How to Create a Booking Form in WordPress

Do you want to create a booking form in WordPress?

Many websites and businesses rely on bookings. If you accept appointments, then a booking form can help you schedule more appointments and boost your profits. It can also remove a lot of the time-consuming admin work that often comes with managing bookings. 

In this article, we’ll share three ways to create a booking form in WordPress.

Why Create a Booking Form in WordPress?

Think about all the times you’ve booked an appointment. This can be anything from a doctor’s appointment, to scheduling a callback, reserving a table at your favorite restaurant, or even booking tickets to a concert or movie.

Sometimes, you may have made the booking by calling the business. However, most of the time you’ve likely booked online. 

More and more, we expect to book all kinds of appointments online, without ever speaking to a real person.

Your customers and visitors expect this as well.

If your business accepts appointments, then it’s smart to create an online booking form. This is any form that lets visitors book an appointment, buy tickets to an event, or make a reservation online.

With a booking form, you’ll never lose another customer just because you weren’t around to answer the phone. 

Booking forms can also automate a lot of the booking process. This includes collecting payments and sending your customers helpful reminder emails. This can improve the quality of the customer experience. It can also save you from lots of annoying admin work.

That said, let’s take a look at how you can create a booking form in WordPress. We’ll show you 3 ways to do this, so simply click the links below to jump to the method you prefer:

• Method 1. How to Create a Booking Form Using WPForms (Recommended)
• Method 2. How to Create a Booking Form Using Formidable Forms

Method 1. How to Create a Booking Form Using WPForms (Recommended)

WPForms is the best form builder for WordPress used by over 5 million websites. You can quickly add a booking form to your website using the plugin’s simple drag and drop builder. 

There are even ready-made templates that can help you get started. This includes event planning templates, feedback forms, and user registration templates.

You can even use these ready-made forms to collect donations for your nonprofit site, or arrange Zoom meetings with potential new customers.

Plus, WPForms integrates with all of the top email marketing providers. This makes it easy to send notifications and appointment reminder emails to both your customers, and your staff.

For this post, we’ll be using the WPForms Pro version because it has lots of different templates and powerful addons. If you’re looking for a free form builder plugin, there is also a WPForms Lite version. It just doesn’t include all of the premium templates and integrations.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After activating WPForms, head over to WPForms » Settings in your WordPress dashboard. You can now enter your license key. You’ll find this key in your WPForms Account.

Next, you need to go to WPForms » Add New. To start, give your booking form a name.

WPForms has lots of different templates so you can quickly get started and build all kinds of forms. Since we’re creating a booking form, it makes sense to select the Event Planning category in the sidebar.

Here, you’ll find templates for ordering wedding flowers, booking a school trip, hiring a DJ, and everything in between.

To preview a template, click on its View Demo button. This opens the template in a new tab.

When you find a design that you want to use, click on the orange ‘Use Template’ button. This launches the WPForms drag and drop editor. 

In this tutorial, we’re going to use the Online Event Registration RSVP form. This form has fields where customers can type their name and email address. 

It also asks visitors how they heard about your event. This can help you pinpoint the marketing channels and sources that are bringing you the most conversions. 

You can use this information to plan your future marketing activities, and drive more people to your booking form. For more information about conversion tracking, see our ultimate guide on conversion tracking in WordPress.

The Online Event Registration RSVP template also lets visitors add multiple people to a single booking. This is perfect for events that often attract group bookings, such as tours, or shows.

Finally, customers can use the dropdown menus to choose the date and time when they want to attend your event.

All of these fields are completely customizable. To edit a field, simply give it a click. The sidebar will then update to display all of the settings for the selected field.

You can also add more fields to your booking form template. If it isn’t already selected, then click on the ‘Add Fields’ tab in the left-hand menu.

Then, simply drag and drop your chosen field into place on your booking form. You also change the order these fields appear in your form using drag and drop. 

Once you’ve finished editing your booking form, click on the Save button.

Now that you’ve created your booking form, it’s important to set up some notifications.

Every time someone fills in the booking form, WPForms will send an email to your WordPress admin by default. Sometimes, you may want to send these emails to a different address. You may even want to email multiple people.

This is easy to do using WPForms. To edit your email notifications, click on Settings in the left-hand menu. Then, select Notifications.

