If you want to take advantage of the theme you’ve installed and provide advanced features for your website visitors, we would advise you to install and activate the Jetpack plugin.
What is Jetpack?
Jetpack is one of the most popular WordPress plugins. Its popularity comes from the fact that it’s free and built by the same team that created WordPress. This plugin enables you to customize your theme, increase website traffic, and keep your site secure.
With Jetpack, you can:
- fully customize the theme and add rich content,
- do automatic social sharing,
- increase page load time,
- increase your site’s security through features like daily backups and spam protection,
- boost your site’s ranking on Google (using Jetpack’s SEO tools).
As you can see, Jetpack is a true powerball. We are sure you are going to fall in love with this plugin.
Do I have to use Jetpack?
If you want a high-performance, safe and well-designed site, yes.
All jokes aside, Jetpack is a mandatory plugin for all our themes. Without it, the themes can still work but won’t perform as well as they do when Jetpack is installed. We strongly suggest you install and activate Jetpack.
If you are still not convinced that your website can benefit from using Jetpack, remember that it’s faster, safer, and easier to use than seven of our custom plugins.
Steps you need to take before installing Jetpack
If you decided to install and activate Jetpack, you must know there are a few steps you need to take before you install it.
Before installing this plugin, make sure you have:
- the latest WordPress version,
- a WordPress.com account,
- a website that’s publicly accessible, not hidden or private.
Once you check all these steps, you are ready to install Jetpack.
Note: If you don’t have a WordPress.com account, be sure to sign up for a free one.
Installing Jetpack
The easiest way to install Jetpack is within WordPress. Here are the steps:
1. Log in to your site’s WordPress admin panel, the Dashboard, and choose Plugins section.
2. Click on the button Add New.
3. Once the window opens, search for “Jetpack” and you’ll find the latest version of this plugin.
4. Install the plugin by clicking on the button Install Now.
5. The last step you need to take is connecting to your WordPress.com account.
For more details regarding the installation, be sure to read the official Jetpack installation guide.
After you are connected to your WordPress.com account, you’ll see a list of features Jetpack offers. Most of them are automatically activated.
How do I use Jetpack on my website?
Well, Jetpack has “modules” 一 tiny features that let your site do advanced, exciting things.
Here are some Jetpack modules:
Appearance
- Custom Content Types (Custom Post Type for portfolio themes),
- Contact Form,
- Tiled Galleries,
- Carousel,
- Shortcode Embeds,
- Extra Sidebar Widgets,
- Widget Visibility,
- Infinite Scroll,
- Sharing,
- Related Posts,
- Photon,
- Custom CSS (edited).
Engagement:
- SEO tools,
- Ads,
- Google Analytics,
- Site Stats,
- Likes,
- Subscriptions.
Security:
- Protect,
- Monitor.
If you are interested to see a full list of Jetpack modules, navigate to Jetpack → Settings.
In the following text, we are going to explain more about some of the Jetpack modules we believe your site can benefit from:
Custom Content Types
The Custom Content Types Jetpack module adds custom post types (CPTs) to your website like posts and pages are. These CPTs allow you to add content that doesn’t necessarily fit into a post but can be included in a static page.
Jetpack supports a few custom post types, like Portfolio, Testimonials, and Products.
The Portfolio post type allows you to showcase and manage projects on your site; the Testimonials will enable you to add, display and organize your testimonials, while the Products 一 you guessed it 一 allows you to add and manage products.
To enable and activate one (or all) of these custom post types, follow these four steps:
1. Navigate to Jetpack → Settings in your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Choose Writing → Custom Content Types and check the Jetpack custom post type you would like to add to your website.
3. The last step is choosing whether you would like to display CPT using the CPT shortcode ([portofolio], [testimonials], etc.) or with a link to the CPT in the menu. And that’s it!
Contact form
A contact form is a necessary element on your Contact page because it allows your website visitors to get in touch with you quickly.
To activate this module, click on navigate to Jetpack → Settings → Contact Form in your WordPress Dashboard to activate it.
If you want to add this module to a page or a post, click on the page/post to edit it and click on the Add Contact Form button.
