We use forms across all our projects, from contact pages to newsletter subscriptions and even checkout forms. Along the way, we have learned all the steps needed to embed a WordPress form, and we are here to walk you through the entire process from start to finish.

In this guide, we will show you how to embed forms using the most popular WordPress form builders.

What Is a WordPress Form, and Why Is It Important?

A WordPress form is a tool for collecting valuable information and insights on your website. It lets visitors input their details, such as their name, email address, and feedback.

Forms have many use cases. For example, you can create a contact form for allowing users to reach you and building an email list, a survey for gathering opinions, or a registration form for events.

You can also use forms for booking appointments or collecting donations. Some businesses also use forms to handle customer support requests.

Without forms, you might miss out on chances to engage with visitors. So, adding forms to your WordPress website is a smart move for any website owner.

How to Embed Forms in WordPress

In the following sections, we will walk you through each step to add forms to your WordPress site. If you’re interested in a particular form type, you can click the link to skip ahead in the article:

Ready? Let’s get started.

1. How to Embed WPForms Into Your WordPress Site

WPForms is the best multipurpose form builder on the market. It’s one of the most popular, too, with over 6 million active users.

With this tool, you can use any of its 2000+ ready-made, customizable templates to create any form you want.

In addition to contact forms, WPForms can help you easily build simple to more advanced forms, like:

• Survey forms
• Online order forms
• Payment forms
• File upload forms
• Conversational forms
• Multi-page forms

When it comes to embedding WPForms, you can either use a WPForms block or a shortcode.

So, let’s install and activate WPForms and try this together. If you need help, then you can refer to our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Then, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to create a contact form in WordPress.

Embedding WPForms Forms Using the WPForms Block

Once the form is ready to publish, simply click the ‘Embed’ button inside the form builder to add the form to your web page using a WPForms block.

This will open a popup window where you can choose an existing page or create a new page for the form.

If you click the ‘Select Existing Page’ button, you’ll see a dropdown menu with all the available pages on your website. And if you click ‘Create New Page,’ then you’ll see a ‘Name Your Page’ field to fill out.

Once you’ve chosen a page or named your new page, you can click the ‘Let’s Go!’ button.

You’ll then be redirected to the page’s block editor.

From here, you can click the ‘+’ button and search for the WPForms block.

The next step is to open the dropdown in the WPForms block and choose the form you want to embed.

Once you select a form, WPForms will load it in the block editor.

After that, you might want to play around with the ‘Form Settings’ in the right-hand panel.

By default, WPForms doesn’t load your form title. So, you might want to switch on the ‘Form Title’ option to add the form title and give visitors more context. If you write a form description, you can also turn the option on.

Even better, you can style your form with a theme to match with your site’s overall look and feel.

When you are happy with how the form looks, you can go ahead and click ‘Save.’

And that’s how you embed WPForms using a WPForms block.

Embedding WPForms Forms Using a Shortcode

Another way to embed WPForms is by using a shortcode.

To do this, you’ll want to head over to WPForms » All Forms to find the ‘Shortcode’ column for each form.

From here, simply copy the form’s shortcode you want to embed. For example, we will copy the shortcode of our ‘Customer Review’ form.

The next step is to open the page or post where you want to embed the form. To do so, go to ‘Pages’ or ‘Posts.’ Then, hover over one of them and click ‘Edit’ when it appears.

This will send you to the page or post’s editor.

To embed the form, let’s click the ‘+’ button and search for the ‘Shortcode’ block.

Once the block is added, you can paste your WPForms form’s shortcode into the text field.

Here’s what it might look like:

The block editor won’t load the form in the live editing area.

So, go ahead and save the changes first, then click the ‘View Page’ button when it appears in the bottom left corner.

2. How to Embed Donation Forms in WordPress

Adding a donation form to your website makes it easy for people to support your cause. Visitors are more likely to donate when they see a clear and simple way to do so.

The easiest way to embed donation forms in WordPress is to use the Charitable plugin. This popular tool lets you create and customize multiple fundraising campaigns with over 100 ready-made templates.

So, let’s install and activate Charitable to create your donation form. If you need help, then you can see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, let’s head over to Charitable » Settings to activate the Pro license. Simply paste your license key and click ‘Verify Key’ to initiate the process.

With that done, you’re ready to create your donation form. For detailed instructions, you can read our guide on how to create a recurring donation form in WordPress.

When you’re happy with the way the form looks, you can embed it in a WordPress post or page.

In the campaign builder, simply start by clicking the ‘Draft’ dropdown to open its options. Then, go ahead and click ‘Publish,’ and Charitable will automatically create a new page for your campaign.

And that’s all there is to it – you’ve successfully created and published your first Charitable campaign!

Now, if you visit your website, you can see your donation form in action.

That said, you might also notice the ‘Embed Wizard’ link in the pop-up window or the ‘Embed’ button in the Charitable editor.

You can also use either of these functions to add your donation form to other posts or pages.

To do this, simply click the ‘Embed Wizard’ link or the ‘Embed’ button, and it will trigger the embed prompt.

In the popup that appears, you’ll need to choose between selecting an existing page or crating a new one.

Since we already have a dedicated donation form page, it’s a good idea to choose ‘Select existing page.’ Go ahead and click the button.

Then, you’ll see a dropdown with a list of all the pages in your WordPress site.

You can expand the dropdown menu, pick a page, and click the ‘Let’s Go’ button.

This will redirect you to the page’s block editor.

From here, you can click the ‘+’ button and search for the ‘Charitable Campaign’ block. Then, simply click on the search result to add to the content editor.

After that, you’ll be able to choose a donation form to embed from the ‘Charitable Campaign’ block dropdown.

Go ahead and expand the dropdown menu. Then, simply click on the campaign you want to add.

Don’t worry if you can’t see the preview in the content editor. The block works just fine.

So, let’s click the ‘Save,’ ‘Update,’ or ‘Publish’ button to make it live.

And that’s it! You can now visit the page to see the donation form in action:

3. How to Embed HubSpot Forms in WordPress

HubSpot is a great platform for growing your business, with tools like a customer relationship management platform (CRM) where you can manage customer info, a website builder, and more.

The good news is that they also have a form builder that works great with WordPress. When someone fills out a form, their info goes straight into HubSpot CRM, so you can easily follow up with them using emails and messages.

You can even connect HubSpot with other form tools, including WPForms. This makes the platform really handy because it works with lots of other tools you might already be using.

For this tutorial, we will show you how to embed HubSpot forms using the HubSpot Form Builder plugin and the WPForms’ HubSpot Addon.

Embedding HubSpot Forms Using the HubSpot Plugin

To embed HubSpot Forms using the plugin, you’ll first need to install the HubSpot plugin. If you need help, then you can read our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll want to click the ‘HubSpot’ menu from your WordPress dashboard. In this panel, you’ll see several ways to connect your website with HubSpot:

• If you have a HubSpot account, simply click ‘Sign In.’
• If you don’t, you continue with your Google, Microsoft, or Apple account.
• If you want, you can use the same email you use to register your website.

Once you’ve signed in or created a HubSpot account, you’ll be asked to connect it to your WordPress website.

Simply click the ‘Connect website’ button, and HubSpot will start the process.

