Friday, November 27, 2020

14 Best WordPress Testimonial Plugins (Compared)

Are you looking for the best testimonial plugins for your WordPress website?

Testimonials and reviews are a great way to add social proof to your website and help build trust among your users.

In this article, we have hand-picked the best testimonial plugins for WordPress that you can use on your website.

The best testimonial plugins for WordPress

Why Use a Testimonial Plugin for WordPress?

Using a testimonial plugin lets you easily add customer or client testimonials, reviews, or feedback to your WordPress website. This adds social proof to your site and helps you win new customers and boost sales.

You could add testimonials by manually copying them into your posts or pages. However, a testimonials plugin lets you display them attractively in a slider, carousel, grid, and other beautiful layouts.

Depending on the plugin you choose, you can show testimonials with photos, a short blurb, reviewer’s name, title, business, or star ratings.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress testimonial plugins that you can try.

1. Facebook Social Reviews Feed – Smash Balloon

Facebook Social Reviews Feed – Smash Balloon

Facebook Social Reviews Feed from Smash Balloon lets you display reviews from your Facebook Page on your site. This is a fantastic option if you already have some great reviews on Facebook. It means you don’t have to copy and paste any text or seek out fresh testimonials.

Facebook reviews boost user trust as they come from real Facebook profiles that can be looked up.

Custom Facebook Feed Pro itself is the most popular Facebook feed plugin out there and works with any WordPress theme. It makes it really easy to add a Facebook page feed to WordPress and boost engagement on your social profiles.

With the Reviews extension, you can display Facebook reviews as testimonials by entering the shortcode in any post or page, or even in a sidebar or footer widget. You can also display them anywhere on your landing pages or individual product pages.

Note: You will need to purchase the Custom Facebook Feed Pro plugin by Smash Balloon in order to use the Reviews extension.

2. Custom Twitter Review Feed – Smash Balloon

Custom Twitter Review Feed – Smash Balloon

Custom Twitter Review Feed from Smash Balloon is a great option for displaying Twitter testimonials on your site.

Like Facebook reviews, testimonials that are shared through tweets are a great way to show feedback from real individuals.

It’s easy to narrow your Twitter feed down to only show testimonials. You can do this by using hashtags or an advanced search to only display testimonials about you or your company.

The Custom Twitter Feeds Pro plugin has lots of other great features as well. For instance, you might create a curated list of Twitter accounts then display this as a feed on your website.

Plus, you can even automatically moderate tweets so that tweets containing specified words are hidden.

3. WPForms

The WPForms website

WPForms is the best WordPress form plugin in the market used by over 3 million users. It can be used to collect customer testimonials too. This helps you get all your testimonials in one place and one format.

WPForms’ special Form Templates Pack addon includes a Testimonial Form Template. This lets you get started quickly. You can modify the form and any form fields that you may need.

With WPForms, you could even add a file upload option to your testimonial form. This lets customers upload files, such as photos of themselves with your product or even a short video clip.

You can also use WPForms to run a survey with beautiful reports. You could use this to show data about how your customers use your products, what they like best, and how satisfied they are.

4. Site Reviews

Site Reviews

Site Reviews lets visitors submit reviews with a 1 to 5 star rating. With this plugin, you can pin your best reviews or testimonials so that they show up first.

It’s also possible to moderate new review submissions, approving them before they go live on your site. This helps you protect against unfairly bad reviews. Alternatively, you can require users to be logged into your site in order to leave a review.

Site Reviews lets you easily respond to reviews, display a summary, and more. The developers provide active support through the WordPress.org support forum for the plugin.

5. Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials lets you enter testimonials from your WordPress admin area.

You can include a star rating, the person’s role, and the product or service they used, as well as the testimonial itself. If you enter their email address, Easy Testimonials will automatically use their Gravatar image if they have one.

The pro version of Easy Testimonials also allows you to add a customer feedback form on your website.

Easy Testimonials includes 5 blocks for the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg editor). You can also display testimonials using a simple shortcode.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to add a customer reviews page in WordPress.

6. Testimonials Widget

Testimonials widget

Testimonials Widget is another flexible WordPress testimonials plugin. Despite the name, it allows you to add testimonials anywhere on your website, not just in widgets.

It comes with a sidebar widget allowing you to easily display testimonials in sidebars. Testimonials are displayed in a carousel with beautiful slide-in and fade effects.

