WooCommerce security features are just one of the many things that help you create a more successful online shop.

While you might think your products or site design is what’s most important to your customers, they also want you to help keep them safe. By having a secure platform, you’re keeping their digital identities safer.

When you add WooCommerce’s own security features in with your regular security measures and maintenance, you give your customers security and safety while they’re shopping with you.

Force SSL

WooCommerce recommends setting up the Force SSL setting immediately after you install WooCommerce. This is to ensure every customer is forced to use a secure, encrypted connection every time they check out. Naturally, you’ll need an SSL certificate.

The object is to prevent a hijacked browser or other issues from creating a non-secure connection between your site and the customer’s computer. It’s a simple security measure that’s built into WooCommerce.

Regular Updates

While you might not think of updates as WooCommerce security features, they’re actually one of the most important. Much like with WordPress itself, core updates to WooCommerce aren’t just about new features or bug fixes. In fact, they’re often to address potential security flaws before hackers have a chance to attack your store.

WooCommerce releases regular updates and security updates as needed. However, they’re only effective if you install them quickly. Usually, hackers already know about even minor security issues before an update is even released. So, the sooner you install the patch, the better. Hackers scan for sites using outdated software versions and you don’t want your site to be one of them.

Code Audits

WooCommerce takes security seriously. For instance, this is why the company partnered with the Internet security firm Sucuri to ensure their code is as secure as possible. While this was first announced in 2012, WooCommerce still lists Sucuri as their code auditor on their website.

Sucuri’s experts audit every single line of code for the core platform and updates to ensure there aren’t any security issues. This creates a much more secure platform. However, adding secure hosting and a security plugin helps boost your security even more.

PCI Compliant Payment Gateways

Any site or business that accepts must be PCI compliant. The PCI Security Standards Council works to create guidelines for accepting and processing payments more securely. Naturally, the goal is to avoid data loss as much as possible.

PCI compliant payment gateways are a part of WooCommerce security features. While you’ll have to install an extension to access the gateways, WooCommerce only approves compliant extensions. This means you’ll be able to provide your customers with a secure checkout process every time.

Compliments WordPress Security

You can’t talk about WooCommerce security features without pointing out that it’s designed to work perfectly with WordPress’s built-in security. WordPress also releases regular security updates. By installing them regularly, you’re able to boost the security of your WooCommerce store too. WooCommerce is consistently maintained to ensure it’s always compatible with the latest version of WordPress.

For optimal security, keep WordPress and WooCommerce updated as the security of each compliments the other for an overall safer site.

Security Extensions

You’ll have to install extensions for some WooCommerce security features. Luckily, WooCommerce’s extension store includes the best extensions for ecommerce stores. The store only lists extensions regularly maintained and updated by the developers.

One of the most popular security extensions for WooCommerce is Jetpack. It’s free to install and helps protect your site from brute force attacks, attempted account hacks and much more. Also, you get warnings if your site goes down for any reason, which helps you recover faster in the event a hacker does get in and tries to take your site down.

Have questions about how WooCommerce boosts security on your site? Contact Darren today to learn more about WooCommerce and WordPress security.

Image: TheDigitalWay

Installing WooCommerce is an exciting moment. Suddenly, you’re turning WordPress into a powerful ecommerce store.

Your immediate focus might be on the new Products area of your WordPress dashboard, but the WooCommerce backend includes quite a few elements you need to be aware of.

From better store management to preparing for the worst, take the time to explore your backend settings to ensure your storefront is perfect for your customers at all times.

1. Setting Up Security

When you’re setting up an ecommerce store, security must be a priority. A single security incident could ruin your site’s reputation permanently and risk the personal identities of your customers. WooCommerce is for creating online stores, not securing them. This is why you have to take steps to secure your WooCommerce backend.

WooCommerce has multiple recommendations for securing your store immediately after installing WooCommerce, including:

• Use a secure host
• Use strong passwords
• Enable two-factor authentication
• Use security plugins, such as Jetpack Protect
• Secure FTP directories
• Keep WooCommerce, WooCommerce plugins and WordPress up to date

2. Checking Your Stats

By default, your WooCommerce backend gives you access to numerous reports to see how your store is performing. The Reports section of WooCommerce gives you insight into order histories, order trends, individual product sales, coupon/discount performance, how many guests versus customers and much more.

