Best of Best WordPress Tutorials of 2019 on WPBeginner

Another year is about to end and it is time to take a look back at 2019 to gain some perspective and reflect upon the progress.

It was a particularly fantastic year for WPBeginner, WordPress community, and many of our new users who started new websites and businesses this year.

We want to thank all of you for your continued support that keeps us motivated and energized.

To keep up with our tradition, in this article we will share our staff-pick of the best of best WordPress tutorials on WPBeginner. We’ll also share an overview of 2019 from our CEO.

WPBeginner Recap 2019 by Syed Balkhi

Like every year, 2019 has been the best year ever for me both personally and professionally.

This year, WPBeginner turned 10 years old. It still feels quite unreal to say that.

I’m truly grateful for all the support from WPBeginner readers and the larger WordPress community, and I’m more motivated than ever to continue our mission to help small businesses grow and compete with the big guys.

After a lot of requests from the community, we finally launched a free Facebook group called WPBeginner Engage that’s focused on helping beginners and non-techy users do more with WordPress. In less than 6 months, we have over 22,000+ members, and I’m really proud of the discussions and knowledge-sharing that’s happening there.

I have been doing exclusive Facebook Lives, recording training videos, our teams of WordPress experts have been answering user questions, and the best part is that it’s 100% free. Go ahead and join now!

Our community on YouTube has also been growing stronger. WPBeginner YouTube channel passed over 150,000 subscribers (currently at 157k subscribers). This was one of my goals for 2019, and I’m very glad that we met it.

We have been creating original YouTube content series to help you get more traffic, grow your email list, and make money blogging. Check out our playlists.

We invested in Rymera Web, parent company of Wholesale Suite, Advanced Coupons, and Inventoroo through our WPBeginner Growth Fund.

We are in the final stages of wrapping up few more growth fund investments that will be announced in the new year.

2019 was a great year for WPBeginner’s family of products.

WPForms

WPForms passed over 3 million active installs, and it’s now one of the top 15 most popular WordPress plugins of all time. Considering that we only launched it in 2016, it’s amazing to see how far we have come.

We added a lot of powerful features in WPForms including: form landing pages, conversational forms, Google AMP support, smart phone and email fields, complete language translations in popular languages, and a whole lot more.

WPForms is the most beginner friendly WordPress form plugin, and that’s why it has continued to maintain a 4.9 out of 5 star rating average with over 5000+ five star ratings (read WPForms user reviews).

Not using WPForms yet? You can try the free version and then upgrade to Pro when you’re ready.

RafflePress

We launched a brand new WordPress giveaway plugin called RafflePress. This is a tool that I have been wanting to build for the last 5 years, and I’m so glad that we did. It is by far the best contest plugin for WordPress in the market.

I successfully used it on many of our websites and blogs to grow our traffic, sales, and subscribers. I’m really excited to do more giveaways in 2020 because they just work!

If you’re serious about growing your website in 2020, then definitely give RafflePress a try.

WP Mail SMTP

We also launched a pro version of our popular free WP Mail SMTP plugin. After our acquisition, the plugin grew from 600k to over 1 million active installs. In the pro version, we added a lot of highly requested features such as Amazon SES integration, Email Logs for WordPress, and more.

This is a plugin that I recommend installing on all website because it helps fix WordPress not sending email issue.

MonsterInsights

As I promised in last year’s update, our WordPress analytics plugin, MonsterInsights saw major improvements.

We completely redesigned the plugin, added a brand new setup wizard, improved affiliate tracking, enabled automatic scroll tracking, added front-end page insights, and launched integrations with MemberPress, LifterLMS, and other popular plugins.

MonsterInsights is my most favorite plugins because it helps me grow our business with confidence. I sincerely believe that it’s easy to double your traffic and sales when you know exactly how people find and use your website. You can start with free version here.

OptinMonster & TrustPulse

Last but not least, our flagship product, OptinMonster, continued to push the limits in 2019. OptinMonster helps you get more subscribers and sales from your existing website traffic. Simply put, it’s the #1 conversion optimization software in the market.