On this screen, find the ‘Send To Email Address’ field. By default, this is set to {admin_email}. This is a dynamic value that tells WordPress to use the email address that’s linked to your WordPress admin account. 

You can delete this dynamic text and replace it with any other email address. Simply type the new address directly into the ‘Send To Email Address’ field. 

If you want to email multiple people, then just separate each address with a comma.

You need to make sure all of the emails sent from your website go to the recipient’s email inbox and not to the spam folder. The best way to do this is by using an SMTP service provider. For more details, see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

Once you’ve finished building your WordPress booking form, it’s time to publish it. You can either create a new page, or add this form to a page that you’ve already created.

With that said, the process is exactly the same. Simply open the webpage where you want to display your booking form. Then, click on the black + icon. 

WPForms has its own block, so start typing ‘WPForms.’

When this block appears, add it to your webpage.

In your new WPForms block, click on the dropdown menu and select the booking form that you just created.

You can now update or publish your page. 

That’s it! Visit your website and you should now see your booking form in action.

Method 2. How to Create a Booking Form Using Formidable Forms

Formidable Forms is the most advanced WordPress form plugin in the market. You can use Formidable Form’s drag and drop interface to create a booking form with more advanced features such as calculations.

Formidable Forms also works great with other tools that you may already be using like MemberPress, WooCommerce, or your email service provider. 

In this post we’ll be using Formidable Forms Pro because it has a good selection of booking form templates. This makes it easy to create a user-friendly booking form for your WordPress website.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate Formidable Forms Lite, which is the free version of the plugin. Formidable Forms Lite acts as the base for the advanced features of the Pro version. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once you’ve done that, you need to go to Formidable » General Settings. Then, click on the ‘Click to enter a license key manually’ link. 

You’ll find your license key in the Downloads section of your Formidable Forms account.

You can now paste your license key into this box and click on the ‘Save License’ button.

After activating your license key, select Formidable Forms from the WordPress menu.

Then, click on the ‘Add New’ button.

You can now pick the template that you want to use. Since we’re building a booking form, you may want to focus on the Event Planning category. 

To view all of the templates in this category, start typing ‘Event Planning’ into the search field. When the Event Planning category appears, give it a click.

You can now pick the template that you want to use. We’re using the Travel Booking template in all of our screenshots. 

After choosing your template, give it a name and enter a description. Then, click on Create. This launches your template in the Formidable Forms editor.

To edit a field, give it a click. The Formidable Forms sidebar will then display all of the different settings for your chosen field.

This sidebar also has different fields that you can add to your form. You may want to use these fields to collect more information from your visitors or give them choices. For example, you might let them request a room with a sea view, or ask about their dietary requirements. 

You can also change where each field appears in your form by using drag and drop.

Once you’re happy with your design, click on Update to save your changes. 

If someone completes your booking form, then you’ll want to know about it! Just like WPForms, Formidable Forms sends email to your WordPress admin by default. 

If you prefer, then you can tell Formidable Forms to send these emails to any other address. You can even send these emails to multiple accounts.

To customize these default emails, click on the Settings tab. Then, select ‘Actions & Notifications’ from the left-hand menu.

Next, click on Send Email. This adds a new section that has all the settings you need to set up your email notifications. This includes changing the person who gets these emails, or adding more people.

The final step is adding this booking form to your WordPress website. 

At the very top of the screen, click on the Embed button. This opens a popup where you can choose to add this form to an existing page, or create a new page.

Another option is adding this form to a widget. This can be an easy way to display your booking form in your theme’s sidebar, or header. 

If you want to add your form to a widget, click on Insert Manually. Formidable Forms will then display a shortcode. You can now copy this code and paste it into any Shortcode block. 

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a booking form in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to create a free business email address, or check out our list of the must-have WordPress plugins for business websites. 

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Booking Form in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 13, 2022 at 04:00PM

How to Create a Collapsible Sidebar Menu in WordPress (The Easy Way)

Do you want to create a collapsible sidebar menu in WordPress?

A collapsible menu can give your website visitors an easy way to access a lot of links, without cluttering up your sidebar. It’s perfect for large websites, eCommerce stores, or any site that has a more complex layout. 