If you’re looking for ways to improve your store, give the reports a try. They make it much easier to turn your online store into a success.

3. Clearing Your Caches

WooCommerce caches data for multiple parts of your store, such as shipping rate calculations. Over time, this data builds up and slows down your site. While you might have set up a caching solution for WordPress, you might not have done the same for WooCommerce.

Under the System Status section of WooCommerce, use the Tools tab to clear out individual caches. This boosts speed and performance, which makes customers happier.

4. Maintaining Your System

Just like with anything else on your website, you have to do some general maintenance on WooCommerce from time to time. The WooCommerce backend has built-in maintenance and troubleshooting tools. For instance, the cache clearing feature above gives you the tools you need to regularly clean the cache.

The System Status area of WooCommerce is designed to help you quickly uncover issues and see if everything’s performing correctly. Run a system report to check critical details about your site and to help WooCommerce support staff help you fix any problems as quickly as possible.

If the worst happens, there’s also an option to reset everything back to defaults. This is perfect if you made numerous changes and suddenly nothing works right.

5. Customising Backend Features

The Settings area of WooCommerce is one of the areas you’ll want to change as quickly as possible. You might be more interested in the storefront, but the WooCommerce backend is where you customise all the options that ensure purchases calculate correctly, customers are notified of orders and products ship using the chosen method.

While there are numerous options to customise, you usually don’t change them much after the first time. However, it is vital to go through every option to ensure your store runs smoothly. Some of the areas where you might want to make changes include:

• General settings, such as your store’s home location and base currency
• Setting up the option to allow product reviews
• Calculating taxes and shipping
• Customising the checkout process
• Customising the customer account page
• Choosing which emails to send and when

6. Increasing WooCommerce Functionality

Another area you might frequent, especially at first is the Add-Ons area of the WooCommerce backend. This is where you can quickly find and manage extensions for WooCommerce, such as accepting various payment methods or offering shipping through different companies.

7. Clearing Out Excess

While you already know about caching, that’s not the only excess that slows down your WooCommerce store. Having too many extensions can drastically slow down not only WooCommerce, but WordPress in general. Start by checking your WooCommerce Add-Ons area to see if there are any extensions you don’t need. Remove any old ones to help speed up performance.

You should also remove any WordPress plugins and themes that you no longer use. These can negatively affect your entire site, including WooCommerce functionality.

8. Enabling Backups

WooCommerce doesn’t come with a way to back up your site. While this might not seem related to the WooCommerce backend, you should ensure your WordPress backup solution includes all your WooCommerce directories too. Should the worst happen, you’ll be able to restore your store and get back to your customers quickly.

Interested in using WooCommerce to open your own ecommerce store? Contact me today to find out how I can help.

Image: rawpixel.com

Conversions are what helps keep your ecommerce store alive, but what if no one’s buying anything?

The first step is to use WooCommerce, which makes managing an online store easier. The second step is to boost conversions using highly effective WooCommerce tips.

These tips help you take WooCommerce to the next level. If you’re ready to start growing your online store, start implementing these tips today.

Offer Multiple Payment Methods

One of the easiest WooCommerce tips to implement is offering multiple payment methods. You never know what’s more convenient for your customers. Some may only use credit cards while others prefer PayPal. WooCommerce offers numerous payment extensions for free to ensure you always have the perfect way for your customers to pay.

They’re easy to set up and it helps reduce shopping cart abandonment when shoppers find out their preferred payment method isn’t accepted.

Speed Things Up

No matter how many WooCommerce tips you try, a slow loading site still hurts conversions. The problem isn’t your products or checkout process. It’s the fact that shoppers don’t stay on your site long enough to view any products. When pages load too slowly, your shoppers abandon your site for the competition.

