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Do you want to preload links in WordPress and improve loading speeds?
Link preloading is a browser technology that will load links in the background before a site visitor clicks them, making your website seem faster.
In this article, we’ll show you how to preload WordPress links for faster loading speeds easily.
Why Preload Links in WordPress?
Link preloading is when your web browser will load the link in the background before the user clicks it. That way, the moment they get to the page, it’s already loaded.
Improving your WordPress speed and performance is one of the most important things you can do for your site since it makes the user experience better.
Having a faster site can help to increase your blog traffic by improving your WordPress SEO. When your internal pages are preloaded, your visitors are more likely to stay on your website longer and view more pages.
Although there’s a lot more you can do to make your WordPress website faster, link preloading is very simple, and it can have big benefits for speed.
The only thing is, you’ll need to make sure you set up preloading the right way and not make the common mistakes. For example, if your settings are too aggressive and all your internal links are preloaded, then it could have the opposite effect and even crash your server altogether.
That being said, let’s show you how to preload links in WordPress the right way, step by step.
Preloading WordPress Links and Making WordPress Faster
The easiest way to preload links is by using the Flying Pages plugin. It simply adds intelligent preloading to make sure preloading won’t crash your site or even slow it down.
If it detects any issues like that, then the plugin will stop all preloading.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, navigate to Settings » Flying Pages in your WordPress admin panel to configure the plugin settings.
Then, you need to set the ‘Delay to start preloading’ time in the drop down. This is the delay to start preloading links if your user’s mouse isn’t moving in the browser window.
You can change this, but we’ll keep the default recommended setting of ‘0 second’.
Next, you can change the ‘Max requests per second’. The lower you set this number, the less impact it will have on your server.
We’ll keep the default setting of ‘3 requests’ which should work for most WordPress hosting environments.
After that, you can check the box to ‘Preload only on mouse hover’. This will only preload links if a user hovers over it and will preload the page just before they click.
This technology makes the perceived load time nearly instant because there’s a 400ms delay between when the user brings their mouse over a link and clicking it.
You can also set the ‘Mouse hover delay’. This is the time that will pass after a user hovers over a link before preloading starts.
Below that, there’s a list of keywords that the plugin will ignore for preloading.
These are standard login pages and image files. You can leave the list as it is or add more keywords if you like.
If you’re running an online store, then you may want to add pages like /cart and other dynamic pages in this list, so they are not pre-loaded.
Similarly, if you’re using an affiliate marketing plugin like ThirstyAffiliates or PrettyLinks, then it’s important that you add your affiliate prefix like /refer/ or /go/ to this ignore keywords list. Otherwise, it can break affiliate link tracking.
The final option is to disable preloading for admins.
Overall, this will help to reduce your website server load. If you want to only preload for website visitors who aren’t logged-in admins, then simply check the box.
Once you’re finished, click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page.
That it, you’ve successfully enabled link preloading on your website.
Note: If you’re running a website speed test and you don’t see your score get better, that’s completely normal. Preloading links only improves the speed of link clicking, and it doesn’t speed up the first time your site loads.
We hope this article helped you learn how to preload links in WordPress for faster loading speeds. You may also want to see our guide on how to create an email newsletter, and our expert picks of the must have WordPress plugins for your 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.
Do you want to hide the featured images on individual posts in WordPress?
There may be times when you have a featured image for a post, but instead of deleting it, you just want to hide it from your visitors.
In this article, we’ll show you how to hide featured images on individual posts in WordPress.
When and Why is Hiding Featured Images in WordPress Useful?
Almost every WordPress theme comes with built in support for displaying featured images in different areas of your website.
Some themes will even automatically use post attachments as the featured image if no image is specified. This means that it will still show a featured image even if you don’t set one.
However, you may find yourself wanting to hide the featured image in certain situations.
For example, you might have a WordPress blog post that looks cluttered with the featured image. But, you still want the featured image to display when listed on your separate blog page.
In this case, you’ll want to hide it on your individual blog post without deleting or removing the image entirely.
With that said, let’s show you how to hide the featured image on individual posts in WordPress, step by step.
Hiding Featured Image from Individual WordPress Posts
To easily hide featured images from WordPress posts, we recommend using the Conditionally Display Featured Image plugin. It gives you the option to hide individual featured images on WordPress posts.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After that, the plugin works right out of the box, and there are no plugin settings for you to configure.
Simply go to Posts » All Posts and click on the post that you want to open.
Then, on the post edit screen, you’ll see a box that says ‘Display featured image in posts lists only, hide on singular views’ directly under the featured image.
To hide the featured image, simply check this box and then click the ‘Update’ button to save your changes.
After that, you can view your post, and you’ll notice the featured image is hidden. Even if there’s a featured image assigned to the post, it won’t display.
This plugin does not delete or unset the feature image. It only hides it on the front end of your WordPress website. If you ever want to show the featured image again, simply edit the post and uncheck the hide featured image box.
