Much more than a profile generator, ProfileGrid is a feature-packed user profile, member, and directory plugin. The ability to create and manage user groups means you can have different profile permissions for different user groups.

Does that sound like what you’ve been looking for? Let’s get right to it.

1. Installing the ProfileGrid Plugin

Log in to your WordPress admin panel.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Plugins” link and click the “Add New” link.

In the “Search plugins…” box, enter, “ProfileGrid.”

When you find the plugin, click the “Install Now” button.

Now the plugin is installed, but it has to be activated before you can use it.

Click the “Activate” button.

That’s all there is to it. Now let’s put the plugin to work.

2. How to Use the ProfileGrid Group Manager Plugin

There are far more configuration and use options than I can adequately cover in this tutorial. (Just to give an example, there are more than 80 shortcodes listed on this page.) ProfileGrid is a full-featured plugin, and there’s a lot to discover.

So as a starting point, let’s go over the basic steps to implement the user profiles.

Pages Created by ProfileGrid

When you activate ProfileGrid, it creates six pages.

• /all-groups displays a list of all of the ProfileGrid Groups. User can sign up to become a member of a group from here.
• /default-user-group is a display page for the default group. You can edit the ID in the shortcode on the page to make it display any other group as the default.
• /my-profile displays all the profile information for the logged-in user.
• /registration is where a user can register to become a member of a group. Like the /default-user-group page, a shortcode can be used to change the default group registration for the page.
• /login is the front-end website log in for users.
• /forgot-password users can set a new password here.

As you can see, many of those pages are for groups. We’ll get to those in a minute.

For now, take a look at /my-profile to see the user profile created by ProfileGrid.

The tiny text in the default styling leaves a bit to be desired. But adding a couple of lines to the Additional CSS for your theme is a quick fix.

.pmagic {
	font-family: inherit;
	font-size: inherit;
}

You can style that class further, of course. But adding the CSS above will make the typography for all the ProfileGrid-generated pages match your theme.

Displaying the User Profiles

What if you want to display user profile information outside of the plugin-generated pages? That’s where the shortcodes come in.

As an example, we’ll display a grid of all of the site users on a new “Users” page of our demo site.

First, I’ll create a Users page and add a shortcode block.

Then I’ll paste the user grid shortcode, [profilegrid_users], into the block. If you use the “classic” WordPress editor, you’ll just paste the shortcode where you want the user grid to appear.

You can see where some further styling could come in handy, but that’s the basic grid.

Changing the Default User Profile Images

If a user hasn’t uploaded a profile picture or a cover image, defaults are used. If you want to set different default images, you can do that globally.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “ProfileGrid” link and click the “Global Settings” link.

Click the “User Accounts” link or icon.

Scroll down and upload images to the “Default Profile Image,” and “Default Cover Image” sections.

Click the “Save” button, and the default images have changed.

3. Setting User Groups

Groups are a big part of the ProfileGrid plugin, and it excels at group creation and management.

We’ll create a sample group so you can see how to do the basics. But there are a lot of group functions that you can take advantage of.

• You can create multiple user profile types.
• Each group can have different profile fields.
• You can assign different users as group managers or moderators.
• Each group can have a different registration process.
• Visitors or members can join or request membership for each different group.
• You can set limits for the number of members in each group.
• Groups can be mapped to WordPress “roles.”
• The user profiles on the directory page(s) can be filtered based on group membership.
• Groups can be either public or private (the group manager or site administrator approves membership in private groups).
• Users can belong to multiple groups.

Creating a New User Group

To create a group, in the left column navigation, click the “ProfileGrid” link.

That will land you on the Group Manager page. There’s already one group present, the “Default User Group.” That was created when the plugin was installed, and it’s what we’ve been looking at so far.

Enter a name for the new group and click the “Add New Group” link.

Creating a Registration Page for the New User Group

The new group is active, and you can assign users to it on the back end. But if you want to allow new or existing users to join, you’ll need a form they can complete.

To create a registration page for the new group, paste the shortcode [PM_Registration ID=”2″] into a new registration page, and publish it.

The ID value in the PM_Registration shortcode is the group ID. You can find that in the group box on the Group Manager page.

Adding Fields to a Group Registration Page

Now you have a registration page, but all it asks for is an email address.

To add more fields to the registration form, go back to the Group Manager page. Hover over the bottom part of the box for your new group and click the “Fields” button.

Click the “New Field” link.

Now you can select the other form fields you want to include in the registration form.

There are several options for each field that you add, but only the “Profile Field Name” is required.

Here, I’ve added a few fields to the form, but I want to change the order in which they appear. It’s easy to rearrange the fields. Just double click and hold on the lines to drag the fields to a new location.

Now the fields appear on the form in the proper order.

What Happens if You Uninstall the ProfileGrid Plugin

If you uninstall the plugin, pages and posts that used it will be affected.

• Pages created by the plugin will be deleted.
• Plugin-related pages that you created yourself will have to be edited or deleted manually.
• The plugin shortcodes will stop working, so the shortcodes themselves will be displayed as text anywhere they were used.

The plugin creates database tables that are not removed when the plugin is uninstalled. If you want to delete them, look for tables with the “promag_” prefix.

The above issues are what we found in our testing. There may be other issues our testing did not uncover.

WordPress User Profiles As They Should Be

ProfileGrid does user profiles, sure. And that’s something that’s always been missing from the core WordPress installation, so it’s a good thing. That on its own is reason enough to use the plugin.

But it would be difficult to find a better group manager plugin than ProfileGrid. If you have group management needs, it’s definitely worth a closer look.

As I mentioned, I was only able to scratch the surface in this tutorial. It would take a dozen tutorials just like this to do it justice and really delve into the plugin’s capabilities.

Would you use ProfileGrid for its user profile abilities alone? Are you currently using a plugin user management system?

Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

The post How to Use the WordPress Group Manager Plugin ProfileGrid appeared first on GreenGeeks.

It’s called ProfileGrid, and it gives you a full-featured user registration, management, and profile capabilities.

ProfileGrid makes it easy to set up multi-author blogs, groups, communities, and memberships. It can handle paid memberships and even integrates with bbPress and WooCommerce. It takes WordPress profiles to an entirely new level.

As you might imagine, there’s a lot to take in where the ProfileGrid WordPress profile plugin is concerned. So I’m not going to pretend to provide an in-depth user guide. That would require half a dozen articles like this one.

Instead, I’ll cover the basics of plugin setup and configuring groups and group membership registration pages. After that, you’ll want to take your time to explore the many ways ProfileGrid can benefit your site.

Installing the ProfileGrid WordPress User Profile Plugin

Log in to your WordPress admin panel.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Plugins” link and click the “Add New” link.

In the “Search plugins…” box, enter “ProfileGrid.”

Once you have located the plugin, click the “Install Now” button.

When the plugin has been installed, click the “Activate” button.

ProfileGrid Pages

When ProfileGrid is activated, it creates several pages.

