How much do you know about your website?

It may sound like a simple question, but you’d be surprised how many people aren’t able to answer it. Sure, you probably know everything about the layout, design, content, and navigation on your site. But I’m referring to your website’s performance.

Here’s the thing: Unless you’re bombarded with sales, signups, or comments on a daily basis, it’s difficult to know what’s happening on your website. For those of you who have a new website, you’re probably wondering if your site is even working.

Now, let’s get back to the initial question about how much you know, though this time I’ll be more specific.

• How much traffic does your website have?
• Where are these visitors coming from?
• How long do they stay on your site?
• Which online campaigns drive the most traffic and conversions?
• What’s your top performing content?
• Which pages aren’t performing well?
• What are people searching for on your website?
• What’s stopping your customers from converting?

As you can see, these questions are a bit more in-depth. The knowledge required to answer these goes far beyond being able to regurgitate the titles of your last few blog posts.

But this isn’t something you can track or measure by hand. You’ll need to take advantage of online tools and resources. That’s why you need to set up a Google Analytics account.

If you’re using WordPress, you can integrate Google Analytics with your site to view all of these insights without having to leave your WordPress administrative dashboard. The solution? Plugins.

It doesn’t matter if you’re website is new or old. It doesn’t matter if you have an ecommerce site or blog. Every website can benefit from Google Analytics plugins. So check out my list to determine which plugin is best for your situation. I took the time to research and identify the best Google Analytics plugins for WordPress.

1. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

Formally known as GADWP, the Google Analytics Dashboard for WP by ExactMetrics is definitely one of the most popular options. This plugin has more than one million active installations.

With the Google Analytics Dashboard for WP, you’ll be able to use the latest Google Analytics tracking code to monitor your WordPress site. This is great for those of you who don’t want to manually insert the tracking code. Once installed, you’ll be able to view all of your Google Analytics statistics from the WordPress dashboard. This makes things much easier for you.

You’ll be able to track key stats in real-time, such as:

• Real-time visitors
• Real-time acquisition channels
• Real-time sources of traffic

The plugin also helps you track specific events on your site. Some of these include emails, downloads, page scrolling depth, and affiliate links. You can even create notated HTML elements that allow you to track custom events and actions.

One of the key features of this plugin is the front-end viewing option. As an administrator, you can set up your reports on the front-end of any page on your site. You can also allow these front-end viewing permissions for other people who work on the website like editors, authors, and contributors.

Some of the most popular reports you can view with the Google Analytics Dashboard for WP include:

• Page views
• Bounce rates
• Traffic channels and mediums
• Browers
• Operating systems
• Screen resolutions
• Social networks
• 404 errors
• Keywords
• Locations

Why is this information so important? The data allows you to learn more about the browsing behavior of people on your website. You can use these insights to create a customer persona that improves conversion rates.

Just like Google Analytics, the Google Analytics Dashboard for WP plugin is also free. So it’s a great option for those of you are looking for a free Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. Overall, it’s a top option for any website.

2. MonsterInsights

More than two million WordPress websites are using the MonsterInsights plugin. I love this plugin because it’s so easy to install and use. You can get the plugin configured in just minutes.

This is much simpler than having to manually add your Google Analytics code, set up your event tracking, configure your ecommerce tracking (if applicable), and deal with the learning curve of Google Analytics.

MonsterInsights simplifies everything for you, directly from your WordPress dashboard. You can enable specific Google Analytics features with just one click. There is no coding required.

The plugin provides you with extensive reports about your website. I’ll go through each one briefly and list the benefits.

Audience Report

• Gender
• Age breakdown
• Device (desktop, mobile, tablet)
• Location
• Categories

You could learn that the majority of your traffic is coming from men in the United States between the ages of 25 and 34. These users are browsing from mobile devices.

Behavior Report

• Sessions
• Pageviews
• Average session duration
• Bounce rate
• Referrals
• Search terms
• Outbound links

If you identify specific outbound links on your website that are very popular, you can use that as a potential partnership opportunity. You’ll also be able to focus on referral channels that are driving the most traffic.

