Written on by Randy A. Brown
QR codes are a great way to add convenience to your website. Visitors can easily download files, see products, interact with forms, and more, all from their smartphones and tablets.
They’re easy for the audience to use and provide a level of convenience that’s almost unmatched. Fortunately, it’s easy to add QR codes to your website. In this post, we’ll see how to create a QR code for your WordPress website. We’ll also look at a plugin that lets you customize your QR code to match your brand.
QR Codes were designed in 1994 by Denso in Japan for use in automotive manufacturing. QR stands for Quick Response. It’s a two-dimensional matrix type of barcode, or optical label, that can be read by machines such as optical scanners and devices with cameras. This makes QR codes ideal for use with smartphones and tablets.
The code is a pattern of black squares on a white grid. This pattern allows the code to contain data such as binary, alphanumeric, numeric, kanji, and others. The pattern presents data both horizontally and vertically.
They can be created in multiple sizes, so they can include lots of data if needed. It contains an anchor, so the code reader knows how to interpret the pattern. The data can be repeated multiple times to reduce scanning errors.
QR codes can provide instructions that a machine can use to perform an action. For marketing, this usually contains a URL. This makes them great for use in business cards, email signatures, websites, and more. Popular examples include:
Providing a link to your mobile app.
Open a link to your social media page.
Including a link to your contact information.
Provide a link to your signup form.
Provide a link to your sign-in form.
Open a link to your online store.
Open a link to your wish list.
Provide a list of links to events.
Provide a map of a location.
Open a food menu.
See details about a product.
See details about a course.
Provide discounts and special offers.
Include a link to a free download.
This opens lots of possibilities for marketing and growing your audience. There are many advantages to using QR codes. They are easy to use. The average smartphone user can easily use a QR code since the user only needs to aim their camera at the code and click the link. QR codes are easy to recognize as an interactive element on the website.
Fortunately, generating a QR code for your WordPress website is easy. There are two main ways to generate a QR code.
First, you can use an external QR code generator from another website. The site provides the code for you to embed. This requires you to have an account. This is usually free, but it may restrict the number of QR codes you can generate. They often include a label with the company name or link to their website.
Second, you can install a QR code generator via a WordPress plugin. This is the easiest way to create a QR code. Create an unlimited number of codes and use them for anything you want. This is the method we’ll cover in this tutorial.
For this tutorial, I’m using Kaya QR Code Generator. There are several good plugins to choose from, but this one is the most popular QR code generator in the WordPress repository. It’s highly rated and has been updated recently as of this writing. It’s free and easy to use, and the QR codes look and work great.
Kaya QR Code Generator’s features include dynamic codes with custom settings. Change their size, color, border level, image shadows, alt text, and more. The content can be text, a link, a Bitcoin address, a shortcode, and more. It includes shortcodes to display your code anywhere on your website.
You have control over which users can create QR codes on the backend. Your team can also download the QR codes as PNG files to use anywhere they want.
To install Kaya QR Code Generator, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin in the WordPress dashboard. Search for QR code, look for Kaya QR Code Generator, and click Install. Once the installation is complete, click Activate. The plugin is now ready to create your QR codes.
There are two places to create a QR code. The first is in the plugin’s settings. To create your QR code, go to Kaya Studio > QR Code in the WordPress dashboard. Their settings are stored in the shortcode that’s created. It doesn’t save them, but you can create and download as many as you want.
This screen includes the shortcode, settings, and fields to generate your code. Anywhere you place the shortcode will display this QR code with these settings.
Here, you can choose which WordPress users can see the QR Code Generator. Also, choose where it will appear so you and your team can make a QR code from your content editor pages and posts. Other selections include how the generator displays within the page and post editor.
For the QR code’s style, you can choose the default color for the image and the background color for the image settings. These are the default settings that will apply everywhere you create a QR code unless you override the settings in the QR code generator.
This is helpful if you want to set your branded colors once and not have to change them every time you create a QR code.
QR Code Generator
Following the default settings is the Generator Assistant, as seen in the image below. This is the QR code generator where you can create a QR code to use or download. These settings generate the shortcode.