A few simple ways to speed things up include:

• Compressing image sizes (high-quality images don’t have to slow your site down)
• Use a WordPress caching plugin
• Run the free Google PageSpeed Insights tool (offers suggestions on ways to improve)

Reduce Cart Abandonment

Shopping cart abandonment is an issue for all ecommerce stores. Boost your conversions by making the checkout process as simple and painless as possible. One of the best places to start is with a WooCommerce cart abandonment plugin, such as:

• Recart
• Abandoned Cart Pro for WooCommerce
• WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart
• Optimonk
• Jilt

Even with the right plugin, your shopping cart might still be too intimidating. Ensure consumers aren’t afraid to go through the process by:

• Limiting how much information you ask for
• Offering checkout without creating an account
• Limiting the number of steps during the process
• Making it easy to enter information on any device

WooCommerce also lists shopping cart extensions designed to boost conversions. For instance, add in upsells, offer free shipping, provide special discounts and more.

Use Enhanced eCommerce Tracking

Google Analytics is ideal for helping you better understand your site’s performance. It’s also perfect for increasing conversions with WooCommerce. Google added Enhanced eCommerce Tracking as a new data point to track. The Enhanced Ecommerce Google Analytics plugin allows you to take advantage of this in your WooCommerce store.

Find out where cart abandonment happens, see how many related products shoppers click on and display shopping behaviour reports.

Showcase Your Products Better

One of the harder WooCommerce tips to implement is showcasing your products in their best light. While it’s technically easy, you have so many customisation options that it may seem overwhelming to start with. For instance, should you list your products in a list format or grid? How large should product images be? How long should your product descriptions be?

WooCommerce also offers extensions to improve product listings, such as offering a quick-view option, and merchandising extensions to give customers more options, such as comparing products side-by-side.

It’s also important to provide detailed product descriptions showcase all features and try to answer all questions. Offering multiple images or even a short video of each product helps show consumers more so they’re more likely to buy.

Implement Reviews

No matter what platform you build your ecommerce site on, reviews are important. In fact, 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a friend’s personal recommendation. If it’s between your site and a site that includes customer reviews, shoppers prefer the site with reviews.

People want to know that others have tried the product they’re considering. It’s peace of mind before making an investment. This is especially true on higher priced items. Even with the best product images and descriptions, reviews make a difference. This is one of the best WooCommerce tips for seeing an increase in conversions faster.

Is your ecommerce store optimised with the right WooCommerce settings and extensions? Contact StuartMedia today to learn more about using WooCommerce and how to improve your site.

Image: LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Running an online store requires you to wear a wide variety of hats. From product creation to marketing genius, sometimes you feel like you have to do it all.

What if there was a tool that made your life easier? WooCommerce helps to simplify the creation and running of ecommerce stores.

It’s one of the top WordPress plugins and among the top ecommerce platforms. It’s packed with powerful features that help you do far more with your store.

1. Professional Style

Looks are important when it comes to online stores. Would you really want to shop on a site that looks more like a poorly designed personal blog? No. You wouldn’t trust it.

One of the reasons 28% of all ecommerce stores use WooCommerce is the plugin helps them to create a professional looking store. Not only does it help a site look more professional, but it provides you with all the features a shopper would expect, such as shopping cart management, an easy to use checkout process and easy to browse product pages.

2. Free To Use

While large businesses might have plenty of money to invest, small businesses and startups aren’t usually that lucky. WooCommerce was created to help everyone create an online store to be proud of. The basic plugin and features, which are ideal for smaller stores, are completely free.

The best part is if you need to upgrade, you don’t have to purchase everything. You only pay for the extra features you need.

3. Secure And Compatible

It’s no secret that WordPress is often a target for cybercriminals. However, WooCommerce has a dedicated team that creates regular security and feature updates. Add this to the regular security updates for the WordPress platform and you have a secure online store.

Along with security, WooCommerce is compatible with numerous themes and plugins. To prevent any annoying theme conflicts during updates, WooCommerce even has their own set of themes to ensure you don’t lose site functionality during updates or upgrades.

4. Built-In Analytics

Analytics are crucial for any business, physical or online. However, far too many businesses complicate analytics or don’t gather data at all. With analytics tools and plugins, you mainly get data about page views, bounce rates and other details about your website.