Once connected, you’re ready to create your HubSpot form using the HubSpot plugin.

Go ahead and navigate to HubSpot » Forms. Then, you can click the ‘Create form’ button.

From here, you can choose a form type and template. Then, you’ll be redirected to a new tab where you can use the form builder to customize your HubSpot form.

For detailed instructions, you can see the first method in our guide on how to create a HubSpot form in WordPress.

When you’re happy with the way your form looks, the next step is to embed it into your site. Naturally, you’ll want to use the ‘Embed’ button inside the form builder.

However, this method is a bit confusing.

It only lets you share the form link and use an HTML snippet on your WordPress post or page.

Instead, you can click the ‘Back to WordPress’ button and embed your forms from the HubSpot dashboard in your admin area.

Go ahead and click the button in the top left corner.

From here, you’ll just need to hover over the form you want to embed.

After that, simply click the ‘Embed’ button when it appears.

You’ll then see a pop-up window where HubSpot shares several ways to embed your form.

Here, you can choose to embed your HubSpot form to a post or page using the HubSpot block. And if you switch to the other tab, you’ll find the form’s shortcode.

For this tutorial, we will click the ‘WordPress Post’ button.

This will open the ‘Posts’ page in a new tab. Go ahead and open a post to embed the form into by hovering over a post and clicking ‘Edit’ when it appears.

You’ll then be able to add the HubSpot Form block to the page through the content editor.

From here, you can click the ‘+’ button and use the search bar to look for the HubSpot Form block. Give it a click when you see it.

This will add the HubSpot Form block to the content area.

Next up, let’s click the dropdown menu to open the available options. Then, you can choose the HubSpot form you want to embed.

And that’s it! You can now click the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.

Here’s what it looks like on our demo site:

Embedding HubSpot Forms Using the WPForms’ HubSpot Addon

Using WPForms to create a HubSpot form is an easier, more efficient way to manage forms and contacts without the hassle of juggling multiple plugins.

WPForms handles both form creation and the HubSpot integration in one place. This simplifies the process because it gives you access to WPForms’ drag-and-drop builder and templates while syncing your form data with HubSpot automatically.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin. Check out our detailed guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll need to verify your license key in WPForms » Settings.

You can find your license key in your WPForms account. Simply click the clipboard icon to copy it. Then, you can return to your WordPress tab and fill out the ‘License Key’ field.

Go ahead and click the ‘Verify Key’ button to activate your plan.

Now, let’s go to WPForms » Addons from the admin dashboard to install the HubSpot Addon.

From here, scroll down and locate the HubSpot add-on. Then, go ahead and click the ‘Install Addon’ button.

After activating the addon, you should go to the WPForms ‘Settings’ panel from the WordPress dashboard and then switch to the ‘Integration’ tab.

Here, you can connect your HubSpot CRM account to WPForms. Simply click ‘+ Add New Account’ and enter your account details.

Once done, it’s time to create and embed a HubSpot form from WPForms.

First, you’ll need to create your form by navigating to WPForms » Add New. On the next screen, you’ll name the form and select a form template.

After that, you can customize the template using the form builder.

If everything looks good already, feel free to switch to the ‘Marketing’ panel. From here, let’s open the ‘HubSpot’ option to connect the form with the platform.

Go ahead and enter your HubSpot account details and follow the setup prompts.

Once done, you can publish the form using the WPForms block or the form’s shortcode. For more details, you can check out our guide on how to create a HubSpot form in Wordpress.

4. How to Embed Google Forms in WordPress

WPForms and other WordPress form builders are really easy to use. They work right on your WordPress site and let you do lots of things like build forms that accept payments, create login forms, make custom user registration forms, and more.

But sometimes, you might need to share a form on different websites or platforms.

In those cases, Google Forms can be super handy. They’re easy to share, work great on mobile phones, and keep all responses in one place. Plus, you can add collaborators to help you with the responses, all stored in Google Drive.

To embed a Google Form in WordPress, you can start by creating a form on the Google Forms website. Simply click the ‘Go To Forms’ button.

On the next screen, you’ll see various form templates. Go ahead and click on one of them to start building.

You can also start from scratch by clicking on ‘Blank form.’

Once you’ve chosen a template, you can start customizing the form. Here are several things you might need to do:

• Create the form title.
• Provide the form description.
• Customize the fields to match your goals.

You can also use AI tools to choose the most suitable fields for your questions.

When you’re happy with how the form looks, go ahead and click the ‘Send’ button. This will open a pop-up window where you can get the form’s embed code.

After copying this code, you can open a page or post in WordPress where you want to display the form.

In the page or post’s content editor, let’s click the ‘+’ button and search for the ‘Custom HTML’ block. Go ahead and click on it to add it to your page.

Then, simply paste the Google Forms’ embed code into the Custom HTML block.

Once done, don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button. Now, if you visit your website, you should see the Google form in action.

For more detailed step-by-step instructions, you can refer to our guide on how to embed a Google form in WordPress.

5. How to Embed Zoho Forms in WordPress

Zoho Forms is a great tool that lets you easily create all sorts of forms. Whether you need a contact form, survey, registration form, or order form, Zoho Forms has got you covered.

What’s more, embedding a Zoho Form into your WordPress site is easy. But before we get to this part, let’s first create the form.

To get started, you’ll need to create an account on the Zoho Forms website. Simply click ‘Sign Up for Free.’

Once you’ve created an account, you can start creating your form.

First, you’ll need to click the ‘New Form’ button in the form builder.

You will then see that Zoho Forms offers 3 ways to create forms:

• Create forms from scratch using the standard or card form type.
• Use ready-made form templates.
• Make CRM forms, which is a feature that is only available if you upgrade to the Pro plan.

For this guide, we will choose the ‘Website Feedback’ template.

So, let’s click the ‘Use this template’ button.

With that done, you’ll land in the Zoho Forms form builder.

The left-hand panel has all the customization options, and the form preview is on the right. You can add elements to your form by simply dragging and dropping them.

With Zoho Forms, you can also change the form’s theme to match your website’s theme.

To do this, you can go to the ‘Themes’ tab. Then, simply hover over the theme you want to use and click ‘Apply.’

If everything looks good already, then you can switch to the ‘Share’ tab.

In this tab, you can see that Zoho Forms has lots of options for embedding forms.

Since we will embed it into a WordPress site, let’s head over to Embed » Website Builders. Then, go ahead and click the ‘Go to WordPress’ button.

You’ll then be redirected to the Zoho Forms page in the WordPress plugin directory.

All you need to do is install the plugin. If you need help, then you can see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can open a post or page where you want to embed Zoho Forms. From here, you’ll then click the ‘+’ button and select the Zoho Forms block.

Once the block is added, you can click the ‘Access Zoho Forms’ button.

There’s also the ‘Embed with permalink’ link, but we don’t recommend this method as it’s not as beginner-friendly.

Then, you’ll be prompted to choose the domain where you registered your Zoho account.

In this case, we will choose ‘zoho.com‘ from the dropdown menu and click ‘Connect.’

After that, you can choose the form you want to embed.

Simply click the dropdown and select one from the available options. Then, you’ll want to scroll down and click the ‘Embed’ button.

Your content editor will then load your Zoho form.

