21 Best WordPress Themes for Fitness Blogs (2020)

Are you looking for the best WordPress themes for fitness blogs or gym websites?

As a fitness website owner, you may be looking for a theme with a specific look and features to help you promote your training, services, and products.

In this article, we will share some of the best WordPress themes for fitness blogs that you can use.

Starting Your Fitness Website with WordPress

WordPress is the best website builder in the market. And, over 35% of websites on the internet are built on WordPress.

There are two types of WordPress sites and choosing the right one is important for your success. See our comparison of WordPress.org vs WordPress.com for more details.

A self-hosted WordPress.org website gives you access to all features and complete control of your website.

To start a website, you’ll need a domain name and a WordPress hosting account.

We recommend using Bluehost. They are the most popular web hosting company, and an official WordPress hosting partner.

For WPBeginner users, they are giving a free domain name, free SSL, and a 60% discount on web hosting.

After signing up for the hosting, the next step is to install WordPress. See our guide on how to start a blog for step by step instructions.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress themes for fitness blogs that you can use.

1. Astra

Astra is a popular WordPress multipurpose theme. It is fast and lightweight, which makes it perfect for any kind of website.

The theme comes with dozens of starter sites, a 1-click demo content importer, and unlimited custom WordPress options to set up your fitness website quickly.

2. Divi

Divi is a powerful WordPress theme and an ultimate page builder plugin. It comes with multiple built-in modules and elements that let you set up your website quickly.

It is a 1-stop solution with 100s of layout packs for different business niches. You can find a perfect fitness website layout, including the homepage, contact page, and landing pages.

Their drag and drop page builder for WordPress is consistently ranked amongst the top in the market.

3. Ultra

Ultra is a highly flexible WordPress theme. It comes with ready-made website templates, including a fitness layout.

It ships with Themify drag and drop builder, which makes it even easier to create custom landing pages for your website. Ultra includes multiple addons to add pricing tables, countdown timers, Google Maps, and more to your site.

4. OceanWP

OceanWP is a free WordPress multipurpose theme designed for any type of website. It features a 1-click demo content importer addon and multiple starter sites to launch your fitness site.

The theme has built-in SEO optimization, which means you can rank your website in the search engines and increase your traffic. It also lets you set up an online fitness training program easily.

5. Hestia Pro

Hestia Pro is a multipurpose theme for WordPress websites. It has a fully customizable homepage layout with custom header that supports video and image backgrounds.

Other notable features include call-to-action buttons, custom logo, eye-catching colors, and useful homepage sections. It is easy to set up and works with all top WordPress page builders.

6. Lifestyle Pro

Lifestyle Pro is a magazine-style WordPress theme. It is built on top of the Genesis Theme Framework, which gives it a solid foundation to create a faster website.

The theme has a widgetized homepage to add your content and images quickly. It supports WooCommerce to sell fitness products and online training services.

StudioPress is now part of WP Engine, the most popular managed WordPress hosting company. You can get this theme and all 35+ other StudioPress themes when you sign up for WP Engine hosting to build your website.

Bonus: WPBeginner users also get an additional 20% OFF. Get started with WP Engine today!

7. Meridian Fitness

Meridian Fitness is a beautifully designed WordPress theme for health and fitness blogs, gyms, yoga clubs, and crossfit websites. It has easy-to-use sections for classes with schedules and trainers.

Inside you will also find several custom widgets, color schemes, templates for online schedules, contact form, and more. It is easy to set up with the help of a live theme customizer.

8. Sportify

If you are looking for a WordPress theme packed with features for fitness blogs, gyms, and sports websites, then check out Sportify. It has built-in homepage sections to easily add services, testimonials, team members, calendar, and more.

It comes with shortcodes to display call-to-action buttons, pricing tables, and tabbed content. It also ships with a powerful featured content slider plugin.

9. The WP Fitness

The WP Fitness is a perfect WordPress fitness theme. It includes a full-width custom header on top where you can add an image slider, a navigation menu, custom logo, and a call-to-action button.