If you happen to be using custom post types with featured image support, the plugin will let you hide those featured images too.
We hope this article helped you learn how to hide featured images on individual posts in WordPress. You may also want to see our step by step guide on how to create an email newsletter and our expert picks of the best AI chatbots software for your website.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Are you looking for the best auto dialer software for your small business?
Auto dialer software can help to improve business communication by making your sales and customer support teams more productive.
In this article, we’ve hand-picked some of the best auto dialer software that you can use along with your WordPress site.
When Do You Need to Use Auto Dialer Software?
Auto dialer software can help your business save time by dialing numbers automatically and streamlining workflows. Once your call is answered, the software will automatically connect one of your available team members.
Instead of wasting time with manual dialing, your team can focus on delivering a great customer experience and spend more time converting new leads into long-term customers.
Many auto dialer solutions also include standard business phone, call center, and CRM features, so you can handle all of your business communication needs from one place.
Using auto dialer software can also help ensure your business is compliant with federal regulations when you’re doing cold-calling and cell phone calling campaigns.
There are all kinds of reasons to use automatic dialing software in your business:
Make your sales reps more effective by minimizing the time between calls
It offers a unique click-to-call solution that lets your team instantly dial phone numbers and call new leads with the click of a button.
Nextiva seamlessly integrates with all the most popular small business CRMs in the market like HubSpot, Zendesk, Zoho, Salesforce, and more.
With these integrations, you can make phone calls directly from your preferred CRM software.
Basically, it turns your current CRM into an outbound call center solution. You can organize and segment your lists within your CRM, then make calls by clicking a button.
This helps to save your team time from dialing numbers manually and moving between different software. Plus, you can view all of your contact data that’s already present in your CRM to improve the quality of your calls.
Note: we use Nextiva on WPBeginner as our business phone service. In our experience, it’s the best business phone service from pricing and features.
With Nextiva, you also get access to all of the standard business phone features like voice and video calling, video conferencing, SMS messaging, faxing, screen sharing, automatic call routing and callback, and more.
Aside from that, they have several other really powerful features for outbound sales including the ability for your live agent to visually track and manage the entire sales process pipeline, implement automated follow up notifications via email, detailed analytics through call monitoring, and many more.
So if you’re a small business, you can use these smart tools to improve your lead generation efforts, boost sales, and drive more revenue.
Even large business that are using a call center software use Nextiva for their omnichannel communication needs because it seamlessly integrates with their various systems while offering powerful features for call center agents to maximize productivity.
Expert Review:Nextiva is the best business phone solution for most businesses. You can use the click to call solution plus all of the business phone features to easily manage all of your business phone needs.
It’s affordable too and starts at $20.95 per user per month, and annual contracts aren’t required.
You’ll need at least the Professional plan to access the CRM integration features. Discounts are also available by adding more users to your plan or buying pre-paid packages.
It has all the features you need to run a call center, manage your business phone system, and simplify your sales and customer support process.
RingCentral offers multiple auto dialing options including a progressive dialer, previewing dialing, and predictive dialing. Predictive dialing lets you dial multiple numbers at once and uses algorithms to route the call to the next available agent.
It’s also one of the best auto dialing solutions for reducing your risk of regulatory violations.
If you’re going to be doing large-scale telemarketing campaigns, then this tool will help to ensure your business remains compliant with Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) guidelines.
For example, it has built-in features to ensure you’re only calling within specific time windows, avoiding the do not call list (DNC), calling cell phones safely, and more.
You can create custom automatic call scripts for different scenarios and can customize these scripts using the included drag and drop builder. This is also known as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and is very helpful during busy times.
RingCentral also offers specific solutions for businesses across various industries like tech, retail, healthcare, financial, education, real estate, and more.
Beyond the automatic dialing software, you also get access to common business phone and contact center solutions like unlimited calling, caller ID, call forwarding, SMS, live chat, call tracking, call distribution, and others.
There’s also a 99.999% uptime guarantee, so your team will never drop an important call.
Expert review: We believe that RingCentral is one of the best phone solutions for business owners with scaling businesses.
It starts at $19.99 per month per user when billed annually. There’s also a 15-day free trial you can use to test out the software and see if it’s a good fit.
PhoneBurner is an auto dialing software used by companies like Remax and powers over 11 million monthly conversations. It’s a cloud-based software that uses VoIP to make calls, so it can be accessed anywhere and is an excellent solution for remote teams.
Even though the software caters to remote teams, the call quality is the same as a landline.
The auto dialing functionality can help your sales team make up to 80 calls every hour. This is a great way to make your sales team more effective and close more deals.
It includes advanced lead management features, so you can sort leads by location, tags, last time called, and more.
Another time-saving feature is the unlimited prerecorded voicemails. As soon as they reach someone’s voicemail, they can leave a prerecorded message with a single click. Plus, follow up text messages and emails can be sent in real-time within the software during busy signal.
