For many, calculators remind us of high school math class, which is not very exciting. But in the Internet era, a calculator can be an enjoyable tool. But how are calculators useful on the internet? In this article, you will learn how to add a custom calculator on your WordPress website. But before we get to our step by step guide to adding a calculator, let’s see the main reason for needing a calculator on your site.
Why You Need to Add a Calculator on Your WordPress Website?
Think of calculators as a kind of evergreen web content or tools that are significantly useful to web visitors. When you start a website, your primary role is to serve your visitors. And not just helping them but also making them want more of your services.
But you can not achieve this without offering valuable content, more importantly for free. For example, if you run a fitness business website, providing a fitness calculator that will help your customers track their workout progress can be a great idea.
Calculators are also far more useful to the web owners. They not only keep your visitors engaged but are even helpful lead generation tools. They can also help you learn and understand your audience. For example, if you own a finance-related website, you can add a mortgage calculator to your site.
The calculator can help you collect visitor’s contact information for your marketing, and other critical information that you analyze and approximate customer’s savings, capacity to borrow, and the ability to pay.
Different Types of Calculators
While promoting your business using your personal or business website, you need specific, powerful tools to attract and keep your audience engaged. There are different types of calculators. Let’s look at some of the commonly used calculators:
1. Fitness Calculators
They are used in health and fitness websites. They help users calculate or track body changes. They include BMI calculators, Calorie Intake calculators, among others.
2. Financial Calculators
Are used in financial services business websites. They include Compound Interest calculators, Savings calculators, among others.
3. Estimates & Quotes Calculators
Almost anybody selling services online such as insurance companies, automobile salespeople, among others, can use these calculators. The calculators are commonly used to show customers what they should pay for a particular service.
4. Price Calculators (for eCommerce)
Price Calculators are used in eCommerce websites. They help buyers calculate what they should pay for a variety of items in their selection. They also let customers choose things like quantities or colours when buying a product.
5. Mortgage Calculators
They exist in two primary forms;
Simple Mortgage Calculator
They help customers approximate the much they can pay per month. It bases calculation on the mortgage amount, interest rate, among other fundamental factors.
Advanced Mortgage Calculator
Helps customers get in-depth analysis reports in the mortgaging process. The calculation is based on essential values such as annual tax, annual insurance, home value, annual PMI.
The list of WordPress site calculators is endless. But adding any form of a calculator on your site is not easy without the right knowledge. Let’s dive into our guide,
How to Add a Custom Calculator in WordPress from Scratch?
For you to add a calculator, you need to install a formidable forms plugin to your WordPress website. Note that calculators unlock in premium plans.
Step 1: Create a New Form
To create a new contact form, go to formidable on your WordPress dashboard and click on add new and create a blank form. You can also use a pre-existing template and customize it.
Step 2: Add Number fields
After creating a form, the other step is to add fields to it. You can add any number of domains you require. For example, while creating a simple percentage calculator, you only need three fields: the number, the percentage you want to find, and the value.
Note that whenever a user needs to enter a period, you will need to set a number range. You might also need to fill out the Default Value, Placeholder Text, and Field Description boxes to guide the user as to how they should enter their information.
Step 3: Create a Total field
The “total field” is where the final customer desired answer or value to his calculation will appear. However, for the desired solution to display, when the customer uses your calculator, you will need to add a required formula for a specific calculation.
To add a formula, go to the advanced tab and turn on the calculator option and add the basic formula in the default value calculation (replace the field IDs in brackets with the formula IDs of your form). Note that you will need to know the basic formula for the type of calculator you are creating.
Step 4: Add Extra Fields (Optional)
If you want to collect other customer’s info such as contact details like email addresses, you will need to add a field for the task. To add an extra field, look through the “All Fields” tab and find the domain you wish to add then add it to your form. At this point, your calculator will be ready for publication.
Step 5: Publish Your Calculator
You can publish your calculator to your web site by using the Formidable Forms block. To print, go to the web page or post you want the calculator to appear on and choose “Add New Block” then select Formidable Forms feature and select your calculator from the drop-down box.
Creating any form of a calculator from scratch for your WordPress web site is not a hard task as it may sound, especially if you know the formulas for each specific job.
Lucky for you, if you lack the knowledge regarding formula, formidable forms plugin comes with ready-made calculator templates. All you have to do is to choose, customize, and publish the type of calculator you wish to add.
Creating and Customizing Your Calculator Using Formidable Calculator Templates
To add a calculator using formidable calculator templates, go to “formidable” on your dashboard then add new. Under “premium templates,” you will see a list of calculator templates which you can scroll through or use the search box to find the template you want.
Click on the template and hit on create form if you want to customize it. On customizing, you can add features that can help you collect user’s information, such as contact info. On clicking “create new,” you will see different field options such as text, checkboxes, among others, which you can add. After customizing, publish your calculator.
Build your Customized Calculator
Final Words
That is all you need to do to have any form of a calculator on your website. You do not have to risk the functionality of your web site by adding too many calculator plugins. All you need is one plugin like Formidable Forms.
