To put it simply, Newsletter Signup forms are the forms with which visitors can provide emails to the website admins. And the website admins will provide regular updates about products through that email. A newsletter signup form is a very effective way to grow or sustain your business through email marketing.

In this article, we plan to show you all the steps involved in creating a newsletter signup form. So read on for the ultimate guide on How to Create a Newsletter Signup form on WordPress.

Why Do You Need a Newsletter Signup Form on Your Website?

Newsletter Signup forms are one of the most reliable ways of extending your business. They not only help you grow your website visitors but also make sure that your existing users won’t leave.         

A newsletter will do many things for your website. And here are some of the major benefits of creating a Newsletter Signup Form. 

• Keep your visitors updated: With a newsletter, you can easily send emails to many people about your content. This will make sure that your traffic is secure and makes your visitors more regular.
• Find new subscribers: When you create a signup form on your WordPress website, people can easily subscribe to your content. This will make it easier to find new visitors with similar interests.
• Grow your presence on Social Media: While sending emails to your visitors, you can include a social sharing button. This will allow your visitors to easily share your content on social media. Hence, increasing your social media presence.
• Drive targeted traffic: You target the visitors that have an interest in your content when you create a signup form in WordPress. This drives specific and regular web traffic to your website.
• Increase monetization: You can keep the list of the subscribers of your website through your newsletter. With this, you can be confident that the advertisers will have an interest in your website when you have a solid list of subscribers.

How to Create a Newsletter Signup Form in WordPress?

Before we start, let’s first look at the things we need. We will need the top form builder plugin in the market. And, for exactly that reason, we chose Everest Forms. It is an easy to use drag and drop form builder that can easily create a form for you.

And the next thing we need is a platform to manage our subscribers. And MailChimp is one of the best platforms for managing subscriber lists. 

Step-1: Installing Everest Forms

Now we sorted that out. And the first step is to install the plugin, Everest Forms.

Firstly, log in to your WordPress dashboard. 

Then, go to Plugins >> Add New to add a new plugin. 

This will take you to the WordPress repository of plugins. In there, you’ll see a search box on the right. Type Everest Forms in the search box. Soon as you type Everest Forms, you’ll see the Everest Forms panel. In that panel, click on Install.

After installing, click on Activate on the same panel to activate Everest Forms. 

Done! Everest Forms has been installed and activated on your website. 

Step-2: Getting Everest Forms Pro and MailChimp Add-on

Everest Forms is a powerful form builder. The free version has all the functionalities to create a form for your website. But for functionalities like integrating Everest Forms with other online applications, you need a paid plan. 

So, head over to Everest Forms pricing page and choose a plan. 

When you check out with a plan, you will also create a WPEverest account. In your WPEverest account, you will have all the plugins and add-ons that come with your plan.

Now, go to your account page. 

On your account page, click on Downloads, to access all your add-ons and plugins. Download Everest Forms pro plugin and Everest Forms MailChimp add-on.

You’ll also need the license key for the pro version of Everest Forms. So, head over to the License Keys tab.

Under the License Keys tab, you’ll see license keys for the version of Everest Forms you’ve purchased. Copy the license key.

After that, head over to your WordPress Dashboard. And from there go to Plugins >> Add New. 

Then, on the top of the page, click on the Upload Plugin button to upload the plugin you just downloaded. 

Now, drag the Everest Forms pro plugin and drop it there. After that hit the Install Now button.

WordPress will start uploading and installing your plugin. Once installed, you’ll see the Activate button. Click on the Activate button to activate the plugin.

This will activate your plugin and you’ll be redirected to the plugins page of your WordPress Dashboard. There, under Everest Forms Pro, you’ll see a field to enter the license key. Paste the license key there and hit Return. 

You have successfully installed the pro version of Everest Forms. You can install the MailChimp add-on following the same process.

 And if you want to customize your form in the WordPress Customizer Interface, you can also download the Style Customizer add-on. The Style Customizer add-on will be required if you want to customize a premium template in Everest Forms.

Step-3: Setting Up MailChimp Integration

Before we can show you how we can create a Newsletter signup form in WordPress, we also need MailChimp to manage our subscriber list. So, head over to your MailChimp Dashboard. 

If you don’t already have a MailChimp account, then you need to create one. It’s one of the must-have web-applications for online businesses.

Creating a MailChimp Account

To create a MailChimp account, head over to MailChimp.com. If you want to start with a premium plan, click on the Pick a Plan button. 

This will take you to the pricing page. In there, choose a plan and hit Select. 

You will now be asked for a username, email, and password. Fill them up and hit Sign Up. 

This will take you to the page where you have to choose a username, fill email, and password. Once done, MailChimp will ask about your business and payment details (for a paid plan). And, after you finish filling out your business and personal info, MailChimp will create an account for you.

Creating Audience List in MailChimp

And, before we can integrate MailChimp with Everest Forms, we need an audience list in our MailChimp account. 

So, go ahead and create an audience list on your MailChimp account. To do that, click on the Audience icon on MailChimp Dashboard Menu.

This will take you to your audience lists. If you already have an audience list, you’ll see the number of subscribers and contacts in your audience dashboard.

If you don’t already have an audience list, click on the Create Audience button to create one. 

Then, fill up the required fields, check the settings, and hit Save. 

Your audience list is created.

Getting the API key

Once you have an audience list, click on the icon with your profile image on the bottom of the MailChimp menu. If you haven’t added a profile image, then there should be the first letter of your name. This button is mainly for managing your account or logging out.

After you click on your icon, a menu will show up, in that menu click on Profile. 

This will take you to your profile editing page. On that page, click on Extras. Three different options will dropdown. Out of those options click on API keys.

You’ll be taken to the page which holds your API keys. We are going to use an API key to connect MailChimp with Everest Forms.

Scroll down and you should see your API keys.

Now copy that key and we’re done. Now, all we need to do is paste this key in Everest Forms to connect these two amazing platforms.

Step-4: Creating the Newsletter Signup forms in Everest Forms

We had to set up a few things before we could start creating our Newsletter Signup Form. And now that’s done, so let’s start building our form.

In your WordPress Dashboard, go to Everest Forms >> Add New.

This will bring you to the templates repository of Everest Forms. There are over a dozen templates for different kinds of forms. And, if you want to create your unique form, you have the option to start a form from scratch.

If you want your Newsletter signup form to be detailed, you can go with the Simple Registration Template. It looks something like this:

This template requires you to have the Style Customizer and User Registration add-ons of Everest Forms. 

But, If you want a newsletter signup form that just retrieves an email address, then you can create your form with a single field.

For now, let’s go with the template since that saves time. And besides, we can always customize the template to our liking. 

Hover over the template and click on Get Started. 

You’ll be asked to put a name on your form. Enter a Name. You’ll see a list of add-ons that need to be installed. But don’t worry, you won’t have to install them manually. If you hit Install and Activate, then Everest Forms will automatically install them for you.

After the plugins are installed, simply hit Continue to go to the next window.

And that’s it. Your form has been created. 

Step-5: Customizing Your Newsletter Signup Form

Our form has been created. And if you like the template, you can just hit Save to save the form. And continue with other steps. But if you want to customize the form, Everest Forms offers an easy interface for that too.

In the form editor window of Everest Forms, you can see two sections. The left one contains all the fields for your form. While the right section is for adding and managing the fields. 

To add a row in the form, click on the Add Row button.

And to insert a field in the form, just drag and drop the field in the desired location.

To rearrange a field or a row, simply and drag it and drop it in a location you want. 

Note: When you hover over a field, you’ll see an inner line and an outer line surrounding a field. The inner one represents the field while the outer line represents the row.

Once you’re done, hit the Save button on the top right corner to save your form. 

Customizing Field Options

In Everest Forms, you can completely change a field’s properties. And that is done through the Field Options tab on the left section of your form editor.

To edit the field options of a specific field, click on the field you want and then click on the Field Options tab.

Inside the field options tab, you’ll see different options for the field. The most common field options are the label of the field, description, required checkbox, field message, placeholder text, CSS, and conditional logic. 

The label option contains the name of your field. And in the description, you can add text to describe your field. Visitors will see this text below your field. 

The Required checkbox makes the field mandatory. Visitors won’t be able to submit the form without filling the particular field. Under the Required Field Message option, you can choose what text will appear when the visitor tries to submit without filling up the field. 

The Placeholder text occupies your field temporarily until the visitors give their input. You can also add custom CSS through the CSS option. 

And lastly, the Conditional Logic applies a specific condition to your field. You can choose to show or hide a field only when another is filled or checked. 

Besides these, different fields have their unique field options. Feel free to check them out while creating your signup form in WordPress.

Customizing Your Form’s Appearance

If you want to customize the look of your form, you can click on the blue icon on the bottom right corner of the window. 

This will take you to the WordPress Customizer interface. There you’ll have the options to customize your form’s styles, borders, button styles, colors, and more. All that can be done while previewing the changes in real-time. 

Once you’re done customizing the look of your form, hit the Save button on the top of the customizer menu to save your form. 

Wasn’t that easy? That’s because it was the WordPress Customizer.

Step-6: Adding the Newsletter Signup Form to a Page

We have created the Newsletter Signup Form on our WordPress website, but it’s just in our backend. Unless we add it to a page, website visitors won’t be able to see it. So, let’s add it to a page. 

Firstly, go to Pages >> Add New to add a new page.

WordPress will take you to its page editor. There, give your page a title and add some text if you want. 

To add the form to your page, click on the little plus icon. This will show you some blocks that you can add to your webpage. 

Click on the Everest Forms block.

As soon as you click on the Everest Forms block, you’ll see the block of Everest forms being applied to your page. In that block, you’ll see a radio button to choose a form. You can select your form from there. 

Finally, hit the Publish button on the top right corner to publish this page.

Congratulations! You have successfully created and added a Newsletter Signup form to your page.

Step-7: Integrating MailChimp with Everest Forms

To integrate MailChimp with your form, first, select the form. For this, Go to Everest Forms >> All Forms.

This will take you to your forms list. Hover over the form you want, and click on the edit button below its name.

You’ll be taken to the form editor window. In the form editor window, there are four major tabs on the top. Click on the Integrations tab since we want to integrate MailChimp. 

You’ll see the MailChimp section because we’ve already installed the MailChimp Add-on. Now to set up a connection between your form and MailChimp, click on Add New Connection. 

MailChimp will ask you to name the connection. Type a name for your connection and hit OK.

Then, on the right section, you’ll see fields to add the API key and your MailChimp Nickname. Paste the API key that you copied and enter your MailChimp Nickname. After that, click on Connect to MailChimp. 

To select the MailChimp list you want to update, click on the Select List radio button and select your list. 

And, you will now be able to choose which form fields will be able to update your MailChimp list. 

You will also have other options like double opt-in and conditional logic.

If you check the Use double opt-in option, then users will need to verify their email. They will receive a confirmation email with a verification link. And once they verify, the email address will be added to your MailChimp list.

The other option is conditional logic. By checking this option, you can make users add as subscribers only if they fill out a certain field. And you can choose what field that is.

Lastly, don’t forget to save the form. And that’s how you can integrate MailChimp while creating your Newsletter Signup Form.

Conclusion

Knowing how to create a Newsletter Signup form in WordPress is one of the first and most important steps for extending your business online. And MailChimp is one of the best web applications when it comes to email marketing. 

Form builders like Everest Forms are some of the best in the market. And with its functionality to integrate with MailChimp, it becomes one of the best email-marketing tools as well. You can fully customize the form and easily update your MailChimp lists through your form.

Was this article helpful? If it was, then please share it and give us feedback.

If you want to create a newsletter form that pops up, check out our article on How to Create a WordPress Popup Form?

In this WPEverest article, we are going to show you how to create a WordPress donation form with an easy step by step guide. 

Why Create a Donation Form?

A donation form is an essential tool that helps non-profit organizations collect donations online. Even though a simple donate button will do the trick, using a donation form to accept donations is more beneficial. 

If you are a WordPress user, then you can easily create one very easily. With the help of WordPress donation plugins, you can learn how to create a donation form in WordPress.

Here are some of the reasons why you need to create a donation form.

• Allows you to easily retrieve the required donor information with a single donation form. 
• Integrate your donation forms with an email marketing service. And, you can add a double opt-in option for donors to subscribe to your newsletter. 
• Eases your fundraising campaigns by making the process simple and quick. 
• You can connect your donation forms with Payment Gateways such as PayPal or Stripe. This makes accepting payments online so easy.
• Lastly, you can insert and add donation forms anywhere on your WordPress website. You can insert it on your posts, pages, or sidebar. So, it is easily accessible to your donors.  

How to Create a Donation Form in WordPress?

