How to Set Up Business Call Forwarding From Your Website

Do you want to set up business call forwarding from your website?

For many small businesses, calls from potential customers generate significant sales and revenue. This is why it’s important to properly set up business call forwarding from your website.

In this article, we will share a step by step guide on how to easily set up business call forwarding from your WordPress site.

What Do You Need to Set Up Business Call Forwarding from Your Website?

Normally, you can just add a phone number to your WordPress website or online store. Your website visitors can use the phone number to make a call.

However, regular phone services don’t come with advanced features like call forwarding, business hours, call waiting, etc. Plus, they cost a lot more even for even basic features like basic call forwarding.

For proper business call forwarding, you’ll need a smart business phone service provider.

We recommend using Nextiva. It is the best business phone service on the market and allows you to easily manage your business calls at much lower costs than landline or mobile phone services.

Note: We use Nextiva at WPBeginner for our business phone number.

Nextiva provides VoIP phone service, which means instead of landlines it uses the internet to make and receive phone calls.

Using VoIP allows you to reduce costs and take advantage of advanced features like call forwarding, call recordings, voicemail, call waiting, and more. Plus, you can choose a number in any location or get a toll-free number.

More importantly, you can manage calls on your existing mobile phone, computers, or even a desk phone too.

You can even share one number with multiple team member which is great for remote teams like ours.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to set up business call forwarding from your website.

Setting Up Business Call Forwarding

First, you need to sign up for a Nextiva account. During sign up, you’ll be allowed to choose a business phone number, and you can also connect your existing phone number as well.

Once you have set up your account, you can make and receive calls from your business phone number on whatever device you choose.

After that, you can set up call forwarding for your website.

Simply head over to Users » Actions » Voice Settings page and select Forwarding from the left menu.

From here, you can enter any phone number under the ‘Call forward (selective)’ section.

Below that, you can choose when to forward a call by clicking on the Forwarding Conditions. You can add conditions based on schedule, by phone number, and more.

Apart from selective call forwarding, you can also set up always-on call forwarding, busy call forwarding, or forward calls when unanswered.

Once you have set up call forwarding, don’t forget to test it out before adding it to your website.

Adding a Click to Call Option in WordPress

Now that you have enabled business call forwarding, you may want to add click to call buttons to your website.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Call Button plugin on your site. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » WP Call Button page to configure plugin settings.

The plugin comes with a sticky button that floats on-screen across your website. You can hide or show it on certain posts or pages. You can also choose to show it only on mobile devices.

If you would like to display the button manually, then you can switch to the Static Call Button tab. From here, you can choose button settings and copy a shortcode.

Once you are finished with settings, you can also add a sticky call button in your posts and pages using a block or a widget.

In the block settings, you can choose colors, text size, alignment, and show or hide the phone icon.

Once you are finished, you can save your changes and visit your website to see your call now button in action.

For more ways to add a clickable phone number in WordPress, see our tutorial on how to add a click to call button in WordPress.

Your users can now click to call your phone number and their calls will be forwarded based on your call forwarding settings.

We always recommend website owners to provide more than one way for customers to contact your business. Along with phone, it’s a good idea to have a contact form and if possible offer a live chat or chatbot solution on your site.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set up business call forwarding from your website. You may also want to see our see our guide on how to track button clicks in WordPress, and our expert comparison of the best email marketing services.

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 Set Up Business Call Forwarding From Your Website appeared first on WPBeginner.

September 21, 2021 at 03:30PM

How to Notify Subscribers of New Posts in WordPress (3 Ways)

Do you want to notify your website subscribers about new posts on your WordPress blog?

Notifying your subscribers about new content helps you stay in touch with your visitors, bring them back to your website, and convert them into customers.

In this article, we’ll show you how you can notify subscribers when new posts are published on your WordPress blog.

Why Notify Subscribers of New Posts in WordPress?

For most websites, nearly 70% of website visitors will never come back again. By notifying subscribers that you’ve published a new post, they’re likely to return to your WordPress website to read it.

This lets you provide more value and deepen the relationship with your subscribers. For online stores, notifying subscribers of new posts will help you to turn those subscribers into loyal customers.

That being said, let’s look at how you can notify subscribers of your new posts using a few different methods. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use to send post notifications.

• Send new posts to email list subscribers
• Send subscribers new RSS feed emails
• Send new posts to push notification subscribers

Method 1. Send New WordPress Posts to Email Newsletter Subscribers

Your email list is one of the best ways to notify your subscribers that you’ve published a new blog post.

If you haven’t started your email list yet, then you need to choose the right email marketing service provider to get started.

We recommend using Constant Contact since it’s one of the best email marketing services for small businesses.

It’s easy to use and is the most beginner friendly email marketing service. You get simple tracking and reporting, unlimited emails, social media sharing tools, segmentation, a free image library, and much more.

Plus, it offers unmatched customer support across channels like live chat, email, phone, and more.

