Everybody’s talking about chatbots. But what is it? The fact is, you may have interacted with one lately. Chatbots are computer applications present in apps like Facebook Messenger. The Facebook bot, for one, is an effective tool for automating customer service, boosting marketing efforts, and engaging customers.  If you have an online business, you should consider tapping Facebook bots now!

Facebook Bot Can Improve Your Customer Engagement

Customers hate it when their queries and comments are left unnoticed by companies. With a Facebook bot, you can improve your interaction and engagement with your clients. From answering common queries like shipping costs to providing basic information such as the availability of the products your store is selling, a Facebook Messenger chatbot can engage with your customers online.

Facebook Bot Can Personalize Content for your Customers

Many online businesses even rely on Facebook chatbots in delivering information to their clients. A Facebook bot can essentially serve as an extension or bridge of a firm’s online marketing strategy. The Facebook Messenger can be used to send photos of the products your company is offering, whether these are clothes or household items.

This strategy will not only help push content to your customers, but also help them feel comfortable with your business. In the long run, your customers will trust your brand even more and this should help increase your bottom line.

Facebook Bot Can Help You Sell More

Aside from pushing content to your customers, Facebook bot can let your consumers view, browse and even buy products on their Messenger app. This is arguably the most important use of Facebook Messenger chatbots because it can fast-track the selling process for companies.

The bottom line is that your online business should use a Facebook chatbot now given these three important contributions of Facebook bots on Internet-based firms.

Simple Guide to Embed and Upload PDF Files in WordPress

If you don’t know how to upload or embed PDF files in your pages or even posts on WordPress, here’s a simple guide to ease your worries. The user interface provided by WordPress is very friendly and understandable. Embedding images and videos is very straightforward and uncomplicated. Whereas, when we talk about embedding PDF files, it does require some efforts and understanding to do so.
Thus, here’s a series of steps which you can follow for hassle-free embedding and uploading of PDF Files in your post or page on WordPress:

Steps to upload and embed PDF Files in WordPress:

These simple steps would help you to easily add your PDF file in your WordPress post or page:

• You can either edit your old post or pages or can start with a new one by clicking on Add New Post or Page option available on the editor screen of WordPress.
• Click on the Add Media option in the WordPress editor window.
• The WordPress upload window would appear. You either can drag and drop your required PDF files in this box or individually choose files by going to the Select Files option. Once selected, WordPress would initiate the upload of your files and provide you with a preview when finished.
• Then just click on the option saying “Insert into post” and your PDF files will be uploaded into your post or the page you’re working on.
• You can then preview the post or the page to see the final outcome. The visitors who want to download or view your PDF file will be able to have access by clicking on the link itself.

Embed PDF Files and Add Quality to Your Posts and Pages

Although uploading a PDF file in a WordPress post or page isn’t as easy as uploading and embedding pictures and videos, but a few simple steps are all that it takes to do so. Thus, add more quality to your pages and posts by embedding relative PDF files in them.

Steps to Disable Post Embeds For Your WordPress Blog

The new Post Embeds feature introduced in WordPress 4.4 allows you to add posts from a website powered by WordPress to other blogs on WordPress itself. Alike the option to embed videos to a blog post which was possible through a format called oEmbeds, WordPress now supports oEmbeds for the websites as well. The websites which start with the 2.9 version are now supported by WordPress. This has added further 5 more websites other than the existing 30+ websites which are supported by oEmbed.
Merely by copy-pasting the URL of the post, the WordPress website would add up the smartly structured content with the necessary details of your post.
Though this feature is a boon to the maximum users, some might not like it for specific reasons. Hence, you can easily disable the same by following a few simple steps mentioned below:

Easy Steps To Disable Post Embeds:

• Download the Disable Embeds Plugin for Disabling the Post Embeds.
• Press on Install now.
• Choose the “Activate Plugin” option after the installation.
• This would disable the Post Embeds for your account.

Why Can There Be A Need to Disable Post Embeds?

The acceptance or rejection of this feature by the users overall will be known with time. But for now, there might be some users who wouldn’t want their posts to possess this advancement.
The possible reasons due to which a user would want to disable the Post Embeds feature are mentioned below:

• If your content is embedded by any popular website or numerous websites, there’s a high possibility that the performance of your website would get affected.
• The Post Embeds feature would lead to the increased usage of Bandwidth which would lead to high costs of hosting server.

Conclusion:

This new feature introduced by WordPress is definitely an effective approach, but in case you don’t want to implement it, you can simply disable the Post Embeds option with a simple plugin.

Enable Get Shortlink Button in WordPress Editor

Every time WordPress come up with new updates and upgrades, it becomes better than before. The new updated version of WordPress i.e., WordPress 4.4 came up with a few changes in the editor section as well. The changes include the disappearance of Get Shortlink button and the View Post button. These changes were made in order to make the interface more user-friendly and neat.
The View Post button was not of much importance as the posts can be easily seen by a single click on the permalinks. But the Get Shortlink button was often used by the users and some might even want it back on their accounts. Therefore, following is how you can add back the Get Shortlink button:

1. The Get Shortlink Plugins

You can add almost anything to your WordPress account using plugins. Further mentioned are a few plugins which you can use to bring back the Get Shortlink button:

• Bring Back the Get Shortlink Button:

This is a simple plugin which can be added to revive the Get Shortlink button. The plugin has a sole function of immediately bringing back the Get Shortlink button on your screen.

• Short URL Plugin by SedLex:

This plugin provides additional functions along with the addition of Get Shortlink button. The short URL alters your shortlink permalinks and also allows you to configure your shortlinks.

• WP Bitly Plugin:

This plugin is useful if you are into the advanced configuration of the shortlinks. It adds back the Get Shortlink button and is helpful if you possess a devoted customized domain for your shortlinks.

2. Reviving Get Shortlink Button through Custom Code:

The Get Shortlink button on WordPress has just got hidden with the 4.4 update. You can also add it back by entering the add_filter( ‘get_shortlink’, function( $shortlink ) {return $shortlink;} ); code to your functions.php file. It is recommended to backup the file before adding this code and the use of the child theme is necessary to do any editing.
Thus, don’t be worried if your Get Shortlink button has disappeared because now you know how to add it back with a few simple steps.

Essential Tools You Need for Your Online WordPress Business

Many of us dream to be our own boss. Sometimes we lack proper guidance, sometimes we lack resources, and sometimes we do not get a motivation. If you are the one who wants to turn your business ideas into reality, you need to get familiar with some essential tools that I have come up with in this post.

List of the Essential Tools for Your Online WordPress Business

Below mentioned are some of the most essential tools that will help you grow your online WordPress business and become successful:

1. Google Analytics:

As the name suggests, Google Analytics is a tool provided by the web giant Google which analyses and track the traffic details on your website. Once your WordPress website is live, do not forget to link it with your Google analytics account to know every important detail about the traffic you are getting on your website. Among so many Web traffic analytic tools available on the web, Google analytics is one of the most essential tools which is user-friendly and easy to understand.

2. DropBox:

DropBox is another powerful tool which offers you to back up all your important documents and business/personal data on their server. The tool works on Cloud, and thus you can access your data on DropBox anywhere from any device. You can share your data on DropBox to anyone. If used wisely, this can be proved as one of the most essential tools for your online WordPress business.

3. Upwork:

Upwork is a famous online business marketplace where you can find freelancers with great skills matching to your required niche and you can outsource your projects there. So, you need not hire full-time employees for every skill. You can save your money, time, and energy by utilizing this great tool and run your online business smoothly.

4. LastPass:

With the availability of so many sites, it is very often that you forget your password if you are not using the site very frequently. LastPass is a free tool that will not only secure your login information but will also remember all your passwords.
With LastPass app, you can generate and synchronize your usernames and passwords and access them with a single login detail.

Conclusion:

The list of the essential tools that can help you grow your online WordPress business is very big, and the above-mentioned tools are a few best of them. Make use of these tools and maximize your productivity and the business growth.

Bookmark Posts with Save For Later with WordPress Reader Tool

It happens many times that you find an interesting blog post to read, but suddenly you realize that you are getting late for some other important work at that time. But, WordPress mobile app has come up with a solution to it. If you have the WordPress app installed on your phone, then you can now bookmark posts with Save for Later.
If you are a WordPress app user and you like to read blogs, you must be familiar with the WordPress.com reader. But if you don’t know about it, then let me tell you that it’s a great tool for finding and reading blogs of your choice. And now, with the new option of Save for Later, you can bookmark posts to read them when you have time for it.

How Does It Work?

First of all, you need to have the most updated version of the WordPress app installed on your smartphone. To use this tool, you need to open the WordPress app and go to the WordPress reader tool.

Bookmark Posts in WordPress Reader to Read Later

Now that you are using the WordPress reader tool in the WordPress app, you can fetch many blog posts. You will see the icon for Save for Later with every post. You can bookmark posts that you find interesting and want to read later. You can do this as many times you find a post that you like and want to read later.

Reading the Bookmarked Posts

After you have bookmarked your favorite posts, you find time to read those posts. You only have to do is to open the WordPress app again in your phone and head again to the Reader. You will see all the saved posts there. Select the posts and start reading them. You can remove the post from the Save for Later list anytime you want, and it won’t show again in the list.

Some Important Points to Note

• The posts that you bookmark to read later will be available to read even when you are offline.
• As the bookmark posts feature has just released, there is no guarantee that you will be able to see the images when you are offline.
• The Save for Later option will work differently for the same WordPress account in different smartphones. This means that this feature is not available to be synchronized on the web.
• If you have bookmarked some posts to read them later, and you uninstall the WordPress app from your phone and re-install it again, all the posts that you bookmarked will be deleted.

Content management system Wordpress has recently eliminated 10 insecure plugins that were developed for its widely-used e-commerce plugin WooCommerce. ThreatPress, a WordPress security firm, reported that the plugins had already been uploaded to close than 20,000 WordPress installations before their deletion last May 23.  ThreatPress acknowledged that WordPress security has reacted quickly on the unreliable plugins, the problem is that many users may not be aware of the threat posed by the said plugins.

Source of the 10 insecure plugins

The 10 insecure plugins were developed by a firm named MULTIDOT, Inc.  ThreatPress had reportedly notified the firm about the security issues posed by the plugins but failed to take action in updating the source code. MULTIDOT, Inc. was given three weeks by ThreatPress to update the plugins before informing WordPress of the security threats.

Some of the insecure plugins were the WooCommerce page visit counter which has more than 10,000 active installations, the category banner management plugin which has more than 3,000 active installations, and the digital goods check out which has more than 2,000 active installations.

Vulnerabilities of the insecure plugins

According to ThreatPress, these plugins are considered highly dangerous. It also claims various vulnerabilities which could be easily exploited and used to upload malicious software such as crypto miners and keyloggers.

It also said that the plugins can lead to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks on websites which fail to confirm user input from various web forms, comment fields, and forums. XSS attacks happen when a hacker shows malicious code to a clueless user through a WordPress website. The script may then access the cookies and other information stored on the user’s side.  These
attacks may also change the user views on a particular webpage as well as steal users’ accounts.

The threats posed by the insecure plugins are serious considering that these were developed for exclusive use in WooCommerce, a platform that has become very popular among online merchants especially those that facilitate credit card transactions.

You Can Now Use Right-To-Left Languages on WordPress Mobile Application

With the increasing scope and the use of WordPress mobile app amongst the bloggers, website creators, and webmasters from around the world, it has been constantly developing and making itself better every day. It has become the most popular website creation and CMS application for quite a while now. It was facing one shortcoming for some time and that was the inability of supporting Right-To-Left languages. In fact, the available plug-ins for covering this problem also don’t cover the actual required outcomes.

What Are Right-To-Left Languages?

RTL or Right-To-Left languages are those in which the script flow of the text is from the right side of the page to the left side of the page. The default editor of the application of WordPress lacked this feature and did not support RTL languages earlier.
But now, with the increasing awareness of realizing the importance of providing services to an open source of community where people with any kind of background or language can easily access the services, WordPress mobile application now supports the Right-To-Left languages. The feature has been introduced in both the Android and the iOS applications. Now, the English, as well as the Non-English speakers, can use the app alike.
Adding Right-To-Left Languages like Hebrew or Arabic was surely a challenge for the website as it took so long to introduce them to the application. After a lot of scanning and observation, all the required features which are necessary to provide a hassle-free RTL orientation to the users have been added to the application.

How to Apply Right-To-Left Languages in WordPress?

The application would detect the language that you are using in your phone and then apply the same language to the user interface of your app. In case you don’t want the same languages in both the things or in other words, you want a different language as your WordPress interface language, you need to click on the “Me” option and then choose “App Settings” from which you can select the “Interface Language” option.

Conclusion:

The new feature ‘Right-To-Left Languages’ of WordPress has definitely enhanced its reach and has made it a step closer to being the world’s most comprehensive and varied platform.