In 2019, we added gamified spin a wheel optins, chatbot integrations for Facebook Messenger, tons of new personalization and targeting rules, mobile-specific templates, improved WooCommerce integration, attention activation feature, improved native analytics, brand new dashboard, and integrations with tons of third-party services like Zapier, Jilt, Bronto, etc.

OptinMonster team also launched a powerful social-proof plugin called TrustPulse that helps you boost site conversions with real-time social proof notifications.

As for personal life, 2019 was a great year for my family. My son, Solomon, turned 3 years old. He now tries to imitate my work habits on his mini computer. It’s quite funny to watch that.

We traveled to 8 countries this year. Solomon attended 1 WordCamp in 2019 (WordCamp US) and he went to few other conferences with me as well.

Below is a picture of our family, since I know many of you often ask for it.

If you want to see more of my personal journey, then please visit my personal blog and subscribe. I will be doing a detailed writeup there in the next few days. It will contain everything that happened to me in 2019 both personally & professionally along with lessons that I learned, and my goals for 2020.

With that said, let’s take a look at the best of WPBeginner in 2019.

January

Gutenberg vs page builders – What’s the real difference – 2018 ended with the release of WordPress 5.0. So we spent early months of 2019 helping our users learn and adapt to the new WordPress editor called Gutenberg. In this article, we explained the difference between the new WordPress editor and page builder plugins.

How to create a free business email address in 5 minutes (step by step) – Having a business email address makes your business look more trustworthy and legit. In this guide, we showed you how to get a free business email address with step by step instructions.

Cover Image vs. Featured Image in WordPress Block Editor (Beginner’s Guide) – The new WordPress block editor introduced a new feature called cover image. In this article, we explained how to use the cover image feature and how it is different than the featured image in WordPress.

How to Choose the Best Products to Sell Online (Beginner’s Guide) – A lot of our users want to start their online store using WooCommerce and WordPress. In this article, we tried to answer one of their most frequently asked question which is how to choose the best products to sell online.

Common Gutenberg questions answers (WordPress 5.0. FAQs) – In this article, we answered the most frequently asked questions about Gutenberg editor in WordPress 5.0.

February

How to setup a professional email address with Gmail and G Suite – In this article, we showed you how to setup a professional business email address with G Suite. It is Google’s productivity suite for businesses and professionals that allows you to use the same Google apps (Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and more) with your own domain name.

How to build an Amazon affiliate store using WordPress – In this guide, we showed you how to easily make an Amazon affiliate store using WordPress. Basically, you promote products on Amazon’s website to earn an affiliate commission on each sale.

How to easily create a quiz in WordPress – Quizzes are fun and can help you build an engaged audience on your website. In this guide, we showed you how to easily create a quiz in WordPress.

March

How to create a custom WordPress theme (without any code) – Do you want to create a completely custom WordPress theme of your own but don’t want to learn coding? In this guide, we showed you how to easily create a custom WordPress theme without writing any code.

How to create an online marketplace using WordPress – An online marketplace website allows users to buy and sell items by setting up their own mini-stores within your eCommerce platform. In this guide, we showed you how to easily create your own online marketplace using WordPress to make money on the side.

How to create conversational forms in WordPress (Typeform Alternative) – Conversational forms make your forms interactive and a fun experience for your users. In this article, we showed you how to easily create conversational forms in WordPress without using a third-party service.

What is a blog and how is it different from a website? (Explained) – Many users asked us about the difference between a blog and a website and which one they should start. In this beginner’s guide, we explained the difference between a blog and a website.

April

How to add Google Maps store locator in WordPress – In this guide, we showed you how to easily add a Google Maps store locator to your WordPress website and provide your customers directions to your store location.

Beginner’s guide to image SEO – Optimize images for search engines – In this guide, we walked you through the image SEO and how to properly optimize your images to get more traffic from search engines.

How to easily create a staging site for WordPress (step by step) – A WordPress staging site is a test site that you can use to “safely” make plugin updates and other changes before going live. In this guide, we showed you how to easily set up a WordPress staging site with just a few clicks.

How to do basic image editing in WordPress (Crop, rotate, scale, flip) – In this guide, we showed you how to do some basic image editing in WordPress without leaving the admin area.

