Friday, October 2, 2020

9 Best Social Proof WordPress Plugins (Easy to Use)

Are you looking for the best social proof plugins for your WordPress website or WooCommerce store?

Social proof helps you earn customer trust and make more sales by showcasing your interactions with previous customers.

In this article, we will take a look at the best social proof WordPress plugins to help you make more sales and win customers.

The best social proof plugins for WordPress

What Is Social Proof and Why Does it Matter?

Social proof is the natural inclination that we have to copy other people’s actions. We are more likely to try things that we see other people buying, using, or recommending.

Social proof can take several different forms. It could be a review or testimonial. It could simply be a number, such as the number of Facebook fans or email newsletter subscribers your company has.

You can also use social proof for your online store to boost overall conversion rate. It can also be a great way to encourage donations, downloads, comments, or anything else that helps you reach your goals.

Since WordPress is the most popular website builder on the planet, there many different types of social proof tools available for you to use.

With that said, let’s take a look the best WordPress social proof plugins.

1. TrustPulse

The TrustPulse website

TrustPulse is the best WordPress social proof plugin on the market. It uses the FOMO effect by displaying real-time notifications of user activities on your site.

TrustPulse can show a notification bubble with recent purchases, form submissions, signs up for a free trial, and more.

You can setup TrustPulse on your site within a few minutes, and it is proven to instantly increase conversions by as much as 15%.

TrustPulse has lots of powerful features, including smart targeting. This lets you display social proof to the right people at the right time.

The TrustPulse plugin is ready to use straight out of the box.

It can automatically detect your eCommerce platform and start showing recent customer interactions / sales. Alternatively, you can also customize it to detect specific user activities and display on your site.

The TrustPulse notification popups are unobtrusive. They will not get in the way of your content or your user’s experience of your site. At the same time, they’re highly effective.

An example of a TrustPulse notification on OptinMonster's site

It also comes with built-in analytics that let you easily see which pages are getting the best conversion rate. This can help you optimize your content and boost conversions even further.

Price:

TrustPulse is free for up to 500 sessions per month. After that, pricing starts from $4/month (paid upfront annually).

2. Smash Balloon

The Smash Balloon website

Smash Balloon‘s plugins let you add social media feeds to your WordPress site. They can be used to show testimonials and other social proof.

Smash Balloon has plugins for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. These let you easily gather social media testimonials or other powerful user-generated content.

For instance, you could use Smash Balloon’s Custom Twitter Feeds Pro plugin to add Twitter testimonials to your site. This lets you show what real people are saying about your products or services.

Bringing your social feed onto your site is more powerful than simply copying and pasting testimonials. It’s immediately clear to your site’s visitors that the tweets are real testimonials with real people behind them.

You can use their Instagram Feeds Pro plugin to automatically display new user photos of your product, or the YouTube Feeds Pro plugin to automatically display new user video reviews of your brand.

With Smash Balloon, it’s easy to choose exactly what elements to include in your social media feeds. For example, you could include the number of likes and comments on your Facebook posts. This can be a useful form of social proof as it shows that your brand has lots of followers and fans.

Price:

Smash Balloon offers an ‘All Access Bundle’ for all their plugins. This costs $299/year. Alternatively, you can buy an individual plugin for just $49/year.

There’s also lite free version of all Smash Balloon feed plugins.

3. Shared Counts

Shared Counts

Shared Counts is a straightforward WordPress plugin that lets you add social media share buttons to your site.

Many of these buttons can display your post or page‘s share count on the relevant social networks. If your blog content gets shared a lot, this is an easy form of social proof that shows just how popular your website is.

Shared Counts gives your readers an easy way to share your content on their favorite social networks. All they need to do is click a button.

All the most popular social media services are covered, including Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The plugin also lets you add a button that people can use to email your content to someone else.

The Shared Counts plugin uses the SharedCount.com API to provide the numbers for your shared counts. We have a step by step guide to Shared Counts that takes you through signing up for the SharedCount.com API.

Alternatively, you can use the shared counts from each of the social media apps, but this is more likely to slow down your site.

Price:

Shared Counts is completely free.

4. OptinMonster

The OptinMonster website

OptinMonster is a fantastic lead-generation tool that lets you easily convert visitors into email subscribers through popups and other eye-catching signup forms.

You can use it for social proof as well, by creating a popup that highlights key figures. For instance, you might create a popup that lets readers know how many people are on your email list.

OptinMonster lets you create a wide range of different popups and optin forms. These include regular-sized popups, floating bars, fullscreen popups, inline campaigns, and slide-ins.

