Certified WordPress Developer and SEO Specialist with 10+ years of experience on Fiverr. I provide expert solutions for WordPress error fixing, debugging, speed optimization, and security hardening. Services include hacked site recovery, malware removal, on-page SEO optimization, and full customization to ensure your website runs fast, secure, and ranks higher on Google.
Do you want to add a login form to your WordPress sidebar?
A login form in the WordPress sidebar allows users to quickly log in from anywhere on your website. Having easy access to a login form can increase sales for ecommerce sites, boost retention for online courses, and more.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add a custom login form to your WordPress sidebar.
When and Why Do You Need a Custom Login Form in WordPress?
Since the sidebar appears throughout a website, it makes the login form more noticeable and easily accessible from every page on the site.
Adding a login form to your WordPress sidebar makes it easy for users to sign in to their accounts quickly. This boosts engagement, provides a better user experience, and increases form conversions.
That said, let’s look at how to add a login form to your WordPress sidebar easily. We’ll show you how to add the default login form in the sidebar and create a custom login form.
You can click the links below to jump ahead to your preferred section.
Method 1: Adding Default WordPress Login Form in Sidebar
You can show the default WordPress login form in the sidebar of your website. This makes it super easy for users to enter their username and password to access the WordPress admin area.
For this tutorial, we’ll use the Astra theme. Do note that the options may vary depending on the WordPress theme you’re using.
To start, you need to go to Appearance » Widgets from your WordPress dashboard.
From here, you can click the ‘+’ button and scroll under the ‘Theme’ heading and click on the ‘Login/out’ widget block to add it to your sidebar.
Next, you’ll see the ‘Login/out’ block in your widgets area. You can then enable the options to display login as a form.
When you’ve made the changes, click the ‘Update’ button at the top.
After that, you can visit your website to see the default WordPress login form in action.
Do note that you’ll be logged in if you immediately go check the form. Simply log out of your site to see how the form will appear to your members.
Method 2: Adding a Custom Login Form Using WPForms Plugin
The default WordPress login form only offers a username and password field. However, you can create a custom user registration form with more fields and customization options.
The best way to do that is by using WPForms. It is the most popular WordPress form plugin, and the premium version of WPForms allows you to easily create WordPress login and registration forms with custom fields.
WPBeginner users can use the WPForms Coupon: SAVE50 to get 50% off on their purchases.
Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can get your license key from your WPForms account on their website.
After verification, you need to go to WPForms » Addons page.
From here, you need to scroll down to the ‘User Registration Addon’ and click on the ‘Install Addon’ button.
The addon will now automatically install and activate on your website.
You are now ready to create a custom WordPress login form. Simply visit WPForms » Add New page to launch the WPForms builder.
First, you need to enter a form name at the top and then select the built-in ‘User Login Form’ template. Simply hover over it and click the ‘Use Template’ button.
It will display the login fields pre-loaded in your form. You can click on a field to edit it or add new fields from the left column.
WPForms offers multiple form fields you can add using the drag-and-drop builder. For example, you can add a name or CAPTCHA form fields to the login form.
Afterward, head to the ‘Settings’ tab and click on the Confirmation section.
This is where you need to define what to do once a user successfully logs in to your site.
The options include a message, a custom page, or a redirect URL to any page on your site.
Ideally, you would want to redirect users to a page once they are logged in. This could be your homepage, WordPress admin panel, or any other page on your website such as their membership dashboard or client portal.
Next, you can click the ‘Save’ button at the top and exit the form builder.
Your login form is now ready. From here, you can add it to your WordPress sidebar.
Simply visit the Appearance » Widgets page in your WordPress admin area. On this page, add the ‘WPForms’ widget block in the sidebar widget area of your site.
Next, you can select your user login form from the dropdown menu.
You can view more options in the settings panel on your right. For instance, there are options to show the form title and description.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ button when you’re done.
You can now visit your website to see the custom login form.
Sometimes a misinformed tech consultant, or a paid YouTube influencer for a competing brand might say things like WordPress is BAD!
This can be confusing for beginners to see conflicting opinions about whether WordPress is a bad content management system. The question any rational person should ask is: if WordPress is really that bad, then why is it so popular, and why do nearly half of all websites on the internet use it?
In this article, we will discuss whether WordPress is bad and what things you should know before using it.
One of the most common arguments some developers present is that WordPress is not a secure platform for building mission-critical websites.
This is a myth.
Contrary to these claims, WordPress is actually a very secure and transparent platform.
As open-source software, WordPress code is always available for anyone to study and find security issues.
Because it is monitored by security experts from all over the world for vulnerabilities, this code is one of the most thoroughly scrutinized in the world.