The homepage has a grid layout that displays your featured posts beautifully. It is easy to set up, and all theme options are available in the WordPress live customizer.

10. Vigour

Vigour is a modern WordPress theme with a beautiful design for fitness websites, gyms, sports, yoga clubs, and health-related businesses. It has stylish homepage sections to add your services, image sliders, and image galleries.

It ships with a companion plugin to manage your fitness classes, schedules, and events. It also lets you embed videos of your training sessions on the homepage.

11. Energy

Energy is an excellent WordPress theme built for fitness websites, gyms, yoga studios, and weight loss programs. It features a full-width slider on the homepage followed by your most important content.

It includes 2 header styles, page templates, photo gallery, testimonials section, and a separate blog page. It lets you choose your colors and offers a theme options panel to help you set up your website easily.

12. Modules

If you need a flexible design for your website, then check out the Modules theme. It is packed with several ready-made websites that you can import in 1-click and add your content.

It is easy to create custom page layouts on Modules. It also comes with ready-made modules that you can drag and drop on any page to create a custom template for your fitness website.

13. The Styler

If you run a fitness blog for women, then take a look at The Styler. It is an elegantly designed theme with beautiful colors, crisp typography, and an eye-catching layout.

It includes custom widgets for social media networks, business hours, and more. You can choose a different combination of layouts using content widgets.

14. Inspiro

Inspiro is a stunning WordPress multipurpose theme. It comes with fullscreen video background, video gallery, and lightbox popup to watch videos in night mode.

It features unique homepage sections and comes with a drag and drop page builder for your custom page layouts. It is easy to set up and includes a theme settings panel for advanced options.

15. Advance Fitness Gym

Advance Fitness Gym is a free WordPress theme perfect for fitness bloggers, crossfit, and sports blogs. It comes with a welcome area on the homepage that you can use to introduce yourself to users.

It has a featured content slider, carousel slider, and services section. The theme also includes social media icons in the header section.

16. Spencer

Spencer is a beautiful WordPress theme for fitness businesses and lifestyle bloggers. It features a widgetized homepage layout with unlimited colors, sticky navigation menu, call-to-action button, and a newsletter signup form.

You can choose from different column settings, effects, sidebars, and customize everything to match your style. It also supports the Elementor page builder plugin.

17. Grandstand

If you are looking for a traditional WordPress fitness blog theme, then you should check out Grandstand. It has a 2-column layout with your blog posts in the left column and sidebar in the right column.

It comes with a navigation menu on the top next to social media profiles and a fullscreen search overlay. It offers dedicated spots to display ads and a custom ads template to attract new advertisers.

18. Neve

Neve is an elegant WordPress multipurpose theme. It ships with dozens of ready-made sites, including a fully functional fitness website template.

You get a fullscreen layout with a custom header background image, unlimited color choices, CTAs, and more. It also features homepage sections for your classes, schedules, and services.

19. Salon

Salon is a health and fitness theme for WordPress. It features a unique and modern layout which is easy to set up using the custom content widgets.

It includes homepage sections to add your services, staff profiles, photo galleries, and videos. You can choose from different color schemes or switch colors for each page easily.

20. Indigo

Want a magazine-style theme for your fitness blog? Indigo is a fantastic WordPress multipurpose theme. It has a minimalist approach with a spacious white layout that makes your content highly visible to users.

It includes a sticky navigation menu, featured content slider, 3-column widget area, categories, and more. It has a custom theme options panel, which makes it easy to set up.

21. Wellness Pro

Wellness Pro is a classic WordPress fitness theme for lifestyle bloggers, yoga clubs, and health-related businesses. It has a full-width custom header where you can display a welcome note and a call-to-action button.

It offers 12 different widgets for the homepage and landing pages. The theme is fully translation-ready to create a multilingual website easily.

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress themes for fitness blogs. You may also want to check out our article on how to start an online store and best WordPress plugins for websites.

