How to Show Random Quotes in Your WordPress Sidebar

Do you want to show random quotes in the WordPress sidebar?

Displaying quotes from happy customers can convince more visitors to buy your products. Or you might simply want to brighten your audience’s day by showing them a random inspirational quote. 

In this article, we will show you how to easily show random quotes in the WordPress sidebar by using a free plugin.

How to Show Random Quotes in Your WordPress Sidebar

You can show random quotes in the WordPress sidebar using the Quotes and Tips plugin. It lets you add an unlimited number of quotes to your site.

It also lets you display quotes on any page, post, or widget area, including your WordPress sidebar.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin

After activating the plugin, you can start adding quotes. To add your first quote, go to Quotes » Add New.

First you’ll need to type a title for your quote into the ‘Add Title’ field. In a later step, we’ll show you how to choose whether or not to display the quote’s title to your visitors, or use it for internal reference only.

Next, type your quote into the text editor. In our example, we’re using a quote from a case study.

You may want to organize your quotes into categories. This becomes important when it’s time to display your quotes.

Basically, you have two options.

The Quotes and Tips plugin can select a random quote from all of the quotes you’ve added. Or, it can select a random quote from a specific quote category.

For example, if you have an online store, you might want to display quotes about a specific product on that product page only.

If you already have some categories in mind, then it makes sense to organize your quotes into these categories now. But you can always add, remove, and edit your categories later. We’ll be covering that at the end of the post.

If you do want to create a quote category now, then you can find the Quotes Categories box on the right side of the page.

To add your category, first click on the ‘Add New Quotes Category’ link.

A field will display where you can type your category name. The category won’t appear to your visitors, so it’s just for your reference.

After you type it in, click on the ‘Add New Quotes Category’ button. 

This category will now appear in the Quotes Category tab. To add the current quote to this category, simply select the category’s checkbox. 

You can keep repeating these steps to create more quote categories. 

Next, you’ll typically want to show where a quote comes from. This might be a valued customer, a famous brand, or even a celebrity.

To assign your quote to a person or company, scroll down to the ‘Name and Official Position’ section.

You can now type the person or company’s name into the Name field. 

You might also want to add this person’s job title, or some information that explains why they’re qualified to make this statement. You can type this information into the Official Position field.

When you’re happy with your quote, click on the Publish button. 

You can now repeat these steps to create all of the quotes that you want to show in your WordPress sidebar.  

Configuring Your Quotes and Tips Settings 

After creating your quotes, it’s time to take a look at the Quotes and Tips settings. This contains some important settings that control how and when your site displays a random quote. 

To take a look at these settings, go to Tips » Settings

By default, Quotes and Tips will display a new quote every time the page reloads. This means visitors will see a new quote every time they visit a new page or press the Refresh button in their web browser. 

If you prefer, you can display a new quote automatically every few seconds or minutes. The visitor doesn’t even have to refresh their web browser.

To do this, select ‘AJAX (no page reload).’ You can then find the Change Frequency field. Here, simply type how frequently WordPress should display a new quote in seconds.

Next, it’s time to choose the title that will appear above your quote. 

The default setting is ‘Set Title From Post’. This will display the title you entered when adding the quote to WordPress.

Another option is creating a title that WordPress will use for all of your quotes. This might be something such as ‘Words of Wisdom’ or ‘Don’t take our word for it! Here’s what our customers think’ for testimonials.

To use the same title for all your quotes, click on ‘Set Custom Titles.’ You can now type your title into the Quote Title field. 

When you’re finished, don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button. 

How to Display a Random Quote 

Now it’s time to display your quotes.

Let’s start by showing a random quote from your entire quote collection. If you’ve created multiple categories, then this method will ignore all of these categories. 

You can add your quote to any page, post, or widget using the Quotes and Tips shortcode. To get this shortcode, go to Quotes » Settings

Now, copy the shortcode in the ‘Quotes and Tips’ section.

Another option is to simply copy the following: [quotes_and_tips]

Since we want to show random quotes in the WordPress sidebar, you’ll need to go to Appearance » Widgets. This shows all the areas of your site that support widgets. 

This screen may look slightly different depending on your WordPress theme. However, most modern WordPress themes have a sidebar. 

Find the Main Sidebar or similar section, and give it a click. This section will now expand.

You need to add a Shortcode block to this widget, so click on the + button. In the search field, type Shortcode. 

You can now select the Shortcode block when it appears. Next, either paste or type the shortcode into this block. 

Finally, click on the blue Update button at the top of the screen. Now, if you visit your website you should see a random quote in your WordPress sidebar. 

How to Display Random Quotes From a Specific Category 

Another option is to display a quote from a specific quote category.

To display a random quote from a particular category, you’ll need to use a different shortcode.

To get this code, head over to Quotes » Quote Category

Here, you’ll find a list of all the categories you’ve created. Each category has its own shortcode. 

Simply find the category that you want to use, and copy its shortcode. You can then paste this shortcode into any page, post, or widget, following the same process above.

How to Style and Brand Your Random Quotes

By default, Quotes and Tips adds a blue background to the quote area. It also uses a background image of silhouettes.

You can change this default styling to better match the rest of your website’s design. You can even remove the styling completely. 

To change the background color, text color, or background image, go to Quotes » Settings.

In the left menu, click on the Appearance tab.