With WooCommerce, you get data about your products and conversion rates. For instance, if you have five featured products on your page, do you know which one gets the most clicks? Which one converts best? Which leads to further sales of other products? What about how far shoppers go into the checkout process before abandoning their carts?

Analytics help you better understand your conversion rates and execute improved marketing strategies. The best part is all of these is built into WooCommerce. You don’t need yet another plugin to help you gather data about your sales and products.

5. Customise For All Needs

While all of the above is great, WooCommerce shines most when it comes to customisation. The sheer amount of customisation might seem overwhelming at first, but once you’ve explored your options, you’ll love it.

It all starts with customising how your store looks. After all, you want your products to stand out and a unique storefront is a large part of that. Some of the other notable customisation options include:

• Offering a variety of payment methods
• Creating your own checkout process
• Changing product layouts and inventory pages
• Adding random sales at a moment’s notice
• Incorporating numerous extensions to work with other services
• Choosing where to ship
• Offering any type of product, both physical and digital

There’s very little you can’t customise. The idea is to help you create the ideal store for your needs. This is part of why WooCommerce has become so popular. It fits every business in every industry. With a few tweaks, your online store looks just like you want and incorporates the features you need, such as automatically calculating taxes, managing inventory and displaying your products so shoppers want to click to find out more.

Are you building an online store? Contact me today to learn more about WooCommerce and how to use it to create the best possible ecommerce store.

Image: Glenn Carstens-Peters

Your ecommerce site has to make a great first impression. Otherwise, shoppers won’t stick around to see what you’re selling.

Without some vital features, shoppers tend to get disappointed and move on to the competition. Luckily, a few tweaks to your website is all it takes to give consumers what they expect and more.

While having wonderful and useful products does help, your website determines whether anyone sees those products.

1. Simple Shopping Cart

No one likes a complex checkout process. Imagine if you had to fill out multiple pages of long forms before you could pay for your items in a brick and mortar store. You’d likely leave instead of dealing with the hassle. The average shopping cart abandonment rate is over 69%. While part of that is because shoppers just aren’t ready to buy yet, 37% abandon because they don’t want to create an account and 28% believe the checkout process is too complicated.

Keep things simple and offer a guest checkout option. Those two things will boost conversions.

2. Fast Loading Pages

Online shoppers aren’t the most patient. After all, they shop online because it’s faster and more convenient. If your ecommerce site takes too long to load, they’ll move on. This includes product pages that are full of images. According to Google, two seconds or less is the optimal page loading speed. The faster your pages load, the happier consumers will be.

3. SSL

No one wants to enter their personal details on a site that doesn’t make security a priority. If your ecommerce site isn’t using SSL, shoppers will look elsewhere. They just don’t want to risk compromising their identity. SSL certificates are an easy way to encrypt data on your website and keep shoppers safer.

4. Easy To Use Navigation

Navigation is a crucial element for any website. With ecommerce sites, it’s important for helping consumers find exactly what they’re looking for. This includes having an obvious search function. If your menu is buried or has too many sub-menus, it could be too difficult to use. The idea is to make it easy and enjoyable for shoppers to find products. The easier it is, the more likely they are to buy.

5. Noticeable CTAs

Far too many ecommerce sites have a beautiful product page that goes into infinite detail on features and benefits. However, that page is missing something – a noticeable call to action. The “buy” button might be tucked off to the side or blend in with the background.

If there isn’t an obvious way to add something to an online cart, shoppers aren’t going to stay on your site. They want it to be obvious at first glance on how to buy the product(s) they’re viewing.

6. Clear Product Images/Videos

A single product image isn’t always enough. Ecommerce shoppers want the digital version of a brick and mortar shopping experience. This means they want to see products from every angle. Add multiple, clear images of every product and allow shoppers to zoom in to see details clearly.

You could even add videos that show products in action. This helps consumers see if the product is right for them. Just be sure that videos and images are compressed for the web to avoid long page loading times.