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

The post 21 Best WordPress Themes for Fitness Blogs (2020) appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 10, 2020 at 06:06PM

How to Fix Common Image Issues in WordPress

WordPress comes with some pretty neat tools to manage and edit images. You can easily upload images, align them, and even edit them inside WordPress.

Most beginners are not aware of these WordPress image editing features. It takes users a while to discover out some of them while other features go completely unnoticed.

If you ever had a question about WordPress images, then you’re in luck. In this article, we will cover the most common image issues in WordPress and how to fix them.

Since this is a detailed article, here is the list of image related issues that we will cover this article.

1. How to Upload Images in WordPress?
2. How to Align Image to the Left or Right in WordPress?
3. How to Add Caption below Images?
4. How to Display Photos in Columns and Rows?
5. Create Beautiful Responsive Image Galleries in WordPress
6. How to Fix Missing Post Thumbnails / Featured Image?
7. How to Add Cover Images in WordPress Posts and Pages
8. How to Fix Featured Image Appearing Twice Issue?
9. Image too Big? How to Crop Images in WordPress?
10. How to Add a Header Image in WordPress?
11. How to Add a Background Image in WordPress?
12. How to Find Free Images for Your WordPress Blog Posts?
13. How to Tag Images in WordPress?
14. How to Import External Images in WordPress?
15. How to Require Featured Image for Posts in WordPress?
16. How to Set a Default Featured Image in WordPress?
17. How to Remove the Default Image Link in WordPress?

Let’s start with the most obvious one.

1. How to Upload images in WordPress?

WordPress makes it super easy to upload images to your posts, pages, and non-content areas like sidebars.

To upload images in WordPress posts and pages, you simply need to add the image block to the content editor.

You can also add the image block by simply typing /image in a paragraph block. The editor will start showing blocks you can insert as soon as you start typing.

WordPress will now add the image block to the editor. You need to click on the ‘Upload’ button to select and upload the image from your computer.

You can also select a previously uploaded image from your media library.

After uploading the image, you’ll see a live preview of the image in the content editor.

You’ll see a bunch of image settings on the right panel. From there you can provide image alt text, select image size, and image style.

2. How to Align Image to the Left or Right in WordPress?

WordPress makes it easier to align images to the left, right, or center. Simply select the image by clicking on it, and then click on alignment button from the block toolbar.

You may have noticed how some popular blogs use images with text wrapped around them. This is done by using the align feature.

Alternatively, you can also use the ‘Media & Text’ block instead of the image block. This block is made specifically for adding images next to the text.

You can then upload an image and text side by side. You can also use the block toolbar to change the image or text side.

3. How to Add Caption below Images?

WordPress allows you to easily add caption for images. After you upload an image, you’ll see the option to add caption right below the image preview.

Similarly, you can also add captions to image galleries in WordPress. For more details, see our guide on how to add captions to images in WordPress.

4. How to Display Photos in Columns and Rows?

Often users ask us how to neatly display photos in columns and rows.

Let’s say you want to share photos of a birthday party or vacation photos. You can add them one by one into a post, but this will look like a lengthy list of images.

The better way to group your photos is by creating image galleries.

WordPress comes with a built-in gallery block that allows you to easily add images in rows and columns with thumbnail previews.

Simply add the gallery block to the post editor and select the images you want to upload.

For more detailed instructions see our guide on how to create an image gallery in WordPress.

5. Create Beautiful Responsive Image Galleries in WordPress

You will notice that the default WordPress image galleries lack several features. For instance, they are also not very easy to browse.

If you often upload images and photographs to your WordPress site, then you will need a proper WordPress photo gallery plugin.

We recommend using Envira Gallery. It allows you to easily create beautiful and fully mobile-friendly image galleries on your WordPress site.

The best part is that it adds additional functionality like albums, gallery templates, social sharing, slideshows, watermarking, pagination, password protection, tagging, fullscreen view, and much more.

