Why Building An Audience Is So Hard (And Why I’m Still Trying)

It’s easy to feel like you can grow a loyal audience in no time using the latest growth hacks or Twitter and Facebook tricks. But the truth is, it’s not that simple.

Growing an audience is hard.

You have to have talent.

You have to put in a lot of work.

And there’s no 1–2–3 solution.

In this post, I’m happy to share some of our experiences from building an audience at Buffer alongside six key ingredients to successfully building an audience.

Let’s get started!

Why it’s difficult to build an audience (and why there’s no shortcut)

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

It is no secret that we live in an age of information overload. Yet many of us are in search of a larger audience. More readers on our blog. A bigger following across social media. A group of people who read, engage with and amplify everything we share.

The problem is, we live in an attention economy. Everyone is vying for consumer attention, and there’s only so much to go around.

Attention is limited

We all have 24 hours in a day. There’s nothing we can do to change that.

Each day on Facebook alone we are potentially exposed to 1,500 pieces of content. When you add in Tweets, Snapchats, Instagram posts and all the other content we’re exposed to daily, it’s easy to see why it can be so hard to break through as a content creator.

The below graphic from Moz shows how content fatigue could start happening very soon:

It takes a lot of swings

Each day we have a tiny window to grab people’s attention and make an impact with our content. And many of us are in search of that one, elusive thing that’ll get us rolling on the path to success. But that’s not how it works.

Think of yourself as a Major League Baseball player, for every home run, for every cheer from the crowd, there are thousands of practice swings and plenty of strikeouts. Content is no different. You need to step up to the plate and bring your best every day if you want to be a success.

There’s no shortcut to building an audience. It’s a long, winding road. And it takes a number of elements to succeed. Below I’d love to share some of the key ingredients to building at audience.

The 6 essential ingredients needed to build an audience successfully

1. Look for what’s next

The World is moving fast, and opportunities are arising everywhere. New platforms and new trends breed new opportunity. And for early adopters a unique chance to build an audience as Gary Vaynerchuk explains on Medium:

If you play close attention to the people who popped on Vine, or the people who popped in the early days of Snapchat, or Instagram, they all happened to be the Christopher Columbus of their platforms. They were early. So as those platforms took off, they developed disproportionate amounts of followers as new users joined and found them.

First mover advantage

A study from Harvard Business Review found that companies identified as believing strongly in the benefits of adopting new technologies receive a “first-mover advantage” — and are more likely to lead in both revenue growth and market position than their peers.

The same theory applies to new social platforms too. As an early adopter, you can gain first mover advantage and, as Gary Vaynerchuk said, you have the chance to become “the Christopher Columbus” of that platform.

By focusing on what’s next and experimenting with new platforms and technologies, you have an opportunity to jump ahead of the competition and build an audience before the platform is too crowded.

Hone your skills

Shaun McBride, better known as Shonduras online, is one of Snapchat’s first homegrown celebrities, and brands are spending upwards of $30,000 for advertising deals with him and other Snapchat stars.

Before Snapchat, Shonduras honed his skills as an artist. Snapchat merely provided a platform for him to share his skills with the world.

The biggest opportunities ahead probably aren’t on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube but on platforms we don’t even know about yet. That doesn’t mean you can’t start preparing for these opportunities, though:

• If you want to be an influential writer, practice writing: on your blog, on Medium, on Twitter, or anywhere you can scribble down a few words.
• If you love to create video, experiment with Vine, YouTube, Snapchat, and Beme.

Whatever your skill set, find new ways to be creative. Hone your talents. And then when the next big platform launches, jump on it and set the trends there.

2. Have a voice

Everything has been said before, but it’s never been said by you. Your point of view is what makes you interesting. — Jory MacKay

For periods in my writing life, I’ve relied on content that is ‘good enough’, content that gets a point across. That ticks a box. But doesn’t reflect me or my personal beliefs.

On reflection, this doesn’t feel the way to break through and build an audience. Great content should make you feel vulnerable and a little discomfort upon publishing.

As Jory MacKay points out over at Crew, when you approach a new subject, ask yourself ‘how can I cover this in a way that only I can?’  Your voice is what will make you stand out from the crowd.