Enter the title you want to display as the widget title or H2 heading. Choose the title alignment between none, left, center, and right.
Next is the content that will be encoded into the QR code. You can use a URL to redirect users to a certain website page, product, social media page, YouTube channel, etc. You can also choose dynamic content which will add other shortcodes. This is great for creating forms or popups.
If you leave the content field empty, you can add a query string and anchor link. The query string and anchor link take the user to a certain section of the page. These provide a level of automation for the current page.
Image Settings
As seen below, the image settings provide a lot of detailed adjustments. This allows you to customize the QR code to fit within your content and website’s design.
The information in the QR code repeats to reduce read errors. Choose the repetition level between low, medium, quarter, and high. This ranges from 7-30% repetition and will impact the density of the data. Use a lower setting for smaller images and a higher setting for larger images.
You can also adjust the border width, color, background color, and image alignment, add a shadow, remove the style from the image, and add alt text.
Clickable Link and Download Button
The QR codes created by this plugin aren’t just for scanning. You can also make them clickable. This increases their value on your website as users can gain the advantage of using them without a camera.
Add the URL and choose to open in the current window or a new window. You can also use the current page or content URL.
You can also add a download button. Selecting the box labeled “Add a button to download the QR code image” adds the button that allows the user to download the QR code as an image.
Add button text to describe what the button does or leave it blank to display “Download QR Code”. You can also choose the button alignment from none, left, center, or right.
This allows users on the back end to download the QR code to use anywhere they want. This is especially helpful if you want to use the QR code within other content such as your email signature or business card.
Preview
Once you’ve entered your content and made any adjustments you want, you can see a preview of the QR code.
For this example, I’ve added the URL for the hosting for WordPress Verpex page (because if you want a WordPress website for your QR code you’re going to need amazing hosting for WordPress). I’ve left everything else at their defaults for now. Paste the shortcode into your content and the QR code will display the same as this preview.
For this example, I’ve changed the density to 30% and added the Verpex branded colors for the background and the image.
Here’s how the QR code looks on the front end within my content. To place it in your content, add a shortcode block and paste the shortcode within the block.
It will display on the front end and include the title, button, etc. I’ve added a title for this example.
You’ll notice in the content editor there is now a QR code builder where you can create a custom QR code. This is added to your content creator, including posts, pages, products, etc.
It provides the shortcode that you’ll paste into your content with a shortcode block. If you make changes to your shortcode, you’ll have to recopy and paste the shortcode into your shortcode block.
This example shows a page with the QR code generator under the WordPress content editor. You can either copy the default shortcode to paste into a shortcode block or create a custom QR code.
To create a new QR code, click the button labeled Show/Hide the Shortcode generator assistant to open the generator.
The QR code generator is the same as the one found in the default settings that we saw in the section above minus the user settings. It works the same way.
Simply enter the information you want into the fields, change any settings or colors you want, and paste the shortcode it provides into a shortcode block.
Example
For my example, I’m building a QR code that leads the user to the Verpex Reseller Hosting page (because reseller hosting is awesome). I’ll add the URL and make a few adjustments I didn’t make in the default settings. This one has a size of 256 pixels and shades of green that match the reseller hosting page.
The preview shows us how the QR code will appear on the page and provides us with a shortcode. I’ve copied and pasted the code into a shortcode block.
Here’s how the QR code looks on the front end. I’ve added the title, a shadow to the image, selected to display the download button, and centered everything.
That’s our look at how to create a QR code for your WordPress website. QR codes are simple to create and use with a WordPress website. They are great for adding an interactive element to your website and adding convenience that your visitors will appreciate.
There are lots of good QR code generators to choose from. I found Kaya QR Code Generator to be intuitive and powerful enough to create any type of QR code design I wanted. I did get confused a few times as to why my QR code didn’t show my changes until I remembered that I had to recopy and paste the shortcode. It is a versatile plugin, and I highly recommend it.
We want to hear from you. Have you created QR codes for your WordPress website? Let us know about your experience in the comments.
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