How to Set a Default Featured Image in WordPress (Easy Way)

Do you want to set a default featured image in WordPress?

Many themes use featured images (a.k.a post thumbnails) to make your content look more appealing and attention-grabbing. But finding the right featured image for each post can be time-consuming, and if you forget to add a featured image, then your posts might look incomplete.

In this article, we will show you how to fix that by setting a default featured image in WordPress.

Why Set a Default Featured Image in WordPress?

Featured images, sometimes known as thumbnail images, are the primary image for your WordPress posts and pages.

All popular WordPress themes come with built-in support for featured images.

However, you may sometimes forget to upload a featured image to your posts. If you have other authors posting on your site, then they may not realize the importance and skip over adding a featured image.

WordPress themes typically use featured images in multiple different areas. If you forget to add a featured image, then you may end up with lots of gaps in your website’s design including in important places like your blog archive or homepage.

For example, in the following image you can see that OptinMonster shows featured images on their blog index.

People also find images more engaging than plain text. Posts that don’t have a featured image may get less traffic and lower conversion rates.

With that in mind, it’s a good idea to set a default featured image in WordPress. This gives your site something to show when no featured image is available.

To make it easy for you, we have created quick jump links for the sections:

• How to set a default featured image in WordPress
• How to set a default featured image for social media sharing

How to Set a Default Featured Image in WordPress

The easiest way to set a default featured image is by using the Default Featured Image plugin. This plugin adds a new setting to the WordPress Media page where you can upload a fallback featured image.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the

Default Featured Image plugin. If you need help, then please see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, head over to Settings » Media. Once you’ve done that, just click on the ‘Select default featured image’ button.

You can now either choose an image from the WordPress media library or upload a new file.

After choosing your fallback, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on ‘Save Changes.’

WordPress will now use the image that you selected as your default thumbnail for any posts or pages where you don’t provide a featured image.

You can change the default image at any point by repeating the same process above.

If you no longer want to use a default featured image, then simply go to Settings » Media. Then just click on the ‘Don’t use a default featured image’ button.

Don’t forget to click on ‘Save Changes’ when you’re done.

How to Set a Default Featured Image for Social Media

Social media platforms are a great place to reach new readers, build a following, and get more people to visit your site. To do this, you’ll need to post interesting and engaging content to your social media accounts.

The featured image that’s shared alongside your post can also encourage more people to visit your site.

However, social media sites don’t automatically display your featured image when you share your content. Sometimes they’ll even show the wrong thumbnail, here’s how to fix the incorrect thumbnail issue in WordPress.

With that in mind, you may also want to set a default featured image for the different social media platforms. These platforms will then use this fallback for any posts that are shared without a unique featured image.

To do this, we recommend using All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin.

AIOSEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress in the market used by over 3 million websites including WPBeginner. It offers the most beginner friendly and comprehensive SEO toolkit to help you fine-tune your WordPress blog or website for the search engines.

For this post, we’ll be using the free version of AIOSEO.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin in WordPress. For more details, please see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will launch the setup wizard. To configure the plugin, simply click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button and follow the onscreen instructions. If you need help, then please refer to our guide on how to properly set up All in One SEO in WordPress.

Once you’ve done that, go to All in One SEO » Social Networks.

You will now see tabs for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can use these tabs to set a unique default image for these different platforms.

As an example, let’s see how you can set a default featured image for Facebook. To get started, click on the ‘Facebook’ tab.

After that, open the ‘Default Post Image Source’ dropdown.

You can then choose ‘Default Image (Set Below).’

Next find the ‘Default Post Facebook Image’ section.

Here you’ll see some tips on how to make sure your image looks great when people share it on Facebook.

For more information, please see our complete social media cheat sheet for WordPress.

To set your default featured image, click on the ‘Upload or Select Image’ button.

This opens the WordPress media library. You can now either choose an image from your media library, or upload a new file.

Finally, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button. After completing this step, Facebook will use this image whenever there’s no featured image available.