• All Groups (URL: /all-groups)
  The page that displays a list of all ProfileGrid Groups. A visitor can check out any group from this page and sign up to become a member.
• Default User Group (URL: /default-user-group)
  The page that displays all the information for the default group. You can edit the shortcode on this page to make it display any group or create separate pages for each group.
• My Profile (URL: /my-profile)
  This page displays the ProfieGrid profile information for a specific user. It includes notifications, personal messages, blog posts, and settings.
• Registration (URL: /registration)
  Registration to become a member of a group. Like the Default User Group page, you can edit the shortcode on this page to do registration for any group. You can also create separate registration pages for each group (I’ll show you how to do that in a minute).
• Login (URL: /login)
  The default ProfileGrid page for user login on the front-end of your site.
• Forgot Password (URL: /forgot-password)
  Set a new password.
• Search Users (URL: /search-users)
  Search all ProfileGrid profile pages.
• Submit New Blog Post (URL: /submit-new-blog-post)
  If you’re using ProfileGrid to manage a multi-user blog, this is where the users submit posts.
• User Blogs (URL: /user-blogs)
  If you’re using ProfileGrid to manage a multi-user blog, this is a list of the authors.

Creating User Groups

User groups are the backbone of ProfileGrid. You can create separate registration forms for specific groups. This allows you to use different group-appropriate custom fields.

Groups can be used as social groups or profile types.

To create a new group, in the left column navigation, mouse over the “ProfileGrid” link and click the “ProfileGrid” link. That will take you to the Group Manager.

There is a Default User Group that contains all of your current users.

Creating a new group is not a requirement for using ProfileGrid. If you think you’ll only need a single group, you can use the Default User Group. It can be renamed by clicking the red “Default User Group” link.

To create a new group, enter a group name, and click the “Add New Group” link.

The new group is displayed in the Group Manager.

As you can see, a shortcode has also been created, [PM_Group ID=”2″]. That’s the shortcode used to display the team on a page. You can create a page and add the shortcode manually, or click the red “+” icon to create a page for the group automatically.

We aren’t going to look at that page yet since there are no users in the group. Let’s remedy that.

Adding Members to a Group

To add existing members to a group, click the “Members” link under “ProfileGrid” in the left column navigation.

Click the “View” link for the member you want to add.

Click the “Edit” link.

That will take you to the standard WordPress user profile editor. But if you scroll down, you’ll see some new profile fields that ProfileGrid has added.

The “User Group(s)” section is where you assign users to groups. So in this case, I’ll add the user to the new group. But, I’ll also keep her in the default group by hitting the Ctrl key while selecting the new one.

Then click the “Update User” button.

Now when we go back to the Group Manager page, you can see the user is listed as a member of the group.

The group members will keep the WordPress user roles that they had before you installed ProfileGrid. So if a user was a contributor or an admin, they’d still have those roles.

Once we add all the users to the group, they show up on the group page that we created earlier.

Editing a ProfileGrid Group

In the Group Manager, click the red group name link.

Some of the options of note:

Group Type – If you want people to be able to register themselves in a group, you want this set to “Open.” Closed groups require admin approval or an invitation to join.

Group Page – This is where you choose the page you want to display when users click on this Group’s link. If you clicked the red + icon to create a page for the group automatically, that page will already be associated with the group. If you want to display the default ProfileGrid page for the group, select “None.”

After Registration, Redirect – This controls where the new user is sent after completing the registration form. Options are “None,” “Page,” and “URL.” “Page” lets you choose an existing page from a drop-down menu.

Creating a Registration Form for a Group

Start by creating a new page.

Enter the following shortcode, where ID= is the number associated with the group for which you are creating a registration page. You can find that ID on the Group Manager page.

[ht_message mstyle=”info” title=”” show_icon=”” id=”” class=”” style=”” ][PM_Registration ID=”2″][/ht_message]

Tip: to access all of the available ProfileGrid shortcodes, in the left column navigation, mouse over the “ProfileGrid” link and click the “Shortcodes” link.

Note that ProfileGrid adds a field to the page creation template.

If you toggle that “on,” you have some options for page access. For this tutorial, we’ll leave it off.

When you publish the page, the registration page for the group is live.

Global ProfileGrid Settings

To access the Global Settings, in the left column navigation, mouse over the “ProfileGrid” link and click the “Global Settings” link.

Global Settings contain general options for ProfileGrid.

• GeneralForm – appearance, default pages, attachment settings, etc.
• Security – spam protection, blacklists.
• User Accounts – activation link, manual approvals.
• Email Notifications – admin notifications, multiple email notifications, from email address.
• Tools – import/export options.
• User Blogs – default post status, privacy settings, etc.
• Private Messaging – turn private messaging on or off.
• Friends System – turn friends system on or off.
• Uploads – image widths, sizes, quality.
• SEO – all SEO related options.
• Content Restrictions – how to restrict content for members.
• Registration Forms – Configure RegistrationMagic Integration options.
• Profile Notifications – enable or disable live profile notifications.
• Payments – currency, symbol position, checkout page, etc.

Email Templates

To edit or create new ProfileGrid email templates, in the left column navigation, mouse over the “ProfileGrid” link and click the “Email Templates” link.

Click the “Edit” link to edit an existing message, or the “New Template” link to create a new email.

Extensions

There are ProfileGrid extensions that do some pretty cool things. The free options include bbPress and WooCommerce Integration, User Display Name lets you style usernames and add group-related prefixes or suffixes, and Custom Profile Slugs to change the permalinks to user profiles. There’s even an EventPrime Integration extension that gives you the ability to create ProfileGrid group events by integrating ProfileGrid user groups with EventPrime functions.

To access the extensions, in the left column navigation, mouse over the “ProfileGrid” link and click the “Extensions” link.

The ProfileGrid WordPress Frontend User Profile Plugin Is a Monster

The good kind of monster. One that you want on your side.

As I mentioned, there’s a deep well of features and configuration available here that make ProfileGrid the first and last WordPress profile manager you may ever need.

Have you tried other user management plugins for WordPress? Do you use another tool to create public-facing profile pages for your users or contributors? Let me know in the comments.

The post How to Set Up a WordPress Profile for Groups and Communities appeared first on GreenGeeks.

There are a lot of membership plugins available out there for WordPress. Some are really good, others are very bad. Most of them cost money, but I have found one that is a solid solution for building a WordPress membership site.

Best of all, there is a free version of the plugin that will give you everything you need.

What You Need to Start a WordPress Membership Site

Before we dive into the plugin solution for your membership site, let’s take a quick look at some other things you need to have in place before building your WordPress membership site.

• First off, you need your domain name. There are all sorts of domain names to choose from, and they all work a little differently based on what you are looking for.
• Second, you need to find a solid WordPress hosting company that can give you everything you need to build and host your website.
• Third, you want to install WordPress on your domain name and start building.

Once you have gone through the process above and you have built a website, you will be ready to install and setup this membership plugin and get your WordPress membership site running smoothly.