Content Report

The content report shows you the top performing landing pages. You’ll see the visits, average duration and bounce rate for each page. Based on these results, you can optimize those pages to drive conversions.

Ecommerce Report

• Conversion rates
• Transactions
• Revenue
• Average order value
• Top conversion sources

Obviously, this report is specifically for ecommerce websites. It’s useful information that will help you increase conversions and revenue.

You can’t go wrong by installing the MonsterInsights plugin. The only catch is that it’s not free. Pricing starts at $99.50 per year. But if you have an ecommerce site, you’ll want to go with the pro version that’s $199.50 annually. MonsterInsights even has a plan for agencies and developers, which costs $499.50. That’s not bad considering you can use it on 25 sites.

3. Analytify

Like the other plugins we’ve seen, Analytify also eliminates the need for you to manually add your Google Analytics tracking code to your site. All you need to do is install the plugin and authenticate it with one click to automatically add the code. This is a relief for those of you who are hesitant to add code to your WordPress site. Without any coding experience, even a simple copy and paste can be a bit intimidating.

Analytify has all of the standard Google Analytics reports and statistics. You can view all of them from your WordPress dashboard. What makes this plugin stand apart from other options are the extras. They offer premium add-ons for things like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads integrations.

Depending on the type of website you have, you may want to show website visitors your statistics as well. For example, let’s say you have a business directory site. The companies that are listed on your site would want to know certain metrics. So you can enable front-end viewing reports.

The Analytify WordPress plugin is great for ecommerce businesses. They have enhanced ecommerce tracking. You’ll know how many visitors added items to their shopping cart and also gain insights for when people are leaving the cart. This information will help you reduce shopping cart abandonment by optimizing your checkout process.

You’ll also see things like:

• Transactions
• Revenue
• Average order value
• Product checkouts
• Unique purchases
• Product clicks
• Product detail views

Another reason why I recommend this plugin is because it provides you with automated email reports. You can gain deeper insights for specific campaigns, posts, and pages.

The shortcodes offered by Analytify allow you to integrate your data into custom templates.

Furthermore, you can manage your UTM campaigns with Analytify as well. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this or want to learn more, refer to my guide on how to track your leads with UTM parameters. It’s nice knowing that you can monitor those campaigns directly from this WordPress plugin.

Pricing for Analytify starts at $39 for one site. Add-ons are purchased separately. Those all fall within the $19 to $49 range. Analytify also offers an all-in-one bundle for $129 per year that includes your Analytify install and every add-on. This is the most cost-effective deal if you’re planning to purchase add-ons.

4. WP Google Analytics Events

Google Analytics already offers insights for event tracking that allow you to monitor specific user interactions with content on your website. Think: clicks, downloads, flash element or AJAX embedded element interactions, video plays, and gadgets. Events are made to help you monitor custom metrics that aren’t based on something simple, like page views. Just because someone navigated to your homepage, it doesn’t tell you if they scrolled to view your pricing table.

Neat, right?

The only problem is these events can be tough to manually set up and configure with Google Analytics.

Without a plugin, you’ll have to some extra work based on the type of event that you want to track:

Then you’ll have to write commands. When it’s done, it will look something like this:

Here’s another example:

Again, it’s complicated. Even the Google Analytics developer page with these instructions says, “tracking outbound links and forms can be tricky.”

The WP Google Analytics Events plugin simplifies this process. You can do all of this without having to worry about any coding.

So if you want more detailed information with how users are interacting with specific pages on your website, you’ll want to install this plugin. It’s much easier and less complex than the standard coding process for event tracking. You can download and install the WP Google Analytics Events plugin to your WordPress site for free.

5. Enhanced Ecommerce Google Analytics Plugin for WooCommerce

In case the name didn’t give it away, the Enhanced Ecommerce Google Analytics Plugin for WooCommerce is designed specifically for ecommerce sites. Google Analytics recently launched a new feature for enhanced ecommerce statistics. That’s what this plugin focuses on.