To set a default image for Twitter or Pinterest, simply click on the ‘Twitter’ or ‘Pinterest’ tab. You can then choose a fallback image following the same process described above.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set a default featured image in WordPress using a plugin. You may also want to check out our guide on how to choose the best web design software and the best drag and drop WordPress page builders compared.

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 Set a Default Featured Image in WordPress (Easy Way) first appeared on WPBeginner.

May 07, 2022 at 12:00PM

21 Best WordPress Full Site Editing Themes of 2022 (Mostly Free)

Are you looking for the best full site editing WordPress themes?

Full Site Editing (FSE) in WordPress gives you more control over your website design. It offers custom blocks for styling your website’s header, footer, sidebar, and other sections.

In this article, we will share some of the best WordPress full site editing themes for your site.

What is WordPress Full Site Editing (FSE)?

Full Site Editing (FSE) is a set of modern features for the default WordPress Block Editor. It was first released in WordPress 5.9.

Previously, the WordPress Block Editor allowed you to add and customize the layout of content within your pages and blog posts. The rest of your website’s layout and design was determined by your WordPress theme.

Now, WordPress full site editing lets you completely change the theme layout and add new sections to your website, without writing any code. You can also add site-wide global styles that apply to your entire website or individual styles for specific WordPress pages or posts.

The styling options include color schemes, font settings, layout spacing, image borders, and more.

However, you can only use full-site editing features if your theme supports them.

Below you’ll find our hand-picked list of the best full-site editing (FSE) themes for WordPress.

1. SeedProd

SeedProd is one of the most popular WordPress theme builders. It lets you design a custom website template from scratch, without writing code.

SeedProd is different from other themes on this list because it’s actually a plugin that includes its own easy drag and drop builder, instead of relying on the built-in FSE features. This gives you more flexibility and control over your theme’s design.

You can easily create a header, footer, page templates, post layouts, and WooCommerce pages for your website. It also comes with ready-made custom blocks to add content to different sections of your WordPress site, plus a library of 2+ million free stock images.

To help you get started, SeedProd provides dozens of theme and page layouts. These built-in theme templates give you a quick start to set up your website for any business niche. You can also start with a blank template and create your own design from scratch.

For step-by-step instructions and examples, you can see our guide on how to create a custom WordPress theme from scratch.

2. Divi

Divi is an excellent WordPress theme and page builder. It works with the WordPress block editor and supports full site editing to create a website for your business or professional blog.

The Divi Builder is powerful and works with all the popular WordPress themes for easy customization.

Its visual builder functionality gives you the flexibility to make real-time changes to your website’s background, colors, font, and images. And, if you don’t like the new look, you can always also undo or redo changes to go back where you started.

Divi Theme comes with hundreds of layout packs. These website layouts are fully functional and easy to import to your site with 1 click.

The best part about the Divi layout packs is that they include complete pages and content. That means you can quickly launch your site without having to create everything from scratch yourself.

3. Astra

Astra is the most popular WordPress theme on the market. It’s super flexible and works with all popular WordPress page builder plugins, including Beaver Builder, Elementor Pro, and Visual Composer.

The theme comes with a built-in header and footer builder. It gives you full site editing options with custom blocks for your website’s header and footer.

Astra offers dozens of starter themes, so you can easily find a theme for your business website. And, these templates seamlessly work with popular WordPress theme builders like SeedProd for easy customization.

4. Ultra

Ultra is a modern WordPress multipurpose theme built by Themify. It also offers a WordPress visual builder for a custom header, footer, and site-wide layouts.

The theme gives you complete control to show or hide any element from the header or footer. It also comes with page and post layouts, background options, custom fonts, and beautiful color schemes.

Themify Builder Pro tool included with Ultra lets you create a custom theme template with your choice of header, footer, page, post, search page, and WooCommerce pages. You can create global theme styles or design individual page templates for different categories on your site.

5. Neve

Neve is a fantastic WordPress theme for any kind of website. It’s fast and lightweight and comes with flexible full site editing options, including custom blocks and layout options.