Setup for a WordPress Membership Site

Once you are squared away the above things, it is time to find a membership plugin. For this, I am suggesting the Ultimate Member plugin.

The Ultimate Member plugin is actually the #1 membership plugin for WordPress. It comes with a slew of features and functionality.

While there are certain paid add-ons that can really take your WordPress membership site to the next level, the core plugin is free.

It offers a ton of features including:

• Front-End User Profiles
• User Registration for Front-End
• Front-End User Login
• Custom Form Fields
• Conditional Logic for Form Fields
• Drag and Drop Form Builder
• User Account Page
• Custom User Roles
• Member Directories
• User Emails
• Content Restriction
• Conditional Navigation Menus
• Show Author posts & Comments on User Profiles
• Developer Friendly With Dozens of Actions and Filters

Like I said, Ultimate Member has everything you need and more to develop a top of the line WordPress membership site.

Install Ultimate Member Plugin

First, install and activate the WordPress Ultimate member plugin from the plugin directory in the WordPress admin area of your website.

Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can click Ultimate Member > Settings in the left sidebar menu of your WordPress dashboard.

This will take us to the main setup and configuration area of the Ultimate Member plugin. From here you can start the setup and configuration process for the plugin. You will see several tabs listed.

They include:

• General
• Access
• Email
• Appearance
• Misc
• Install Info

Let’s go over these tabs one-by-one together. Please remember, there are a lot of options, and the way you set them up will be based on what you want to display, offer and accomplish with your WordPress membership site.

Note: Don’t forget to click on the “Save Changes” button in every setting area to make sure all your settings are saved.

General Settings

The first tab you will see by default is the “General” tab. You will also see some links under the General tab that include pages, users, accounts and uploads. Basically, these are all the general settings for the plugin front end.

Pages: Under this link, you can tell the Ultimate Member plugin which pages of your website you want to use for the membership pages needed. The plugin will automatically build them for you, or you can choose existing pages you have by clicking on the dropdown menu.

Users: From this link, you can fill in the user display settings and functions that you want. Go through them one-by-one and see what you like best. You can hover over any question mark icon for more info on any particular setting.

Account: The account tab allows you to set up how user accounts will work and appear and allows you to add or subtract functionality from users.

Uploads: Create and adjust settings for all uploads and Gravatar functions that the Ultimate Member plugin offers. You get to control how images are handled by your account users.

Access Settings

Now click on the next tab titled “Access.” From here, you can set up how to restrict content, allow access to certain things from certain users and more.

You can also build your own restricted access message that users will see when they are trying to access content they don’t have permission to use or see. You can also restrict, post, page, category and taxonomy access if you want.

Other: Click on the “Other” link and you will be able to access a few more settings such as passwords and other restrictions.

Email Settings

Now click on the “Email” tab. The email settings section is vast, but not complicated. From this area, you will see a long list of email areas, fields and settings. Click on any of the gear icons located to the right of the emails and you will be taken to that particular template.

You can then build and set the template however you like.

Appearance Settings

The appearance settings tab is just that. You will be able to build and set an appearance for everything from here. You will be presented with four links as well under the tab. They include:

• Profile
• Profile Menu
• Registration Form
• Login Form

Go through them one-by-one and choose the settings and layouts that you prefer. You can save and test, view live and finalize them when you think they are perfect.

Misc Settings

Now click on the “Misc” tab. You will be offered a few more miscellaneous settings for the Ultimate Member plugin that you may want to go over and set.

As you can see this area deals with profile titles, caching and Gutenberg blocks.

Install Info

The last tab titled “Install Info” simply gives you all the current installment information for the plugin. There is also the ability to download the install info file if you need it.

Other Settings in Ultimate Member Plugin

When you are done setting up the plugin how you want, you also have some other setting options available to you. These regard forms, user roles and the member directory.

Click on any one of those links in the left sidebar and you will be presented with something to edit.

In this example, I clicked on the “Member Directories” link. You can see that there is only one member directory. You can build more if you want.

Click on the “Edit” button to edit the member directory further.

Build Your Community with Ultimate Member and WordPress

Building a WordPress membership site does not have to be an overly daunting task. Sure, it may take you a little time to set up properly, but using the Ultimate Member plugin will make it all the easier.

Backed by the flexibility and power of WordPress, your community site has incredible potential.

Have you ever tried Ultimate Member? Are you currently using another membership plugin to run your WordPress membership site?

The post How to Set Up a WordPress Membership Site Using Ultimate Member appeared first on GreenGeeks.

Over time authors may come and go, so it is crucial that you have a system in place that allows any author to make WordPress author post revisions. You don’t always want to have to be the one as admin of the site to change every post revision needed.

This is especially true if you have authors that you trust. Allowing any author to make post revisions in WordPress not only saves time but also gives your authors the confidence they need to get things done properly.

In this article, I will show you how you can allow any author to make WordPress post revisions

User Roles and Permissions

User roles and permissions in WordPress are set to allow specific handling of content. Each user role allows for different permissions.

WordPress allows you to let contributors edit their published posts and update them without getting approval from an editor or administrator.

However, I don’t recommend giving such permissions to contributors, as you just leave too many variables in the air of what could go wrong.

Correct user roles must be in place in order for you to be able to run a nice, clean, smooth website.

As an administrator of the website, you want to be able to review all changes that have been made before the post is updated or published. This allows for the editorial quality to be up to par.

There is a solution that allows contributors to make changes and submit them for editorial review. Once approved, the editor can easily merge the changes to the live post.

Basically, this means any author can make WordPress post revisions, but can’t publish anything without first submitting it to you for approval.

Let’s take a look at what this solution is.

Why Use Revision Manager TMC?

The Revision Manager TMC plugin allows your authors to easily create post revisions in WordPress. It does this by allowing your editors to create clones of posts and replace them with one click.

The plugin gives you and other authors an easy, yet powerful way to make these revisions. The plugin is extremely powerful, yet lightweight. It will not bloat your website or slow it down in any way.

The plugin comes with a ton of features. Some of the main ones include:

• Revision Scheduling
• Detailed Support Section
• Change Differences
• Support for Third-Party Plugins
• Ability to Delete All revisions from Database
• Dashboard Widget
• Easy to Set Up
• Email Notifications
• Select Who can Review and Approve Revisions

As you can see, it gives you all the tools you need and much more to allow any author to create revisions in WordPress. Not only that, but the plugin also supports Elementor page builder, Beaver Builder, and Gutenberg.

So all-in-all, it is a very solid plugin to have on your site.

How to Let Authors Make Post Revisions in WordPress

Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin

The first thing you need to do to accomplish this is to install and activate the Revision Manager TMC plugin. You can do this fairly easily by jumping over to the Plugins page in the WordPress admin dashboard.

Simply use the search field that is available to search the plugin by name. When it pops up, go ahead and install and activate it directly from there.

