Do you want to change the footer message in your WordPress admin panel?
The default footer in the WordPress dashboard simply states that the site has been made with WordPress and displays the version number. You may want to change that so you can credit yourself for developing the theme, advertise a pro version of a plugin, or even add support links for your clients.
In this article, we will show you how to change the footer in the WordPress admin panel.
Why Change the Admin Panel Footer?
The default footer in your WordPress website‘s admin area is basic and doesn’t really serve a purpose for most users.
It has a link to the WordPress home page and displays the version of WordPress you’re currently running. If there’s an update available, the footer link will change to let you get it and update your site.
That’s it, though. You can change it to have links back to your own site, provide some helpful links for your users, or just remove it entirely since the space isn’t seen all that often anyway.
With that in mind, let’s dig in and see how to change the WordPress admin footer two different ways.
Changing the Footer in the WordPress Admin with WPCode
To change the footer in the admin dashboard, we’re going to insert a code snippet into our theme’s functions.php file.
Normally, we only recommend pasting code snippets into your WordPress core files for advanced users because even a slight mistake can break your site. Plus, if you update your theme, any changes to the functions.php file will be erased.
First, you will need to install and activate WPCode. For detailed instructions, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once that’s done, go to Code Snippets » Add Snippet in the admin dashboard’s left-hand menu.
Simply search for ‘footer’ and hover your mouse over the entry titled ‘Change Admin Panel Footer Text.’
Then, all you need to do is click the ‘Use snippet’ button.
Next, you’ll be taken to the Edit Snippet screen. WPCode automatically configures settings for snippets that you add from the library.
Next, you just need to change the footer text on Line 5 to whatever you want the new content to say. You will need to use HTML if you intend to include links or anything other than plain text.
When you’ve changed the footer text to your liking, just toggle the switch to ‘Active’ and click the ‘Update’ button.
The new admin panel footer will now be live on your site. It will vary based on your specific changes, but the default WPCode snippet looks like this:
If you like how this code snippet works, you can take a look at the WPCode snippet library found at Code Snippets »Library to see everything that comes included for free with the plugin.
WPCode’s built-in library has dozens of pre-configured snippets. You can probably replace single-use plugins you have on your site. For example, WPCode can disable the WordPress REST API, WP Admin Bar, or media attachment pages.
Method 2. Changing the Footer in WordPress Admin Manually
Another method to change the footer in the WordPress admin is by adding code to your theme’s functions.php file. We recommend this for advanced users only, as even a small mistake can break your site.
First, you will need to connect to your site via FTP or through your WordPress hosting provider’s file manager. Then, head to your site’s /wp-content/themes/your_theme/ directory.
Then you just need to edit the file. You can open it in a plain-text editor like Notepad, or you can use the built-in editor if your host provides one.
Simply copy and paste this code into the functions.php file.
add_filter(
'admin_footer_text',
function ( $footer_text ) {
// Edit the line below to customize the footer text.
$footer_text = 'Powered by <a href="https://www.wordpress.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WordPress</a> | WordPress Tutorials: <a href="https://www.wpbeginner.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WPBeginner</a>';
return $footer_text;
}
);
Be sure to change the HTML in the starts with $footer_text in the sample code to whatever you want as your new admin footer.
Finally, save your file. You should see the new footer in your admin right away.
Do you want to submit your WordPress site to Bing Webmaster Tools?
Bing is among the top search engines in the world. Submitting your site to its webmaster tool helps you monitor your site’s performance and keyword rankings and fix indexing issues.
In this article, we’ll show you how to add your websites to Bing Webmaster Tools.
What is Bing Webmaster Tools?
Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service by Microsoft that allows you to add your website to Bing search engine results.
This free tool helps your WordPress SEO by optimizing your site for Bing, so you can get more traffic.
The webmaster tools help you monitor and track your site’s performance in Bing. You can find out which keywords people use to find your site, so you can optimize those search terms in the content and get more traffic.
You can also see how Bing crawls and indexes your content. This helps to uncover and resolve indexing issues that might be preventing a blog post from appearing in Bing search results.