If you like what you see, then go ahead and click the ‘Save’ button.

Now, if you visit the page, you’ll see your Zoho form in action.

Here’s what it might look like:

From the image above, you can also see that the Zoho Forms theme makes it easier to match the form with your website design.

6. How to Embed Email Signup Forms in WordPress

OptinMonster, while not a typical form builder, is a great tool for creating user sign-up forms and building an email list.

At WPBeginner, we’ve seen excellent results using this lead-generation tool. For example, with OptinMonster, we increased our email subscribers by 600%.

When setting up email sign-up forms, you can use various campaign types, such as slide-ins and lightbox pop-ups. So, before we talk about embedding the OptinMonster email sign-up form, let’s make sure that form is ready.

First, you’ll need to create an OptinMonster account on their website by clicking the ‘Get OptinMonster Now’ button.

This will bring you to the pricing page.

We recommend the Pro plan because it’s popular and includes the ‘Exit Intent’ feature. You can also use our exclusive WPBeginner OptinMonster coupon code to get 10% off.

To finish your purchase, just enter your payment details and proceed with the payment.

With that done, let’s install and activate the OptinMonster WordPress plugin. If you need help, please see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This plugin will connect your WordPress site to OptinMonster. Simply navigate to OptinMonster » Settings from your WordPress admin panel. Then, go ahead and click ‘Connect Your Existing Account.’

Once connected, you’re ready to create your OptinMonster email sign-up form. For detailed instructions, you can read our guide on how to build your email list in WordPress with OptinMonster.

OptinMonster’s detailed display rules allow you to show the right campaign to the right person at the right time, which helps boost conversion rates. You can find these settings by heading to Display Rules in the campaign builder.

Here, you can control when and where your campaigns appear based on customer behavior.

You can also customize campaigns for different audiences, like showing different layouts for mobile and desktop users.

OptinMonster lets you set rules based on specific days or locations, so you can run targeted campaigns like Black Friday offers or holiday-themed popups for different countries.

Additionally, OptinMonster’s exit-intent technology helps recover visitors who are about to leave your site. This feature tracks user behavior and triggers a targeted message just before they exit, allowing you to capture more email subscribers and increase conversions.

When you are happy with everything, it’s time to embed the lead generation form into your website.

Simply click the ‘Save’ button from the builder to initiate the process.

After making sure you’ve saved your changes, you can switch to the ‘Publish’ tab.

From here, go ahead and change the status from ‘Draft’ to ‘Publish.’ You will then see that the ‘Publish’ tab has changed to ‘Published,’ and the pause icon has changed to a check mark.

You can now close the campaign editor and navigate to OptinMonster » Campaigns.

The next step is to change the status ‘Pending’ to ‘Publish’ for your email sign-up pop-up. Simply click the ‘Pending’ link to open the dropdown menu and select the ‘Publish’ option.

There you have it!

Now, if you visit your website, you’ll see the email sign-up popup in action.

7. How to Embed Payment Forms in WordPress

If you just want to sell a single product or don’t want to set up a full shopping cart, then using comprehensive eCommerce plugins like Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce might be overkill. Creating a simple payment form is often a better option for accepting custom amounts or selling a few items.

This is where WP Simple Pay can help.

WP Simple Pay is the best choice for accepting Stripe payments without requiring a complete eCommerce plugin.

It also enables you to accept other payment methods, such as credit card payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more. It’s ideal for non-profits, small businesses, and volunteers who need a simple solution for collecting payments.

To embed a payment form, you’ll need to install the WP Simple Pay plugin first. If you need help, then you can see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, simply follow the setup wizard to connect to Stripe.

Once connected, you’re ready to create your payment form using WP Simple Pay.

For detailed instructions, you can follow the first method in our guide on how to create a WordPress form with payment options.

When you’re satisfied with your payment form, go ahead and click the ‘Publish’ button. Then, you can copy the form’s shortcode to embed it into your post or page.

In the WordPress content editor, you just need to click the ‘+’ button and select the ‘Shortcode’ block.

Next up, you can paste the form’s shortcode into the text area.

Note that WP Simple Pay creates your payment form in test mode by default. This means that you can’t accept payments from visitors yet.

To fix this, let’s navigate to WP Simple Pay » Payment Forms in the WordPress dashboard. Then, you can hover over the form you just created and click ‘Edit’ when it appears.

In this panel, you’ll want to go to the ‘Payments’ section.

Finally, you can click the ‘Live Mode’ radio button and then ‘Update.’

And that’s how you embed a WP Simple Pay form and start accepting payments from your audience.

Here’s what it looks like on our demo site:

8. How to Embed Formidable Forms in WordPress

Formidable Forms is a great tool for creating advanced forms, such as a mortgage, car payment, or life insurance calculator. It offers 225+ form templates that you can use for your WordPress website.

For details on how to make a form with Formidable Forms, you can see our complete Formidable Forms review.

Formidable Forms makes it super easy to put your forms on any post or page. Once you’re done creating your form, you can click the ‘Embed’ button in the form builder.

This will open a pop-up window where you can select where to add the form. There are 3 options: ‘Select existing page,’ ‘Create new page,’ and ‘Insert manually.’

If you select the ‘Insert manually’ option, you will need to deal with a bit of code. This can be a bit intimidating for beginners, so we don’t recommend it.

For this tutorial, we will choose ‘Select existing page.’

Next up, another prompt pop-up will appear.

Here, you’ll want to open the dropdown menu and choose a page. For example, we chose to embed the form on our demo site’s ‘Home’ page.

After choosing the page, go ahead and click the ‘Insert form’ button.

This will open the page’s block editor, and you should see that the form is already embedded on the page.

Now, you are ready to update the page.

Go ahead and hit the ‘Save’ button.

Here’s what it looks like on our demo site:

9. How to Embed Gravity Forms in WordPress

Gravity Forms is a powerful form builder plugin for WordPress, but here’s the catch – it’s premium only.

This form builder has a wide range of features and customization options. It allows you to create many types of forms, such as surveys, quizzes, registrations, and order forms.

To create a form using Gravity Forms, you’ll need to purchase the plugin from the Gravity Forms website.

Then, you can install and activate it on your site. If you need help, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll want to navigate to Gravity Forms » New Form in your WordPress dashboard and click on ‘Add New.’

On the next screen, you’ll choose a form template.

No rush here – you can explore this pop-up window to find the template you want to use. Once found, simply hover over the template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

Next up, you’ll be prompted to name your form and write a short form description.

You can use the following image as an example:

Go ahead and click ‘Use Template’ once again to start building the form.

This will open the Gravity Forms’ drag-and-drop builder, where you can customize your form using the fields on the right.

Once your form is ready, you can click the ‘Save Form’ button to make sure you’ve stored any changes.

Then, go ahead and click ‘Embed.’

This will open 3 options to embed your Gravity Forms form – into an existing page, a new page, or a shortcode method for people using the classic editor.

For this tutorial, we will show you how to embed Gravity Forms into an existing web page.

From here, let’s select the ‘Post’ radio button. Then, you can open the dropdown menu to choose a published post on your WordPress website.

Go ahead and click the ‘Insert Form’ button.

You will then be redirected to the page’s content editor, where you’ll be prompted to add the ‘Form’ block. Go ahead and click it.