Step 1: Choose a Donation Form Plugin 

You will find many WordPress donation plugins out there. However, the easiest to use and powerful WordPress donation plugin is Everest Forms. 

Everest Forms is a drag-and-drop form builder plugin that allows you to create professional forms in no time. It offers a pre-built donation form template that saves so much of your time.

And, you can even customize the template according to your requirement. Moreover, it allows you to seamlessly integrate with powerful payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe. So, you can easily accept payment online on your donation forms.

Step 2: Install Everest Forms and Everest Forms Pro

You can easily install Everest Forms free from the WordPress repository. For this, log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to the Plugins tab and click on Add New. Then, search for the Everest Forms plugin and click on the Install Now button. 

If you want the form fields and features for donation, then you need Everest Forms Pro. You will find different pro plans for this plugin on the pricing page. So, you can choose the one according to your requirements. 

After you purchase the pro version, you will get a ZIP file of the plugin from your account page. (For details, you can click here). After you install the plugin, you need to enter the License Key for your pro plan. 

If you want a detailed guide for installing plugins, you can check out our How to Install a WordPress Plugin tutorial.

Step 3: Install and Activate PayPal Standard and Stripe Add-ons

Now, you can install the PayPal Standard and Stripe add-ons for accepting payments. For this, go to Everest Forms →  Add-ons and you can find the PayPal Standard and Stripe add-ons here. 

All you’ve got to do is click on the Install Addon button for both the add-on. After they are installed, you need to activate them too.

Step 4: Create a New Donation Form

Now, you’ll learn how to create a donation form in WordPress using Everest Forms. To create a new form you need to go to Everest Forms → Add New. 

Then, you can see the various pre-built form templates to start off easily. The form templates are available according to your pro plan type. Here, the Donation Form template is available for the Professional pro plan. 

So, you can choose this pre-made WordPress donation form template or Start From Scratch. 

1. How to Create a Simple Donation form in WordPress?

Everest Forms offers a simple drag-and-drop form builder that lets you create a WordPress donation form in minutes. So, let’s get started, shall we?

First, click on the Start from Scratch option and name your donation form. Then, you’ll see the easy form builder with the form fields on the left side and form positioning on the right side. 

So, all you need to do is drag the required form field from the left side to the right side. And, you can change the positions as you like and change the row settings.

To create simple donation forms, you don’t need to think much about advanced form fields. The simple form fields are enough to make a donation page on wordpress. Therefore, the form fields to create a donation form in WordPress are:

• Name
• Email
• Message 
• Donation Amount

With that being said, you can add more form fields to your donation form as per your requirements. After you add the form fields, you can edit the form fields too. For this, go to the Field Options and change the settings. 

Likewise, you can add the form field for the Donation amount from the Payments Fields section on the form builder. 

Note: These fields are unlocked after you purchase the premium add-ons for payment gateways. 

In the Field Options, you can customize the form field by changing its Label, Descriptions, and more. Moreover, there is the option Item Type which lets you choose the type of donation you want to add to your form. There are three options here: Pre Defined, User Defined, and Hidden.

Or, you can also add a multiple choice field that allows the donor to choose the donation amount. For this, you can use the Multiple Choice field under the Payments Fields section in the form builder. 

After you insert the field on your donation form, you can edit the Field Options. Then, you can add the options for the donation amount.

2. How to Create a Professional Donation Page in WordPress?

If you start with the donation form template, then you need to make sure of a few things. 

You need to install and activate Everest Forms Pro, PayPal Standard add-on, and Stripe add-on.

After you’re done with that, you can go ahead and name your WordPress donation form. Click on the Continue button to edit the form.

This is a preview of the Donation Form template which includes all the important fields for a professional donation form. Besides, you can edit the fields and customize your form as per your requirements too.

Step 5: Connect the Donation Form with a Payment Gateway

After you are done creating your donation form, you can configure the payment gateway settings. In this section, you’ll learn how to accept donations on WordPress by connecting with a payment gateway. Everest Forms allows you to integrate powerful payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe.

However, you need to make sure you have purchased the premium version which includes the PayPal and Stripe add-ons. Once you install and activate these add-ons, you can see the settings on the Payments tab on the form builder. You can select either one of the payment methods for your form i.e. PayPal or Stripe.

Now, we are going to show you how to accept donations on WordPress with PayPal. Also, keep in mind that the donor will be redirected to the PayPal site for processing.

For this, go to the PayPal Standard tab and you can see the settings which are explained here.

• Enable PayPal Payment: This option allows you to enable or disable the PayPal Standard option on your donation form whenever you want.
• PayPal Email Address: You need to insert the email address for your PayPal account. Simply this is the Email address of the receiver. 
• Mode: This option allows you to select the mode of the transaction. There are two modes: Sandbox and Production where Sandbox mode for testing purposes.
• Payment Type: Here you can choose the type of payment. You can simply select the Donation option. 
• Cancel URL: You can enter a redirect URL which is useful if the user cancels after redirecting to PayPal.
• Enable Conditional Logic: You can use the Conditional Logic option if you want to add a conditional rule to receive donations. Or, you can also provide a payment option between PayPal and Stripe. 

If you want an easy and personalized way of accepting donations, you can use Stripe. It allows you to accept recurring donations and payments from credit cards.

After you finish creating your donation form and integrating a payment gateway, hit the green SAVE button.

Step 7: How to Make a Donation Page on WordPress

We are almost done so, keep following the steps to make a donation page for your WordPress in minutes. Once you create your donation form, you can insert it on any WordPress page or post as you like.

If you want to make a donation page for your WordPress site, then go to the Posts tab and click on Add New. You can give a title for your donation page here. Now, you can search for the Everest Forms block and add it to the page.

Then, all you need to do is select the donation form you create by clicking on the form name. Alternately, you can copy-paste the custom form Shortcode available on the form builder on the page editor.

And voila! Your donation form is all ready to go. Now, you can accept donations on WordPress without any trouble.

Concluding:

Donation forms are extremely important for non-profit organizations to collect funds. And, it is very easy to create and add one on a WordPress site. Thankfully, there are amazing form builder plugins like Everest Forms that let you create donation forms in no time.

If you found this article helpful, then please don’t forget to share it. And, feel free to comment down below if you have any questions.

Online Booking Forms in WordPress are forms used for early reservations of hotel rooms, accommodations, appointments, and more. To survive in the competitive online world, you need a good presence. And if you own a hotel, you need an aesthetic one. A well-prepared booking form will do exactly that for your business.

In this article, we will show you how to create an online hotel booking form in WordPress. Additionally, we will also show you how to integrate your form into a calendar, so that you can do more with it.

Why do You Need a WordPress Online Hotel Booking Form?

In a world where most corners of the world have the internet, you wouldn’t want your customers to make a booking through a personal visit, or a phone call, or email. They simply don’t give you the comfort and guarantee that your customers are able to do bookings well. 

However, if your business has a website, then you can guarantee the booking to your customers. All you need to do is create, edit, and upload a restaurant booking form. After that, you integrate it with your calendar. 

Then you and your customers will get a notification for every successful booking. And, you’ll always have your calendar to review the bookings and do more. This will:

• Save your time and work
• Make it easier to manage bookings
• Guarantee the safety of customer’s bookings
• Ultimately, strengthen your presence in the business and online world

There’s more to your hotel booking form. And we shall explore that together in this article.

How to Create a WordPress Online Hotel Booking Form?

The concept of creating an online hotel booking form in WordPress is simple. Create a WordPress form, upload it, integrate it into the calendar. And of course, you’re going to use a very beginner-friendly platform for that. But there are many smaller steps in there and you may need assistance with some.

It’s always nice to have a good knowledge of how to do something before actually doing it. So here’s a step-by-step guide on creating an online restaurant booking form for WordPress. 

First, you need to choose a plugin for creating your online hotel booking form for your WordPress website. Choosing a plugin can be hell in WordPress, we’ve been there. So, we already picked the best form builder plugin for creating an online booking form for your WordPress website.

Everest Forms, the easy drag and drop form builder is the best form builder plugin you can get. It’s very beginner-friendly and well documented. Using it, you can create contact forms, online surveys, booking forms, or any type of online form with ease. 

And if you ever need help with anything, Everest Forms has awesome support. We can’t mention all the features here. Let’s explore them while we create our own online Hotel Booking Form in WordPress.

Step:1 Installing Everest Forms

Before starting to create your restaurant booking form, we need to install Everest Forms. So,

First, log in to your WordPress Dashboard.

After that, go to Plugins >> Add New.

In the search bar of the plugins repository, type Everest Forms. This will bring you the Everest Forms and related plugins. Hit Install in the pane dedicated to Everest Forms.

After you’ve installed Everest Forms, activate it by clicking on the Activate button in its pane. 

Done! Everest Forms has been activated. You’re one step closer to creating an online hotel booking form for your WordPress website. 

Step-2: Installing Everest Forms Pro and Add-ons

What you just installed is the free version of Everest Forms. It’s a handy tool if you want to create a job application form, contact form, and else. But we want to do more with the form, like integrating it with payment services and other web applications. So, we will need the pro version of Everest Forms.

To install the pro version of Everest Forms, head over to the pricing page of Everest Forms. There,  you’ll see four different plans: Personal, Plus, Professional, and Agency. All the features of Everest Forms are included in the Professional plan with licensing for up to 25 sites. So, we need a professional plan.

And, once you fill in the required information, you’ll also create a WPEverest account. All the premium plugins and addons along with license keys will be stored on your account page. 

1. Installing Everest Forms Pro in Your Site

After the purchase is made, head over to your account page. There, under the downloads tab, zip files of all the plugins and add-ons are waiting for you.

Download the Everest Forms Pro plugin from there. 

Under the License Keys tab on your account page, copy the License Key, because you’ll be asked for it.

Time to add this plugin to your WordPress Dashboard. In your WordPress Dashboard, go to Plugins >> Add New.

Then click on the Upload Plugin at the top of the page.

At this point, you should be able to see the area for uploading the plugin.

Simply drop the Everest Forms Pro plugin that you downloaded, in here. Then, click on the Install Now button.

Now activate the plugin by clicking on the blue Activate Plugin button. 

You will then be redirected to the page where you’ll have to enter the license key.  Paste the license key that you copied from your account page here. Finally, hit return (Enter) to activate your license key.

Awesome! Everest Forms pro is added to your site and ready to give you an online hotel booking form.

2. Installing Style Customizer and Zapier Add-ons

Everest Forms alone can build awesome forms for your site. But Everest Forms can do more with powerful add-ons like style customer and Zapier. 

The style customizer add-on will let you customize everything in your booking form. And we will be using the Zapier add-on to integrate our WordPress online hotel booking form to Google Calendar. 

So, let’s install these two add-ons before we finally start creating our online hotel booking form for WordPress.

To get started, go to your account page of Everest Forms. Under the downloads section, download the two add-ons: Style Customizer and Zapier. 

After that, head over to your WordPress Dashboard. Then, go to Plugins >> Add New >> Upload Plugin. Drop the zip file of the add-on that you downloaded here and hit the Install Now button. 

Lastly, activate the plugin by clicking on the Activate Plugin button. 

Congratulations! You have successfully installed the required add-ons. You can finally start creating your WordPress online hotel booking form. 

Step-3: Creating a WordPress Online Hotel Booking Form

Now that everything is set up, we can enjoy the drag and drop form builder to create our online Hotel Booking Form

1. Getting Started with Templates

On your WordPress Dashboard, you should now see a new tab named ‘Everest Forms’ added to your dashboard menu. When you hover your mouse over it, you’ll see different options pop to the right. Click on the ‘Add New’ option.

This will take you to the templates page of Everest Forms. Over a dozen templates are waiting to be discovered by you. 

Scroll down, look at the template that will suit you the most. Since we are talking about an online hotel booking form for your WordPress website, we chose the Hotel Booking Template. 

Hover over the template and you’ll see two options: Get Started and Preview. Click on Get Started. 

You will now be asked for a name for your booking form. Give it a name you like and click on Continue. 

Welcome to the form editor of the Everest Forms plugin. Here, you will see many different options to customize your online booking form. 

On your left, you can see different fields you can add to your booking form. The fields that are in your form are shown on the right. The fields you can add to your form are categorized into different sections. 

• General Fields
• Advanced Fields
• Payment Fields
• Survey Fields

There are fields for everything you need in your form including Date/Time, Multiple Choice, Signature, Range Slider, and many more. Feel free to check them out while creating your online hotel booking form.

2. Adding and Arranging Fields

To add a field simply drag the field and drop it on the right. For example, we want to know about what date and time the booking is to be made. So, we’ll simply drag the Date/Time field under Advanced Fields and drop it on the right.

If you need an additional row in your form. Click on the ‘Add Row’ button at the bottom of the right section. 