Step 2: Access the Revision manager TMC Settings Page

Once the plugin has been installed and activated click on Settings > Revision Manager TMC, and you will be taken to the plugin page in your WordPress admin area.

You will notice that the setting dropdown boxes have quite a few choices. Don’t worry, below I am going to show you the exact setup you want to allow any author to make WordPress post revisions.

Step 3: Use Proper Revision Manager Settings

On the general settings page, you need to select edit_posts in the “Copy creation capability” dropdown menu.

Then select published_posts in the “Acceptation capability” dropdown menu.

What this does is allow users with the contributor user role to create a duplicate copy of a published post.

The “Role for notification” dropdown menu should be assigned to an Administrator or Editor who will review the changes and publish the post. In most cases, this is you, or the person in charge of site content.

When you are done adding the proper capabilities, scroll down, and select the WordPress post types where you want to allow authors to submit revisions.

You can select whatever post types you would like. If you have multiple post types on your site and want to allow WordPress author post revisions on all of them, then click the appropriate boxes.

Note: You will need to have the Pro Version of the plugin to check other post types

Last but not least on the main settings, you can edit notification settings to get notified when a contributor submits a post revision.

Step 4: Select a Template

You can select a template and customize it to your liking and standards.

When you have everything set to your liking click on the “Update Changes” button to save all your changes and settings.

Step 5: Log Out and Then Log Back into WordPress Site

Now that you have completed the setup and plugged in the correct settings, let’s take a look at how Revision Manager works.

Log out and log back in from a contributor account on your WordPress website.

Once you are logged in again, click on Posts > All Posts and drag your mouse to any published post. You will now see an option to “Create a revision draft” below each post.

Step 6: Create Revision

Once a contributor clicks on the “Create revision draft” link, the plugin will create a duplicate version of the published post and open it for editing.

An author can revise the post, make changes, and submit it for review.

When the update has been submitted the administrator will receive a notification to review and publish the post with the updated changes.

Note: Only the administrator will see the update accept revision button below, so make sure you log out, and then back in as the administrator.

You can open the revision and check out all the edits and changes that were made.

Step 7: Publish the Revision

When you are satisfied with the changes simply publish the revision. This will replace the old version of the post automatically.

That’s it. You can repeat this process as often as you need to. This allows all your authors to complete post revisions in WordPress.

Note: There is also a “Tools” tab located on the main settings page for the plugin. This gives you the ability to import and export settings between multiple websites and WordPress installations (multisite). You can also roll back to factory settings and check the plugin status from the tab.

How to View Post Revisions in WordPress

If you are giving others the ability to make revisions on content, you may be interested in a way to view the differences, luckily WordPress has you covered. While we focused on using a plugin, WordPress has a revisions function built in.

It allows you to view all of the changes made from the last time the post or page was updated.

Step 1: Go to the Revision Section of Your Website

The revision section is very easy to go to. Go into any post or page on your website and expand the settings. You should see a Revisions option (assuming you have made changes to that post or page).

Click on the Revisions option.

The number in front of this option represents the number of times the post or page has been updated. Every revision is stored regardless of how old it is.

Step 2: View Revisions

Here you can see all of the changes that were ever made to the post or page. On the left-said, you will see text highlighted in red. This is what has been removed from the post during the last update. While on the right, you will see text highlighted in green.

This is what was added. At the top, there is a timeline that you can use your mouse to click on. This is how you view older changes.

You can restore any of these revisions at any time by clicking on the “Restore This Autosave” button.

That’s pretty much it. The only downside is that storing these revisions in the default manner takes up a lot of server space. After all, you may be unintentionally saving 10+ copies of a single post. That’s why many developers choose to either disable or limit the feature.

Step 3: How to Delete the Revision History

It’s actually pretty easy to either delete or limit revisions and all it takes is a single line of code that you can copy and paste.

To limit the revisions to a specific number copy and paste the following line into the wp-config file:

define( ‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 3 );

This line will limit the revisions to the three latest. This is a pretty standard number, but you can change it to any number you like.

How to Disable Post Revisions in WordPress

Perhaps you don’t want anyone to access revisions for your site’s content. This may help reduce “revising” the material to an earlier state, which could undo any updates.

Since Google loves fresh and current information, you really don’t want to revert an article back to an earlier state.

If you want to completely disable WordPress revisions simply add the following line to your wp-config file:

define( ‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, false );

This will completely turn the feature off. To turn it back on simply change false to true and it is enabled.

What Are WordPress Post Revisions?

Post revisions are a great feature in WordPress that allows you to go back to previous versions of a post or page and either use that version, make changes, or update content accordingly.

Remember, in WordPress, posts and pages are automatically saved every 60 seconds.

When this happens, the old version of the post or page you are working on is replaced with the newest revision that was saved. There is basically an “autosave” feature that WordPress has, and it keeps all content fresh and up-to-date in case something goes wrong.

For example, sometimes a browser or your computer may crash. The autosave function makes everything available so when you get up and running again, everything is there that you have been working on.

Aside from the autosave post revision function, WordPress also saves any revision whenever the user clicks on the “Save Draft” or “Publish” button in the editor. The main difference between these saved revisions and the autosave function is that these are actually saved in the WordPress database.

You have the ability to locate any of these past revisions or revert back to them within the post edit screen.

The Importance of Post Revisions in WordPress

Most content that you write on a website needs to be maintained and updated over time. Oftentimes, news stories might need revisions as well as articles that involve years, statistics, pricing, and other relevant information that changes over time.

Having an easy-to-use tool like Revision Manager is a great way to get these updates done. Especially when you have a number of authors writing on a site.

Keeping content relevant is key to ensuring that your site traffic remains high and that your users stay engaged.

Post revisions are also a great way to see how your content has evolved over the writing process. For sites with multiple authors, revisions allow you (the website owner) to easily manage all the updates and revisions that authors make.

The tool above just makes it even easier to take new revision submissions.

Utilize Post Revisions in WordPress Today

Keeping your content up-to-date is a great way to keep your site relevant and keep the users coming back. Allowing any author to revise WordPress posts is a perfect example.

Now you know there’s an easy way to accomplish this. You should have no problem following the steps above and get it all in place. I hope this tutorial was able to show you how easy it is to accomplish by using the plugin method.

Have you ever used the Revision Manager plugin to allow any author to perform WordPress post revisions? Do you prefer the traditional method?

The post How to Allow Any Author to Make WordPress Post Revisions appeared first on GreenGeeks.

For instance, what if your website promotes R-rated material, language, or adult themes? Adding a WordPress age-gate overlay is beneficial in this situation.

Today, I’ll show you how to verify the user’s age for WordPress content.

When Does Your WordPress Website Need Age Verification?

Not every website is going to need age verification, but some websites that seem family-friendly may need to verify ages for certain pieces of content.

For instance, let’s say you run an entertainment website. If you are showing movie trailers that are R-rated, you should probably add an age verification. Or perhaps there is an M-rated video game trailer.