7. Responsive Design

Your shoppers aren’t just coming from desktops and laptops anymore. The majority may be shopping from their phones and tablets. Is your ecommerce site ready for that? If your site isn’t ready to support a mobile audience, you could be losing customers. Many WordPress themes are designed to be mobile-friendly. Use this to your advantage to create a site that works on any device.

8. Personalisation

One of Amazon’s best features is personalisation. It’s also how they keep consumers coming back. If possible and relevant to your site, incorporate personalisation to recommend related products. If shoppers are logged in, add a welcome message to the header and recommend products based on past purchases. It’s a simple feature, but highly effective.

9. Simple Design

Intricate designs might sound good on paper, but in reality, they’re difficult to use. Complex designs often create cluttered pages and make it impossible to see navigational elements, product images, and shopping carts. It’s better to use a simple design with ample white space to ensure consumers are able to interact easily.

10. Engaging Product Pages

Finally, shoppers expect engaging product pages from your ecommerce site. This means uncluttered pages filled with product images, videos and details. Place the most important details and images near the top. After all, an infinite product page is just annoying.

Are you ready to give your customers everything they expect from your site? Contact me today to learn more about my website development services.

Image: rawpixel.com

Everyone knows that you should back up your devices on a regular basis, but your website needs regular backups too.

Despite how important websites are to building a business, many businesses don’t have a regular backup schedule. However, without backups, your business loses all website changes made since the last backup.

It’s never too late to start scheduling backups to prepare for the worst. While you hope it never happens, being prepared takes only a few minutes and you’ll be glad you did.

1. Cybercriminals Don’t Take Holidays

Cybercriminals don’t care whether you have backups in place or if your business is large or small. Every website is a potential target. A shocking 46% of UK businesses discovered cyber breaches in 2017. While poor passwords and phishing emails are common entry points, poor website security is also a problem.

In a matter of seconds, your website could be compromised, leaving your business without an online presence. Without regular backups, you’re left without any quick way to recover. With a recent backup, you’d be able to upload the backup, patch any vulnerabilities and be back online within a day.

2. Vulnerabilities Happen

WordPress consistently releases updates to create a more secure platform, but vulnerabilities happen. Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for ways to exploit even the tiniest vulnerabilities in the code. WordPress is often targeted because it’s the most widely used CMS, leading to millions of attacks every year.

If you haven’t updated WordPress, your website could be vulnerable. Having regular backups means even if your site is attacked, you can shut it down and recover from a backup. All you’d have to do is update to the most secure version of WordPress before going back online.

It’s also important to note that vulnerabilities in plugins and themes can also cause problems. Ensure you keep these updated as well.

3. Downtime Is Costly

For ecommerce sites, you likely already know how costly downtime is for your business. What you might not have considered is how much site traffic you’re losing when your website’s down. Instead of gaining new customers, potential customers are being directed to your competition.

You want your website back up and running as quickly as possible. This is impossible without regular backups. Every minute your site’s down is costing your business money.

4. Recovering From Scratch Is Impossible

If you’ve never performed a backup, recovery becomes a nightmare. Take a moment to think about how much content is on your website. Could you remember every blog post, product description, About Us details and other content? No one can. Without backups, you’d have to start over completely from scratch should something happen to your website.

5. Simple Human Error Could Erase Everything

Even the most secure website isn’t immune from simple human error. All it would take is someone to click the wrong button to suddenly compromise your website. They might accidentally erase a database or delete a line of code that cripples the site.

Luckily, if you have a recent backup, you’re back up and running in no time. Without it, you’d have to find a way to manually fix any issues and hope it fixes your website.

6. WordPress Changes Go Awry

Sometimes WordPress changes don’t always go as planned. For instance, uploading a new theme might seem simple enough, but after uploading, your visitors just see error messages instead of your website. A new plugin might negatively impact another plugin. A WordPress core update could render an older theme useless. The truth is, making changes isn’t always guaranteed to work out perfectly.

This is why you need regular backups. If changes don’t go well, you just go back to your most recent backup. You can then work to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

7. Building A Brand Takes Time

Part of the reason you have a website for your business is to build your brand. However, building a brand takes time. You can’t rank high on Google overnight. However, a compromised website can ruin your brand’s reputation in just a few days. Google might penalise your site if it’s not repaired quickly. Plus, visitors may be hesitant to come back after noticing your site’s down for an extended period.