You can now change the background color and text color, by clicking on the Select Color button.

This adds an area where you can choose your perfect color.

If you change your mind, you can restore the plugin’s default colors at any point. Simply click on the Default button.

You can also change the background image. To remove the default background image, scroll to Background Image, and then click on the None button.

You can also add your own background image.

Using your company or product logo as a background image can be a great way to brand your quotes.

To upload a new background image, click on the Custom button. This adds a Choose File button. 

Give this button a click. This will open a window where you can select the file that you want to use as your background image.

After making your choice, you can customize how this image looks on your site.

This includes changing the background image alignment and the opacity, which is how transparent the background image is.

Why not experiment, to see what different effects you can create?

How to Add, Edit and Delete Quote Categories 

Sometimes, you may want Quotes and Tips to display a completely random quote.

Other times, you may need more control over the kind of quotes that it displays. 

You can do this using quote categories. We’ve already seen how to create a category when adding a new quote. However, Quotes and Tips has an entire menu where you can make changes to these categories, and create new ones.

To see these settings, go to Quotes » Quotes Categories

Here, you can quickly and easily create quote categories. To add a new category, type a name for your category into the Name field.

By default this plugin creates each quote category as a parent category. 

Another option is to create a subcategory. For example, you might have an OptinMonster parent category, and then create subcategories for your different promotions, such as ‘OptinMonster summer sale’ and ‘OptinMonster holiday promotion.’ 

To create a quote subcategory, you’ll need to select a Parent Category.

When you’re happy with your quote category, click on the blue Add New Quotes Category button. 

You can also edit any of the categories you created earlier. 

To edit a category, hover over it. Then, click on the Edit link when it appears.

This launches a new page where you can make changes to this category. This includes editing the category’s name, and choosing a new parent.

We hope this article helped you learn how to show random quotes in the WordPress sidebar. Next, you can see our guide on how to increase your blog traffic, or see our expert pick of the best social proof plugins 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.

The post How to Show Random Quotes in Your WordPress Sidebar first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Send Automated Emails in WordPress

Are you looking to automate emails in WordPress?

Your small business or online store relies on email. However, keeping up with marketing emails, transactional emails, email notifications, and engaging with users can become overwhelming. Automating these emails can save you time and effort while delivering you better results.

In this article, we’ll show you how to send automated emails in WordPress to streamline your workflow and grow your business.

Why Send Automated Emails in WordPress?

Whether you have an online store, a membership site, or a small business website, you rely on email to keep it growing and running smoothly.

For example, you can use email to welcome new users and let them know when new content or products are available. Email is also useful for marketing campaigns and updating your customers on the progress of their orders.

You can even use email to notify yourself when there is a new post waiting for you to review, or that a WordPress update needs to be installed.

Since email is used for so many tasks on your WordPress website, it only makes sense to save time and effort by automating as many emails as possible.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how to send automated emails in WordPress. Here are the topics we’ll cover in this tutorial:

Making Sure Your WordPress Email Is Being Sent Reliably

Before you start automating your emails, it’s important to make sure that emails from your website are being delivered reliably.

By default, most WordPress hosting companies do not have the mail function configured properly. To prevent their servers from abuse, many hosting companies even turn it off completely. In these cases, your WordPress emails will fail to reach users.

Luckily, you can fix this easily by using WP Mail SMTP. This plugin lets you send your WordPress email through a reliable SMTP platform which is configured specifically to send emails like SendLayer, Gmail, Outlook, etc.

The free version of WP Mail SMTP should be more than sufficient for most websites. For more details, see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email.

Sending Automated Drip Emails Using Constant Contact

A good place to start thinking about email automation is the way you market your store or business. And one of the best ways to automate marketing is with a drip campaign.

What Is an Automated Drip Campaign?

Automated drip campaigns are email messages that automatically guide your users along a specific journey. They’re great for boosting user engagement on your WordPress site.

For example, these messages can welcome new users, promote important content, upsell products, target specific geographic regions, and encourage users to register for events.

To send automated drip notifications by email, we recommend using Constant Contact because it’s the best email marketing service on the market. However, you can use any other major email marketing platform, including SendinblueHubSpot, and others.

To start, you can visit the Constant Contact website and create an account. The software gives you a 60-day free trial, so you can try it out before committing to a premium plan.

Pro Tip: If you use our Constant Contact coupon code, then you can also get 20% off by purchasing upfront.

Creating a List of Contacts

Once you sign up, you can visit the Constant Contact dashboard to create a contact list.

Constant Contact has already created a default list for you. However, you can create your own list by going to the ‘Contacts’ tab in the top menu, and then clicking the ‘Create List’ button.

A popup window will appear where you can enter a name for your list.

After that, simply click the ‘Save’ button.

You can add contacts to the list by going to the ‘Contacts’ tab and then clicking the ‘Add Contacts’ button.

A popup window will open with multiple options for adding new contacts.

Now you can add your contacts manually, upload them in a spreadsheet or CSV file, or import them from other apps.

Creating an Automated Drip Campaign

Once you’ve added your contacts, you need to create the drip campaign.

To do that, head over to the ‘Campaigns’ tab and then click the ‘Create’ button.

Next, Constant Contact will show you multiple options for creating a campaign.

Go ahead and select the ‘Email Automation’ campaign.