And, if you need to add two items in one row, then hover your mouse over the specific row. On the top-right corner of that row, you’ll see two icons, a dustbin, and a pencil. Click on the pencil icon.

When you click on the pencil icon, the row settings for that row will dropdown. There, you can choose the number of columns for your row. 

If you need to re-arrange your row, then hover your mouse over the row. You’ll see dotted lines around your row. Drag the row by clicking somewhere near the outermost line and drop it where you want it to be. 

However, if you need to re-arrange the field in a different row, drag the field by clicking inside the innermost lines, where your field is. Then, drop it in the row which suits it.

And, that’s how you can add and arrange different fields to the online hotel booking form for your WordPress website.

3. Field Options

We have now added different fields to the online booking form for our WordPress website. And now it’s time to edit the properties of those fields. 

On the left section of your form editor window, you can see two tabs: Add Fields and Field Options. Click on the ‘Field Options’ tab.

There, you’ll see different options for configuring what a form field does. To configure a field click on it and it’ll show you the field options for that specific field.

The most common field options are Label, Meta Key, Description, Hide Label, Required, and Required Field Message. 

The Label option is for the name of your field. The Meta Key is the name for your field in the database. The Description option is for describing your field to the visitors.

The Required option is a checkbox. Checking it will make the field mandatory. And, the Required Field Message is for when users try to submit the form without filling the field.

You can find the Hide Label option under the Advanced Options section. Checking this option will hide the label of your field. 

Another common option under Advanced Options is placeholder text. Placeholder text is the text that appears in the field until users give their own data.

Other fields you might like are CSS Classes and Conditional Logic. If you know CSS, then you can do more to the field with the CSS Classes option. 

The Conditional Logic option is for adding interesting functionality to your field. When you check the ‘Enable Conditional Logic’ option you will see the conditional rules option. 

With these options, you can choose to show or hide this field when another field has a specific value. 

For example, in the Hotel Booking Form template, the field for the ‘Pick Up Address’ only shows when you click on ‘Yes Please.’ under the “Would you like us to pick you up?” field. However, it doesn’t show up when you click on ‘No thanks’.

Also, individual fields have their own unique field options. Check them out while configuring the fields of your WordPress online hotel booking form.

Step-4: Customizing Your WordPress Online Hotel Booking Form

You have added and configured fields for the online hotel booking form or your WordPress website. But that’s not the only editing you can do to the booking form. You can customize its looks as well. And Everest Forms has a mountain of options ready for you. Get it? Everest Forms –  Mountain of options?

To begin customizing your online booking form, click on the Form Designer icon on the bottom-right corner of your form editor window. 

Personally, we think this form looks great in itself. But you could make it even better with the options provided. And to make it easy for you, Everest Forms provides an interface like the WordPress Customizer.

On the left is the customizer menu. Here lie the options for you to customize your form’s style. And, on the right is the live preview of the form. Yes, you can view the change happening to our form in real-time. 

Of course, we’re not going to cover every single option under every single tab. We’ll leave some of them for you to explore. Besides, it’d take forever to read this article if we did. So, we’ll just cover the common and important ones. 

The first option you’ll see is the template option. You can click on the ‘Change’ button to switch between the classic and default layout.

After that, there are tabs for different purposes. The first tab is the ‘Form Wrapper’. This option styles the background, font, and border of your form. 

Inside the form wrapper tab, you’ll see options to choose the width, font, background color and image, border type, radius, etc. You can also change the padding and margin of the form. 

After the form wrapper tab, there are tabs for individual components of the form like Form Labels, Form Sublabels, Form Description, etc. 

These tabs are responsible for changing the font size, color, style, text alignment, margin, padding for those components of your online hotel booking form in WordPress.  

At the bottom of the customizer menu, you’ll see two tabs. Form Messages and Additional CSS.

The Form Messages tab is used for styling the form success, error or validation message. Click on the Form Messages tab and then on the individual options to begin styling. 

Lastly, you can use the Additional CSS tab in the customizer to style your form using CSS. 

And finally, to save your contact form, hit the blue save button at the top of the customizer menu.

The WordPress online booking form for your hotel has been successfully created, edited, customized, and saved.

Step-5: Changing the Settings of Your Online Hotel Booking Form

After you’ve created an online booking for your hotel’s WordPress website, most of the work related to the form is done. All that remains is how to configure the form and publish it. Configuring means reviewing and changing the admin email, auto-reply, button texts, etc. So let’s jump into it.

In your form editor window, you can see different tabs at the top bar, namely: Fields, Settings, Integrations, Payments. We just created, edited, and saved the form using the Fields tab. Now to configure its settings, click on the Settings tab.

Inside the settings tab, you’ll see two sections, General and Email. 

1. Configuring the General Settings

In the General section, you can edit your form’s name and description. You can also edit the message for when the form is disabled or successfully submitted.

If you scroll down, then you can see more options. With the Redirect To option, you can redirect users to a specific page after form submission. You can change the form’s layout design and CSS class as well

The options after that deal with the submit button. You can change the text in the submit button while it’s processing as well. You can even apply conditional logic to the submit button. 

The General section mostly deals with your online hotel booking form prior to its submission. 

2. Configuring the Email Settings

The Email section will deal with the options after your form submission. To begin configuring email settings, click on the Email section. 

Under the Email section, you can configure the email notification for when someone fills your booking form. 

At the top, you’ll see the toggle button for email notifications. Then, there is a field where you can put the name of your notification.

The To Address option deals with the email to which the notification will be sent. By default, it has a shortcode value of {admin_email}. This means the notification will be sent to the admin of the website. 

In the Form Name option, enter the name of the form to appear in your notification. 

These two settings are for the email notification you receive. Now for the email, your visitors receive when their form submission is successful.

In the From Address option, enter the email from which you want to send a message to your visitors. And, in the Reply-To option, choose who will get the message. Now, you don’t know yet what the email addresses of your visitors are. So in this case, we’ll use a shortcode. Press the shortcode button on the right.

Now scroll down and you’ll see an option called User Email. Click on it. The shortcode is applied and the email will now go to whatever address your visitor has. 

Next, in the Email Subject option, enter the subject of the email you want to send to your visitors. And, under the Email Message section, type your message. By default, it has the shortcode {all_fields}. This means, your visitors will see all the form fields they filled up once again. 

And yes, you can apply conditional logic to the email using the Enable Conditional Logic option. 

If you want to set up more than one email, then you can use the blue Add New Email button on the left, under the tab for Email settings.

You will be asked for a nickname for your email. Type it and click on OK. 

The email settings are the same for this email too. So you can easily configure any number of emails you add. Finally, don’t forget to hit the SAVE button at the top right corner to save the online booking form of your hotel.

What you just set up was the email notification and auto-reply for your booking form. You won’t have to manually reply to all the submissions, Everest will do that for you. 

Step-6: Publishing the WordPress Online Booking Form of your Hotel

The online booking form for your hotel is all set. It is now ready to see the light of the outside world, ready to let visitors fill it up. So let’s give it a cozy space in your website from where it can interact with your visitors.

To start off, let’s create a page dedicated to our new booking form. And to do that, go to Pages >> Add New on your WordPress dashboard.

Welcome to the Gutenberg Editor of WordPress. Here, give your page a suitable title and add some content to your liking. 

Time to add the form, click on the plus button on the right side of your page.

This will drop down a grid view of all the blocks you can add to your page. Click on Everest Forms. Yes, Everest Forms created a block here for you to add the form to the page.

After the click, you’ll see the Everest Forms’ block added to your page. Click the Select a Form radio button, and choose your form.

Your form is now applied to the page.

Lastly, Hit the Publish button at the top right corner to publish the page with your online hotel booking form.

Step-7: Integrating Your Booking Form with Google Calendar

With the online booking form for your hotel created and configured, you’ll be notified about every form of submission. If you have a manageable number of visitors, the booking form will be adequate. But, if you have a huge number of visitors, you can’t check for every notification. 

With exactly this in mind, Everest Forms lets you connect to Google Calendar so that you can manage all the bookings in one place. 

The integrations with Google Calendar is done through the Zapier add-on in Everest Forms. We have already installed the add-on. So let’s get started with it.

1. Creating a Zap

Firstly, go to your Zapier dashboard. 

If you don’t have a Zapier account, then go ahead and create one. You don’t wanna miss an awesome web application.

In Zapier, click on the Zaps tab on the left menu. 

This will take you to the list of all your Zaps. Zaps are the web functions that connect two applications. If you don’t have any Zaps, click on the blue Make a New Zap button. Or, you can click on the black Make a Zap button on top-left. 

Welcome, to the  Zap editor window. 

2. Setting up the Trigger

In the Zap editor window, you’ll set the Trigger and Action for your zap. A trigger is a cause while the action is the effect in Zapier. 

First, give your Zap a name on the top left corner. Then we shall set up the trigger.

Integration of your booking form is done using a webhook. Webhooks are functionalities that relay the information between two web applications in real-time. So, our trigger in Zapier needs to be a webhook. Go ahead and search for webhook under the App Event option. 

Click on the Webhooks by Zapier option. Now time to set the Trigger Event, which starts your zap. Set the Trigger Event to Catch Hook. Because we want to catch the information from our booking form.

Then, hit the blue Continue button. 

Now to set up the trigger. You’ll see a custom webhook URL under the Setup trigger option. Copy it. Then, hit the Save & Continue button.

We need to paste this webhook URL in our booking form for the webhook to work. So head over to your WordPress dashboard. 

psst: create a new tab so that you won’t lose what you did in Zapier

Go to Everest Forms >> All Forms. Click on the name of the online booking form of your hotel. Then, click on the Integrations tab at the top bar of your form editor window.

Here, you’ll see Zapier added to your Integrations tab. Check the Enable Zapier option. And, paste the webhook URL that you copied from Zapier on the Webhook URL option. Finally, hit the SAVE button at the top right corner to save changes to your form.

The webhook will now be the medium for integration of your online booking form and Google Calendar.

3. Testing the Trigger

Time to test your trigger. By this, it means that Zapier will test whether your webhook is catching and relaying information from your booking form or not. 

But, we have not yet given any information on our booking form. So, get someone to fill up the form on your website, or do it yourself. Once there is a submission to your form, you can hit the Test Trigger button on Zapier.

Remember: The form needs to be filled after you paste your webhook URL for Zapier to catch it.

Once you hit the Test Trigger button, you’ll see Zapier saying, We found a request!. You’ll also see the form of information. Your trigger is not set up and tested. Hit the Continue button. 

Your trigger has been set and tested. Time for some action.

4. Setting up the Action

To start setting up the action, choose an app. This time choose Google Calendar. Under the action event, you can choose different options like quick add event, create a detailed event, update event, etc. To keep things simple, let’s go with Quick Add Event and hit Continue.

Choose an account of Google Calendar in which you want your event to be added. And hit Save and Continue.

Time to set up the action. Choose a Calendar and describe the event. You can choose the value of a booking form field like the name of the visitor to describe the event. Finally, hit save and continue to start testing your action. 

Click on the Test & Continue button to test your action. 

When you click on it, Zapier will add an event to your Google Calendar. Go ahead and check that out. The details of the event will be shown in Zapier. 

Finally, hit the Turn on Zap button to finish setting the zap.

Congratulations! The WordPress online booking form of your hotel is now integrated with Google Calendar. Every time someone submits a form, Zapier will add a new event in your Google Calendar. You can now review all the submissions right from your calendar.

Wrapping it Up

The WordPress online booking form of your hotel can be created using a form builder plugin like Everest Forms. Everest Forms is a powerful form builder that lets you create any kind of form. You can integrate your form with tons of online applications with add-ons available in Everest forms. 

Integrating your online booking form with Google Calendar is done with the Zapier add-on. Zapier will provide a webhook that will catch the information from your booking form and send it to Google Calendar. 

You know a little more than you did before. If you agree, then consider sharing this article. Let it go round the world.

Also, if you wanna create other kinds of forms, then check out our other articles. How about an article on How to Create a Job Application form in WordPress.

No need to worry! We’re here to help you.

A plugin is simply a WordPress extension that modifies or adds features and functionalities to your website. In other words, the plugin adds a set of functions to your website and further strengthens your website.

As a beginner, you might see installing a plugin for your website as a big deal. But there isn’t anything so difficult about it.

In this article, we’ll explain the step by step process of how to upload a plugin to the WordPress website. Make sure that you read the full article for complete information.

Let’s get started.

Things to Consider Before Installing a Plugin

Before starting our stepwise guide for installing a plugin. Let’s discuss some essentials that you need to consider before installing plugin to your site.

There are oceans of options to choose the plugin for your website today. You can visit the WordPress plugin repository for free plugins. Or you can visit sites like WPEverest.com, CodeCanyon, iThemes, etc. for the premium or paid plugins.