May

How to create a web directory in WordPress – In this step by step guide, we showed how to easily create a web directory in WordPress.

BigCommerce vs WooCommerce – Which one is better? – We compared WooCommerce and BigCommerce side by side to weigh the pros and cons of both platforms and find out which one is better.

Beginner’s guide to WordPress template hierarchy (cheat sheet) – In this guide, we broke down the WordPress template hierarchy and what each template does in WordPress themes. Must read for any users getting started in WordPress theme development.

How to create an email newsletter (step by step) – In this step by step tutorial we showed you how to easily create an email newsletter and start building an email list.

85+ most useful time-saving WordPress keyboard shortcuts – In this beginner’s guide, we compiled an ultimate cheat sheet of all the useful WordPress keyboard shortcuts that would allow you to work faster on your websites.

June

How to add nofollow links in WordPress (Beginner’s guide) – Adding nofollow to external links is important for SEO. In this guide, we showed you how to easily add nofollow links in WordPress.

how to add scroll depth tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics – Want to learn how much users scroll on your website? In this guide, we showed you how to easily track users’ scroll depth activity on your WordPress site with Google Analytics.

Tips for mastering the WordPress content editor – We updated our ultimate guide on using the WordPress content editor with new tips and techniques.

How to host a website (Simple guide for beginners) – We have been often asked by beginners about how they can host a website. In this beginner’s guide, we showed how to easily host a website.

Best Beaver Builder themes and templates – We compiled our expert pick of the best Beaver Builder compatible themes and templates that you can use.

July

How to choose the best business VoIP provider (Compared) – In this guide, we explained how to choose the best business VoIP service provider and listed our pick of the best business phone companies.

Dropshipping made simple – A step by step guide for WordPress – We prepared a complete dropshipping guide for WordPress users who want to start their own dropshipping business.

Best SMTP service providers with high deliverability – We compared the top SMTP service providers to help users pick the best email delivery service for their WordPress websites.

How to create an online course with WordPress (The right way) – Our complete step by step guide on how to easily create an online course with WordPress.

Best WooCommerce dropshipping plugins (Compared) – We compared all the top dropshipping plugins for WooCommerce to help users pick the best option to start their dropshipping business.

August

How to use FOMO on your WordPress site to increase conversions – FOMO or fear of missing out is a psychological phenomenon used by marketers to encourage sales. In this article, we showed you how to easily use FOMO on your WordPress site to increase conversions.

Best Mailchimp alternatives (Better features and fair pricing) – We were asked by users to suggest Mailchimp alternatives. In this article, we picked the best Mailchimp alternatives with much better features and reasonable pricing.

How to add a click-to-call button in WordPress – In this tutorial, we showed you how to easily add a click-to-call button to your WordPress website or WooCommerce store.

How to run a giveaway / contest in WordPress with RafflePress – In this guide, we showed you how to easily run a viral giveaway /contest in WordPress with RafflePress.

How to add infinite scroll to your WordPress site – Speed is a dominant factor in improving time users spend on a website. In this guide, we showed how to easily add infinite scroll to your WordPress website and improve performance.

September

Wordfence vs Sucuri – Which one is better? (Compared) – Wordfence and Sucuri are the most popular WordPress security and firewall plugins. In this guide, we compared Sucuri vs Wordfence side by side in terms of features, pricing, and ease of use.

WooCommerce made simple: A step-by-step tutorial [+ Resources] We made a complete beginner’s guide to WooCommerce with step by step instructions to setup an online store. We also added resources to help you grow your business like a total pro.

Best WordPress giveaway and contest plugins compared – In this article, we compared the top WordPress giveaway and contest plugins. We analyzed them for features, ease of use, and which one of them is more suitable to grow your business with viral contests and giveaway.

How much do eCommerce websites cost (real numbers) – In this beginner’s guide we compared how much it costs to start eCommerce websites with real numbers. We analyzed the costs of plaforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce with additional costs of addons and online payments.

October

Best affiliate marketing tools and plugins for WordPress – In this article, we shared our pick of the top affiliate marketing tools and plugins for WordPress that will help boost your affiliate earnings.

Best podcast hosting compared (most are free) – In this guide, we compared all the best podcast hosting options with both free and paid plans. You may also want to see our complete guide on how to start a podcast with WordPress.