Thousands of developers from hundreds of countries contribute to the WordPress code, and the software is deeply tested for security issues.
As an open-source platform, WordPress is open to any customization. This allows individual website owners, agencies, and developers to make their websites even more secure.
This can be done by installing a security plugin or by using a WordPress firewall. These block the most common threats and make your website more secure.
Third-party developers maintain WordPress themes and plugins. Many premium WordPress plugins and theme companies pay security experts to audit their code.
If a security vulnerability is found in a popular WordPress plugin or theme, it is often patched very quickly, and depending on the severity, WordPress team even pushes automatic security update where applicable.
For more details, see our WordPress security guide which shows how to properly make your WordPress website even more secure.
2. WordPress is Only Good for Blogging
WordPress is by far the best blogging platform on the market. It started out primarily as a blogging tool and still makes it super easy to start a blog.
However, over the years, WordPress has grown into a CMS (content management system) and a powerful platform for building almost any type of website.
These days developers are using WordPress as the operating system for the web and even building SaaS applications like OptinMonster, mortgage calculator apps, auction websites like eBay, multivendor marketplace sites like Etsy, and more.
3. WordPress Code is Sub-standard and Outdated
Another argument commonly used is that WordPress coding standards are not that good and that they are outdated.
This reason is commonly given by those developers who usually don’t work with WordPress websites that often.
WordPress software code is simple by design to allow for wide adaption. That isn’t an issue but rather a very intentional feature. This simplicity provides more users with an easy point of entry.
Over the years, WordPress has gotten so easy that even non-techy users can build websites without knowing any code. This has put some developers out of business, so it’s in their interest to bad mouth WordPress, so they can sell you more complicated services that you don’t need.
We believe that WordPress code is standardized, robust, and provides a solid foundation without getting overly complicated.
It offers robust APIs allowing developers to build their own applications and solutions on top of WordPress.
4. WordPress is Used by Amateurs
Again, this reason is given by people who don’t know the scope of the platform and are unfamiliar with the history of WordPress.
The WordPress mission is to democratize publishing and allow more people to easily make websites.
This is again by design and a conscious decision to make WordPress easy for as many people as possible.
The WordPress community is massive and consists of all levels of users, from first-time site owners to large corporations, government agencies, non-profits, developers, and business users.
The project prides itself to be the software of choice for millions of small businesses, hobbyists, independent publishers, bloggers, and more. It should not be seen as a concern that amateurs use WordPress. The platform is built for that.
But it’s also used by large brands and even big governments. For example, Whitehouse.gov (United States government website) is built with WordPress.
5. WordPress is Not Scalable
Scaling is the term used for managing a large volume of traffic as a website grows.
Some developers believe that a WordPress website is harder to scale. We have found this argument to be untrue.
A WordPress website needs web hosting just like any other website.
As your website grows, you need more server resources to handle the traffic. This is the case for all website builders and not just WordPress.
We have seen WordPress websites on low-cost shared hosting servers handling very hefty traffic volume effortlessly.
With WordPress, you get the ability to utilize your server resources much more efficiently than any other website builder and even custom-coded websites.
WordPress can utilize your hosting server’s built-in caching mechanisms. Even a beginner-level WordPress user can install a caching plugin to immediately reduce server load.
Plus, you can easily offload your static files and media to a CDN network. You can even go further and offload services like email to SMTP services.
There are thousands of WordPress websites with very high traffic volumes, and they perform exceptionally well.
The best part is that even beginner-level users can do these enhancements to scale their websites as their traffic grows. See our complete WordPress performance & speed handbook for practical, step-by-step instructions for beginners.
Anyone that claims WordPress is not scalable simply doesn’t have the technical experience. We scale billions of impressions each month across our WordPress platform.
6. WordPress is not Beginner Friendly
Some people claim that WordPress is bad because it is not beginner friendly.
This argument can be used against any software or tool.
WordPress comes with a slight learning curve just like any other software you would use. You’ll need to spend some time to find your way around.
If the popularity of WordPress is to be taken as an indicator, we don’t think WordPress would have been the most used website builder if it wasn’t beginner friendly.
Many major updates to the WordPress core files are aimed at making the platform more user-friendly as time moves on.
For example, introducing the block-based content and site editor that works similarly to many popular site builders like Wix or Squarespace.
At WPBeginner, we write about WordPress for beginner-level users and have been doing that for more than a decade now.
In our experience, WordPress beginners quickly get over that initial learning curve and become quite good in just a few weeks.
There are also numerous WordPress page builder plugins available like SeedProd that makes it easy for you to build any type of website without writing any code.
