How to Create a Dropdown Menu in WordPress (Beginners Guide)

Do you want to make a dropdown menu and add it to your WordPress website?

A dropdown menu shows a list of links as you take your mouse over an item on the menu.

We use a dropdown menu on WPBeginner, go ahead and take your mouse over the navigation menu on top.

In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to easily create a dropdown menu in WordPress with step by step instructions.

Why Use Dropdown Menus in WordPress?

WordPress comes with a built-in menu management system that allows you to easily add navigation menus to your WordPress site.

Navigation menus are links to the main pages of your website that usually appear on the top as a horizontal row right next to the website’s logo.

If you are starting a blog or creating a website with only a few pages, then you can add them in the single row.

However, if you run an online store or a large website, then you may want to add more links to the navigation menu.

Dropdown menus help you solve the limited space issue by showing menu links only when users bring their mouse over to a parent item. They also allow you to organize the menu structure by topics or hierarchy.

Lastly, they look pretty nice too.

That being said, now let’s take a look at how you can easily create WordPress dropdown menus add them to your website.

Step 1. Choosing a Theme with Dropdown Menu Support

WordPress comes with a built-in menu management system but displaying those menus is entirely dependent on your WordPress theme.

Almost all WordPress themes support dropdown menus by default. However, some themes may not have proper menu support.

You need to make sure that you are using a WordPress theme that supports dropdown menus.

How do you know if the theme you are using supports the dropdown menu?

You can simply visit the theme’s website where you’ll find a link to the theme’s demo. From there you can see if the demo is showing a dropdown menu in the navigation menu.

If it is not, then you’ll need to find a WordPress theme that does.

See our guide on how to choose the perfect WordPress theme for your website.

Here are a few excellent themes that support the dropdown menu out of the box.

• Astra – It is a multipurpose WordPress theme that comes with several starter sites and tons of features.
• StudioPress themes – Built on top of genesis theme framework, these professional themes are highly optimized for performance.
• OceanWP – A popular WordPress theme that is suitable for all kind of websites.
• Ultra – Powered by Themify builder this drag and drop WordPress theme comes with beautiful templates and flexible theme options.
• Divi – popular theme by Elegant Themes that uses the Divi page builder and comes with tons of drag & drop features including dropdown menus.

That being said, now let’s take a look at how to create a dropdown WordPress menu.

Step 1. Creating a Navigation Menu in WordPress

If you have already set up a navigation menu on your website, then you can skip to the next step.

Let’s create a simple menu first.

Go to Appearance » Menus page and click on the ‘Create a new menu’ link at the top.

Next, you need to provide a name for your navigation menu. This name will not be publicly visible on your website. The purpose of menu name is to help you identify the menu inside the WordPress admin area.

Enter a name for your menu and then click on the ‘Create Menu’ button.

WordPress will now create a new empty menu for you.

Let’s add the top links to the navigation menu. These items will appear in the top row of your menu.

Simply select the pages you want to add from the left column and click on the ‘Add to menu’ button. You can also select blog posts, categories, or add custom links.

You will now see those pages appear in the right column under your new menu.

Step 2. Adding Sub-Items to a Menu

Sub-items are the items that will appear inside the dropdown menu. Depending on how you want to organize your menus, you can add them under any of the existing items.

For the sake of this tutorial, we will be adding categories under the blog link.

Simply select the items you want to add from the left column and then click on the ‘Add to menu’ button. Your items will now appear in the right column.

However, these links will appear as regular items. We need to make them a sub-item of a parent menu.

You can simply drag and drop a menu item and place it under the parent item. Move it slightly to the right, and it will become a sub-item.

Repeat the process for all links you want to show under the dropdown menu.

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

Step 3. Publish Your Dropdown Menu

If you are editing a menu that’s already live on your website, then it will start appearing on your website right away.

However, if it is a new menu item, then you now need to choose a theme location to display this menu.

WordPress themes can show menus at different locations. Each theme defines their own menu locations, and you can select which menu you want to display there.

You’ll find this option in the right column under ‘Menu settings’. Select an option next to the ‘Display location’ setting and click on the ‘Save menu’ button.

You can now visit your website to see your dropdown menu in action.

Tips on Creating Interactive Dropdown Menus

Navigation menus are important because this is the first place your users will look if they want to see specific information.

Using them correctly will help your users find their way around your website. It will also help you get more pageviews, conversions, and sales on your website.

Here are a few tips on making your navigation menus more interactive with dropdown menus.

1. You can create multi-level dropdown menus

Making a link a sub-item of another link makes it appear in the dropdown menu. You can also add a sub-item below another sub-item to create multi-level dropdown menus.

Your theme would automatically show them as a sub-menu inside the dropdown.

2. You can also create multiple dropdown menus

You can create a dropdown under any top link in your menu. You can even add multiple dropdown menus in your main navigation menu.

3. Create menus with a live preview

If your menu gets too complicated, then you can switch to the visual preview. Go to Appearance » Customize to launch the live theme customizer.

From there, click on the ‘Menus’ tab and then select your navigation menu. You’ll now see a drag and drop menu editor in the left column with a live preview of your site in the right panel.

4. Creating a large mega menu as dropdown in WordPress

The dropdown menus only show one dropdown at a time. What if you wanted to show the full structure of your website as a mega menu that only appears when users hover on the main menu?

Mega menus do appear as a dropdown menu, but they can show a lot more links, sub-menus, and more. For detailed instructions, see our step by step tutorial on how to create a mega menu in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily create a dropdown menu in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide how to create a sticky floating navigation menu in WordPress and how to add image icons to navigation menus in WordPress.

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 Dropdown Menu in WordPress (Beginners Guide) appeared first on WPBeginner.

November 11, 2019 at 06:44PM

How to Add a Facebook Giveaway in WordPress to Boost Engagement

Do you want to boost engagement on your website while increasing your Facebook followers?

If your answer is yes, then you need to run a Facebook contest. A giveaway can help direct users’ attention to your Facebook page and help you get more likes / followers on Facebook.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to properly add a Facebook giveaway in WordPress to boost engagement and get more likes / views.

Why Run a Facebook Giveaway in WordPress?

Facebook’s policies do not allow you to giveaway prizes for getting likes.

However, these policies do not restrict you from sending visitors to your Facebook page or group from your website.

Running a giveaway on your WordPress website enables you to point users to your Facebook page, which ultimately results in more followers and engagement on your Facebook page.

Giveaways also allow you to add other engagement metrics simultaneously such as asking users to join your email newsletter, viewing your Instagram profile, watching your YouTube video, and more.

Giveaways and contests can go viral due to the social sharing actions, which increase your reach and help you find new users.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily run a Facebook giveaway in WordPress to get more likes and engagements.

Running a Facebook Giveaway in WordPress

For this tutorial, we’ll be using RafflePress. It is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market.

RafflePress makes it easy to design your giveaway using a drag and drop builder. You can add prize photo, choose dates, select winners randomly, and use templates to quickly launch new giveaway campaigns.

It comes with social actions to direct your users to your social media channels including Facebook. You can make an action mandatory to join a giveaway. It also comes with social logins and integrates with all popular email marketing platforms.

RafflePress was co-founded by WPBeginner’s founder, Syed Balkhi, to help us boost engagement on our own site, and it works really well.

With that said, let’s start your first Facebook giveaway campaign.

Step 1. Creating Your First Facebook Giveaway Campaign

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

You can also use the RafflePress lite plugin for free, but for the sake of this tutorial, we will be showing the Pro version.

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled RafflePress to your WordPress admin sidebar.

Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s settings, and you’ll be asked to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the RafflePress website.

After that, you need to visit RafflePress » Add New to launch the giveaway builder.

First, you need to provide a title for your giveaway and then choose a template. RafflePress comes with several pre-made templates for specific campaigns including one for growing your Facebook page.

This will launch the giveaway builder with select actions users need to perform to join the contest. You can still add / remove actions to your giveaway (more on this later).

By default, the template will add login with the Facebook button, visit us on Facebook, and View a Facebook post or video actions.

Let’s start customizing this giveaway by adding our Prize details. Simply click on the edit icon next to the Prize title from the left column.

First, you need to provide a title for the prize. After that, you can provide a brief description and add a picture of the prize.

Note: Need help finding prize ideas? Here are 105 proven contest prize ideas for viral giveaways.

Just below the title, you’ll be able to select the start and end dates for the giveaway.

Step 2. Adding More Actions to Your Facebook Giveaway

Now that you have done the basic set up for the giveaway, let’s add some more ways for users to join the giveaway.

You need to switch to the ‘Actions’ tab in the giveaway builder and start adding actions to your giveaway.

For example, you can ask users to join your email list, view your Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter profile, send a Tweet, visit a page or a WooCommerce product on your store, and so on.

Simply click on an action and add it to your giveaway. The builder will then show you specific settings for that particular action.

From here you need to provide a title for the action which users will see on the action button in your giveaway.

After that, you need to assign a value to the action. The value is the number of entries users will earn for performing an action. For example, if you are trying to get more likes on Facebook, then you would want to give more weight to your Facebook actions.

Below that, you have a choice to make an action mandatory. Users will not be able to participate in your Facebook contest if they don’t perform the mandatory action.

Finally, you’ll have action-specific settings such as providing your Facebook page URL, Facebook group link, or connecting to your email service.

Step 3: Design your Facebook Giveaway to Stand out

RafflePress gives you easy to use design tools to customize the appearance of your giveaway campaigns.

Simply switch to the Design tab, and you will see options to choose a layout, button color, and fonts for your giveaway.

If you plan to use the giveaway as a standalone landing page vs embedding it in a blog post, page, or a sidebar widget, then you can also choose the page background color.

RafflePress allows you to add your giveaway to any WordPress post or page. You can also create a custom landing page for your Facebook giveaway contest by using your favorite WordPress page builder and simply add your giveaway widget there (more on this later).

Step 4. Fine Tuning Your Giveaway Settings

Now that your giveaway looks great, let’s review its settings for the last time. Switch to the ‘Settings’ tab under the builder to see various options.

They are all very self-explanatory, but we’ll go through them one by one.

First, you need to click on the ‘General’ tab and review the options.

If you wanted to create a standalone Facebook giveaway contest page, then you can do that here. Provide a name for your campaign page under the Page Permalink option without any spaces.

You can also show and hide the number of entries, contest winners, and the powered by link.

Next, switch to the ‘Giveaway Rules’ tab. This is where you’ll list the rules for joining the giveaway. You can start by clicking on the ‘Generate Rules’ button to automatically generate rules using a sample template.

If you want participants to confirm their email address, then switch to the email verification tab. From here, turn on the email verification feature and configure the confirmation email options.

RafflePress allows you to track users who have successfully completed giveaway actions. You can do so by adding tracking scripts under the ‘Success tracking’ tab. For example, you can add your Google Analytics script here or a Facebook retargeting pixel code here.

If you want to redirect users to a specific page, then switch to the Success redirect tab and enter the URL of the page where you want to send users.

Lastly, you can turn the social login feature On/Off from the social logins tab. Turning it off will disable the login with Facebook button on your giveaway campaign.

Your giveaway is now ready to be launched. Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button at the top right corner to save all your settings.

Step 5. Add Your Facebook Giveaway to a WordPress Post or Page

RafflePress makes it very easy to display your giveaway anywhere on your WordPress website.

You can simply edit a post or page or create a new one and then add the RafflePress block to the block editor.

After that, you need to select the giveaway you created earlier. RafflePress block will now load a preview of your giveaway right inside the editor.

You can also add your giveaway to a sidebar or any other place using the shortcode.

Simply edit your giveaway and switch to the ‘Publish’ tab in the builder interface. From here, click on the shortcode option and RafflePress will show the shortcode you can use.