In this article, we will show you how to easily create a collapsible sidebar menu in WordPress.

What is a Collapsible Sidebar Menu (And When to Use One)

The most user-friendly menus provide easy access to all the links that visitors need. However, this can be tricky for sites that have lots of pages, or a more complex layout. 

Think about a large eCommerce store that has lots of product categories and subcategories, such as Amazon. 

Displaying every single product category in a standard menu wouldn’t be a good idea. Shoppers would likely need to scroll through the menu to find the category they’re interested in. 

This is where collapsible menus come in. These menus organize their content in a parent-child relationship. If the visitor clicks on a parent item in a collapsible menu, then it will expand to display all of that parent’s child content. 

The Guardian news outlet uses a collapsible menu for its mobile site.

Collapsible menus are sometimes called expandable menus. This is because their different sections expand when a visitor clicks on them. 

By default, collapsible menus hide a lot of content and complexity from visitors. This is much more user-friendly than scrolling through a long list of categories and subcategories.

That said, let’s take a look at how you can easily create a collapsible sidebar menu on your WordPress site.

How to Create a Collapsible Sidebar Menu in WordPress

You can create a collapsible sidebar menu in WordPress using the Bellows Accordion Menu plugin.

Bellows Accordion Menu provides a handy shortcode so you can place your collapsible menu on any page, post, or widget area, including your sidebar.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. 

Upon activation, go to the Appearance » Menus page in your WordPress dashboard. 

To start, type a name for your menu into the ‘Menu Name’ field. Your site visitors won’t see the name since it’s for your own reference only. You can then click on the Create Menu button. 

Next, you can choose the pages you want to add to the collapsible menu. By default, WordPress displays your most recent pages only. If you want to see a list of all your website’s pages, then click on the View All tab. 

Alternatively, you can click on Select All. This will add all of your pages to the collapsible menu.

Once you’re happy with your selection, click on the ‘Add to Menu’ button. You can also select posts, blog categories, or add custom links. For more details, please see our guide on how to add a navigation menu in WordPress.

After adding all of your different webpages to the menu, you can move them around by dragging and dropping them. This will change the order these pages appear in your collapsible menu. 

Collapsible menus are all about parent-child relationships.

When a visitor clicks a parent item in your collapsible menu, it will expand to reveal all of the child content.

To create this relationship, simply use drag and drop to arrange all of your child pages beneath their parent.

Next, grab each child and drag it a little to the right. You can then release this page. This will indent the item and turn it into a child page. 

Don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when you’re finished.

Now we want to add this collapsible menu to the WordPress sidebar. To do this, we’ll use some shortcode that Bellows Accordion creates automatically. 

To grab the shortcode, go to Appearance » Bellows Menu. If it isn’t already selected, then make sure you select the Show All tab.

You can now click on the Shortcode box, which should highlight all of the code. Now, copy this code using either the Command + c or Ctrl + c keyboard shortcut. 

The next step is pasting this shortcode into a widget, so head over to Appearance » Widgets. This will display all of the widgetized areas within your current theme. The options you see may vary, but most modern WordPress themes feature a sidebar.

Once you’ve found the sidebar area, give it a click. This section will now expand.

To add a block, click on the + icon and start typing Shortcode. When it appears, select the Shortcode block. 

Now, simply paste your collapsible menu shortcode into this block. To publish your menu, you’ll need to click on the Update button at the top of your screen. 

Now, when you visit your site you should see a new collapsible sidebar menu. 

The Bellows Accordion plugin makes it super easy to customize this default menu. For example, you might change its color scheme to better reflect your site’s branding. 

If you want to tweak the default menu, simply go to Appearance » Bellows Menu in your WordPress dashboard. 

This menu has all the settings you need to customize your collapsible menu. There are a lot of settings to explore. However, you may want to start by going to Main Configuration » Basic Configuration.

Here, you can switch between several different menu colors. You can also choose whether visitors can expand multiple submenus at once using the Accordion Folding settings. 

To change the menu’s alignment and width, click on the ‘Layout & Position’ tab.

If you’d prefer to preview your changes in real time, then you can edit the collapsible sidebar menu in the WordPress Customizer. To do this, head over to Appearance » Customize. 

In the left-hand bar, select Bellows. 

Here, you’ll find lots of different settings for your collapsible sidebar. This includes changing its width, alignment, and the color of your sidebar menu. 

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a collapsible sidebar menu in WordPress. You can also go through our guide on how to track your website visitors, and the best push notification software to grow your 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 Create a Collapsible Sidebar Menu in WordPress (The Easy Way) first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 12, 2022 at 04:00PM

How to Preload Links in WordPress for Faster Loading Speeds

Do you want to preload links in WordPress and improve loading speeds?

Link preloading is a browser technology that will load links in the background before a site visitor clicks them, making your website seem faster.

In this article, we’ll show you how to preload WordPress links for faster loading speeds easily. 

Why Preload Links in WordPress?

Link preloading is when your web browser will load the link in the background before the user clicks it. That way, the moment they get to the page, it’s already loaded. 

Improving your WordPress speed and performance is one of the most important things you can do for your site since it makes the user experience better.

Having a faster site can help to increase your blog traffic by improving your WordPress SEO. When your internal pages are preloaded, your visitors are more likely to stay on your website longer and view more pages.

Although there’s a lot more you can do to make your WordPress website faster, link preloading is very simple, and it can have big benefits for speed.

The only thing is, you’ll need to make sure you set up preloading the right way and not make the common mistakes. For example, if your settings are too aggressive and all your internal links are preloaded, then it could have the opposite effect and even crash your server altogether.

That being said, let’s show you how to preload links in WordPress the right way, step by step. 

Preloading WordPress Links and Making WordPress Faster

The easiest way to preload links is by using the Flying Pages plugin. It simply adds intelligent preloading to make sure preloading won’t crash your site or even slow it down.

If it detects any issues like that, then the plugin will stop all preloading. 

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

Upon activation, navigate to Settings » Flying Pages in your WordPress admin panel to configure the plugin settings. 

Then, you need to set the ‘Delay to start preloading’ time in the drop down. This is the delay to start preloading links if your user’s mouse isn’t moving in the browser window.

You can change this, but we’ll keep the default recommended setting of ‘0 second’.

Next, you can change the ‘Max requests per second’. The lower you set this number, the less impact it will have on your server. 

We’ll keep the default setting of ‘3 requests’ which should work for most WordPress hosting environments.

After that, you can check the box to ‘Preload only on mouse hover’. This will only preload links if a user hovers over it and will preload the page just before they click.

This technology makes the perceived load time nearly instant because there’s a 400ms delay between when the user brings their mouse over a link and clicking it.

You can also set the ‘Mouse hover delay’. This is the time that will pass after a user hovers over a link before preloading starts. 

Below that, there’s a list of keywords that the plugin will ignore for preloading.

These are standard login pages and image files. You can leave the list as it is or add more keywords if you like.

If you’re running an online store, then you may want to add pages like /cart and other dynamic pages in this list, so they are not pre-loaded.

Similarly, if you’re using an affiliate marketing plugin like ThirstyAffiliates or PrettyLinks, then it’s important that you add your affiliate prefix like /refer/ or /go/ to this ignore keywords list. Otherwise, it can break affiliate link tracking.

The final option is to disable preloading for admins.

Overall, this will help to reduce your website server load. If you want to only preload for website visitors who aren’t logged-in admins, then simply check the box.

Once you’re finished, click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page.

That it, you’ve successfully enabled link preloading on your website.

Note: If you’re running a website speed test and you don’t see your score get better, that’s completely normal. Preloading links only improves the speed of link clicking, and it doesn’t speed up the first time your site loads. 

We hope this article helped you learn how to preload links in WordPress for faster loading speeds. You may also want to see our guide on how to create an email newsletter, and our expert picks of the must have WordPress plugins for your websites. 

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Preload Links in WordPress for Faster Loading Speeds first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 11, 2022 at 04:00PM

How to Hide Featured Images on Individual Posts in WordPress

Do you want to hide the featured images on individual posts in WordPress?

There may be times when you have a featured image for a post, but instead of deleting it, you just want to hide it from your visitors.

In this article, we’ll show you how to hide featured images on individual posts in WordPress.

When and Why is Hiding Featured Images in WordPress Useful?

Almost every WordPress theme comes with built in support for displaying featured images in different areas of your website.

Some themes will even automatically use post attachments as the featured image if no image is specified. This means that it will still show a featured image even if you don’t set one.

However, you may find yourself wanting to hide the featured image in certain situations. 

For example, you might have a WordPress blog post that looks cluttered with the featured image. But, you still want the featured image to display when listed on your separate blog page.

In this case, you’ll want to hide it on your individual blog post without deleting or removing the image entirely. 

With that said, let’s show you how to hide the featured image on individual posts in WordPress, step by step.

Hiding Featured Image from Individual WordPress Posts

To easily hide featured images from WordPress posts, we recommend using the Conditionally Display Featured Image plugin. It gives you the option to hide individual featured images on WordPress posts. 

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

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

Simply go to Posts » All Posts and click on the post that you want to open.

Then, on the post edit screen, you’ll see a box that says ‘Display featured image in posts lists only, hide on singular views’ directly under the featured image.

To hide the featured image, simply check this box and then click the ‘Update’ button to save your changes. 

After that, you can view your post, and you’ll notice the featured image is hidden. Even if there’s a featured image assigned to the post, it won’t display.

This plugin does not delete or unset the feature image. It only hides it on the front end of your WordPress website. If you ever want to show the featured image again, simply edit the post and uncheck the hide featured image box. 

If you happen to be using custom post types with featured image support, the plugin will let you hide those featured images too.

We hope this article helped you learn how to hide featured images on individual posts in WordPress. You may also want to see our step by step guide on how to create an email newsletter and our expert picks of the best AI chatbots software for 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 Hide Featured Images on Individual Posts in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 09, 2022

6 Best Auto Dialer Software for Small Business in 2022 (Compared)

Are you looking for the best auto dialer software for your small business?

Auto dialer software can help to improve business communication by making your sales and customer support teams more productive.

In this article, we’ve hand-picked some of the best auto dialer software that you can use along with your WordPress site.

When Do You Need to Use Auto Dialer Software?

Auto dialer software can help your business save time by dialing numbers automatically and streamlining workflows. Once your call is answered, the software will automatically connect one of your available team members. 

Instead of wasting time with manual dialing, your team can focus on delivering a great customer experience and spend more time converting new leads into long-term customers. 

Many auto dialer solutions also include standard business phone, call center, and CRM features, so you can handle all of your business communication needs from one place.

Using auto dialer software can also help ensure your business is compliant with federal regulations when you’re doing cold-calling and cell phone calling campaigns. 

There are all kinds of reasons to use automatic dialing software in your business:

• Make your sales reps more effective by minimizing the time between calls
• Help your customer service team assist a larger number of users
• Reach out to potential nonprofit donors 
• Notify your contacts about an upcoming event
• Canvas for political campaigns

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best auto dialer software that you can use with your small business website.

1. Nextiva

Nextiva is one of the best business phone services in the market, and this is why we use it in on WPBeginner and our our other companies.

It offers a unique click-to-call solution that lets your team instantly dial phone numbers and call new leads with the click of a button.

Nextiva seamlessly integrates with all the most popular small business CRMs in the market like HubSpot, Zendesk, Zoho, Salesforce, and more. 

With these integrations, you can make phone calls directly from your preferred CRM software. 

Basically, it turns your current CRM into an outbound call center solution. You can organize and segment your lists within your CRM, then make calls by clicking a button.

This helps to save your team time from dialing numbers manually and moving between different software. Plus, you can view all of your contact data that’s already present in your CRM to improve the quality of your calls.

Note: we use Nextiva on WPBeginner as our business phone service. In our experience, it’s the best business phone service from pricing and features. 

With Nextiva, you also get access to all of the standard business phone features like voice and video calling, video conferencing, SMS messaging, faxing, screen sharing, automatic call routing and callback, and more.

Aside from that, they have several other really powerful features for outbound sales including the ability for your live agent to visually track and manage the entire sales process pipeline, implement automated follow up notifications via email, detailed analytics through call monitoring, and many more.

So if you’re a small business, you can use these smart tools to improve your lead generation efforts, boost sales, and drive more revenue.

Even large business that are using a call center software use Nextiva for their omnichannel communication needs because it seamlessly integrates with their various systems while offering powerful features for call center agents to maximize productivity.

Expert Review: Nextiva is the best business phone solution for most businesses. You can use the click to call solution plus all of the business phone features to easily manage all of your business phone needs.

It’s affordable too and starts at $20.95 per user per month, and annual contracts aren’t required. 

You’ll need at least the Professional plan to access the CRM integration features. Discounts are also available by adding more users to your plan or buying pre-paid packages. 

2. RingCentral

RingCentral is one of the best business VoIP providers in the market used by over 400,000 businesses.

It has all the features you need to run a call center, manage your business phone system, and simplify your sales and customer support process.

RingCentral offers multiple auto dialing options including a progressive dialer, previewing dialing, and predictive dialing. Predictive dialing lets you dial multiple numbers at once and uses algorithms to route the call to the next available agent. 

It’s also one of the best auto dialing solutions for reducing your risk of regulatory violations.

If you’re going to be doing large-scale telemarketing campaigns, then this tool will help to ensure your business remains compliant with Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) guidelines. 

For example, it has built-in features to ensure you’re only calling within specific time windows, avoiding the do not call list (DNC), calling cell phones safely, and more. 

You can create custom automatic call scripts for different scenarios and can customize these scripts using the included drag and drop builder. This is also known as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and is very helpful during busy times.

RingCentral also offers specific solutions for businesses across various industries like tech, retail, healthcare, financial, education, real estate, and more. 

Beyond the automatic dialing software, you also get access to common business phone and contact center solutions like unlimited calling, caller ID, call forwarding, SMS, live chat, call tracking, call distribution, and others. 

There’s also a 99.999% uptime guarantee, so your team will never drop an important call. 

Expert review: We believe that RingCentral is one of the best phone solutions for business owners with scaling businesses. 

It starts at $19.99 per month per user when billed annually. There’s also a 15-day free trial you can use to test out the software and see if it’s a good fit.

3. PhoneBurner

PhoneBurner is an auto dialing software used by companies like Remax and powers over 11 million monthly conversations. It’s a cloud-based software that uses VoIP to make calls, so it can be accessed anywhere and is an excellent solution for remote teams.

Even though the software caters to remote teams, the call quality is the same as a landline. 

The auto dialing functionality can help your sales team make up to 80 calls every hour. This is a great way to make your sales team more effective and close more deals. 

It includes advanced lead management features, so you can sort leads by location, tags, last time called, and more. 

Another time-saving feature is the unlimited prerecorded voicemails. As soon as they reach someone’s voicemail, they can leave a prerecorded message with a single click. Plus, follow up text messages and emails can be sent in real-time within the software during busy signal.

PhoneBurner also includes an integrated sales CRM, so you can manage your contact list and leads without the need for an external CRM.

If you’re already using a CRM, then you can easily integrate with software like Zoom, HubSpot, Salesforce, Constant Contact, FreshDesk, and more. 

There’s also an open API, so you can develop an integration with nearly every CRM even if the integration isn’t currently available.

Expert Review: PhoneBurner is a great solution for companies who don’t have a CRM and want an integrated easy to use CRM.

The phone solution isn’t as robust as Nextiva, but for those who need an advanced auto dialer it could be a great choice.

The pricing is very straightforward and costs $149 per user per month when paid yearly. There are also discounts available when you purchase a yearly plan.

4. Voicent

Voicent is one of the top auto dialer providers that offers flexible plans for businesses of all sizes.

Many providers simply charge a single flat rate, regardless of how much you use the service. Instead, Voicent offers flexible pricing based on your call volume. This is great for businesses who only need to use an auto dialer during the holiday season or other peak times of the year. 

One of the main features of this software is prerecorded auto dialing. This makes it easy to send out recorded messages to a list of contacts. Your message can be in your voice, or you can use the computer-generated voice included with the software. 

Beyond the auto dialing features, you’ll find everything you need to manage outbound and inbound calls, SMS messages, emails, and more. 

There’s also a built-in CRM to help you automatically track your leads and customers and streamline your customer follow up process.

Expert Review: Voicent is one of the best providers for sending prerecorded messages to your list of contacts.

The pricing is affordable and starts at $19 per user per month when paid yearly and $29 per user per month when paid monthly. This makes it one of the cheapest options for businesses on a budget. 

Addons like caller ID, workflow automation, and inbound call center features cost extra. However, there is a 30-day free trial you can use to test out the software and see if it’s right for your business. 

5. CallHub

CallHub is an all in one auto dialer solution for small businesses. It’s commonly used by nonprofits and political campaigns like the American Red Cross, Sierra Club, the Bernie Sanders campaign, and more. 

This tool has built-in templates for different use cases, so you can improve your voter outreach process, recruit volunteers, make fundraising and donations easier, and more. 

The automatic dialing software includes a variety of dialing modes like predictive dialing, robo dialing, preview dialing, and a power dialer. The robo dialer features are commonly used for telemarketing and political campaigns.

Simply upload your list of contacts and begin dialing. There’s a caller ID feature included that will automatically display a local number based on your contact’s area code. 

Expert Review: CallHub is one of the best solutions for nonprofits and political campaigns who want to save time with the built-in workflows. 

It’s not as flexible as Nextiva, but for certain use cases it would be a good solution for your business.

Plus, there’s a Lite version available that lets you test the software for free, and you can add on the auto dialer feature for $99 per month.

Paid plans start at $199 per month and includes auto dialing, predictive dialing, power dialing, and support for unlimited contacts and agents. 

6. Five9

Five9 is one of the most well known auto dialer solutions that’s been around for over 20 years. It’s used by big brands like DoorDash, Lululemon, Fitbit, and more.

The auto dialer software supports predictive dialing, progressive dialing, power dialing, and a preview dialer. The preview dialer feature shows your agents important information about the customer before they hop on the call.

The predictive dialer can help to increase your agent productivity and talk time by 300%. Instead of waiting for unanswered calls, the predictive algorithm will only connect your agents once a live person is on the phone. 

It can also be customized based on your contact’s time zone and list penetration, which will help to keep your business compliant with regulations. 

You can choose the type of auto dialer that works best for your business and set it up in a couple of clicks. 

The software also includes standard auto dialer features like agent scripting, answering machine detection, automated voicemail, local caller ID, live call recording, and more. 

Expert Review: Five9 is an advanced solution that can power a call center for thousands of agents. 

It caters to large scale businesses, so it might not be the best fit for your WordPress businesses.

The pricing for Five9 is not available online. To get pricing information unique to your business needs, you’ll need to contact their team. 

Which is the Best Auto Dialer Software for Your Team?

All of the above software are great auto dialing solutions you can use to improve the productivity of your customer service, sales, and marketing teams. 

We believe that Nextiva is the best business phone software for small businesses. Although it doesn’t offer strict auto dialing features, the one click calling and easy CRM integration can help improve your sales process and deepen customer relationships.

Plus, it has all the features you need to manage your onichannel communication like live chat, SMS, business phone, free toll-free numbers, and much more.

If you want an alternative to Nextiva, then RingCentral is another excellent choice. Not only is it one of the top business VoIP providers, but it offers industry-leading predictive dialing and all the tools your business needs to remain compliant.

If you’re primarily a remote team, then PhoneBurner can be a great way to streamline the workflow of your sales and customer support staff.

Finally, those who run nonprofits or political campaigns will find a lot of useful features and built-in workflows with CallHub. 

We hope this article helped you find the best auto dialer software for your small business. You may also want to see our guide on how to get an email domain and our expert picks of the best email marketing services for small business.

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 6 Best Auto Dialer Software for Small Business in 2022 (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 08, 2022 at 03:00PM

How to Bulk Schedule Posts in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to bulk schedule posts in WordPress?

WordPress comes with everything you need to schedule posts, but what if you wanted to quickly schedule multiple drafts at once? Bulk scheduling comes in handy when you have lots of different articles waiting to be published.

In this article, we will show you how to bulk schedule posts in WordPress, using a free plugin.

When Do You Need to Bulk Schedule WordPress Posts?

If you are the single author creating and managing content on your blog, then you can easily schedule your blog posts using the default post scheduling feature in WordPress.

To schedule a post, simply select the Post tab in the right sidebar. Then, click on the Publish field. This opens a calendar where you can schedule this post.

You can even see all of your scheduled posts in the WordPress dashboard.

To do this, go to Posts » All Posts. You can then click on the Scheduled tab. This shows a list of all your upcoming posts, with their scheduled publication dates.