But, not all the available plugins need to be of good quality and well coded. Some plugins may not be well coded and may harm your site in many ways. For example, a bad quality plugin can slow down or even crash your whole site. Besides, it may expose your site to security vulnerabilities and malicious codes.

So, it’s a good idea to choose the best WordPress plugin before you install it on your site. One must always consider the following things before installing a plugin for the website:

• Understand the need of the website and choose the plugin accordingly. For instance, if you want to create a contact form for your site then you may choose the Everest Forms plugin for your site.
• Search for those plugins that have good ratings, reviews, and active installations.
• Check if the plugin supports your version of WordPress.
• Check how responsive are developers for user support.
• Most importantly, always choose a plugin from reputed and reliable sources.

How to Install a New Plugin in WordPress?

After choosing the right WordPress plugin for your website, you are now all set to install it on your website.

In this section, we’ll be discussing how to install a WordPress plugin to WordPress in a stepwise manner. The process of installation of free and premium /paid plugin slightly differs. Besides, there is an additional method for uploading the plugin for your website manually using an FTP client.

1. How to Install a Free WordPress Plugin?
2. How to Install a Premium WordPress Plugin?
3. How to Install a WordPress Plugin Manually via FTP?

Without further ado. Let’s dive into the details on how to add a new plugin in WordPress by different methods.

A. How to Install a Free WordPress Plugin?

To download free plugins for your website, you can proceed stepwise as explained below:

Step 1. Log into the WordPress Dashboard and Navigate to Plugins Menu

Firstly, you need to log into your WordPress dashboard area. After logging in you’ll be able to see the sidebar menu at your left-hand side displaying several menus. For example Posts, Media, Pages, and so on. There you can see the “Plugins” menu just after the “Appearance”.

Click on the “Plugins” menu and it’ll direct you to the plugins page. On top of the page, you’ll find the “Add New” button. Simply hit the “Add New” button.

Alternatively, you can hover your cursor to the “Plugins” menu. And it’ll instantly show you with three options including the “Add New” button. So you can just click onto that button (Plugins >> Add New).

Step 2. Search for the WordPress Plugin

After clicking the “Add New” button by either of the methods mentioned above, you’ll be directed to the add plugins page where you’ll find the “Search plugins” button towards the top.

In the search box, you can type the name of the plugin you want to add to your website. For instance, here we’ll be searching for the “Everest Forms” plugin.

You can also search for the plugin by typing the relevant functionality of the plugin. And it’ll display a related list of plugins for you. But remember here we can only search for the free plugins that are available on the official WordPress plugin directory.

Step 3. Install and Activate the Plugin

After searching for the required plugin, you can now install the plugin for your site. Just hit the “Install Now” button and WordPress installs a plugin for you in a matter of seconds.

Thereafter, you need to perform the final step of activating your plugin. You can do that by clicking the “Activate” button which you’ll see soon after completion of the installation of your plugin.

After the activation step, your free plugin is now ready to be used for creating a fully functional website.

B. How to Install a Premium WordPress Plugin?

Installing a premium plugin is slightly different from installing a free plugin. Because you need to visit the plugin market store and download the plugin before you can install it.

Step 1. Purchase the Premium Plugin

You can purchase the premium plugins for your website from reputed and trusted sources like WPEverest.com, CodeCanyon, iThemes, and so on.

After purchasing the plugin, you’ll have the installable plugin in the form of a zip archive to upload it later. 

Here let’s take the example of “Everest Forms Pro”. If you download Everest Forms Pro from WPEverest.com, then it’ll be downloaded as everest-forms-pro.zip. You can now proceed stepwise as mentioned below.

Step 2. Log into Your Dashboard

Firstly, log into your WordPress admin area. You’ll see different menus on the left-hand side of your sidebar including the “Plugins” menu.

Press the “Plugins” menu and you’ll be navigated to the plugins page. There on the top of the page, you’ll see the “Add New” button. Hit on that “Add New” button.

As mentioned earlier, you can also navigate to the “Plugins” menu and it’ll show you with three options including the “Add New” button. You can simply press the “Add New” button from there.

Step 3. Upload the Premium Plugin, Install, and Activate

Clicking on the “Add New” button will direct you to the add plugins page where you’ll see the “Upload Plugin” button.

Here, in this case, you’ll have to upload a plugin instead of searching for the plugin from the search box. Since premium plugins aren’t available in WordPress.org.

Press the “Upload Plugin” button. Thereafter, you can choose a file that you had previously downloaded as a zip file on your computer.

Click on the “Choose File” to select the required zip file. After choosing the file, you can press the “Install Now” button. Then WordPress installs a plugin for you in no time.

Finally, press the “Activate Plugin” button to activate the plugin, and your premium plugin is ready to be used for your website.

C. How to Install a WordPress Plugin Manually via FTP?

Besides installing a plugin from the WordPress dashboard, you can also upload the plugin by alternative method i.e. manually via FTP. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It’s used for transferring the files between a computer and a server over the internet.

This method is a little complicated compared to the installation process from the dashboard. But this method can be useful when the WordPress plugin directory is inaccessible to you on your dashboard due to some reasons.

Having said that, if you want to know how to upload plugins to WordPress manually via FTP? Here’s the process in detail.

Step 1. Download the WordPress Plugin File on Your Computer

Firstly, you must choose a plugin and download the plugin file on your local computer. For a free plugin, you can download it from the WordPress.org plugin repository. Whereas you can download paid plugins after purchasing them from plugin stores like WPEverest.com or CodeCanyon.

For example, we’ll show you how to download a plugin from WordPress.org and install that on your site via the FTP method.

Visit WordPress.org and go to the plugins page. Search for the required plugin by name or relevant function and download it. You can download the plugin by simply clicking the “Download” button.

And your plugin will be downloaded as a zip archive on your computer. For instance, if you download the Everest Forms plugin then it will be downloaded as everest-forms.zip.

Unzip or extract the downloaded zip file on your computer by right-clicking on to your mouse. Then the file will be extracted with the same name (for example, here “everest-forms” ). Remember, here you’ll be uploading this extracted plugin folder later and not the zip archive.

Step 2. Install a FTP Client

Next, you should connect to your hosting server via an FTP client. FTP client is a piece of software developed to transfer the files between a computer and a server over the internet.

You need to install an FTP client on your computer before you proceed. A good example of an FTP client is FileZilla which is both popular and free.

Besides, FTP client you’ll need a few FTP details like host, username, password, and port. You can ask your hosting provider for help if you encounter any problem with the details during the process. Then, you can connect your server with an FTP client.

Step 3. Connect FTP Client to Your Server and Upload the Plugin

After the successful connection of your website’s server using FTP client on your computer. You’ll see two sites, that says “Local site” and “Remote site” . Local site denotes to your computer whereas remote site denotes your server.

Navigate to the wp-content directory located within the WordPress installation folder of your remote site. Further, within wp-content, you’ll find plugins and themes directory. Go to the plugins directory.

Then upload the plugin folder (here “everest-forms” ) that you extracted earlier to the /wp-content/plugins directory on to your server. You can simply drag and drop the plugin folder from your local site to a remote site and it’ll be uploaded automatically. 

Alternatively, you can right click your plugin folder and it’ll show you with the upload option. You can click the upload button and your plugin folder will be uploaded.

This plugin folder carries all the necessary plugin files required for WordPress plugins to be fully functional.

Once these steps are completed, you can now go to your WordPress dashboard area. And navigate to the “Plugins” menu on the sidebar of your left-hand side. On the plugins page, you can see your plugin is installed on your site.

Similar to the installation process of the free and premium plugins, the last thing you need to do is? Exactly, activating the plugin by hitting the “Activate” button and that’s it. Your plugin is now functional and ready to be used for your site.

Keeping Your WordPress Plugins Up-To-Date

If you’re thinking that you’re done with your job after plugin installation to a WordPress site. Then you may be a little wrong out there. Like any other system software and applications. You must ensure that your plugin is updated at times.

The main purpose of updating your plugin is to ensure maintenance and security. Besides, updates add extra functionality or make improvements to your plugin.

Also, you must update your plugin from time to time to make sure that your WordPress site is safe, secured, and compatible with your plugin. It’s because your WordPress plugin has a direct impact on your WordPress site to be precise.

Now that you’ve known that it’s important to update your plugin besides installing it. Let’s learn about different methods of updating your WordPress plugins.

Method 1. Updating WordPress Plugins from the Dashboard

For the plugin updates, you’ll get the notifications from your dashboard itself. You’ll see the notification for your plugin updates under the “Plugins” menu if the updates are available.

If there is any notification for your plugin updates, then you can click on the “Plugin” menu. Next, it’ll show you the plugins for which the updates are available. Go on and click the “update now” button for the individual plugin. 

You may also click the “Bulk Actions >> Update >> Apply” button if updates for many plugins are available and you want to update them at once. After that, your plugin will be updated automatically by WordPress itself.

Method 2. Enable ‘Auto-Update’ Option for WordPress Plugins

WordPress has always been a flexible platform offering wide functionalities. To add more, WordPress now offers the magnificent feature of the auto-update for WordPress plugins as well. This auto-update feature in WordPress is available for version 5.5 or higher.

In case your WordPress version is lower than 5.5, then you won’t find auto-update options for plugins. We recommend you to always use the latest version of WordPress, theme, and plugins as they offer better features and safe from vulnerabilities.

In order to auto-update your plugins, simply login to your WordPress dashboard area and navigate to the plugins page. Finally, you can see the ‘enable auto-updates’ option for the individual plugins. Simply click on that link.

With an advantage comes the risk. Sometimes auto-updating of the plugins and themes may crash your site without your knowledge for hours or even days. If you find it too risky, then you might not want to enable auto-update.

But there’s a solution to every problem. If you find it risky, then you can enable this feature of auto-update for only those plugins that are well maintained.

FAQs

1.  What are Pre-installed Plugins?

WordPress comes with the plugins like Hello Dolly and Akismet that you don’t need to manually install to your site. These plugins are called as Pre-installed plugins.

A pre-installed plugin like Hello Dolly isn’t so useful for your site. It just displays some text at the top of the admin screen on every page. So, you can simply deactivate it because it doesn’t have any other useful functionality for your site.

On the other hand, Akismet Anti-spam is a very useful plugin for your site. Though you don’t need to install this plugin, you need to activate it manually. After activating it, this plugin automatically removes the spams from your comments.

2.  Can you install WordPress Plugins in WordPress.com?

With WordPress.com, you cannot install the WordPress plugins unless you buy their business plan that costs $25/mo. Users who are on free, personal, or premium plans don’t have access to the plugin installation. 

Only those users, using a self-hosted version i.e. WordPress.org can enjoy the WordPress plugins on their website.

Wrapping Up

Adding the plugins to your website adds more functionality to your website. The installation process of the plugin is as simple and easy as installing any other applications to your computer. Besides, installing the plugin you should also remember to keep your plugin up-to-date.

You can install Everest Forms plugins for creating any kind of form for your site. You may also try User Registration for easy creation of registration forms and login forms.

This was our step by step guide for adding a new plugin to WordPress. We hope after reading this article, your query about how to upload plugin to WordPress has been solved.

If you like to read more of our articles. Then you can also read our tutorials on How to Block WordPress Form Spam and How to Easily Create a WordPress Popup Form.

If you found this article helpful please do share it on your social media account. Also, if you’ve got any comments and suggestions for us, feel free to write in the comment section below.

In a simple word, a plugin is an app or software containing a set of functions. It adds several new and useful features or functionalities to your WordPress website.

In this article, we’ll discuss the WordPress plugin in detail. For example, what is a plugin in WordPress, how it works, from where and how to choose one for your site, how to install it(?), and many more.

Let’s get started.

What is a WordPress Plugin? (Overview)

A WordPress plugin is simply an add-on application that either extends existing functionality or adds a new feature to your WordPress website. It enables WordPress users to add extra features to their site without needing to do anything about coding. The plugin helps to upgrade and strengthen the WordPress website.

There are tons of WordPress plugins that you can add to your site. Thanks to the ingenious developers. For you can easily find useful plugins for your website from those tons of plugins.

WordPress’s official plugin directory alone contains 57,000+ free plugins. You can choose a free plugin suited for your website from here.

For premium or paid plugins, you may visit sites like WPEverest.com, CodeCanyon, WPMU DEV, Mojo Marketplace, and so on. Here you can get the best premium WordPress plugins for your website.

Nowadays you can get the third option apart from free and premium i.e. Freemium. The concept is that if you’re using a free plugin and you desire for additional functionality then you can upgrade to a premium version of that particular plugin at any time.

How does a WordPress Plugin Work?

One basic rule of WordPress development is ‘Not to touch the WordPress Core’. This is exactly why WordPress is designed in a way that anyone can contribute to it. In other words, WordPress is developed in such a way that it can be extended using plugins.