Another great example is for online shops that specialize in alcohol. Surprising there is no law that actually requires age verification for online sites, but every website asks the question, more so to protect themselves than the customer.

The same concept would apply if you are selling adult products or content.

How to Verify User Age with Age Gate in WordPress

Step 1: Install Age Gate

For this tutorial, I’m going to demonstrate what Age Gate can do for your website. It’s an easy-to-use, free tool with various customization options, SEO-friendly, and compatible with multilingual plugins like Polylang.

This plugin uses cookies to remember information about the user. Thus, be sure to ask them to accept cookie usage to be GDPR compliant.

Install and activate, “Age Gate.” You want to make sure you install the correct plugin. There are quite a few, but you’re looking for the one by Phil Baker.

Click Age Gate from the left admin panel.

Step 2: Restriction Settings

In this first screen, you can modify the restrictions put onto the users when they first visit your website.

This includes the default age of the user, selecting certain types of content, varied ages, user memory, and ignoring logged-in users.

For example, you can set the default age to 18 and allow the system to remember the user for 30 days.

Set the restriction options and click, “Save Changes.”

Step 3: Messaging Settings

Click the “Messaging” tab on the top.

In this section, you can change the messages the plugin gives to users. Headlines, remember me text, buttons, and any additional content can be added here.

This gives you the ability to change nearly any text used by this age verifier for WordPress.

Once you’ve customized the texts, click the “Save Changes” button on the bottom.

Step 4: Appearance Settings

Click the “Appearance” tab.

This age verification plugin provides several options for changing the design of the gated overlay in WordPress.

For instance, you can add your own logo, alter background colors and images, change the foreground, text colors and the page title itself.

Using the settings in this area, you can make the WordPress age verification screen fit your site’s aesthetics.

Step 5: Advanced Settings

Click on the “Advanced” tab.

In this area, you have access to more advanced adjustments.

For instance, you can change to use JavaScript Age Gate for an uncachable version and additional adjustments. You can also set an anonymous gating challenge.

These options include import and export, toolbar options, editor adjustments, and assigning custom bot control if you need.

If you know your way around CSS, you can add your own visual adjustments with the custom field.

Step 6: Access Age Gate Settings

Click the “Access Settings” tab.

In this section, you’re able to control what user roles can make changes to the age warning in WordPress.

For instance, you can set the Editor role to manage the Messaging settings by checking the box next to it. This is important because they will be able to sort out content that needs age verification from content that doesn’t.

These settings also include the ability to allow the age gate bypass for individual WordPress content.

One of the things that make this WordPress adults-only plugin worthwhile is its ability to utilize custom user roles. This means roles you’ve created for other purposes are part of the age gate system.

This makes it very useful if you have a custom role for making website adjustments without the admin account.

Age Gate is also compatible with custom post types. Using the options in the Access Settings screen, you can turn off the age gate for specific types of content on the site. So if you have age-friendly material, this could be an option.

Congratulations on setting up the Age Gate plugin. Remember to test your content from a variety of user roles to make sure everything is working as intended. If not, go back into the settings and make the necessary changes.

Does An Age Verification Work?

So you’ve just gone through all of that work and are now questioning if there was any point to doing it?

In reality, age verification doesn’t do anything in an online environment. Think about it, users simply need to lie about a date of birth or check a box that says they are X age.

In fact, I’d be willing to bet you’ve lied about your age online at some point, everyone does. It really doesn’t guard content. And frankly, that’s not the point.

The real purpose is not to protect visitors from the content, it is to ensure your website is not liable for younger viewers seeing content aimed at adults. If the users lie about their age, well, that’s not your fault.

The age verification will protect you from being liable if there was ever a lawsuit. Thus, in this sense, yes, age verification does work.

Is There A Better Way to Verify Age in WordPress?

Well, it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Let’s say you run an online dating site. Obviously, having younger members pretending to be adults and engaging with adults isn’t just a legal concern. It’s also a problem for the other members on the site.

One way most of these websites prevent this problem, at least to some degree, is to incorporate a paywall. Let’s face it, lying to verify your age is one thing, stealing a credit card is another thing entirely.

Granted a paywall is not foolproof, but it can really help vet the userbase. Another way to go about it is phone verification.

Some may not want there to be any phone evidence that they were using specific sites. Thus, having to provide a phone number as well is another way to gate your content.

That said, this has lost its edge since even kids have smartphones today.

Additional Plugins to Add a WordPress Age Gate

If you are not a fan of the above plugin, don’t worry, there are plenty to choose from in WordPress. Here are a few more that you may want to consider using.

Agy- Age Verification for WooCommerce

If you run an online store, you are probably using WooCommerce. You are probably going to need a way to make sure customers are old enough to buy a product. That’s where the Agy plugin comes into play.

Simply put, this plugin allows web developers to design a small prompt that users must accept to purchase certain products. Typically, the prompt will confirm that the user is a certain age, which makes them legal to buy the product.

Overall, the plugin is very easy to set up. You fill in information like the age prompt, customize the text, and choose the design. It’s a necessary addition to any online shop that sells products restricted by age groups.

Age Verification

Do you want to check a visitor’s age before they enter your WordPress website? In some cases, this may be legally required to do so, and one easy way to implement such a feature is with the Age Verification plugin.

This plugin is very simple to set up. You just need to fill out the necessary fields like what age a visitor must be to enter. After that, you can decorate the prompt by choosing a color and you can even add a logo.

Overall, the setup process won’t take longer than a few minutes. This prompt can be legally required in some regions depending on the nature of the website, so be sure that your site covers what is required.

WordPress Responsive Age Verification

Similar to the last plugin, this one focuses on displaying an age verification before the website is loaded, but is done so in a way that makes it SEO-friendly. And truth be told, WordPress Responsive Age Verification is the easiest plugin I have covered today.

After activation, the plugin is actually fully active. All you need to do is set the age and change the color and you are good to go. Its biggest claim to fame is that it is fully responsive and will work on devices of any size.

That said, there is room for customization. You can use Custom CSS to make the prompt look however you wish. It really doesn’t get any easier than this plugin.

Verify Users with Age Gate

Adding a way to verify user age in WordPress helps keep sensitive materials away from young eyes. Although it’s not a fool-proof method, it does contribute to securing your content. and when combined with other measures like a paywall, can have a lot of success.

More importantly, Age Gate protects your WordPress website from being liable if it fails. And for most websites, one lawsuit is enough to cripple the business, so taking the necessary measures is critical for a long and successful business.

What parts of your site are age-gated? Have you ever thought about using a paywall to limit access to your content?

The post How to Use the Age Gate Plugin for WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

This is to make sure that whoever gained access to the website doesn’t have direct access to any account.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to quickly perform a mass user password reset in WordPress. It’s always better to err on the side of caution than to put your data at further risk.

Using Emergency Password Rest

Today, I’ll demonstrate a bit of the Emergency Password Email plugin. This is a simple tool that will perform a bulk password reset in WordPress automatically for you.