Saying the same things as everyone else, in the same style will only add to the noise. And you’ll get lost in the endless sea of content published every day.

The below graphic from Sean McCabe illustrates how to find your unique voice perfectly:

3. Do things differently

At Buffer, we’re super lucky to be well-known for our content. But our rise wasn’t an overnight success — and certainly didn’t come easy.

It took some trial and error. And a few years back we found a recipe that started to pay off.

From day 1, we have invested in content marketing at Buffer. Leo kicked things off on the blog back in 2011 and since then we’ve been through quite a few evolutions and tried many different tactics to build our audience.

Here’s a quick at the development of our content over time:

1. Twitter tips: January 2011 – October 2011
2. Pivot to social media tips: November 2011 – June 2012 
3. Pivot to lifehacks, writing, customer happiness and business: June 2012 — March 2014
4. Pivot to social media marketing and content tips: March 2014 to now

And a fun gif showing how the blog design has changed:

If you check back through our first posts, they contain great content but they weren’t distinguishable from other social media blogs out there.

At this stage – when we weren’t getting hundreds of thousands or millions of views per month – we could’ve decided to focus elsewhere. Instead, we tried to do things differently and create our Buffer style of content.

We pivoted from Twitter tips to broader social media tips. And in June 2012 we pivoted again. We began focusing on in-depth, well-researched posts that broke down potentially complex subjects into clear, understandable and highly shareable content. Things started to take off after this pivot.

Here’s an early example of one of these posts:

After some success with this style of post, the biggest jump in traffic came when Belle Beth Cooper joined the Buffer team, and we doubled down on producing unique content.

If it wasn’t for our early experiments, we may never have discovered the potential of this type of content and may never have unlocked all of the traffic (and conversions!) we see today.

You need to keep evolving

Leo and Belle were so great at discovering the potential of in-depth content. Another shift for us occurred a year or so ago when we came to focus social media marketing and content tips – paying particular attention to the visuals and images within our articles.

More recently, Kevan shared that our social referral traffic has nearly halved over the past year. This post sparked a ton of discussion about our content both internally and externally.

The below Tweets from Rand Fishkin especially resonated with our team:

This debate gave us a chance to reflect and re-evaluate our content. It also inspired Leo to share our marketing manifesto. Since then, we’ve re-focused and started experimenting again. As Kevan explains: our blog is our greatest marketing asset. And we just keep changing it.

Only time will tell if our new experiments will pay off. However, one thing is for sure – the hard work from the past years will go to waste if we don’t continue to push ourselves and figure out how to continually keep evolving our content.

4. Hard work

I’ve learned from experience that if you work harder at it, and apply more energy and time to it, and more consistency, you get a better result. It comes from the work. — Louis C.K.

Success comes from the work that no-one sees.

If you want to build an audience you need to put in a lot of hard work.

Let’s take Seth Godin for example.

Before he was a best-selling author and marketing thought leader he was Seth Godin, just another blogger.

Godin’s blog has posts going back to 2002. But, as Ailian Gan points out on her blog, it’s around 2006 where Seth Godin hits his stride and starts to sound like the Seth of today. That’s four years of finding his voice and honing his skills.

Another example is Nils Wagner, the man behind Hoopmixtape. Hoopmixtape’s website and YouTube channel receive millions and millions of views each month.

What’s not clear is the work that goes on to ensure it stays that way. Sam Laird explains over at The Classical:

To stay on top, Wagner travels tens of thousands of miles yearly to gather footage of elite prospects, sometimes driving thirty hours straight and living out of his car for weeks at a stretch.

Building an audience is hard work. And you’ll need to put in the hours if you want to succeed.

5. Focus on quality

In our Buffer marketing manifesto Leo explains:

Sometimes we think that just putting out a consistent number of things will just create some outliers that’ll help us win. Heck, I even believed this for a long time and advised people to just focus on quantity. I don’t think that’s true anymore. Yes, we need to output things at high quantity, but we need to treat every single piece of output as the one that’ll be a breakout hit.