If you need a want a more in-depth tutorial on how to add a contact form to one of your pages, be sure to check the official Jetpack documentation that explains everything about contact form module.
Note: You can only add one contact form per page.
Tiled Galleries
Tiled Galleries Jetpack module enables you to display your image galleries in three styles: a rectangular mosaic, a square mosaic, and a circular grid. The rectangular and square tiled layouts also have hover-over captions thst save space and making captions accessible.
Before you create a Tiled Gallery, make sure you activated this module by navigating to Jetpack → Settings → Tiled Gallery in your WordPress Dashboard.
For an in-depth tutorial on how to create a tiled gallery, be sure to check the Jetpack’s official documentation on Tiled Galleries.
Carousel
The Carousel module allows you to transform any standard WordPress gallery that is embedded in a post or a page into full-screen photos that users can browse.
To activate the Carousel module, navigate Jetpack → Settings → Appearance in your WordPress Dashboard, and turn on the Carousel module.
For more information on Carousel and its options, be sure to check the official Jetpack Carousel documentation.
Shortcode Embeds
A shortcode is a WordPress-specific code, like a shortcut, that embeds files or creates objects that you would typically have to write a couple of code lines to activate.
Shortcodes module allows you to embed videos from YouTube, tweets from Twitter, and other media across in your WordPress theme.
To activate the Shortcodes module, navigate to Jetpack → Settings → Writing in your WordPress Dashboard, and turn on the Carousel module by checking the Compose using shortcodes to embed media from popular sites option.
If you want to see a full list of shortcodes Jetpack support, check the official Jetpack shortcode documentation.
Extra Sidebar Widgets
The Extra Sidebar Widgets is a module that enables you to include widgets and add them to your site (Facebook like buttons, Google translate widget, Gravatar profile widget, etc.).
To enable this module, navigate to Jetpack → Settings → Writing in your WordPress Dashboard and choose Widgets.
If you want to see a list of all Widgets which can be added by the Extra Sidebar Widgets module, be sure to check the official Jetpack documentation.
Widget Visibility
The Widget Visibility module enables you to configure widgets to appear or be hidden only on individual pages.
If you want to learn more about widgets and the Widget Visibility Module, be sure to check the article in which we covered Widget basics and Widget Visibility option.
Infinite Scroll
Infinite Scroll is one of the most popular Jetpack modules which places posts automatically into view when the reader approaches the bottom of the page.
To activate this module, navigate to Jetpack → Settings → Appearance in your WordPress Dashboard. To double-check if you activated the module, once again go to Settings → Reading and make sure that “Scroll Infinitely” is checked.
For more information on Infinite Scroll and its options, be sure to check the official Jetpack Infinite Scroll documentation.
Sharing
The Sharing module gives your readers the tools to post your content to social networks. It ads button at the bottom of each post or page.
To use this model, you first need to activate it. To do so, navigate to Jetpack → Settings → Engagement in your WordPress Dashboard.
Once the module is activated, you can add sharing buttons to your posts following these steps:
- Navigate Settings → Sharing in your site’s dashboard.
- Under Sharing Buttons, drag and drop the services you want to use into the Enabled Services area.
- Choose the button style you find the most appealing and where you would like the buttons to appear.
- Click on the Save button to save the changes you made, and that’s it.
If you want, you can add Captcha before letting the users share your content. If you want to learn how to do so, be sure to check the official Jetpack Sharing module documentation.
Related Posts
The Related Posts module is the one module that can help you increase your site’s traffic.
The Related Posts module is a feature that scans all of your posts or products, analyzes them, and shows which contextual posts/products your visitors might be interested in reading or checking out next. The best thing about this module is the fact that Jetpack does all the posts/products analysis and processing so your server won’t have to.
If you want to activate this module, navigate to Jetpack → Settings, then Engagement → Related Posts in your WordPress Dashboard.
What about other Jetpack modules?
Feel free to use them! All our themes fully support Jetpack and its modules. We’d recommend you to turn on the modules you need and turn off the ones you don’t just so you don’t overwhelm and weigh down your website.
Does Jetpack offer support?
Yes. Jetpack offers full, free support. If you have a Jetpack related problem, please contact their support agents.