Aside from that, Bing Webmaster Tools shows your site’s backlinks and which websites you are linking to. It also helps remove content that you don’t want to display on Bing search results and scan for potential malware or spam issues that can threaten your WordPress website security.
That said, let’s see how you can add a website to Bing Webmaster Tools using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) and WPCode plugin. We’ll also show how you can use the webmaster tool and import your site from Google Search Console.
You can use the links below to jump to the method you want to use.
It is the best SEO plugin for WordPress and helps you optimize your site search engines without technical knowledge or the need to hire an expert.
Note that we’ll use the AIOSEO Lite version for this tutorial because it is free and includes the ‘Webmaster Tools Verification’ feature. There is also an AIOSEO Pro version which includes more advanced features like link assistant, redirections, video sitemaps, and more.
Next, you’ll need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you can go to All in One SEO » General Settings from your WordPress dashboard. Next, head to the ‘Webmaster Tools’ tab and select the ‘Bing Webmaster Tools’ option.
Next, you’ll need to enter the Bing Verification Code. Let’s see how you can access the code in the webmaster tool.
How to Get Verification Code in Bing Webmaster Tools
We suggest opening the Bing Webmaster Tools website in a new browser window or tab because you’ll need to switch back to your WordPress admin dashboard to complete the verification process.
After that, you’ll need to sign in to your account.
You can use Microsoft, Google, or Facebook accounts to log in. Simply click on any options and choose your email address to sign in to the webmaster tool.
Next, Bing Webmaster Tools will show you 2 options to add your website.
We’ll use the manual method to get the verification code.
Go ahead and enter your website address under the ‘Add your site manually’ section and then click the ‘Add’ button.
When adding your WordPress website, make sure to enter the URL used by WordPress. That’s because Bing will see HTTP and HTTPS as different sites. It will also consider your domain’s WWW and non-WWW versions as two separate websites.
To check which URL is used by WordPress, simply login to your WordPress admin area and head to Settings » General. Then look for the link in the ‘Site Address (URL)’ field.
Once you add this website URL in Bing Webmaster Tools, a window will slide in from the right.
Here you will see different methods for verifying your website, including an XML file, HTML meta tag, and adding CNAME records to DNS.
For this tutorial, we’ll use the HTML Meta Tag method. When you click the ‘HTML Meta Tag’ option, Bing gives you a validation code you need to install on your website.
Go ahead and click the ‘Copy’ button to copy this line of code.
Next, you’ll need to add the code to your WordPress website.
Add Verification Code & Verify Your Site in Bing Webmaster Tools
You can now head back to the WordPress admin browser window or tab.
After that, simply go to All in One SEO » General Settings from your WordPress dashboard.
Now, head to the ‘Webmaster Tools’ tab and enter the HTML Meta Tag you copied earlier in the ‘Bing Verification Code’ field.
When you do that, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Change’ button at the top.
After adding the HTML meta tag to your website, go back to the Bing Webmaster Tools tab or window and click the ‘Verify’ button.
Next, you’ll see a message in Bing Webmaster Tools that your verification was successful.
You can then close the message and view your Bing Webmaster Tools dashboard.
Method 2. Add Website to Bing Webmaster Tools Using WPCode
Another method of adding your website to Bing Webmaster Tools is using WPCode. It is the best WordPress code snippet plugin and helps you manage your website’s scripts. You can easily use WPCode to add the Bing Webmaster Tools HTML code to your website.
Upon activation, you can go to Code Snippets » Header & Footer from your WordPress admin panel. Here, you’ll need to add the HMTL code provided by Bing Webmaster Tools.
Once signed in, simply add your website URL under the ‘Add your site manually’ field and click the ‘Add’ button.
On the next screen, Bing will show you multiple methods for verifying your website in the webmaster tool.
Go ahead and select the ‘HTML Meta Tag’ option and copy the code.
After copying the code, you can head to your WordPress admin panel and go to the Code Snippets » Header & Footer page.
Next, you’ll need to paste the HTML meta tag into the ‘Header’ section.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Now that you’ve added the HTML meta tag to your site, simply go back to the Bing Webmaster Tools tab or window and click the ‘Verify’ button.