Gravity Forms will then add the form you just created to the post.

You might also notice that it includes the ‘Form Title’ and ‘Form Description’ by default.

If you think everything is set, then it’s time to hit the ‘Save’ button.

And that’s it – you’ve created and embedded a Gravity Forms form to your website.

10. How to Embed Microsoft Forms in WordPress

Some people might want to use Microsoft Forms to create forms because it’s a tool they’re already familiar with due to their Office 365 account. It also automatically integrates with other Microsoft products like Excel, which makes data collection and management easier.

Microsoft Forms offers built-in options for creating surveys, quizzes, and polls. You can then easily embed Microsoft 365 forms in WordPress by copying the form’s embed code and adding it to your WordPress site.

First, you’ll create your form using Microsoft Forms in your Office 365 account.

From the Office 365 homepage, let’s click ‘Sign In’ to get started.

Once logged in, you can click the menu icon at the top left corner of the page.

Then, you’ll want to locate ‘Forms’ and click on it.

This will open the template gallery in a new tab. You can then choose the forms you want to build.

Microsoft Forms has 4 forms to choose from – survey, quiz, invitation, and registration. For this tutorial, we will choose the ‘Invitation’ option. Let’s click on it.

The Microsoft Forms editor will open in a new tab. From here, the first thing to do is to choose a template.

You can explore the template options in the left-hand panel. Since we’re creating an invitation form, we have 7 ready-made templates for various purposes.

For this tutorial, we’ll use the wedding invitation template. Here’s what the default template looks like in the editor:

If you scroll down the right-hand panel, you’ll find the default fields this template offers.

This template has 4 pre-set fields for users’ names, number of guests attending, food allergies, and email addresses.

Let’s say you want to add more questions. In that case, you can click the ‘+ Insert new question’ button and choose the question type, like ‘Date,’ ‘Rating,’ ‘Text,’ or the others.

If you want to edit the existing ones, simply click on one, and the customization options will appear.

To change the look and feel, you can click the palette icon.

From here, you can change the form layout and background image.

You can then switch to the settings tab by clicking the gear icon.

Microsoft Forms has already configured some basic settings.

But, you might want to enable ‘End Date’ to help you strategically plan your wedding day based on responses and ‘Get email notification of each response’ so you have backup data to prevent the response from getting lost.

If you want, you can also edit the pre-set confirmation message.

Once the form is ready, it’s time to launch it.

In the form builder, let’s click the ‘Collect responses’ button.

In the popup that appears, you can click on the ‘</>’ or embed icon.

You should now see the shortcode you add to your site. Go ahead and click ‘Copy.’

Now, you can paste this code into a post or page using the ‘Custom HTML’ block.

In the WordPress content editor, simply click the ‘+’ button to add the block. Then, you can use the search bar to look for the ‘Custom HTML’ block.

Go ahead and click on it to add the block to the content editor.

From here, you’ll go ahead and paste the Microsoft Forms’ shortcode to the text area.

Don’t worry if you don’t see a preview in your editor; the shortcode works just fine.

Now, you can hit the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to make it live.

Here’s what it looks like on our demo site:

11. How to Embed HTML Forms in WordPress

HTML forms are usually hand-coded, so you don’t have a drag-and-drop editor to edit your form.

Fortunately, there are form plugins that make setting up HTML forms more foolproof. One of the best options is the HTML Forms plugin. This plugin is great for setting up simple contact forms that help you gather information from visitors.

The best thing is that you don’t have to know how to code to use HTML Forms.

Adding a new field is easy. Just choose one from the available options, and HTML Forms will ask you to adjust the field’s data.

After clicking the ‘Add Field to Form’ button, HTML Forms will convert the data into an HTML snippet and put it in the ‘Form Code’ area.

And that’s all there is to it! Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to save your progress.

Now, it’s time to publish the form.

HTML Forms lets you easily embed your form on any post, page, or widget area. To do this, you’ll need the form’s shortcode. You can find your form’s shortcode at the top part of the ‘Edit Form’ panel.

Let’s copy this shortcode to the clipboard.

You can then open a page or post you want to display the HTML form. For this tutorial, we’ll add the form to our ‘Contact’ page.

Once you’re in the block editor, simply click the ‘+’ button and then search for ‘Custom HTML.’ Go ahead and click on it to add it to your page.

You can then paste the shortcode into the ‘Custom HTML’ block.

The WordPress block editor won’t show you the form. But worry not. It will show up on the page when you save it.

So, let’s hit the ‘Save’ button to see it in action.

Here’s what it might look like on your website:

For detailed instructions, you can check out our guide on how to add HTML forms to WordPress.

Frequently Asked Questions About Embedding WordPress Forms

Have questions about embedding forms in WordPress? Here are some quick answers to help you get started.

Can you embed forms in WordPress?

Yes. You can easily embed forms in WordPress using various plugins, including WPForms, which is the best multi-purpose form builder.

How do I install a form in WordPress?

First, you’ll want to head over to Plugins » Add New from your WordPress admin. The next step is to find a form plugin of your choice and then simply install and activate it. Once done, you’ll use the plugin to create a form and embed it on your site using a shortcode or block.

How to set up WPForms in WordPress?

To set up WPForms, you’ll need to install and activate the WPForms plugin first. Next, you can create a new form using the drag-and-drop builder and embed the form on your website using a shortcode or the plugin’s block.

How to create a form in WordPress without a plugin?

Creating a form in WordPress without a plugin requires custom HTML and PHP. You can manually add the form HTML to your page and handle submissions with custom PHP in your theme’s functions.php file. Since this isn’t beginner-friendly, we recommend using a form builder instead.

We hope this article has helped you learn how to embed forms in WordPress. Next, you might want to check our other guides on how to set up WordPress form tracking in Google Analytics and how to track and reduce form abandonment.

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

The post How to Embed Forms in WordPress (Ultimate Guide for Beginners) first appeared on WPBeginner.

At WPBeginner, we’ve redesigned our site multiple times, learning what works and what doesn’t through trial and error. Along the way, we’ve developed strategies to make the process smoother and more effective.

In this guide, we will walk you through every step of redesigning your WordPress site, from determining if you really need a redesign to choosing the best redesign method.

When Should You Redesign Your WordPress Website?

You might be tempted to redesign your WordPress website simply because you’re feeling bored with its current look. However, a redesign can be time-consuming, so it’s important to consider several factors before diving in.

Mainly, you will want to be sure that redesigning your website is actually a worthwhile undertaking.

For instance, if your existing WordPress website is losing traffic, it might be time for a redesign. A drop in traffic often indicates that your site no longer meets user expectations.

Also, first impressions matter online. If your site looks old-fashioned, it may not reflect well on your brand or business.

A poor user experience, like visitors struggling to find important information, is another clear sign that a WordPress website redesign is needed. We once addressed this in a previous redesign by improving content discoverability with helpful sidebar links and mega menus.

Speed is another important factor if you are considering a redesign of your WordPress website. Maybe you’ve tried everything to optimize your site performance, but it’s still not up to par. This could be a sign that your current WordPress site design is too heavy and you need to make it more lightweight.