How to get a free email domain (5 quick and easy methods) – Looking for a domain to use for your professional email address? In this guide, we showed 5 quick and easy methods to get a free email domain.

How to stop and prevent a DDoS attack on WordPress – DDoS attacks can take any website down or disrupt its performance. In this tutorial, we showed how you to stop and prevent DDoS attacks on your WordPress website.

November

How to properly install and set up WP Rocket in WordPress – WP Rocket is the best WordPress caching plugin on the market. In this article, we showed you how to easily install and setup WP Rocket in WordPress to instantly boost your website speed and performance.

How to setup email logs in WordPress and WooCommerce – A typical WordPress website or WooCommerce store sends emails for various functions like password reset, customer orders, new user registrations, etc. In this guide, we showed you how to easily keep email logs on your WordPress site or WooCommerce store to keep an eye on all email activity.

how to add a Facebook giveaway in WordPress to boost engagement – Facebook has a massive userbase but it limits your reach based on how users engage with your posts. In this guide, we showed you how to boost user engagement by running a Facebook giveaway in WordPress.

Ways to get a 800 toll-free number for your business – A lot of our users wanted to get a toll-free number for their business. In this article, we showed you all the best ways to get an 800 toll-free number for your business.

How to create a photo contest in WordPress – Another great way to build user engagement and loyalty is by running a photo contest. In this tutorial, we showed you how to easily run a photo contest in WordPress to boost user engagement and gain new users.

December

How much does a domain name really cost? – In this article, we answered your questions about how much does a domain name really cost. We explained different scenarios and ways to get free, cheap, premium, and exclusive domain names.

How to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console – We wrote step by step instructions on how to easily add your WordPress site to Google Search Console. Don’t forget to check out our companion article on tips on using Google Search Console to grow your traffic.

How to create a WooCommerce contest – One of the quickest ways to get users to spend time and bring new users to your site is by running a contest. In this guide, we showed you how to easily create a WooCommerce contest to boost loyalty and engagement.

How to track link and button clicks in WordPress – Users interact with your website by clicking on links and buttons but how do you measure where they are clicking and how often? In this guide, we showed you how to easily track link and button clicks in WordPress.

These were some of the best WordPress tutorials on WPBeginner in 2019. We hope that you found them helpful.

We want to thank all WPBeginner users, who visited our website, offered feedback, left comments, and shared it with others. We truly appreciate you.

We look forward to adding even more useful WordPress tutorials in 2020. Have a Happy New Year.

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.

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How to Add a Forum in WordPress with bbPress

Bulletin boards and forums are good old reliable tools to build online communities.

While there are plenty of open-source forum software, integrating a third-party forum with WordPress can be a mess. That’s where bbPress comes in.

In this article, we will show you how to easily add a forum in WordPress with bbPress.

What is bbPress?

bbPress is a forum software built the WordPress way. It runs on top of WordPress, which is the best website builder in the world.

Just like WordPress, bbPress is extensible, and you can install add-on plugins to add more functionality to your forums. It is also very light-weight and faster than other popular open-source forum software.

What You Need to Make an Online Forum with bbPress?

If you already have a WordPress website where you want to add a forum, then you can skip this section. On the other hand, if you are just getting started then continue reading.

First, you’ll need to sign up for a web hosting account. This is where you will store all the files for your online forum.

You’ll also need a domain name. This will be your website’s address on the internet and what users will type in their browsers to find your online forum.

Normally, website hosting costs $7.99 per month and domain name would cost you around $14.99 per year.

This is a lot of money if you are just getting started.

Luckily, Bluehost has agreed to offer WPBeginner users a discount on hosting with a free domain name. Basically, you’ll be able to get started for just $2.75 per month.

→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

Bluehost is one of the biggest WordPress hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.

Once you have signed up for hosting, you can follow our guide on how to make a website for complete installation instructions.

After setting up WordPress, you will be ready to install bbPress and start your own online community.

How to Install bbPress

bbPress is available as a WordPress plugin. You can install it like you would install any WordPress plugin.