WordPress also has over 60,000+ free plugins that allows you to add all types of functionality to your website such as contact form, analytics, eCommerce, and more without any code.
There are even no-code workflow automation plugins like Uncanny Automator that helps you save time when managing your WordPress site.
As free software, WordPress is available and maintained by a community. The support is also community driven.
There are the official WordPress.org support forums where you can get support from other users.
Then there are WordPress resource sites like WPBeginner that publish a ton of WordPress resources to help beginners.
There are also free Facebook groups like WPBeginner Engage, where you can post your questions and get free help from moderators and other users. The group has over 80,000+ users.
Because WordPress is so big, there are dedicated WordPress sections and groups on all popular online communities like StackExchange, Reddit, LinkedIn, and more.
Not looking for community options?
There are thousands of WordPress developers that you can hire on platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, Codeable, Toptal, and more. There, you’ll find expert WordPress support on hourly rates or fixed-price gigs.
8. WordPress is not Suitable for Ecommerce
By default, it’s true that WordPress does not come with a built-in shopping cart or eCommerce features. You’ll need a plugin to make an eCommerce website with WordPress.
However, saying that WordPress is not suitable for eCommerce is unfair. Especially when WooCommerce (a WordPress plugin) is the most used eCommerce platform in the world.
It is used by more online stores than Shopify, Magento, OpenCart, and PrestaShop combined.
It is open-source like WordPress. However, unlike the WordPress core, it is run by a company that uses different ways to monetize the platform.
You can also extend your online store with thousands of available WooCommerce addons.
Aside from WooCommerce, there are several other eCommerce plugins for WordPress including:
Easy Digital Downloads which makes it easy for you to sell digital files like eBooks, music, art, software, and others using WordPress.
MemberPress makes it easy for you to sell premium content and courses in WordPress.
WP Simple Pay makes it easy for you to accept payments on your WordPress site for any product or service without adding a full-blown cart.
WP Charitable is a donation and crowdfunding platform that makes it easy for you to accept donations in WordPress.
9. The Future of WordPress is Unclear Because it is Free
Some believe that WordPress is bad because it is available for free. Those folks say that makes its future path unclear.
This argument is untrue and often given by people who don’t know why WordPress is free.
The trademark ‘WordPress’ is owned by the WordPress Foundation which is a non-profit organization. The foundation’s mission is to promote WordPress beyond contributors so that it remains available for everyone to use.
Apart from the non-profit foundation, there is also a multi-billion industry behind WordPress.
This includes many top WordPress companies, web development agencies, independent businesses, website owners, developers, designers, technicians, marketers, and more.
Even if development stops on WordPress, as open-source software it can be easily forked into another project and continue with a different name.
We do not believe that this is going to happen, however.
But it can, which is why the future of WordPress is very promising, mainly because of the freedoms it offers.
Getting Started with WordPress
The easiest way to learn more about WordPress is by using it yourself.
While you can install WordPress on your computer (Windows, Mac), the best way to experience it is by making a live website.
To get started, you’ll need a website hosting account and a domain name.
Now if you are worried about the costs, then you can take advantage of the special deal offered by Bluehost.
They are one of the biggest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.
They are offering a generous discount to WPBeginner users with a free domain name and a free SSL certificate. Basically, you can get everything you need to get started with WordPress for just $2.75 per month.
Aside from Bluehost, you can also use other hosting providers like Hostinger or SiteGround which also makes getting started easy.
For more details, see our complete guide on how to make a WordPress website which has step-by-step instructions for beginners.
We hope this article helped you make your own assessment of how good or bad WordPress really is. You may also want to see our complete WordPress review, or see our article discussing why you should use WordPress.
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 properly tracking user engagement on your WordPress site?
User engagement is one of the most important metrics to track because it helps you better understand your audience and what they want. With Google Analytics, you can easily see how people interact with your website.
In this article, we will show you how to track user engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics.
Why Track User Engagement with Google Analytics
Generally, WordPress website owners consider traffic and pageviews to be the most important indicators of their website’s performance. They assume that higher traffic will result in more conversions and sales.
While that is true, you can get even better results by tracking and optimizing user engagement.
User engagement shows you what users do when they arrive on your website. It helps you identify patterns of highly engaged user behavior which leads to more conversions and sales.
For example, you may realize that users visiting a specific page are 10X more likely to make a purchase than any other visitor on your website. You can use this insight to redirect the user’s attention to that page.
Similarly, tracking user engagement can help you see which affiliate links or banner ads your visitors are clicking. Using this data, you’ll be able to optimize your content to get more clicks and boost conversions.