Going back to the baseball analogy from earlier on, every time a batsman faces a pitch, they’ll see it as a home run. Everything they have will go into the next swing. And to build an audience you need to feel that same way about every piece of content you share.

You need to feel that everything you put out is excellent. Every post, every video, every image has the chance to be a hit. Without this feeling, you’re not going to break through the noise.

Quality shouldn’t be confused with perfectionism. Perfect sits in your drafts for too long. Perfect causes delays. Quality is published consistently, without lingering.

On quality vs. perfection, James Clear explains an excerpt from Art & Fear on his blog:

The ceramics teacher announced that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”.

Well, grading time came and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity!

It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat around theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

6. Be consistent

It takes patience to build an audience, and it takes courage to keep putting yourself out there time and again.

Consistency is key, and it doesn’t come easy as Sean McCabe explains:

I think people believe that those who show up consistently have some sort of magic power or inherent ability. “It must come easy for him,” they say. “For others like me, it’s hard.”

Here’s the reality: it’s not easy for anyone — even the people that make it look easy. In fact, if someone is making it look easy, they’re probably working all the harder.

When Unbounce launched, consistency played a big role in the growth of their audience as Co-founder, Oli Gardner, penned 300 posts for the Unbounce blog over a six month period.

Consistently creating content was also critical to our early growth here at Buffer. Within Buffer’s first nine months, Leo wrote around 150 guest posts, which were vital in helping us acquire our first 100,000 sign ups.

Leo explained the importance of consistency over at Search Engine Watch: “Of course the early ones barely drove any traffic and only very gradually did things improve, I think that’s very important to understand. It will take a while until you can find the right frequency of posting.”

Another great example of the power of consistency is Youtuber, Casey Neistat.

When Neistat started daily vlogging he had around 520,000 subscribers on his YouTube Channel. Now he has over 1,500,000 subscribers.

You can see the impact his consistent, daily posts had on his subscriber growth from March — July 2015 below:

One of the best ways to achieve consistency is to set a schedule for yourself and stick to it. Most of us only create content when we’re hit by a moment of inspiration. But if you’re looking to build an audience, you need to be putting yourself out there regularly. 

I’ve always struggled with this one myself. But now, knowing I have to create content on a regular basis, means I can’t skip writing. Instead of sitting down and wondering which days I’ll write, I now have a schedule in place.

Over to you

Building an audience is something I’m continuously working on both personally and at Buffer. The rewards make it feel worthwhile – seeing people share your content and enjoy your work is priceless.

In a way, this post serves as a public reminder to myself that I need to be dedicated and focused every day if I want to succeed and continue to build an audience.

To summarize, here are six action points to keep in mind when it comes to building an audience:

• Hone your skills and keep an eye on what’s next
• Find your voice and create content in a way that only you can
• Discover what makes you different
• Work hard
• Strive for quality and avoid seeking perfection
• Be consistent and put yourself out there every day

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this too. What are your feelings about growing an audience? What have you tried? What’s worked?

Drop a note below in the comments and I’ll be excited to join the conversation.

The post Why Building An Audience Is So Hard (And Why I’m Still Trying) appeared first on Social.

How to Use English WordPress Admin on a Multilingual Site

Recently, one of our readers asked: if it was possible to keep using the WordPress admin area in English on a multilingual WordPress site. WordPress powers millions of websites in many different languages. In this article, we will show you how to use English WordPress admin on a non-English WordPress site.

Why and Who Needs to Use English WordPress Admin?

WordPress is fully translated in many of the world’s most popular languages. You can use WordPress in your own language. However, if you run a multi-author and multilingual website, then the admin area language can become an issue for some of your users.

For better collaboration and consistency, many site owners may want to keep their WordPress admin area in English while serving the front-end in their local language or a multilingual setting.

This guide will also come in handy if you have to work on a non-English website. You can temporarily switch the admin language to English and switch it back when you are done.

Keeping the English WordPress Admin Area

First thing you need to do is install and activate the English WordPress Admin plugin. Upon activation, the plugin will add a language switcher in the WordPress admin bar.