From here, you can select single-step automations or multi-step automation.

Single-step automations send just a single email, such as a welcome email. Multi-step automations let you create a series of emails that are automatically sent to your subscribers so you can let them know about your products and services, send special offers, and more.

In this tutorial, you’ll create a multi-step automation for when new subscribers join your email list. Go ahead and select the ‘A contact joins a list’ option.

Next, you will have to enter a name for your campaign.

Make sure you click the ‘Save’ button.

Constant Contact will then ask you to choose what activity will trigger the email. For example, the drip series is automatically triggered when a user joins your email list, opens an email, clicks a link, or buys a product.

You can use the default ‘Contact joins a list’ option as the trigger type. Then you can choose the email list you created earlier. Go ahead and click the ‘Save’ button when you’re done.

Creating the Emails for Your Drip Campaign

Now you need to create the emails to send in your automated drip campaign. The first one you create will be sent automatically when the user signs up.

To begin, simply click the ‘Create New Email’ option.

Constant Contact will now show different email templates to choose from.

For this tutorial, we’ll use the ‘Agent Welcome’ template.

You can customize the email template using the drag-and-drop email builder.

You can choose multiple elements from the menu on your left and place them on the template.

You also need to add the email’s content by removing the placeholder text and adding your own. Once you’ve done this, simply click the ‘Continue’ button at the top right of the editor and the email will be added to the drip series.

Next, you can add a second email by clicking the ‘+ Add to series’ button and then the ‘Create New Email’ button.

You’ll need to select a template and customize the new email as you did earlier. You can set the delay before the drip campaign sends its next email.

By default, this value is set to 4 days. You can change this by clicking the ‘Edit’ button in front of the section titled ‘Wait 4 days.’

This will open the ‘Time Delay Editor’ where you can choose when the next email in the drip campaign will be delivered. You can click the ‘Confirm’ button when you’re done.

Now, you should see all your emails in the campaign summary area.

Go ahead and click the ‘Activate’ button in the upper-right corner to launch your campaign.

Constant Contact will then show a prompt to verify whether you wish to activate your campaign.

Simply click the ‘Continue’ button, and the tool will check if everything is working properly and activate your campaign.

You’ve now successfully launched your automated drip email campaign.

For more detailed instructions, and to learn how to create a drip campaign using push notifications, see our guide on how to set up automated drip notifications in WordPress.

Sending Automated Transactional Emails With FunnelKit Automations

If you are running a WooCommerce store, then your customers will receive different transactional emails. These help them get order confirmations, track their order status, get invoices, and find more information about your online store.

You can customize and automate these emails using FunnelKit Automations, a popular WooCommerce plugin for marketing automation. It is a sister product to FunnelKit (formerly WooFunnels), a powerful sales funnel builder for WooCommerce.

First, you need to install and activate the FunnelKit Automations plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Creating Email Automation Workflows With FunnelKit Automations

Upon activation, you need to go to Campaigns » Automations (Next-Gen) to add a new automation from your FunnelKit Automations dashboard. Here you will see a library of email types that make it simple to create new automations.

You can import an email automation workflow with a single click, then use the visual email automation builder to make any customizations that you need.

For example, here’s the workflow for Abandoned Cart Reminder.

Customizing WooCommerce Emails With FunnelKit Automations

FunnelKit Automations lets you customize any WooCommerce email and create new emails using a drag-and-drop email builder inside WordPress.

You can go to FunnelKit Automations » Templates from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Add New Email Template’ button.

Next, you can enter a name for your email template.

After that, make sure you click the ‘Add’ button to continue.

Now the plugin will let you enter a subject line and preview text for your email.

You can customize the content of your WooCommerce emails using rich text, HTML, or the visual builder.

The visual builder lets you select different elements from the menu on your left and place them on the template using drag and drop.

For instance, the ‘Content’ tab lets you can add columns, buttons, headings, menus, text, and more to the email template.

The ‘Body’ tab lets you further customize each element, such as the text color, alignment, font, size, and more.

Once you’re done, you can click the ‘Save’ button at the top.

For more detailed instructions, see our guide on how to customize WooCommerce emails. Once there, make sure you scroll down to the second section titled ‘Customizing WooCommerce Emails using FunnelKit Automations.’

Automating Marketing Emails Using Uncanny Automator

Of course, you’ll also still need to send marketing emails outside of your drip campaign. These are most effective when they are personalized and timely.

For example, you can use automated emails to showcase products similar to what your customer has already bought. Or you can automatically send users an email as soon as you publish a new article on your website.

You can do this easily by using Uncanny Automator. It’s the best WordPress automation plugin that allows you to create automated workflows for your WordPress site.

The free version easily connects with popular email marketing services such as Mailchimp, HubSpot, and others, making it easy to automate your email.

For this tutorial, we’ll use the free version of Mailchimp because it’s popular and they offer a free forever plan where you can send up to 10,000 emails per month to 2000 subscribers.

Getting Started With Uncanny Automator

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the free Uncanny Automator plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, head over to the Automator » Add New page to create your first recipe. In this tutorial, we’ll send an automated email to subscribers whenever we publish a new post.

You’ll be asked to select which type of recipe you want to create. You should choose ‘Logged-in users’ and then click the ‘Confirm’ button.