I like this plugin because it’s so fast and easy to install. Once you install it, you’ll be able to track the behavior of your website visitors across your entire ecommerce site. You’ll learn about everything they do from the home page to the product views, all the way to the thank you pages.

These are some of the detailed reports you’ll get:

• Shopping behavior report
• Checkout behavior report
• Product performance report
• Sales performance report

The plugin tracks product impresses, clicks, and add-to-cart rates on every page. If you don’t want to bounce back and forth between your WordPress dashboard and Google Analytics dashboard, this plugin will let you view everything from one place.

Conclusion

Every website can benefit from Google Analytics. (You’ve already installed, right? If not, do it now. Right now. Go. Install it now.)

But you can simplify your insights by getting all of your reports and information directly from your WordPress dashboard. All you need to do is install a plugin. So what’s the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress?

For those of you who want a free all in one plugin, you should consider Google Analytics Dashboard for WP. If you’re a developer, have an agency, or want added reports for an annual premium, you should look into MonsterInsights.

Ecommerce websites would benefit from plugins like Analytify or the Enhanced Ecommerce Google Analytics Plugin for WooCommerce.

Maybe you don’t want all of these features, and you’d rather focus on something specific, like event tracking. If that’s the case, WP Google Analytics Events will be your best bet.

No matter what type of website you have, I know there’s a Google Analytics plugin for you on this list.

Source link

Creating a website used to be a massive project.

And expensive too.

Everything had to be built by hand and businesses needed to work with an online marketing agency that would charge them tens of thousands of dollars to build the site. If you wanted a professional-looking site, that was your only option.

Things have gotten a lot cheaper over the years.

Now it’s possible to get a polished site for less than $100. About $10 to buy the domain, $30–60 for a good template, and $5–10/month to host it. It’ll look so good that people won’t even realize that you built it yourself. It’ll look like some high-flying marketing agency built it for you.

Not only has it gotten cheaper, it’s also gotten a lot easier.

I’ve broken down the 9 simple steps to create your website from scratch. You’ll easily be able to run through these steps over the next 120 minutes.

Step 1: Pick a Name and Find a Domain

These are not two separate steps, unfortunately.

I really wish I could sit down, pick any name that I want for my business, and be able to create the site that I want around that name. Now that the internet is a couple of decades old, we all have to face the reality that most of the good domains have been taken.

Here’s how a naming session always seems to go for me:

1. In a moment of inspiration, we think of an amazing name.
2. We hold on to this name for months, maybe even years.
3. It’s time to start the business, so we go to purchase the domain.
4. The domain is taken.
5. We try a dozen small variations of our original idea, all taken.
6. No biggie, we thought of one brilliant name, we’ll think of another one.
7. Backup idea #2 = taken.
8. Backup idea #3 = taken.
9. Backup idea #4 = taken.
10. Despair sets in.
11. We start considering names that we don’t actually like, hoping that anything is available.
12. We come up with 2 or 3 options that we don’t like at all.
13. Then we spend a week trying to come up with a name that’s both available and a name that we can live with.
14. Finally, we find one.

Websites have also become so embedded in our day-to-day lives that it’s better to change the name of the business to match an available domain than it is to pick a poor quality domain. Through this process, I almost always end up with a completely different name than I originally intended.

This is why I consider the “naming my business” and “buying the domain” steps for creating a business to be the same step. I try to only lock myself into a name once I have the domain.

We put together an in-depth guide on buying domains here.

The good news is that the rest of these steps are a breeze once you have your domain purchased. It’s the first and hardest step.

Step 2: Register Your Domain

Real quick, let’s sort out the difference between a domain registrar and a web host.

A domain registrar is a company that specializes in buying (registering) domains.

A web host, on the other hand, specializes in running servers that host websites.

Every web host will desperately try to get you to also registrar a domain through them. The reason is that it’s a great upsell for them. They’ve spent most of their resources building out a hosting service, then they offer domain registration as a convenience, increase the price a bit, and collect a nice chunk of extra profit from you.

My philosophy is to buy things from businesses that specialize in that exact thing. Prices will be better and so will quality. That’s why I also use a domain registrar for buying domains and a web host for hosting. I never mix up the two.