For more details on setting up your email list and sending emails, see our guide on how to create an email newsletter the right way.

Constant Contact includes all the tools you need to send your new posts to your email newsletter subscribers. You can even embed your new blog post directly into your email.

If you’re using a different email marketing service like HubSpot, ConvertKit, Drip, or something else, then the process will be similar.

Method 2. Send an Automatic RSS Email to Your Subscribers

RSS feeds are a technology built in to WordPress that sends out regular updates whenever you publish a new blog post.

RSS feeds work by publishing your latest content in a structured XML document. The document by itself isn’t very readable for humans.

But you can use the RSS feed on your website to automatically send out an email whenever a new blog post is published. That means you wouldn’t need to manually create an email newsletter each time.

To do this, we recommend using Sendinblue. It’s another popular email marketing service that offers a forever free plan to send up to 300 emails a day and supports unlimited email contacts.

You can also easily create email workflows, send transactional emails, and determine the best time of day to send emails.

First, you’ll need to go to the Sendinblue website to create an account. Click the ‘Sign up free’ button to set up your account.

After that, you need to enter an email and password to create your account.

Once you confirm your email address, you’ll be taken to a screen where you can finish creating your profile.

You’ll need to enter your personal and company information and then click the ‘Next’ button.

After that, you need to choose your plan.

For this tutorial, we’ll select the Free plan, but you’re welcome to upgrade to a pro plan at this time.

After you’ve created an account, you’ll see your Sendinblue dashboard.

If you didn’t finish your profile during setup, then you’ll be prompted to do so here.

Now, click the ‘+’ button in the top navigation menu.

Then click the ‘Integrations’ menu option below that.

Type ‘RSS’ into the search bar and you’ll see the RSS campaign option.

Clicking on ‘RSS campaign’ brings you to a screen where you need to name your integration and click the ‘Create integration’ button.

The name won’t be displayed anywhere, but will help you remember the purpose of the integration.

Now you need to configure the settings for your integration.

First, enter the URL for your RSS feed. As a WordPress user, your website already publishes an RSS feed. You can find your RSS feed by simply adding /feed/ to the end of your website’s address.

Then, click the ‘Load RSS feed’ button. You’ll receive a confirmation if it’s loaded successfully.

Next, scroll down under your RSS feed to click the ‘Continue’ button.

After that, you can choose to use the default template or choose from an email template you’ve already created.

We recommend using the default template since it’s already set up and formatted the right way.

Then click ‘Confirm email template’.

Next you need to select the email list you want to send the RSS email to.

Simply choose your list from the drop down and click ‘Continue’.

Now you can customize your email campaign settings.

The ‘Campaign Name’ will help you remember what the campaign is for.

The ‘Subject line’ is what will appear in your subscriber’s inbox. This is the first thing they’ll see, and it needs to be relevant to the content of your email.

You can use the dynamic content fields to generate new subject lines automatically. Simply click the ‘Add a dynamic content’ button and select ‘TITLE’ from the drop down list.

This will automatically add your recent blog post title as the subject line.

For the ‘From Email’, simply select your email address from the drop down list.

This can be the email you used to create an account or another address you’ve added.

The ‘From Name’ can be your name or the name of your company.

This will help your visitors remember who the email is coming from.

After that, click the ‘Continue’ button.

Next you need to choose the days of the week you want RSS emails to send.

Simply check the boxes for the days of the week you want your new blog post emails to go out.

Then make sure the automatic campaign radio button is selected, and click ‘Continue’.

This will have Sendinblue automatically send an email the moment it appears in your RSS feed.

Once you’ve done that, click the ‘Save and activate’ button.

That’s it! Now whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically send an RSS email to your subscribers.

Method 3. Send New WordPress Posts to Push Notification Subscribers

Another way people can subscribe to your website is by subscribing to your push notifications. These popup notifications let you send messages to visitors across desktop and mobile devices.

Push notifications let you reach your visitors the instant a new post is live without waiting until they check their email inbox, which makes these notifications extremely valuable.

Here’s an example of what a post notification looks like for your subscribers:

The easiest way to add push notifications to WordPress is by using PushEngage. It’s the best push notification software in the market used by over 10,000 businesses.

For more details on setting up push notifications, see our guide on how to add web push notifications to your WordPress site.

Once you activate and set up the plugin, push notifications for your new posts will automatically be enabled.

The notification includes the title of the post and a small version of the featured image. When they click the notification, they’ll automatically be taken to your new WordPress blog post.

We hope this article helped you learn how to notify subscribers of new posts in WordPress. You may also want to see our expert picks on the best virtual business phone number apps and our guide on how to register a domain name properly.

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 Notify Subscribers of New Posts in WordPress (3 Ways) appeared first on WPBeginner.

September 20, 2021 at 04:00PM

How to Limit Authors to their Own Posts in WordPress Admin

Do you want to limit authors to editing their own posts in WordPress?