It has a drag and drop header and footer builder to add, remove, and move elements easily. Also, the layout options allow you to choose from a full-width or sidebar layout.

The theme supports WordPress page builders out of the box. And, Neve has hundreds of starter templates that you can import to your site and customize with your favorite page builder plugin to launch a website.

6. Guten Theme

Guten Theme is a modern WordPress theme built specifically for the WordPress block editor. It comes with built-in layouts for the header, footer, and blog page to easily set up a website using the WordPress customizer.

The theme also works with popular page builder plugins like Elementor Pro. You can use the page builder to fully control the complete website layout and design, including your theme’s background, colors, and fonts.  

7. Clove

Clove is a free and beautiful WordPress full site editing theme. It comes with an elegant layout that features an eye-catching homepage design, natural colors, and a minimalistic design.

The theme offers ready-made block templates and design options. It’s easy to manage these settings with global styles and the WordPress block editor.

8. Felt LT

Felt LT is a premium quality WordPress magazine theme. It comes with widget-ready areas on the homepage and multiple useful widgets to add content to the front page.

The theme has full site editing support with a built-in style manager. It lets you customize global styles for your WordPress site, including colors, borders, buttons, and layouts with a few clicks.

9. Hestia Pro

Hestia Pro is a stylish WordPress one-page theme. It comes with a few ready-made templates for small businesses that you can quickly import to launch your site.

With built-in support for WordPress page builders, you can fully customize your theme layout. It also lets you change the header style to add a custom background video or image slider. And, you can apply this option to your entire site or make it limited to the homepage.

10. Naledi

Naledi is a free WordPress and WooCommerce full site editing theme. It has a beautiful homepage layout with a full-width header background image, welcome text, and a call-to-action button.

The theme lets you make changes to the global styles to control the look and design of your site. And, the style options also appear on your WooCommerce shop pages without any extra work.

11. BlockPress

Blockpress is a free WordPress block theme. It supports full site editing options with global styles, custom blocks, and a site manager.

The theme works with eCommerce plugins to start an online store. It’s also translation-ready and supports RTL languages to create a multilingual website.

12. Archeo

Archeo is a free WordPress theme built specifically for archeology, history, and cultural websites. It comes with a classic vintage font style on the homepage and other landing pages.

There’s a fullscreen background image that you can change with the block editor. The Archeo theme supports full site editing with site-wide blocks and global style options.

13. Hive

Hive is a black and white WordPress magazine theme. It’s beautifully crafted with a magazine-style website layout including a custom logo, navigation menu, featured posts, and social icons.

The theme has a bold look with full-width and multi-column sections on the homepage. It supports page builders to add new landing pages and customize global elements on the theme easily.

14. Stewart

Stewart is a free and minimalist WordPress theme for bloggers, writers, and authors. It comes with a two-column layout with a sidebar on the left and your content on the right side of the screen.

It comes with a default color scheme for the WordPress blog theme. However, you can use the full site editing features to customize global colors styles, font styles, and background options.

15. Bricksy

Bricksy is a premium-style but free WordPress theme. It has a modern and stylish homepage layout, including eye-catching font styles and image choices in the top section.

It fully supports the block editor and has drag and drop features for you to design your website pages with. You can use the full site editing options to manage global website styles or individual page settings.

16. Tove

Tove is a multi-color free WordPress theme with support for the modern full site editing features. It’s specifically built for cafes, restaurants, and coffee shops.

The theme comes with dozens of block patterns for the header, footer, and site-wide layout. These custom blocks are easy-to-use on your entire site globally or to customize specific pages and posts.

17. Julia

Julia is an attractive and beautiful WordPress food blog theme. It comes with a magazine-style layout for food bloggers, chefs, restaurants, and cafes.

The theme is perfect to start your food blog. It fully supports the modern WordPress block editor and full site editing options to customize the theme design in real-time.

18. Hansen

Hansen is a simple and free WordPress blog theme. It offers a fully custom block theme template and supports full site editing out of the box.