We put together a detailed review of domain registrars here.

Step 3: Decide What Kind of Site You Want

Most guides on creating a website will push you into using WordPress. It’s the most popular and flexible website builder. And that’s usually a good recommendation.

But there are a few situations where I recommend different options.

Simple Portfolio or “Business Card” Sites

Many businesses need a simple website that tells people a few things:

• Who the business is for
• What the business does
• Sometimes a portfolio that shows off some work
• Contact info

This kind of site gives the basic info for the business, nothing more. If this is what you need, Squarespace is your best option for creating your website. It’s incredibly simple to use and will give you a professional site at a very low price. It’s perfect for small businesses.

Squarespace will try to convince you that they can handle everything. That’s not true.

They’ve created the simplest and easiest website builder out there. Truly, it’s a joy to use.

However, they completely lack all the advanced features that an online business needs. The ecommerce functionality is extremely limited, and I don’t know any serious online marketer that uses Squarespace for a content site. If your business an online business, Squarespace isn’t a legitimate option. You’ll hit the limits of its features too fast.

If you know that you want an ecommerce store from the beginning, start on Shopify and skip Squarespace. And if you know you want a blog or are planning on doing lots of content, start on WordPress.

Squarespace makes the most sense when you just need a clean, professional-looking site that gives some basic info on your business. It’s perfect for small businesses, freelancers, and artists.

Here’s another way to think about it: If you’re building a business that doesn’t live and die on its website, it just needs a website in case anyone looks for it, like a business card, then go with Squarespace. But if you’re website is your business, use one of the more tailored platforms.

Ecommerce Sites

If you’re planning on building an ecommerce store for your site, don’t use WordPress. We have an entire post here on when to use WordPress for ecommerce and when not to. The short story: it rarely makes sense to use WordPress for ecommerce.

The best option, by far, is Shopify. There used to be more competition in the ecommerce tool space but Shopify got too far ahead. Now they’re really the only option and they have an incredible reputation. You won’t regret using them for an ecommerce site.

If you’re going this route, we have a 9-step guide on how to create an ecommerce website. We also have a guide on how to start a store that drives real sales. Both of those guides will get you pointed in the right direction.

Blog Sites

If you want to create a blog with a bunch of content, you need to use WordPress. We have a detailed guide on starting blogs here.

WordPress powers over 30% of the entire internet. So it’s the only real option for starting a blog these days.

What about Joomla or Drupal? Or Typepad?

WordPress left all those other platforms in the dust about a decade ago. They’re not even legitimate options at this point. Pick WordPress — there isn’t a single situation where you’ll regret it.

When I originally started with this online thing, Drupal sites were still pretty common. I partnered up with an engineer friend of mine and we did a lot of freelance work migrating sites from Drupal to WordPress. Even back then, WordPress was a clear winner.

Now when I come across a site on any of these other tools, it’s kind of exciting. It’s like finding an ancient artifact. “This still exists!? How fascinating!”

Don’t use any of these other tools, stick to WordPress.

Everything Else

If you’re not sure or have another vision for your site outside the categories above, use WordPress. It’s the most flexible platform out there. It will do ecommerce, it’ll do simple portfolios, it’ll do massive content sites, it’ll do Fortune 500 marketing sites, it’ll do it all.

You might have to customize it more than other platforms in some situations but you can make WordPress do whatever you want it to. And just about anyone in online marketing knows their way around WordPress so you’ll be able to find plenty of people to help you when the time comes.

Whether you want to build your site by hand or you have an online marketing agency to do it for you, you should still build on top of WordPress. It’ll shortcut a lot of the programming work and give you the ability to edit basic items on your site without having to edit any code. I’ve managed marketing sites of venture-backed tech startups that employed dozens of engineers — we still had our marketing site built on top of WordPress. It’s the standard choice.

Step 4: Get a Host for Your Website

For the rest of this guide, I’m going to assume that you’ve picked WordPress to build your site. If you want an ecommerce site, skip the rest of this guide and follow our guide on creating an ecommerce site.