7. Strong Testimonials

Strong Testimonials

Strong Testimonials is one of the most customizable WordPress testimonial plugins. It comes with multiple display options. These include a testimonial slider, grid layout, masonry layout, single column layout, and more.

It also includes a form that allows your customers to easily add their reviews and testimonials. If you have been getting customer reviews on social media, then the pro version of this plugin can also embed reviews from Facebook, Google My Business, Yelp, and more.

8. Testimonial Basics

Testimonial Basics

Testimonial Basics is a complete testimonial management solution for your WordPress website. It includes multiple display styles, a sidebar widget, and a feedback form to collect user testimonials.

If a user submits a testimonial, this plugin will use Gravatar to fetch their photo. However, you can also manually upload photos directly from your WordPress admin area.

9. WP Testimonials with Rotator Widget

WP Testimonials with Rotator

WP Testimonials with Rotator Widget is a simple yet highly customizable testimonials plugin. It allows you to easily add testimonials and sort them into categories and tags.

After creating testimonials, you can display them using a shortcode. This shortcode comes with several parameters that let you customize the appearance of testimonials. The plugin also includes a widget with the same options as the shortcode.

10. BNE Testimonials

BNE Testimonials

BNE Testimonials is another easy to use option for adding testimonials to your WordPress site. It comes with a shortcode and a sidebar widget to easily display testimonials.

It has a slider and plain list layout for testimonials, which inherits your theme’s style for display.

11. Testimonial

Testimonial Builder

Testimonial Builder is a straightforward WordPress testimonials plugin. It has simple options and the ability to choose your own colors.

It has draggable box items and allows you to choose different fonts, font-sizes, text color, and featured photo. The plugin does not have a slider or rotator, so testimonials will be displayed in a grid or list style.

12. Testimonial Slider

Testimonial Slider

Testimonial Slider offers a modern WordPress testimonial slider with an improved user experience. It comes with a slider as well as the option for a plain list layout. You can also add a front-end contact form to collect customer testimonials.

You can add testimonials anywhere using the shortcode or sidebar widget. The testimonial slider is touch / mobile friendly and works well at all screen sizes.

Bonus Tools to Add Social Proof Beyond Testimonials

Testimonials show that users find your products/services good. However, you need to maximize social proof with other tools as well.

The following are a couple of tools that you can use to create the FOMO effect with social proof.

13. TrustPulse

The TrustPulse website

TrustPulse is a powerful social proof plugin for WordPress. It helps you boost conversions by showing real-time notifications of activity on your website.

For instance, TrustPulse can show notifications about sales, downloads, forms submitted, and more. It’s a powerful way to use the fear of FOMO to encourage potential customers to buy.

The TrustPulse notifications aren’t intrusive, but they are still highly effective. They can boost conversions up to 15% straight out of the box. You can customize the style, colors, text, image, and more for the notifications.

14. OptinMonster

OptinMonster displaying a testimonial popup

OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization tool on the market. It allows you to easily convert website visitors into paying customers.

It comes with beautiful popups, slide-in menus, countdown timers, floating headers, and other tools. All of them can be used to display social proof and customer testimonials.

It has powerful targeting features that allow you to show the right message at right time. For instance, you can show users a popup when they are about to leave.

It works with all top email marketing services, WordPress form plugins, and WooCommerce. This helps you boost your conversions several folds.

We hope this article helped you find the best testimonial plugin for your WordPress website. You may also want to see our complete list of must have WordPress plugins for business websites, and our proven tips to increase blog traffic.

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 14 Best WordPress Testimonial Plugins (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.


November 27, 2020 at 03:00PM

Thursday, November 26, 2020

How to Add a PayPal Donate Button in WordPress

Are you looking to add a PayPal donate button on your WordPress site?

PayPal makes it super-easy to accept donations on your website. It is convenient, cost-effective, secure, and already used by millions of users around the world.

In this article, we will show you how to easily add a PayPal donate button on your WordPress site.

Adding a PayPal donate button in WordPress

Why Use a PayPal Donate Button in WordPress?

Many bloggers add PayPal donate buttons on their WordPress sites to help cover the website’s running costs.

Non-profit organizations also use their websites to fundraise for their causes. Paypal donate button provides them an easy way to accept donations.

Tip: If you want a more fully-featured fundraising solution, check out these best donation and fundraising plugins for WordPress.

Before you start, you will need to create a PayPal account or log in to your existing account.