Setting Up the Automation Trigger

Next, you need to choose whether the automation will be triggered by Uncanny Automator or WordPress.

Since you will be sending an automated email when a new WordPress post is published, you should click on the ‘WordPress’ option.

Now you can choose from a long list of available WordPress triggers.

You need to select the trigger labeled ‘A user publishes a type of post with a taxonomy term in a taxonomy.’

You can use the search feature to find this trigger more quickly.

If you like, you can get specific about the types of posts that will trigger the email. You can choose a post type and a specific category or tag from the drop-down menus.

For this tutorial, we’ll go with the default settings.

Make sure you click the ‘Save’ button when you have finished setting up the trigger.

Setting Up the Automation Trigger

Next comes the action part, where you choose what action will be triggered. To get started, simply click the ‘Add action’ button.

Now you will be shown a long list of integrations that are available for the action.

You should click the Mailchimp icon to connect it to your website.

This will bring up a popup where you need to follow the on-screen instructions to finish the connection by logging into your Mailchimp account or creating a new one. Once connected, you will be able to choose what action you want to perform on your Mailchimp account.

You should then choose the option ‘Create a send a campaign’.

Now you need to type a name for the campaign. You might like to use tokens so that the Mailchimp campaign name for each new post is different.

For example, you can click the ‘*’ button to the right of the field and select the ‘Post title’ token.

After that, you can use the drop-down menus to choose your audience and segment and fill in the subject and other details of your email.

You can compose your email in the ‘Email contents’ field. Make sure you use tokens so that the content is updated for each email campaign.

For instance, you can include tokens for the post title, post author display name, post excerpt, post URL, and featured image URL.

Once you are finished, you can switch the recipe from ‘Draft’ to ‘Live.’

From now on, when you publish a new article on your website, Mailchimp will automatically send an email to your subscribers.

You can learn more about building an effective mailing list in our guides on using Mailchimp and WordPress and how to create an email newsletter the right way.

You might also like to see our guide on how to automatically send a coupon to users who leave reviews in WooCommerce. It’s another good example of how you create automated emails using Uncanny Automator to build customer loyalty.

Bonus: Sending Automated Notification Emails

Now that you have set up automated emails for your users, you can do the same for yourself and your team.

For example, you can create automated email notifications to keep track of issues that require your immediate attention, such as when an author submits a post for you to review.

You can also stop the WordPress notifications you don’t need from filling up your inbox, such as comment notifications.

To learn how to customize notification emails, see our step-by-step guide on how to add better custom notifications in WordPress.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to send automated emails in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to get a free email domain, or check out our list of the best WordPress membership plugins.

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 Send Automated Emails in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Connect Salesforce to Your WordPress Forms

Do you want to connect Salesforce to your WordPress forms?

Salesforce is one of the most popular customer management software on the market. Connecting it to your WordPress forms allows you to automatically add leads, customers, and other contacts to your CRM.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily connect Salesforce to your WordPress forms.

Why Connect Salesforce to Your WordPress Forms?

Salesforce is one of the best CRM (customer relationship management) software on the market. Many of the world’s largest businesses use it to manage customers, leads, and business contacts from one single dashboard.

Most business websites use contact forms to generate leads and then manually add them to their CRM software. This takes time, and you may still forget to follow up with a potential customer.

Connecting Salesforce to your WordPress contact form allows you to remove this hurdle. As soon as a user submits their information, it will automatically be added to your Salesforce contacts.

From there, you can follow up with customers to boost conversions and sales from your WordPress website.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily connect Salesforce to your WordPress forms.

Setting Up WPForms to Connect With Salesforce

For this tutorial, you’ll need WPForms. It is the best WordPress contact form plugin used by over 5 million website owners.

You can use it to easily create any type of form using a simple drag-and-drop form builder.

WPForms is a premium WordPress plugin, and you’ll need their Elite plan to use the Salesforce addon. There is also a WPForms Lite version which is available for free.

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

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

Setting Up the Connection Between WPForms and Salesforce

Now, you need to set up a connection between WPForms and Salesforce. WPForms comes with the Salesforce addon which lets you easily connect the two apps together.

Simply go to the WPForms » Addons page and locate the Salesforce addon. You can then click on the ‘Install’ button, and it will be installed and activated automatically.

After that, you can go to the WPForms » Settings » Integrations page from your WordPress dashboard.

Here, you need to click on the Salesforce integration to open it up.

Under Salesforce settings, go ahead and click on the ‘Add New Account’ button.

WPForms will show you Salesforce settings with a Callback URL.

Simply keep the tab open in your browser or copy the Callback URL to a safe place. You’ll need it in a later step.

Now, you need to create an app in your Salesforce account. We’ll walk you through the process step by step.

Important Note: You need to have an Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, or Developer edition of Salesforce. Otherwise, you will not be able to connect your WordPress forms. However, there is a free trial you can use to get started.

If you don’t already have an account, then you can create one by going to the Salesforce’ website and clicking the ‘Start My Free Trial’ button.

On the next screen, you can enter your details like name, work email, job title, company, phone number, and more to create an account.

After entering the data, go ahead and click the ‘Start My Free Trial’ button.

After completing the signup, you’ll reach your Salesforce account dashboard.

From here, you need to switch to the Salesforce Classic dashboard by clicking on your profile icon on the top, and then clicking the ‘Switch to Salesforce Classic’ option.