The same goes for mobile-friendliness. Perhaps you’ve tried various responsive design tips, but your site still doesn’t work well on mobile devices. This could be because your current theme is simply too old, and you need to switch to a more mobile-friendly theme.

If your website no longer accurately represents your brand or offerings, consider a redesign. We recently revamped the WPBeginner homepage to better reflect our expertise and authority in the WordPress space.

Last but certainly not least, if your site isn’t turning visitors into customers or subscribers as effectively as it should, then a redesign could help improve your bottom line and strengthen your online presence.

If you check some or all of these boxes, don’t worry. The next section will walk you through our go-to WordPress website redesign checklist. We’ll cover what you need to do before, during, and after the design process.

Feel free to use the quick links below to navigate through the steps:

1. Collect Website Performance Data

You might be thinking, ‘I already know I’m losing traffic and conversions, so why do I need to collect website performance data before I redesign WordPress?’

Well, it’s important to confirm these issues with hard data. Plus, when you redesign your WordPress website, you’ll want to know if your efforts are paying off.

By collecting performance data from your current website, you create benchmarks to compare against after the redesign. This way, you can measure whether your new design actually translates to better results.

To make this process easier, we recommend using the MonsterInsights plugin for Google Analytics. We have used the tool extensively to help improve the performance of our websites. We even wrote a full MonsterInsights review.

This plugin allows you to connect your WordPress site with Google Analytics, giving you access to vital performance metrics right in your WordPress dashboard.

For a WordPress website redesign, we suggest checking and using these marketing data points as benchmarks:

• Overall traffic – The total number of visitors to your site. It can help you understand your website’s reach and whether the redesign improves overall visibility.
• Bounce rate – The percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page. It can tell you whether your new design better engages users and improves your site speed.
• Conversion rate – The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action (like making a purchase or signing up). You can determine if the redesign improves your site’s effectiveness in achieving its goals.
• Top performing pages – Which pages visitors view most often, helping you protect popular content during the redesign and understand what your audience likes.
• Top traffic sources – Where your visitors are coming from (search engines, social media, etc.), helping you design your new site to better cater to these channels and maintain or improve traffic flow.
• Average session duration – How long visitors typically stay on your site so that you can see if the redesign makes your content more valuable to users.
• Page views per session – How many pages a visitor typically views. It can indicate whether your new design improves navigation and encourages users to explore more content.
• Mobile vs desktop traffic split – The proportion of visitors using mobile devices versus desktop computers. You can use this information to guide your redesign efforts and cater to the most widely-used devices.

You can learn more in our article on the most important metrics you must track on your WordPress site.

With MonsterInsights, you can also use the ‘Conversations AI’ feature to get quick answers about your data.

For example, you could ask, ‘What was my conversion rate in the last month?’ This feature makes it easy to access the information you need without diving deep into complex analytics reports.

2. Run a WordPress Website Audit

Before you start to redesign WordPress, you need to understand the actions and factors that led to the performance metrics you collected in the previous step. This way, you can make informed decisions about what to change and what to keep.

To gain these insights, you need to conduct a website audit, which is a series of actions you do to understand the user experience on your existing website.

We recommend asking for your users’ opinions directly so that you can understand their needs, preferences, and pain points straight from the source.

The UserFeedback plugin is an excellent tool for this, allowing you to add surveys to your site and quickly collect visitor opinions. We use the plugin on our own websites, and you can learn more in our complete UserFeedback review.

You can check out our comprehensive guide to learn more about gathering website design feedback in WordPress. We’ve also compiled a list of user experience feedback questions to ask your website visitors.

You will also want to evaluate your user journey. Visitors typically follow predictable steps before making a purchase or submitting a form, and there may be obstacles in their journey.

If you’re using MonsterInsights, the User Journey addon can help track customer journeys on popular WordPress eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and MemberPress.

For instance, in WooCommerce, you can view a user’s entire journey, including all interactions, times, and durations.

For more details, see our guides enabling customer tracking in WooCommerce and tracking the customer journey using MemberPress.

For websites focused on lead generation, using WPForms alongside the User Journey addon is a great solution. It shows the referral source that brought users to your site and the path they took before submitting a form.

This information helps you understand which content engages users most effectively. Learn more in our complete guide on tracking user journey on WordPress lead forms.

Heatmap tools are another essential part of your website development audit. They visually represent how visitors navigate your pages, providing insights that raw data alone can’t offer.

We personally recommend Microsoft Clarity, which we use across many of our brand websites. It’s a free tool that offers heatmaps, scroll tracking, and click tracking.

To get started with Clarity, check out our guide on installing Microsoft Clarity analytics in WordPress.

3. Decide to Keep Your Site Live or Put It in Maintenance Mode

One of the most important decisions to make when you redesign WordPress is whether to work on your live website or put it in maintenance mode. This choice can significantly impact your user experience and search engine rankings during the redesign process.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you make the right decision:

• How extensive is your redesign? For example, are you just changing the homepage or redoing the whole site?
• How long will the redesign take? Is it a quick update you can do in a few days, or a big change that needs weeks?
• Can your site be offline for a while? Think about if your business can handle being down for some time.
• How many visitors does your site get? A high-traffic site will suffer more from downtime than a smaller, personal blog.
• Will you change how your site is set up? Are you just updating how it looks, or are you moving things around and changing web addresses?
• Does your site run important parts of your business? For instance, do you have an online store that needs to stay open, or is your site mainly for information?

In general, we recommend keeping your site live during the redesign, especially if the process will take a while and/or if your business operations will be significantly impacted by downtime. It’s also a good option if you don’t want your site’s SEO to get impacted.

In this case, you’ll need to set up a staging site or local development environment. This allows you to experiment with your redesign without affecting your live site.

A staging site is essentially a copy of your live website where you can safely make changes. These days, many hosting providers offer one-click staging features, including SiteGround (where we host WPBeginner).

For more information, check out our guide on how to create a staging environment for WordPress.

Alternatively, you might consider a local development site. This option involves creating a copy of your website on your personal computer, offering even more privacy and faster development times.

We recommend using the Local WP tool for this purpose, which many of our team members use to test new features. You can learn more about this in our article on how to install WordPress locally on Windows and Mac.

If your redesign is relatively quick and won’t disrupt critical business functions, putting your site in maintenance mode for a short period might be acceptable. That being said, you should be aware of the risks.

Putting your site in maintenance mode can impact your SEO and may require you to set up some redirects. This isn’t a big problem for small, personal websites, but it can be tricky for bigger sites with lots of visitors.

Our preferred method is to use the SeedProd page builder. Besides turning on maintenance mode for your WordPress site, it lets you make a nice-looking page to tell visitors about your upcoming changes and even generate leads by creating a waitlist landing page.

What’s more, it can tell search engines your site is just temporarily down by sending a special signal called the 503 status, which is what Google suggests doing.

If you are interested in this option, you may want to check out our full SeedProd review.

4. Choose a WordPress Redesign Method

When it comes to redesigning your WordPress website, you have 3 main options: customizing your existing theme, choosing a new theme and customizing it, or hiring a professional WordPress design service.

Let’s explore each method’s pros and cons to help you decide which is best for your redesign process.

Option 1: Customize Existing Theme

Best for: Site owners who are generally happy with their current design but want to refresh its look or add new features.

