How to Accept Recurring Payments in WordPress (4 Methods)

Do you want to accept recurring payments on your WordPress website?

Recurring billing allows you to charge your customers at a set time interval such as weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, or custom intervals.

In this article, we will show you how to easily accept recurring payments in WordPress using multiple methods.

Why Should You Accept Recurring Payments?

There are many benefits of adding recurring billing on your WordPress website.

First, it helps automate the billing process and save you time. You don’t have to put in the leg work to manually send invoices and wait for payment from your customers.

Automatic recurring payments results in fewer payment delays, fewer errors, and regular cash flow for your business.

Since customers are not bothered with payment requests, it improves their experience and helps you retain those customers.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to accept recurring payments in WordPress. We’ll cover multiple ways to accept recurring payments in WordPress, and you can choose one that works best for your business.

• Using WPForms Stripe Addon for recurring payments
• Using MemberPress to accept recurring payments
• Using BuyNowPlus for recurring payments
• Accepting recurring payments in WooCommerce

Method 1. Use WPForms Stripe Addon for Recurring Payments

The first method of accepting regular payments is through WPForms. This method is recommended for beginners and small businesses.

WPForms is the best WordPress form builder plugin on the market. It allows you to create any type of form for your site including payment forms with a recurring payment option.

First, you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, you can follow our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: WPForms is a premium plugin, and you’ll need at least their Pro plan to access the Stripe addon which we’ll be using in this tutorial.

Upon activation, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on WPForms website.

After that, you’ll need to go to WPForms » Addons to install and activate the Stripe addon.

Stripe is a payment processor that lets you accept credit card payments on your website without the hassle of setting up a separate merchant account. They’ll deposit the money to your normal bank account on a daily or weekly basis.

After the Stripe addon is activated, you’ll need to connect Stripe with your WordPress site. Simply go to WPForms » Settings » Payments and then click on the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.

Next, you will have to allow WPForms to connect to your Stripe account. This will take you to the Stripe website where you can sign-in using an existing account, or you can create a new one.

After that, simply click on the ‘Connect my Stripe account’ button to give WPForms access.

Once you have done that, you will be redirected to the WPForms settings page and the connection status should now show a green checkmark.

In the next step, you will have to create an online order form and enable Stripe recurring payment option.

Navigate to WPForms » Add New, and you will see the WPForms form builder. Select the Billing / Order form template by clicking the ‘Create a Billing / Order Form’ button.

In the WPForms form builder, you can edit the form fields according to your needs. Since you’ll be accepting payments, you need to add the Stripe Credit Card field to your form.

After you are satisfied with the form fields, you can switch to the Payments » Stripe tab to set up recurring payments.

First, you need to click the box next to the ‘Enable Stripe payments’ option.

After that, check the box that says ‘Enable recurring subscription payments’ under the Subscriptions heading.

Now enter a plan name, so it appears in your Stripe transactions, and specify the recurring period (daily, weekly, monthly, etc).

Lastly, click on the dropdown menu under Customer Email and select the Email option to contact your customers.

WPForms also allows you to set up conditional logic and create smart forms. The form fields will automatically change based on the user’s selections.

Once you are finished, don’t forget to click on the Save button to save your form settings.

Add The Recurring Payment form to Your Website

Now that your recurring payment form is ready, it is time to add it to your website. WPForms makes it very easy to add your forms anywhere on your website.

Simply edit the post or page where you want to add the form or create a new one. On the WordPress content editor screen, click on the (+) to add a new block, and then add the WPForms block to your content area.

After that, simply select the form you created earlier from the dropdown menu.

WPForms will load a preview of your form right inside the editor. You can now publish or save your changes. After that, you can preview the page to see your recurring payments form in action.

For more details, you can go through our guide on how to accept payments with Stripe in WordPress.

Method 2. Use MemberPress to Accept Recurring Payments

Are you creating a membership website and want to set up recurring payments for your subscribers?

This is where MemberPress comes in.

It is the best WordPress membership plugin in the market.