Simply take your mouse over to the language switcher, and it will display the option for switching admin area to English. When you click on “Switch to English” link, it will reload the admin screen in the English language.

When you want to switch back to the native language, you can do that from the same menu.

That’s all we hope this article helped you keep WordPress admin in English on a non-English site. You may also want to see our guide on how to add Google Translate in WordPress and how to find translation ready WordPress themes.

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 Use English WordPress Admin on a Multilingual Site appeared first on WPBeginner.

It’s not too late: 12 ways to boost sales this holiday season

Businesses know that the holiday period can be critical to the success of their entire year, with nearly one fifth of annual sales occurring during these couple of weeks.

Content Cash: Make Easy Money With Content

You've likely heard of Alice Seba's Content Cash Flow program by now. If not, I'll give you the details. But what I really want to share with you in this post is the HOW TO - or some real examples of how you can make easy money with content.

My coupon code and bonus (10 Ready-to-Sell PLR Products) are still valid. You have to use my link to get the bonus, and use coupon code ccf25off for a substantial discount on the step-by-step training & checklists.

Now let's dig in to some creative ideas and live examples...

The whole premise behind the Content Cash Flow program is how to turn Private Label Rights (PLR) content into fast cash. There are three sides to this: 1) cashing in on all the resale rights content you probably already have on your hard drive, 2) selling your own content with private label rights, and 3) paying writers once to create content you can sell - over and over.

You can find writers "on the cheap" all over the web! Fiverr is just one source. But you likely already have tons of content you can use for "quick cash" - this week!

Earlier this week I bought the 6 Instant Profit Stream Products super cheap. It's on a limited time dime sale, and includes six already-created products you can sell - complete with sales pages.

You can also piece these products up however you please. As a list builder for example. Just use one part to entice visitors to opt-in, use other pieces to create a HOT email followup series, use one of the related products as an OTO or upsell, etc etc yada yada. They also make GREAT bonuses to your own products, or products you promote as an affiliate.

Anyway...

Make Easy Money With Your Own Content

I got really inspired by Alice Seba's Video & Talk on how to "generate a burst of extra cash when you need it or even create a reliable steady full time income" using content you've already created. That's where the wheels really started turning!

I immediately thought of all the articles I published on EzineArticles.com years ago, and the tons of unfinished pieces of content/reports/etc on my hard drive. I also have some great content I wrote as webinar talking points over the years, talking points for podcast & radio interviews, and of course TONS of archived blog content. I even have content from "old blogs" I don't use anymore!

But then I thought of a BRILLIANT $$ idea...

As I was looking through the variety of content I've written (and it's A LOT!) I realized I have tons of social media articles on my blog and other places around the web. That's just one single topic out of the mountains of content, but it stood out to me.

I could package those up as a topical "PLR Pack" of social media articles, and include the affiliate signup for my Social Marketing Results course for an easy way to monetize those articles. Or I could repurpose them into a checklist & short report to sell or build a list, and use some of the other content to create an awesome email followup series. I would simply repurpose the content and create a package (or two, or three) and offer Private Label Rights to it. That would be a GREAT product to sell!

So not only would I make money selling the Private Label Rights to the content, but it would also recruit affiliates for my Social Marketing Results course & make more product sales. Sweet, right? Yes!

That's just ONE example, but it's a great idea if you have a product of your own and if you're looking to recruit more affiliates and make more sales.

Here's another idea that occurred to me while I was listening in to CCF:

I have interests & experience that have nothing to do with the two blogs I write. If you follow me on Facebook you already know I foster/rescue/love Great Danes for example - and that I shop online A LOT (lol). That's just two examples, but those are two topics I have a lot to say about - obviously.

In the past I have written guest posts / reviews for fashion blogs based on the cool shoes I've purchased online. That doesn't really benefit me in any way since it doesn't reach MY target market, but I mostly just do it for fun - or to help out a fellow blogger I like. I've been asked to write for "dog blogs" too, based on my experience and passion for rescues. Again, even a link on those blogs wouldn't really benefit me.

But now I have an outlet for those "passion topics". A profitable outlet! All those conversations on Facebook? I can pull them all together, flesh them out into "articles", and sell them as content with private label rights!