Simply log in to your WordPress admin area and go to Plugins » Add New . Search for bbPress and then select bbPress from results.

Install and activate the plugin. Upon activation, you will see the welcome screen for bbPress.

Creating a Forum with bbPress in WordPress

Once installed, bbPress adds Forums, Topics and Replies menu items in your WordPress admin.

First, you need to click on Forums » Add New link from the menu. This will take you to a screen similar to the WordPress post edit area.

Provide a title for your forum and enter a little description of it. Then press the publish button.

You can create as many forums as you need for different discussions and topics.

Displaying bbPress Forum in the Front End of WordPress

Now that you have created a few forums, it is time to display those forums on the front end of your WordPress website.

Create a new WordPress page. Give this page a title, like Forum, Community, Support Forums, etc.

After that, simply paste the following shortcode in your page:

[bbp-forum-index]

Don’t forget to click on the publish button to save your changes and make your forum page visible on your website.

You can now visit the page in a web browser to see a preview of your forums.

Next, you need to help users find the forum on your website. To do that, let’s put a link to your forum page on top navigation menu.

Go to Appearance » Menus and add the forum page to your navigation menu.

Users can now access the forum index page by clicking on the link in the main menu.

Integrating bbPress with your WordPress Theme

In most cases, you would probably want to open your forum for new registrations. To do that, you need to open your website for registrations.

Simply go to Settings » General, and check the box next to “Any one can register” to allow registrations on your website.

Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.

Now that your website is open for registration, the first thing that your forum participants would look for is a registration page.

Let’s make one.

Simply create a WordPress page, and give it a title, e.g. Register. Add shortcode [bbp-register] and publish the page.

You can now preview this page. It will show a user registration form to all non-logged in users.

Another page your users would need is the lost password recovery page. This is where they will be recover their lost passwords.

Create another WordPress page and give it a title e.g. Lost Password. After that, add this shortcode [bbp-lost-pass] and publish the page.

Finally, you need to add a login form to your website so that forum users can easily login from anywhere on your website.

bbPress comes with a handful of widgets and one of them is a login form widget.

Go to Appearance » Widgets and simply drag and drop Login Widget to your sidebar or any other widget area.

You will be asked to provide the URLs for the registration and lost password pages you created earlier. After entering them you need to click on the Save button to store your widget settings.

Now a login form with links to registration and lost password recovery pages will appear in your sidebar. Logged in users would see their usernames and a logout link instead of the form.

Managing bbPress Forum Settings

Unlike other popular forum software, bbPress has a very simplified configuration page. To manage settings for your bbPress forums, go to Settings » Forums page.

The default options on this page would work for most forum websites. We’ll take a look at all of them, just in case you want to change anything.

The first option you would see here is to ‘Automatically give registered visitors the participant forum role’. You can select a user role or uncheck the option to manually assign user roles to each user when they register.

The next option adds a 10-second delay between subsequent forum posts to prevent forum flooding and spam. You can increase or decrease the delay period here.

The Editing option allows users to edit their forum posts 5 minutes after they publish them. You can uncheck this option but that would prevent your users from correcting spelling errors or edit their posts if they missed something.

After that, you’ll find the forum features section. From here, you can turn forum features on and off.

Below that, you’ll see forum display features. From here, you can select a bbPress template, number of posts and topics to display on forum pages and inside the forum RSS feed.

Finally, you’ll see options to select URL slugs for different sections and forum pages. Slugs are the SEO friendly URL names used by WordPress.

The default URL slugs are meaningful and SEO friendly out of the box but if you need to change them, then you can do so here.

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

User Roles in bbPress

WordPress comes with its own user role management system which allows you to assign users roles with different permissions.

bbPress extends the WordPress user roles by adding its own five pre-defined user roles with different capabilities.

1. Keymaster – The website owner or the WordPress administrator is automatically assigned the Keymaster role when they install bbPress. A Keymaster can delete and create forums, can create, edit, delete all posts, topics, forums.

2. Moderators – Users with moderator user role have access to moderation tools, which they can use to moderate forums, topics, and posts.

3. Participants – This is the default user role, participants can create and edit their own topics and posts, they can favorite and subscribe to topics.