Bing Webmaster Tools will now show a message that your verification was successful.
Simply close the message to view the webmaster tool dashboard.
Import Your Website from Google Search Console
You can also add your WordPress site to Bing Webmaster Tools by importing it from Google Search Console.
If you use this method, then you don’t have to worry about verifying your website by adding an HTML code. However, Bing will need access to your Google account, which could be a security risk if either your Webmaster Tools or Google account gets compromised.
To start, you can log in to Bing using your Microsoft, Bing, or Facebook account.
Next, go ahead and click the ‘Import’ button under the Import your site from the GSC section.
After that, you’ll see a message showing you what data will be imported from the Google Search Console account and how Bing will use it.
Simply click the ‘Continue’ button to move ahead.
Next, you’ll need to select your Google account to sign in.
Go ahead and select the account that you use for logging into Google Search Console.
On the next screen, Bing will request access to your Google account.
Simply click the ‘Allow’ button to continue.
Next, you will see websites that are connected to Google Search Console.
Go ahead and select any websites you’d like to import into Bing Webmaster Tools and click the ‘Import’ button.
You’ll now see a message that your website has been successfully imported.
You can click the ‘Done’ button to close the window and view the Bing Webmaster Tools dashboard.
Bonus: How to Use Bing Webmaster Tools
In the Webmaster Tools dashboard, you have access to many different tools and options. Do note that Bing will take up to 48 hours to reflect data in its webmaster tools reports after setting it up on your WordPress site.
For example, you can view your site’s search performance by going to the Search Performance tab. You can then use this data to see which search terms people use to find your website and perform keyword research to develop new content ideas.
Similarly, the tool also lets you inspect a specific URL to see if there are any crawling issues. You can simply enter the post or page link in the URL Inspection tab and view the errors.
With Bing Webmaster Tools, you can submit your website sitemap in the Bing Webmaster Tools to help the search engine to discover new content quickly.
Plus, you can scan for any errors that could be preventing your content from appearing in Bing search results.
If a blog post or landing page isn’t appearing in the search results, then you can go to the ‘URL Submission’ tab and manually submit your content for indexing.
Would you like for users to invite their friends to become members of your WordPress site?
People trust recommendations from people they know. That makes personal invitations a great way to increase the number of registered users of your social network or membership site.
In this article, we will show you how to allow your users to invite their friends to register in WordPress.
Why Allow Users to Invite Their Friends?
If you are looking for an easy and cost-effective way to add new users to your membership site or WordPress social network, then allowing your existing users to invite their friends is one of the most effective strategy.
This kind of word-of-mouth advertising works really well because it uses social proof, so it’s very common on almost all popular registration sites.
For example, Twitter users can invite their followers to join a community, and on Facebook, they can invite friends to join a group.
If you make money from your website, such as offering paid memberships or selling products in an online store, then you can also pay your users to promote your website by creating a referral or affiliate program.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to allow your users to invite their friends to register in WordPress.
Method 1: Adding a Simple Invitation Form to Any WordPress Site
The easiest way to allow your users to invite their friends to your website is to add a simple invitation form to your sidebar. However, this method will not allow you to track which invitations were responded to.
What if you need to track invitations? If you have a BuddyPress site, then you should follow Method 2 below. If you have an online store or membership site, then we recommend you create a referral or affiliate program instead.
For the simple invitation form, we’ll use WPForms Lite because it’s free and easy to use. However, the premium version of WPForms will store all form entries in your WordPress dashboard after they are submitted. This will let you more easily see how many invitations have been sent and who they were sent to.
Once the plugin is activated, you can create your invitation form by navigating to the WPForms » Add New page. Here you can give your form a name, and then click the ‘Create Blank Form’ button.
This will open the WPForms drag and drop form builder. You will see a preview of the form on the right, and this is currently blank. You’ll also see a list of form fields on the left.
You need to locate the Email form field and drag it onto the form.
Next, you need to configure the Email field.
When you click on the field, its settings will be displayed on the left.
Here you should change the label to ‘Invite Your Friends.’ After that, you can add a description that will be displayed under the field. This should let your users know what to enter, such as, ‘Enter your friend’s email address. Separate multiple email addresses using commas.’
Now you can configure the field so that it’s displayed across the full width of the sidebar. Simply click on the Advanced tab and then select ‘Large’ from the Field Size dropdown menu.
You’ll find more settings by navigating to Settings » General. For example, you can also change the label on the button to something more helpful.
In the Submit Button Text field, simply type ‘Send Invitation.’
You can use smart tags to automatically fill in the details of the user filling in the form as well as the information they submitted on the form. You’ll find a complete list of smart tags on the WPForms website.
In the ‘Send To Email Address’ field, you need to enter the email address that was submitted in the form. When you click the ‘Show Smart Tags’ link, a list of available fields will be displayed. Simply click on the ‘Invite Your Friends’ field.
You should type in the email subject line you wish to use. After that, you can enter the user’s full name in the ‘From Name’ field by entering the smart tag {user_full_name}.
It’s important that you choose the correct ‘From Email’, or your invitations may be sent to the spam folder. Make sure that
For example, if your website’s URL is www.example.com, then the email address should look like john@example.com.
That means you shouldn’t enter the user’s email address in the ‘From Email’ field. Instead, you can use
{admin_email}, which is the default setting. Alternatively, if you are concerned about your admin email receiving spam, then you can use an email address that doesn’t exist, such as no-reply@example.com.
Next, you should scroll down to the ‘Reply-To Email Address.’ Here you can enter the user’s email address using the smart tag
{user_email}. Then, if the person who was invited replies to the email, it will be sent to the user who invited them.
Finally, you need to compose the invitation message you wish to send in the ‘Email Message’ field. We recommend you keep it short and casual. You can use smart tags in the message, such as ending the email with the user’s name by entering {user_first_name}.
You will need to add a link to your website. This link could take the invited person to your home page or a user registration page.
Better still, you can link to a landing page that clearly explains the features and benefits of your website.
Creating a Confirmation Message for Form Submission
Now you should navigate to Settings » Confirmations. Here you can compose a brief message that’s displayed to the user after they invite their friends.
You should leave the Confirmation Type as ‘Message’ and then type a brief thank you message in the Confirmation Message field.
Now that you have finished the setup of your invitation form, make sure you click the orange Save button at the top of the screen to store the settings. Once you’ve done that, you can click the ‘X’ button to close the WPForms editor.
Adding the Invitation Form to Your WordPress Site
All you need to do now is add the form to your website’s sidebar or another widget-ready area. You’ll need to head over to the Appearance » Widgets page in the WordPress admin area.
After that, you need to select the ‘Invite Your Friends’ form from the Select a Form dropdown. Don’t forget to click the Update button to store your settings.
Now you can visit your website to see the simple invitation form in action.
When a user sends an invitation using the form, the thank you confirmation message is displayed in place of the form.
It allows you and your users to create groups, and each group can have its own members and activity streams. Users can join these groups and invite others, but only if they are already members of your site.
If you use BuddyPress and want to let your users send invitations to their friends who haven’t yet signed up, then you’ll need to install the Invite Anyone plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you should navigate to Settings » Invite Anyone to configure the plugin. On the ‘General Settings’ tab, you can customize the email message that is sent when someone is invited to register on your site.
There are plenty of customization options for the email subject, body, and footer. You can also allow your users to customize the email before it is sent, limit the number of emails that can be sent at one time, and more.
If you like, you can also place limits on who can send invitations to your site. For example, you may not want new users to be able to invite their friends right away. This will discourage spammers who want to set up fake accounts.
To set up these limits, you need to click the ‘Access Control’ tab at the top of the page, and then select the ‘A limited set of users’ option.
Now you will see three checkboxes that let you decide which users can send invitations.
You can limit invitations to users who have been members of your site for a minimum number of days, or to those who have a certain member role. You can also ban specific users from being able to send invitations by typing a list of user IDs separated by commas.
Once you are happy with these settings, you will need to scroll to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Now your users will be able to send invitations to their friends, directly from their own profile page just by clicking the ‘Send Invites’ tab.