Best of all, OptinMonster comes with lots of professionally designed and fully customizable templates. This lets you create great-looking popups in just a few minutes.

OptinMonster offers extra ways to boost your conversions, too. It’s easy to use countdown timers to create a sense of urgency and use the power of FOMO (fear of missing out). You can also boost engagement with special lead generation campaigns, such as yes/no optins and ‘spin the wheel’ optins.

Price:

The ‘Pro’ plan for OptinMonster costs $29/month (billed annually). This has lots of useful features like countdown timers and Exit Intent® technology.

The cheapest plan available is from $9/month, but this has limited features.

5. Thrive Ovation

The Thrive Ovation website

Thrive Ovation is a popular testimonial plugin for WordPress. It’s an effective way to add social proof by showing what people have said about your products or services.

With it, you can convert comments into testimonials with a single click. Thrive Ovation captures the name and photo of the person who left the comment.

It can also be integrated with Facebook and Twitter. This lets you take testimonials directly from those networks and add them to your own site.

Thrive Ovation even lets you create a landing page where you can collect testimonials through a simple online form. It can also send out automated emails to your customers to encourage them to leave a testimonial for you.

Price:

Thrive Ovation costs $39, which includes unlimited updates. You will need to pay a small extra fee after a year to continue receiving support.

6. WPForms

The WPForms website

WPForms is another easy way to collect testimonials and reviews. It’s the best forms plugin for WordPress and is designed to be really easy to use, even if you’re a complete beginner.

The WPForms template pack includes a testimonials form template. This lets you quickly set up a form to gather reviews and testimonials.

You can customize your testimonials form in any way you want. For instance, you could add an upload field so that customers can share a photo. You could even add a ratings field so customers can give your product or service a score.

Of course, there are lots of other ways to use WPForms too. You might decide to run a survey or poll. This can provide social proof through the results, or even through the number of participants.

Price:

The lite version of WPForms is free, but has limited functionality. WPForms premium version prices start from $39/year.

7. Constant Contact

The Constant Contact website

Constant Contact is our recommended email marketing service. There are lots of other services you can choose from too.

Having an email newsletter list is really important for all websites. Your email list is a great way to promote your products or services.

Once you have lots of signups to your email newsletter, it’s easy to use that number as social proof. For instance, you might encourage new visitors to join your email list by telling them, ‘50,000 people are already getting our emails every day. Are you missing out?’

Of course, you can use social proof within your emails as well. You could share testimonials when promoting a product or you could let your subscribers know how many places have already sold on an online course or class.

Price:

Constant Contact costs from $20/month. However, you can get a 20% discount by using our Constant Contact coupon. This makes it just $16/month.

8. NotificationX

The NotificationX website

NotificationX is a notifications plugin that you can use as an alternative to TrustPulse. You can use it to show download counts, comments, sales, reviews, and more.

You can use NotificationX on specific pages or across your whole site. Plus, there’s an analytics tool that lets you see which of your notification popups are the most effective.

With NotificationX, your site can show a small popup notification to all visitors each time someone comments. If you’re using MailChimp, you can show a notification whenever someone subscribes to your email list.

NotificationX can show reviews from WooCommerce or even from WordPress.org, if you sell a theme or plugin. It also has the option to create timer countdown notification bars.

Price

There’s a free version of NotificationX. This offers a great range of features if you’re just getting started. The pro version costs from $39/year.

9. WPfomify

The WPfomify website

WPfomify is another good notifications plugin. It shows recent sales and signups, and much more. If you have lots of traffic, you could use the Visitor Count notification to show how many people are visiting a page currently.

You can customize how WPfomify looks to make it a great match for your site and brand. It’s designed to be completely responsive and work on all devices.

WPfomify can also be used to show reviews. Like NotificationX, it lets you create timer countdown bars to use the power of FOMO.

WPfomify integrates with a range of other plugins and services. These include Give, a popular donations plugin, ConvertKit, Zapier, and many more.

Price:

WPfomify costs from $99/year.

We hope this article helped you find the best social proof plugins for WordPress and WooCommerce. You might also want to see our guide on the best plugins for business websites, and our comparison of the best business phone services providers.

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 Social Proof WordPress Plugins (Easy to Use) appeared first on WPBeginner.


October 02, 2020 at 03:40PM

Thursday, October 1, 2020

How to Easily Embed Videos in WordPress Blog Posts

Do you want to embed videos in your WordPress blog posts? Videos bring life to your website, and they are a great way to increase user engagement.

WordPress makes it super easy to embed videos from video hosting sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, and many others.