4. Spectators – Spectators have a read-only access to public forums, topics, and posts.

5. Blocked – When a user is blocked all their capabilities are blocked. They can still read publicly viewable topics and posts, but can not participate in the forums.

Extending and Promoting Your bbPress Forum

Now that your bbPress forum is all set up and running. It is time to learn how to extend and promote it.

Let’s start with the appearance first. bbPress works with any WordPress theme and themes can also add custom styles to bbPress.

All top WordPress themes come with custom bbPress styles to make your forum look beautiful.

For more choices, see our pick of the best WordPress themes for bbPress.

Next, you would want to add new features to your forum so that you can quickly get new members and grow your online community.

The following are some of the plugins that will help you grow your online forum much quickly.

1. RafflePress

RafflePress allows you to create viral giveaways and contests in WordPress. These interactive contests and giveaways are a sure-fire way to instantly get a ton of new users to your online forum.

See our guide on how to create a viral giveaway contest for more information.

2. MemberPress

MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin. It allows you to make money online from your forum by adding subscription layers to your online community.

For more information, take a look at our guide on how to make a membership website.

3. MonsterInsights

Want to know which forum topics and discussions are more popular on your website? MonsterInsights helps you easily track all your website traffic using Google Analytics.

4. WPForms

WPForms is the best WordPress contact form plugin. It allows you to easily create beautiful forms for your website. You can also use it to create custom login page, user registration page, or to add surveys and polls to your bbPress forum.

We hope that this article helped you learn how to add a forum in WordPress and how to install and configure bbPress. You may also want to see our complete WordPress SEO guide to help you get even more traffic.

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 Add a Forum in WordPress with bbPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

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Learn How to Stay Focused at Work With “Deep Work” Methods

Wouldn’t it be great if you knew how to stay focused at work rather than think about your uncle’s birthday? Or whatever happened to that kid from Home Alone? Or is that just me? Sure, your distracting thoughts might be more interesting than mine, but I bet they’re still an intrusion you can do without. Do you know what could help? Using some deep work methods in your daily grind.

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How To Add “Click to Tweet” Boxes In WordPress

Having a click-to-tweet box can help you get more tweets as well as traffic, right? Yes, people want to share more than just the title of an article and the link to it. Having a powerful quote in your post that makes your readers look good in their community will make them more willing to …

How To Add “Click to Tweet” Boxes In WordPress Read More »

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7 Best WordPress Portfolio Plugins for Designers & Photographers

Are you a designer or photographer looking for the easiest way to build a portfolio website in WordPress?

There are plenty of WordPress portfolio plugins that allow you to easily build beautiful portfolio websites.

However, finding the perfect portfolio plugin can be difficult for beginners. You will need to find a plugin that makes your work stand out, loads fast, and looks good on mobile devices.

In this article, we have hand-picked some of the best WordPress portfolio plugins for designers and photographers.

Choosing Between WordPress Portfolio Themes vs WordPress Portfolio Plugins

Many WordPress portfolio themes come with built-in functionality to create a portfolio website.

This makes many beginners wonder why would anyone want to choose a plugin when themes can do the job?

Themes in WordPress are only supposed to handle the visual appearance of your website. This includes colors, styles, layouts, and presentation of your content.

Plugins on the other hand are the proper way to add functionality to your WordPress site such as slider, contact form, and more.

Adding a portfolio comes under functionality, which is why we recommend using a plugin.

Using a theme for functionality ties your website with that theme. If you change the theme, then you will lose your portfolio data.

On the other hand, if you decide to use a portfolio plugin, then you are free to use it with any theme you want.

Having said that, let’s take a look at some of the top WordPress portfolio plugins.

1. WP Portfolio

WP Portfolio is the best WordPress portfolio plugin for photographers, freelancers, developers, and agencies. It allows you to instantly create portfolio websites from 40+ professionally designed portfolio templates.

It is made by the creators of Astra Theme, which is one of the best WordPress themes of all times. WP Portfolio brings the same ease of use to portfolios.

It comes with multiple style choices, layouts, supports all types of media, and can be easily customized without writing any code or CSS.

Most importantly, all portfolio layouts look equally great on mobile devices and work as elegantly as they do on laptops.