Next, you’ll the classic Salesforce dashboard.

After that, you need to click on the Setup link at the top to access the Salesforce dashboard settings.

On the next screen, navigate to the Build » Create menu from the column on the left.

From here, simply click the ‘Apps’ option in the menu.

This will bring you to the Apps section.

From here, click on the New button under the Connected Apps section.

Next, you now need to fill in the details for your app.

For the ‘Connected App Name,’ enter the name you want to use, so other users for your Salesforce account can see it.

The API name will default to the Connected App Name. You don’t need to enter or change it. For the contact email, enter your email address.

You don’t need to enter the logo image, icon, info URL, or description. These fields are for Salesforce users who will be publishing their apps.

Below this, you need to check the ‘Enable OAuth Settings’ box.

Once you check the box, you will see the OAuth settings.

First, you need to enter the Callback URL that you found earlier in your WPForms account.

Simply paste the link in the Callback URL field.

After that, scroll to the ‘Available OAuth Scopes’ section. The selected OAuth Scopes let Salesforce know what permissions your app should have.

Next, you need to enable 2 permissions here. They are ‘Manage user data via APIS (api)’ and ‘Perform requests at any time (refresh_token, offline_access).’

Simply select these and then click the ‘Add’ button to add those permissions.

There’s nothing else you need to change on this page. After adding the permissions, simply click the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.

You should then see a message telling you to allow up to 10 minutes for your changes to take effect.

Then, just click on the ‘Continue’ button. On the next screen, you’ll see your API information.

We recommend that you wait 10 minutes before using your app. That way, you can be sure that your app will be ready. After the 10 minutes is up, you need to copy your ‘Consumer Key’ and ‘Consumer Secret’ to WPForms.

Simply click the ‘Manage Consumer Details’ button to continue.

Next, Salesforce will ask you to enter a verification to move ahead. You’ll receive the code in your email.

After entering the code, go ahead and click the ‘Verify’ button.

Next, you’ll see the ‘Consumer Key’ and ‘Consumer Secret’ codes. Go ahead and copy them.

Now, simply switch back to the tab with your WPForms Salesforce settings.

If you have closed this tab, then it’s easy to find it again in your WordPress admin. Just go to the WPForms » Settings » Integrations page.

Simply paste the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret into the Salesforce settings for WPForms.

Then, go ahead and click the ‘Connect to Salesforce’ button.

You will then be prompted to log in to your Salesforce. Simply log in to your account using your username and password.

Next, you need to click the ‘Allow’ button to give WPForms access to your Salesforce account.

After this, you will see your Integrations page again.

There should be a message at the top of the screen to let you know that the connection was successful.

Now that you have connected WPForms to your Salesforce account. You can start creating forms and send entries directly to your Salesforce account.

Creating a WordPress Form with Salesforce Integration

The next step is to create your form. You can connect any type of form to Salesforce.

Simply go to the WPForms » Add New page. This will launch the WPForms drag-and-drop form builder.

First, you can enter a name for your form at the top and then click on a template. We’ll use the ‘Simply Contact Form’ template for this tutorial.

In the form builder, you can drag and drop different fields from the left menu onto the template. For instance, you could add a phone number field.

Plus, you can rearrange their order and further customize each field in the form.

Once you are satisfied with the form, go to the Marketing » Salesforce tab to connect it with your Salesforce account.

Go ahead and click the ‘Add New Connection’ button.

You will then see a popup where you need to name your connection. Your site’s visitors will not see this. It’s just for your own use.

Just enter the name you want to use. Then, click the ‘OK’ button.

Now, you need to select your Salesforce account and ‘Salesforce Object.’

The object is the type of data you are sending to Salesforce, such as a contact or a lead.

Once you’ve chosen your Salesforce Object, you will see some new dropdowns.

Here, the ‘Custom Field Name’ column is the name of the field in your Salesforce account. The ‘Form Field Value’ is the name of the field on your form.

You need to select a ‘Form Field Value’ for each custom field you want to use. This means your form data will be entered into the correct field in Salesforce.

The only required field is the Full Name field in Salesforce. For this, select ‘Name’ as the Form Field value.

Next, go ahead and select a different field from the dropdown below this. Simply choose which WPForms field you want to map it to. To add more fields, click the blue + button.

We have included the email and phone fields from our form here:

Don’t forget to click the Save button at the top of the screen after adding your Salesforce connection.

Adding Your Form to a WordPress Page or Post

WPForms makes it super easy to add forms anywhere on your WordPress website.

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

Next, you need to choose your contact form from the dropdown list within the block.

Finally, go ahead and publish your page to see your form live on your site.

For more detailed instructions, check out our step-by-step guide to creating a contact form in WPForms.

It’s best practice to test your form to make sure that you’ve correctly connected Salesforce.

Simply fill in some test data and click Submit.

After that, switch to your Salesforce account dashboard.

You should see a new item listed on your homepage.

You can click on the name to see the information for that contact.

You’ve successfully connected Salesforce to WPForms. Now, all your new contacts will be automatically added to Salesforce for you.

We hope this article helped you learn how to connect Salesforce to your WordPress forms. You might also like our article on how to send contact form details to multiple recipients, and our pick of best business phone services for online businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Connect Salesforce to Your WordPress Forms first appeared on WPBeginner.

