How to Make a Gaming Website With WordPress in 2021 (Step by Step)

Do you want to learn how to make a gaming website with WordPress?

Gaming has never been more popular. With your own gaming website, you can create a gaming community, start a popular gaming blog, and even earn a side income.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily make a gaming website with WordPress without any technical skills.

What Do You Need to Build a Gaming Website Site Using WordPress?

You will need the following things to make a gaming website with WordPress.

• A domain name (This will be the name of your website that people type to find your site online e.g. wpbeginner.com)
• A web hosting account (This is where your website’s files will be stored)
• A WordPress theme (This will control how your site looks and functions)
• The right WordPress plugins (This is how you will add the specific gaming features you require)
• SSL certificate (You need this if you’re planning on selling products or adding Twitch streams)
• Your undivided attention for 1 hour

Depending on the type of gaming website you’re building, it’s entirely possible to build it in under an hour. We’ll walk you through the entire process, step by step.

In this tutorial, we’ll cover the following:

• Different types of gaming websites you can make
• How to get a free domain name
• How to choose the best website hosting
• How to choose the best WordPress gaming theme
• What WordPress gaming plugins can enhance your site
• Best resources to grow your gaming website

That being said, let’s get started.

Step 0: What Kind of WordPress Gaming Site Will You Make?

If you love video games, then there’s nothing better than being involved in the space.

Gaming blogs and websites cater to the large community of gamers who are looking for articles about the latest games, consoles, hardware, events, and more.

What kind of gaming websites can you make with WordPress?

• A dedicated gaming forum for your favorite game
• A gaming review site and news blog
• A site that hosts simple and fun online games
• A site that sells products to the gaming community

Maybe your new gaming website will be the next IGN, Kotaku, or GamesRadar?

Whatever kind of gaming website you want to make, this tutorial will help you build it using WordPress.

Step 1. Choosing the Right Website Platform

To start, you need to choose the right website builder, and since you’re reading this, you’re on the right track.

You’re going to want to use WordPress. But, there are two types of WordPress software that share the same name, so it’s easy to get confused.

First, you have WordPress.com, which is a blog hosting platform. The second is WordPress.org, which is the self-hosted version of WordPress.

We recommend using the self-hosted WordPress.org version because it gives you more freedom, control, and access to all WordPress features.

For a comparison, see the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

Next, you’ll need a domain name and web hosting. But, you don’t want just any web hosting company. You need a high-quality hosting provider that’ll support your WordPress website as it grows.

A domain name typically costs $14.99 / year, and web hosting starts around $7.99 per month. If you’re just getting started, this can be a big investment.

Fortunately, Bluehost, a hosting provider recommended by WordPress, has agreed to offer our readers a free domain, SSL certificate, and discount on their web hosting.

Basically, you can get started for $2.75 / month.

→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

After you purchase hosting through Bluehost, they will automatically install the WordPress content management system (CMS) for you.

If you prefer, you can install WordPress yourself. For more details, follow our complete WordPress installation tutorial.

Once you have WordPress installed, it’s time to set up the rest of your WordPress gaming website.

You can follow our step by step tutorial on how to make a website for complete setup instructions.

Step 2. Choosing the Perfect WordPress Gaming Theme

The next step after setting up your WordPress is site is to select the perfect WordPress gaming theme.

When you’re searching for the best WordPress gaming theme, you’ll come across several choices that have gaming-related features baked right in.

Even though it may seem like a good idea, you’ll actually want to avoid using these themes.

You don’t need a WordPress theme that’s built for gaming.

Most gaming WordPress themes are bloated and will lock you into using them forever. You could even run into compatibility issues when trying to add new features to your site.

It’s better to choose a flexible, high-quality theme and add more functionality with WordPress plugins. There are all kinds of plugins to help you add the features you’re looking for.

By taking this approach, you have the flexibility to change themes in the future while keeping the same features and not having to hire a WordPress developer.

We have an in-depth article that’ll help you select the perfect WordPress theme.

If you want to shortcut the process, then check out our picks for the best WordPress magazine themes.

A magazine template can be perfect for gaming websites since it models what other large successful sites are doing in the gaming space.

Once you’ve found a theme you like, you can install and activate the theme. If you need help installing the theme, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress theme.

Step 3. Installing the Right WordPress Gaming Plugins

After that, it’s time to add more functionality to your website with WordPress gaming plugins.

Plugins are like apps for your WordPress site. They allow you to add all sort of features to your website. There are over 58,000+ free plugins for WordPress.

What kind of gaming features can you add to WordPress?

• Detailed video game reviews
• A community gaming forum
• Twitch video streaming
• Real-time games visitors can play
• Selling game-related products

Adding Game Reviews to WordPress

If you’re a gaming blogger that’s blogging about games, hardware, and consoles, then you’ll want to add advanced review functionality to your site.

That way, when you’re writing product reviews, you can add starred ratings and improve the appearance of your reviews.

Look how your reviews will stand out in the search engines:

The best way to do this is by using the WP Product Review Lite plugin. It lets you manage and display gaming reviews on your site.

The plugin gives you customization options to add pros and cons, product images, ratings, and more to your reviews.

There’s even a feature to add a sidebar, top products, and wrap-up widgets to your site.

For more details, see our guide on how to create a reviews site with WordPress.

You may also want to use plugins like Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates to better monetize your website with affiliate marketing.

Creating a Game-Related Forum in WordPress

Another great feature you may want to add to your site is a forum for your gaming community.

A forum can be a discussion board, a place to share tips about a specific game, or even a question-and-answer platform.

Forums allow your visitors to feel like part of your website. When they participate in the discussion and share with others, they’re more likely to come back to your WordPress blog and engage in other ways.

The best way to add forum functionality is with a WordPress plugin like bbPress or BuddyPress. These are two of the best WordPress forum plugins and will help you easily add forum functionality to your site.

For more details, see our guide on how to add a forum in WordPress with bbPress.

Adding Streaming Functionality to WordPress

If you’re a streamer or want to embed popular Twitch and Esports video streams into your gaming site, you can do that easily.

The best way to add this feature is with a WordPress plugin.

We recommend using the Twitch TV Easy Embed plugin. It lets you embed Twitch.tv streams into WordPress and customize the appearance.

To install the plugin, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After the plugin is installed and activated simply navigate to Settings » Easy Embed for Twitch TV (Rail).