2. Envira Gallery

Envira Gallery is a premium WordPress gallery plugin. It allows you to create beautiful image galleries and albums. Already used by thousands, Envira Gallery is the best WordPress plugin for photographers and designers.

Creating a portfolio with Envira Gallery is quite easy. Simply create galleries containing your portfolio items with optional description and details. You can also group galleries into Albums or make filterable portfolio.

The plugin also makes it easy to add your portfolio anywhere on your WordPress site with the click of a button.

For detailed instructions, take a look at our guide on how to add a portfolio to your WordPress site.

3. NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN Gallery is a popular WordPress plugin for creating image galleries, albums, and photography portfolios. Loved by beginners and expert photographers alike, NextGen comes with an intuitive user interface to create galleries.

It includes multiple styles and layout choices with support for albums, filterable portfolio, columns, and more. You can also create portfolio carousel/slider, compact portfolio albums, and list or timeline style layouts.

4. Visual Portfolio

Visual Portfolio is an elegant WordPress portfolio plugin that allows you to create beautiful portfolio galleries.

It comes with multiple layout styles including masonry, grid, justified, tiles, and carousel. The plugin also includes a Gutenberg block which makes it even easier to add a portfolio anywhere you like.

Your users can also sort portfolio items using filters, which offers a beautiful browsing experience.

5. GridKit Portfolio Gallery

GridKit Portfolio Gallery is a simple WordPress photo gallery and portfolio plugin. It allows you to manage portfolio items in projects and make them sortable. It comes with support for new WordPress block editor with shortcode support for older editor.

The base plugin is very with limited layout styles and features. You’ll need the premium version to get access more styles and features.

6. Meow Gallery

Meow Gallery is a free WordPress gallery plugin with full Gutenberg block editor support. It allows you to organize your portfolio items in beautiful image galleries.

It ships with support for multiple layouts including masonry, grid, tile, and justified. You can select the number of columns you want to display. It also comes with several add-on plugins that can be used for additional functionality like lightbox, audio commentary, external links, and more.

7. Genesis Portfolio Pro

If you are using a StudioPress theme or any theme made for the Genesis theme framework, then you would want to try Genesis Portfolio Pro plugin.

It is made specifically for Genesis framework and provides a custom post type to create your portfolio items. It also comes with templates to display the featured image you set as the portfolio item in a grid layout.

It is a simple plugin and does not include many features of several other portfolio plugins. However, if you are looking for something minimalist, then it would get the job done nicely.

That’s all we hope this article helped you find the best WordPress portfolio plugins for designers and photographers. You may also want to see our list of 41 best free photography themes for 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.

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10+ Best Themes for Thrive Architect in 2020 (Beautiful & Functional)

Page builders take away much of the grunt work in building websites, and make it (almost) a fun activity. This is true especially for non-coders. What’s even better is when you have a base theme that’s compatible with your page builder! In today’s post, we round up the best themes for Thrive Architect, a page builder from Thrive Themes.

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How to Create a Dropbox Upload Form in WordPress

Do you want to create a Dropbox upload form in WordPress?

A contact form with a file upload option could be hard to manage if you are getting too many attachments. You can connect your form to Dropbox and upload those files directly to the cloud.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create a Dropbox upload form in WordPress.

Why Use Dropbox to Upload Form Attachments

Some times you may need users to upload a file attachment using a form on your website.

For example, a job board website may need a file upload option to upload CV or work samples.

A customer feedback form may need a file upload option so users can send screenshots. A photo contest website may need it for users to upload their entries.

As you receive files, you can store those files on your WordPress website. They will be added to your website’s wp-content folder.

However, if you are expecting to get a ton of entries, and they are not related to your actual website files, then it is a good idea to save them separately.

Uploading form attachments to Dropbox has the following advantages:

• Keeps form upload entries separate from your WordPress files
• Dropbox makes it easier to share those files with anyone and you’ll not need to give them access to your website.
• You can easily browse and manage form attachments from your Dropbox dashboard
• If you no longer need those files, then you can download, archive, and delete them.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to make a WordPress form with an option to upload files to Dropbox.