In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to easily embed videos in WordPress blog posts, pages, and sidebar widgets.

How to easily embed videos in WordPress

How to Embed Videos in WordPress Blog Posts and Pages

WordPress comes with a great feature called auto-embeds which allows your website to automatically get the embed code from popular video hosting services like YouTube, Vimeo, etc.

All you need to do is paste the video URL into the WordPress editor.

For example, you can copy the YouTube URL for a video that you want to embed.

Next, edit the WordPress post or page where you want to add the video, and simply paste the URL in the content area.

Embedding video in WordPress post editor

As soon as you paste the video URL, WordPress will fetch the embed code and display the YouTube video inside the content editor.

You can now save your post and click on the preview button to see the embedded video in your blog post.

Video embedded in a WordPress blog post

Wasn’t that easy?

After you have added the video, you can change its settings from the block toolbar and settings column on the right.

Video block toolbar and settings

You can adjust the video width, make it full-width, change alignment, and more. You can also add a caption and preserve the video’s aspect ratio on mobile devices.

WordPress can only do auto-embeds for white-listed video services. For other websites, you will still have to obtain the embed code and then paste it in your blog posts.

Here is a list of white-listed video services for auto embeds in WordPress:

  • Amazon
  • Animoto
  • Cloudup
  • CollegeHumor
  • Crowdsignal
  • Dailymotion
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Hulu
  • Imgur
  • Instagram
  • Issuu
  • Kickstarter
  • Meetup.com
  • Mixcloud
  • Reddit
  • ReverbNation
  • Screencast
  • Scribd
  • Slideshare
  • SmugMug
  • Someecards
  • SoundCloud
  • Speaker Deck
  • Spotify
  • TED
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • VideoPress
  • Vimeo
  • WordPress.tv
  • YouTube

If you want to add a video from a website outside this list, then you will need the full HTML embed code for the video.

Simply copy the HTML code provided by the video website and paste it inside a ‘Custom HTML’ block in the editor.

Add a custom embed code in WordPress

Embed Videos in WordPress Using Old Classic Editor

If you are still using the old WordPress classic editor, then you can embed the videos the same way.

Simply copy the URL from a video hosting service like YouTube, and paste it in the editor. If you are using the visual editor, then you will see a preview of the video.

Emedding video in old WordPress editor

However, you will not be able to use the width adjustment and other options that you can use in the new WordPress block editor.

How to Embed Videos in WordPress Sidebar Widgets

Just like a WordPress page or post, you can also embed videos in WordPress sidebar widgets.

Simply go to Appearance » Widgets page and add the ‘Text’ widget to a sidebar. See our article on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.

Inside the widget settings, you need to paste the video URL in the content area. WordPress will automatically fetch the embed code and display the video preview.

Embed videos in WordPress sidebar widget

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your widget settings.

You can now visit your website to see the video embed in the WordPress sidebar widget.

WordPress Video Embed Plugins

By default, you don’t need to use a plugin to embed videos in WordPress. However, you may want to use plugins to improve video viewing experience on your website.

The following are a few plugins that you may want to try.

1. Smash Balloon YouTube Feed

Smash Balloon for YouTube home page

Smash Balloon Feeds for YouTube is one of the best WordPress video plugins. It allows you to automatically embed all of your YouTube channel videos in a customizable gallery format. It automatically imports new videos, combines feeds, add live streaming, and more.

There’s also a free version of YouTube feed plugin available by Smash Balloon, but in our demo below, we’ll be showing the Pro version.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Smash Balloon Feeds for YouTube plugin. From there, head over to Feeds for YouTube » License page and enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the plugin’s website.

Smash Balloon license key

After activating your license key, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button. Next, head over to the Configure tab and click the big blue button to connect your YouTube account.

Connect your YouTube Feed

Once you’re finished, you’ll be redirected back to your WordPress dashboard to set up your YouTube feed.

YouTube account connected

Click on the ‘Save Changes’ button and you’re ready to go.

To embed your YouTube feed into a post or page simply edit it in WordPress. On the page edit screen, click on the (+) button add a new block and select the ‘Feeds for YouTube’ block.

YouTube feed block

As you add the block to your post editor, it will automatically fetch and display videos from your YouTube channel.

YouTube feed embedded

When you check your site, you’ll see that your feed is embedded into the page you just created.

YouTube Feed on your page

Smash Balloon YouTube Feeds comes with multiple layout and style options. You can change the default style by visiting the Feeds for YouTube » Customize page.

Carousel option

From here, you can choose a grid, gallery, list, or carousel layout. Don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button to store your changes.

Carousel Feed on your site

You’ll see you have a Carousel of videos with navigation arrows on the right and left, along with a Subscribe button at the bottom of your feed.

If you want to further customize your feed, then click on the Display tab in plugin setting. This page lists the series of shortcodes that you can use anywhere on your site.

Shortcode options

To insert a shortcode into a post or page, you can use the shortcode block.

Shortcode block

Now you can add your feed shortcode [youtube-feed] (or any variation you want) into the block settings.

Shortcode Inserted

You can also use the Smash Balloon YouTube feed with their new Social Wall plugin that combines all of your social media content from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube on a single page.

2. YouTube Subscribe Bar

YouTube Subscribe Bar in action

YouTube Subscribe Bar shows a YouTube subscribe button below your YouTube video embeds in WordPress. It also fetches your YouTube subscriber count to add social proof and encourage more users to subscribe.

We first created it to promote WPBeginner’s YouTube channel on this website. Many of our users asked us to share how we did this, so we decided to release it as a free plugin.

3. Lazy Load for Videos

Lazy load videos in WordPress

Video embeds load scripts from external websites, which has a small impact on page load speed and performance.

Lazy Load for Videos solves this problem by only loading the video image on page load. It loads embed code only when the user clicks on the play button. See our tutorial on how to add lazy load for videos in WordPress.

By the way, you won’t need this plugin if you use the Smash Balloon YouTube Feed because it has built-in caching and delayed loading for the video player.

Why can’t I upload the videos to WordPress?

Well, you can, but we do not recommend you to do so.

Most small blogs use shared WordPress hosting accounts, and videos can take up a lot of server resources. If your video got tons of traffic, then your website is more likely to crash.

Secondly, you are missing out on the traffic from YouTube users.

YouTube is not only the biggest video hosting site, but it is also the world’s second most popular search engine, and the second most popular social network right after Facebook.

If you don’t want to upload your videos to YouTube, then you can try Vimeo or DailyMotion. See our comparison of YouTube vs Vimeo to see which platform is better for your needs.

For more on this topic, take a look at our article on why you should never upload a video to WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily embed videos in WordPress blog posts. You may also want to see our list of the must have WordPress plugins for all websites.

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

The post How to Easily Embed Videos in WordPress Blog Posts appeared first on WPBeginner.


October 01, 2020 at 04:00PM

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

How to Upload Files from a WordPress Form to Google Drive

Do you want to send files from a WordPress contact form to Google Drive?

Normally, your form plugins will upload any files directly to your WordPress site. However, you may want to automatically upload them to Google Drive as well for safekeeping and easier sharing.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily upload files from a WordPress form to Google Drive.

Uploading files from a WordPress form to Google Drive

Why Upload Files From Your WordPress Form to Google Drive?

Normally, you can use your WordPress form builder plugin to add a file upload field and keep the uploaded files on your website.

But what if you wanted to share the uploaded files with someone who does not have access to the WordPress admin area?

This is where Google Drive comes in. Google Drive allows you to store files on the cloud and easily share them with anyone. It also allows you to easily access files from any device without logging into your WordPress site.

For instance, if you create a job application form and ask for resumes, then you can automatically upload those files directly to Google Drive and share it with others in your team.

Another scenario is when you run a contest where users upload photos or submit articles to participate.

Sending those submissions directly to Google Drive saves disk space on your website. At the same time, it keeps those files safe in a remote cloud location.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily send WordPress form uploads to Google Drive.

Creating and Preparing Your WordPress Form in WPForms

For this tutorial, we will be using WPForms. It’s the most popular contact form plugin for WordPress with over 3 million active installs. It comes with a simple drag and drop interface that lets you easily create any kind of form.

Then, we are going to use a tool called Zapier to connect WPForms with Google Drive.

Zapier acts as a bridge to send data between two different apps, without you needing to use any code. It seamlessly integrates with over 2000+ apps.

Note: You need the Pro version or higher to access the Zapier addon for WPForms.

Creating a File Upload Form in WPForms

First, you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin on your website. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Next, you need a form that your website visitors can use to send you files. If you don’t already have a form set up, check out our step by step guide on creating a file upload form in WordPress.

Important: This method will only work with a single file. It will not work with multiple files from one form submission.

Once you have set up your form, you need to add it to your website. To do this, simply edit the post or page where you want the form.

On the post edit screen, click on the + button to add a new block. After that, search for the WPForms block and add it to your content area.

Adding a WPForms block to a post or page

Then, publish your page or post to put your form live. Once you’ve done so, go ahead and create a test entry. This will be used to set up and test the connection between WPForms and Google Drive.