5 Best Electronic Signature Software for WordPress (2022)

Are you looking for the best electronic signature software for WordPress?

The right digital signature software can help you save time while streamlining your workflow for creating official documents & contracts for your business.

In this article, we’ve hand picked some of the best digital signature software for WordPress.

Why Use Electronic Signature Software?

There are lots of reasons why you may need to get someone’s signature.

Official documents such as contracts and terms of service agreements often require a signature. If you run an online store, then some products, services or subscriptions may need the customer’s signature.

You might even need to collect lots of different signatures. For example, if you run a nonprofit organization, then you can use signed petitions to draw attention to a good cause.

However, getting people to sign a physical, printed document can take a lot of time and effort. Depending on where the person is located, you may need to travel to them or post the document. This can slow down important tasks, such as onboarding new employees or selling your small business.

Electronic signature software allows people to sign a form or document digitally from anywhere in the world. This usually involves drawing with their mouse or touchscreen, or typing in their name using their keyboard.

By using the best electronic signature software, you can save time and money since you don’t need to print, scan, fax, or post documents. It’s also better for the environment, as you’re not using any paper or ink. You can simply email a digital copy to anyone in the world and then store the signed document on your computer, or in the cloud for extra security.

If you want to collect signatures from the public, then the right software can help you get more signups. For example, you might publish a petition to your WordPress website and then collect signatures from supporters around the world.

With that being said, let’s look at some of the best electronic signature software.

1. WPForms

WPForms is the most beginner friendly WordPress form builder. You can use it to build any type of form such as multi-page forms, payment forms, email subscription forms, and more.

With over 500 ready-made form templates to choose from, this plugin makes it easy to add professionally-designed and user-friendly forms to your website. All of these templates are fully customizable, so you can fine-tune them to better suit your needs.

Even better, the plugin has a Signature addon that lets you collect digital signatures with ease.

Every time someone submits a form, WPForms will save their electronic signature as an image and attach it to their form submission. You can see all of these signatures simply by logging into your WordPress dashboard.

After activating the addon, you’ll get access to some ready-made templates that already come with a built-in digital signature field.

This includes an online petition form, a medical and health history form, and even a cattery booking form, which is perfect if you run an animal or pet website.

WPForms also has a standalone Signature field that you can add to any template.

Simply open the WPForms editor and then drag the read-made Signature field onto any form, and you’re ready to start collecting e-signatures.

Once you’ve added the Signature field to a form, you can use the WPForms settings to customize that field.

For example, you can mark it as mandatory so that visitors must add their digital signature before they can submit the form.

This powerful plugin also has support for conditional logic, so you can hide or show the Signature field based on the information the visitor enters into the form.

For example, you might hide the Signature field unless the visitor opts into a particular service that requires their digital signature. In this way, you can show only relevant fields to visitors, which will reduce form abandonment in WordPress.

Pricing: To use the WPForms plugin and Signature addon, you’ll need to buy WPForms Pro ($199.50 per year) or Elite ($299.50 per year).

2. signNow

If you need to collect legally-binding signatures from multiple people, then signNow is a great option. It even comes with conditional logic, so you can show different fields to different people based on their user roles.

signNow is an online service, so you don’t need to download or set up any software or tools. Simply create an account, and you can start signing documents within minutes using signNow’s user-friendly editor.

signNow allows users to type, draw, or upload their signatures. You can also save your signatures, so it’s easier to authorize future documents.

To save even more time, signNow allows you to save any document as a template. This is perfect for businesses that need to send the same file to multiple people or organizations.

If you’re worried about unauthorized access, then you’ll be happy to learn that signNow has dual-factor authentication options and other advanced security features. This allows you to prove the person’s identity before giving them access to your documents and templates.

This is particularly important if you’re working with sensitive or confidential documents.

If you need to collect data from customers, staff, or other contacts, then you can even build online forms using the same intuitive signNow editor. This makes signNow an all-in-one solution for busy businesses.

Unlike some other esignature solutions on this list, signNow has its own mobile app for Android and iOS. This means you can sign contracts and share documents with other people, directly from your mobile device.

Using the mobile app, you can even work with documents, agreements, and contracts while offline. Then, simply share your work once the internet connection has been restored. This is great for anyone who travels and likes to work on the go.

With its time-saving features, dedicated mobile application, and smart conditional fields, signNow is a great choice for businesses that need to share legally binding documents with lots of different people.

Pricing: You can start using signNow for $8 per month, per user.

3. Formidable Forms

Formidable Forms is an all-in-one WordPress form builder with a drag and drop interface that makes it easy to create advanced forms. This includes custom calculators, booking forms, and much more.

This plugin also has a Signature addon that allows you to collect digital signatures.

Visitors can sign your forms using their mouse or touchscreen. However, unlike some of the other software in this list, Formidable Forms also lets visitors type in their signature.

This can make your forms and documents accessible to people who find it difficult to sign using the mouse or trackpad.

Every time someone signs your form, the plugin will save the signature as an image that you can see inside your WordPress dashboard.

After installing the addon, you can simply drop the ready-made Signature field onto any template where you want to collect digital signatures.

Formidable Forms comes with over 170 templates, so you should have no problems finding one that perfectly suits your needs.

Formidable Forms also comes with a ‘Signature’ category where you’ll find a selection of templates that have the e-sign field built-in.