Don’t let all your hard work go to waste. Instead, set up regular backups so you always have a way to get your website back online quickly. Plus, you won’t lose any new content, such as your latest blog post, that keeps visitors coming back.

If your site’s not being backed up regularly, contact me today to find out how to implement easy to use backup plugins today.

Image: Patrick Lindenberg

When it comes to creating a business site, one of the top platform options is WordPress and for good reason.

WordPress isn’t just a simple blogging platform. It’s capable of running some of the top websites in the world from major brands.

While it’s great for personal sites too, businesses are opting for WordPress too as a way to take their companies online in an easy, yet powerful way.

WordPress Popularity

WordPress is used by over 29% of websites worldwide and has a 60% market share among content management systems. While there are numerous personal sites and blogs out there, business websites make up a large portion of that 29%. If you’re curious about which brands are using WordPress, see:

• 8 Examples of Major Sites Using WordPress (by yours truly)
• 40+ Notable Big Name Brands That Are Using WordPress
• Notable WordPress Users

Tiny Learning Curve

So why choose WordPress when there are other options for your business site? The most obvious reason and the one you’ll notice the quickest is the tiny learning curve. Getting started takes minutes. The straight-forward dashboard gives you easy access to publish posts, add/update pages, add/change media, check out stats, optimise your site and much more.

While you may want a developer to help with creating a custom theme and ensuring plugins are implemented correctly, WordPress itself is incredibly easy to use and makes managing a site a stress-free process.

Update Content With Ease

You likely already know the importance of blogging. If not, take a quick look at these inspiring statistics from Writtent. Blogging helps businesses gain more customers and boosts conversion rates. WordPress has an easy to use content editor for creating and uploading content. Plus, SEO plugins and WordPress’s built-in SEO features help you to easily optimise every post for better traffic.

This means you spend less time on formatting and optimising and more time on what’s important – creating engaging content for your readers. Plus, you content is optimised to bring in more traffic, leading to more business.

Flexible For Any Use

In the past, I covered how WordPress goes far beyond blogging, which is what makes it ideal for any business website. Whether you want ecommerce or a membership style site or anything in between, WordPress has the features you need. For instance, a fashion retailer might need interactive product images and a stylish theme to match the personality of the retailer.

On the other hand, a B2B company may require a minimalist theme and a simple blog to effectively connect with customers. WordPress is flexible, plus it’s open source, which means you can customise it to your needs. For instance, if you can’t find a theme or plugin that fits your needs, a WordPress developer can work with you to create just what your business needs most.

Scales With The Business

Scalability is crucial with any business website. It might be tempting to use a free site builder, but stop and consider your limitations first. Your site will always be limited by the platform you use. With free site builder tools and even some other CMS platforms, you’re limited to only a small number of plugins (if any at all), basic themes, little to no customisation options and the amount of content you can upload.

This isn’t going to help you grow your business. This is why so many businesses choose WordPress for their business website. You download and own your installation of WordPress. All you need is a web host that offers the storage and bandwidth you need to continue growing your site. Whether you’re a business selling a few products a week or a giant like Amazon, WordPress scales as your needs change

Are you ready to use WordPress for your business website? Contact me today to find out how I can help.

Image: Anders Jildén

It’s a common misconception that WordPress is just a blogging platform. After all, that’s what the original purpose was for.

However, it’s all the other features that make WordPress more than a blogging platform. The possibilities for using WordPress are seemingly endless.

If you’ve ever wondered just what WordPress is capable of, it’s time to look beyond the blogging aspect and uncover some of the other powerful features.

Blogging Is Just One Feature

WordPress was initially developed as a personal publishing system, but it developed into something much more advanced. Since then, the blog portion has become just one of the many features. Now, WordPress includes features, such as:

• Develop and manage static pages
• Sell products
• Optimise for search engines
• Implement your own features (through open source coding and plugins)
• Create responsive sites
• Store and manage data for your business and consumers

While this list could easily fill this post, it’s just a sampling of what makes WordPress more than a blogging platform. With all these features, there’s no reason to limit yourself to just blogging.