The plugin adds extra code to your WordPress website for making it more functional. Or we can say that plugin integrates a set of functions to your website without needing to edit the WordPress core. As a result, it enables you to customize or configure your website as per your need.

Since plugins are powerful tools capable of bringing changes to your website. You can develop any kind of website easily. You can modify your website into a fully functional online store, business site, and many more.

For instance, a plugin like Everest Forms allows making any kind of online forms including a contact form for your site. An eCommerce plugin like WooCommerce changes your site into a beautiful online shopping site. A plugin like Estatik allows you to add property listings to create a fully functional real estate business website.

Similarly, plugins also help you to make other improvisation to your website. A good example of it is Yoast SEO. It’s a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plugin that helps your content rank higher in search engines.

Besides, you can find a plugin for several other purposes. For example, for Spam control, the security of your website, addition of contact forms, galleries, backups, pop-ups, drag and drop page builder, and many more.

How to Use a WordPress Plugin?

The process of installation of the free and premium plugin is slightly different. Here, we’ve explained the step by step process of installing plugins. Let’s start with a free plugin.

Installation of the Free Plugin

• Login to your WordPress admin area.
• Search for the word “Plugins” on the sidebar menu at your left-hand side.
• Click on the “Plugins” menu.
• Click the “Add New” button at the top of the page and you’ll land on the WordPress plugin directory page. Here, you can find all the free plugins for your site.
• Search for the plugin that you want to install by typing the name of the plugin in the search button. You may also type by related functionality.
• Hit the “Install Now” button after searching for the required plugin.
• After completion of the installation process, you need to activate it.
• Simply hit the “Activate” button and your plugin is ready to use.

Installation of Premium Plugin

Here, firstly you need to purchase the required plugin for your website. You can buy a plugin from any premium plugin store. After purchasing the plugin you’ll have an installable plugin saved as a ZIP file on your computer. Now, you can proceed as follows:

• Similar to a free plugin, login to your WordPress dashboard area.
• Search for the “Plugins” menu at the sidebar of your left-hand side and click it.
• Click the “Add New” button at the top of the page.
• After that hit on the “Upload Plugin” button.
• Next, you should click on the “Choose File” button.
• Select the ZIP file that you previously downloaded on your computer.
• Install it by simply clicking on “Install Now”.
• Finally hit the “Activate” button.
• Your plugin is now ready to use.

How to Find the Best Plugins for Your Website?

The vast majority of WordPress plugins are indeed available today. But not all those plugins developed need to be of good quality. Some plugins might have high quality while others might have poor quality. That’s why you should be very careful while choosing the plugin before installation.

Further, the poor quality plugin can harm your website in the following ways:

• Slow down your website
• Crash your site or cause an error
• Expose your site to security vulnerabilities
• Establish a malicious code to your site

But there isn’t anything to worry about. You can find the best plugin for your WordPress site by considering the following points.

1. Figuring Out the Need of Your Website

The foremost thing you need to take into consideration is figuring out the exact need of your website.

If you visit the WordPress plugin repository or another plugin store without any idea about the need of your website. Then that will be time consuming and unproductive. So, you need to have a clear picture of what kind of WordPress add-ons are needed for your website to make it fully functional.

2. Search for the Plugins

There are tons of plugins for every kind of website. So, you might get confused about which one will be the best for your website.

If you’re done figuring out your website’s needs. Then you can simply search for the quality plugins by visiting plugin stores like WordPress official plugin repository, WPEverest.com, CodeCanyon, etc.

There, you can type the relevant functions required for your website in the search button and it’ll display the related plugins for you. This will help you find the plugin that exactly fulfills your website’s goal.

3. Check for Ratings, Reviews, and Active Installations

Only searching for the plugin isn’t enough. Before deciding the plugin for your website, you must take a quick insight into the ratings, review, and active installation of the plugin too.

You can find the ratings for free plugins at the sidebar of the WordPress plugin repository. Each plugin has the star ratings ranging from 1 to 5, 1 indicates the lowest star rating and 5 indicates the highest star ratings. For instance, User Registration has ratings of 4.7 out of 5 stars.

User reviews help you to know about the strength or weaknesses of the plugin. Giving a thorough read to the user reviews help you to choose a suitable plugin. You can simply check for reviews of free plugins in the WordPress.org below the download button.

For example, the screenshot below is the review page of Everest Forms plugin.

Similarly, a large active installation of the plugin denotes that the plugin is used by massive users. And it’s worthy to be trusted for use on your website. You can view the active installations of any plugin on the WordPress plugin directory under the description button.

Ratings, reviews, and active installations provide the overall idea about the quality of the plugin. Hence, it helps you to choose the ideal plugin for your WordPress website.

4. Updates and Compatibility

A plugin that isn’t regularly updated isn’t considered safe for your WordPress website. It’s required that plugins are also updated on a regular basis to ensure its compatibility with WordPress. If your version of WordPress doesn’t support your plugin then you might need to tackle serious problems.

Hence, it’s needed that you don’t forget to check for the updates of the plugin you choose. You can check for updates of any plugin from WordPress.org under the description tab.

Here, you can also see other relevant information such as the WordPress version supported by plugin or the version of WordPress it is tested up to and so on.

5. Check for Support

Apart from the above-mentioned things, one of the important things to consider before choosing a plugin is user support. A support forum for free plugins on the WordPress plugin repository is situated under the support tab.

If the developers are responsive in solving user issues, you’re likely to get help for your plugin issues when you need it. If not, then you might need precautions to proceed with that plugin. Because you won’t be getting any help if anything goes wrong.

Best Places for Finding WordPress Plugins

1. WordPress official plugin repository
2. WPEverest.com
3. CodeCanyon
4. iThemes
5. WPMU DEV
6. WooCommerce.com
7. Mojo Marketplace

Some Essential WordPress Plugins for Every Website

1. Everest Forms

Everest Forms is a must-have WordPress forms plugin with a clean design. This plugin is extremely useful to create any kind of form including contact forms. The drag and drop option of this plugin allows creating a form without any difficulty. Therefore, it’s suitable for both the beginner and the advanced users.

The plugin fits perfectly onto any device due to its responsive design. Additionally, it’s lightweight and fast. It permits creating unlimited forms for your website. Besides, you can showcase your form in the post, pages, sidebar, etc. with the help of the shortcodes.

2. Easy Social Sharing

Easy Social Sharing is a popular WordPress plugin for social sharing options. Several social sharing buttons can be easily displayed with the help of this plugin. It offers a collection of 18 popular social sharing buttons for you to share your content without any difficulty.

Moreover, it has a social share count feature. The plugin is clean and simple. It consists of beautiful buttons. Also, you can choose from multiple button designs. Besides, it offers easy customization options for your website.

3. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO by Team Yoast is the number one SEO plugin with massive users. It optimizes your website’s SEO and helps to get more traffic to your website. As a result, you can rank higher in search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

This plugin allows the creation of title tags and meta descriptions. It permits control over site breadcrumbs. Canonical URLs prevent duplicate content issues from appearing in search engines.

Schema markup implementation allows search engines to produce more informative results. Moreover, it generates XML sitemaps. With premium Yoast SEO, you can further get control over News SEO, Local SEO, Video SEO, etc.

4. User Registration

User Registration is a simple yet beautiful plugin that permits the creation of any type of registration form. You can create frontend user registration forms and login forms easily with the help of shortcodes. With this plugin, you can make unlimited forms for your website.

Drag and drop fields further make it easier to build registration forms. Also, you get an option of multiple column layouts to create a form in a few clicks. It’s a translation ready and 100% mobile responsive plugin.

The plugin is supported by Google reCAPTCHA. Moreover, you get an email notification upon new user registration. You can extend the functionality of this plugin by using premium add-ons as well.

5. Akismet

Akismet is a must-have plugin for every WordPress website. It’s one of the most popular anti-spam plugins developed by Automattic. It checks all your comments and prevents the spam automatically.

You don’t even need to install this plugin because it’s pre-installed on every WordPress website. But you need to activate the plugin manually. It’s easy to use and compatible with other major plugins.

The plugin is available in both free and paid versions. It’s free for a personal website. But you need to pay for other commercial and business websites.

6. Wordfence Security

Wordfence Security is a complete solution for keeping your WordPress website secured. It’s the most popular WordPress firewall and malware scanner of all time. This plugin prevents hack attempts, tracks, and alerts important security events.

Besides, it checks your site for other security vulnerabilities. It’s an important plugin with ease of use for the best protection of your website. The plugin is available both in free and premium versions.

7. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is the most popular premium caching plugin. It reduces loading time and improves the speed of the site. It features lazy loading images. That means images are loaded only when they appear in the browser’s viewport of the users.

The plugin is extremely easy and quick to set up. It’s a beginner-friendly plugin installed to over 100,000 sites. It comes in three premium options ranging from $49 to $249.

8. UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus is a powerful WordPress backup plugin that allows creating a complete backup of your site. You can backup all your databases and even the plugins and themes with this plugin. It supports multiple cloud storage options like Google Drive, Dropbox, One Drive, Amazon S3, etc for uploading your backup.

It’s a reliable plugin that allows backup and restores your files in a few clicks. Also, it offers support from the experts for solving issues related to the plugin. The plugin is available in the free version. You can enhance functionality with the premium version of the plugin as well.

9. Elementor

Elementor is the most popular and powerful drag and drop page builder. It’s easy to use and a beginner-friendly plugin. As a result, it has over 5+ million active installations. Its drag and drop editor helps you to create a perfect website in no time.

The plugin comes with ready-to-use templates so that you can easily customize your needs. Moreover, the plugin is fully responsive. It features undo and redo functions. That means you can go back to the previous versions or use revision history to check out the previous version.

You can enjoy both the free and premium version of this plugin. It costs $49 for 1 site.

10. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the best eCommerce plugin that is used by massive WordPress users to create fully functional online stores. Its popularity is due to its compatibility with both beginners and advanced users. It can be considered a comprehensive solution for your eCommerce site.

This plugin permits selling you both the physical (clothing, toys, electronics, etc) and digital products (software, eBooks, templates, etc). It’s super easy to build an online store and start selling your products with this plugin. Further, several WooCommerce extensions are available to add other eCommerce features.

The Difference Between WordPress Plugins vs Themes

If you’ve just begun your WordPress journey. Then it’s likely that you get confused between WordPress plugins and themes. The difference between the WordPress plugin and theme is very simple to understand. There isn’t anything so complicated about it.

As explained before, the plugin is a WordPress extension for adding a set of features and functionality to your website. On the other hand, the WordPress theme is designed to change the visual aspect of your website.

With themes, you can change your site’s appearance like designs, colors, layout, etc. In other words, each theme determines how to assemble your website’s content like the page, post, etc. and exhibit them in their unique style.

Good examples of WordPress themes are Zakra, ColorMag, Neve, Astra, etc. For plugins, we’ve already mentioned the best examples earlier. So, now you know about it right?

One major difference between WordPress plugins and themes is that you can have only one theme activated for your site at a time. On the other side, you can use many WordPress plugins at the same time.

WordPress allows you to choose a default theme for your website. In case you aren’t satisfied with your default theme. You can always find free and premium themes for your site similar to WordPress plugins.

WordPress theme repository itself contains 7700+ free themes. So, you can select one that is ideal for your site.

FAQs

How many WordPress plugins can be installed for the site?

The number of plugins required for your site depends upon the specific purpose of your site itself. It also depends upon the functionality and size of other plugins you’re using. So, there isn’t any absolute pre-defined number mentioned for installing plugins.

There is one common saying “too many plugins slow down your site”. However, this isn’t the complete truth. The speed of the site is determined by the quality of the plugin and not the quantity of plugin.

But it’s always a good plan to have only those plugins that are truly required for your site. You don’t need to install WordPress plugins with similar functionality or the one that isn’t needed for your website.

Can we install WordPress plugins on WordPress.com?

One of the major downsides with WordPress.com is that you cannot use the WordPress plugins unless you buy their Business plan which costs $25/mo. It means that the majority of users on free, personal, and premium plans cannot install the plugins.

Whereas, self-hosted WordPress i.e. WordPress.org users are benefited from WordPress plugins.

Wrapping Up

A WordPress plugin is an extremely useful tool for making your website fully functional. It’s possible to add functionalities like SEO optimization, spam control, caching, security, social media, backups, pop-ups, drag and drop page builders, etc to your site using the WordPress plugins.

You can use WordPress plugins like Everest Forms, Easy Social Sharing, Yoast SEO, Wordfence Security, Elementor, etc to your site belonging from reliable and reputed sources.

Well, this was our detailed information on what is a plugin in WordPress. We hope after reading this article you got answered to all your queries about WordPress plugins. You may also like to read our article – Best WordPress Restaurant Menu Plugins and Best WordPress Multilingual Plugins.