Here’s our test entry:

The completed upload form, including a photo (.jpg)

Preparing to Connect WPForms with Zapier

We are going to use Zapier as a bridge between WPForms and Google Drive. To do this, you need to install and activate the WPForms Zapier addon.

In your WordPress admin, go to the WPForms » Addons page and find the Zapier addon. Go ahead and click the ‘Install Addon’ link to install and activate it:

Installing the Zapier addon for WPForms

Next, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings » Integrations page. Simply click on the Zapier logo to get your Zapier API key. You will need this in order to connect Zapier with WPForms.

Getting the Zapier API key from WPForms

Copy the API key somewhere safe or keep this tab open. You will need the API key in a later step.

Creating a Zap to Send Files from Your Website Form to Google Drive

Once you have your form ready, go to the Zapier website. You need to create a free account or log in to your existing account.

In your Zapier dashboard, simply click the ‘Make a Zap’ button to get started. This will open the configuration wizard.

Note: Zapier uses the word ‘zap’ for a process with a trigger and an action. Our trigger will be a visitor filling in the form, and our action will be sending the file(s) attached to the form to Google Drive.

At the top of the screen, you need to choose a name for your zap. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to set up the trigger.

First, you need to select WPForms in the ‘Choose App & Event’ box. Just type ‘WPForms’ into the search bar to find it:

Choosing the WPForms app in Zapier

You will now be prompted to select a trigger event. This will default to ‘New Form Entry’ so all you need to do here is click the ‘Continue’ button.

Choosing a trigger event in Zapier

Now, Zapier will ask you to sign into WPForms. Go ahead and click the ‘Sign in to WPForms’ button.

Click the button to sign into WPForms

You should then see a popup window. Here, you need to enter the API key that you found earlier.

You also need to add your website’s URL (domain name).

Enter your API key from WPForms and the URL of your website

After you’ve entered those details, just click on the ‘Yes, Continue’ button to move on.

Next, Zapier will ask you to select your file upload form from a dropdown list. Go ahead and click on the name of your form:

Select your file upload form from the dropdown in Zapier

Once you’ve selected the correct form, you need to click the ‘Test trigger’ button to make sure that Zapier has connected to your form correctly.

Testing your trigger in Zapier

After clicking that button, you should see a message that Zapier has found a test entry. You will see the data on the screen:

Viewing the data for the test WPForms entry

Click the ‘Continue’ button to move on to the Action part of the Zap. Here, you need to choose your second app, Google Drive.

Choosing the Google Drive app as the action for the zap

Next, you will see the dropdown for choosing an action event. Here, you need to select the ‘Upload File’ option and then click to continue.

Choosing 'Upload File' as the action for the zap

Zapier will now prompt you to sign into your Google Drive account:

Signing into Google Drive when prompted by Zapier

Once you’ve done so, click the Continue button to move on:

Zapier and Google Drive are now connected

Now, it’s time to set up where you want the files to go in your Google Drive. Simply click on the Drive dropdown to select whether you want to use your personal drive or a shared drive.

Then, click on the Folder dropdown to select the folder you want to use.

Select the Google Drive you want to use plus the folder to put the uploaded files in

Next, you need to tell Zapier which file(s) to upload. Under the File dropdown, select the upload field on your form:

Choose the correct field (the file upload field) from your form based on the test data

After that, you can leave the other settings blank and click the continue button to move on.

Zapier will now prompt you to test your Zap by sending an upload file to Google Drive. Simply click the Test and Continue button to do so:

Sending the test file to Google Drive using Zapier

This will send Google Drive the files you uploaded in your test form entry. Go ahead and check your Google Drive folder for the files:

Viewing the uploaded file in Google Drive

Once you’re confident that your zap is working as intended, simply click the ‘Turn on Zap’ button to make it live:

Turn on your zap once you're ready

Now, all files sent through your file upload form will automatically be uploaded to your chosen Google Drive folder.

WPForms will always keep a backup of all files on your WordPress hosting account in case the Zapier API experiences any outages.

Please keep in mind that if you get a lot of form submissions with large files, then this will take up increased storage space in your Google Drive. In our business, we use G Suite Business plan to get Unlimited storage space.

We hope this article helped you learn how to upload files from a WordPress form to Google Drive. You might also like our article on how to use user generated content to grow your business, and our collection of the must have WordPress plugins for all sites.

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 Upload Files from a WordPress Form to Google Drive appeared first on WPBeginner.


September 30, 2020 at 05:00PM