You can sell subscriptions, online courses, paid content, or digital downloads using the plugin. It also allows you to create membership levels, collect payments, restrict access based on membership levels, and more.

Next, you will have to create a membership website. You can follow our step by step guide on creating a WordPress membership site to get started.

After activating the plugin, you need to go to MemberPress » Settings to configure your settings and set up a payment option.

Now navigate to the Payments tab and then click the plus button to add a new payment option.

After that, select Stripe as your payment gateway from the dropdown menu and give your payment option a name.

Next, click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.

On the next screen, you will be asked to login to your MemberPress account. Enter your username and password and then click the ‘Submit’ button.

After logging in, you will now have to sign in to your Stripe account.

Stripe is a popular payment processor that lets you easily accept credit card payments online without creating a separate merchant account.

Once signed in, simply click the ‘Connect my Stripe account’ button to give access.

You will be now redirected to the MemberPress Payments page in your WordPress admin area. On this page, you will see that your site has successfully connected to the Stripe account.

Next, go to your WordPress admin area and then navigate to MemberPress » Memberships and click the ‘Add New’ button.

After that, head over to Membership Terms (located on the far right side of the page). Here you can enter the payment details for your membership subscription.

You need to enter a value under Price and then select ‘Recurring’ from the dropdown menu under Billing Type.

Next, set the Interval for your recurring payments. You can choose from options such as monthly, yearly, weekly, every 3 months, every 6 months, or set up a custom interval.

If you offer a trial period, then you can configure the settings by clicking the checkbox in front of the Trial Period option. Similarly, you can also limit the payment cycles.

After that, you need to scroll down and enter the membership options in the meta box below the post editor. You can select the registration details, customize the permission settings, and change the details of the price box.

Once you have entered all the details and are satisfied with your settings, click the ‘Publish’ button. To create more memberships, just repeat this process.

MemberPress is the best solution in the market for creating a membership site with recurring payments. It also offers seamless integration with many of the best email marketing services and marketing automation tools.

Method 3. Use Buy Now Plus for Recurring Payments

Another method of accepting recurring payments on your WordPress site is through Buy Now Plus.

It is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to securely accept payments without having to purchase and install SSL certificates.

Buy Now Plus works with a Stripe account, and you can create payment buttons to display anywhere on your website.

You can start by going to the Buy Now Plus website and click the ‘Start Selling’ button.

On the next screen, Buy Now Plus will ask to connect with your Stripe account. You can sign in with an existing account or enter the details to create a new one.

After that, you can create a new payment button by clicking the ‘Add New’ option.

Now, you will have to enter the product name in the Terms field, add a Product Description, Price, and select your currency.

By default, Buy Now Plus will enable the Test Mode. You can remove the checkmark to publish your payment button. Next, select your Stripe account from the dropdown menu.

After that, click the Advanced Options and you will see more settings.

This is where you can specify the information you need from your customers during checkout. For instance, you can ask for their name, billing address, and shipping address.

Next, enter the button text you want to display. There are some optional settings like Return URL and Cancel URL. You can leave these two fields blank.

For setting up recurring payments, scroll down and click the checkbox for Recurring. Now select the time interval (weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly) and enter the trial period days.

Once you have done that, click the ‘Create’ button.

You will now be taken to your Buy Now Plus dashboard. Click the blue arrow button to share your newly created payment button.

A popup window will now appear, showing you 2 options to share your button.

In the first option, you can copy the link of the button and share it where you want. For the second option, you can copy the embed code and paste it on your website.

For using the Buy Now Plus button on WordPress, you can use the second option and enter the code where you want to display the buy now button.

Go to your WordPress admin area and navigate to Posts » Add New and then click the ‘plus (+)’ icon.

After that, search HTML and select the Custom HTML option.

Now paste embed the code in the HTML field.

After you are satisfied with your settings, click the ‘Publish’ button. Your payment button will appear on your website and you can now easily collect recurring payments from your customers.

Method 4. Accept Recurring Payments in WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the world’s largest eCommerce platform. It is the best eCommerce plugin for WordPress because it’s cost-effective, easy to manage, and you can use it to sell physical goods, services, and subscriptions.