PhoneBurner also includes an integrated sales CRM, so you can manage your contact list and leads without the need for an external CRM.
If you’re already using a CRM, then you can easily integrate with software like Zoom, HubSpot, Salesforce, Constant Contact, FreshDesk, and more.
There’s also an open API, so you can develop an integration with nearly every CRM even if the integration isn’t currently available.
Expert Review:PhoneBurner is a great solution for companies who don’t have a CRM and want an integrated easy to use CRM.
The phone solution isn’t as robust as Nextiva, but for those who need an advanced auto dialer it could be a great choice.
The pricing is very straightforward and costs $149 per user per month when paid yearly. There are also discounts available when you purchase a yearly plan.
Voicent is one of the top auto dialer providers that offers flexible plans for businesses of all sizes.
Many providers simply charge a single flat rate, regardless of how much you use the service. Instead, Voicent offers flexible pricing based on your call volume. This is great for businesses who only need to use an auto dialer during the holiday season or other peak times of the year.
One of the main features of this software is prerecorded auto dialing. This makes it easy to send out recorded messages to a list of contacts. Your message can be in your voice, or you can use the computer-generated voice included with the software.
Beyond the auto dialing features, you’ll find everything you need to manage outbound and inbound calls, SMS messages, emails, and more.
There’s also a built-in CRM to help you automatically track your leads and customers and streamline your customer follow up process.
Expert Review:Voicent is one of the best providers for sending prerecorded messages to your list of contacts.
The pricing is affordable and starts at $19 per user per month when paid yearly and $29 per user per month when paid monthly. This makes it one of the cheapest options for businesses on a budget.
Addons like caller ID, workflow automation, and inbound call center features cost extra. However, there is a 30-day free trial you can use to test out the software and see if it’s right for your business.
CallHub is an all in one auto dialer solution for small businesses. It’s commonly used by nonprofits and political campaigns like the American Red Cross, Sierra Club, the Bernie Sanders campaign, and more.
This tool has built-in templates for different use cases, so you can improve your voter outreach process, recruit volunteers, make fundraising and donations easier, and more.
The automatic dialing software includes a variety of dialing modes like predictive dialing, robo dialing, preview dialing, and a power dialer. The robo dialer features are commonly used for telemarketing and political campaigns.
Simply upload your list of contacts and begin dialing. There’s a caller ID feature included that will automatically display a local number based on your contact’s area code.
Expert Review:CallHub is one of the best solutions for nonprofits and political campaigns who want to save time with the built-in workflows.
It’s not as flexible as Nextiva, but for certain use cases it would be a good solution for your business.
Plus, there’s a Lite version available that lets you test the software for free, and you can add on the auto dialer feature for $99 per month.
Paid plans start at $199 per month and includes auto dialing, predictive dialing, power dialing, and support for unlimited contacts and agents.
Five9 is one of the most well known auto dialer solutions that’s been around for over 20 years. It’s used by big brands like DoorDash, Lululemon, Fitbit, and more.
The auto dialer software supports predictive dialing, progressive dialing, power dialing, and a preview dialer. The preview dialer feature shows your agents important information about the customer before they hop on the call.
The predictive dialer can help to increase your agent productivity and talk time by 300%. Instead of waiting for unanswered calls, the predictive algorithm will only connect your agents once a live person is on the phone.
It can also be customized based on your contact’s time zone and list penetration, which will help to keep your business compliant with regulations.
You can choose the type of auto dialer that works best for your business and set it up in a couple of clicks.
The software also includes standard auto dialer features like agent scripting, answering machine detection, automated voicemail, local caller ID, live call recording, and more.
Expert Review:Five9 is an advanced solution that can power a call center for thousands of agents.
It caters to large scale businesses, so it might not be the best fit for your WordPress businesses.
The pricing for Five9 is not available online. To get pricing information unique to your business needs, you’ll need to contact their team.
Which is the Best Auto Dialer Software for Your Team?
All of the above software are great auto dialing solutions you can use to improve the productivity of your customer service, sales, and marketing teams.
We believe that Nextiva is the best business phone software for small businesses. Although it doesn’t offer strict auto dialing features, the one click calling and easy CRM integration can help improve your sales process and deepen customer relationships.
Plus, it has all the features you need to manage your onichannel communication like live chat, SMS, business phone, free toll-free numbers, and much more.
If you want an alternative to Nextiva, then RingCentral is another excellent choice. Not only is it one of the top business VoIP providers, but it offers industry-leading predictive dialing and all the tools your business needs to remain compliant.
If you’re primarily a remote team, then PhoneBurner can be a great way to streamline the workflow of your sales and customer support staff.
Finally, those who run nonprofits or political campaigns will find a lot of useful features and built-in workflows with CallHub.
We hope this article helped you find the best auto dialer software for your small business. You may also want to see our guide on how to get an email domain and our expert picks of the best email marketing services for small business.
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.