The theme features include a full-width layout, beautiful color scheme, custom background, and more. It comes with global styles and block patterns to customize your site without editing code.

19. Aino

Aino is an advanced WordPress theme with bold colors and classic font styles. It comes with a block plugin to create custom page layouts with built-in block patterns and a site manager.

The theme is easy to customize with full site editing features. You can use a single-column, two-column, or three-column layout on the entire site or individual pages as per your requirements.

20. Kemet

Kemet is a fast and reliable WordPress theme. It’s designed specifically for personal blogs, portfolio sites, and small online business stores.

The default theme’s color and font styles are highly attractive. Kemet provides built-in theme templates, template parts, and custom blocks to edit your website’s header, footer, and site-wide settings easily.

21. Rosa2

Rosa2 is a premium WordPress food blog and restaurant theme. It comes with a powerful visual editor and custom blocks ideally built for restaurants and cafes.

The theme has an eye-catching design with a fullscreen homepage header layout. It gives you the flexibility to customize colors and fonts to match your global website layout.

We hope this article has helped you find the best WordPress full site editing themes. You may also want to check out our guide on how to create a free business email address, or our expert pick of the best auto-dialer 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 21 Best WordPress Full Site Editing Themes of 2022 (Mostly Free) first appeared on WPBeginner.

May 06, 2022 at 04:00PM

How to Find Your Saved Drafts in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide)

Are you trying to find your saved drafts in WordPress?

Most of the time it’s easy to find your drafted posts and pages, but sometimes they can go missing.

In this article, we will share several ways to find your saved drafts in WordPress.

Why Can’t You Find Your Saved Drafts in WordPress?

When you’re getting started with your WordPress site, it takes time to learn the admin area. 

You might save a draft, and then move on to another task. Then when you want to continue working on that draft, you may struggle to find your post. 

It may be in a place you don’t expect, or it may have been accidentally deleted, especially if you have a multi-author blog with other users who have access to your drafts.

If you can’t find your draft, don’t panic. Even if it was deleted, there are still ways to get it back.

In this guide, we will cover five different ways to find your saved drafts in WordPress. If you prefer to jump straight to a particular method, then you can use the links below.

• Check the Quick Draft Box for Missing Drafts
• Find Missing Drafts in the WordPress Pages and Posts Menus
• Use the Direct Link to View all Your WordPress Post Drafts
• Check Your WordPress Trash for Missing Drafts
• Check Your WordPress Database to Recover Lost Drafts

Check the Quick Draft Box for Missing Drafts

If you used the Quick Draft tool in the dashboard, then your drafts may seem to vanish when you click on the ‘Save Draft’ button.

If you recently created the draft, then you should still be able to find it in your WordPress Dashboard. 

Simply click on ‘Dashboard’ in the left-hand menu and find the Quick Draft box. You’ll see all of your most recent drafts in this box.

To carry on working on any of these drafts, simply click on its blue title.

If the Quick Draft section is missing, then you can bring it back by clicking on the Screen Options tab on the top right of the page.

Just make sure the ‘Quick Draft’ checkbox is checked, and it should reappear.

Find Missing Drafts in the WordPress Pages and Posts Menus

Another easy way to find your saved drafts in your WordPress blog is to head over to Posts » All Posts for your posts, or Pages » All Pages for pages.

Once you’ve done that, you should see a ‘Drafts’ tab.

After clicking on the Drafts tab, you’ll see all of your saved draft posts.

You can now see options to edit, trash, or preview any of these posts by hovering your mouse over the draft.

Use the Direct Link to View all Your WordPress Post Drafts

Another option is to jump straight to the ‘Drafts’ screen using a direct link.

To start, make sure you’re logged into your WordPress dashboard. For more information, please see our guide on how to find your WordPress login URL.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to add some text to the end of your website’s URL. This text will be different depending on whether you want to see your drafted posts or pages. 

To find all of your drafted posts, add the following to the end of your website’s URL:

/wp-admin/edit.php?post_status=draft&post_type=post

For example, if your website’s URL was ‘www.example.com’ then you would need to paste the following into your browser’s address bar:

https://ift.tt/OjCEva2

Then just press the Enter key on your keyboard. You will now be redirected to a screen showing all your drafted WordPress posts.

To see all of your drafted pages instead, add the following to the end of your website’s URL and press Enter:

/wp-admin/edit.php?post_status=draft&post_type=page

Once you’ve done that, WordPress will show a screen containing all of your drafted pages.

Check Your WordPress Trash for Missing Drafts

Have you checked the ‘Drafts’ tab, but still can’t find your drafted page or post?

If a draft is missing, there’s a chance it may have been deleted by accident. If you’ve added other WordPress users or authors to your site, then it’s possible someone else may have deleted your draft.

Luckily, WordPress makes it easy to restore deleted posts and pages.

Just like your computer, WordPress moves deleted items into a ‘Trash’ folder. These pages and posts will no longer show up in your ‘Drafts’ tab, but they’re not deleted permanently right away.

By default, WordPress will keep items in the trash folder for 30 days. If you want to change how often your trash is emptied, then please see our guide on how to limit or disable the trash being automatically emptied in WordPress.

To look inside your trash folder, either go to Pages » All Pages, or Posts » All Posts.

Once you’ve done that, simply click on the ‘Trash’ tab.

Here you’ll find all your deleted posts or pages. If you see your missing draft, then hover your mouse over it.

After that, just click on the ‘Restore’ link. 

Now, you can find this drafted page or post in your ‘Drafts’ tab following the same process described above.

Check Your WordPress Database to Recover Lost Drafts

Can’t find the missing draft in your WordPress ‘Trash’ folder?

Another option is to check your WordPress database. You can’t recover the deleted draft using this method, but you can get its content.

Once you do, then you can copy and paste it into a new draft in your WordPress admin area.

This method is more advanced, so it isn’t recommended for absolute beginners.

If you decide to go ahead with this method, then it’s a good idea to create a backup. Backups allow you to quickly restore your WordPress site in case something bad was to happen. You can see our expert pick of the best WordPress backup plugins to get started.

To reach your WordPress database, you’ll first need to log into your web hosting account. This is usually supplied by your WordPress hosting provider.

For example, if you’re a Bluehost customer then you just need to log into your cPanel dashboard.

Once you’ve logged into your control panel, look for any ‘phpMyAdmin’ settings. For Bluehost customers, you need to click on Advanced » phpMyAdmin in the left-hand menu.

You can then click on the ‘Databases’ tab.

In the left-hand menu, find the name of your WordPress database.

NOTE: If you’re not sure what your database name is, then you can find this information in your wp-config.php file.

In the left-hand menu find an option that has ‘posts’ in its name. Then, click to select this option. You will now see all of your WordPress posts and pages.

Next, find the draft that you want to restore.

You can then go ahead and click on its ‘Edit’ button.

Once you’ve done that, phpMyAdmin will show this draft in HTML format.

To restore this draft, simply copy everything in the ‘post_content’ section.

Now it’s time to switch back to your WordPress admin screen. Here, you can create a new WordPress page or post.

In the upper-right corner, click on the icon that shows a line of dots.

After that, click on ‘Code editor.’

This will open this page or post in the WordPress code editor. 

Now simply paste the HTML code you copied in the previous step. Once you’ve done that, click on ‘Exit code editor.’ 

You’ll now see all of the content you copied from your WordPress database. To check how this draft will look to the people who visit your website, click on the ‘Preview’ button.

You can now work on this draft in the WordPress editor. For example, you’ll want to give your new draft an SEO-friendly title and add a focus keyphrase. 

We hope this article helped you learn how to find your saved drafts in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to add keywords and meta descriptions in WordPress, and see our expert pick of the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools that you should use.

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

The post How to Find Your Saved Drafts in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide) first appeared on WPBeginner.

May 05, 2022 at 04:00PM