6. How to Fix Missing Post Thumbnails / Featured Image?

Most WordPress themes allow you to prominently display a featured image with your articles. Here is how to set a featured image in WordPress to avoid missing thumbnails.

Now, you can click on ‘Set Featured Image’ to upload your post thumbnail. After uploading the image, you’ll be able to see your post thumbnail in the featured image meta box like this:

For more details, see our guide on how to add featured image or post thumbnail in WordPress.

7. How to Add Cover Images in WordPress Posts and Pages

Cover images are the wide or full-width images that can be used as a separator between different sections of an article or a lengthy sales page.

They are highly engaging and help users easily scan a page without feeling overwhelmed by too much text.

To add a cover image, you simply need to add the ‘Cover’ block to the content editor.

Next, you need to upload the image you want to use from your computer or select one from the media library. If you don’t want to use an image, then you can also select a color background as the cover.

Tip: It is best to use a large image for a better result.

You’ll now see a liver preview of your cover image in the editor. You can change the cover image display options from the block toolbar or using the settings on the right.

To learn more see our guide on the difference between cover image vs featured image in WordPress and how to use them effectively.

8. How to Fix Featured Image Appearing Twice Issue?

Inserting the featured image inside content is a common mistake made by beginners.

Once you set a featured image, you don’t need to insert it into the post editor along with your post content.

Doing so, will make your featured image appear twice. Once as the featured image, and once as an image inside the post.

You can add other images in your post, but your featured image goes in the featured image box.

For more details, see our guide on how to fix featured image appearing twice in WordPress posts.

9. Image too Big? How to Crop Images in WordPress?

When you are uploading images from your phone or camera they are usually too big.

WordPress automatically creates small, medium, and large image sizes for your original upload. But sometimes you may need to crop the image in a different size.

WordPress is no Photoshop, but it comes with some basic image editing features like scale, crop, flip and rotate images.

Go to Media » Add New and upload your image. After uploading the image, you will see an Edit link next to the uploaded image.

Clicking on it will open the Edit Media screen where you will see an Edit Image button right below the image. This will open the WordPress image editor.

From here you can click on the ‘Edit Image’ button below the image preview. This will open the image editing screen.

On the image editor screen, you will see buttons to perform some basic image editing tasks such as cropping, rotating, resizing, etc.

For more detailed instructions see our guide on how to crop, rotate, scale, and flip images in WordPress.

10. How to Add a Header Image in WordPress?

A header image in WordPress is a theme feature. Many WordPress free and premium themes comes with support for header image.

You can upload your own custom header image from the Appearance » Customize page.

Since it is a theme feature, many WordPress themes come with their own header options. Some allow you to set a site-wide header image, while others allow you to only set a header image for the homepage.

11. How to Add a Background Image in WordPress?

Just like the custom header image, custom background image is also a WordPress theme feature. Many WordPress themes come with support for custom background images.

Visit Appearance » Customize to launch the theme customizer. If you can see the Background Image option, then your theme has support for custom backgrounds.

It is a theme feature which is why it varies from one theme to another. Depending on your theme you’ll see different options for styling your background image.

If your theme does not support background image, then you can still use a plugin to add full-screen background images to your website.

12. How to Find Free Images for Your WordPress Blog Posts?

Images can make your articles stand out. However, you must respect copyrights of other people and try to find images that you are legally allowed to use.

We are often asked by our readers about how to find best royalty free images to use in their posts?

There are many websites where you can find free images to use. However, you will soon notice that images on those sites look overused and generic.

See our list of the best sources for free public domain and CC0-licensed images on the internet.

13. How to Tag Images in WordPress?

If you run a photography blog, then you will notice that WordPress does not allow you to sort photos and images.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could add tags to your images, so that you and your users can easily browse them?

Luckily, there are some great plugins that allow you to do just that.

For a photography related blog, the best option is to use Envira Gallery which comes with an add-on to add tags.