If you liked this article, please do not forget to share it. And if you’ve any suggestions you’re most welcome to write in the comment section below.

A contact form is a simple tool of communication. It helps you to get in touch with prospective clients, keep spam at bay, and grow conversions.

Thus, if you own a WordPress website, it’s a good idea to add a custom contact form to it. But how to do that?

Well, we’ve prepared an easy tutorial below that shows you the step-by-step process of building a contact form in WordPress. 

So, let’s start!

Why Do You Need a Contact Form For Your WordPress Site?

Since you’re here, we assume you’ve decided to add a contact form to your WordPress site. 

And it’s possible that some of you are wondering why you need to use a contact form in the first place.

Well, here are a few reasons having a contact form on your site is beneficial.

• You can eliminate any barriers of communication by letting your visitors directly contact you through a form on your site.
• You can manage queries received through contact forms and address them efficiently.
• Since communication is much easier, visitors enjoy a great user experience on your site.
• With a contact form available, you don’t need to publicize your company email address. Hence, this prevents annoying spam emails.
• You can collect contacts for your email lists and boost your email marketing efforts without hassle.
• Contact forms help you identify prospective clients and engage them accordingly. This, in turn, helps you increase your leads and conversions.

That’s why it’s a fantastic business strategy to include contact forms in your WordPress website.

But how do you add one without having to rely on a developer? Read ahead to find out!

Best Way to Add a Custom Contact Form in WordPress

Since WordPress doesn’t let you add a contact form by default, you must take the help of a third-party plugin.

There are plenty of form builder plugins in WordPress that help you build custom contact forms without coding.

And the best among these plugins is Everest Forms, a popular contact form builder.

This beginner-friendly tool is the easiest way to create and customize various WordPress forms. Contact forms, leave request forms, hotel reservation forms, you name it!

Besides, you get 40+ custom form fields that you can use to create simple to advanced contact forms. Plus, there are several customization options available for each of these fields.

Since the builder interface is so user-friendly, you’ll have a complete contact form within a few minutes.

And Everest Forms is available for free! So, you can build unlimited contact forms without paying a penny. 

But the plugin does have a premium version. So, you can upgrade if you need more advanced features for your WordPress forms.

That’s why we recommend Everest Forms as the best way to create a contact form in WordPress.

How to Create Contact Form in WordPress?

Below, we’ve used Everest Forms to demonstrate the step-by-step process of creating a contact form in WordPress.

So, let’s start without further delay.

Step 1: Install and Activate the Everest Forms Plugin

First of all, you must install and activate the Everest Forms plugin on your website dashboard.

To do that, log into your site’s admin dashboard. Here, go to Plugins >> Add New.

Then, search for the Everest Forms plugin. Once it appears on the search results, press Install Now and then Activate it.

This will add the free version of Everest Forms to your website.

Step 2: Create a New Contact Form

With the free version installed, you can create any form you might need for your site. This includes WordPress contact forms.

Now, there are two ways to build a contact form with Everest Forms. You can either use one of the pre-built templates provided by the plugin. Otherwise, you must build the contact form from scratch.

We’ll go through both methods below to help you create a contact form easily.

Build a Contact Form in 1 Click with the Pre-built Template

The first method of building a contact form with Everest Forms is using one of its pre-built templates. 

You’ll find these templates under Everest Forms >> Add New. There are beautiful templates available for contact forms, reservation forms, application forms, and so on.

Since we’re building a contact form, choose the Simple Contact Form template by clicking the Get Started button.

Now, a popup asks you to name the form. Thus, give the form a suitable name and click Continue.

As you can see, the template already has all the basic fields you’d need for a simple contact form. 

• Name 
• Email
• Subject
• Message

You just need to customize the fields, which we’ll discuss in the next section.

If you need to add more fields, just drag and drop them from the Add Fields tab on the left.

Press the Save button at the end. Likewise, press the Preview button to check how the form looks from the front end.

Build a Contact Form from Scratch

If you don’t want to use a template, you can create a contact form from scratch as well.

In the Everest Forms >> Add New page, select Start From Scratch instead of any template.

Give the form a suitable name and press Continue.

Now, you’ll end up in the same form builder interface as the method above. However, the form is empty.

So, you must add the required fields from the Add Fields tab to the form. All you have to do is drag and drop the fields into appropriate rows. And to add a new row to the form, click the Add Row button.

Since we’re creating a contact form, use fields such as Email, Paragraph Text, Single Line Text, First Name, Last Name, etc.

If you want to rearrange the order of the fields, simply drag them up or down.

You can also change the layout of the form to multiple columns. Hover over the row in the form and click the Edit icon. Then, choose the number of columns you want.

Moreover, you can duplicate or delete the rows as well.

Finally, hit the Save button at the top when the form is complete. You can also Preview the form to check how it looks in the front end.

Step 3: Customize Your Custom Contact Form

When the form creation is complete, it’s time for customization.

The good news is that you can customize individual form fields on the form with Everest Forms.

Click on the field you want to edit, and its customization options will appear in the Field Options tab on the left.

You can do this for each field you’ve added to the form. 

Now, there are some options that are the same for each field such as:

• Label: Here, edit the label of the field you want to display in the front end.
• Meta Key: It’s a unique value assigned to the field to be stored in the database. We usually don’t recommend editing this option unless you’re planning on custom development.
• Description: Give a short description of the field to let users know what information they’re supposed to enter in the field.
• Required: Tick the checkbox to make the field required. Users can’t submit the form if they leave the required fields empty.

In the Advanced Options, you can further customize the following options:

• Placeholder Text: You can add placeholder text that’s displayed in the field area.
• Hide Label: If you don’t want the field label to be visible, tick this checkbox.
• Default Value: Using this option, you can provide a default value for the field.
• CSS Classes: Give your custom CSS classes to customize the field further.

Thus, you can edit these options for most of the fields. But depending on the field, the plugin adds several unique options for customization. 

For example, the Email field lets you Enable Email Confirmation. This feature isn’t available for other fields.

On the other hand, you can limit text length and provide maximum length for the Paragraph Text field.

Hence, you must edit each field as required with the available options.

When you’re done, click the Save button at the top to save all the customization.

Step 4: Configure the WordPress Contact Form Settings

Before you publish the contact form, you must configure a few form settings. 

You’ll find these settings in the Settings tab of the form builder at the top. When you click on the tab, you’ll find two categories: General and Email.

General: From this section, you can change the Form Name, Form Description, Submit Button Text, Form Disabled Message, and more.

The plugin also lets you choose a layout design for the contact form between Default and Classic. Likewise, you can enable custom redirection after submission, AJAX form submission, and more. 

You can also add custom CSS classes for the form if necessary.

Email: The Email section allows you to create and customize as many admin and user emails as you need. Just press the Add New Email to create a new email notification. 

Click on the email you want to edit and set the From Address, To Address, From Name, and other parameters for it.

After the configuration is complete, hit the Save button at the top. Your form is now ready for publishing.

Step 5: Display the Contact Form on Your Website

Finally, it’s time to display the contact form on your WordPress website.

So, open the page or post where you want to add the contact form. 

You can also create a completely new page or post from Pages/Posts >> Add New.

This takes you to the Gutenberg editor. Here, start by giving the page a title like “Contact Us.”

Then, press the block inserter ‘+’ icon and add the Everest Forms block to the page.

Select the contact form we created above from the dropdown and Publish the page. 

Alternatively, you can use the form shortcode to add the form to the page. All you have to do is add a Shortcode block to the page instead of the Everest Forms block.

Copy the form shortcode from the top of the form builder and go back to the editor.

Paste the shortcode into the block and hit Publish.

Your WordPress contact form is now live on your site!

Step 6: Add the Contact Us Page to Your Website’s Menu

Although the form is live, it doesn’t guarantee that your visitors will be able to find the Contact Us page. 

To make the form accessible to all users, you must add the Contact Us page to the site menu.

Since the link to the page is visible on the main menu, users can easily find and submit the contact forms.

Start by opening Appearance >> Menus on your dashboard. 

Let’s create a new menu first. Give the menu a name and tick the Primary Menu checkbox for Display Location. Then, click Create Menu.

If you already have a menu, go to its Edit Menus tab. Here, you’ll see a section titled Add menu items.

In the Pages option, select the Contact Us page, and press Add to Menu. 

Finally, click the Save Menu button. The navigation menu on your website now displays the Contact Us menu that’s clearly visible to visitors.

Note: This method is only applicable to Classic themes. For FSE themes, you’ll have to use the theme’s Editor to add the page to the navigation menu.

Upgrade Your WordPress Contact Form with Everest Forms Pro

So far, we’ve used only the free version of Everest Forms to help you create a simple contact form.

But what if you need to take your contact forms a step further?

That’s where Everest Forms Pro comes in. Using the vast collection of add-ons it offers, you can avoid the limitations of the free version.

You can add Google Maps to the contact form, use autocomplete address fields, utilize Select2 fields, and more.

Moreover, the pro version lets you prevent spam form submissions with the help of various CAPTCHAs.

Besides that, you can:

• Upload files submitted through the form directly to Google Drive or Dropbox.
• Enable conditional redirection after form submission.
• Customize email templates without coding.
• Convert form submissions to PDF files.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Thus, we recommend Everest Forms Pro if you want to level up your WordPress contact forms. You can check out all the pricing plans on the official pricing page and make an informed purchase.

Wrapping Up!

If you want to create a contact form in WordPress, you must have the right plugin at hand. This makes the process simpler and quicker for you.

And the best plugin we can recommend is Everest Forms. With its drag-and-drop builder, even beginners can create simple or advanced contact forms within minutes.

Use one of the pre-designed templates the plugin offers, or create everything from scratch. 

You can also add more features to the contact form by upgrading to Everest Forms Pro. For instance, you can schedule form submission date and time, integrate the form with third-party apps, etc.

Read more about this plugin on our official blog. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel for video tutorials on the plugin’s different features.

Share this article on your social media if you found it helpful. Also, follow us on Twitter and Facebook for instant updates on new blog posts. 

If you are a website owner that collects user data like email, address, phone number and so on from EU residents then you need to comply with the GDPR law. Since our plugins User Registration and Everest Forms collect users data we will outline on the ways to make your site GDPR compliant.

How to make Everest forms GDPR compliant

How to make User Registration GDPR compliant

Please do remember that this is not a legal advice and shouldn’t be taken as a final advice. We are not in a position to provide you with any legal advice on GDPR compliance. Please consult with your lawyer for legal advice on compliance with your site.

How to make Everest Forms GDPR Compliant?

If you are using Everest Forms on your site to collect user information here are few things you need to do to make your forms GDPR complaint.

Note: Make sure that you have updated the plugin to the latest version or higher than version 1.1.6.

Asking for User Consent

Before a user submits a form, make sure they are presented with a checkbox asking for their consent or approval for collecting their personal data. Create a privacy policy and let your user clearly know how the submitted data will be used. This can be easily done in Everest Forms by using the checkboxes Field. You can create a GDPR Agreement checkbox and make sure this is required in order for the form to be submitted. Also, make sure the agreement is not hidden with other terms and conditions and are clearly accessible.

Right to access data

As per GDPR users have the right to access the data that has been submitted or stored. This can be achieved by simply creating data request form in your privacy policy page. You can simply search for the user’s data by name, email and other parameter using the search field.

Also, you can completely disable the form entries. This can be done from Settings->General->Disable Form entries

By disable form entries form data are not stored on your site and are directly sent to your email.

Right to be Forgotten

If you are storing the forms entries then you can also search and delete the form entries. Search can be made from name, email address and other fields. The submitted data can be easily deleted as per user’s request. Make sure you allow your user to contact you easily if they wish to have their data easily. This can be done by placing simple form and providing the form link on your privacy policy.

Disable IP Address and User Agent stored in database.

By default our plugin stores the IP Address and User Agents on our entries. You can simply disable this from Everest Forms->Settings->General->Disable User Details

How to make User Registration GDPR Compliant?

Note: Make sure your plugin is updated to the latest version of User Registration or greater than v1.3.1

Asking for User Consent

Taking user consent before a user is registered on your site is easy. Simply use the Privacy Policy field to ask for the user’s approval. Make sure this field is marked required and clearly state how you are going to use the submitted data on your privacy policy page.

Right to access data

Your users have the right to access the data that you stored on your site. The user can easily access all the data stored on your site via the account profile shortcode. They can even change or update their personal information as per their need. We have also made User Registration plugin compatible with the Export/Erase Personal Data tool that is introduced in the latest version of WordPress i.e 4.9.6

You can simply go to Tools->Export Personal Data and enter the email or username and click on Send Request. The user will then receive an email confirming whether he/she really asked for the personal data stored on your site. If the user accepts the request by clicking on the request link, the user will be listed as confirmed and an Email Data button will appear on your dashboard as shown on the screenshot below. Simply click on the Email Data button to send the user the personal data.