If you already have a WordPress website, then you can simply install and activate the WooCommerce plugin.

If you don’t have a website, then you’ll need a domain name, SSL certificate, and a WooCommerce hosting account.

We recommend using Bluehost.

It is an officially recommended WooCommerce hosting provider, and they are offering WPBeginner users a free domain name, SSL certificate, and a generous discount on hosting.

To start, go to the Bluehost website and then click on the ‘Choose Plan’ button.

Next, select a plan of your choice. If you are just starting out, then go with either the Starter plan or the Plus plan.

After that, you can enter the domain name for your WooCommerce store.

Bluehost will then ask for your account information, package information, and it will also offer package extras that you can add.

You can leave the optional extras for now, as they can be added at a later stage.

Lastly, enter your payment information, agree to the terms of service, and click the ‘Submit’ button at the bottom.

Once you have signed up for Bluehost, you will receive an email containing details about how to login to your web hosting control panel (cPanel).

The best part about using Bluehost is that WordPress and WooCommere come pre-installed. When you first log in to your cPanel, you will see a popup message. Click on the ‘log in to your site’ button.

This will take you to your WordPress admin area where you can set up your WooCommerce store.

Setting up Recurring Payments in WooCommerce

To set up recurring payments in WooCommerce, you will first have to set up a payment gateway. There are many WooCommerce payment gateways you can use, but the best solution is through Stripe.

By default, you will not find Stripe as a payment option in WooCommerce. However, you can download and install the free plugin of WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway.

Once the plugin is active, go to WooCommerce » Settings and then click the Payments tab. Now navigate to the Stripe – Credit Card option and then click the ‘Set up’ button.

On the next screen, click the checkbox that says ‘Enable Stripe’. Do make sure that you uncheck the box for ‘Enable Test Mode’ if you want to publish your payment gateway.

Once you are done, click the ‘Save changes’ button.

After that, you will need to install and activate the WooCommerce Subscriptions extension. You can install it like any other WordPress plugin. For details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

It is a paid extension, and will cost you $199 per year.

Once you have downloaded and activated the extension, you can now add recurring payments to your new or existing products.

Go to Products » Add New and navigate to Product Data meta box. Now select ‘Simple Subscription’ from the dropdown menu.

Next, you can enter the subscription price and billing interval (every month) under the General tab. You can also select the expiration period, sign up fee (if any, free trial, and sale price options.

Once you are satisfied with the product’s settings, click the ‘Publish’ button. Your WooCommerce recurring subscription product will now be live.

Which is the Best WordPress Recurring Payment plugin?

The answer to the best WordPress recurring payment plugin depends on your business goals and needs. If you just want to accept recurring payments without the hassle of a full shopping cart plugin, then WPForms is the best option.

On the other hand, if you want to selling subscription-based digital products like courses, then MemberPress is the best solution. It lets you accept recurring payments, and comes with an online course creator solution along with other powerful membership features.

We hope this article helped you learn how to accept recurring payments in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on the best drag & drop WordPress page builders, and our pick of the best business phone 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 How to Accept Recurring Payments in WordPress (4 Methods) appeared first on WPBeginner.

November 03, 2020 at 06:00PM

How to Translate Your WooCommerce Store (2 Ways)

Have you ever thought about translating your WooCommerce store into other languages?

Often new store owners think that they’d need a separate website for each language. That’s not true. You can easily translate your existing WooCommerce store into multiple languages.

In this article, we’ll show you how to translate your WooCommerce store using two different methods.

Why Translate Your WooCommerce Store?

According to a recent study, 75% of customers prefer to buy products in their native language.

Viewing product information in their local language helps customers make the decision faster. This also creates a better customer experience which leads to more sales.

Translating your online store into multiple languages is particularly helpful in the following scenarios:

• You ship internationally and majority of your customers speak other languages.
• You sell digital products which are available in multiple languages.
• You are targeting audiences in several countries and regions where English is not the native language.

The best way to translate your WooCommerce store is by using a WordPress multilingual plugin.