WordPress is the tool that you’ll use to build your website. But you also need a host that will store your site and make it available to anyone who visits.

We have an entire guide here that goes through all the best web hosts.

Hosting plans usually start around $5/month.

Step 5: Install WordPress

Just about every website host has a 1-click install of WordPress. It’s usually under a section called Tools, Website, Software, or Content Management Systems (CMS). It’ll look something like this:

If you have trouble finding it, contact support at your host and they’ll be able to walk you through it.

Step 6: Point Your Domain to Your Host

Let’s do a quick recap.

• You bought your domain using a domain registrar.
• You signed up for a hosting plan.
• You installed WordPress on your host.

Now you’re going to connect all that stuff together by pointing your domain to your host. Then when people go to your domain, they’ll end up on your site.

There are a few technical settings you need to apply. This involves configuring a few nameserver settings on your domain registrar for your domain. Your host will give you the correct settings; you’re looking for their nameserver settings.

If you get stuck, contact your host and they’ll give you all the info you need.

Once you have the nameserver info from your host, go into your domain registrar and configure those settings for the domain that you want to point at your site. Once you’re done, it’ll look something like this:

Step 7: Install a WordPress Theme

Think of WordPress as the guts of your site, it’s all the pumping that makes your site work.

WordPress uses themes to determine how your site looks. This makes it really easy to change how your site looks without having to rebuild your site from scratch. Swap out your old theme for a new one and ta-da! Your site will look completely different.

These days, I purchase all my themes from StudioPress.

Heads up, WP Engine bought StudioPress and now includes all the StudioPress themes in its hosting plans. WP Engine is more expensive but it’s perfect for serious bloggers. It’s a great way to save money on your theme if you are planning on building a large site to begin with. WP Engine is our recommended host if you’re looking for the best. The downside is that WP Engine tends to be more expensive than other hosts.

Back to themes, are there other options?

You betcha. ThemeForest has a marketplace of WordPress themes. There are literally tens of thousands of themes to pick from. They’re usually in the $30–60 price range. When looking for theme, I rank them by the most popular or the highest rating. Then I pick one I personally like.

After you’ve purchased a theme, go to the WordPress Theme settings and upload your theme. The Theme settings are under Appearance in the WordPress sidebar menu. You’ll have to click through “Add new” and “Upload Theme” in order to see this option to upload:

Go ahead and upload the .zip file you received when you purchased your theme.

After it’s uploaded, you’ll also have to click “activate” on the theme in WordPress to make it go live.

Step 8: Add Content

Now the fun part — it’s time to create the individual pages of your site.

You’ll do this within WordPress.

WordPress has two types of content: pages and posts.

Think of posts as blog posts that are published under a “blog” section of a site. If you’re not planning on having a blog, then you can skip posts entirely.

Pages are the more permanent pages on your website. Like your About or Contact Us pages. When you’re first creating your site, you want to get a batch of pages live so your site feels real.

Every website has a few standard pages you should create:

• Homepage – Your WordPress theme usually has settings for this page.
• Contact Page – Create a new page and install a WordPress form plugin so you can add a form to the page.
• About page – Tell your story and why you’ve started your business.
• Product or services pages – For the main services or products that you’re offering, it’s a good idea to create a dedicated page for each.
• Blog – If you’re building a blog, make sure all your posts get listed here.

This list will get you started. You can always add more later.

Step 9: You’re Done!

At this point, you have a fully functioning site that looks great.

I’m not going to lie, there’s a lot of extra configuration you can do to your site: you can add WordPress plugins that upgrade your site, build out a blog, add an email list, grow traffic, the list is endless.

You don’t have to do any of this extra stuff — it’s all optional. It depends on your priorities and goals.

When you’re ready, these guides will walk you through the extra stuff that’s worth considering:

• The Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
• The 5 Best WordPress Cache Plugins
• The Best Email Marketing Services
• 5 Easy Steps to Creating a Sitemap For a Website
• Brand New Blog. No Traffic. Here’s What to Do.