On this screen you’ll find the ‘Main Settings’ where you can set up the streams you want to display.

Using the free version of the plugin, you can enter the ‘Game’ or ‘Channel’ you want to stream.

Finally, make sure you click ‘Save Channel’ before existing the screen.

Here’s how it will display when adding the Twitch game ‘Hearthstone’.

To add Twitch streams to WordPress you can use the shortcode [getTwitchRail].

Simply copy the shortcode and paste it into any page or post, or even in your sidebar widget.

Just make sure you click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to save your page and make your Twitch stream live.

If you want to add an entire wall of Twitch streams to WordPress, then you can use the Twitch TV Easy Embed (Wall) plugin. It’s created by the same team of web developers and follows the same setup instructions as above.

Adding Simple Fun Games to WordPress

You might be wondering how do you add games to a WordPress website?

Adding games to your site can give your visitors something fun to do and will hopefully leave them with a positive impression.

The best way to add games to your website is with a WordPress gaming plugin.

There are plugins like Dinosaur Game and the Word Search Puzzles Game that let you add simple games to your site.

To install the plugin, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

If you want to turn your WordPress website into an online gaming platform we recommend using MyArcadePlugin. It’s a premium plugin that’s used by over 100,000 WordPress sites.

Selling Game-Related Products in WordPress

Maybe your goal when creating a gaming website is to sell your own gaming guides and gear.

This could be a custom gaming eyewear you’ve created to help reduce eyestrain.

Or, you’re the master at a specific game, and you want to sell courses and walkthrough guides.

WordPress makes it easy to create your very own eCommerce store, selling digital or physical products.

To start selling products with WordPress, you’ll need to use the WooCommerce plugin.

For more details, see our step by step guide on how to start an online store.

For selling courses and exclusive membership content, take a look at our guide on how to create a membership site in WordPress.

Step 4. Taking Your WordPress Gaming Site to the Next Level

WordPress is a powerful and flexible platform that gives you access to thousands of different plugins you can use to grow your gaming website.

The following plugins can help you grow your gaming website today.

WPForms Lite – It’s the best contact for plugin for WordPress and lets you quickly create contact forms using the drag and drop builder.

AIOSEO – It’s the best WordPress SEO plugin and will help you rank higher in the search engines.

MonsterInsights – It allows you to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress, so you can understand where your visitors are coming from and what content on your site is the most valuable.

Smash Balloon – It’s the best social media feeds plugin for WordPress and let’s you add your social network feeds directly into WordPress.

SeedProd Lite – It’s the best page builder plugin that lets you easily customize your website with a drag and drop builder, no HTML needed.

For more plugin recommendations check out our list of 24 must have WordPress plugins for business websites.

Step 5. Mastering WordPress to Grow Your Website

WordPress is easy to use yet extremely powerful. From time to time, you may find yourself looking for some quick answers.

Here are some useful resources that will help you learn WordPress:

• WPBeginner Blog – This is where we publish our WordPress tutorials, how tos, and step by step guides.
• WPBeginner Videos – These step by step videos will help you learn WordPress FAST.
• WPBeginner on YouTube – Need more video instructions? Subscribe to our YouTube channel with more than 230,000 subscribers and 21 Million+ views.
• WPBeginner Dictionary – The best place for beginners to start and familiarize themselves with the WordPress lingo.
• WPBeginner Blueprint – Check out plugins, tools, and services we use on WPBeginner.
• WPBeginner Deals – Exclusive discounts on WordPress products and services for WPBeginner users.

Here are few of our guides that you should bookmark right away. It will save you lots of time and money in the future.

• 25 Most common WordPress errors and how to fix them
• Beginner’s guide to troubleshooting WordPress errors
• The ultimate WordPress security guide (step by step)
• How to increase your blog traffic (proven tips)

Many of our users use Google to find answers on WPBeginner. Simply type keywords for what you are looking for and add wpbeginner.com at the end.

Can’t find an answer? Send your question directly using our contact form and we will try our best to answer.

We hope this article helped you make a gaming website with WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create an email newsletter and how to add web push notifications to connect with your visitors after they leave your website.

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 Make a Gaming Website With WordPress in 2021 (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 08, 2021 at 06:00PM

How to Optimize Your WordPress Robots.txt for SEO

Recently one of our readers asked us for tips on how to optimize the robots.txt file to improve SEO.

Robots.txt file tells search engines how to crawl your website which makes it an incredibly powerful SEO tool.

In this article, we will show you how to create a perfect robots.txt file for SEO.

What is robots.txt file?

Robots.txt is a text file that website owners can create to tell search engine bots how to crawl and index pages on their site.

It is typically stored in the root directory, also known as the main folder, of your website. The basic format for a robots.txt file looks like this:

User-agent: [user-agent name]
Disallow: [URL string not to be crawled]

User-agent: [user-agent name]
Allow: [URL string to be crawled]


Sitemap: [URL of your XML Sitemap]

You can have multiple lines of instructions to allow or disallow specific URLs and add multiple sitemaps. If you do not disallow a URL, then search engine bots assume that they are allowed to crawl it.

Here is what a robots.txt example file can look like:

User-Agent: *
Allow: /wp-content/uploads/
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /wp-admin/

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml

In the above robots.txt example, we have allowed search engines to crawl and index files in our WordPress uploads folder.

After that, we have disallowed search bots from crawling and indexing plugins and WordPress admin folders.

Lastly, we have provided the URL of our XML sitemap.

Do You Need a Robots.txt File for Your WordPress Site?

If you don’t have a robots.txt file, then search engines will still crawl and index your website. However, you will not be able to tell search engines which pages or folders they should not crawl.

This will not have much of an impact when you’re first starting a blog and do not have a lot of content.

However as your website grows and you have a lot of content, then you would likely want to have better control over how your website is crawled and indexed.

Here is why.

Search bots have a crawl quota for each website.

This means that they crawl a certain number of pages during a crawl session. If they don’t finish crawling all pages on your site, then they will come back and resume crawl in the next session.

This can slow down your website indexing rate.

You can fix this by disallowing search bots from attempting to crawl unnecessary pages like your WordPress admin pages, plugin files, and themes folder.

By disallowing unnecessary pages, you save your crawl quota. This helps search engines crawl even more pages on your site and index them as quickly as possible.

