your site can show a small popup notification to all visitors each time someone comments. If you’re using MailChimp, you can show a notification whenever someone subscribes to your email list.

NotificationX can show reviews from WooCommerce or even from WordPress.org, if you sell a theme or plugin. It also has the option to create timer countdown notification bars.

Price

There’s a free version of NotificationX. This offers a great range of features if you’re just getting started. The pro version costs from $39/year.

9. WPfomify

WPfomify is another good notifications plugin. It shows recent sales and signups, and much more. If you have lots of traffic, you could use the Visitor Count notification to show how many people are visiting a page currently.

You can customize how WPfomify looks to make it a great match for your site and brand. It’s designed to be completely responsive and work on all devices.

WPfomify can also be used to show reviews. Like NotificationX, it lets you create timer countdown bars to use the power of FOMO.

WPfomify integrates with a range of other plugins and services. These include Give, a popular donations plugin, ConvertKit, Zapier, and many more.

Price:

WPfomify costs from $99/year.

We hope this article helped you find the best social proof plugins for WordPress and WooCommerce. You might also want to see our guide on the best plugins for business websites, and our comparison of the best business phone services providers.

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 9 Best Social Proof WordPress Plugins (Easy to Use) appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 02, 2020 at 03:40PM

How to Easily Embed Videos in WordPress Blog Posts

Do you want to embed videos in your WordPress blog posts? Videos bring life to your website, and they are a great way to increase user engagement.

WordPress makes it super easy to embed videos from video hosting sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, and many others.

In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to easily embed videos in WordPress blog posts, pages, and sidebar widgets.

How to Embed Videos in WordPress Blog Posts and Pages

WordPress comes with a great feature called auto-embeds which allows your website to automatically get the embed code from popular video hosting services like YouTube, Vimeo, etc.

All you need to do is paste the video URL into the WordPress editor.

For example, you can copy the YouTube URL for a video that you want to embed.

Next, edit the WordPress post or page where you want to add the video, and simply paste the URL in the content area.

As soon as you paste the video URL, WordPress will fetch the embed code and display the YouTube video inside the content editor.

You can now save your post and click on the preview button to see the embedded video in your blog post.

Wasn’t that easy?

After you have added the video, you can change its settings from the block toolbar and settings column on the right.

You can adjust the video width, make it full-width, change alignment, and more. You can also add a caption and preserve the video’s aspect ratio on mobile devices.

WordPress can only do auto-embeds for white-listed video services. For other websites, you will still have to obtain the embed code and then paste it in your blog posts.

Here is a list of white-listed video services for auto embeds in WordPress:

• Amazon
• Animoto
• Cloudup
• CollegeHumor
• Crowdsignal
• Dailymotion
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Hulu
• Imgur
• Instagram
• Issuu
• Kickstarter
• Meetup.com
• Mixcloud
• Reddit
• ReverbNation
• Screencast
• Scribd
• Slideshare
• SmugMug
• Someecards
• SoundCloud
• Speaker Deck
• Spotify
• TED
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• VideoPress
• Vimeo
• WordPress.tv
• YouTube

If you want to add a video from a website outside this list, then you will need the full HTML embed code for the video.

Simply copy the HTML code provided by the video website and paste it inside a ‘Custom HTML’ block in the editor.

Embed Videos in WordPress Using Old Classic Editor

If you are still using the old WordPress classic editor, then you can embed the videos the same way.

Simply copy the URL from a video hosting service like YouTube, and paste it in the editor. If you are using the visual editor, then you will see a preview of the video.

However, you will not be able to use the width adjustment and other options that you can use in the new WordPress block editor.

How to Embed Videos in WordPress Sidebar Widgets

Just like a WordPress page or post, you can also embed videos in WordPress sidebar widgets.

Simply go to Appearance » Widgets page and add the ‘Text’ widget to a sidebar. See our article on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.

Inside the widget settings, you need to paste the video URL in the content area. WordPress will automatically fetch the embed code and display the video preview.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your widget settings.

You can now visit your website to see the video embed in the WordPress sidebar widget.

WordPress Video Embed Plugins

By default, you don’t need to use a plugin to embed videos in WordPress. However, you may want to use plugins to improve video viewing experience on your website.

The following are a few plugins that you may want to try.

1. Smash Balloon YouTube Feed

Smash Balloon Feeds for YouTube is one of the best WordPress video plugins. It allows you to automatically embed all of your YouTube channel videos in a customizable gallery format. It automatically imports new videos, combines feeds, add live streaming, and more.

There’s also a free version of YouTube feed plugin available by Smash Balloon, but in our demo below, we’ll be showing the Pro version.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Smash Balloon Feeds for YouTube plugin. From there, head over to Feeds for YouTube » License page and enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the plugin’s website.

After activating your license key, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button. Next, head over to the Configure tab and click the big blue button to connect your YouTube account.

Once you’re finished, you’ll be redirected back to your WordPress dashboard to set up your YouTube feed.

Click on the ‘Save Changes’ button and you’re ready to go.

To embed your YouTube feed into a post or page simply edit it in WordPress. On the page edit screen, click on the (+) button add a new block and select the ‘Feeds for YouTube’ block.

As you add the block to your post editor, it will automatically fetch and display videos from your YouTube channel.

When you check your site, you’ll see that your feed is embedded into the page you just created.

Smash Balloon YouTube Feeds comes with multiple layout and style options. You can change the default style by visiting the Feeds for YouTube » Customize page.

From here, you can choose a grid, gallery, list, or carousel layout. Don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button to store your changes.

You’ll see you have a Carousel of videos with navigation arrows on the right and left, along with a Subscribe button at the bottom of your feed.

If you want to further customize your feed, then click on the Display tab in plugin setting. This page lists the series of shortcodes that you can use anywhere on your site.

To insert a shortcode into a post or page, you can use the shortcode block.

Now you can add your feed shortcode [youtube-feed] (or any variation you want) into the block settings.

You can also use the Smash Balloon YouTube feed with their new Social Wall plugin that combines all of your social media content from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube on a single page.

2. YouTube Subscribe Bar

YouTube Subscribe Bar shows a YouTube subscribe button below your YouTube video embeds in WordPress. It also fetches your YouTube subscriber count to add social proof and encourage more users to subscribe.

We first created it to promote WPBeginner’s YouTube channel on this website. Many of our users asked us to share how we did this, so we decided to release it as a free plugin.

3. Lazy Load for Videos

Video embeds load scripts from external websites, which has a small impact on page load speed and performance.

Lazy Load for Videos solves this problem by only loading the video image on page load. It loads embed code only when the user clicks on the play button. See our tutorial on how to add lazy load for videos in WordPress.

By the way, you won’t need this plugin if you use the Smash Balloon YouTube Feed because it has built-in caching and delayed loading for the video player.

Why can’t I upload the videos to WordPress?

Well, you can, but we do not recommend you to do so.

Most small blogs use shared WordPress hosting accounts, and videos can take up a lot of server resources. If your video got tons of traffic, then your website is more likely to crash.

Secondly, you are missing out on the traffic from YouTube users.

YouTube is not only the biggest video hosting site, but it is also the world’s second most popular search engine, and the second most popular social network right after Facebook.

If you don’t want to upload your videos to YouTube, then you can try Vimeo or DailyMotion. See our comparison of YouTube vs Vimeo to see which platform is better for your needs.

For more on this topic, take a look at our article on why you should never upload a video to WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily embed videos in WordPress blog posts. You may also want to see our list of the must have WordPress plugins for all websites.

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 Embed Videos in WordPress Blog Posts appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 01, 2020 at 04:00PM