Envira Gallery allows you to create beautiful, mobile-ready, photo galleries in WordPress. Using tags, your users can easily filter and sort photos without even reloading a page.

For more details, see our article on how to add categories and tags to WordPress media library.

14. How to Import External Images in WordPress?

This question often comes up when you are migrating your site to WordPress. Some images on your website may still be pointing to older location.

Specially users importing blogs from Blogger, Squarespace, or WordPress.com may face this problem.

While the images on your site may appear correctly, they are still loading from external source. To solve this issue, all you need to do is install and activate Auto Upload Images plugin.

The plugin will check for external images once you update or save any post or page. You can manually do that for each post or page or you can bulk edit all posts and simply click the update button.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to import external images in WordPress.

15. How to Require Featured Image for Posts in WordPress?

When running a multi-author site in WordPress, some of your authors may not be familiar with the featured image functionality.

In this case, you may want to remind yourself or your users to upload a featured image whenever they are submitting a post in WordPress.

You can do this by installing and activating the Require Featured Image plugin.

Once activated, the plugin will display a notification box in the post edit area, informing users that this post requires a featured image.

You and your users will be able to save posts as drafts, but you cannot publish the post until you add a featured image.

See our article on how to require featured images for posts in WordPress for more instructions.

16. How to Set a Default Featured Image in WordPress?

Finding the perfect featured image for every post or article is a tough task. Sometimes you may not want to add a featured image to a post, but your theme may look awkward without a featured image.

This is where a default featured image can come in handy. A default featured image is used when an article does not have a featured image of its own.

You can set a default featured image by using the default featured image plugin.

We hope this article helped you fix some of the most common image issues in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

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

The post How to Fix Common Image Issues in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 09, 2020 at 03:00PM

How to Create a Buy One Get One Free Offer in WooCommerce

Do you want to create “buy one get one” (BOGO) offers in your WooCommerce store? BOGO deals are an effective way to drive more sales and win new customers.

While it’s not a built-in feature in WooCommerce, you can easily add it using a WooCommerce plugin.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create a WooCommerce buy one get one free offer to drive more sales.

Why and When to Offer BOGO Deals in WooCommerce?

BOGO or Buy one Get One Free deals are an effective way to make more sales on your online store.

Now many beginners believe that they will be giving away products for free. Obviously, that’s not the case.

Most online stores only offer BOGO deals for products / inventory that they want to move. Some do it to recover abandoned cart sales and acquire a new customer.

Think of BOGO offers as a way to acquire new customers. You can then reach out to those customers and turn them into repeat buyers.

Considering the cost of online advertising like PPC and social media ads, BOGO discounts can be a cheaper way to build a loyal customer base.

You can also use BOGO deal to offer significant discounts on the second product instead of giving it for free. This technique is typically used by retailers to promote offers like Buy One Get One 50% off, or Buy 2 Get 1 free, etc.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add buy one get one offer in WooCommerce.

Creating a Buy One Get One Offer in WooCommerce

The easiest way to add a buy one get one free offer in WooCommerce is by using Advanced Coupons. It is the best WooCommerce coupon code plugin on the market and allows you to easily create coupons and deals for your eCommerce store.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Advanced Coupons plugin. For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to click on the Advanced Coupons tab in the admin sidebar to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the Advanced Coupons website.

To create your BOGO deal, go to the WooCommerce » Coupons page and click on the Add Coupon button.

On the next screen, you need to provide a title for your coupon. This will also become the actual coupon that customers will be able to enter into the coupon field.

You’ll notice a button to automatically generate a coupon code below the title. This button generates a random string of letters and numbers which makes the coupon code hard to remember.

It’s best if you create your own coupon code which is easy to remember for your customers.

Next, scroll down to the ‘Coupon Data’ section. From here you can select what kind of coupon deal you want to create. You need to switch to the ‘BOGO Deals’ tab.

You can create a range of different BOGO deals using Advanced Coupons by setting up specific triggers. These activate the deal and determine what products should be added.