Note: Are your scheduled posts sometimes failing to publish? See our guide on how to fix the ‘Missed Schedule’ post error in WordPress.

However, if you need to schedule multiple posts, then it can get a bit time-consuming.

With the built-in WordPress scheduling feature you need to open each post individually and then pick your publication date and time.

By adding a bulk schedule feature to WordPress, you can quickly and easily schedule lots of posts at once. This leaves you with more time to spend on increasing traffic and growing your WordPress blog.

You might also want a bulk scheduling feature if you have a multi-author blog. When you’re working with lots of different writers, a clear schedule can keep everyone on track.

With that said, let’s take a look at how to easily bulk schedule posts in WordPress.

Bulk Scheduling WordPress Posts (Step by Step Guide)

The easiest way to bulk schedule posts in WordPress is by using the Editorial Calendar plugin. It’s a free WordPress plugin that lets you create a schedule using simple drag and drop. 

This plugin adds a calendar view where you can see all of your scheduled posts, and build your content calendar.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Editorial Calendar plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to Posts » Calendar. You should now see the calendar view.

Towards the upper right of the screen, click on the ‘Show Unscheduled Drafts’ link. This opens a sidebar displaying all of your unscheduled drafts. When the sidebar is showing, the link changes to say ‘Hide Unscheduled Drafts’.

Next, grab the draft that you want to add to your schedule. You can now drop this post onto any day in your calendar.

By default, the Editorial Calendar will schedule this post for 9am.

If you want to publish at a different time, then simply hover over the post. Then, click on the Quick Edit link.

This launches the Editorial Calendar popup.

In the dropdown, you can change when the post will go live.

You can now repeat these steps, to bulk schedule all of your drafts.

How to Change Your Schedule Using Drag and Drop

In a perfect world, you would create your schedule once and then stick to it.

In reality, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes you may need to make changes to your schedule or remove a post from the schedule completely.

If you want to change the date when a post is set to go live, then you can simply grab the post in your calendar and drag it onto the new date.

To remove a scheduled post, click on the ‘Show Unscheduled Drafts’ link in the upper right corner. You can now drag and drop your post onto the ‘Unscheduled Drafts’ sidebar. 

This is the best way to remove a post from your schedule.

When hovering over a post in the calendar view, you may have noticed a Delete link. This doesn’t just remove the post from your calendar – it sends the post itself to your Trash folder.

If you want to remove a post from your schedule without completely deleting it, then always use the ‘Unscheduled Drafts’ sidebar. 

How to Create and Bulk Schedule New Drafts With Editorial Calendar

If you like to brainstorm content ideas, then Editorial Calendar can help you out.

Another way to bulk schedule drafts in WordPress using the Editorial Calendar plugin is to create new drafts in the calendar view. You can then move these empty drafts around the calendar.

This trick can also come in handy if you work with multiple authors. Simply use the calendar view to create drafts for all of your planned posts, and then assign these drafts to your authors.  

In this way, you can make sure everyone knows exactly what they’re working on, and when those posts are due.

To create a new post, simply hover over the day when you plan to publish this content. Then, click on the New Post link when it appears. 

This opens a popup. To start, type a name for your post into the Title field.

You can also choose the time when WordPress will publish this content.

You can always change the date and time later, so don’t worry about getting this right the first time around.

The Status dropdown is set to Draft by default. This means that the Editorial Calendar will create a draft without setting it to go live automatically at your chosen date and time.

If you want WordPress to publish this post automatically, then open the Status dropdown and choose Scheduled. 

This popup even has a Content area where you can write your post. 

The Content area doesn’t include the formatting settings you get with the full WordPress post editor, but it’s good for adding a quick summary of what the post should cover.

If you need to use the full WordPress editor, then Editorial Calendar has a handy shortcut. Simply hover over the post in the calendar view. Then, click on the Edit link.

This will open the post in the standard WordPress editor. Another option is to head over to Posts » All Posts. You can now find your new draft, and open it for editing.

We hope this article helped you to learn how to schedule WordPress posts in bulk. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free email domain, or our expert pick of the best HR payroll software for small business.

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 Bulk Schedule Posts in WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 07, 2022 at 05:00PM