Since this is a comprehensive guide, we have created a table of content, so you can easily jump to the section you need:

  1. How to Add PayPal Donate Button in WordPress (Free Plugin)
  2. How to Add a Smart PayPal Donation Form in WordPress (using WPForms)
  3. How to Manually Add a PayPal Donate Button in WordPress (Code Method)

1. How to Add PayPal Donate Button in WordPress (Free Plugin)

This method is recommended if you are looking for a free WordPress PayPal donation plugin. It is simpler but is very limited in terms of what you can do.

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

Upon activation, go to the Settings » PayPal Donations page to create your donation button.

Here, you need to enter your PayPal email address. This is the address you use to login to PayPal.

The donation currency will default to US dollars. To change this, simply select your preferred currency from the dropdown menu.

Add the email address for your PayPal account to the PayPal Donations plugin settings

You may want to create a thank you page on your site and set this up as the Return Page, in the Optional Settings section.

You can optionally add a default amount, purpose, and reference for your PayPal donations.

Set the defaults for your PayPal donations

Next, you can select a PayPal button style, or enter a URL for a custom button image. You can also change the donation country and language, which defaults to the United States and US English.

Once you are done, don’t forget to press the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Choose the style of donation button that you want to use on your site

Adding Your PayPal Donate Button to Your Website

The plugin allows you to easily display PayPal donate button anywhere on your WordPress website using a shortcode.

Simply edit the post or page where you want to display the donate button, and then add the shortcode block in the content editor.

Adding a shortcode block to your site to enter the PayPal Donations shortcode

Inside the settings, you need to add [paypal-donation] shortcode. You can now save your changes and preview your post or page.

Here’s the donate button live on our demo site.

The Donate button on our demo website

This plugin also let you add the PayPal donations button to a sidebar or footer widget area. Simply go to the Appearance » Widgets page and drag the PayPal Donations widget to your sidebar or footer.

Adding the PayPal donations widget to the sidebar

The widget has the same settings, so all you need to do is provide a title and text. Don’t forget to press the Save button to create your widget.

Here’s the donate widget in our demo website’s sidebar.

The Donate widget live in the sidebar on our demo website

2. How to Add a Smart PayPal Donation Form in WordPress (using WPForms)

Another great way to create a PayPal donation button is with WPForms. It is the best WordPress form builder plugin on the market used by over 3 million website owners.

WPForms allows you to easily create beautiful donation forms that lets you accept payments using credit card and/or PayPal.

This method gives you more flexibility.

You can collect donor information, add them to your email list (WPForms works with all top email marketing services), collect phone numbers, run surveys, polls, and more.

Basically, you can engage with users which helps you create a stronger community.

Note: You will need the Pro version of WPForms or higher in order to take PayPal payments.

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.

Upon activation, visit the WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You will find this information under your account on WPForms website.

Entering your WPForms license key on your site

Next, go to the WPForms » Addons page. Here, you need to install the PayPal Standard addon. Simply find it in the list then click the Install Addon button below it.

The addon will be automatically installed and activated for you.

Installing the PayPal Standard addon in WPForms

Now, it’s time to create your donation form.

Simply go to the WPForms » Add New page in your WordPress admin area to launch the form buikder.

First, you need to provide a title for your form and then choose the Donation Form template.

Name your donation form and choose the Donation Form template

WPForms will now automatically load your form template in the WPForms builder. It’s easy to add, remove, or change the fields on your form.

To add a field, simply click the Add Fields tab on the left-hand side. We’ve added a ‘How Did You Hear About Us?’ multiple choice field.

You might want to change the Submit button to read Donate instead. To do this, either click on the button or go to the Settings » General tab for your form.

Changing the text on the Submit button

Once you are happy with your form, click on the Save button at the top to save your changes.

Adding fields to your form and saving it

Next, you need to go to Payments » Paypal Standard to set up the payments for your form.

Simply check the ‘Enable PayPal Standard payments’ and enter your PayPal email address. Under Payment Type, select Donation.

Enabling PayPal payments for your form in WPForms

Once you’re done, click the Save button to store your settings.

Tip: You can send donors a receipt for their donation. Take a look at our instructions on creating a form with multiple recipients for help with this.

Adding Your Donation Form to Your Website

Once you’ve finished creating your PayPal donation form, it’s time to add it to your website.

WPForm makes it super easy to add forms anywhere on your website.

Simply create a new post or page, or edit an existing one. Then, add a WPForms block to the WordPress content editor and select the form you created earlier from the dropdown menu.

Creating a WPForms block and selecting your form from the dropdown list

Once you’re ready, preview or publish your page to see your donation form live on your site.

Viewing the completed donations form on the website

Congratulations, you’ve now created a smart paypal donation form in WordPress.

3. How to Manually Add a PayPal Donate Button in WordPress (Code Method)

If you don’t want to install a plugin or if you’re using WordPress.com instead of WordPress.org, then you can manually add a PayPal donate button.

First, you need to log in to your PayPal account, and go to the Pay & Get Paid » PayPay Buttons page.

Selecting the PayPal Buttons menu option

On the next page, simply click the ‘Donate’ button option.

Select the Donate button type

Now you can follow the on-screen instructions to create your button.

Following the on-screen steps to create the donation button

On the final screen of the button creation wizard, click the ‘Finish and Get Code’ button.

Finish creating your donation button and get the code for it

You will now see a page with a Shareable Link. This is the URL you need. Keep it open in this tab or save it in a safe place.

Getting the shareable link for your new PayPal donate button

Next, go to your WordPress admin area and edit a post or page where you want to add the PayPal donate button.

You need to add a new HTML block to your page, or use the Text mode if you’re using the Classic editor.

Adding an HTML block in the WordPress block editor

Paste the following code into your HTML block:

<a href="Your Shareable Link that you got from PayPal" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"><img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but21.gif" alt="Click to Donate" /></a>

Make sure to replace the words ‘Your Shareable Link that you got from PayPal’ with the actual link from PayPal.

The PayPal button HTML code in the HTML block

Go ahead and publish your page. You now have a PayPal donate button on your WordPress site, without using a plugin.

Tip: You can also paste this HTML code inside a WordPress Custom HTML widget to add it to your sidebar.

Here’s a live example of the donate button:

Donate to WPBeginner

Feel free to click on it to see how it works. You can make a donation to help us if you found this article helpful. :)

Customization Options

The reason why we chose the shareable link instead of the full donate button code is so you can easily customize the donation image.

Below are some other official PayPal donate buttons. Simply copy the code and replace the image section in your main code above.

Option 1

Click to Donate

<img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" alt="Click to Donate" />

Option 2

Click to Donate

<img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" alt="Click to Donate" />

Option 3

Click to Donate

<img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_SM.gif" alt="Click to Donate" />

Option 4

Click to Donate

<img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but21.gif" alt="Click to Donate" />

Option 5

Click to Donate

<img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but04.gif" alt="Click to Donate" />

Option 6

Click to Donate

<img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but11.gif" alt="Click to Donate" />

If you don’t like any of these images, then you can create your own. Simply upload that image into your WordPress media library and get the File Link. Next, add that link in the code below:

<a href="Your Sharable Link that you got from PayPal" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"><img src="The Image URL" alt="Click to Donate" /></a>

Best PayPal Donation Plugins for WordPress

We recommend the PayPal Donations plugin as the easiest way to add a PayPal donation button to your site. It’s free and very straightforward to use.

If you want to gather information from your donors, then WPForms is the best option for you.

If you would like more options to choose from, then here are some other good PayPal donation plugins.

  • PayPal Donation – This plugin is owned by an official PayPal partner. It has support for all PayPal’s languages and currencies.
  • Seamless Donations – This plugin works with both Stripe and PayPal.
  • PayPal Donation Button – This plugin can send a donor confirmation email.

We hope this article helped you add a PayPal donate button in WordPress. You may also like our proven tips on how to make money online with WordPress, and our guide on how to increase your website traffic.

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 Add a PayPal Donate Button in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.


November 26, 2020 at 05:00PM

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

5 Best WooCommerce Spin a Wheel Coupon Plugins (Compared)

Are you looking for a spin a wheel coupon plugin for WooCommerce?

Spin to win wheel is a gamification technique that helps you generate leads and boost overall sales conversion.

In this article, we will share the best WooCommerce spin a wheel coupon plugins that you can use to grow your sales.

woocommerce spin a wheel coupon plugins

Why Do You Need a Spin a Wheel Coupon Plugin?

The hardest part of running a WooCommerce store is keeping your visitors engaged and converting them into customers.

A simple way of doing this is by using a spin a wheel discount popup. It uses gamification techniques by rewarding users when they interact with your discount wheel.

For example, when someone enters their email address to spin the wheel, you can offer different incentives such as free shipping, discount coupons, recommend products, and much more.

This helps you build loyal customers and increase your sales on your WooCommerce store.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best WooCommerce spin a wheel coupon plugins for your online store.