There are three types of triggers that you can use:

• Specific Product: This is for simple, straight-forward deals on a single product.
• Combination of Products: You can use this for products that have variations, or deals that apply to multiple products.
• Product Categories: Great for running a sale on a range of products from a category or even several categories.

Once you’ve chosen the trigger type, you’ll need to pick what products can trigger the deal. Click ‘Add Product’ then select the product(s) you want to add.

You can have more than one product here. For instance, the customer might need to buy 2 products from the category ‘T-Shirts’ to get a 3rd t-shirt free.

It’s important to note that you don’t necessarily have to make the second product free. You could run a deal where the second t-shirt is significantly discounted such as 50% off instead.

All of these options are easy to create with Advanced Coupons.

Once you’ve set up your trigger, you’ll need to pick what product the customer gets for free. This could be the same product as before, or it could be a different product or even a range of products.

Here’s an example showing a deal where the customer can buy any t-shirt and get another one for free.

If you choose a single product, it’ll be automatically placed in the customer’s shopping cart. If you set the ‘Apply Type’ to ‘Any Combination of Products’ or ‘Product Categories’ then the customer will need to choose a product from your store and add it to their cart.

If you want to create a deal where the “get one” item is discounted rather than free, you can do that using the dropdown beneath the ‘Price/Discount’ heading. You can offer a percentage or a fixed discount:

Under ‘Additional Settings’, you can choose whether you want the deal to only be applied once or whether it can be repeated.

For instance, if you’re offering a “buy two get one free” offer on t-shirts, you might be happy for the customer to keep adding more t-shirts. That way, they could “buy four, get two free” or “buy six, get three free” and so on.

You can also type in a notice that customers will see when they trigger the deal. This has a special button they can use to view the deal.

Applying The Buy One Get One Free Coupon

Customers will simply add the product to their cart and add the BOGO deal coupon code.

The coupon code will apply the deal based on the settings you selected. For instance, here it gives a 100% discount to make the other product free.

The cart discounts will depend on the quantity and triggers you have selected when creating the BOGO deal. The discount will not apply if the user has an incorrect quantity or product in their cart.

How to Promote Your BOGO Deal in WooCommerce

Now that you have created the buy one get one free offer, the next step is to promote it across your website so that your customers can find and use it.

The easiest way to do this is by using OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization tool on the market and allows you to easily convert website visitors into paying customers.

It comes with beautiful lightbox popups where you can display your coupon code. With smart page targeting features, you can display the coupon on specific products or across your website.

For details see our tutorial on how to create a coupon popup in WordPress.

Apart from popups, OptinMonster also allows you to promote your BOGO deals using floating bars, countdown timers, inline optins, and slide-in popups.

We hope this tutorial has helped you learn how to create a WooCommerce BOGO “Buy One Get One” free offer. You might also like our expert pick of the the best WooCommerce plugins to grow your online store.

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 Buy One Get One Free Offer in WooCommerce appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 08, 2020 at 05:56PM

How Churches Can Offer Online Sermons with WordPress

Do you need an easy way to share sermons with your church members online?

Recording and uploading sermons to your church website is a great way to reach members who can’t attend church. This can also help you to attract new church members as well.

In this article, we’ll teach you how you can record audio or video sermons, add them to your church website, and let your members subscribe, so they don’t miss a single update.

Bonus, if your church doesn’t have a website, then we will cover that too.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Why Record and Upload Sermons?

You’ve probably already created a website for your church. Most church websites include the basic information like location, service times, and a contact form.

But when it comes to putting sermons online, or even putting your whole church services online, you might think it takes too much time or would cost a lot of money.

There are a lot of reasons it makes sense to put your sermons online:

• Many new visitors to your church can listen online before they ever come through the doors.
• You may have church members who missed service because they were sick, or because they are elderly and unable to get out as much.
• Some members might miss part of the service to take care of a crying infant, and want to hear the rest.