If you run a multi-author site or allow guest posts, then it’s a good idea to restrict contributors to only see their own blog posts in the dashboard, and keep them from viewing the posts of other authors before they’re published.

In this article, we will show you how to limit authors to viewing and managing only their own posts in the WordPress dashboard.

Why Limit Authors to Their Own Posts?

By default, your WordPress website will show all posts and pages to all users, regardless of their user role in the admin area. Whether you’re an author, editor, contributor, or administrator, you can view all the articles.

This usually isn’t a problem if the authors are part of your company or team.

However, limiting people to view their own posts is useful in certain situations. For instance, if you run a multi-author website, then it can be useful to keep authors from seeing other writers’ articles in review.

That being said, let’s take a look at how you can limit authors to view their own posts in the WordPress admin.

Limit Authors to Their Own Posts Using a Plugin

Using a WordPress plugin, you can easily allow authors to see only their own posts without editing code.

For this tutorial, we will be using the PublishPress Permissions plugin. It’s a free plugin that lets you manage WordPress permissions, and works out of the box to limit writers to their own articles.

There is also a premium version available in PublishPress Pro bundle, which offers more permission settings like who can access the media library. However, you can start with the free version.

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

Once the plugin is active, it will automatically show posts to only their authors.

For example, if you’re logged in as the administrator and head over to Posts » All Posts from your dashboard, then you’ll see all the posts.

However, if you log in to the WordPress admin area from an author’s account, then you’ll notice that only the posts created by the author will be visible.

Now, what if you want your editors to be able to access all the posts so they can review them? Let’s see how you can do that.

How to Allow Editors to View All Posts

The problem with using the above method is that it only allows administrators to view all posts.

Many WordPress sites have editors responsible for proofreading articles submitted by other authors and guest contributors. Using this plugin will restrict editors to only their own posts.

However, you can allow editors to review different authors’ content by using a plugin like PublishPress Capabilities plugin or adding code to your site’s theme files. We’ll show you both the methods.

Using PublishPress Capabilities Plugin

PublishPress Capabilities is another plugin created by PublishPress. For the sake of this tutorial, we will be using the free version. There is also a pro version that you can get when you subscribe to a PublishPress Pro account.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the PublishPress Capabilities plugin on your WordPress website. You can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After the plugin is active, go ahead and click on ‘Capabilities’ in your WordPress admin menu. This will open the ‘Role Capabilities’ page, where you can change permissions for different user roles.

Next, select the user role you want to edit from the dropdown menu in the top left corner.

Once you’ve selected the ‘Editor’ role, you’ll need to make sure that the checkbox for ‘Edit others’ is enabled under the Editing Capabilities settings.

This will allow editors to edit other posts.

After that, scroll down to the Additional Capabilities section and ensure that the ‘list others posts’ checkbox is enabled.

This way, anyone with the editor role will be able to see posts from other authors.

Now, save your settings and view the Posts section on your website by logging in as an editor. If you’re able to view and edit other authors’ posts, then it means you’ve correctly set up the settings.

Adding Custom Code to Your Theme

Another way to allow editors to view all posts is by adding custom code to your theme files. However, we don’t recommend this method for beginners as it involves editing code.

To start, you can add this code in your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

function posts_for_current_author($query) {
        global $pagenow;

        if( 'edit.php' != $pagenow || !$query->is_admin )
            return $query;

        if( !current_user_can( 'edit_others_posts' ) ) {
                global $user_ID;
                $query->set('author', $user_ID );
        }
        return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts', 'posts_for_current_author');

This code allows any users with the capability to edit other’s posts to view all posts. This means editors and administrators will be able to see all posts. Users with other roles like contributors or authors will only see their own posts.

If you are using custom user roles on your site, then you need to keep in mind that users who can edit posts added by other users will also be able to see them listed in the dashboard.

Bonus: Limit Authors to View Specific Posts or Pages

You can also limit authors, editors, contributors, and other user roles to view, edit, and delete certain blog posts and pages.

Using the PublishPress Permissions plugin, you can easily decide which specific posts and pages people can view on your website dashboard.

To start, install and activate the PublishPress Permissions plugin on your website. You can refer to our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Now, let’s say you want specific article to only be edited by the website’s editor and no one else.

To do that, you can edit that post. Once you’re in the WordPress block editor, simply scroll down to the ‘Permissions: Edit this Post’ meta box.

Next, you’ll have to click on the dropdown menu for all other user roles and choose the ‘Blocked’ option. By default, the permission will be set to ‘default: Yes’, where everyone can edit the post.

After that, make sure that you leave the setting for the editor to the ‘Enabled’ or ‘default: Yes’ option. When you’ve set the permissions, make sure to update your blog post.

We hope this article helped you learn how to limit authors to their own posts in the WordPress admin area. You may also want to take a look at our tutorial on how to choose the best blogging platform, or our expert comparison of the best email marketing services.

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 Limit Authors to their Own Posts in WordPress Admin appeared first on WPBeginner.

September 19, 2021 at 09:00PM