1. OptinMonster

OptinMonsterOptinMonster is the best lead-generation plugin for WordPress that allows you to create amazing optin forms.

It is very easy to use and helps you grow your email list, generate leads, reduce cart abandonment, and skyrocket your conversions.

OptinMonster offers pre-built templates for creating a spin to win wheel in WooCommerce.

Using its drag and drop builder, you can customize the spin a wheel optin the way you want. It also offers many options for customization.

You can add block elements like buttons, countdown timer, images, text, videos, and more. Other options include changing the display settings, showing the optin as full screen or page slide, and adding custom colors.

Editing the different sections of your spin to win wheel

OptinMonster also provides extensive display rules for WooCommerce. You can show your spin to win wheel when visitors view a specific product or have a specific number of items in their cart.

In addition, you can display your optins when a user spends a certain amount of time on the page, target specific geographic location, or you can use the powerful Exit-Intent technology to convert abandoning visitors into customers.

You can even integrate OptinMonster with different email service providers such as Drip, Constant Contact, ConvertKit, etc.

spin to win coupon preview

Pricing: To create coupon wheel campaigns in OptinMonster, you will need the Growth plan which costs $49 per month.

2. Discount Win-Wheel for WooCommerce

discount win wheel for woocommerceDiscount Win-Wheel for WooCommerce is another excellent option for adding a spin to win popup in WooCommerce.

It is very easy to use and offers a drag and drop builder. This allows you to customize your spin to win wheels, add or remove new sections, change their positions, and more.

Another advantage of using Discount Win-Wheel for WooCommerce is that all of its popups are mobile responsive. This way your optins will work smoothly on any device.

There are also different trigger options to display your discount wheel. You can set up triggers to show the popup upon exit, on icon clicks, on specific pages, and also edit the display timings.

Pricing: Discount Win-Wheel for WooCommerce prices start from $39.

3. WP Optin Wheel

wp optin wheelWP Optin Wheel is a free WordPress plugin for creating spin the wheel coupon optin forms for your WooCommerce site. It helps you increase user engagement and conversions using gamification.

The plugin is user friendly, offers predefined themes, and the ability to customize all 12 slices in the wheel.

You can add a discount, a link to your product page, or a losing slice. Similarly, it allows you to change the colors, text, buttons, and more in your discount wheel.

WP Optin Wheel is also GDPR ready and easily integrates with MailChimp, so you can collect emails from your customers.

Pricing: WP Optin Wheel is a free plugin.

4. Wheel of Popups

wheel of popupsWheel of Popups is a premium WordPress plugin and it makes it super easy to add a WooCommerce spin a wheel popup to your eCommerce store.

Other than WooCommerce, the plugin also works on other platforms like Shopify, Magento, and Squarespace.

Wheel of Popups offers a desktop editor and there are lots of options for customization. You can select the type of promotion you want to run, such as a website popup, standalone popup, or embed widget.

The plugin also lets you edit your spin the wheel optin. You can choose from multiple layouts, edit the color theme, add your own brand logo, and more.

That being said, it even allows you to set up different triggers to show the popup on your WooCommerce store. For instance, you can display them based on the user’s device, target page URL, time spent on-page, and on exit.

Pricing: Wheel of Popups prices start from $19 per month.

5. Spin Wheel for WooCommerce

spin wheel for woocommerceSpin Wheel for WooCommerce is a paid extension that helps you convert visitors into customers through spinning wheel popups.

The discount wheel is fully customizable, as you have full control over changing its colors to editing the text message.

Like many other plugins on our list, this WooCommerce extension also allows you to change each slice in the wheel. You can add unlimited slices you want and use the instant preview to view your changes.

Other than that, Spin Wheel for WooCommerce offers different options to display your spin to win popups.

Pricing: Spin Wheel for WooCommerce is available for $49 per year.

Which is the Best WooCommerce Spin a Wheel Coupon Plugin? (Expert Pick)

We believe that OptinMonster is the best WooCommerce spin a wheel coupon plugin in the market. It offers a lot of powerful targeting and personalization options that are simply not available in other solutions.

However, if you are interested in a free plugin that offers basic design features, then give WP Optin Wheel a try.

We hope this article helped you find the best WooCommerce spin a wheel coupon plugin. You may also want to take a look at our guide on best live chat software to boost sales, and the best WordPress page builders to create custom landing pages.

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 5 Best WooCommerce Spin a Wheel Coupon Plugins (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.


November 25, 2020 at 06:00PM