Even for members who are present for the whole service, you may find that when you offer your sermons online, people are able to listen again and get even more out of the message.

Plus, adding sermons can even help you get more website traffic. That’s because websites that publish new content more often tend to rank higher in search results.

And the good news is that in terms of both dollars and volunteer hours, it doesn’t have to break the bank. Many small churches and church plants need to make a website as inexpensively as possible.

We’ll include instructions for how to record sermons on a tight budget, as well as give a few options for those who may have a higher production budget and are looking for more professional solutions.

Ready to learn how to record sermons and upload them to your site? We’ll walk you through each step.

Here’s a quick outline that you can use to easily browse the article:

• How to Create a Church Website
• Choosing the Right Church Recording Equipment
• How to Record Your Sermon
• Uploading Sermon Recording Online
• How to Live Stream Sermons Online

Step 1: Set Up Your Church Website

If you already have a WordPress website set up, then you can click here to skip to step 2 which is focused on choosing your recording equipment.

You can watch this video tutorial, or read our step-by-step guide on how to create a WordPress website to get started.

If you’re just getting started, we highly recommend using Bluehost to host your website.

They are offering WPBeginner readers a free domain name and 60% discount on web hosting. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.

→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←

You might also want to see our roundup of the best WordPress themes for churches, so you can customize your site design.

Once your website is set up, the next step is to make sure you have the equipment you need to record your sermons.

Step 2: Get the Right Recording Equipment

The equipment you need will depend on whether you want to record your live sermons while you’re preaching in the church, or record sermons separately by yourself.

The good news is, if you want to record live sermons, you may already have everything you need.

If your church already has a soundboard and an available laptop for recording sermons, you may just need to purchase a small cable like this 3.5mm to XLR Cable to run from your soundboard to a laptop.

Once connected, you can then use a program like Audacity to record the sermon (more on that in the next step).

If you don’t have a soundboard for your church, you could use a portable recorder like this Handheld Digital Audio Recorder. You can easily set this on your podium so you don’t have to hold it the whole time.

You might also want to record sermons privately by yourself, instead of recording the live sermon, or even record additional teaching for deeper study.

In that case, you’ll need a good microphone. You might think about using your laptop’s built-in mic to record sermons, but we don’t recommend that. Your church members will notice the bad sound quality and may have trouble understanding your sermon.

We recommend investing in one of these 3 mics that are popular for podcasting:

• Samson C01U (USB) – Entry level budget mic
• Rode Podcaster (USB) – Best USB mic that we found. We use it for our WPBeginner videos.
• Heil PR-40 (XLR connection, not USB) – Professional-quality mic

At WPBeginner, we also use the Rode Podcaster kit that came with a mic arm and shock mount.

You should also consider using a decent pair of headphones like Sony MDR7506 for recording and editing your audio files.

How do you record a sermon video?

For recording video sermons, you’ll need to use a video camera.

If you need to begin with an absolute minimal budget, you can record on your smartphone using a tripod. This is the cheapest way to go.

GripTight GorillaPod Stand PRO is a good tripod for any type of phone. It has adjustable legs that can be used to attach it to any surface.

For churches with a modest budget, you can use SlingStudio’s HD Video Production Unit to create a high-quality video recording that uses multiple cameras. SlingStudio lets you switch between video feeds in real-time from an iPad or laptop. You can add feeds from camcorders, DSLR cameras, or even use your smartphone.

Once you’ve chosen your equipment, you’re ready to start recording.

Step 3: Record Your Sermon

To record your sermons, we recommend using the program Audacity.

Audacity is a completely free program that, like WordPress, is licensed under the GPL. You can use it to record your sermons, and also edit the files for noise reduction and enhanced sound quality.

After you install Audacity, you’ll need to open the program and click the File menu to start a new project.

Then, click on the record button to start recording your sermon.

Don’t feel like you need to start over if you make a mistake. Just keep going, and then you can edit out the mistakes after you’re finished recording.