Copy the shortcode and edit the post or page where you want to display the giveaway. Simply paste the shortcode inside the post editor and you are done.

You can also add the shortcode to a sidebar widget. Go to Appearance » Widgets page and then add the ‘Text’ widget to your sidebar.

You can now paste your shortcode inside the widget settings and click on the save button to store it. After that, you can preview your website to see it in action.

Step 6. Promoting Your Facebook Giveaway

You’ll need to start promoting your giveaway to build anticipation before the contest begins. We recommend planning ahead to give yourself enough time to publicize the campaign.

Here are a few things you can do to build anticipation for a successful giveaway campaign.

• Send an email to the subscribers of your email newsletter.
• Announce the event on social channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.
• Run a paid advertising campaign (not required but it does help).
• Reach out to influencers, bloggers, forums, and communities to get the word out.

By putting in all the hard work before the event increases the chances of your campaign to get viral. It will also increase the return on investment in terms of Facebook likes, followers, and new subscribers you’ll get for your website.

Step 7. Announcing The Giveaway Winners

The best part about RafflePress is that it automates the whole process. Your giveaway will automatically end once it reaches the end time and date you have set.

After that, you can automatically choose the lucky winners through a random draw.

Simply go to RafflePress » Giveaways page and click on the ‘Need Winners’ link next to your giveaway.

Next, you’ll see a list of users who participated in the contest. You need to click on the Pick winner button at the top and select the number of users who can win and whether you want to allow unverified emails to win.

Click on the ‘Choose winner now’ button to continue.

RafflePress will now randomly select a winner for your giveaway.

You can now click on the Email Winner link to send the winner an email about how they can claim their prize.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily add a Facebook giveaway in WordPress to boost engagement. You may also want to see these actionable tips that you can use to get more traffic to your WordPress 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 Add a Facebook Giveaway in WordPress to Boost Engagement appeared first on WPBeginner.

November 08, 2019 at 06:00PM

9 Best WordPress Migration Plugins (Compared)

Are you looking for the best WordPress migration plugin to move your website?

While it is super-easy to start a new WordPress site, moving an existing website to a new hosting company is not as simple.

You need to move the database, files, plugins, and theme. At the same, you also want to reduce downtime, so your users don’t see a broken website.

Most importantly, you want to preserve your website’s SEO rankings.

To make sure that all these things go smoothly, you’ll need a WordPress migration plugin to easily manage the transfer.

In this article, we will compare the best WordPress migration plugins that allow you to migrate your websites without hiccups.

1. Duplicator Pro

Duplicator Pro is the best WordPress migration plugin on the market. It works like a charm for many different types of migration scenarios without any technical knowledge.

It has a simple step by step wizard that guides you through the migration. First, you create a migration package of your website and download it to your computer along with an installer script.

Next, you upload the installer script and the package to the new location (new server or host) and run the migration wizard. Duplicator unpacks the content of your package and installs them.

In the end, it also allows you to update URLs to make sure that every done runs smoothly after the unpacking.

Pros:

• Migrate WordPress site to a new host, domain name, local server, or live site.
• Easy step by step migration wizard to move your website.
• Can be used to schedule backups and save them on remote storage such as Google Diver, Dropbox, etc.
• Connects with cPanel hosting dashboard to automatically create database and users.
• Supports WordPress multisite migration.

Cons:

• Beginners may need help connecting to the FTP server.
• The upload process can be a bit tedious if you have unreliable internet or a very large website.

Pricing: Paid plans start from $59 / year for 3 websites. It also has a limited free version that would work for most small websites.

2. UpdraftPlus Premium

UpdraftPlus is one of the best WordPress backup plugins. Its premium version comes with a migration tool that allows you to easily migrate your website.

Pros:

• Easy to use process. If you already use it as your backup plugin then you can create a complete backup and import it on any location
• Schedule and store your WordPress backups to remote locations.
• Works with WordPress multisite networks
• Incremental backups allow you to save server resources

Cons:

• To run the migration, you’d need to install WordPress on the destination.

Pricing: You can purchase the Migrator Addon for $30 and use it with the free version of UpdraftPlus. Alternatively, you can buy UpdraftPlus Premium for $70.

3. JetPack

JetPack is a massive WordPress plugin suite that also comes with a powerful backup feature. This feature was previously called VaultPress and was sold as a separate product.

Now it is included as JetPack Backups. It allows you to easily restore your WordPress backups and migrate your website to new servers.

Pros:

• The easiest way to make WordPress backups and easily restore them on a new location
• Incremental backups save server resources
• Easy 1-click site restoration feature makes migrations a breeze
• All your data is stored on the cloud and you don’t need to manually reupload backups during migration
• Includes site security features which makes your backups secure

Cons:

• You will need a JetPack subscription which comes with many other features that you may not even need or use.
• Set up process is a bit complicated for beginners. You will need two separate plugins, JetPack subscription, and a WordPress.com account.

Pricing: Starting from $39 / year.

4. All-in-One WP Migration

All-in-One WP Migration is a popular WordPress migration plugin with a comprehensive set of features. Unlike some other plugins on the list, it is not a backup plugin and specializes in website migrations.

Pros:

• Tested and supports a large number of WordPress hosting providers, operating systems, PHP versions, and more.
• Supports older versions upto WordPress 3.3
• It bypasses your host’s file size limits by importing chunks of data.

Cons:

• The free version limits import size to 512 MB
• You’ll need to manually install WordPress on new location
• For multisite exports you’ll need a separate paid extension

Pricing: The basic plugin is free, but you’ll need the Unlimited extension to remove import size restriction. The Unlimited extension is available at $69 for a lifetime license.

5. Migrate Guru

Migrate Guru is a WordPress migration plugin by the folks behind Blog Vault, a popular WordPress backup solution. It specializes in migrating websites to a new host or server.

Pros:

• Supports almost all popular WordPress hosting providers
• Easy migration wizard where you just need to enter your desitination host’s FTP or cPannel credentials and the plugin takes care of everything else
• Migrates your WordPress database updated URLs and handles serialized data
• Can be used to migrate large websites without affecting server performance

Cons:

• Does not support localhost to live website or live to localhost transfers
• Does not fully support multisite migrations

Pricing: Free

6. BackupBuddy

BackupBuddy is one of the most popular WordPress migration and backup plugin. It has been around since 2010 and has a loyal customer base.

Pros:

• Comes with automated scheduled backups, restore, and migration features in one convenient package
• Set up your backup schedules, choose what to backup, and store them to remote locations such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and more.
• Easily transfer your website using a complete WordPress backup
• Can be used to deploy a WordPress staging site to live server with 1-click

Cons:

• Does not support WordPress multisite
• Restore and migration features are not as easy to use for beginners as some other plugins on this list

Pricing: Starting from $80 for a single site license.

7. Migrate DB Pro

Migrate DB Pro is a powerful WordPress migration plugin made specifically for moving WordPress database from one install to another. However, it can also easily transfer media files, themes, and plugins with separate addons.

Pros:

• Perfect when you quickly want to copy WordPress database from one site to another
• Powerful features make it an excellent option for developers
• Backup your existing database before replacing it with a new one
• Find and replace any text in your database
• Great for large websites and complex hosting server environments

Cons:

• For complete migrations, you’ll need two addons which are only available under expensive developer license.
• May not be as easy to use for beginners as some other plugins on the list

Price: Starting from $99 for a single site. You’ll need developer license to access media and files addons which will cost you $199.

Bonus Plugins

These WordPress migration plugins work in specific situations and are the best options for beginners.

8. SiteGround Migrator

If you are moving your WordPress site to SiteGround, then this plugin is for you. It is made by SiteGround to help users move their websites to SiteGround hosting servers.

SiteGround is one of the best WordPress hosting companies. They are also an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.

Note: If you don’t want to use the plugin, then you can simply ask SiteGround support. They offer 1 free website migration with their GrowBig and GoGeek plans.

Pros:

• It works well because it is made for a specific scenario transferring from any hosting company to SiteGround.
• Super-easy to use you just need to enter a token from your hosting control panel and the plugin takes care of the rest.
• If you are not changing the domain name, then it automatically creates a temporary domain for the transferred site. Later you can change the DNS to point your domain name.

Cons:

• Can not be used to transfer from localhost to live site
• Does not support WordPress multisite

Pricing: Free

9. Free WordPress Blog Setup

The plugins mentioned above do not work on WordPress.com websites. See the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

For most beginners, moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org is not as simple as you’d like it to be. This is where our free blog setup comes in.

Basically, you’ll need to purchase a hosting plan from one of our recommended WordPress hosting providers and we will transfer or set up your WordPress blog.

For more details, see our free blog set up page.

Note: At WPBeginner we believe in transparency. When you sign up for one of our recommended hosting providers, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

We would get this commission for recommending just about any hosting company, but we only recommend products that we use personally use and believe will add value to our readers.

Pros

• Allows you to transfer WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress.org website.
• WPBeginner’s expert team migrates your content and media
• You also get must-have WordPress plugins installed on your site to give you a solid start.

Cons:

• Only migrates WordPress.com blogs
• Due to WordPress.com limitations, it can only migrate your content, comments, images and media.

Pricing: Free

Conclusion: Which is The Best WordPress Migration Plugin?

We believe that Duplicator Pro is the best WordPress migration plugin on the market. Even the free version works like a charm for small WordPress blogs and websites.

We also recommend Duplicator in our WordPress migration guides. See our step by step guides for complete instructions.

• How to move WordPress to new host and server
• How to move WordPress to new domain name
• How to transfer WordPress from localhost to live server
• Transfer WordPress from live server to localhost

WP Migrate DB Pro is a great alternative for migrating large websites specially when you have complex hosting setup with various environment. We use this plugin on our websites, but the reason why it’s not our top choice is because it is not as beginner friendly.

This guide only covers migration plugin that helps you migrate a WordPress site to another server or domain. If you’re looking to switch to WordPress from another platform, then please follow our guides below:

• How to move from Weebly to WordPress
• How to move from Blogger to WordPress
• How to move from Medium to WordPress
• How to move from Wix to WordPress
• How to move from GoDaddy Site builder to WordPress

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress migration plugin for your website. You may also want to see our guide on the best WordPress plugins and the best email marketing services for small businesses.

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

The post 9 Best WordPress Migration Plugins (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.

November 07, 2019 at 07:57PM

How to Setup WordPress Email Logs (and WooCommerce Email Logs)

Do you want to set up email logs on your WordPress or WooCommerce website?

Email logs allow you to monitor the emails sent by your WordPress site to the users. This helps you troubleshoot issues and check the status of email notifications sent by your WordPress website.

In this article, we will show you how to easily set up WordPress email logs and WooCommerce email logs.

After following this tutorial, you’ll be able to view the email logs directly from your WordPress admin area in an easy to understand format.

Why Set Up Email Logs in WordPress or WooCommerce?

Whether you are running a small business website using WordPress or a WooCommerce store, WordPress automatically sends certain email notifications to your users.

On a typical WordPress website, these emails include password reset emails, new user notification, password change notification, comments, and WordPress update notifications.

If you are also running an online store, then email becomes even more important. WooCommerce will send out customer receipts, order details, new order notifications, and user account emails on a regular basis.

As you can see, email notifications are crucial for your website to function properly and deliver the best user experience.

You need to make sure that those emails reach users’ inbox and don’t just disappear or end up in spam.

The best way to do this is by using a proper SMTP service provider to ensure email deliverability. For more details, see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

You would also want to see which emails are sent and to whom. This allows you to keep a record of email activity which comes in handy in several situations.

Following are just a few of those situations when email log comes in handy:

• Ensure that email notifications are delivered promptly
• Track your WordPress contact form plugin emails
• You can see if emails sent by a plugin are working
• Keep a track of user activity using the email logs
• Track user activity if you run a membership website or sell online courses
• Keep email log of your WooCommerce orders, reciepts, and customer notifications

That being said, let’s see how to easily setup email logs on your WordPress or WooCommerce website.

Setting up Email Logs in WordPress & WooCommerce

For this tutorial, we will be using the WP Mail SMTP plugin. It allows you to send WordPress emails using any SMTP service provider including Gmail, Outlook, SendGrid, Amazon SES, etc.

Step 1. Install and Setup WP Mail SMTP

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

Upon activation, you need to visit WP Mail SMTP » Settings page to configure the plugin settings.

First, you’ll need to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on WP Mail SMTP website.

Simply, copy and paste your license key and then click on the Verify button.

After that, you need to scroll down to select how you would like to send your WordPress emails under the Mailer section.

WP Mail SMTP works with any SMTP service. It comes with easy configuration options for the most popular SMTP service providers like Gmail, Outlook, Sendinblue, Mailgun, Sendgrid, Amazon SES, or Other SMTP services.

Clicking on the mailer will show you instructions to set it up.

The default option is set to PHP mailer. We don’t recommend using that because it is not reliable. Since most WordPress hosting servers are not properly configured for emails, this option will mean that your WordPress emails may never reach users’ inbox or even spam folder.

We recommend using a provider like SendinBlue or Mailgun that’s optimized for best email deliverability.

If you choose Other SMTP as your mailer option, then you’ll need to provide SMTP settings which you can get from your SMTP service providers website.

• SMTP Host: You smtp host address which usually looks like this smtp.yoursmtpserver.com
• Encryption: Usually it is either SSL or TLS
• SMTP Port: Usually it is 465
• Authentication: Turn on authentication
• Username: Username provided by your SMTP service usually it is your email address.
• Password: Password for your SMTP service

After you have entered your mailer credentials, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Settings’ button to store your settings.

Bonus: It’s important to use a professional business email address to ensure your emails look trustworthy.

Step 2. Enable Email Log Feature

Now that you have set up mailer settings in the WP Mail SMTP plugin. It is time to turn on the email logging feature.

From the plugin’s settings page, switch to the ‘Email Log’ tab and check the box next to ‘Enable log’ option.

The email log option will save general and troubleshooting information about each email message. Including the date and time, subject, email status, email addresses of the sender and recipient, BCC and CC, attachment, etc.

The plugin also allows you to enable complete WordPress email logs. We don’t recommend enabling complete email logs because it would save all contents of the email including private or sensitive information in your WordPress database as plain text.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save settings’ button to save your changes.

Step 3. Testing WP Mail SMTP Setup

Now that you have set up the WP Mail SMTP plugin, let’s test it to make sure that everything is working as expected.

WP Mail SMTP makes this step easy. Go to the plugins settings page WP Mail SMTP » Settings page and switch to the ‘Email Test’ tab.

From here, simply enter your email address and click on the ‘Send Email’ button.

The plugin will now send a test email to the address you provided. It will then show you the status of the email delivery on screen.

Step 4. Viewing Your Email Logs in WordPress

You can view your WordPress email logs at any time without leaving the WordPress admin area.

Simply go to WP Mail SMTP » Email Log page. You’ll see the log with a list of entries since you enabled the email log.

To view entry details, take your mouse over it and then click on the ‘View’ link below it. This will open the email log entry with a detailed view.

You can also use the search feature to look for entries by email address, subject & headers, or by content (if you enabled content logging).

You can also delete older entries from your email log. You can use the ‘Delete’ link below any entry to delete a single entry.

You can also select multiple entries and click on the Bulk Actions drop-down menu to select ‘Delete’ and then click on the Apply button.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set up WordPress email logs and WooCommerce email logs. You may also want to see our guide on how to monitor user activity in WordPress with security audit logs.

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 Setup WordPress Email Logs (and WooCommerce Email Logs) appeared first on WPBeginner.

November 06, 2019 at 06:05PM

WPBeginner Users Get a Free Domain and 62% off HostGator Web Hosting

Do you want to start a blog, make a new website, transfer your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, or simply want to switch hosting companies?

If your answer is yes, then let us make it super easy for you.

Our friends over at HostGator are offering an exclusive limited time deal for WPBeginner users.

Basically, you’ll get a 62% discount on your WordPress hosting along with with a free domain name and SSL certificate.

During this limited time offer, you’ll be able to get WordPress hosting for as low as $2.64 per month with a free domain name + free SSL certificate.

→ Claim This Limited Time HostGator Deal ←

Why Choose HostGator to Make Your Website?

HostGator is one of the oldest and most well-known web hosting companies around. They offer affordable hosting plans for businesses of all sizes.

Our founder and CEO, Syed Balkhi, has been a loyal HostGator customer since 2007. In fact, WPBeginner itself started on HostGator’s shared hosting plan.

As our site grew, we upgraded to their VPS hosting plan, then a dedicated server, and now it is hosted on HostGator’s enterprise-level custom made infrastructure.

We can confidently say, that HostGator has been with us every step of the way through out our WordPress journey. They have a helpful support team, rock-solid infrastructure, one-click WordPress install, and a ton of other features.

NOTE: At WPBeginner we believe in transparency. If you sign up with HostGator using our referral link, then we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you (in fact, you will save money and get a free domain). We would get this commission for recommending just about any WordPress hosting company, but we only recommend products that we personally use and/or believe will add value to our readers.

Who is this offer great for?

Well everyone, but in particular: those users who are thinking about starting a new blog or launching a new website.

This offer is also great for users who want to move their blogs from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress.org website. For a detailed comparison of the two platforms, see our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

The following are some of the advantages of moving your site from WordPress.com to WordPress.org:

• You’ll get your own free domain name. For example, wpbeginner.com or mycoolwebsite.com (* Fee domain offer is available with the HostGator deal only)
• You’ll be able to install any WordPress plugin on your website
• You can choose any theme design you want and get even more customization options
• You can create an online store, membership community, or make money online with your blog
• Most importantly, you own and control all your content and do whatever you want with your website.

Basically, you get the full freedom to make any kind of website you want and bring your ideas to life.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to properly move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.

Still Not Sure How to Proceed? Let Us Help You with That

Many beginners feel a bit reluctant to move their blog or start a new one. This is understandable, especially if you are just starting out with little to no technical knowledge at all.

For those users, we have a special bonus offer:

Our expert team can help you get started. HostGator promised us that if you signup using our referral link, then they will compensate us to do the blog setup for you.

We will even migrate your WordPress.com blog over to self-hosted WordPress. Here’s how to claim this offer:

Step 1: Sign up using our referral link.

Step 2 Fill out the form on this page to get in touch with our experts.

Our team will set up your WordPress blog for you, and you’ll be able to just login to WordPress and start working on growing your business.

Who Shouldn’t Use this Offer?

At WPBeginner, our goal is to help users make the best decisions for their business regardless of whether we get paid or not.

This HostGator offer is great for a lot of use cases, but it does have some catches.

Shared hosting companies are able to offer low-cost hosting plans because they allow several websites to share the same server resources.

Basically, a shared hosting plan is like riding a bus vs driving your own car.

While advertising these plans, each company claims to offer unlimited everything. However, there is no such thing as unlimited, and there are restrictions on your shared hosting plan.

As your website grows ,and you start getting more visitors, then you’ll start hitting those limits.

In simpler terms, if your blog is getting millions of pageviews each month or even 100,000 visitors per month, then this $2.64 is not enough to handle that kind of traffic.

In that case, you’ll need to upgrade your hosting plan to VPS hosting or even managed WordPress hosting.

On the other hand, if you are just starting a new blog or launching a small business website, then you’ll save hundreds of dollars each month by taking advantage of this exclusive offer.

→ Claim This Limited Time HostGator Deal ←

We hope you found this exclusive offer helpful.

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 WPBeginner Users Get a Free Domain and 62% off HostGator Web Hosting appeared first on WPBeginner.

November 06, 2019 at 02:00AM