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How to Create Chat Rooms in WordPress for Your Users

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Do you want to create chat rooms in WordPress for your users?

A chat room allows visitors to interact with each other or even speak to you directly. This can keep people on your website for longer without you having to install a third-party chat client like Slack or Discord.

In this article, we will show you how to create a chat room in WordPress for your users.

Adding chat rooms to a WordPress website

Why Add a Chat Room in WordPress?

If you run a membership website or an online forum, then you may want to create an instant messaging chat room for your users.

You could use a third-party service like Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook groups, or Discord. However, with these methods, all the communication happens outside your website, so you don’t have control over the chat experience.

This approach also encourages people to leave your website, which is bad news for your pageviews and bounce rate in WordPress.

By embedding a chat room in your website, you can keep people on your site for longer and build a stronger sense of community.

Note: Chat rooms tend to work best for small communities of users. If want to offer live customer support, then check out our list of the best live chat support software.

That said, let’s take a look at how to add a chat room to your WordPress blog or website.

Adding Chat Rooms in WordPress

The easiest way to add chat rooms in WordPress is by using Simple Ajax Chat. This plugin allows you to add a simple chat room to any page, post, or widget-ready area.

It also lets you restrict access to logged-in users or even create a chat room that’s completely open to the public.

Chat room published on page

Note: In this guide, we are using the free Simple Ajax Chat plugin, as it has everything you need to create a single chat room. However, if you want to create multiple different chatrooms, then you’ll need to upgrade to Plugin Planet Simple Ajax Chat.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to Settings » Simple Ajax Chat to set up your chat room.

The Simple Ajax Chat plugin's settings

To start, click to expand the ‘Plugin Settings’ section and then change the ‘Default name’ to anything you want.

You can also type in a ‘Default message’, which will appear the first time someone visits your chat room.

Default chat room name

Next, you can decide whether users need to be logged in to use the chat room. Requiring user registration can help you combat spam and trolls, but a public chat room may get more users.

To make this decision, either check or uncheck the box next to ‘Require users to be logged in to view and use the chat box.’

You may also want to check the box next to ‘Logged-in username’ so that WordPress shows the person’s username in the chat.

How to create a members-only WordPress chat room

Another option is to allow non-registered visitors to read the chat but not interact. People who like what they see might create an account in order to join the conversation, so you may want to check the box next to ‘Display chat messages as read-only.’

With that done, you can customize the chat room. For example, you might add your own logo, custom colors, and branding.

You can do this using the settings in the’ Times and Colors’ and ‘Appearance’ boxes.

How to customize the chat window in WordPress

You can also replace the default notification icon with your own image. For example, you might use your logo, icon, or any other image you’ve created using web design software such as Canva.

To add your own graphic, find the ‘Default notification icon’ field and click on ‘Upload.’

Changing the default chat icon in WordPress

You can now either choose an image from the WordPress media library or upload a file from your computer.

If you make any changes in this section, then don’t forget to click on ‘Save Settings.’

After that, you can click to expand the ‘Banned phrases’ section and then type in any words that should never appear in your chat. This might be the name of a competitor, offensive words, or anything else that could damage the visitor experience and your reputation.

Simply separate each word with a comma.

Creating a ban list for your online WordPress chat room

Again, don’t forget to click on ‘Save Settings’ to store your changes.

There are lots more settings to explore, so it’s worth looking through them and seeing what changes you can make. However, this is all you need to create a simple chat room, so let’s see how you can add it to your WordPress website.

How to Display Your Chat Room in WordPress

When you are happy with how the chat room is set up, scroll down to the Shortcode & Template Tag area and click to open it.

Here, you’ll see the shortcode that you can add to any page, post, or widget-ready area.

Copy your chat room short code

To add the chat room to a page, simply go to Pages » Add New in the WordPress dashboard.

You can now type in a title, upload a featured image, add categories and tags, plus any other content that you want to show on the page.

How to add a chat room to a WordPress page

To embed the chat room, click on the ‘+’ sign and then type in ‘Shortcode.’

You can now select the right block when it appears.

Adding a chat room shortcode block to a WordPress blog or website

After that, just add the [sac_happens] shortcode to the Shortcode block.

You can now click on ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to make the chat room live.

Adding live chat to a website using shortcode

Another option is adding the chat room to a widget-ready area. This is an easy way to show the chat window across multiple pages.

If you are using one of the newer block-based themes, then you can even add the chat room to areas of your site you can’t edit using the standard WordPress content editor.

For step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to add and use widgets.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create chat rooms using WordPress for users. You can also see our guide on the best giveaway and contest plugins and how to add web push notifications in WordPress to connect with visitors after they leave your site.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

21 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
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    • WPBeginner Support says

      The users do not need a WordPress account but you can require an account on your site if you wanted.

      Admin

  2. Ahmed Barwari says

    I installed and activated the plugin but its not working.

    403 Forbidden
    The website’s configuration prevents you from accessing this page.

  3. Saminu Eedris says

    This is great.

    I just got a job for an online bar, not really and online bar but there would be a platform where the visitors can interact with some of the brand ambassadors.

    I think I will try out this plugin to see how it works.

    Thanks,
    Saminu!

  4. asad ali says

    Hi

    i have chat room site and i want to use wordpress chat room their is any plugin that i can use on my blog right now i am using someone else chat room scrpit but i want to add mine chat room please suggest if their is any good chat room thanks

  5. Giorgios says

    I used that plugin on my website – it works fine but is too simple. Mainly no file sharing feature so I switched to Chatwee. It suits me better.

  6. HappyMoon says

    Hello. How do I create something like the top of your site, such as HOME »BLOG» WORDPRESS PLUGINS »HOW TO CREATE CHAT ROOMS …

  7. Khürt L. Williams says

    I’m always looking for way to increase the use of our organization’s WordPress install. We have a bulletin board running on another system but I want to centralize systems. Perhaps bbpress with this plugin is the way forward.

    • Thomas says

      Have to agree with this. Looked into both and the one you posted is way better! I’ve been looking for something JUST like this for my site at NE1UP.com so I really appreciate it!

      No worries, @WPBeginner, still love your site and it’s so beautiful. ;) Wouldn’t have figured this out if you hadn’t posted about WordPress chat in the first place!

      Thanks guys!

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