That said, let’s see how you can set up user engagement tracking in WordPress using Google Analytics.
Tracking User Engagement in WordPress using Google Analytics
MonsterInsights automatically sets up outbound link tracking, form conversion tracking, scroll depth, affiliate link clicks, and other advanced tracking features in Google Analytics out of the box.
It automates the process of pasting different analytics codes and event tracking in WordPress, so you don’t have to deal with the hassle of code and configuration.
For this tutorial, we’ll use the MonsterInsights Pro version because it includes advanced tracking features and more dashboard reports. However, there is also a MonsterInsights Lite version that you can use for free and get started with user engagement tracking.
First, you will need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you’ll see the MonsterInsights welcome screen. Go ahead and click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button.
MonsterInsights also helps set up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) in WordPress with its dual tracking feature. This allows you to use Universal Analytics and GA4 together.
Google Analytics 4 is the latest version of Analytics, and it will replace Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023. After this date, you won’t be able to track data in Universal Data. To protect your tracking data, we highly recommend creating a GA4 property.
Now that you have Google Analytics with MonsterInsights ready to go, let’s take a look at what user engagement metrics are best to track and how you can track them.
These aren’t all of the metrics you can track with MonsterInsights and Google Analytics, but they are the most important ones to start with. You can click the links below to jump ahead to any section:
The first thing you want to figure out is which posts and pages on your WordPress blog are popular amongst your users. These important pages and posts on your website get the most traffic.
Figuring out what your users like on your site can help you plan a content strategy that expands on what’s already working.
MonsterInsights makes it really simple. You just need to visit the Insights » Reports page in your WordPress admin area and go to the ‘Overview’ report.
After that, you can scroll down to see other reports with different data.
You will find your most popular content under the ‘Top Posts/Pages’ section.
On most websites, 90% of their traffic goes to 10% of the top pages.
Once you find these top pages, you can optimize them for maximum conversions by adding content upgrades or targeted lead magnets on these posts.
2. Tracking How Users Engage with Forms on Your Website
Most websites rely on contact forms to collect user leads and feedback. Sadly, most WordPress contact form plugins don’t give you accurate tracking and conversion data.
MonsterInsights lets you leverage the events tracking feature in Google Analytics to see how many times your forms are viewed and submitted.
To enable form tracking, you need to visit the Insights » Addons page. On this page, you will need to install and activate the Forms addon.
Once you have activated the addon, MonsterInsights will automatically start tracking all forms on your website.
You can check the settings by going to Insights » Settings from your WordPress dashboard and then clicking on the ‘Conversions’ tab.
Next, MonsterInsights shows the performance of your WordPress forms inside your dashboard.
Simply go to Insights » Reports from the admin panel and click on the ‘Forms’ tab. The report shows the number of impressions and conversions, as well as the conversion rate for your different WordPress forms.
3. Tracking Ecommerce Stores Performance in Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers many features specifically for eCommerce websites. However, these features are not turned on by default in Google Analytics, and most users don’t even know that they exist.
Ecommerce tracking lets you see shopping behavior, checkout behavior, product performance, sales performance, and so much more. The best part is that you can combine this data with your overall website traffic to gather better insights.
With MonsterInsights, you can easily set up Enhanced eCommerce on your website without editing code. It seamlessly works with popular plugins like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, MemberPress, GiveWP, and more.
Once you’ve configured tracking, you can head to Insights » Reports from your WordPress admin menu and click on the ‘eCommerce’ report.
Using the report, you can quickly see how your online store is performing. It shows stats like conversion rate, number of transactions, revenue, and average order value.
It also helps identify products that users engage with the most and where they’re coming from.
You can also view the eCommerce report in your Universal Analytics property. Simply visit your Google Analytics account and go to Conversions » Ecommerce page.
Here are a few powerful reports you get by enabling Enhanced eCommerce tracking on your store:
Shopping Behavior
Checkout Behavior
Product Lists Performance
Sales Performance
On the other hand, you can view the eCommerce reports directly inside in your Google Analytics 4 dashboard by going to Reports » Monetization » Ecommerce purchases.
4. Tracking Who’s Clicking on Your AdSense Ads
Many websites rely on ads to make money online while creating useful content. However, with Google Analytics you can actually see how users interact with ads on your site.
For instance, you’ll be able to track how many clicks each ad is receiving, discover which ads your audience is ignoring, identify the most effective ad placements, and more.
First, you need to integrate Google Analytics into your Google Adsense account.
Head over to your Google Analytics dashboard and click on the ‘Admin’ button located at the bottom left corner of the screen. On the admin page, click on ‘AdSense Links’ under the property column.