$ BINGO $ - Smart! Brilliant really. Consider all the topics YOU could write about, or that you talk about anyway. Maybe you have things you share on Facebook that aren't related to your blog or business, or participate in groups & forums and you're constantly answering questions or participating in discussions there. There are bloggers in those niches that would definitely pay you for your content & reviews!!

That just gave me another idea...

I was saving up all of my Amazon receipts with good intentions to go in and write reviews on everything I've purchased this year. I've placed 124 orders on Amazon this year alone. You can log in to your Amazon account and go back for YEARS and see all the products you've ordered.

It's nice to go back and leave reviews there. And do that! But then copy that review, flesh it out more, and put those reviews together for an "Amazon Product Reviews" content pack with private label rights! You could group your reviews by topic or category (home decor, electronics, pet supplies, etc) to sell to niche bloggers.

How/Where Would You Sell Your Content?

Even if you just package up content to sell with Private Label Rights as a standalone product - for a quick buck - you're probably wondering how and where you would sell it. Especially if you don't have a "marketing list" or an audience of people looking to buy content. No problem!

There are places like the Warrior Forum that you can sell PLR packs to people who want & need niche content. You can also set it up on a platform like JVZoo or ClickBank so that you have an affiliate program - then simply let people with PLR lists promote it for you as an affiliate! That would be the fast & easy route, since they already have the market and list for niche content sales.

See? It's not complicated at all. The options are truly endless. It's all about getting creative, and considering how to best cash in on your content...

Do you need the Content Cash Flow training program?

I'll share some things with you to help you make your decision - if you haven't already. It's $179, but with the "ccf25off" coupon code it's only $134.25 - which is a great deal.

You can check it out here.

Listening in to the training, and going over the PDF version and the checklists & downloads is how I came up with my profitable ideas above. That alone is worth $134 ALL DAY LONG. Consider how much money I could earn on the ONE idea, in immediate content sales and then in product sales. Right - great investment.

The more I go over the training, the more ideas I get - which means the more money I could churn out of it!

It's not just "training" though...

In addition to all of the "how to", which is behind-the-scenes training from Alice Seba's YEARS of experience selling content, you also get:

• 20 Ready-Made PLR Products to Sell
• Alice will promote your content to her PLR Customer Lists!
• Product Release/Launch Checklist
• Shadow Alice Seba for An Entire Month and Get Full Access to Her Planning, Creating and Marketing Diary
• Detailed training in both Video & PDF format
• Email Promotion Templates
• Promotion Calendar, Content Creation Templates
• PLR Product Sales Page Template

... and tons more. Click Here to see everything that's included.

Remember to use the coupon code: ccf25off

You get 10 ready-to-sell products from Alice as a bonus, and 10 more on your JVZoo download page when you use my link!

The bonus that Alice will promote your unique PLR content package to HER customer list of niche content buyers is HUGE. Consider my example above. It's a unique PLR product I'll create myself, out of my own content, and she's agreed to review & promote it for me - as a Content Cash Flow member. Nice!

That's a BIG incentive for me to put that content together, lol...

She also has a list of affiliates, and said that if your offer converts well to her list, she'll recommend her affiliates sign up to promote for you as well. (Did you just hear "$$$$" in your head?! You should!!)

So YES, this is an amazingly awesome investment because you simply cannot get that kind of exposure anywhere else - or as easily. Seriously.

Here's the link: Content Cash Flow
Here's the coupon code: ccf25off

Mark your calendar for the Live Q&A on Tuesday. If you've already signed up for Content Cash Flow, I hope some of my ideas here proved useful for you.

I encourage you to not just learn from all the great training she's offering, but to USE it - implement it - and make some serious cash!!

I'm going to get to work on my social media PLR content product, and my Niche Amazon Reviews packages. Those were brilliant ideas, if I do say so myself (lol).

You can sit back and watch me make all the money, or you can follow my lead and use this awesome resource to cash in on your own content WITH me.

I'm not sharing these ideas with you just for fun. I want you to get out there and make some great money!! *cheers*

Best,

p.s. You have to sign up this weekend to get to shadow Alice Seba for a full month while she runs her own PLR business, and to get on the live call this Tuesday.