If you want, you can also import music files from File » Import to use at the beginning or end of your sermon.

Since Audacity is a powerful tool, you may want to check out these Audacity tutorials to learn more about all the features.

After you’re done recording your sermon, you can export it. We recommend the MP3 format because it creates smaller file sizes with good quality.

Once you’ve saved the file, you’re ready to upload it to your website.

Step 4: Upload Your Sermon Recording

Both audio and video recordings produce large files. You might be able to get away with hosting your audio files on your website for a short time, but you’re likely going to run into space issues after a while.

If you want to keep your WordPress website fast, you shouldn’t upload audio or video files to your own site.

We recommend you use a separate church sermon hosting service. If you’re looking for the best podcast host for churches, we recommend using Podbean to upload your sermon audio recordings. You can also check out our list of the best podcast hosting services for other options.

For video files, we recommend you get started on YouTube. It is easy to use, super-fast, and free. It is also the world’s second-largest search engine which means additional chances for your sermons to be viewed by someone new.

Once you’ve recorded your sermons and put them online, it’s time to add them to your website so your own members and visitors can easily find them.

You will begin by adding the Sermon Manager for WordPress plugin. For more details see our step-by-step guide on how to install a plugin.

You will begin by adding your first sermon. Simply go to Sermons » Add New page.

First, you will need to add the title of your sermon and the date it was preached on. You must add the date preached to be able to publish your sermon.

After those two fields, there are many fields that are optional but we encourage you to fill out as many as possible. Adding thoughtful descriptions helps your sermon be discoverable by search engines.

The second set of fields will allow you to paste the URL for your files, whether you’re adding audio, video, or both. There’s also a place where you can add sermon notes if you’d like to attach a PDF.

Fill out the meta on the right column for things like the preacher’s name, the sermon series, and then click publish. And that’s it! If you’re using pretty permalinks, your first sermon will now be available at:

https://ift.tt/2Xf5CLY

Submit your Podcast to Apple’s iTunes and Google Play

Another great feature in the Sermon Manager plugin is that you can easily submit your feed to podcasts. This makes it easier for your members to subscribe and receive notifications on their phones when you publish a new sermon.

To get started go to Sermons » Settings and click on the Podcast tab. The folks behind the Sermon Manager for WordPress plugin have made this section very self-explanatory so you will be able to follow along, filling in your own data and seeing what they recommend in light gray text.

Go through each field and fill in the information so it matches your church.

At the bottom, click the save button. Next, you’ll use the link for the feed validator so you can be sure you’ve filled out everything correctly. When your feed validates you’ll copy the link and submit your podcast to both Apple Podcasts and Google Play Podcasts.

How Do I Live Stream Sermons?

Plenty of churches are asking how do I live stream sermons, so you may be wanting to do that as well.

We recommend live streaming in addition to having sermons on your own website. If you only live stream and don’t record your sermons, then you’re missing out on all the benefits we listed above.

Having sermons on your website means your church members can access past sermons more easily. It can also help you to grow your website traffic.

That said, live streaming sermons can be a good way to reach new audiences on social media.

Two of the best ways are YouTube and Facebook. Facebook especially can be a good option because a lot of your members are already there and connected to your page.

But Facebook Live isn’t always reliable. We’ve heard reports of churches having issues with their livestream crashing in the middle of the service. Using a broadcasting service instead can offer a smoother experience.

Restream will allow you to broadcast your service on your own website, YouTube, your Facebook page, a Facebook group, and other services, all at the same time.

You can also record your sermons or services in advance and schedule them to go live at the right time for a less stressful experience.

If you’re live streaming your sermon using your smartphone, you’ll want to make sure you’re using a tripod for the best results.

After your live stream is over, you can add the video to your own site following our tutorial above.

We hope this article helped you learn how to record sermons. You may also want to check out our guide on how to accept online donations.

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 Churches Can Offer Online Sermons with WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 07, 2020 at 07:48PM