Next, you’ll need to select the AdSense property that you want to link with your Analytics property.
To view the right AdSense property, just make sure that you’re signed in with the same Google account you used on both AdSense and Google Analytics.
After that, click on the ‘Link configuration’ option.
Here, you can select the Analytics view in which you want your AdSense data to be available.
After you have configured everything in Google Analytics, you can now see how your AdSense ads are performing.
To view your AdSense reports, go to your Google Analytics account and visit the Behavior » Publisher page.
5. Tracking How Far People Scroll Your Website
When tracking user engagement in WordPress, it’s also important to see how far visitors scroll your website.
It gives you insights into how people use your site and helps improve your page length. Plus, you can use the data to place your AdSense ads, call-to-action buttons, and affiliate links where they’d get the most visibility and conversions.
MonsterInsights automatically enables scroll-depth tracking. You can view the report by going to Insights » Reports from the WordPress admin panel and clicking the ‘Publishers’ tab.
Next, scroll down and view the ‘Scroll’ report.
It will show the average scroll depth percentage. MonsterInsights will trigger events in Google Analytics 4 as users scroll 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of a page and compute the percentage from those results.
6. Tracking Your Affiliate Links in Google Analytics
Most marketers use affiliate plugins to manage and cloak affiliate links. This makes your affiliate links look more user-friendly. Here is an example of a cloaked affiliate link:
https://example.com/recommends/product-name/
MonsterInsights allows you to track affiliate links in Google Analytics. This helps you figure out which affiliate products are doing well, which pages are generating more affiliate revenue, and more.
To enable affiliate link tracking, you need to visit the Insights » Settings page. Next, you can switch to the ‘Publisher’ tab and head to the Affiliate Links section.
First, you need to enter the prefix for your link under the Path field, like ‘/refer/’ or ‘/recommend/.’ After that, you need to provide a Label that you would like to use for those links in your Google Analytics reports.
When you’re done, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Next, you can view your top affiliate link clicks in MonsterInsights reports. Simply head to the Publishers tab and scroll down to the ‘Top Affiliate Links’ section.
Here, you will see which affiliates are getting the most clicks, so you can promote them more on your site and boost sales.
Additionally, MonsterInsights will also show your Top Outbound Links. These are external links that people click and exit your site. You can use insights from this report to get more backlinks, form partnerships, signup for affiliate programs, and exchange guest posts.
Bounce rate is the percentage of users who land on your website and decide to leave without going to a second page.
With MonsterInsights, you get to see the overall bounce rate of your website inside the WordPress dashboard. Simply go to Insights » Reports from your WordPress admin menu and click on the ‘Overview’ tab.
Besides that, the plugin also shows the bounce rate for your important pages.
You can go to the Publishers report and view the ‘Top Landing Pages’ section. In the report, you’ll see the bounce rate for different content.
A higher bounce rate indicates that you were unable to convince the user to visit other pages. Users can leave your website by clicking on the back button in their browser, clicking on an outgoing link, or by closing the window.
Every site has a bounce rate. However, higher bounce rates can indicate problems with your website affecting user experience and causing low engagement.
To lower the bounce rate, you can speed up your website, improve internal links, ensure that your content meets the search intent, improve the readability of your articles, show popular posts, and more.
Another indicator that shows user engagement is session duration, or the amount of time users spend on your site.
If users are abandoning your site without spending enough time to look at it, then something is wrong and you need to fix it.
In the MonsterInsights Overview report, you can see the average session duration for your website in the past 30 days.
If you’re using Google Analytics 4, then you’ll see a new metric called average engagement time. It tells the average time your webpage was in the focus of a user.
You can view the report by logging into your GA4 account and then head to Reports » Engagement » Overview.
Using the data, you can better understand your user journey. If the engagement time is low, then you can look into issues like fixing slow site speed, debugging any errors, and making your site’s interface user-friendly.
9. Tracking Pageviews Per Visit with Google Analytics
Pageviews Per Visit is another excellent indicator of how engaged your users are. Higher pageviews per session means people are visiting multiple landing pages and articles on your site. This in return helps increase the time users spend on your site and decreases bounce rates.
Universal Analytics will show you the total page views for a given period on the Audience » Overview page. However, to track user engagement you want to see Pageviews per session.
You can also break down page views per session by source and channel.
Simply go to the Acquisition » All Traffic » Channels page.
In Google Analytics 4, you can view the sessions per user metric based on different traffic sources and see how many pages users view in a single session.
Just head to Reports » Acquisition » User acquisition from your GA4 property.
This helps you see which traffic channels are converting the best for your website. You can then focus your content marketing efforts on areas that are actually driving results.