We’re going to share two different WordPress plugins that can do the job well. You can use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.

• Translate your WooCommerce store using TranslatePress
• Translate your WooCommerce store using WPML

Method #1: Using TranslatePress to Translate your WooCommerce Store

TranslatePress is the best translation plugin for WordPress. It lets you easily translate the text on your site through a point and click interface.

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

Note: You can use the free version of TranslatePress to translate your site into 1 other language. For unlimited languages, you need the Pro version of TranslatePress.

Upon activation, you then need to install and activate the Extra Languages add-on for TranslatePress. Simply download this from your TranslatePress account.

After activating the Extra Languages add-on, go to the Settings » TranslatePress page in your WordPress admin. Here, you need to click on the License tab to enter your license key.

You will find your license key in your account area on the TranslatePress website. Simply copy and paste it into the box then click the Activate License button.

Next, click on the General tab. Here, you need to check that your default language is set correctly. You also need to choose the additional language(s) to use for your store.

To add a language, select it from the dropdown list and then click the Add button next to it.

Go ahead and repeat this process for all the languages you want to use for your store.

You can also customize other settings here. For instance, you can select how to display the language selector on your site. There are several different options to choose from.

Once you’ve made the changes, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the screen.

Now that you have configured basic settings, let’s start translating your store. Simply click on the Translate site tab at the top to launch the translation editor.

The translation editor in TranslatePress, will show a live preview of your website to the right and the translation panel in the left column.

Go ahead and click on any links here to move to different pages of your site. In the preview panel, you can simply take your mouse to the text you want to translate and then click the Blue pencil icon to edit it.

You will then see the translation pane on the left-hand side of the screen. You can simply type the translations here for that text. You can do this for any or all of your site’s languages.

Once you’ve finished, don’t forget to click the ‘Save translation’ button at the top of the screen.

After that, go ahead and visit your website to see your translated product. Simply click on the language switcher and change it to your desired language.

The text that’s created automatically by WordPress and by your plugins should be automatically translated.

Note: You can create your own translation for this text if you want. Text created by WordPress or plugins is shown with a green pencil icon in the TranslatePress translation editor.

You can carry on translating the rest of your WooCommerce product page, and your site’s text in the translation editor.

Tip: You can also automatically translate your website using TranslatePress and Google Translate. To do this, you need to create a Google Cloud account and set up an API key.

To set up automatic translations, go to the Settings » TranslatePress » Automatically Translate page. You need to select Yes for ‘Enable Automatic Translation’ then fill in your Google Translate API key.

If you don’t want to go through the process to create an API key, you could use Google Translate manually. To do this, simply copy sections of text into Google Translate then paste the translation into the translation editor.

For more help using TranslatePress, check out our article on translating your WordPress site with TranslatePress.

Method #2: Using WPML to Translate Your WooCommerce Store

The WPML plugin is a very popular premium translation plugin for WordPress. It has an easy to use interface, lets you connect your site to third-party translation providers, and can even provide automatic machine translation.

First, you need to sign up for an account on the WPML website. You’ll need the multilingual CMS plan for translating WooCommerce.

Next, you need to install and activate the WPML plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, click the ‘Register Now’ link that you will see on your plugins page. Then, you need to enter your site key. You will find this under your account on the WPML website.

Next, go to the Plugins » Add New » Commercial page.

Here, it’s easy to install the other WPML plugins you need. These are:

• String Translation
• Translation Management
• Media Translation
• WooCommerce Multilingual

Simply check these 4 plugins in the list.

Then, scroll down and check the ‘Activate after download’ box. After that, go ahead and click the Download button. Your plugins will be automatically downloaded, installed, and activated for you.

You should see an ‘Operation complete’ message.

Now, go to the WPML » Languages page in your WordPress admin. This will show the WPML setup options.

You need to select the language for your current content, then click the Next button.

Now, it’s time to choose the languages to enable for your site. Just check the box next to the ones that you want to use.

The language options on your site will appear in a language switcher.