Creating a Dropbox Upload Form in WordPress

First you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, you should check out our article on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: WPForms is a paid plugin built by the same team as WPBeginner, and you’ll need at least their ‘Pro’ plan to access the Zapier addon which we’ll be using in this tutorial.

Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Add New page in your WordPress admin area.

It’ll take you to the WPForms form builder page. Simply provide a name for your form and then select simple contact form template as a starting point.

WPForms will load the form template with commonly used form fields. You can click on any fields to edit it, and you can also drag the fields to rearrange them or add new fields to the form.

Next, you need to click on the ‘File Upload’ field located under the ‘Fancy fields’ section in the left column.

This will add the file upload field to your form.

Click on the ‘Save’ button to save your form, and your file upload form is ready.

Integrating Zapier with WPForms

Next, you need to connect your form to your Dropbox account.

We’ll be using a service called Zapier to do that. Zapier allows you to connect different apps to your website without writing any code. In this case, we’ll use it to build a connection between WPForms and Dropbox.

WPForms comes with a ‘Zapier Addon’ that you can use to integrate with over 1500 popular apps, including Dropbox.

To access this addon, you need to go to WPForms » Addons page. From there, you need to look for the Zapier addon and click on the ‘Install Addon’ button. It will activate the addon automatically.

Next, you need to go to WPForms » Settings » Integrations page in your WordPress admin area. From there, you need to copy the ‘Zapier API key’ that you will need to connect your WordPress website with Zapier.

Once copied, you should go to the Zapier website and login to your Zapier account. Then, click on the ‘Make a Zap’ button to continue.

There will be many apps available. Search for ‘WPForms’ and select it as a trigger app.

After that, you need to select ‘New Form Entry’ as a trigger event for the WPForms app. It will create a trigger on every form submission.

Now, you can go ahead and click on the ‘Sign in to WPForms’ button to connect your Zapier account with WPForms plugin on your site.

To connect Zapier with your website, you need to add your website URL and Zapier API key that you copied earlier.

It will display the WPForms account. Click on the ‘Continue’ button.

In the ‘Form’ dropdown, you need to select the file upload form that you created previously.

After that, click on the ‘Continue’ button.

Before going to the next step, Zapier will ask you to test the new file upload form to see if all the settings are working properly.

You can visit WPForms » All Forms page in the WordPress admin area and click on the ‘Preview’ link below the file upload form.

To make this test smooth, you should upload a file and also add dummy text in the message section. Submit the test entry and go to your Zapier account. Click on the ‘Test & Continue’ button.

Note: You can check the test entry in the ‘Find Data’ section.

If the test is successful, it will jump to the next step where you can integrate your form with Dropbox.

Connecting WPForms with Dropbox

First you need to visit your Dropbox account and create a new Dropbox upload folder. You can rename this folder as ‘WPForms Uploads’ or give it any name. All your file attachments will upload in this folder automatically.

Next, you need to go back to your Zapier account. In the ‘Do this’ section, you need to choose ‘Dropbox’.

It will ask you to create an action for Dropbox. Select the ‘Upload File’ option and click on the ‘Continue’ button.

After that, you need to click on the ‘Sign in to Dropbox’ button to select your Dropbox account and connect it with Zapier.

Upon connecting the account, click on the ‘Continue’ button.

Now, you need to configure the Dropbox file settings. It will ask you for 2 options:

1. The Dropbox folder where you want to save the file attachments
2. The WPForms file upload field

After setting up, you can go ahead and test your configurations. Click on the ‘Test & Continue’ button to continue.

Lastly, click on the ‘Turn Zap On’ button to store these settings. It will take a few seconds, and you will see the Zap status on the top rights corner of the screen.

Your online form with file upload option is ready to be added on your website.

Adding the Dropbox Upload Form in WordPress

To add the Dropbox upload form in WordPress, you can edit any page or post where you want to display it.

Simply add the WPForms block to the content editor and select the form you created earlier.

WPForms will load the live preview of your form inside the content editor.

You can now visit your website to the form in action. You can also test out the form by uploading a file and filling out the form.

That’s all.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a Dropbox upload form in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to run a giveaway contest in WordPress to boost user engagement.

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The post How to Create a Dropbox Upload Form in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

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