Another good reason to use robots.txt file is when you want to stop search engines from indexing a post or page on your website.

It is not the safest way to hide content from the general public, but it will help you prevent them from appearing in search results.

What Does an Ideal Robots.txt File Look Like?

Many popular blogs use a very simple robots.txt file. Their content may vary, depending on the needs of the specific site:

User-agent: *
Disallow:
 
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/post-sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/page-sitemap.xml

This robots.txt file allows all bots to index all content and provides them a link to the website’s XML sitemaps.

For WordPress sites, we recommend the following rules in the robots.txt file:

User-Agent: *
Allow: /wp-content/uploads/
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /readme.html
Disallow: /refer/

Sitemap: http://www.example.com/post-sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/page-sitemap.xml

This tell search bots to index all WordPress images and files. It disallows search bots from indexing WordPress plugin files, WordPress admin area, the WordPress readme file, and affiliate links.

By adding sitemaps to robots.txt file, you make it easy for Google bots to find all the pages on your site.

Now that you know what an ideal robots.txt file look like, let’s take a look at how you can create a robots.txt file in WordPress.

How to Create a Robots.txt File in WordPress?

There are two ways to create a robots.txt file in WordPress. You can choose the method that works best for you.

Method 1: Editing Robots.txt File Using All in One SEO

All in One SEO also known as AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin in the market used by over 2 million websites.

It’s easy to use and comes with a robots.txt file generator.

If you don’t have already have the AIOSEO plugin installed, you can see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: Free version of AIOSEO is also available and has this feature.

Once the plugin is installed and activated, you can use it to create and edit your robots.txt file directly from your WordPress admin area.

Simply go to All in One SEO » Tools to edit your robots.txt file.

First, you’ll need to turn on the editing option, by clicking the ‘Enable Custom Robots.txt’ toggle to blue.

With this toggle on, you can create a custom robots.txt file in WordPress.

All in One SEO will show your existing robots.txt file in the ‘Robots.txt Preview’ section at the bottom of your screen.

This version will show the default rules that were added by WordPress.

These default rules tell the search engines not to crawl your core WordPress files, allows the bots to index all content, and provides them a link to your site’s XML sitemaps.

Now, you can add your own custom rules to improve your robots.txt for SEO.

To add a rule, enter a user agent in the ‘User Agent’ field. Using a * will apply the rule to all user agents.

Then, select whether you want to ‘Allow’ or ‘Disallow’ the search engines to crawl.

Next, enter filename or directory path in the ‘Directory Path’ field.

The rule will automatically be applied to your robots.txt. To add another rule clicks the ‘Add Rule’ button.

We recommend adding rules until you create the ideal robots.txt format we shared above.

Your custom rules will look like this.

Once you’re done, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.

Method 2. Edit Robots.txt file Manually Using FTP

For this method, you will need to use an FTP client to edit robots.txt file.

Simply connect to your WordPress hosting account using an FTP client.

Once inside, you will be able to see the robots.txt file in your website’s root folder.

If you don’t see one, then you likely don’t have a robots.txt file.

In that case, you can just go ahead and create one.

Robots.txt is a plain text file, which means you can download it to your computer and edit it using any plain text editor like Notepad or TextEdit.

After saving your changes, you can upload it back to your website’s root folder.

How to Test Your Robots.txt File?

Once you have created your robots.txt file, it’s always a good idea to test it using a robots.txt tester tool.

There are many robots.txt tester tools out there, but we recommend using the one inside Google Search Console.

First, you’ll need to have your website linked with Google Search Console. If you haven’t done this yet, see our guide on how to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console.

Then, you can use the Google Search Console Robots Testing Tool.

Simply select your property from the dropdown list.

The tool will automatically fetch your website’s robots.txt file and highlight the errors and warnings if it found any.

Final Thoughts

The goal of optimizing your robots.txt file is to prevent search engines from crawling pages that are not publicly available. For example, pages in your wp-plugins folder or pages in your WordPress admin folder.

A common myth among SEO experts is that blocking WordPress category, tags, and archive pages will improve crawl rate and result in faster indexing and higher rankings.

This is not true. It’s also against Google’s webmaster guidelines.

We recommend that you follow the above robots.txt format to create a robots.txt file for your website.

We hope this article helped you learn how to optimize your WordPress robots.txt file for SEO. You may also want to see our ultimate WordPress SEO guide and the best WordPress SEO tools to grow your website.

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 Optimize Your WordPress Robots.txt for SEO appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 06, 2021 at 03:20PM

7 Best Auction Plugins for WordPress (2021)

Are you looking for the best auction plugins for WordPress?

An auction plugin allows you to run online auctions on your website and create an eBay like store using WordPress.

In this article, we’ll show you our top pick of the best auction plugins for WordPress.

Before You Get Started

WordPress has many different auction plugins available. Some are available as standalone WordPress plugins whereas others are available as WooCommerce extensions.

Depending on the option you choose, your set up will be different.

For example, a WooCommerce plugin will require you to set up an online store. You’ll need a WooCommerce hosting provider like SiteGround.

Whereas for other plugins, you can simply create a WordPress website and install it like you would do for any other plugin.

If you’re expecting a lot of bidding in your auctions, then you may want to consider your website speed and performance issues by using a managed WordPress hosting provider. This ensures that your website does not go down during critical auction times.

With that said, let’s take a look at the best WordPress auction plugins that you can use.

1. YITH WooCommerce Auctions

YITH WooCommerce Auctions is the complete auctions plugin for WooCommerce and allows you to build an ebay-like website in minutes.

It is super easy to use and you can easily add any type of products that you want to auction. You can set up a minimum bid amount, minimum bid increment, reserve price, buy it now price, and more.

You can also choose to set a schedule for an auction, extend an auction, add a grace period, and have full control over the process.

It runs on top of WooCommerce, so you can easily set it up by setting up an online store first. After that, you can install the plugin and then add auction products like you would add any other WooCommerce product. This also makes it easier for you to accept payments and use all the powerful eCommerce features of WooCommerce.

The plugin can also be converted into a multi-vendor marketplace, which would allow other sellers to list their own products for auction on your site. Allowing you to make additional money by providing a platform to third-party sellers.

For more details, see our step by step guide on how to build an auction site in WordPress.