Pros of customizing your existing WordPress theme:

• Familiar with the current setup
• Potentially quicker, easier, and more affordable
• Maintains consistency for regular visitors

Cons of customizing your existing WordPress theme:

•  Limited by existing theme structure

If you want to stick with your current theme but want to get more customization options, then we recommend using plugins like CSS Hero and WPCode.

CSS Hero is a visual CSS editor plugin that lets you customize your WordPress theme’s CSS visually. That means you don’t need to touch any code to modify the theme, but any changes you make will affect its CSS.

You can learn more about the plugin in our CSS Hero review.

On the other hand, WPCode is a code snippet plugin that lets you add custom code snippets to your theme without dealing with the theme files directly. Whenever there’s an error in the code, the plugin will disable it, and your theme won’t get affected.

The best part is it can preserve your code changes even when your theme gets an update, so you won’t lose your customizations.

You can read our WPCode review for more details.

If you need some inspiration on what you can do to customize your current website, here are some articles you can check out:

• How to Style Individual Categories Differently in WordPress
• How to Style Each WordPress Post Differently
• How to Add Custom Styles to WordPress Widgets
• How to Customize Colors on Your WordPress Website

Option 2: Choose a New Theme and Customize It

Best for: Those looking for a significant design change without the cost of a fully custom solution. Or people who want to take advantage of new theme features.

Pros of using a new WordPress theme:

• Fresh start with modern design options
• Access to new features and layouts
• Potential for improved website performance

Cons of using a new WordPress theme:

• Potential learning curve with a new theme
• Careful setup is required to avoid compatibility issues

When selecting a new theme, make sure to pick one that is fast, responsive, compatible with your current plugins, and regularly supported. You should also think about its value for money and customization options so that you can edit your WordPress site exactly how you want it.

If you’re considering a premium theme, you can read our guide on free vs premium WordPress themes to help you make your decision. Also, make sure to follow our guide on properly changing a WordPress theme to avoid common errors.

For a more flexible solution, we recommend SeedProd, a drag-and-drop page builder with dozens of theme kits and templates. This is also what we use to design custom landing pages for ourselves and our brands.

In fact, our friends at OptinMonster used SeedProd to redesign their landing page and increased their conversions by 340%.

With this drag-and-drop page builder, you will get a theme and a flexible tool to customize it, so you can make a unique design without any technical skills. Plus, you’ll get access to AI tools to generate content and custom images for your pages.

You can learn more about SeedProd in these guides:

• SeedProd Review: Is It the Right WordPress Page Builder For You?
• How to Easily Create a Custom WordPress Theme (Without Any Code)
• How to Add an Animated Background in WordPress
• How to Add Rotating Testimonials in WordPress

Alternatively, you can browse our list of the most popular WordPress themes.

Option 3: Hire a Custom WordPress Website Design Service

Best for: Business owners or bloggers who want a unique, professional design tailored to their specific needs and don’t have the time or skills to create it themselves.

Pros of hiring a professional WordPress design service:

• Unique, professional WordPress theme design
• WordPress theme that’s tailored to your specific needs
• No need for personal design or coding skills

Cons of hiring a professional WordPress design service:

• Higher cost (read our article on the costs of a custom WordPress theme)
• Dependent on the designer’s timeline

If you’re tired of cookie-cutter designs, then this is an excellent option for you. Of course, the challenge is finding the right WordPress designers to work with. We have a list of top WordPress agencies if you want some hand-picked recommendations.

That being said, you may want to check out our WPBeginner Pro Services.

For designing a custom WordPress site, we offer:

• A dedicated project manager to oversee the redesign process
• Multiple WordPress website design revisions
• Training for you to learn how to manage your new site
• Full WooCommerce setup for online stores
• Search engine and performance optimization

Rebuilding an existing site starts at $599, which will get you a responsive website design of up to 5 pages, 2 rounds of revisions, and analytics setup.

Think of it as an investment for your online presence that can lead to improved user experience, better search engine rankings, and, ultimately, increased conversions and revenue for your business.

If you’re not sure, you can book a free consultation with our team today.

5. Back Up Your WordPress Website

Let’s say you’re already redesigning your site. Before you make it live, you need to do one step that you should not skip: back up your current WordPress website.

Here’s why backing up is so important:

• Protection against errors – If something goes wrong during the transition, you can easily restore your site.
• Protection against backlash – If users react negatively to the new design, you can quickly revert to the old one.
• Preserving important data – It ensures you don’t lose any valuable content or settings during the redesign.
• Peace of mind – Knowing you have a backup allows you to launch your site with confidence.

We recommend using a backup plugin like Duplicator for this task. Duplicator makes it easy to create and manage backups directly on your website.

Once created, you can store the backup file on your computer. Or, for added security, upload it to cloud storage services like Dropbox.

Restoring your site with Duplicator is also straightforward – you can simply drag and drop the backup file. The plugin also allows you to set a recovery point, enabling you to quickly restore your site to a prior date if needed.

6. Launch Your Site and Run Another Audit

At this stage, you’re ready to publish your newly redesigned site and show it to your audience.

If you’re putting your website on maintenance mode with SeedProd, then you can just deactivate that mode so that everyone can access your site. You can refer to our guide on WordPress maintenance mode for more details.

If you’ve been developing your site locally, then you can read our guide on how to move WordPress from a local server to a live site.

Meanwhile, if you have been using a staging site in your WordPress hosting, then you can simply use its deploy feature to make your site live. For example, with Bluehost, you can use the Bluehost WordPress plugin to deploy all your changes in a few clicks.

You can learn more about it in our guide on WordPress staging environments.

Once your site is live, you can’t relax just yet. You need to make sure everything works right.

One thing you need to pay attention to is your SEO settings. If you decide to restructure your web pages, then you will need to set up redirects and update your internal links to reflect any URL changes. Otherwise, search engines won’t be able to crawl your site properly.

This process can take a long time, so we recommend using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin for this. It’s also what we use for WPBeginner to make sure our site is always optimized for search engines. For more details, check out our complete All in One SEO review.

You can use AIOSEO to easily find broken links on your entire website content. If it does, you can quickly replace the existing URL with a new one so that users don’t end up seeing an error page.

AIOSEO also lets you set up 301 redirections easily. This will be handy if your redesign involves restructuring your website hierarchy.

You can read our beginner’s guide to creating 301 redirects in WordPress for more information.

Other than that, we also recommend doing an SEO audit to check for missing SEO titles, meta descriptions, canonical link tags, SSL certificates, speed issues, and more. These are important elements that can make or break your visibility on search engines.

Check out our WordPress SEO audit checklist for a step-by-step guide.

Lastly, do the same checks we talked about in step 2 when we said to run a website audit. Use heatmaps and look at your Google Analytics data to make sure no one is having trouble with your new site.

7. Continuously Maintain Your WordPress Site

The job of a website owner is never ending. Even after you launch your site, you still need to do some routine maintenance tasks to make sure that your site doesn’t become slow, vulnerable to attacks, or start showing errors.

Don’t be intimidated, though. We have a guide that breaks down the most important WordPress maintenance tasks you should do, from changing your passwords and updating your plugins to reviewing your security logs.