Source link

WordPress is the most popular content management system. Period. If you have a WordPress site — which you should if your site is a content site — you know how many plugins are available on this platform. There are thousands, literally thousands. I did a search today to see how many WordPress plugins there are. The number? 54,681. It can be a bit overwhelming. With so many plugins to choose from, how can you know which ones are the best?

What you do know is that you want to add a calendar feature to your website. Being able to simply add dates and times is crucial for some businesses. Not every calendar plugin is the same. Some of you will need more advanced calendar features than others. You may need a calendar to keep track of tasks — pretty basic. Or, you may need a more advanced calendar for managing events, bookings, and integrating with ecommerce platforms.

I took the time to find the best WordPress calendar plugins available. So regardless of your situation, you can use this guide to find the one that best suits your needs.

1. The Events Calendar

As the name implies, The Events Calendar WordPress plugin is ideal for any site that’s managing events. There are so many different uses for this feature.

It’s great for musicians who want to showcase their upcoming performances, as well as venue owners who need to display shows coming to their location. If you have a restaurant, church, or nonprofit organization, this plugin is perfect for you. If you’re an author and traveling to promote your book, or speaking at any seminars and conferences, you can benefit from the events calendar. As you can see from these examples, the possibilities are nearly limitless.

Here’s how the plugin looks once you implement it:

In addition to this month view option, you can also organize the calendar by day or list of events.

The microformats will help boost your SEO, and the plugin offers caching support as well as debug mode. It’s compatible with Google Maps, Google Calendar, and iCal as well. So events can be exported and added to other platforms.

Users who are looking at the calendar even have the option to browse for certain events. They won’t have to scroll to find something specific.

The design is fully responsive no matter what device the calendar is being used on. So you won’t have to worry if visitors are browsing from desktops, smartphones, or tablets. This is extremely important since accommodating the needs of mobile users can boost sales.

One of the reasons why The Events Calendar is so popular is because it’s easy to use right out of the box. You’ll be able to figure out how to navigate and use everything in minutes.

You can install this plugin for free, but it does have a few paid options as well. The premium upgrades are very affordable — they cost $89, $149, and $299 per year for personal, business, and agency use, respectively.

2. Booking Calendar

The Booking Calendar is one of the first booking systems ever developed for WordPress. It was originally released back in 2009. Over the last decade, it’s been installed on WordPress sites more than one million times.

It’s safe to say that this plugin has gone through its fair share of updates and changes over the past ten years, which has helped it keep its spot as one of the best WordPress calendar plugins in 2019.

This plugin makes it easy for website visitors to view the availability of something, such as an apartment, hotel, or service, and book directly from the calendar.

Here’s how it works: Let’s say you own a carpet cleaning business. Rather than taking appointments over the phone, which can be inefficient, it’s easy for you to add a user-friendly calendar to your WordPress site. Website visitors can select the day and time for an appointment and fill out form fields to book the cleaning. This is much more user-friendly than requiring them to pick up the phone and going back and forth about possible dates. I know I’d much rather book online. If you make me pick up a phone, I’m a lot less likely to follow through with the booking.

As you can see, the functionality of this plugin can be applied to so many different websites and businesses. From the backend, it’s easy for the admin to view, manage, and customize all of the bookings. Booking Calendar lets you set limits to avoid double bookings. Dates and times will automatically become unavailable once your limits have been reached. This calendar plugin can manage an entire year in advance.

The administrative features give you the option to approve or deny bookings as well. You can set it up so you receive email notifications when something gets added to your calendar. That way you can plan your schedule accordingly, and won’t have to keep manually checking WordPress to see if anything has been changed.

3. Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin

I don’t mean to be redundant, but the Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin is as simple as it gets. The reason why it made my list is because it’s so easy for anyone to use, even if you don’t have any technical experience.

This plugin has more limited features compared to other calendars, but sometimes too many elements add unnecessary complexity. For those of you who don’t need all of the extras and frills, the Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin is perfect.

Once you install the plugin, you’ll be able to display any event from a Google Calendar, which means you won’t need to re-create any events manually in WordPress.

You can use tags to customize your events without having to do any coding.