WPML will ask you to choose an order for the languages. You also need to choose what to do if a translation is missing for a certain page or product.

Below this, you can add the language switcher to your navigation menu. Alternatively, you can add it to a widget or the footer area of your website.

Finally, you have the option to link to translations at the top or bottom of your content. If you enable this option, you can choose how these translation links will look. You will also see a preview.

Tip: This text will appear along with the description for your product and on your site’s pages, not just on blog posts. You could change the text to ‘This content is also available in’ or similar.

When you’re ready, click the Next button to move on.

WPML will then ask you whether you want to send themes and plugin information to WPML.org. This can help speed things up if you need support.

Then, you need to enter your site key if you didn’t do so before. If you’ve already entered it, simply click the Next button.

After that, you will see some recommendations for other components to install. If you didn’t already install and activate the extra WPML plugins earlier, you can do so here.

Then, click the ‘Skip and Finish’ link to close the setup wizard.

You should now see the WooCommerce Multilingual setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Let’s continue’ button to start setting up your WooCommerce store translations.

First, you will be prompted to create missing translations for your store pages. Just leave the ‘Create missing translations’ box checked and click to continue.

On the Global Attributes tab, simply click the Continue button.

WPML will ask you if you want to enable multiple currencies. If you do, check the ‘Enable the multi-currency mode’ box before clicking the Continue button.

Under Translation Options, WPML will ask you whether you want to show products even if they’re not translated. Choose whichever option you prefer then click the Continue button

On the next tab, just go ahead and click the ‘Close setup’ button.

Next, go to the WooCommerce » WooCommerce Multilingual tab in your WordPress admin. You should see your list of products in the product table. There will be a new column that shows the languages you selected when setting up WPML.

To translate a page, simply click the + icon for your chosen language. You will then see the product translation screen. You can copy fields from the original or simply type in the translated text.

Below this, you can also translate any other text for the product.

Once you’ve completed the translation, scroll to the bottom of the page. Here, you need to check the ‘Translation is complete’ box and then click the ‘Save & Close’ button.

Now, you will see your list of products again. The + icon for your translated product and language has turned into a pencil icon. You can click this to edit the translation.

Now, you can go ahead and translate your product into the other languages in the same way. We translated our suit jacket product page into French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

To add images to your translated pages, go to the WPML » Media Translation page on your WordPress admin.

Then, click the + icon for your chosen image. You will see a popup where you just need to type in the name for the image. You could also select a different image to use for the translated version.

When you’re ready, click the ‘Save media translation’ button.

Tip: To translate your product categories, simply click on the ‘Categories’ tab and translate them in the same way as your products.

Once you’ve translated your product, users can view it in their own language on your website. WPML will automatically translate WordPress-generated text like ‘Add to cart’ into the user’s language, too.

Automatically Translating Your WooCommerce Store Using WPML

If you don’t want to create the translations yourself, there are several other options.

You can add other users as translators, use a translation service, or translate content automatically. To do this, simply go to WPML » Translation Management in your WordPress dashboard.

First, you need to run through the setup wizard. This lets you choose who will translate your site. If you want to let other users translate content, or if you want to use a translation service, you can do that here.

We’re just going to use the automatic translation on our site.

Next, you will see some details about the Advanced Translation Editor. Simply click to continue. You will then see a Summary, where you just need to go ahead and click the ‘Done!’ button.

After that, you will be taken to your translation management dashboard.

Here, you need to click on the ‘Translation Tools’ tab then the ‘Sign up for free’ button to set up automatic translations.

Tip: You get 2,000 words/month of machine translation for free.

You will then be prompted to enter your billing details.

Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Translation Dashboard’ tab. Here, you need to select all the items to automatically translate.

First, you need to select ‘Product’ from the content type dropdown, then click the ‘Filter’ button to show just your products.

Next, simply go ahead and check the box next to your chosen items. You need to check the box to translate the image, too.

Below this, select the languages to translate your products into. This will default to all languages. Then, simply click the ‘Add selected content to translation basket’ button.

You will now see a new Translation Basket tab. Go ahead and click on this. Then, check that the content you want to automatically translate is correctly listed here. Once you’ve done that, simply click the ‘Send all items for translation’ button.

Your content will be prepared and sent. You will see a popup letting you know that the media files have been sent for translation. Just click Continue here.

Now, simply click on the Translation Tools tab and automatically translate your content.

After that, select everything you want to translate then click the ‘Translate automatically’ button.

You will now see a message letting you know that the jobs have been added to the queue for translation.

You can click on the Translation Jobs tab to check that your translations have been completed. To edit any of the automatic translations, use the WooCommerce » WooCommerce Multilingual page.

The translated pages are also already live on your site, too.

You can now visit your WooCommerce store to see the translated pages.

We hope this article helped you learn how to translate your WooCommerce store. You might also like to see our pick of the must-have WooCommerce plugins and see our guide on how to track WooCommerce conversions.

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 Translate Your WooCommerce Store (2 Ways) appeared first on WPBeginner.

November 02, 2020 at 06:00PM

9 Best Knowledge Base Plugins for WordPress (Compared)

Are you looking for a knowledge base plugin for WordPress?

A knowledge base plugin allows you to easily publish documentation, tutorials, and how-to articles. You can organize these resources efficiently while keeping them apart from your blog and landing pages.

In this article, we’ll show you the best knowledge base plugins for WordPress that you can use.

What to Look for in a Knowledge Base WordPress Plugin?

Whether you run an online store or sell services on your WordPress website, having a knowledge base section allows you to help your customers without opening a support ticket or live chat window.

This boosts customer satisfaction while reducing customer support requests. Customer happiness helps you bring more business and sell more products.

Normally, you can publish your support guides as individual pages in WordPress. You can also publish them as posts and organize them with categories and tags.

However, this makes it difficult to keep support pages separate from sales pages or blog posts.

A knowledge base plugin allows you to keep your how-to resources separate and organize them more efficiently.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best knowledge base plugins for WordPress.

1. Heroic KB Plugin

Heroic KB plugin is an easy to use WordPress knowledge base plugin that’s extremely powerful and fully-featured.

It allows you to add searchable knowledge base to your existing site, so your visitors can easily find answers to their questions. It comes with lightning fast AJAX search feature which adds real-time answers.

You get all the features you’d expect from a powerful knowledge base plugin such as content categorization, drag & drop content ordering, article attachments, display widgets, and more.

The best part about the plugin is their built-in analytics and user feedback feature that lets you collect insights to improve your existing documentation, so you can reduce support, save time, and grow sales.

We used this plugin to build our developer docs on WPForms website. Although our team has since customized it much further, this is still the best solution in the market.

2. BetterDocs

BetterDocs is a powerful WordPress knowledge base plugin that is both easy to use and comprehensive.

It comes with ready to use knowledge base templates for WordPress. It also includes support for page builders with widgets. You can also use shortcodes to create your own layouts and insert knowledge base articles anywhere.

It includes a powerful search, floating table of contents, a knowledge base bot that automatically tries to find answers to reduce support requests. The plugin also includes user role-based control and insights to view what users are looking for.

3. Echo Knowledge Base

Echo Knowledge Base is one of the best knowledge base plugins for WordPress. It comes with an easy set up wizard that walks you through plugin settings. You also get multiple layouts to choose from with options to customize every aspect.

You can choose from Basic, Tabs, or Category focused layouts. Each layout has a fast search bar on the top, which helps users quickly find answers. You can further organize articles in categories and tags.

The plugin also comes with 500+ icons that you can use. It also includes shortcodes and templates to create FAQs section and display knowledge base articles across your website.

4. weDocs

weDocs is another excellent WordPress knowledge base and documentation plugin. It is easy to use and allows you to sort your documentation pages into sections, hierarchical docs, and tags.

It has a simpler interface to manage all your docs from one screen. The plugin does not include additional templates but works well with all popular WordPress themes.

The knowledge base layout is simple but efficient with sidebar navigation and bread crumbs menu.

5. Encyclopedia / Glossary / Wiki

Encyclopedia / Glossary / Wiki plugin is a flexible WordPress knowledge base plugin that allows you to organize your documents in a glossary format. You can organize your docs and articles alphabetically or by category and tags.

It includes a simple template to list all glossary items. You can add a search widget, enable comments for individual articles, and add a filter index to sort items by alphabet.

The plugin provides an excellent option if you want to organize your support pages in a glossary or encyclopedia style. It supports WPML and can be used on multilingual websites.

6. WP Knowledgebase

WP Knowledgebase is another great option to create a knowledge base section in WordPress. The plugin comes with an easy to use set up with simpler settings.

You can organize your knowledge base articles by categories and tags. The plugin uses a simple template with a powerful instant search feature on the top. It automatically creates a knowledgebase page upon activation which you can edit and change its title or URL slug.

It also includes widgets for search, categories, and tags which allow you to easily display knowledge base items across your website. You can turn on comments on each article and rearrange their display order with simple drag and drop.

7. BasePress

BasePress is a useful WordPress knowledge base and documentation management plugin. It allows you to easily build support pages and documents section for your products or services.

It comes with three templates to choose from with an advanced instant search bar that helps users quickly find the answers. You can organize articles in sections, categories, and tags with an easy drag and drop interface to reorder articles.

You can add an image and description for each section which creates a very neat index page for users to browse. The plugin also provides easy customization options to control the appearance of your article pages.

8. KB Support

KB Support is WordPress support and knowledge base plugin that is easy to use and extend. The plugin comes with a ticket management system and knowledge base platform to offer a complete support system that runs on your WordPress website.

You can easily add articles to your knowledge base section and sort them into categories and tags. After that, there is a simple shortcode that you can add to a WordPress page to display your knowledge base articles.

Customers can then submit a ticket when they are unable to find an answer. This ticket appears on your WordPress dashboard and you can reply to the user directly. There are paid add-ons to extend the plugin’s functionality like the ability to send emails, WooCommerce integration, canned replies, and more.

9. Very Simple Knowledge Base

Very Simple Knowledge Base is a very simple and minimalist knowledge base plugin for WordPress.

It basically allows you to use your existing posts for knowledge base articles and then display them with a shortcode. It then displays the items sorted by categories and you can choose multi-column layouts to show more categories and articles.

The plugin works with any custom post type including products or events. It offers flexibility but does not include any of the features you may find in other knowledge base plugins on this list. The plugin also does not offer an option to easily keep your regular blog posts separate from knowledge base articles.

Bonus Solutions

Customers may not always find the answer to their question in your knowledge base articles. For instance, they may have some pre-sale questions, a bug report, or they may simply need a more personal response.

The following tools allow you to take support beyond knowledge base articles and boost customer satisfaction.

10. WPForms

WPForms is the best WordPress form builder plugin on the market. It allows you to easily create any type of form in WordPress including a support request form.

As a small business, you may not be able to justify the cost of a full-fledged customer support platform. WPForms allows you to add a customer support form to your website and then answer customer queries via email.

It has a built-in entry management system that allows you to keep a record of all customer requests. You can even export this data and use it in CRM software to manage all possible leads.

11. LiveChat

LiveChat is the best live chat support software for small businesses. It allows you to add a live chat to your WordPress website and help customers instantly reach out for help.

Adding LiveChat helps you convert more visitors into customers. You can display a live chat popup across your website with targeted messaging. Users browsing the knowledge base will always have the option to get more help without leaving your website.

12. ChatBot

A lot of companies these days are choosing to use ChatBot as an alternative to LiveChat, and sometimes as a pre-live chat solution because it’s more cost effective.

ChatBot.com uses a smart algorithm to help you better serve your customers while growing sales. It’s the best chatbot software for small businesses, and we’re in the process of using it on our sites as well.

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress knowledge base plugin for your website. You may also want to see our comparison of the best business phone services for small businesses, and our step by step guide on how to add web push notifications in WordPress to increase your traffic.

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The post 9 Best Knowledge Base Plugins for WordPress (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 30, 2020 at 05:00PM