The user will receive a zip file inside which an HTML file will contain all the personal information including the ones that are collected by User Registration Plugin.

Right to be Forgotten

A registered user might request a site owner to delete any personal data stored by our plugin and your site. In that case, you can simply erase any personal data by using WordPress Eraser tool. Go to Tools->Erase Personal Data.

User Registration plugin hooks all the data to this tool. So if you erase the data via this tool, any extra information saved by the User Registration plugin will be deleted.

Simply enter the email or username of the user who requested their data to be deleted and click on send request button.

A request email will be triggered to the user asking if he/she would like to delete the personal data associated with your site. Upon clicking the link provided in the email, by the user, a button will appear to erase the data. Simply click on the Erase Personal Data button to delete any personal data associated with the plugin

However, do remember that default user fields like Email, First Name, Last Name, Nickname etc will only be deleted once the user is manually deleted by admin from users page in your dashboard. All other extra information apart from the default WordPress fields associated will be deleted by clicking the Erase button.

If you have any queries then just drop your comment or contact us directly via our contact form.

With WordPress, you can either create an order form without any payments or accept payments with the order. Still trying to figure out how? Don’t worry! We’ll walk you through both of these processes in a step-by-step tutorial below. 

Before that, let’s learn a bit about why you need an order form for your business and the best way to create one. Let’s start!

Why Do You Need an Online Order Form for Your Business?

You might have heard suggestions to include an online order form on your business website. Do you ever wonder why it’s so crucial? 

The obvious answer is to collect orders online through a front-end form. But what does that entail for your business growth? Let’s find out:

• A front-end order form eliminates the need for customers to contact you through email or calls to place orders. It’s like removing a barrier that makes users hesitate to purchase.
• It makes the ordering process more streamlined for both you and your customers. You can also reduce manual tasks and switch to automated record-keeping and reporting.
• If you integrate the order form with payment gateways, you can easily accept online payments as well.

These are only some reasons as to why your business needs an order form on the website. Thus, it wouldn’t hurt to include such a useful form on your WordPress site.

WordPress, by default, doesn’t let you design order forms without coding. What method do you follow in that case? What’s the best way to add an order form to your website? 

We’ll discuss it in the next section, so go on ahead!

Best Way to Build an Order Form in WordPress

Plugins are always the best way to go when it comes to extending the tools in WordPress. Likewise, to build your WordPress online order form, you can search for an order form builder plugin.

And the best option you’ll find is Everest Forms, a drag-and-drop custom form builder for WordPress. Using this powerful plugin, you can easily create any form you need for your site. Contact forms, survey forms, appointment forms, and most importantly, the order form.

Additionally, Everest Forms comes with several payment fields that you can use to create an online order form. So, you can let your users place an order on your products and services from a frontend form.

Moreover, the plugin supports smooth integration with payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, etc. Hence, you can quickly accept payments through the order form.

Besides, Everest Forms offers plenty of rich features you don’t want to miss out on.

• Integrate your WordPress forms with thousands of apps through Zapier.
• Convert form submissions to PDF.
• Prevent contact form spam.
• Analyze form submissions from the Entries dashboard.
• Style the forms without coding.

Given all of these features and more, Everest Forms is definitely the best way to create an order form in WordPress. 

With that said, let’s finally dive into the process of building an online order form using Everest Forms.

How to Create Order Form in WordPress?

Designing an order form is simpler than you think, especially with a plugin like Everest Forms. Just follow the steps we’ve detailed below, and your order form will be ready for publishing in no time!

1. Install and Activate Everest Forms and Everest Forms Pro

Naturally, you’ll need to set up the Everest Forms plugin on your website to create an order form. 

So, go ahead and log into your site’s WordPress admin dashboard. Then, install and activate both the free and premium versions of Everest Forms. That’s because the payment fields and payment gateway integration are only available in the premium version.

So, you must first install the free plugin and then install the pro plugin on top of it. For a complete guide, refer to this article on how to properly set up Everest Forms Pro.

2. Install and Activate the PayPal Standard Add-on

After activating Everest Forms Pro, you’ll get access to the premium add-ons that extend the core plugin’s features. And one of the add-ons is PayPal Standard, which we will need for this tutorial.

The PayPal Standard add-on gives you access to the key payment fields necessary for a complete order form. Moreover, it also lets you connect your form to PayPal and accept payments. 

So, let’s install and activate this add-on on your site! For that, open Everest Forms >> Add-ons and search for the add-on. 

Click the Install Addon button and then Activate it. The add-on is now successfully set up for you to use.

However, PayPal is just one of the few payment gateways Everest Forms provides. If you’d rather not use PayPal to accept payments, you can use the Stripe or the RazorPay add-on.                                                  

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the PayPal Standard add-on. You can choose any other add-on that meets your requirements. 

3. Create and Customize Your Online Order Form

Now, it’s time to create and customize a new order form. 

Start by navigating to Everest Forms >> Add New.

Here, click on Start from Scratch to open the form builder.

Next, give your form a name and click Continue.

The form builder has all the available fields on the left side. You can drag and drop these fields onto the right to build your form. 

Everest Forms offers plenty of custom fields for you to choose from. So, you can add any field to the form you want. And if you’re going to customize the field, you have to click on it. This opens the Field Options, where you can edit the field’s various options.

But your order form is still incomplete until you include the payment fields. You’ll find them as you scroll down the fields tab. 

Let’s look at each field in detail to help you understand which of them you should add to the form.

Single Item: The Single Item field adds the singular item you’re selling to the form. You can customize the field and give the item a predefined price. You may also let users enter their own price for the item. Otherwise, you can keep the item completely hidden from the users.

Multiple Choice: This field helps you add various product choices to the form. The user will be able to select a single option among the choices. You can assign a price to each product manually. Moreover, you can even use image choices instead of text choices.

Checkboxes: Similar to the Multiple Choice field, you can provide multiple product options to users with the Checkboxes field. The only difference is that users can tick as many products/services as they want.

Quantity: Users can enter the quantity of the product they’re buying into this field. The value of this field is important to calculate the total amount. You must also set the field using which the final amount is calculated. The field can be Single Item, Multiple Choice, or Checkboxes.

Total: The Total field displays the total amount the user needs to pay based on the quantity and product price. 

Coupon: If you’re offering discounts, you can add a coupon code field to the form. The customers will enter the coupon code into the field, and the discount will be applied to the total amount. However, you’ll need the Coupon add-on to access this field. 

When your order form is ready, hit the Save button at the top to keep all the customization you’ve made.

4. Display the Order Form on WordPress Website

There’s more than building the order form before you’re ready to start taking customer orders. You still need to publish the form on your site. Only then will your users be able to find the form and place their orders.

For this, open the page or post where you want to add the form. You can also create a new page or post. It’s entirely up to you.

In the Gutenberg editor, press the Block Inserter (+) and search for the Everest Forms block.

Add it to the page and select your custom order form from the dropdown. Hit the Update button, and your form will be live on your site. 

If it’s a new page or post, hit the Publish button.

Alternatively, you can go for the shortcode method. Copy the form shortcode of your order form from the top of the builder. 

Open the page or post afterward and add a Shortcode block using the Block Inserter.

Paste the shortcode you copied previously into the block and click Update. 

And you’re done! You’ve successfully created an order form and displayed it on the front end.

How to Create a WordPress Order Form with Payment?

The process above shows you how to create a WordPress order form without any payments actually occurring. But what if you want to accept payments using the form?

In that case, you must implement two more extra steps, as explained below. You can proceed with the following steps after you’ve created the order form.

1. Enable PayPal Standard for the Form

First, you must connect your form to the PayPal payment gateway. This redirects your customers to the PayPal payment system once they hit Submit on your order form. 

All you need to do is open the order form and navigate to the Payments tab. Here, you’ll see an option called Enable PayPal Standard. Tick the checkbox for the option and hit Save. 

And with that, the initial connection between the order form and PayPal is completed!

2. Configure the PayPal Settings

As soon as you enable the PayPal payment option, a handful of new settings will appear right below. You need to configure these settings for an accurate and error-free payment process.

PayPal Email Address: It’s vital that you set a PayPal Email Address for the form. The address you enter is the one where you want to receive all the payments your customers send.

Mode: Everest Forms lets you choose between the Production mode and the Sandbox mode. You can choose the latter mode if the form is for testing purposes only.

Payment Type: Next, select the type of payment a customer is sending. Is it for a Product & Service or a Donation?

Cancel URL: The best part is that you can redirect users to a URL of your choice when they cancel their PayPal payment. Just enter the URL you want to redirect them to in the field.

Enable Conditional Logic: You can also enable conditional logic to handle payments for the form. You can set as many rules as you need with Everest Forms’ advanced conditional logic features.

Subscriptions: The plugin lets you set up a subscription-based payment system. This means the customer must pay recurring fees to access your product or service. For that, enable the subscriptions option and configure its settings.

After configuring all the required options, click the Save button at the top.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully created an online order form with payment. As we mentioned before, you can do the same with the Stripe payment gateway or RazorPay. It’s up to your business needs!

Wrapping Up!

That wraps up our article on how to add an order form to a website. As you might have realized by now, it’s super simple with a plugin like Everest Forms at your disposal. 

This incredible plugin will help you create just about any form, not just order forms. Plus, you can integrate your forms with various payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe. This way, you can accept customer payments right through the order form.

Besides, Everest Forms has so many more features to offer. For instance, you can add Google Maps to your form, send confirmation emails after form submissions, and more. 

Try it for yourself once! We’re sure the plugin will meet all your requirements as a website owner. 

You can learn more about Everest Forms and WordPress in general through our blog. If visual learning is more your style, we also have a YouTube channel with detailed tutorials.

Lastly, follow us on Twitter and Facebook to receive news and article updates.

Simply put, WYSIWYG (pronounced wiz-ee-wig) is an editing software. This incredible tool shows you what a piece of content is going to look like after you publish it.  

Likewise, in a WYSIWYG form field, the text you type into the editor resembles the appearance of the published text. And if you want a WYSIWYG field in your form, we’re here to help.

In this article, we’ll explore the WYSIWYG field and the steps to add it to a form. Let’s start! 

What is a WYSIWYG Field and Why do You Need It? 

WYSIWYG, short for What You See Is What You Get, is an editor used across most WordPress sites. This editor enables users to manipulate the layout or content without having to type any command.

For instance, when users write a document using a word processor, it uses WYSIWYG. This replicates what they create, edit, or format in the printed document or PDF file.  

Thus, adding a WYSIWYG field to your WordPress form provides an editor for your users. They can type in any content they want into the field and format it accordingly. With a WYSIWYG field, you can: 

• Let users submit guest posts through a front-end form. 
• Let users view what the content will look like once published while editing. 
• Enable users without programming knowledge to use this editor.  

With that said, you must also have a tool that lets you add a WYSIWYG field without any hassle. And Everest Forms is the perfect plugin for this! It’s a drag-and-drop WordPress form builder that offers a WYSIWYG field. You can add this field to your form for any purpose necessary.

Thus, we’ll use this plugin to show you how to add a WYSIWYG field to forms. 

How to Add WYSIWYG Field in WordPress Forms? 

Step 1: Install and Activate Everest Forms and Everest Forms Pro 

The first thing you need to do is set up Everest Forms and Everest Forms Pro on your WordPress dashboard. 

Yes, you’ll require the pro version of the plugin. That’s because the WYSIWYG field is unlocked only with the premium version. 

For a detailed guide, go through our article on how to install Everest Forms Pro. 

Step 2: Create a New Custom Form

After the plugin installation is complete, open Everest Forms >> Add New. In the Add New Form page, you’ll find a collection of pre-built form templates. However, you can also start from scratch. 

In this tutorial, we’ll be starting from scratch. So, click on Start From Scratch and name your form. Here we’ll name it “WYSIWYG Form” and press Continue. 

You can build any type of form according to your requirements; it can be a contact form, leave request form, guest post form, etc.

All you have to do is drag and drop the necessary fields into the form editor and click Save.

Step 3: Add & Customize the WYSIWYG Field in Your Form 

Adding a WYSIWYG field using Everest Forms in your form is a piece of cake. Simply drag and drop the WYSIWYG field from the Advanced Fields to the form. 

Furthermore, you can customize the WYSIWYG field. You just have to click on the field and its Field Options will appear on the left. 

Next, you can make changes in the field options as explained below: 

• Label: Here, you can change the field’s label by entering what you want your Label to be. 
• Meta Key: Meta key stores the field data in your database and retrieves it when necessary. 
• Description: You can enter text for the form field description here. 