Run An Entire Online Business

About this time last year, I covered the reasons why WordPress is ideal for small business websites. Yes, you can host your business’s blog, but you’re able to run your entire online business through WordPress. With ecommerce plugins and themes, you’re able to manage and sell inventory online. Interact with customers, build an email list, connect social media accounts and much more.

If you want to see examples of major brands doing just this, check out my post 8 Examples Of Major Sites Using WordPress. WordPress.com and WordPress.org also list some of the most notable users and sites. Between these three links, it’s difficult to imagine using WordPress just as blog, though that’s still an option, especially for personal blogs.

Create Full Applications

The ability to create full applications makes WordPress more than a blogging platform. One company actually used WordPress to create a SaaS application (software as a service). In fact, they did it in just one month. This shows the versatility of what started as a user-friendly blogging system. While most businesses probably won’t think of WordPress for this use, it is an option for creating your own in-house SaaS apps.

Plugins And Themes Go Beyond Blogging

Take a quick look at the most popular themes and plugins on WordPress.org. How many of those seem exclusive to blogging? While some of the SEO plugins definitely cater to blogs, they also work for static web pages. After all, if a page has content on it, it’s available for Google to index. You want to optimise every single page on your website.

The themes listed are what truly show the difference between a simple blogging platform and a complete content and website management system. Most look like professional business sites, which is kind of the idea. They’re designed not just to showcase your personal thoughts on whatever crosses your mind, but to impress potential customers and clients.

If WordPress was just a blogging platform, you’d see much simpler themes that just focus on organising posts and categories. In fact, it’d probably look more like the early days of Blogger versus the highly used WordPress.

Powerful Database Features

One feature that’s often overlooked when it comes to WordPress is databases. You probably already know about the databases tied specifically to your site’s content and files. These are just the basics. These are the databases used to organise your site’s content and users.

However, when you’re using WordPress for a business, you’re able to create databases to store and organise customer data. For instance, certain plugins provide detailed analytics based on customer data on your site. This data is stored in databases within WordPress for you to use to provide better experiences for your customers.

Ready to see what WordPress could do for you? Learn more and find out how to start your own WordPress site by contacting me today.

Image: Corinne Kutz

You’ll find no shortage of ecommerce options for your website, but one you might want to consider is WordPress.

WordPress offers the best ecommerce solutions, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the popularity of WordPress as a whole. Still, some think of WordPress only for blogging and not for an online business.

Once you realise all that WordPress has to offer, it’s easy to see that it’s far more than a CMS and works well as a full ecommerce solution.

Integrates Well

One of the things that make WordPress so popular is how well the platform integrates with other services. For instance, take a look at WooCommerce, which powers 28% of all ecommerce sites. Hundreds of extensions are available for accepting payments, scheduling package deliveries and managing an email list. All it takes is a few clicks to integrate with most popular ecommerce solutions.

When you’re able to use the services you already know and love, it’s easier to manage your site the way you want.

Simple Installation

WordPress easily offers the best ecommerce solutions simply due to ease of installation. Most web hosts have a one-click WordPress installation feature and ecommerce themes install easily as well. You’ll get online faster versus spending weeks just trying to get started. Of course, between WordPress developers and the WordPress community, you always have support whenever you need it.

Customise Both Appearance And Function

WordPress offers thousands of themes and plugins to let you fully customise the appearance and function of your ecommerce site. With other solutions, you might find yourself limited. For instance, if you want to ensure your site is available for mobile visitors, you can choose a responsive theme that automatically adjusts based on your visitors’ screens.

Many plugins are designed specifically for ecommerce and make it easier than ever to customise your store. Some of the best ecommerce solutions for WordPress to include:

• WooCommerce
• Ecwid
• Easy Digital Downloads
• WP Ecommerce

No matter which solution you choose, you’re able to customise it completely along with your theme to ensure you site is unique to your business.