It’s a time saver, especially if you have a large number of accounts in the system. For instance, what if you have an eCommerce site with thousands of registered customers?

Install and activate “Emergency Password Reset.”

This plugin doesn’t have settings to customize. It simply adds a new function to reset passwords for all users in WordPress.

Go to Users and click, “Emergency Password Reset.”

There are two options on this screen: one for donations and the other to do the mass user password reset. Click the “Reset all passwords” button.

WordPress will send a password reset email to all of your registered users. This includes the admin account which initiated the reset. In fact, once the WordPress heartbeat pings, you’ll be logged out of WordPress as well.

Users will receive an email stating the password has been reset while providing a link they can use. This link acts just like the reset option on the login screen of WordPress.

This link will only be valid until midnight on the day the email was sent.

What if the user password reset link is invalid?

If you modified the reset password link or have certain security plugins running, you might see an invalid reset password link error.

If this is the case, the user simply needs to add their username to the login screen to request a new link. WordPress will then send the correct password reset link to the person’s registered email address.

At which point, he or she can click the new link and input the new password of their choice.

4 Ways to Keep the Site Protected

Like the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure. By using best practices for security, you are less likely to need an emergency password reset.

However, no system is 100% infallible. The best you can do is make it far more difficult for hackers to gain access to the system. Here are several of the easiest methods to implement on the website.

Always Keep a Backup

Always keep backups of your site and data. In the worst case scenario, using something like UpdraftPlus can help you recover quickly without losing pertinent data due to hackers trying to destroy the site.

Of course, you’ll want to make sure you plug up any security holes that might be in the backup itself.

Lock Down the Site with Wordfence

Wordfence is a powerful and free security plugin that protects the site from a myriad of attacks. File scanning, brute force blocking, blacklisting and more are available in the tool.

It’ll even send you an email regarding certain types of activity regarding the site. No matter what you’re doing, you can get an instant update if there is a problem.

Enforce Complicated Passwords

A lot of problems from hackers arise when users don’t use secure passwords. Things like “123456” are incredibly common around the world. Enforce the use of unhackable passwords and practices.

While they may be more difficult to remember, it’s worth the effort if it prevents someone from gaining access to key areas of your data.

Add Two-Factor Authentication

Adding two-factor authentication makes hacking a user account far more difficult. One example of this is how you can set up to require an SMS text code as part of the login process.

Users would need their phone as well as the password of the account.

This process increases the security of a website exponentially.

There is No Such Thing as Being Too Secure

Learning how to change a WordPress password is only a stop gap. You need to practice the best security methods if you truly want to protect your site and its users. Never assume you’re doing enough to shield WordPress.

What are some of your favorite security plugins? Have you ever completed a mass user password reset on your site?

The post How to Perform a Mass User Password Reset in WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

There are many reasons contributors may need to edit their content after it is approved. This could be due to typos, strong/offensive language, wrong information, and many other reasons. Today, I will demonstrate how to allow contributors to edit their posts in WordPress with two methods.

Why Let Contributors Edit Their Contributions

The idea behind a contributor is really easy to understand. You run a WordPress blog and want to let your users have the ability to submit content to the community. A user with the contributor user role can do exactly that. Once they submit it, an Administrator or an Editor user role must approve it. Once it is approved, that contributor loses the ability to edit the work they made. That means only admin and editor accounts can fix it, which can lead to problems.

For example, the most common reason to edit a page is to fix a typo. You might have a system in place for contributors to contact staff to make the fixes for them, but that takes time. In fact, if you have multiple contributors, the edit requests could overwhelm your staff. It makes perfect sense that if you approve contributors work you should also allow them to fix it.

Why Prevent a Contributor From Editing Their Work

You are probably wondering the thought process behind preventing a contributor from editing their content. The answer is actually really simple, if they can edit their work, they can say whatever they want without approval. This can actually be quite catastrophic to some websites if the contributors say very outlandish things. Thus, the idea to prevent anything negative getting through without approval. There is also one other very big reason, Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is extremely important to a website and just because a contributor can write wonderful content does not mean they will follow your website’s SEO rules while doing so. For example, suppose they want to add a simple link to another website. It seems harmless, but they could be advertising your competition or they could add a link that doesn’t follow the way the rest of the links work on your website. A lot can go wrong and it is important to consider these possibilities.

How to Allow Contributors to Edit Their Posts in WordPress

Today, I will demonstrate how to allow contributors to edit their posts in WordPress with two methods. The first method involves using the Capability Manager Enhanced plugin. The second method involves code. Both methods will get the same results and can be accomplished at any skill level.

Keep in mind that even though I am showing you how to allow contributors to edit their content, I do not recommend it. There are a lot of negatives that can really backfire on your website. Of course, you may be using contributors in a completely different way and allowing them to edit makes perfect sense for your website. In any case, you have been warned.

Method 1: Capability Manager Enhanced

Let’s start by clicking on Plugins and selecting the Add New option on the left-hand admin panel.

Search for Capability Manager Enhanced in the available search box. This will pull up additional plugins that you may find helpful.

Scroll down until you find the Capability Manager Enhanced plugin and click on the “Install Now” button and activate the plugin for use.

On the left-hand admin panel click on Users and select the Capabilities option. This will pull up the main settings page.

Using Capability Manager Enhancer

This plugin allows you to grant or remove permissions for your website’s user roles. This is very easy to do as it only involves checking or unchecking a box. The first thing you need to do is select the role you want to change the permissions for. In this case, select the Contributor user role.

Click on the “Load” button to load the settings of the selected user role. If you do not click this button, nothing will happen to the role.

You will now see some of the checkboxes filled in. These checks represent the current permissions the role has. In the Editing Capabilities box, check the Edit Published box for posts.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the “Save Changes” button.

Congratulations, you have successfully given the permission for contributors to edit their own content on your website. You can remove this at any time by unchecking the box and saving the settings.

Method 2: Coding Approach

This method is extremely easy and you will not need any prior coding experience. Simply copy and paste the code into the appropriate files. It is always recommended to create a backup of your website whenever you are editing code. This will ensure you can revert your website to before a mistake was made.

Let’s start by logging into the cPanel and clicking on the File Manager option. The File Manager will allow you to access all of the files related to your website.

You need to locate your theme’s functions.php file. Click on the public_html directory, then click on the wp-content folder. Inside of this folder, you will find all of the content related to your website. Click on the themes folder and enter the folder of the theme you are currently using. Finally, right-click on the functions.php file and select the Edit option.

A pop-up window will show up. This box will warn you to create a backup of your files before editing anything. This will ensure that you can revert your website back to when it was working if something goes wrong. Click on the “Edit” button. A new tab will open containing all of the code from the file.