After that, they simply type up to five email addresses in the first text box, and if you allow them, they can customize the email message that will be sent.
If the user belongs to any BuddyPress groups, then they can also check any groups they think their friends might be interested in once they join your site.
Finally, your users need to click the ‘Send Invites’ button at the bottom of the page. After that, the plugin will send the invitations to their friends to register on your website.
Once the invitations are sent, the user can see the status of all of their sent invitations.
They can clear individual invitations from the list by clicking the red ‘X’ button. They can also clear accepted invitations or all invitations by clicking the links at the bottom of the list. These actions will not cancel the invitations, but simply clear them from the list.
As the site administrator, you can keep track of invitations sent by all users by navigating to the BuddyPress Invitations » BuddyPress Invitations page in your WordPress admin area.
Other Ways to Grow Your Registered Users
Now that your users can invite their friends, let’s have a look at some other ways you can encourage more users to visit your website and sign up.
Luckily, using WordPress gives you access to incredibly powerful tools to grow your business.
OptinMonster is the best lead generation and conversion optimization tool on the market. It allows you to easily increase your email subscribers, create mobile popups, and make a high converting sales funnel.
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder on the market. Besides creating an invitation form, you can use it to add a custom login page and sign-up form to your site.
MonsterInsights allows you to easily track your website performance using Google Analytics. It shows beginner friendly reports so you can track website visitors and set up eCommerce tracking.
Are you looking to disable Google Fonts in WordPress?
Loading too many third-party fonts can slow down your website. Visitors with a slow internet connection will have a better user experience if you use just a few system fonts. Plus, using Google Fonts can potentially make your site GDPR non-compliant, and no one wants that.
In this article, we’ll show you how to disable Google Fonts on your WordPress website.
Why Disable Google Fonts on Your WordPress Website?
The typography you choose for your WordPress website plays an important role in its design and brand identity. That’s why many website owners customize their typography by using Google Fonts.
However, loading too many fonts will have a negative impact on WordPress performance. That’s why we recommend you choose just two fonts and use them across your website.
Alternatively, you can disable Google Fonts entirely and simply use the system fonts that come with user’s computer. They look great and load much faster, especially for users with a slow connection.
That’s why we decided to disable Google Fonts when we redesigned the WPBeginner website. We wanted to make it easy for everyone to learn WordPress and grow their online presence, even if your internet connection isn’t the best.
Disabling Google Fonts may not be the right decision for all business websites or blogs. However, if you have visitors from areas with poor internet quality, then this is one way you can provide a better user experience.
Also, there are privacy issues with Google Fonts that may make your website non-compliant with laws like GDPR. Disabling Google Fonts lowers the risk your site will be caught in violation of any international privacy laws.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to disable Google Fonts in WordPress.
Upon activation, the plugin will automatically disable all Google Fonts used by your theme and plugins. It doesn’t need to be configured.
Now WordPress will automatically use a default font in place of any Google Fonts that were being used. You should carefully check your website to make sure you are happy with the fonts that are now being used.
However, OptinMonster uses Google Fonts by default. Luckily, it’s easy to disable them.
Disabling Google Fonts in Individual OptinMonster Campaigns
First, you should visit the OptinMonster website and log in to your Campaign Dashboard. After that, you need to click on a campaign and then click the Edit Campaign button.
This will open the OptinMonster Campaign Builder.
Next, you need to click the Settings icon at the bottom left corner of the footer bar.
In the sidebar panel, you need to select the Advanced tab.
Now you can scroll down to the ‘Display Settings’ section and toggle ‘Enable web fonts?’ to the off position.
Once you click the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen, third-party fonts will be disabled for that campaign.
You will need to repeat these steps for each other campaign you want to remove Google Fonts from.
Disabling Google Fonts For All OptinMonster Campaigns
If you are comfortable with adding JavaScript code snippets to your site, then you can disable Google Fonts on all OptinMonster campaigns at once.
To disable Google Fonts in every campaign, you need to add this snippet in your website’s header or footer:
The easiest way to add those code snippets is with WPCode, the most powerful code snippet plugin available for WordPress. It lets you easily add custom code to any area of your site, and best of all, it’s free.