Includes Regular Security And Feature Updates

While this doesn’t just apply to ecommerce sites, it is something that sets WordPress apart when choosing the best ecommerce solutions. WordPress is often a target for hackers since it’s so widely used, but to combat that threat, WordPress releases regular security updates. Of course, you have to make sure you install them in order to keep your site safer. Remember to take extra security precautions too, such as changing admin passwords and using a security plugin.

In addition to security updates, feature updates are also released. This means you get to take advantage of the latest WordPress has to offer and it’s all offered for free.

The popular WordPress ecommerce solutions also release regular updates to put security first. For instance, a single outdated plugin could compromise your site. Keep your theme and plugins updated for a more secure site for your visitors.

Easy To Learn And Manage

WordPress is designed to make it easy for anyone to manage their own website. The intuitive backend helps you upload content in minutes. As a result, it offers the best ecommerce solutions because the learning curve is so small. You’re not going to spend forever trying to figure out how to upload product images and descriptions. It’s not difficult to master setting up a shopping cart and checkout process.

The less time you have to spend learning how to use your ecommerce solution, the more time you can spend on what matters most – getting your products/services in front of potential customers.

Start your search for an ecommerce solution with WordPress and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what the platform has to offer.

Want to set up your own ecommerce site with WordPress? Make the process even easier by contacting Darren today to get started.

Image: Jens Kreuter

It’s a satisfying feeling to finally get your WordPress site up and running. You’re feeling so confident that you’re ready to take on the world, or a least, your own WordPress maintenance.

After all, the hard part’s over, right? Before you get too excited, you might want to think about hiring a WordPress service provider.

Regular maintenance and site tweaks are more difficult than you might believe. If you’re already trying to do it on your own, you can reduce your stress and save your sanity by considering the following three tips.

Stay Within Your Budget

Saving money is always a good thing. It’s also why managing your site yourself seems like a great idea. Instead of a monthly fee, you save money by doing it yourself. However, you may not be saving as much as you think.

First of all, maintenance tasks take time. This is time you’re spending away from your business. Add up all the extra hours and hiring an expert service provider suddenly seems more cost effective. Another thing to consider is experience.

How much do you know about WordPress? Is it enough to reduce the risk of a hack? In 2016, data gathered by Sucuri showed that WordPress is still the most hacked CMS, accounting for 74% of all hacked CMS platforms in 2016. A hacked site could ruin your business. If user data is leaked or data destroyed (that’s not backed up), it could easily cost you thousands or more to handle everything.

A professional WordPress service provider knows WordPress inside and out. You’ll save money and headaches simply by letting an expert take control.

Gain More Time

WordPress compares WordPress maintenance to getting regular work done on your car. In most cases, it’s usually quicker to let professionals handle the maintenance than try to do it yourself. The same holds true with managing your site.

You’ll not only save your sanity, but gain more time for managing your business. WordPress has created a monthly maintenance calendar. A quick look is enough to show you that it’s not something you can do in a few minutes each month. Plus, you also have to consider the learning curve.

Trying to find the right settings and plugins, without corrupting your site, takes valuable time. Figuring out how to tweak your site for optimal performance isn’t a skill you learn overnight. Experts have spent years studying WordPress, which allows them to take care of your site far faster than you could do it on your own.

Get The Highest Quality

Your WordPress site deserves the best service and your visitors deserve the best website. Managing your site on your own means your site may have problems you don’t even notice, such as:

• Slow page loading speeds
• Broken links
• Major security flaws
• Outdated software (themes, plugins, WordPress core)
• Bad or no backups
• Site glitches

WordPress service providers know what to look for to prevent common problems. This means you get a smooth running website that offers the best experience for your visitors. You’ll also know that backups are available should the worst happen to your site. You’ve already invested in the site’s development. To maintain a quality website, you have to invest in its future as well.

Save Your Sanity Starting Today

It usually only takes two to three months to start feeling like you’re going crazy as you try to balance site maintenance, uploading new content and managing your business. Save time and money, while keeping your site at its best. Go ahead, save your sanity and hire an expert instead.

Does your WordPress site have issues? Find out today by contacting me about WordPress support.

Image: Carl Heyerdahl