But if you find all this too hard and you have some budget to spare, then we recommend hiring our WordPress maintenance experts at WPBeginner Pro Services. You’ll get:

• 24/7 WordPress maintenance and support
• Around-the-clock uptime monitoring
• Consistent WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates
• Routine cloud backups and malware removal
• On-demand emergency support

Our maintenance services start from $57.50 per month. While this costs some money, you can think of it as similar to getting a WordPress security plugin, but this one is a real person maintaining your site.

We can spot and solve complex issues that automated tools might miss and make decisions based on your specific needs and website goals. If you want to learn more, feel free to book a free consultation with us today.

Remember, regular maintenance is key to keeping your newly redesigned WordPress site running smoothly and securely. Whether you choose to do it yourself or hire experts, make sure you have a plan in place to keep your site in top shape.

We hope this article has helped you learn how to redesign your WordPress website. You may also want to check out our article on things you must do before starting a WordPress design business and our expert picks of the best WordPress theme builder plugins.

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

The post How to Redesign a WordPress Website (Beginner’s Guide) first appeared on WPBeginner.

However, following an eCommerce launch checklist ensures that you don’t miss any crucial steps that could impact your store’s success. This list can help you stay organized, prevent errors, and boost efficiency.

We have launched multiple online stores, so we know what goes into their success. And in this article, we will share the ultimate eCommerce launch checklist for WordPress.

Why Use an eCommerce Launch Checklist for Your New Online Store?

An eCommerce checklist allows you to check your online store’s security, pages, checkout options, SEO, and other features without forgetting anything before you launch it.

It acts as a safety net, catching any potential errors or snags that you may have overlooked while preparing your website for launch.

Plus, it keeps you on track and helps you avoid any delays. This physical or digital product launch checklist allows you to prioritize tasks based on importance and deadlines.

If you are working with a team, it also ensures that everyone stays on the same page and tasks are divided effectively. Other than that, it can also be used to evaluate your launch and identify areas for improvement.

Having said that, you are now ready to follow the ultimate eCommerce launch checklist to prepare your store for success. Here is a breakdown of the steps we will cover in this guide:

1. Choose a Website Builder and a Hosting Plan

To start an online store, you will first need to select a website builder. We recommend WordPress because it is the best website builder on the market with over 43% of all sites using it.

It is free, flexible, has several customization options, and is super scalable for businesses of all sizes. This makes it the ideal choice for your eCommerce store.

Note: Keep in mind that we are talking about WordPress.org, which is an open source platform. There is also WordPress.com, which is a self-hosted software. You can view our comparison on WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com to see the difference.

Now even though WordPress is free, you will still need to purchase a hosting plan and domain name for it. Hosting is where your website stores all its data while a domain is your store’s name on the internet, like www.shoppingonline.com.

If you plan to sell physical products, then we recommend Bluehost WooCommerce hosting. This is a WordPress-recommended company that also offers a free domain name, SSL certificate, and pre-installed WooCommerce.

Plus Bluehost offers a huge discount to WPBeginner readers. To take advantage of this offer, just click the button below.

However, if you want to sell digital products, then SiteGround’s managed hosting for Easy Digital Downloads is the better option.

It comes with a free SSL certificate, EDD pre-installed, all the optimization features, and a huge 81% discount, making it a great choice.

To get this discount offer, just click the button below.

Once you purchase hosting and set up a domain name, WordPress will automatically be installed for you. You can now head to your dashboard to start creating your store.

For more details, see our guide on how to make a WordPress website.

2. Choose the Right eCommerce Platform

The next step in creating and launching an eCommerce store is to select a platform that allows you to build a store without any coding.

For this, we recommend WooCommerce because it is the best eCommerce plugin on the market and is completely free.

The plugin allows you to easily add products, integrates with numerous payment gateways, and supports multiple currencies and languages, making it a great choice for creating your store. For details, you can see our guide on WooCommerce made simple.

However, if you plan to sell digital products on your eCommerce platform, then we recommend Easy Digital Downloads instead.

It allows you to sell eBooks, music, PDFs, and any other digital products you want. Plus, the plugin is beginner-friendly, integrates with a lot of different payment gateways, has in-depth reporting, and connects with email marketing solutions.

For details, you can see our tutorial on how to sell digital downloads on WordPress.

Note: If you have created a store that sells digital goods, then the following list will still work for you as a digital product launch checklist.

3. Create and Check All the Pages for Your Store

After you have added your products to your store, it’s time to create some pages on your website. We recommend starting with the home page and making it attractive because it will be customers’ introduction to your website.

You should add a CTA (Call To Action) on this page to direct users to where you want them. Additionally, you should create a navigation menu so users can browse through your store easily.

For example, this is the homepage for WPForms, a popular WordPress form builder. As you can see, it has a prominent CTA button that directs users to the online store for the plugin software.

For details on how to do this for your online store, see our tutorial on how to create a custom home page in WordPress.

Depending on which eCommerce plugin you are using, it should have already created a checkout page, products page, and cart page for your online store.

You can customize these pages using SeedProd, which is the best page builder on the market. It fully supports the WooCommerce integration and also has special WooCommerce blocks that you can add to any page you want.

The plugin also offers numerous premade templates and a drag-and-drop builder, making the process super easy.

For more information, see our beginner’s guide on how to edit WooCommerce pages.

4. Create a Seamless Checkout Process

Next, you need to create a seamless checkout process for your store. This will improve conversion rates, reduce cart abandonment, and boost your brand’s image.

To do this, you must integrate your online store with popular and reliable payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal. Customers usually trust these options, and they provide secure transactions, making them a great choice.

Plus, these gateways easily connect with WooCommerce. All you would have to do is install the plugin for these gateways and visit the WooCommerce » Settings » Payments page.

Here, you can toggle the switches to enable different gateways and then add your account details to complete the process. For instructions, see our tutorial on how to accept payments with Stripe in WordPress.

After configuring the gateways, you can add an express checkout button to offer a seamless experience to customers. This button allows users to go directly to the payment page without having to fill in any details.

For information, see our step-by-step tutorial on how to add express checkout buttons in WooCommerce.

If you need some more tips, then you can see our beginner’s guide on how to customize your WooCommerce checkout page.

5. Add Social Proof and FOMO

Now that your store has been set up, adding some social proof before launching it is important. This proof will show visitors that other customers have trusted your store and had a good experience with it.

Plus, it will develop FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) which can boost your sales. One way you can do this is by adding testimonials and customer reviews to your store.

If your customers have left reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, or Facebook, then you can also showcase these feeds on your site with the Smash Balloon Reviews Feed Plugin.

It comes with a visual editor and makes the process of connecting these platforms with WordPress super easy.

For instructions, see our step-by-step guide on how to show your Google, Facebook, and Yelp reviews in WordPress.

Popups and optins are other great options for building FOMO and social proof.

You can use OptinMonster to display popups with customer reviews and limited-time offers/sales to encourage customers to take action and purchase.

For more details, see our guide on how to increase WooCommerce sales.

Another excellent way to build FOMO amongst customers is to use TrustPulse, which is the best social proof plugin on the market.

It tracks your store activity, such as purchases, signups, and downloads, and then displays notifications in real time that highlight these actions to visitors.

For detailed information, check out our guide on using FOMO on your WordPress site to increase conversions.

6. Add a Contact Form

You need to add a contact form to your online store so that customers can reach out if anything goes wrong, like reporting inappropriate behavior or having issues processing their payments.

For this, you can opt for WPForms, which is the best contact form plugin on the market. It has a beginner-friendly drag-and-drop builder, 1800+ premade form templates, and complete spam protection.

Upon activation, you can simply use the plugin’s ‘Simple Contact Form’ template and add it to any page you like using the WPForms block.

For details, see our tutorial on how to add a contact form in WordPress.

Keep in mind that this is a good solution if you are just starting your store, but as your website grows, a contact form won’t be sufficient to provide all customer support.

Add Other Tools To Contact Support

When you outgrow a contact form as the only way that customers can reach you, we recommend using a business phone service.

We believe Nextiva is the best business phone service for your site. We actually use Nextiva for our business, and you can read more about it in our complete Nextiva review.

It will allow customers to contact you over phone calls and you can also set up an auto attendant if you want.

Plus, you can use Nextiva to add live chat, online faxing, surveys, CRM, analytics, and more.

If your store grows rapidly, then we recommend picking a customer service tool like Help Scout, which will allow you to manage all your customer data in one place. We use Help Scout across a few of our brands, including WPBeginner, and it helps us provide great customer support.

You can also create a knowledge base, use AI to create smart responses, and set up automated workflows.

For more information, see our top picks for the best customer service software.

7. Optimize Your Store for Search Engines

Before launching your store, you must optimize it for search engines so that it will rank high in search results and get more traffic and customers.

This is where All in One SEO (AIOSEO) comes in. It is the best WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to optimize your store in just a few minutes.

The plugin has a broken link checker, schema generator, XML sitemaps, on-page SEO checklist, keyword tracker, image SEO, and so much more. For more details, you can see our AIOSEO review.

Plus, AIOSEO offers a GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema that allows your individual products to rank in search results.

You can also write product SEO titles and descriptions, optimize slugs, enable breadcrumbs, and add alt text for product images.

For detailed instructions, see our ultimate WooCommerce SEO guide.

8. Set Up Email Marketing

Before opening your store, you must choose an email marketing service and set up your account on it. This is an important step of your physical or digital product launch checklist because it allows you to start building an email list as soon as your store goes live.

You can then send cart abandonment, welcome, birthday, or discount offer emails to customers to bring them back to your website and earn their loyalty.

For your online store, we recommend using Constant Contact because it is the best email marketing software for small businesses.

It allows you to add signup forms and comes with automation tools, email segmenting, split testing features, drip campaigns, and a visual builder for workflows. 

The tool also offers easy tracking and reporting, built-in social media sharing tools, a free image library, Facebook ads integration, and amazing customer support.

For details, you can see our guide on how to connect Constant Contact with WordPress.

However, if you plan to consistently send automated emails for order confirmations, abandoned carts, and invoices, then FunnelKit Automations is a better choice.

It is the best automation marketing plugin for WooCommerce that comes with a visual funnel builder, premade email automation templates, A/B testing, and more.

For complete details, see our tutorial on how to send automated emails in WordPress.

9. Set Up Google Analytics

Another crucial step to making your store customer-ready is installing Google Analytics. This will allow you to track your store’s performance and give you real-time insights into how users interact with your website.

You can then use this data to improve your marketing strategy and drive more sales.

To make using Google Analytics super easy, you can use MonsterInsights, which is hands-down the best analytics solution for WordPress.

It easily integrates with WooCommece and lets you track product performance, shopping cart abandonment rates, and checkout behavior. You can easily identify products with high abandonment rates and take steps to improve those product pages.

For more information, see our step-by-step guide on how to set up WooCommerce conversion tracking.

10. Create a Backup of Your eCommerce Store

Once you have added all the features to your online store and feel that it’s ready for launch, we recommend first creating a backup.

This will allow you to safeguard your data against security threats and let you recover it in case of data loss due to malware or hackers.

For this, you can use Duplicator, which is the best WordPress backup plugin. It has features like scheduled backups, recovery points, cloud storage integration, migration tools, and more.

With this plugin, you can create a backup right from your WordPress dashboard in just a few minutes.

For step-by-step instructions, see our tutorial on how to back up your WordPress site.

11. Secure Your Online Store

Once you have followed all the steps in our eCommerce launch checklist, your store is ready to go live. However, you can still take some extra steps to secure your online store from malware or hackers.

To do this, you can use Cloudflare, which the best security solution for WordPress. It comes with a powerful firewall to filter out bad traffic, prevents DDOS attacks, and has a browser integrity check to block hackers.

Plus, it has an amazing CDN (Content Delivery Network) that improves your page load time by caching static content across multiple servers worldwide.

Cloudflare also lets you optimize your images for reduced bandwidth, add page rules, manage SSL certificates, perform email routing, use fast DNS services, and identify and block malicious bots.

However, if you have a small business or blog, then Cloudflare may not be the best option. In that case, you can pick Sucuri, which is a popular firewall plugin that comes with a free plan.

For more tips, see our ultimate WordPress security guide.

Keep in mind that once you implement these security measures, you will still need to monitor your site regularly for threats or malware, which can be time-consuming and a bit annoying.

That is why we recommend WPBeginner’s Website Maintenance Service. Our team of experts will provide 24/7 maintenance and support to your website.

We will consistently update WordPress core, themes, and plugins, monitor uptime, remove malware, create routine cloud backups, prevent slow-loading page times, and even give you detailed maintenance reports.

Plus, we offer affordable pricing, making us an ideal choice for small businesses. For details, see our WPBeginner Pro Services page.

Frequently Asked Questions About Launching an eCommerce Store

Here are some questions that are frequently asked by our readers about starting an eCommerce website.

Is WordPress good for eCommerce?

WordPress.org is an excellent platform for your eCommerce store because it is open-source, free, scalable, and beginner-friendly.

It is used by 43% of the sites on the internet, has a massive community, and gives you complete freedom to build an online store according to your liking. To learn more, you can see our guide on whether WordPress is good for eCommerce.

Do I need any coding knowledge to launch a WordPress eCommerce store?

You do not need any coding knowledge to start an online store. All you have to do is select an eCommerce plugin and configure its settings to launch your store in just a few minutes. Plus, you can use a drag-and-drop page builder like SeedProd to design your store without coding.

How much does it cost to launch a WordPress eCommerce store?

Your eCommerce store costs can add up as you choose a hosting provider ($5-$25/month), domain name ($10-$15/yr), and eCommerce plugin (free-paid) for your store.

In our opinion, costs will start at about $100 to build a basic online store, with costs adding up as your store grows.

Related Guides to Help You Build an eCommerce Store

• How to Make a WordPress Website (Ultimate Guide)
• How Much Do eCommerce Websites Cost? (Real Numbers)
• Best WooCommerce Plugins for Your Store (Most are FREE)
• How to Speed Up Your eCommerce Website (14 Proven Tips)
• How to Choose the Best Products to Sell Online (Beginner’s Guide)
• Impressive eCommerce Statistics You Won’t Believe
• Best Shopify Alternatives (Cheaper and More Powerful)

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

The post The Ultimate eCommerce Launch Checklist for WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.