2. WP Auctions

WP Auctions is another easy solution to run auctions on your WordPress website. It allows you to easily add auctions to your site, set starting price, date, and wait for bids to come in.

After that, you can send the winning bid to a page where they can pay via PayPal. Alternatively, you can accept payments manually or via wire transfer by emailing the user.

You can add the auction to a post, page or a sidebar widget on your website. You can also manually add it to your custom WordPress theme by adding a template tag.

The downside is that there are limited payment options, and it lacks many of the features you would get with some other plugins on the list. However, it is an excellent option if you don’t want to install an eCommerce plugin.

3. Ultimate WordPress Auction

Ultimate WordPress Auction is another good way to add auctions to your WordPress website or WooCommerce store.

It allows you to add auction products, set bidding time, and manage your auctions using a simple dashboard. The free version allows you to accept payments via PayPal. The pro version allows you to accept payments via Stripe too.

Using it on WooCommerce also allows you to use a multi-vendor plugin. This enables other sellers to auction their own products on your platform.

4. WP Ebay Products Feed

WP Ebay Products Feed allows you to fetch and display your eBay auctions on your WordPress website. This is particularly useful for sellers that are already selling on eBay.

It also helps if you want to show your existing users that you are a reputable seller and have been an active seller.

The plugin is quite easy to use. Simply add the eBay ID and use a third-party service to convert it into a usable RSS feed. After that, you can set how you want products to be displayed in your feeds.

The plugin allows you to use your own Affiliate ID with eBay links. It also supports Gutenberg block editor, and you can display the auction feed anywhere on your website.

It can be used with other auction plugins for WordPress and WooCommerce, or as a standalone solution to simply send users to make the bid on your eBay profile.

5. Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce

Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce is a WordPress auction plugin made specifically for WooCommerce stores.

The plugin supports normal, reverse auctions, sealed auctions, proxy auctions, and more. It allows customers to log in and view their own auction dashboard. Once they have won an auction, they will see a link to make the payment to complete the purchase.

Adding products to the auction works like any other product you add in WooCommerce. After you set up the product to be an auction product, you’ll see the options to set up the schedule, starting bid, and other settings.

It beautifully displays your auction products with a countdown timer to trigger the FOMO effect on the product page.

Being an extension of WooCommerce, it allows you to use multiple payment gateways and extend your site functionality using popular WooCommerce plugins and tools/

6. WP-Lister Lite for eBay

WP-Lister Lite for eBay is a WooCommerce plugin that allows you to easily add your WooCommerce products to your eBay store.

You can easily list products on your online store and your eBay store at the same time. It does not allow you to run an auction on your WooCommerce store.

However, you can use a different WooCommerce auction plugin or run the auction on eBay using the same product data without having to enter it again.

The plugin is a bit complicated to get used to as you need to set it up to work with an API. However, once it is set up the whole process runs quite smoothly.

7. Auction Nudge

Auction Nudge allows you to bring your eBay profile to your WordPress website or WooCommerce store.

It is particularly useful when you want to show that you are a well-reputed seller or just want to promote your eBay auctions. The plugin does a good job of bringing content from your eBay account to WordPress.

It is quite simple to use and comes with flexible options to display your eBay products, profile information, and your most recent feedbacks.

You can use it alongside any WordPress auctions plugin on the list and allow users to see your past activity on the platform.

We hope this article helped you find the best auction plugins for WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on best email marketing services to improve your auction bids and best live chat software to answer questions during live auctions.

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 Auction Plugins for WordPress (2021) appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 05, 2021 at 03:42PM

How to Hide a Mobile Menu in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide)

Do you want to hide a mobile menu in WordPress?

Most WordPress themes come with built-in styles that automatically transform your navigation menus into a mobile menu. However, you may not wish to use the same menu on mobile or may want to use a different menu style.

In this article, we will show you how to easily hide a mobile menu in WordPress using a plugin or code method.

Method 1. Hide a Mobile Menu in WordPress using a Plugin

This method is easier and is recommended for beginners. We’ll use a plugin to hide your existing mobile menu provided by your WordPress theme and then use a different menu or no menu at all on mobile devices.

First, you need to visit the Appearance » Menus page and create a new navigation menu that you would like to display on mobile devices.

On the next screen, you need to provide a name for your new menu that helps you identify it later. We’ll call it ‘Mobile Menu’. After that, you can select the items you want to add to your menu from the left column.

Once you are finished adding items to your menu, don’t forget to click on the Save Menu button to save your menu.

If you need help creating a new navigation menu, then follow our beginner’s guide to creating a navigation menu in WordPress.

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

Upon activation, you need to visit Mobile Menu Options page to configure plugin settings. From here, you need to select whether you want to display your mobile menu on the right or to the left by turning the toggle On.

From the drop-down menu, select the mobile menu you created earlier.

Next, you need to scroll down to the ‘Hide Original Theme Menu’ section. This is where you can tell the plugin to hide a mobile menu created by your WordPress theme.

By default, the plugin will use commonly used element identifiers used by most popular WordPress themes. Most users wouldn’t need to do anything here.

However, if the plugin fails to hide your theme’s menu, then you can come back here and click on the ‘Find Element’ button to simply point to your theme’s navigation menu.

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

Now that we have set up the plugin, we need to tell WordPress site to display our mobile menu to the new menu location added by the plugin.

Simply, go to the Appearance » Menus page. Make sure the mobile menu you created earlier is selected in the drop down menu. Below your menu item choose the location you selected in the plugin settings (e.g. Left Mobile Menu or Right Mobile Menu).

You can now visit your website to see your new menu in action. The plugin will now hide your theme’s mobile menu and display a custom menu instead.

WP Mobile Menu plugin allows you to change the color of the menu bar, change opacity, add icons, and more in the settings. Feel free to play around with those settings.

Method 2. Hide Mobile Menu using CSS Code

This method is a bit advanced and requires some custom CSS to be used.

For this method, you can choose to use two different approaches. You can just hide a complete mobile menu using CSS, or you can hide individual menu items on mobile devices.

1. Hiding a complete menu on mobile devices using CSS

First, you need to figure out the element you need to modify using custom CSS. To do that, simply go to your website and take the mouse over to your navigation menu. After that, right click and select Inspect tool.

Your browser screen will split into two, and you’ll see the source code of your webpage. Now this navigation menu is not the one you need to target because it is visible on the desktop screen.