For example, Formidable Forms has an ‘Esthetician Consent’ template where beauticians can collect a client’s information and get their signed consent.

This plugin integrates with WooCommerce, so online store owners can easily collect signatures from their customers. For example, you may want to record the customer’s written consent to collect recurring payments as part of a subscription.

If you have an online store, then Formidable Forms also integrates with all the popular email marketing and payment platforms you may already be using to get sales.

The Formidable Forms builder is targeted more at advanced users and developers, which means it isn’t as user-friendly as WPForms. However, it is a powerful and flexible solution that’s also very customizable.

In fact, after configuring the Signature addon, there are lots more addons that can help you collect and manage digital signatures.

In particular, Formidable Forms has a Visual Views addon that lets you display user-submitted information on your website. For example, if you’ve created a petition, then you can use this addon to show the names of all the people who have already signed. In this way, you can encourage more people to support your petition.

To learn more, please see our guide on how to display WordPress form entries on your site.

Pricing: To use Formidable Forms with the Signature addon, you’ll need to purchase Formidable Forms Business license ($199.50 per year) or higher.

4. pdfFiler

pdfFiler is a complete document management solution that allows you to create, edit and manage documents and forms online.

You can simply upload any PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, PPT, PPTX, JPG, PNG, or TXT file, and pdfFiller will turn it into an interactive document. Anyone can then view, edit, and sign the document online using their desktop or mobile device.

pdfFiller follows all of the major security laws and guidelines including GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA. However, some customers or visitors may still be wary about signing a document hosted on an unfamiliar third-party platform. If you do use pdfFiller, then it’s important to talk about the platform in your site’s privacy policy.

Having said that, pdfFiller’s electronic signature software is very powerful and legally binding in all 50 states. It also has some advanced features you won’t find in other electronic signature plugins, such as the option to capture a signature using a webcam.

Pricing: The basic pdfFiller plan starts at $10 per month when purchased annually.

5. USLegalForms

USLegalForms is an online library of over 80,000 national and state-specific legal documents covering a huge range of different industries and use cases.

On their website, you’ll find form templates covering everything from hiring to business agreements, leases, invoices, bills of sale, and much more.

All of these legal documents are organized into categories and you can search by state, so you should have no problems finding what you’re looking for.

With a strong focus on legally-binding documentation, this is a great electronic signature platform for businesses. It would also be useful for anyone who wants to start legal proceedings without having to pay a professional to draw up documents for you.

You don’t need a website to use USLegalForms. If you’re looking for a solution that adds forms or signable documents to your site or blog, then we recommend using a solution such as Formidable Forms or WPForms instead.

Price: You can buy a USLegalForms subscription for $15 per month.

Which is the Best Electronic Signature Software?

After evaluating various eSign software, we believe that WPForms is the best electronic signature software for WordPress. If you’re looking for a eSign software for contracts that need multiple signatures, then we recommend using signNow.

There are dozens of other electronic signature in the market such as DocuSign, HelloSign (aka Dropbox Sign), PandaDoc, and others, but they are all unnecessarily expensive for small businesses that’s why we haven’t included them in our list.

We hope this article helped you find the best electronic signature software for WordPress. You can also go through our guide on how to create file upload forms in WordPress, or our expert pick of the best business phone services.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 5 Best Electronic Signature Software for WordPress (2022) first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Enable Maintenance Mode for WooCommerce

Do you want to enable maintenance mode for WooCommerce without affecting other parts of your WordPress website?

Maintenance mode allows you to show a user-friendly notice to shoppers instead of a broken eCommerce site. You can even enable maintenance mode for specific product pages or areas of your WooCommerce store.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to enable maintenance mode for WooCommerce.

Why and When You Need to Enable Maintenance Mode for WooCommerce

Sometimes you may need to put your WordPress website in maintenance mode. For example, you may be making major changes such as installing a new theme or completely redesigning your WordPress blog.

At other times you may need to put your WooCommerce store into maintenance mode, while leaving the rest of your site open.

This could be because there’s a problem that’s only affecting your online store, and not the rest of your website. For example, you may be unable to process customer payments. In this case, maintenance mode can stop customers from encountering the error and having a bad shopping experience.

You may also be adding an online store to an existing website and want to keep those pages private while you work on them.

An engaging ‘coming soon’ page can also create a sense of excitement and anticipation while you build your store behind the scenes. You might even encourage shoppers to get ready for the launch by following you on social media, joining your email list, or even entering a WooCommerce contest.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily enable WooCommerce maintenance mode without affecting the rest of your website.

Enabling Maintenance Mode for WooCommerce

The easiest way to enable maintenance mode for WooCommerce is by using SeedProd.

SeedProd is the best landing page builder for WordPress, used on more than a million websites. It allows you to create beautiful coming soon pages in WordPress, improve your 404 page, and even design unique landing pages using drag and drop.

There’s a free version of SeedProd that lets you create a maintenance mode page. However, we’ll be using the premium version as it lets you put your WooCommerce store into maintenance mode while keeping the rest of your site available.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a plugin in WordPress.

After activating the plugin, SeedProd will ask for your license key.

You can find this information under your account on the SeedProd website. After entering the license, click on the ‘Verify Key’ button.

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to put your WooCommerce store in maintenance mode.