Copy and paste the following code into your theme’s functions.php file:[ht_message mstyle=”info” title=”” show_icon=”” id=”” class=”” style=”” ]// get the contributor objective
$obj_existing_role = get_role( ‘contributor’ );

// enable the edit published posts permission
$obj_existing_role->add_cap( ‘edit_published_posts’ );[/ht_message]

Once you have inserted the code into the functions.php file, click on the “Save Changes” button to finish.

Congratulations, you have successfully added the permission for contributors to edit their work. You can remove it by deleting the code at any time.

Have Your Staff Review Changes

As I said before, I do not recommend this permission change. If you choose to do it anyway, then make sure you are actively reviewing the changes that are being made. Contributors allowed to make changes can seriously disrupt your website’s SEO format and can say inappropriate things on your website. They could even promote your competition. Anything written on your website will reflect your website’s image and you need to ensure that only positive things are said.

Why do you want to grant contributors the ability to edit their posts? Do you have a review system in place to watch what contributors say?

The post How to Allow Contributors to Edit Their Posts in WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

That’s why you may need to consider hiding your identity, but the problem is that you need to do this right from the start. If not, anyone with the right knowledge will know where to look to find your real name.

Hiding your identity has advantages and disadvantages to consider before making this decision. It is worth noting that if you are looking to stay anonymous because you are about to expose high-risk information, there are other tools to better protect your identity in those situations.

Today, I will show you some tips on how to anonymously blog in WordPress.

Blogging Anonymously: Advantages Vs. Disadvantages

Let’s start by taking a look at some of the advantages of blogging anonymously.

For starters, hiding your identity means you will not be judged for your ideas or beliefs. This is one of the most common fears on the Internet by any blogger. Once a label has been put on you, it is quite hard to get rid of it.

With those fears gone, it also helps give you the freedom to create any content in any way.

Lastly, but most importantly, it helps guard your personal information. Many people on the Internet are not friendly and will use your information to hurt you. This can help prevent those unfortunate cases.

These may sound great, but there are now things you can never do while hiding your identity.

If you are hiding your identity, it means you can never appear in public or meet your visitors at events. The main source of income for most websites is the ads they display. To sign up for ads, you will need to provide personal information.

You can still sign up for Google Adsense, but it will require your real name.

Finally, if someone really wants to find out who you are, there is a strong chance they will be able to find your real identity, but this will protect you from most people.

How to Start Blogging Anonymously in WordPress

Today, I will show you some tips on how to anonymously blog in WordPress. There are a lot of ways to protect your information when creating a blog in WordPress. These range from things like hiding your name on your website to picking a privacy protection option from your web hosting. There are a lot of options to choose from when you want to stay hidden.

Step 1: Purchase WHOIS Privacy

Protecting your identity begins when you are creating an account with your web host. When you register your domain name, your name and email address are required and stored in the WHOIS database.

This database is a collection of this type of information that is publicly available. This is how most email spammers will find your email address.

When you are creating an account you should see the option to pay for ID Protection or Privacy Protection. Paying for this will have your web host protect your information so it does not appear in the publically accessed database.

The good news is that it is very cheap, usually less than $10 a year, and will help you guard your identity.

You should see the option at some point when creating your account with your web host.

This is a very inexpensive way to guard your identity in WordPress and remember if you forgot to buy it when you created the account, contact your web host to get started.

Step 2: Create a Nickname and Website Only Email

When you start releasing content on your website you need to have a name to show visitors. Displaying Anonymous is an option, but I would recommend creating a fake blogging name for visitors to recognize.

This is particularly helpful if you plan to have multiple authors on your website. You should also make sure you are using an email address that is only used for your blogging.

This will make it so there is no connection between your real identity and your email address. Luckily, you can change these without much effort in WordPress.

On the left-hand admin panel, click on Users and select the Your Profile option.

Scroll down and you will find a Nickname setting. Before you go further make sure that your Username is not your actual identity. You cannot change this, but you can just create a new user and give it the same rights as the old user.

The Nickname is what your visitors will see when they visit your blog. Fill in the NickName text box and then select that Nickname to display it publically.

Underneath these options are the email options for your account. Create an email that will be exclusively for your website and nothing else. This will make it so there is no connection between your real identity and your email address.

Add your newly created email to your user profile page.

Taking these precautions should guard your identity in WordPress. However, I have another recommendation that you should consider using that does not involve WordPress itself, using a VPN service.

Step 3: Consider Using VPN Services

One last option you can use to guard your identity is a VPN service. A Virtual Private Network or VPN will help guard your information against monitoring services. Anytime you go on the Internet, someone is monitoring your activity in some way, shape, or form.

Thus, if you want to continue blogging anonymously, you need to make sure your connection is secure.

The good news is that keeping your online data secure with a VPN has never been easier. These services have grown tremendously over the years. In fact, one of the primary uses has just been to access content in different regions on your favorite streaming platform.

As a result, there are a ton of VPN tools you can select from.

It’s simply a matter of finding the one that has the features you need at the price you are willing to pay. That said, if you are serious amount staying anonymous, you will probably want to avoid the free options, so be prepared to pay.

Stay Safe By Keeping Your Identity Guarded

Hackers and pranksters have found some creative and dangerous ways to hurt you on the Internet. This can be through identity theft and other cyber attacks. Unfortunately, it can also be physical as we live in a world where having a person’s name means you can find where they live.

The more unpopular your ideas or beliefs are, the more likely this can happen to you.

For example, something very common in the streaming world is “Swatting”. When someone discovers your real name and finds your address they make a fake call to the police and get a SWAT team sent to your house.

It is extremely dangerous and has resulted in fatality. Guarding your identity can help you prevent these situations from happening.

What steps do you take to keep your identity a secret? Why do you want to blog anonymously?

The post How to Start Anonymously Blogging in WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

Whatever the reason, you can restrict content by user roles in WordPress. Unless the registered user has a certain role attached to his or her account, you can display a message or even redirect unauthorized access.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to enable a WordPress page access control based on the roles of your users.

Using Profile Builder

Today, I’ll demonstrate some of what Profile Builder can do. It’s a plugin that has a wide range of abilities such as monitoring user roles when it comes to showing certain content. This is in addition to creating a great way for users to register.

Let’s take a quick look at the plugin together and see what all it has to offer. After that, we will install it and get it up and running so that you can easily restrict content using different user roles.

Profile Builder is basically an all-in-one user profile plugin for WordPress. It allows you to control everything related to user roles in WordPress, including giving you the ability to restrict content based on certain user roles.

The plugin comes with a ton of functionality and features. Not only will you be able to create front-end logins and user registration forms by using shortcodes, but you will also gain access to some of the following amazing features.

• Drag and Drop Builder
• Email Confirmations
• Choose Login Styles (email, name, both)
• Assign User Specific Roles at Registration
• Redirect Users at Login
• Admin Bar Settings and Options
• Registration and Lost Password Links
• Customizable User Login Widget
• Custom Stylesheet
• User Profile Fields
• Roles Editor
• Restrict WooCommerce
• reCaptcha Support

And that is just a start. The plugin is packed with functionality. That being said, it is lightweight and will not slow your site down when used. Let’s get it installed and running so you can start building user roles and restricting content how you see fit.