You need to rearrange your browser screen by dragging it from the corner to a smaller size until the desktop navigation menu is replaced by the mobile menu.

You need to figure out the identifier and CSS class used by your WordPress navigation menu. You can do that by moving your mouse on the source code until the menu area is highlighted.

As you can see in the screenshot above, our test theme is using the navbar-toggle-wrapper class.

After that, you need to go to Appearance » Customize page in WordPress admin area to launch theme customizer. Here, you need to switch to the ‘Additional CSS’ tab and click on the mobile icon at the bottom right corner of the left panel.

The customizer will now show a preview of how your site will look on mobile devices. You can now enter the following CSS code and see your mobile menu disappear in the preview panel.

.navbar-toggle-wrapper { 
display:none; 
} 

Don’t forget to replace the .navbar-toggle-wrapper with the identifier used by your WordPress theme.

After that, click on the ‘Publish’ button at the top to save your changes.

2. Hiding specific menu items in mobile menu using CSS

This method allows you to create a navigation menu and then selectively show or hide items that you don’t want to display on mobile or desktop devices.

The advantage of this method is that you can use the same navigation menu for mobile and desktop and simply hide the items that you don’t want to be seen.

First, you need to go to Appearance » Menus page and click on the Screen Options button at the top right corner of the screen. From here, you need to check the box next to the ‘CSS Classes’ option.

After that. you need to scroll down to a menu item that you want to hide on mobile devices and click to expand it. In the menu item settings, you’ll now see the option to add a CSS class. Go ahead and add .hide-mobile CSS class there.

Repeat the process for all menu items you don’t want to show on mobile.

Similarly, you can also click on the menu items that you want to hide on desktop computers. This time, add the .hide-desktop CSS class instead.

Once you are finished, don’t forget to click on the Save Menu button to store your changes.

Now we will add custom CSS to hide these menu items. Simply go to the Appearance » Customize page to launch the Theme Customizer and click on the Additional CSS tab.

You need to add the following CSS code in the CSS box.

@media (min-width: 980px){

    .hide-desktop{
    display: none !important;
    }

}

    @media (max-width: 980px){
    .hide-mobile{
    display: none !important;
    }

}

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

You can now visit your website and you will notice that items that you wanted to hide on desktop are no longer visible in the menu. Adjust your browser screen to a smaller size and you will notice the same for the mobile menu as well.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily hide a mobile menu in WordPress. You may also want to see our article on how to create custom pages in WordPress or how to create a custom theme from scratch without writing code.

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 Hide a Mobile Menu in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide) appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 04, 2021 at 06:00PM

How to Fix the Missed Schedule Post Error in WordPress

Do you want to fix the missed schedule post error in WordPress?

WordPress comes with a built-in feature that allows you to easily schedule posts to be automatically published at a later time. However, sometimes you may notice that scheduled posts don’t get published at all.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily fix the missed schedule post error in WordPress. This will allow you to ensure that your scheduled posts are published on time.

What Causes WordPress to Miss Scheduled Posts?

Your WordPress hosting environment or plugin conflicts may cause WordPress to miss scheduled posts.

Normally, when you schedule a WordPress post to be published later, WordPress uses a technology called ‘Cron’ or ‘WordPress Cron‘ to automatically publish your post on time.

However, if your WordPress hosting server or a plugin is affecting the cron jobs, then WordPress would miss the scheduled tasks such as publishing scheduled posts.

Your other cron jobs may still work occasionally like checking for updates or deleting auto-saved drafts. That’s because once the publishing time is missed WordPress will not publish the blog post on a different time.

For most users, it does not happen very often and for some users it can become a common WordPress issue.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily fix the missed schedule post error in WordPress.

Fixing The Missed Schedule Post Error in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Missed Scheduled Post Publisher plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

The plugin works out of the box, and there are no settings for you to configure.

How does Missed Scheduled Post Publisher plugin work?

The plugin simply checks your website every 15 minutes to see if a scheduled WordPress post has missed schedule.

If it finds any missed schedule items, then it changes the status from scheduled to published.

It works for posts, pages, products, and any other custom post types that you may have on your WordPress website.

We built this plugin to ensure it doesn’t impact your WordPress site speed because we know speed is important for SEO. This is the plugin we’re using on our own sites.

Troubleshooting Missed Scheduled Posts Error in WordPress

If installing the plugin does not immediately fix scheduled posts error on your website, then the following are a few tips that you can try.

1. Check Your WordPress Timezone Settings

Setting your timezone is one of the first things to do after installing WordPress. However, sometimes users miss it and their WordPress timezone doesn’t match the timezone they want to use for publishing and managing their website.

Simply go to Settings » General page and scroll down to the ‘Timezone’ section. From here, you need to select your timezone or the timezone you want to use for your WordPress website.

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

2. Clear WordPress cache

If your WordPress posts are still missing schedule, then it is likely due to a poorly configured caching plugin. Try clearing WordPress cache and make sure that your WordPress caching plugin is properly configured to automatically clear cache at regular intervals.

3. Increase WordPress memory limit

Your WordPress website may be struggling with low memory limit issue. You can fix that by allowing WordPress to use more server memory which let’s WordPress run better.

Simply add the following code to your wp-config.php file ust before the line that says ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing.’

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '500M');

For details, see our guide on how to increase memory limit in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily fix the missed schedule post error in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to easily troubleshoot WordPress errors on your own.

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 the Missed Schedule Post Error in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 03, 2021 at 06:00PM

SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine (Honest Comparison)

Are you looking for an honest web hosting comparison of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine?

These top WordPress hosting companies are recommended by WPBeginner and many other industry experts. However, for beginners it’s often not clear which one is better for them.

In this guide, we will compare SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine with their pros and cons, so that you can make the right decision.

Comparison of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine

At WPBeginner, we recommend SiteGround, Bluehost, and WP Engine as the top WordPress hosting services on the market.

And we don’t say it lightly. Over the years we have worked closely with dozens of WordPress hosting companies and know the pros and cons of the overall hosting industry.

To be even more confident in our recommendation, we regularly run tests, with real websites and data, on all these top hosting providers.

Now, if all three of them are good, then it comes down to each user’s own hosting requirements and needs.

For instance, some users may want to go for a low pricing option to control their website costs. Whereas other users may need a hosting solution that offers better support options.

In this comparison, we will take a closer look into the Pros and Cons of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine in details. However, if you don’t want to go through the full comparison, here is a quick summary:

	SiteGround	Bluehost	WP Engine
Pricing	$6.99	$2.75	$20
Free Domain	No	Yes	No
Free SSL	Yes	Yes	Yes
Avg. Load Time	491 ms	1.48ms	337 ms
Support	Live Chat / Email / Phone	Live Chat / Email / Phone	Live Chat / Email / Phone
Rating	A+	A-	A+
Verdict	Best Premium Hosting	Best Cheap Hosting	Best Managed Hosting
	Visit SiteGround	Visit Bluehost	Visit WP Engine

That being said, let’s compare each one of them and see how they stack up.

SiteGround Comparison

SiteGround is one of the highest-rated WordPress hosting companies and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider. They offer excellent customer support, top-notch performance, and a very beginner-friendly hosting setup.

They have a highly optimized WordPress hosting platform with their custom in-house performance optimizations. This makes your website incredibly fast which is good for SEO and user experience.

Pros of SiteGround

Each WordPress hosting provider has its pros and cons that you would want to know before signing up. SiteGround gives you some great benefits out of the box.

Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of choosing SiteGround as your hosting service.

Faster Website – SiteGround offers a highly optimized WordPress hosting platform with its own performance optimizations. Their servers are hosted on the Google Cloud Platform which is one of the fastest cloud hosting infrastructure on the market. Faster sites help you improve your search engine rankings.

Excellent Customer Support – SiteGround offers heroic customer support with fast response times, knowledgable and skilled live chat, and 24/7 phone support.

Multiple Geographic Locations – SiteGround allows you to easily select your server’s geographic location. For instance, if your customers are primarily located in Asia, then you can select servers located in Asia (Singapore). Other datacenter locations include: USA, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, and Netherlands.

Free CDN and SSL – SiteGround allows you to easily turn on Cloudflare free content delivery network (CDN) for your website. It also makes it super easy to add free SSL certificate on your site using Let’s Encrypt.

Daily Backup – They include daily backup on all their plans, and you can get on-demand backup copies on their higher plans.

WordPress Site Migration – SiteGround comes with a migrator plugin that makes it easy for you to move your WordPress website from another host to SiteGround.

Dev Tools – All plans come with WP-CLI and SSH support. With their GrowBig plan, you get access to staging environment, ability to add collaborators, and WordPress supercacher performance boosters. The GoGeek plan comes with dev tools like GIT, Ultrafast PHP, white-label clients, and more.

Cons of SiteGround

There are also some disadvantages of using SiteGround that some users may find a deal breaker.

Higher Monthly Costs – If you choose to pay month to month, then their hosting plans would become quite expensive. You can save on that by signing up for a yearly plan.

Storage Limits – There is a fixed storage available for each hosting plan. It is quite large and most website owners wouldn’t need extra storage, but it is still something you should keep in mind.

SiteGround Review

SiteGround has a 4.9 star rating on WPBeginner based on 4,506 user reviews. You can read more about their hosting score and performance tests in our detailed SiteGround Review.

We also use SiteGround to host the WPBeginner website. See why we switched to SiteGround.

The best part about SiteGround is that you can use their StartUp plan to get started at an affordable price and grow into their VPS and Dedicated Servers as your website grows. They have a 30 day money-back guarantee which is the industry standard.

Bluehost Comparison

Bluehost is one of the biggest web hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress host. They offer WordPress optimized hosting plans with faster servers and reliable performance.

Their shared hosting prices are lower priced when compared to SiteGround and WP Engine. This makes them a good choice for beginners & small businesses on a limited budget.

Pros of Bluehost

Bluehost offers great value at low cost but what are some of their pros and cons? Let’s start with some of the benefits of using Bluehost as your hosting service.

Lower Costs – Bluehost’s entry-level plan allows you to start for a lower price which is a great value for new small businesses, bloggers, portfolio, and other type of websites.

Ease of Use – It has one of the most beginner-friendly hosting control panel that makes it super easy to install WordPress (one-click) and manage your website.

Free Domain – They offer a free domain name which saves you additional money on your start up cost.

Free CDN + Free SSL – Bluehost offers free CDN to speed up your website, and all plans come with free SSL certificate to improve website security.

Website Speed – In our tests, we found Bluehost to perform well with no performance optimization done on our test sites. You can add WordPress caching plugins to unlock further speed improvements.

Staging Sites + Dev Tools – Bluehost plans come with staging site setup, automatic WordPress updates, ability to change PHP versions, SFTP access, and more.

Cons of Bluehost

Obviously, there are some downsides to using Bluehost as well. The following are some of the disadvantages that you may want to know.

Higher domain renewal price – Their free domain renewal price is higher than average. It does not make an immediate impact on most businesses but it is something you may need to keep in mind.

Upselling addons – You’ll see a lot of upselling during signup. Most beginners usually don’t need these products right away so you can skip them.

Bluehost Review

Bluehost has a 5-star rating on WPBeginner based on over 300 user reviews and because of the price to value they offer. We also ran our own performance and stress tests on their servers, you can read all about them in our detailed Bluehost review.

The best part about Bluehost is that you get a free domain with all plans, unlimited bandwidth & SSD storage on their Plus plan, and great overall value for what you pay.

Their Ecommerce hosting plan for WooCommerce comes with over $1000+ in premium WooCommerce & WordPress extensions which is a huge cost savings for online store owners.

WP Engine Comparison

WP Engine is one of the topmost recommended managed WordPress hosting providers in the world. They are among the pioneers of managed WordPress hosting services.

On a managed WordPress plan, the hosting provider offers a highly optimized environment with custom caching built-in. The hosting provider also takes care of updates and backups.

WP Engine provides a robust platform used by businesses and agencies alike. It is easy enough for beginners to manage their website and advanced for developers and agencies to host client sites.

Pros of WP Engine

WP Engine offers a powerful hosting solution, but there are pros and cons that you should look at beforehands. Following are some of the advantages of using WP Engine.

Reliability – WP Engine’s proprietary technology can easily handle traffic spikes without any downtime or slowing down your website.

Security – It comes with many advanced security features to block DDoS attacks, brute force attacks, JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, and more. They also offer a free cleanup service if your site gets hacked on their platform.

Daily Backup – They include daily backup as part of all their plans.

Advanced Features – WP Engine offers advanced features for developers, businesses, and agencies including 1-click staging websites, GIT version control, transferable installs, and more.

Speed – WP Engine’s EverCache offers server level caching for everything including a CDN to ensure faster load times.

Free Themes – All WP Engine accounts include 30 premium WordPress themes from StudioPress which is a great value for WordPress users.

Cons of WP Engine

WP Engine offers cutting-edge technologies and powerful web hosting services, but there are some disadvantages too.

Blocked Plugins – WP Engine maintains a list of WordPress plugins that you cannot install on your site. These plugins are either incompatible or conflict with the existing WP Engine features.

Expensive – WP Engine is more expensive than shared hosting platforms. The services they offer are well-worth investment if your business can afford it.

WP Engine Reviews

WP Engine has a 4.9 star rating on WPBeginner based on 64 user reviews. We also ran our own tests to measure their performance and reliability, you can read all about it in our complete WP Engine review.

The best part about WP Engine is that they offer a reliable platform which is great for uptime and an excellent support team that is always there to help when needed. Overall, WP Engine is by far the most reputable managed WordPress hosting provider in the world.

SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine – Which is Better?

Now that we have compared different features of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine, you may still be wondering which one of them is better?

The answer actually depends on your own requirements.

For instance, if you want to start an online business or a new online store, but don’t want to spend a fortune, then Bluehost offers an excellent value. It is low cost and offers a reliable, fast, and easy to use platform.

On the other hand, if you can afford to spend a little more on premium hosting, then SiteGround would be a better choice for you. For extra money you get faster support, optimized WordPress platform, and super fast website. It gives you the best of both worlds, great value and great performance.

Lastly, if you are looking for a concierge WordPress hosting service, then WP Engine offers an all in one platform. It is robust, easy to use, advanced features for developers, offers enhanced security, and more.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Having helped thousands of users choose the best web host for their needs, we have answered quite a few questions. Here are some of the answers to the most frequently asked questions about SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine.

How did you check the web hosting speed for Bluehost vs SiteGround vs WP Engine?

We use independent third-party tools like Pingdom, LoadImpact, and Bitcatcha to test the performance and reliability of each company, so we can help you choose the best WordPress hosting for your business.

To accurately measure performance across all WordPress hosting companies, we create a sample WordPress site on each hosting provider and install the default WordPress theme. Next, we import sample content including images and media, so our test resembles an average user website.

You can see detailed performance test results in our detailed Bluehost review, SiteGround review, and WP Engine review.

Can I use Subdomains for my site?

Yes, you can use subdomains on all three of these companies. If it’s a staging site, then it doesn’t count against your 1 website limit. However if you’re looking to create multiple websites, then you’ll need to upgrade to a higher plan.

​Does SiteGround use cPanel?

No, SiteGround does not use cPanel. They have built a custom control panel to offer an improved user experience. This has allowed them to add more premium tools similar to WP Engine.

​Between SiteGround, WP Engine, and Bluehost, only Bluehost still offers cPanel hosting. Even though Bluehost has created a custom control panel as well, you can click on the Advanced menu to access cPanel inside Bluehost.

Does WP Engine offer email accounts?

No, WP Engine does not offer email accounts. They specialize in managed WordPress hosting services and prefer that you use specialized business email address solutions like Google Workspace (G Suite).

Bluehost and SiteGround on the other hand both offer free business email addresses that you can create from your account area. Bluehost also let you purchase premium business emails from Office365 right inside the Bluehost dashboard.

If you’re looking to fix email deliverability for sending bulk emails, then all providers recommend that you use a reliable third-party SMTP service with the WP Mail SMTP plugin.

For sending marketing emails, we recommend that you use a proper email marketing service. Here’s a list of the best email marketing services.

Why is SiteGround so expensive?

When comparing with other shared hosting providers like Bluehost, HostGator, Dreamhost, etc, SiteGround pricing can definitely be considered more expensive. However it’s because they have significantly improved their infrastructure by making the switch to Google Cloud platform. They have also built advanced caching to boost performance, powerful development tools like Staging sites, Git workflows, Ultrafast PHP, WP CLI support, and more.

Previously you’d have to upgrade to a managed WordPress hosting provider to get these powerful features. Now SiteGround offers these to small businesses at a more affordable price.

It’s really not fair to compare SiteGround prices with other shared hosting companies anymore because they’re truly creating a new category for premium WordPress hosting.

When do you need managed WordPress hosting?

As a beginner, you might be wondering is managed WordPress hosting really that much better? If so, then when is the right time to upgrade to managed WordPress hosting.

We have covered all of this in our detailed guide on when do you need managed WordPress hosting.

But in summary, if you’re just starting a blog or a small business website, then you don’t need managed WordPress hosting.

As your website grows, and you start getting high-traffic, then we recommend considering a managed platform, so you can delegate the technical side and focus on growing your business.

However if you have the budget to spend a bit more for exceptional service, then you can use managed hosting at any time you’re ready.

Are there other hosting providers that you haven’t covered in this comparison?

Yes there are literally thousands of web hosting companies in the market including HostGator, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, InMotion Hosting, Hostinger, GreenGeeks, Pagely, Liquid Web, Kinsta, A2 hosting, etc.

We only compared SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine because they’re the most popular WordPress hosting companies.

Do you have any special discounts for SiteGround, Bluehost, or WP Engine?

Yes, because WPBeginner is the largest WordPress resource site, our users can get special discounts on popular hosting providers as well as other WordPress plugins. You can see all 100+ WordPress deals here.

You can use our Bluehost coupon to get over 60% off + free domain.

Our WP Engine coupon gets you 4 months free on the annual plans.

Our SiteGround coupon gets you over 63% off on web hosting.

We hope this comparison of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine helped you decide which platform is better for your new website. You may also want to see our checklist of things to do before launching a WordPress site, and our expert pick of best 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 SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine (Honest Comparison) appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 02, 2021 at 05:30PM

How to Prevent Invalid AdSense Clicks in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to learn how to prevent invalid AdSense clicks in WordPress?

Invalid AdSense clicks are the result of clicks and impressions that are typically generated by bots or spammers. High number of invalid clicks can get your AdSense account suspended.