Creating Your Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon Page

After activating SeedProd, go to SeedProd » Pages. Here, you can choose whether to create a maintenance mode page or a coming soon page.

Although some people use these terms interchangeably, there are some important differences you should know.

If you create a ‘Coming Soon’ page, then search engines will still be able to see and crawl your store pages. This gives your WooCommerce site a chance to get indexed by search engines.

If you’re building a new store, then you’ll typically want to create a coming soon page.

If your store is down for maintenance, then you should create a ‘Maintenance Mode’ page instead. This mode tells search engines that your site is temporarily down, using the special header code 503.

After getting this code, the search bots will recheck your WordPress website later to see whether it’s back online. In this way, you can hide your store from shoppers without affecting your search engine rankings.

Note: We’ll create a maintenance mode page in this guide, but the steps will be the same no matter whether you click on ‘Set up a Maintenance Mode Page’ or ‘Set up a Coming Soon Page.’

The next step is building the page that shoppers will see when you enable maintenance mode for WooCommerce.

You can either choose a ready-made template or start with a blank design. We’re using ‘Celebrate Coming Soon’ in all our images but you can use any template you like.

To select a template, simply hover your mouse over that design’s thumbnail and then click the ‘checkmark’ icon.

After selecting a template, you’ll be taken to the drag-and-drop builder, where you can start customizing the maintenance mode design.

On the left side of the screen, you’ll find blocks and sections that you can add to your design. The right side of the page is the live preview.

Most templates already have some blocks, which are a core part of all SeedProd designs. To start, you’ll typically want to customize these blocks by adding your own text, images, links, and other content.

To change the text in any Headline or Text block, simply click to select that block in your layout. This brings up all the settings for that particular block.

You can now type your text into the small text editor.

You can also use these settings to style the text, including adding bold and italic formatting, changing the text alignment, changing the font size, and more.

You can add more blocks to your maintenance page by dragging them from the left-hand menu and then dropping them onto your design.

For example, if you wanted to add a custom logo then you could simply drag an ‘Image’ block onto your layout.

Then, just click to select that block in your layout and the left-hand menu will show all the settings for that block.

To add a logo, go ahead and click on ‘Use Your Own Image.’

You can then either choose an image from the WordPress media library or upload a new file from your computer.

After adding an image, you can change the size, add image alt text, embed a link, and more using the settings in the left-hand menu.

If you’re using the WPForms plugin then you can quickly and easily add a contact form to the maintenance page. This gives shoppers a way to talk to you even when your WooCommerce site is down for maintenance.

After creating a contact form in WordPress, you can drag the ‘Contact Form’ block onto your SeedProd layout.

Then, simply click to select the Contact Form block.

In the left-hand menu, open the dropdown menu and choose the form you created earlier.

To remove a block from your design, simply go ahead and click on it.

You can then select the trash can icon.

You can also move blocks around the page using drag and drop.

When you’re happy with how the maintenance page looks, make sure you click ‘Save.’

Turn on Maintenance or Coming Soon Mode for Your WooCommerce Store

Now that you’ve created a custom coming soon or maintenance mode page, let’s go ahead and enable it.

Here, we want to put the store into maintenance mode, and not the entire site. To do this, click on the ‘Page Settings’ tab inside the SeedProd editor.

Then, select the ‘Access Control’ tab.

You can use these settings to specify where the coming soon or maintenance page appears on your site, and who sees it. For example, you might show this page to people who have a particular user role or IP address.

Since we want to put our WooCommerce site into maintenance mode, scroll to the ‘Include/Exclude URLs’ section.

Then, just click on the ‘Include URLs’ button.

Now, you need to enter the URLs for your WooCommerce store. This may vary depending on how your store is set up, and whether you’ve created any custom pages such as a custom WooCommerce cart page or a custom checkout page.

However, it’s smart to start with all the pages that WooCommerce creates automatically:

https://example.com/shop
https://example.com/cart
https://example.com/checkout
https://example.com/my-account

If your store has products, then you’ll also need to add these URLs. Be sure to include the asterisk!

https://example.com/product/*
https://example.com/product-category/*
https://example.com/product-tag/*

The asterisk is a wildcard character, which tells SeedProd to include all URLs that match the pattern before it.

This means that shoppers will see the maintenance page when they try to access any product, product category, or product tag.

After adding all these URLs, click on the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.

Putting Your Store In Maintenance Mode

You’re now ready to put your WooCommerce store in maintenance or coming soon mode at any point. In the WordPress dashboard, simply go to SeedProd » Landing Pages.

Then, click on the ‘Inactive’ slider under ‘Coming Soon Mode’ or ‘Maintenance Mode,’ so that it changes to ‘Active.’

Now, simply visit your WooCommerce store in an incognito browser tab and you’ll see your custom design, rather than your online store.

When you’re ready to make your store public, simply go back to SeedProd » Landing Pages.

Then click on the ‘Active’ slider so that it shows ‘Inactive.’ Now, anyone who visits your site will see your WooCommerce store, and can buy products and services as normal.

We hope this article helped you learn how to enable maintenance mode for WooCommerce. You may also want to take a look at our expert pick of the best WooCommerce plugins, and our complete step-by-step guide on how to create an email newsletter.

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 Enable Maintenance Mode for WooCommerce first appeared on WPBeginner.