Restrict Content Using Profile Builder

Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin

Before you can start restricting content based on user roles, you first need to install and activate the Profile Builder plugin. You can do this by popping over to the Plugins page in the WordPress admin dashboard.

Simply use the available search field on that page to search the plugin by name. When it pops up, install and activate it right from there

Upon activation, you’re taken to the basic information of Profile Builder. For now, I’m going to assume that you allow user registration.

Step 2: Go to General Settings

By default, user restrictions are disabled. We’ll have to turn them on manually.

Click the “General Settings” link from the left panel of your dashboard. You will see all these new options are now available because you activated the plugin.

Step 3: Activate the Restrict Content Option

Here you will see a bunch of general settings that are available. In this case, we are focusing on content restriction. So, scroll down until you see that option and when you do, select “Yes” from the Content Restriction dropdown box.

Step 4: Save Changes

Scroll down and click the “Save Changes” button.

Profile Builder will then add the feature to its list of tools as well as post and pages.

Step 5: Access the Content Restriction Tab

Click the “Content Restriction” link tab located on the left side menu area of the dashboard.

Step 6: Start Restricting Content

Profile Builder gives you two ways to manage unauthorized access. You can either use a custom message for users or redirect them to a specific URL. This is ideal if you create a registration landing page specifically to inform users about the benefits of registering.

How you set this section up is completely up to you and your ideas for the website. You can even show the first so-many words of the post or page before denying users as a kind of teaser to register.

In any case, click the “Save Settings” button on the bottom after making your changes.

Step 7: Set Posts and Pages for User Roles

Now that you have your restrictions set, it’s time to enable them on your content. This feature is now accessible from any post or page you have in WordPress. This includes most custom post types you have as well.

For now, let’s just see where the function is located. Go into any page you want to restrict.

Scroll to the bottom of the page to the Page Builder portion.

Choose the type of restriction. You can leave it as your default that you set earlier. However, you can also choose to use the message or redirect depending on your needs.

By default, all users can access the page whether they are logged in or not. Click the “Logged In Users” checkbox. This will then allow you to select the users you want to have access to the page.

Check all of the boxes of user types you want to have access to the page. As you can see, your custom roles are also available as are any that are created from other plugins.

As an option, you can enable a custom message to show on the specific page aside from the default you set earlier. This gives you a chance to customize each page or post for the audience.

However, this is completely optional and only if you don’t want to use the default messages from the Content Restriction page.

Step 8: Publish or Update Page

Click the “Update” button and your page is then protected by restrictions.

Do You Need to Use the Rest of the Profile Builder Tools to Use This Feature?

Restricting pages and posts by user role in WordPress works whether you take advantage of the other tools in Profile Builder or not. However, Profile Builder does have a lot of excellent tools for user registration including Google reCAPTCHA integration.

This helps keep the spam down from user registrations.

You may want to spend a moment taking a look at some of the other features this plugin delivers as well, just so you can take advantage of them when applicable. You can even integrate your site with Mailchimp, one of the best email services for marketing campaigns.

The only downside is that not all add-ons are supported by the free version of Profile Builder. It just all depends on how much you want to add to the website.

Keeping Content Private

While you could create a completely private website, sometimes it’s easier to just deny people access to certain content based on their user roles. Profile Builder is perhaps one of the best to use for this purpose, and it comes with a variety of other tools to accentuate the website.

I hope this tutorial was able to show you how easy it is to actually restrict content on your WordPress site based on user roles. When you have the steps needed, it really isn’t too difficult at all.

What plugins do you use to prevent spammy user registrations? Do you have your own reCATPCHA key from Google, and how often do you use it?

The post How to Restrict Content by User Roles in WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

Data plays an important role in creating the perfect user experience. And keeping an eye on how people use the site helps you come up with ideas regarding the best way to do this.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you a couple of easy ways to display WordPress active users in real-time. You can even see what post or page they are currently reading.

Using Slimstat Analytics

The first plugin we’ll take a look at is Slimstat Analytics. It’s a semi-popular tool which has an incredible rating. It’s full of features and reports in relation to how people interact with your content, including real-time user tracking.

Install and activate, “Slimstat Analytics.”

By default, everything you’ll need is already enabled. However, you can customize the layout and functionality of Slimstat. Let’s take a quick look at some of these features.

Customizing Slimstat’s Layout

Go to Slimstat and click, “Customize.”

In this screen, you can drag and drop reports to suit your needs. You can also remove reports from the dashboard. It’s kind of like how widgets work in WordPress. If you don’t want something visible, just drag it off or click the “-” icon.

Adjusting Settings

Go to the Settings function of Slimstat.

From these tabs, you can control the different aspects of Slimstat. It includes settings for integration, how the tracking feature works, the way the layout appears and even maintenance options.

I suggest leaving these set as default for now until you feel more comfortable making changes.

Using Slimstat in the WordPress Dashboard

By default, Slimstat includes a variety of reports for the WordPress dashboard. These can be altered by going to the Customize screen I mentioned a minute ago.

Click the Dashboard function from WordPress.

Slimstat gives you a lot of reporting screens for the dashboard. But for this tutorial, we’re only worried about the one for real-time online users in WordPress.

Drag and drop the “Currently Online” report where you want it. You might have to scroll down a bit to find it depending on the layout of your dashboard.

And there you have it. When someone accesses your website, you will see the activity as it happens. Slimstat will even show the users current IP address and any pages or posts he or she visits on your site.

Slimstat will also track other WordPress users who are logged in.

By default, Slimstat will not track admin users. Which is good if you want to generate reports without your visits being recorded. If you want to enable admin tracking, you can do it from the first tab in the settings of Slimstat under, “Track Admin Pages.”

Unfortunately, this also means it will track any admin page you visit as well, such as the plugin screen or even the dashboard itself.

Using Google Analytics Dashboard

Google Analytics is perhaps one of the most prominent visitor data tracking systems used on the Internet. It’s a free service that includes a slew of information while integrating things like AdSense or even AdWords to track your conversions.

One of the attractions of Google Analytics is being able to monitor real-time user tracking from the WordPress dashboard.

Go through the steps to install Google Analytics in WordPress if you haven’t already. This involves installing and activating Google Analytics Dashboard for WP.

From your WordPress dashboard, drag and drop the Google Analytics Dashboard report where you want it.

Use the drop down window and select, “Real-Time.”

Google will then show you current visitors including how they reached your site and what posts or pages they are currently viewing.

Giving Visitors What They Want

WordPress visitor tracking is invaluable when trying to come up with new content or understanding how your target audience behaves. It gives you insight for what kind of marketing strategies to try next. This is not to mention how showing WordPress users in real-time can help fuel inspiration to keep building the site up.

How often do you use analytical data to create new content? What’s your favorite tool for collecting and analyzing how people use your website?

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