Use this link to get my bonus + use the ccf25off coupon code!

p.p.s. Did you know you can sell private label rights to your photos too? Yes! That just one more way you can easily make some quick cash. That makes "Easy Idea #4" you can use immediately. Just grab the tools & training and get started!

Disclosure: I use affiliate links. That's what I do.
See this note on my personal Facebook profile...

How to Show User Registration Date in WordPress

Do you want to show the user registration date in WordPress? Often popular membership sites and forums display the user registration date on profile as “member since 2015”. In this article, we will cover how to show user registration date in WordPress.

Where and How You Want to Show User Registration Date?

Some of you may just want to display a user’s registration date in the admin columns of the Users page. This will give you a quick overview of when a user joined your website and allow you to sort by registration date.

Another usage scenario is to display a user’s registration date on the ‘Edit Profile’ page. This will allow any administrator and the user themselves to see when they joined your website.

Last but probably the most popular usage scenario is when you want to display the user registration date on their public profile on the front-end of your website.

Let’s take a look at how you can do all of them.

Adding Registered Date Column on Users Page in Admin Area

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Admin Columns plugin. Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Admin Columns to configure the plugin.

Under the admin columns tab, click on users and then click on add column button.

Next select ‘Registered” in the Type drop down menu and click on store updates button.

You can now visit the users screen where you will see a new column labeled ‘Registered’ showing the date when a user registered on your WordPress site.

See what other things you can do to add and customize admin columns in WordPress.

Showing Registration Date Field in User Profile

For showing registration date on the edit profile page, you will need to upload a custom plugin to your website.

Simply create a new file on your computer using a text editor like Notepad and save it as membersince.php on your desktop.

Next open the file and paste the following code inside it.

%1$s
	

		

			

				%1$s
			
			

				
Member since: %2$s
			
		
	
';
	$udata = get_userdata( $user-ID );
	$registered = $udata->user_registered;
	printf(
		$table,
		'Registered',
		date( "M Y", strtotime( $registered ) )
	);
}
?>

Save your file and then upload it to your WordPress site.

Finally you can connect to your WordPress site using a FTP client and then go to /wp-content/plugins/ folder. Select the membersince.php file from your computer and then upload it.

Now you can go to your WordPress plugins page and activate this plugin on your website.

That’s all. Verify everything is working by editing a user profile on in your WordPress admin area, and you will see the user registration date.

Showing User Registration Date on Your Website

In this method, we will be using a simple shortcode to display any users registration date on the front-end of your WordPress site.

First you will need to add the following code in your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin.

function wpb_user_registration_date($atts, $content = null ) { 

$userlogin = shortcode_atts( array(
'user' => FALSE,
), $atts );

$uname = $userlogin['user'];     

if ($uname!== FALSE) {             

$user = get_user_by( 'login', $uname );  
if ($user == false) { 

$message ='Sorry no such user found.'; 


} else { 

$udata = get_userdata( $user-ID );
$registered = $udata->user_registered;

$message =	'Member since: ' . date( "d F Y", strtotime( $registered ) );

}
	
} else { 

$message = 'Please provide a username.'; 

} 

return $message; 

} 

add_shortcode('membersince', 'wpb_user_registration_date');

Next, you can display a user’s registration date by simply using the shortcode like this:

[membersince user=peter]

Replace peter with the username that you want to show.

We hope this article helped you show registration date in WordPress user profiles. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to add additional user profile fields in WordPress registration.

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 User Registration Date in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Spread The Holiday Spirit with Xmas Widget in WordPress

Do you want to show personalized holiday greetings on your website? One of our users recently asked if there was a way to add a Christmas card in WordPress? We did some research and found an easy solution. In this article, we will show you how to spread the holiday spirit with Xmas Widget in WordPress.

What is Xmas Widget for WordPress?

Xmas Widget is a premium WordPress plugin that allows you to display beautiful holiday greetings on your website. It is fully customizable, and you can add your own greetings, background images, and control animations like snow fall and snow accumulation.

While the name says Xmas Widget, you can display it anywhere on your WordPress site including posts and pages. It is fully responsive, and you can also manually adjust its width if you want to.

Most importantly, it works with all themes and plugins.

Xmas Widget can be used to just simply greet the users, or you can use it to greet and tell users about special offers on your website.

Setting up Xmas Widget in WordPress

First you will need to purchase the Xmas Widget plugin. Prices start from $14.99 with one year of support and updates.

WPBeginner users can get an exclusive 34% OFF by using the coupon code wpbeginner60.

Note: we don’t get any commission if you buy this plugin. We liked the plugin and asked the author to give our users a discount instead.

After you purchase the plugin, you will need to install and activate the Xmas Widget plugin. Upon activation you need to visit Appearance » Widgets page to setup the plugin.

You will notice that the plugin has added a new sidebar called ‘Xmas Widget Hidden Sidebar’, and a new widget labeled Xmas Widget. Simply add Xmas Widget to the sidebar where you want to display holiday greetings.

You will be asked to provide your plugin license key. After verification, you will be able to see widget options.

First you need to provide a title for your widget. After that you need to enter your greeting message in the content area. You can use HTML in the content area to add links or format text.

Xmas Widget comes with 15 built-in backgrounds that you can choose from. You can also use your own background colors if you want. There are five choices for text fonts and unlimited colors.

You can also add an icon and adjust its position and appearance. Lastly, you can enable Snow build up and Snow animation option. These options would show snow fall animation on your Xmas widget.

Don’t forget to click on the save button to store your widget settings. You can now visit your website to see the Xmas Widget in action.

Add Xmas Widget in WordPress Posts or Pages

As we mentioned earlier, you can add Xmas widget to your WordPress posts and pages as well. Here is how you can do that.

Simply go to Appearance » Widgets page. Add Xmas Widget to ‘Xmas Widget Hidden Sidebar’.

Now you need to setup the widget options like you did earlier and save your widget settings. At the end of the widget, you will find a shortcode like this:

[xmas id=”3″ width=”250px”]

Copy and paste this shortcode to any WordPress page or post. You can even adjust the width of the greeting message to meet your needs.

That’s all, we hope this article helped you spread the holiday spirit with Xmas Widget on your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how add points system in WordPress to ignite user engagement.

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 Spread The Holiday Spirit with Xmas Widget in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Search Engine Watch team

Join us as we set our 'out of office' till Monday 30 November and find the roomiest pair of sweatpants in our wardrobe.

How to Restore a WordPress Site with Just a Database Backup

We always recommend our users to make complete WordPress backups on a regular basis. But what if you unknowingly used one of the free plugins that only make database backups? In this article, we will show you how to restore a WordPress site with just a database backup. It will not be a complete restore, but we will show you how you can minimize the damage.

Getting Started

For the sake of this tutorial, we are assuming that you have your WordPress database backup in a zip file. If you do not have one yet, here is how to make a WordPress database backup manually.

If you are recovering from a bad experience with your web hosting provider, then it is probably the time to find a better host. We have hand picked some of the best WordPress hosting providers. These are the companies that we have worked with and trust with our own projects.

Also see: 7 Key Indicators when you should switch your WordPress hosting.

Preparing to Restore WordPress Database Backup

First, you will need to create a new database. Simply login to your cPanel account and click on MySQL Databases under the Database section.

Next, provide a name for your database and then click on create database button.

Now that you have created a database, you need a MySQL user who will be assigned all privileges to work on your newly created database.

On the same MySQL databases page, scroll down to MySQL users section and add a new user.

Provide a username and a strong password for your database user and then click on create user button.

Next, you need to add this user to the MySQL database. Scroll down to ‘Add user to database’ section and select the user along with the database from the drop down menus and then click on the add button.

Your new database is now ready for WordPress.

Importing WordPress Database Backup

First you need to visit the cPanel dashbaord. Under the databases section, you need to click on phpMyAdmin.

On then next step, select the database you created earlier on the phpMyAdmin page and then click on the Import button.

Now you need to click on the choose file button to upload your WordPress database backup file. Simply click on the go button at the bottom of the page to start importing.

You will see a success message when the import job is finished.

You have successfully imported your WordPress database. Now the next step is to install WordPress using your new database.

Restoring Your WordPress Site

For a manual restore of WordPress, you will need to manually install WordPress on your server. Visit our step by step WordPress installation tutorial and jump to the section ‘how to install WordPress using FTP’ for detailed instructions.

During the installation, when you reach ‘create a configuration file’ step. Enter the database name and user you created earlier.

You will now see a message that WordPress can connect to your database, and you can run the installation now.

Clicking on the install button will now show you the ‘Already Installed’ message.

That’s all you can now proceed to login to your WordPress site.

Restoration Troubleshooting

Since you do not have your old WordPress files, there will be several things missing. Some of them can be easily restored while others will be a bit difficult. We will go through all of them one by one.

1. Theme

Simply install a fresh copy of your old WordPress theme. If you made direct changes to your theme files, then all those changes will be gone.

You will have to go through theme options to set it up the way it was before.

2. Widgets

Widgets play an important role in WordPress themes. Luckily, they are stored in your WordPress database and switching to your old theme will restore some of your widgets.

You can always go to Appearance » Widgets to add and rearrange widgets in your sidebars.

Some WordPress plugins come with their own widgets. In order to use those widgets, you will first need to install and activate those plugins.

3. Permalinks

Your site’s permalink structure is also stored in database, and it will be automatically restored. However, if you are seeing 404 errors on front-end of your site, then you need to refresh permalink settings.

Simply go to Settings » Permalinks and click on the save changes button without changing anything. This will refresh your WordPress url structure.

4. Plugins

WordPress stores a record of your site’s active plugins. When you visit the plugins page for the first time, WordPress will show you a list of errors for each plugin that was in the database but is not installed anymore.

Copy all the plugin names and start installing and activating them one by one.

Recovering Lost Images for your WordPress Site

Finding and replacing lost images on your website would be the trickiest part of the recovery. Depending on how much content and images you have, this can take a long time.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way around it. You will have to use a variety of tools to extract your images from different sources. Your chances of recovering all images are fairly low.

1. Look in Your Browser Caches

If you have recently lost your website, then you can look into your browser cache.

Firefox users can download CacheViewer2 add-on to easily find images from their website stored in browser cache.

You can just right click on an image and select save as from the menu.

Google Chrome users on Windows can try Chrome Cache Viewer.

Google Chrome users on Mac will be out of luck. We were unable to find any reasonable solution to browse, preview, and save image from Google Chrome cache on Mac.

2. Look for Your Images in Web Caches

There are several web services that keep cached versions of websites. You can start by looking for your images in Google’s image search. Simply enter your site’s URL and you will be able to see images Google found on your website.

You can click on an image to see a larger preview and save the image.

If you are restoring a much older site and can’t find images on Google or Bing, then you can try Archive.org. It is a non-profit organization that stores snapshots of websites for historical purposes.

Finding and Replacing Images on Your Website

If you did not have much content on your old site, then you can manually replace images in your posts. However, if you have a lot of content then finding and replacing images manually will be difficult.

Here is how you can easily locate broken images and replace them.

First, you need to install and activate the Broken Link Checker plugin. Upon activation, simply go to Tools » Broken Links Checker page. The plugin will show you a list of all broken links on your site.

Broken images are also considered broken links, so they will appear in the list as well. You can click on the link text column to sort the broken links list to show images first.

Now you can replace the images that you have recovered by editing posts. For the images that you were not able to recover, you can either try to recreate them or simply unlink them.

Bonus Tip

It will be hard to recover all your lost data. Your site may even show errors and affect user experience. This is why you see many experts strongly urging you to set up automatic backups.

We recommend using BackupBuddy. It is a premium WordPress backup plugin with easy restore options and the ability to automatically create and save your backups on the cloud.

That’s all, we hope this article helped you restore your WordPress site from database backup. You may also want to see our list of 13 vital tips and hacks to protect your WordPress admin area.

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 Restore a WordPress Site with Just a Database Backup appeared first on WPBeginner.