In this article, we’ll show you how to prevent invalid AdSense clicks in WordPress, so you can keep your account in good standing.

What are Invalid Adsense Clicks?

Invalid AdSense clicks are any clicks to your ads that occur from invalid traffic.

What does Google consider invalid traffic?

• Clicks or impressions from website owners clicking their ads
• Repeated ad clicks or impressions from one or more users
• Website owners who are manipulating users to accidentally click their ads
• Automated tools like bots and robots to manipulate impressions and clicks

If you’re getting real people viewing and clicking your ads, then you’re fine.

But, sometimes, you’ll have traffic coming to your website from low-quality sources. One form of this is bot traffic that clicks on display ads.

Does Google AdSense Detect Invalid Clicks?

Yes, Google has a very sophisticated platform that will automatically detect all invalid clicks.

Usually, Google will not take action against accounts unless high levels of invalid traffic and clicks have occurred.

Having small amounts of bot and crawler traffic, double ad clicks, and other errors are common, so they tend to ignore it.

However, Google will automatically adjust your account earnings to take out bot traffic and fake clicks. These adjustments happen both in real-time and at the end of the month.

The best way to avoid an account penalty is to stop invalid traffic from reaching your site in the first place. You can report invalid clicks to the Google Adsense team, but this doesn’t free your account from the responsibility.

How to Protect AdSense from Invalid Clicks in WordPress

Invalid clicks are a threat to your WordPress blog and ability to make money online, especially if it’s an ongoing problem.

There are three things you can do to help keep your Google AdSense account in good standing:

• Monitor your traffic and identify any invalid sources
• Make sure your ad placements are in alignment with AdSense guidelines
• Use an AdSense protection WordPress plugin to block invalid traffic and clicks

Understand Your Ad Traffic and WordPress Visitors

The root problem of invalid AdSense clicks is your traffic.

As a WordPress website owner, you are responsible for the traffic your website receives. That’s why it’s extremely important to understand how people find and use your website.

The easiest way to monitor your website traffic and analytics is with MonsterInsights. It’s the best analytics solution for WordPress and is used by over 2 million website owners like you.

There’s also a free version of MonsterInsights that gives you access to your most important analytics data.

For more details, see our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Once you’ve set up the plugin, you can view your Google Analytics reports within your WordPress dashboard. Simply go to Insights » Reports to get a quick overview of your traffic.

You can compare your Google Analytics and Google AdSense data to see if any traffic sources are the cause of invalid clicks.

Maybe you’ve found that a single low-quality referring website is sending spam traffic your way?

Or, when you post in a certain Facebook group, the traffic back to your website is mostly bot traffic?

Avoid Accidental Visitor Clicks in WordPress

You could be getting invalid clicks from your visitors accidentally clicking on ads.

Suppose your ads are too similar to the rest of your content, or your ads are in positions that make your site hard to use. In that case, your visitors could be clicking on your ads by mistake.

For example, if you have an ad directly below a drop-down menu, this could cause visitors to click that ad on accident.

Another common mistake is using ad units that look like your content and navigation links. If a user clicks the ad, thinking they’re navigating around your website, this could lead to accidental clicks.

For more details on AdSense ad placement, see our step by step guide on how to optimize your AdSense revenue in WordPress.

Block Invalid Traffic Sources With a WordPress Plugin

If your ads are correctly set up, but you’re still getting a warning from Google, then you’ll want to block invalid traffic sources with a WordPress plugin.

To do this, we recommend using the AdSense Invalid Click Protector plugin. It’s highly customizable so that you can block traffic and users according to your needs.

With this plugin, you can block entire countries, set a maximum number of ad clicks per user, block visitors when they hit your ad limit, block IP addresses, and more.

The first thing you’ll need to do is install the AdSense Invalid Click Protector plugin. For more details on installing a plugin, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After the plugin is installed and activated, you’ll have a new navigation option in your WordPress dashboard called ‘AdSense Invalid Click Protector’.

Next, you’ll need to configure the plugin settings. To do this, navigate to Adsense Invalid Click Protector » General Settings.

On this screen, you’ll set the conditions for the kind of behavior and traffic you want to block.

We’re going to set the ‘Ad Click Limit’ to 2, so a visitor can only click on an ad twice before it stops displaying.

Next, we’ll set the ‘Click Counter Cookie Expiration Time’ to 5 hours. This means that after 5 hours, your ads will display again for that user.

After that, we’ll leave the ‘Visitor Ban Duration’ at the default 7 days. This will stop your ads from being shown to banned visitors for 7 days.

To block ads from showing for specific countries, set the ‘Do you want to block showing ads for some specific countries?’ checkbox to ‘Yes’. Or, leave as ‘No’ if you don’t want to block specific countries.

Then, enter the country code for the country you want to block.

Make sure to click ‘Save Changes’ before exiting the screen.

After you’ve set up your block settings, you’ll need to add the plugin code to your existing AdSense ad units.

Where you add the code depends on how you’ve added your Google AdSense code to WordPress.

If you manually added your AdSense code to WordPress, then you’ll need to locate every instance of the code across your site.

If you’re using a plugin to manage your ads, then navigate to the plugin and open up your AdSense code block. It’ll look similar to the code below.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to add the following code before your AdSense ad code block:

if( aicp_can_see_ads() ) { /* Your AdSense code goes here */ }

Then, wrap your ad code in a simple div tag:

<div class="aicp">...your ad code goes here...</div>

Your final ad code will look something like this:

if( aicp_can_see_ads() ) { 
<div class="aicp">
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<!-- AdSense Responsive Ad Code -->
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
        style="display:block"
        data-ad-client="ca-pub-1234567890"
        data-ad-slot="0123456789"
        data-ad-format="auto">
</ins>
<script>
        (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</div>
}

After you add the plugin code to your Google AdSense ads, your ads will display based on the block settings you assigned earlier.

If you prefer a hands-off solution, then there is a premium plugin called WP Advanced Ads Pro that has click fraud protection built-in.

You can enable click fraud protection directly from the plugin settings. There is no additional code you need to add to your site.

We hoped this article helped you prevent invalid AdSense clicks in WordPress. You may also want to see our collection of the best WordPress ad management plugins and solutions, and our expert pick of 24 must have WordPress plugins for businesses.

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 Prevent Invalid AdSense Clicks in WordPress (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 01, 2021 at 06:00PM