It’s easy to integrate this plugin with other tools to turn your calendar into a format that’s easy to distribute as a newsletter. This feature allows you to share the calendar with your email subscribers without requiring them to to visit your website.

Like most options, this plugin lets you view calendars in a monthly grid or a list view. The advanced settings will automatically adjust for time zones, as well as the date and time formats, depending on where your site visitors are located.

I’d recommend this plugin to anyone who doesn’t needed too many advanced features in a WordPress calendar. For lack of a better word, I’d describe this plugin the same way it does — simple.

4. EventON

As you probably guessed, the EventON WordPress plugin is made for managing events.

The design of this calendar is what makes this plugin stand apart from other options. If you want a sleek and beautifully designed calendar that fits with your pages and themes, this will be a top choice for you to consider. With this plugin you can customize the look to match with the trending color schemes on your website.

There’s a lot to like about it as well. It’s easy for users to search for events or navigate from month to month. It readily handles events lasting for multiple days, months at a time, or even all year. And, you can highlight featured events that you want to promote more and jump off of the page. Each event has a title, date, time, address, and photo. You can also add a description of the event, as well as an additional image showing the location.

People can even get directions to the location directly from the event listing on your website. All they need to do is type their address into Google Maps, which is integrated on the screen.

EventON lets users buy tickets to events with Woocommerce support. But you’ll need to pay extra for that add on.

EventON is arguably the best WordPress calendar plugin for managing and promoting events on your website. It’s not free, but there is a demo for you to try if you’re interested. All of the premium features are purchased separately, so you can customize the plugin to meet your needs.

5. All-in-One Event Calendar

All-in-One Event Calendar is another one of my favorite WordPress plugins. I like it because it’s so easy to use within WordPress. Just look at how simple this new event page is to configure.

Everything is so straightforward. All you need to do is fill out the form fields, add the dates and times, and you’re good to go. There are settings for the location details, contact information, as well as a section for purchasing tickets. The plugin automatically helps optimize your events for SEO purposes. You can embed Google Maps into each event as well, so it’s one less step for people who need directions. They can do this directly from your website.

You can sync All-in-One Event Calendar with other platforms, including:

• Google Calendar
• iCalendar
• MS Outlook

Site visitors can view the calendar by month, week, day, or poster board and it’s easy to filter events. I especially like the color coding feature for grouping events in certain categories. For example, let’s say you own a restaurant. You can add different colors for things like karaoke, trivia, or happy hour, so it’s easy for people to find what they’re looking for. (For me, that’d be a hard no on karaoke, and a hearty yes on trivia and happy hour.)

The basic version of All-in-One Event Calendar is free. The pro version starts at $9 per month, but there are more advanced options for $29 and $99. But I think the majority of sites will have their needs met with the free version or the $9 pro version at most.

6. My Calendar

My Calendar is likely the best option for adding multiple calendars on your WordPress website, or if you have multiple sites that need to display the same calendar. My Calendar is multi-site friendly, so you can add calendars to a network of sites that you’re managing directly from a single WordPress install. So you can essentially share events within the network by fetching them from a remote database. Unlike other plugins that we’ve seen so far, My Calendar has a mini-calendar view, which is ideal for a compact display on your site or sites.

Once an event has been created, you can automatically have it posted to Twitter, set up email notifications whenever a new event is scheduled, and you can easily schedule and manage recurring events.

You’ll also have the option to create custom templates for your calendars. If you’re a designer or developer, this plugin will give you lots of flexibility to create custom calendars for your WordPress site.

Conclusion

There you have it. These are the top six WordPress calendar plugins of 2019.

Use this guide to determine which plugin is the best for your website. Not all of these plugins offer the same options and functionality. So you’ll want to make sure that you find one that covers your needs.

At the same time, you don’t want to get a WordPress calendar plugin that’s too complex. If you need something that’s simple, you can find an option that’s more on the basic side. Like I said earlier, one of my business mantras is: No unnecessary complications. Keep it simple. Whizbang features you don’t need can slow you down, instead of speeding you up.

There are tons of other WordPress calendar plugins, but in my experience, these are the best ones.

Source link