Next up you can simply check on Required, Tooltip, and Validate as unique if you want these options enabled. 

Scroll down for the Advanced Options where you’ll find: 

• Place Holder Text: You can enter the text for the form field placeholder. For example, we’ve written, “Type your message here.”  
• Hide Label: You can simply check this option to hide the field label. 
• Default Value: Here, you can enter text for the default form field value or simply choose the required field by clicking on the <> button. 
• CSS Classes: You can also add custom CSS classes for further customization. 

If required, you can even apply conditional logic to the field with the Enable Conditional Logic option.  

Finally, you can hit the Save button at the top. If you want a preview of your form, click on Preview. 

As you can see, the WYSIWYG field of Everest Forms lets your site users switch between two modes: 

• Visual: Images and text are displayed directly in the text editor. 
• Text: Images and text are displayed in the HTML format. 

Here’s the list of toolbar option you’ll find for the Visual mode in the WYSIWYG field: 

• Bold 
• Italic 
• Bullet list 
• Number list 
• Block quote 
• Align left 
• Align center 
• Align right 
• Insert/edit link 
• Insert Read More tag 
• Full screen 

To display additional options, click on the ToolBar Toggle icon. 

Here’s a list of all the additional options that are available: 

• Strikethrough  
• Horizontal line  
• Text color 
• Paste as text 
• Clear formatting 
• Special character 
• Decrease indent 
• Increase indent  
• Keyboard shortcuts 

Additionally, users will be able to select the text formats like Paragraph, Heading, etc. from the drop-down.  

On the other hand, users must type HTML tags into the field if they choose the Text mode. There is a list of common HTML tags above the field that a user can directly add to the editor instead of typing them out. 

Step 4: Configure Your Form Settings 

Next, open the Settings tab of the form to configure your form’s settings. Here, you’ll find 3 sections with various customization options. 

General: With the General settings, you can edit Form Description, Form Disabled Message, Enable Conditional Logic, Layout Designs, etc. 

Email: The Email settings allow you to create admin and user email notification templates. 

WebHook: Using a WebHook, you can send the form data to any external URL. All you have to do is set the Request URL, Request Method, Request Format, and Request Header. 

 Finally, you can hit the Save button. 

Step 5: Display Your Form on the Website  

You’ve successfully created your form using Everest Forms to add a WYSIWYG field. But it won’t be visible to your users unless you display your form on your WordPress website.  

Hence, to add the form to your site, you can use any of these two methods. 

The first way is by copying the shortcode of the form from the top of the builder.

Then, create a new page or post, and you’ll get to the Gutenberg editor. Here, press on the Add Block (+) icon and search for the Shortcode block. Next, click on the block to add it to the page or post.

After that, paste the shortcode you just copied into the block, and click on the Publish button. 

That’s it! Your form will be displayed on your site.  

Alternatively, you can use Everest Forms block to display your form. Click on the (+) button and search for the Everest Forms block.

Add it to the page and select your WordPress WYSIWYG form from the drop-down.  

Finally, you can hit the Publish button at the top. 

Wrapping it Up! 

And that’s a wrap for our guide on how to add WYSIWYG field in WordPress Forms. All you need is the amazing Everest Forms plugin. You can simply drag and drop the WYSIWYG field into your form and customize it without any hassle. 

That’s not all you can do with Everest Forms. You can use this powerful plugin to enable entry preview in multi-part forms, enable conditional redirection after form submission, and more. 

Read more about Everest Forms on our blog if you’re interested. You can also visit our YouTube channel for easy video tutorials.  

Also, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for future updates. 

Hence, this article intends to help you understand what the Likert scale is and its examples. We’ll also discuss its advantages and limitations and provide tips to create a useful Likert scale.

So, are you ready? Let’s start.

What is a Likert Scale?

You might have answered the survey questions that asked about how much you agree or disagree with certain statements at least once in your lifetime. That type of scale is called the Likert scale.

It’s named after an American psychologist Rensis Likert. This psychometric scale helps you measure opinions and perspectives regarding the quality of your products, services, and so on from your audiences. 

It’s a closed-ended question/statement meaning it has pre-populated answer options, as seen in the example below. And, the answer choices range from one extreme point to another, like Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree.

Since the questions have their own set of pre-populated answers choices with positive and negative sentiments plus a neutral midpoint thus, respondents can freely provide their opinion without any pressure. 

Therefore, it helps you get genuine responses for your survey research without intimidating the respondents with open-ended questions, yes/no, ranking, and other such question types. 

Now that you know what the Likert scale is, it’s time to explore some of its examples. 

Likert Scale Examples

The Likert scale can measure any kind of sentiments like satisfaction, frequency of the behavior, level of agreement, likelihood, and many more. Therefore, it’s widely used in psychology, social sciences, business, and marketing. 

Some of the useful Likert scale examples are as follows:

1. Customer Satisfaction

Researchers broadly use the Likert scale in customer satisfaction surveys. These surveys help you gain insights into how they feel about your products and services. So, you can detect the areas of improvement to grow your business.

Likert scale example for customer satisfaction:

2. Frequency of Behavior

Likert scale survey is suitable to track the behavior of your customers, students, employees, etc. For instance, you can find out the frequency of product purchases and returns from your customers. Likewise, you can determine how often students skip classes or submit homework, etc.

Likert scale example for frequency of the behavior:

3. Level of Agreement

Likert scales are also useful to gauge respondents’ level of agreement to specific statements or questions.

Likert scale example for level of agreement:

4. Feedback Collection

It’s also possible to determine people’s overall experience about different types of training, seminars, and other such events. 

Likert scale example for feedback collection:

As seen in the example above, the flexibility of the scale can help you gather valuable insights about broad topics relevant to your business. Hence, the results can be fruitful to identify the areas of improvement to make your business grow and succeed.

Likert Scale Types

There are several Likert scale points which are divided into two major types i.e., Even and Odd Likert scale.

I. Even Likert Scale

These types of scales lack neutral options. So basically, they’re also referred to as forced scales because respondents have to choose from either positive or negative ends.

• 2-Point Likert Scale: It’s the simplest type of even point scale with just two options.

• 4-Point Likert Scale: It allows respondents to choose from 4 options to collect specific responses.

• 6-Point Likert Scale: It’s the upgrade for a 4-point type with two more answer choices for collecting user opinions.

• 8-Point Likert Scale: It provides more options to express the true feelings of respondents. Thus, it has a greater degree of measurement precision. However, it’s less commonly used as it confuses respondents with too many options.

II. Odd Likert Scale

These scales types comprise of two extreme poles with neutral choice at the middle. Hence, it offers an easy option to choose when the respondents are undecided or confused.

• 3-Point Likert Scale: The simplest odd scale type has two endpoints with a neutral option at the middle.

• 5-Point Likert Scale: It consists of 5 different answer choices. This scale is easier for users to understand and respond to. Therefore, it’s considered ideal for performing more extensive surveys. 

• 7-Point Likert Scale: It’s a variant of the 5-point scale type with two additional answer choices at the extreme ends. It’s easy to use and provides a better reflection of how the respondent feels.

• 9-Point Likert Scale: Here, you’ll get 9 different answer options. Since more answer choices can overwhelm the users and make them choose the answers randomly, researchers rarely use this point scale type. 

Advantages and Limitations of Likert Scale

There are many advantages and disadvantages to the Likert scale survey, which are explained given below.

Advantages

The Likert scale offers several advantages that make it so popular among researchers and surveyors. They are:

• Universal Market Research Method: It’s the easiest, reliable, quick, and inexpensive survey method for data collection.
• Higher Response Rate: Respondents can easily understand the questions and choose from the wide range of answer options that make them comfortable to respond in the survey research.
• Honest Feedback Collection: Since respondents can conceal their identity, the chances are high that you get honest opinions regarding your products and services.
• Get Quantitative Data: All the responses you collect can be subjected to computation for statistical analysis. 

Disadvantages

Though you get multiple benefits, there are also some drawbacks you cannot avoid. They are:

• Restricted Answer Options: The pre-populated answer choices restrict respondents from providing the most relevant answer that genuinely reflects their feelings.
• Avoiding Extreme Options: Respondents frequently tend to avoid extreme responses (Extremely Important, Strongly Agree, or Disagree) on a scale to keep themselves in a positive light.
• Fails to Provide Accurate Measurement of Attitude: Since the Likert scale is uni-dimensional, the distance between answer options may not be equidistant, referring to respondents’ lack of absolute attitude measurement.
• Not Always Possible to Get True Feedback: People often provide random responses to create a false impression of your business. Also, respondents occasionally misunderstand the questions and give wrong feedback.

How to Create Useful Likert Scale Survey?

In the previous sections, you learned the definition of the Likert scale, its examples, advantages, and disadvantages. Now, if you’re entirely new to this term, you may also want to know how to create functional Likert scales that yield effective results. So, here we’ll be discussing the same.

1. Determine What You Want to Measure

First of all, you need to think before you ink. You should be clear on what opinions, experiences, or perspectives you want to derive from your audiences regarding your business. All the questions you create and the responses you get depend on what you want to measure.

For instance, different types of sentiment you would like to measure are:

• Agreement: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree Nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree
• Frequency:  Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often, Always
• Approval: Strongly Disapprove, Disapprove, Neutral, Approve, Strongly Approve
• Quality: Very Poor, Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent
• Importance: Extremely Important, Important, Moderately Important, Slightly Important, Not At All Important

2. Ask Multiple Questions

Likert scale generates better results when you group related questions/statements. You can sum up responses you get for the questions and analyze them to get accurate results that pinpoint the strength and limitations of the specific topic of your interests. 

For instance, you can view the image below.

The Likert scale example above is focused on getting feedback about your company’s product. Hence, you can create multiple questions/statements to dig deeper about anything relevant to your business in a similar way. 

Also, while writing survey questions, make sure you practice the following for better results:

• Use simple words and language that your audience understands.
• Avoid long and complex questions that bore your readers; rather keep it simple, clear, and concise.
• Stay away from biased questions that may force people to choose from the extreme answer choices.

3. Keep Your Scaling Responses Odd

Odd scales have a midpoint, so they can pick the neutral answer choices without any pressure if the respondents cannot decide. 

However, choosing a scale above seven may overwhelm the respondents leading to random picking of answers options making your results meaningless. Also, using a scale below five may restrict users from expressing how they feel about the products and services. Hence, 5 to 7 point scales are ideal for the survey. 

4. Make Sure to Label Your Scale

Numbered scale can confuse your respondents about which rating scale is positive and which is negative. As a result, you may get the wrong responses. Therefore, it’s wise to label the numeric responses.

For instance, you can label your scale for the statement or question as follows:

• 5 – Strongly Agree
• 4 – Agree
• 3 – Neither Agree Nor Disagree
• 2 – Disagree
• 1 – Strongly Disagree

5. Use Consistent Scale

You need to add up all the responses to measure the attitude or behavior of people towards your business. Mixing different scales within your survey can confuse your respondents and make it difficult for final analysis. Therefore, you ought to keep your scale consistent.

Analyzing Likert Scale Data

The debate on which statistics to use to analyze Likert data has been going on for a long time. Therefore, it’s essential to know what data type you are dealing with first, i.e., Likert item or Likert scale.

In the example above, the statement “Our website has a beautiful design” is a Likert item, whereas the table as a whole is a Likert scale. 

The Likert items are individually evaluated to get a deeper insight into specific attributes, whereas in the latter, researchers add all the Likert items to measure a single trait.

Typically, the researchers treat the Likert items as ordinal level data where we cannot assume the distance between responses as equal. So, to analyze the ordinal scale data, mode or median are used to measure central tendency, and frequencies are used to measure variability. Similarly, you can use non-parametric tests like the Chi-square test, Mann Whitney test, etc.

Contrarily, the researchers treat the Likert scale as an interval scale where the distance between responses is assumed to be equal. One primary reason for considering it as an interval is that a composite score is obtained by adding responses to all the questions. 

So, in this case, you can use the mean to calculate central tendency and standard deviation for variability. Likewise, you can use parametric tests like Pearson’s r correlation, t-test, ANOVA for analyzing data.

Conclusion

Likert Scale is one of the best survey tools to measure attitude and opinion regarding a particular subject matter of your interests. This technique makes it extremely easy for your audience to understand and respond to your questions. Thus, it’s possible to yield effective results that can guide you to improve your business. 

With an outstanding WordPress plugin like Everest Forms and Survey Polls and Quiz add-on, you can easily create the Likert surveys that give results. 

Now, we’re at the end of our article. Hopefully, you enjoyed reading it. If you did, consider sharing it on your social platforms.

You can also check our other articles on how to create survey forms and the best WordPress survey plugins.

Lastly, make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates.