How to Properly Move from Medium to WordPress

Do you want to move your Medium blog to WordPress? While Medium is a decent blogging platform, it is certainly no match for the flexibility of WordPress. In this article, we will show you how to properly move your blog from Medium to WordPress without losing your content.

Why You Should Move from Medium to WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world. It powers more than 32% of all websites on the internet.

WordPress is very easy to use, incredibly powerful, and easy to customize. To learn more about WordPress and what you can do with it, see our complete WordPress review with pros and cons.

Now, when we say WordPress, we are talking about self-hosted WordPress.org. Not to be confused with WordPress.com, which is a hosted platform. For a full comparison see our article on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

While Medium is a good blogging platform for new writers, many users quickly realize that it’s quite limited when compared to WordPress. You don’t have full control of your website and customization options. You also can’t monetize it the way you may want to.

If you have decided to switch from Medium to WordPress, then we want to congratulate you on making the right decision. We have created this complete step by step guide to help you move all your content from Medium to WordPress.

Bonus Free Offer: Since a lot of users have asked for this, we are now offering a free Medium to WordPress migration service as part of our free WordPress blog setup. This means one of our expert team members will do the entire migration for you (100% free). Yes, you can literally switch from Medium to WordPress without any risk.

However, if you are someone who likes learning and doing things yourself, then you can follow our step by step tutorial below.

Here is a breakdown of all the steps that we will be covering in this step by step tutorial:

• Install and Setup WordPress
• Export your Medium stories
• Import Medium stories into WordPress
• Import Images from Medium to WordPress
• Setup redirects (If you have a custom domain on Medium)
• Installing a WordPress theme
• Installing essential WordPress plugins
• Improving your WordPress skills

Step 1. Install and Setup WordPress

To get started with WordPress, you’ll need the following two things.

• A web hosting account. This is where all your website files are stored.
• A domain name. This will be your website’s address on the internet and what users will type in their browser to reach your website (For example, wpbeginner.com)

A domain name typically costs around $14.99 / year and website hosting starts from $7.99 per month.

Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and over 60% off their web hosting service.

→Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

If for some reason you want other options, then you can look at our list of the best WordPress hosting companies.

Once you have set up your domain and hosting, the next step is to install WordPress.

Most WordPress hosting companies offer 1-click install options that you can use to instantly install WordPress. If you can’t find it, then ask your hosting provider’s support, and they will set it up for you.

You can also do it on your own. See our complete guide on how to install WordPress for step by step instructions.

After you’re done installing WordPress, you’re ready to move on to the next step which is to export your content from Medium.

Step 2. Exporting Your Data from Medium

Previously, it was quite difficult to export your data from Medium in a WordPress compatible format.

We decided to solve this problem and developed a Medium to WordPress Importer tool.

It is a free online tool that imports your content from Medium and converts it into a WordPress compatible export file. It does not make any changes to your existing Medium content, so it is perfectly safe to use.

Head over to Medium to WordPress Importer website and enter your Medium blog URL.

Now, if your Medium blog URL is using a custom domain name and has a URL like http://example.com or https://something.example.com, then enter the URL with your name and email address.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a custom domain name, then the Medium to WordPress Importer will ask you to upload the Medium export file.

Here is how you can get that export file from Medium.

First, you need to login to your Medium account and click on your profile photo at the top right corner of the screen. This will bring down a menu. From here you need to click on the ‘Settings’ link.

This will take you to the settings page where you need to scroll down to the ‘Download Your Information’ section. Click on the ‘Download zip’ button to export your Medium data.

On the next page, you need to click on the export button. Medium will then prepare your download and send a link to you via email.

You need to check your email to see if you get the email from Medium. You need to follow the link in the email to download your Medium export file.

Once you have downloaded the Medium export file, you can switch to the Medium to WordPress Importer tool and upload that file.

Next, click on the ‘Export My Medium Website’ button to continue.

Medium to WordPress Importer will now prepare your export file. Once finished, it will show you a success message with a button to download your WordPress ready Medium export file.

Go ahead and download the export file to your computer. You will need that file in the next step.

Step 3. Importing Your Medium Articles into WordPress

Now that you have successfully exported your Medium content into a WordPress compatible format, it is time to import that content into your new WordPress blog.

Visit the WordPress admin area of your website and go to Tools » Import page.

You will see a list of importers available for different platforms. You need to scroll down to WordPress and then click on the ‘Install Now’ link.

WordPress will now fetch the importer plugin and install it on your WordPress site without reloading the page. Once it is installed, you need to click on ‘Run Importer’ to launch it.

This will bring you to the WordPress importer page. Go ahead and click on ‘Choose file’ button to select the export.xml file you downloaded earlier.

Next, click on the ‘Upload file and import’ button to continue.

WordPress importer will now upload your Medium export file and analyze it. On the next screen, it will ask you to assign authors.

You can import the author from your Medium website, create a new author, or assign all content to your existing WordPress user.

Don’t forget to check the box next to ‘Download and import file attachments’ option. It will fetch images from your Medium website into your WordPress media library.

You can now click on the Submit button to run the importer.

WordPress will now import content from the Medium export file. It will also try to fetch images in your Medium articles.

Upon completion, you will see a success message.

Congratulations, you have successfully imported content from Medium to WordPress. You can now go to the posts page in your WordPress admin area to see if all your content is there.

If the import process fails in the middle, then you can always run it again. The importer is smart enough to detect duplicate content and skip it. It will only import the content that didn’t import successfully in the previous attempt.

Step 4. Importing Your Images From Medium to WordPress

The WordPress importer tries to import images from your Medium articles to the WordPress media library. However, it may fail due to the way Medium displays images in your articles.

You need to go to the Media » Library page to see all images that have been imported successfully.

If some or all of your images failed to import, then you will need to import them again.

First, you need to install and activate the Auto Upload Images plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to update the posts containing the external images. This update will trigger the plugin to fetch and store the external images in the article.

You can also bulk update all articles at once to quickly import all images. For detailed instructions, see our step by step tutorial on how to import external images in WordPress.

Step 5. Setting up Redirects

If your Medium stories had a medium.com URL, then you cannot setup redirects.

If you were using a custom domain for your Medium publication, then you can set up custom redirects in WordPress.

First, you will need to get all URLs of your Medium articles and save them in a text file. After that, you need to start setting up redirects for all your articles.

There are multiple ways to set up redirects in WordPress. You can follow the instructions in our beginner’s guide to creating redirects in WordPress for detailed instructions.

Step 6. Installing a WordPress Theme

By default, WordPress comes with a pretty decent looking design for your website. However, you can change it to anything else that you like. There are thousands of free and premium WordPress themes that you can use to customize your website.

Following are our expert picks of the best WordPress themes in various categories:

• Best free WordPress blog themes
• Best WordPress themes for writers
• Best WordPress themes for artists
• Best Medium-like WordPress themes

After you have chosen a theme, you can follow our guide on how to install a WordPress theme to set it up.

Step 7. Installing Essential WordPress Plugins

Plugins are like apps for your WordPress blog. They allow you to add new features and extend functionality of your WordPress site. To learn more, see our article about what are WordPress plugins and how do they work.

There are thousands of free and premium WordPress plugins that you can install on your website. At the time of writing this article, WordPress.org plugin directory alone had more than 55,000 thousand free plugins.

With this in mind, how do you know if you need a WordPress plugin? More importantly, how do you find out the best WordPress plugin for the job?

Well, there are some WordPress plugins that are made for specific websites. For example, eCommerce plugins, membership plugins, or LMS plugins.

Then there are plugins that almost every website needs. Let’s install some of those plugins on your new WordPress site.

• WPForms Lite – This is the free version of WPForms which is the best WordPress contact form plugin on the market. It allows you to easily add beautiful forms to your website.
• MonsterInsights Lite – This free version of popular MonsterInsights plugin helps you install Google Analytics in WordPress. It also shows you beautiful reports about your most popular articles, where your users are coming from, and more.
• Yoast SEO – This is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It helps you improve WordPress SEO and get more visitors from search engines.

Need more plugin recommendations? Check out our pick of the essential WordPress plugins every website should have.

Step 8. Learning WordPress

WordPress is quite easy to use. However, as a new user, you may need some help to familiarize yourself with the platform.

This is where WPBeginner can help. We are the #1 WordPress resource site with thousands of tutorials, guides, and videos created specifically for beginners, small businesses, and non-techy users.

Following are some of the helpful resources that you can from WPBeginner (all of them are completely free).

• WPBeginner Blog – The central place for all our WordPress tutorials and guides.
• WPBeginner Dictionary – Our WordPress glossary is the best place to familiarize yourself with the WordPress lingo
• WPBeginner Videos – New WordPress users can start with these 23 videos to master WordPress.
• WPBeginner on YouTube – Need more video instructions? Subscribe to our YouTube channel with more than 120,000 subscribers and 11 Million+ views.
• WPBeginner Blueprint – Check out plugins, tools, and services we use on WPBeginner.
• WPBeginner Deals – Exclusive discounts on WordPress products and services for WPBeginner users.

We hope this article helped you learn how to properly move from Medium to WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate guide on how to improve your WordPress SEO.

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 Properly Move from Medium to WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

Source: Wordpres

The post How to Properly Move from Medium to WordPress appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

How to Add Image Icons With Navigation Menus in WordPress

Do you want to add image icons in your WordPress navigation menus? Recently, one of our users asked for an easy way to add menu icons. In this article, we will show you how to add image icons with navigation menus in WordPress.

Why You Should Add Image Icons with Navigation Menus?

Usually, WordPress navigation menus are plain text links. These links work for most websites, however, you can make your navigation menu look more interactive by adding image icons.

Image icons can also be used to make your menu more noticeable. For example, a beautiful image icon next to your contact page can make it standout among other links in your menu.

With that said, let’s take a look at how to easily add image icons with navigation menus in WordPress.

Method 1: Adding Menu Icons Using a Plugin

This method is easier and it’s recommended for beginner users because it doesn’t involve code.

The first thing you need to do is to install and activate the Menu Image plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Appearance » Menus page.

From here, you can click on any menu item in the in the right column to expand it. You’ll see the ‘Menu image’ and ‘Image on hover’ buttons in settings for each item.

Using these buttons, you can select or upload the menu image icon you want to use. If you want, then you can just upload a menu image and ignore the hover image.

In the ‘Image size’ dropdown, you can select a size for the image icon. This size will apply to both the menu icon image and image on hover.

The plugin comes with multiple options to choose from. However we recommend to keep menu icons small by using 24×24 or 36×36 sizes.

If you want to add your own custom size for the menu images, then you can do that by adding this code in your theme’s functions.php file or site-specific plugin.

add_filter( 'menu_image_default_sizes', function($sizes){
 
  // remove the default 36x36 size
  unset($sizes['menu-36x36']);
 
  // add a new size
  $sizes['menu-50x50'] = array(50,50);
 
  // return $sizes (required)
  return $sizes;
 
});

You can also set the title position above, below, before, or after the image icon. It also allows you to hide the title and only display the image icon for each navigation menu.

Once you have configured the settings, simply add image icons to all your navigation menu items separately. Next, you need to click on the ‘Save Menu’ button to see menu icons in action.

Method 2: Adding Menu Icons Using Code Snippet

This method is for more experienced users who know their way around CSS.

First, you need to visit Media » Add New to upload all your image icons in WordPress. Once uploaded, you need to copy their URLs and paste them in a text editor like Notepad.

Next, you need to go to Appearance » Menus and click on the ‘Screen Options‘ button at the top right corner of your screen. In the screen options, you need to check the ‘CSS Classes’ option.

After that, scroll down and click on any menu item to expand its settings. You’ll notice a ‘CSS Classes (Optional)’ field where you need to add a CSS class name for the menu item.

Now you need to add this custom CSS to your theme.

.homeicon {
background-image: url('http://www.example.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/home.png');
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: left;
padding-left: 5px;
}

In this CSS snippet, .homeicon is the class name that you added in the CSS Classes field above.

Depending on your theme, you may need to tweak the CSS a little bit to get the perfect placement for menu icons. Once you are satisfied with the result, repeat the process for all menu items.

That’s all. We hope this article helped you learn how to add image icons with navigation menus in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to style WordPress navigation menus.

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 Add Image Icons With Navigation Menus in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

Source: Wordpres

The post How to Add Image Icons With Navigation Menus in WordPress appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

How to Easily Accept Credit Card Payments on Your WordPress Site

Do you want to learn how to accept credit card payments on your WordPress site? By default, WordPress does not come with credit card payment options, but there are plenty of plugins and tools that can help solve that. In this article, we will show you how to easily accept credit card payments on your WordPress site.

Note: You will need to enable HTTPS / SSL on your website to accept credit card payments.

Accepting Credit Card Payments in WordPress without Shopping Cart

Often users don’t want to setup a full-fledged shopping cart to accept credit card payments. This makes a lot of sense specially if you’re only selling a single product or accepting payments for consulting / services.

In this case, all you need is an online order form with a credit card payment option.

Here is how you can easily accept credit card payments without adding a shopping cart to your website.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

WPForms is the most beginner friendly WordPress form builder plugin. While they have a Lite version that’s free, you will need their PRO plan to access the payment add-ons.

Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information in your WPForms account area.

Next, you need to head over to WPForms » Addons page and locate the Stripe addon. Go ahead and click on the ‘Install Addon’ button and then click on the ‘Activate’ button.

Stripe is a credit-card processing platform that makes it easy for businesses to accept credit card payments on their website. WPForms makes it easy to connect your WordPress website to Stripe.

Once the Stripe addon is activated, we need to connect WPForms to your Stripe account. To do that, head over to WPForms » Settings page and click on the ‘Payments’ tab.

You will need to enter your Stripe API keys. You can find this information in your account settings on Stripe’s website.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Settings’ button to store your changes after entering the API keys.

WPForms is now ready to accept credit card payments. Let’s create an online billing or order form that you can add to your website for accepting credit card payments.

Head over to WPForms » Add New page. From here you need to provide a title for your form and then select ‘Billing / Order Form’ template.

WPForms will pre-load the form builder with a billing/order form template with commonly used fields. You can point and click to edit any form field. You can also add new fields from the left column.

Next, you need to scroll down to the Payment Fields section in the left column. From here you can add payment related form fields.

WPForms allows you to add multiple items as well as single items that users can order. You can click on the item field to change item details and pricing.

After editing item details, go ahead and click to add the credit card field to your form.

Now that your form is setup, let’s enable payments for this form. To do that, you need to click on the Payments tab on the left and then select Stripe.

You will need to click on the checkbox next to ‘Enable Stripe payments’ option and provide a description of the payment. Optionally, you can send an email receipt to your users by selecting the email field from the drop-down menu.

Next, you may want to receive an email notification for new orders and purchases. You can also send a confirmation email to notify the user that you have received their order.

Let’s setup notifications for your billing form.

You need to start with clicking the ‘Settings’ tab on the left and then select ‘Notifications’. You will notice that WPForms has already created a notification that sends an email to your WordPress admin email address when a new order is placed.

You can edit this notification message. For example, you can provide additional email addresses, change email copy, subject, and more.

If you want to send a separate notification to your users, then click on the ‘Add New Notification’ button.

You will be asked to provide a name for the new notification. Let’s call it ‘Customer Notification’. After that you will see the notification fields that you can edit.

You need to click on the ‘Show Smart Tags’ link next to ‘Send to email address’ option and select the ‘Email’ field. This allows WPForms to use the email address that your customer provided when submitting the form.

You can edit rest of the notification email by providing a subject line and message. You can also use smart tags to use the form fields submitted by the user to add item details, user’s name, and other personalized information.

Once you are done, you can click on the save button at the top and exit the form builder.

Your online credit card payment form is now ready, and you can add it to any WordPress page on your site.

Simply edit a page or create a new one, and then click on the ‘Add Form’ button above the page editor.

This will bring up a popup where you can select the order form and click on the add form button to continue. WPForms will now enter the required shortcode to your post edit area.

You can now save or publish your page and click on the preview button to see your form in action.

Note: Don’t forget to test your form to make sure everything is working fine. If you are unable to send or receive email notifications, then follow the instructions in our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

WPForms is the simplest way to accept credit card payments in WordPress, and it is the easiest way to create just about any type of form in WordPress. This is why it ranks #1 in our list of the best WordPress contact form plugin. WPForms has over 1 million active installs and a 4.9 out of 5 star rating average.

If you don’t want to use Stripe, then you can also use PayPal to accept credit card payments using the WPForms PayPal addon.

However a simple payment form isn’t a perfect solution for everyone. Based on use-case, you may need a different solution for accepting credit card payments on your website. Here are some other ways to accept credit card payments in WordPress.

Accepting Credit Card Payments in an Online Store

If you want to add a shopping cart and sell multiple items, then you will need an eCommerce plugin like: WooCommerce. It is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin on the market. WooCommerce makes it easy to sell things online and accept credit card payments.

For complete step by step instructions, see our guide on how to start an online store for beginners.

Accept Credit Card Payments on a Membership Website

If you want to build a membership website to sell membership subscriptions and paid content, then we recommend using MemberPress. It is the most powerful WordPress membership plugin that easily integrates with Stripe, PayPal, or Authorize.net to accept credit card payments on your website.

Here is a complete guide on how to create a membership website with step by step instructions.

Accept Payments by Selling Online Courses

If you want to sell online courses, then we recommend using LearnDash. It is the best LMS plugin for WordPress and allows you to process credit card payments on your website.

For details, see our guide on how to how to sell online courses with WordPress with step by step instructions.

We hope this article helped you learn how to accept and process credit card payments in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the must have WordPress plugins for business websites.

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 Easily Accept Credit Card Payments on Your WordPress Site appeared first on WPBeginner.

Source: Wordpres

The post How to Easily Accept Credit Card Payments on Your WordPress Site appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.