When you have an eCommerce site, ensuring a smooth payment process is critical to gaining conversions from leads that visit your site. WooCommerce allows you to configure various payment methods such as direct bank transfer, checks, cash on delivery, and Paypal to provide your customers with additional options for completing order transactions.

The WooCommerce PayPal Checkout extension allows your WordPress store to accept PayPal payments and makes use of customizable Smart Payment ButtonsTM. Customers who use PayPal Checkout can pay with PayPal or any major credit or debit card without ever leaving your website. Using this extension visitors can buy directly from your product pages and pay in 26 different currencies. This blog will walk you through the process of configuring and adding the WooCommerce PayPal Checkout for WordPress sites.

Installing the WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Plugin in WordPress

Note: Paypal Checkout Plugin is no longer available in the WooCommerce marketplace. You may use PayPal payments as it’s the upgraded option to this extension.

Follow these steps to install the WooCommerce PayPal Checkout in WordPress:

1. Log in to WordPress as an administrator.

2. In the search plugins, type “WordPress PayPal Checkout.” Install and activate the plugin pictured below:

3. After you’ve successfully installed the plugin, you’ll need to configure the PayPal checkout in WooCommerce.

Configuring the PayPal Checkout Process in WooCommerce

Follow these steps to set up the PayPal checkout process in WooCommerce.

On the WordPress Dashboard, in the left sidebar, click WooCommerce, and then click Settings. This will take you to the WooCommerce settings page, which has multiple tabs for various settings. To enable the payment method, navigate to the Payments tab.

Enable the toggle button next to the PayPal checkout option on the Payment Methods page. To configure the PayPal Checkout settings, click Set up or Manage.

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You will then be directed to the PayPal Checkout page, where you can begin configuring various checkout settings. The process will begin with basic store information, then help you link your PayPal account, and finally assist you in configuring the checkout page’s look and feel, including payment and billing details.  

To begin configuring the PayPal checkout process, fill in the basic information about your store before moving on to linking the store to a PayPal account.

• Title – Choose the title shown to customers during checkout
• Description – Add a description shown to customers if they use PayPal Checkout
• Account Settings – Environment  – Select Live to accept payments and Sandbox to test payments.

Linking Paypal Account in WooCommerce

In WooCommerce, you can use the API settings to create or link an existing PayPal Account. To link it to your PayPal account, use the API credentials sections on the PayPal Checkout setup page, under the payment tape.

When you click the Setup or link an existing PayPal account button, you will be taken to the PayPal account login page.

Log in to your PayPal account, then click Activity on the top menu bar and select API Access.

Next, scroll to NVP/SOAP API Integration (Classic) and click Manage API Credentials. Ensure Request an API Signature is checked and click Agree and Submit.

 Click Show to reveal API Username, password, and signature.

Copy the API Username, Password, and Signature into your WooCommerce PayPal Checkout settings.

In the PayPal-hosted Checkout Settings section, enter details such as your Brand Name,  your site or product name, images for logo and header, and so on to ensure the PayPal checkout page has the same look and feel as your website. The landing page is the URL that all customers see when they check out.

Additional payment confirmation details can be set in the Advanced Settings for further advanced settings of the checkout pages, such as shipping details.

Once you’ve finished filling out all of the settings, click Save Changes at the bottom of the page to finish the PayPal Checkout configuration in WooCommerce.

Smart Payment Buttons™ PayPal Checkout Advanced Options

Smart Payment Buttons™ is an added benefit for US customers, as the feature provides relevant payment options such as PayPal and both Pay in 4 and PayPal Credit*, allowing your customers to buy now and pay later while you get paid upfront. Fill out the sections after the advance settings if you want to further customize the look and feel of the buttons or configure PayPal checkout pages. Please see the PayPal Checkout page for more information.

Have any questions or concerns? Contact our sales team today! Looking for a new Managed WordPress Hosting plan? We have you covered with our new Managed WordPress plans that simplify speed, security, and stability.

The post How to Add Paypal to Your WordPress Website Using WooCommerce appeared first on The A2 Posting.

What if we told you that WooCommerce can do all that for you? With the free and open-source plugin, maintaining your website instantly becomes so much easier.

Keep reading to find out exactly what WooCommerce is and how it can help your WordPress website.

What Is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an e-Commerce plugin used by over 3 million online stores. It was developed to be used as an extension to WordPress, which is why it integrates perfectly into any WordPress site. A simple but powerful platform chock full of features, it is a fantastic solution for anyone looking to sell their products online.

We highly recommend that you use WooCommerce as an extension for your shop, as it contains everything that you need for your business to run smoothly.

What Are the Benefits of WooCommerce?

WooCommerce exists to make managing your online shop simpler. It is incredibly user-friendly and offers dozens of helpful features right at your fingertips. If you’re about to open your own online shop or just want to upgrade an existing site, we’re certain that you’ll find all of the features of WooCommerce to be extremely helpful.

Customization Options

You can make changes to your store page any time you like with no additional costs, thanks to WooCommerce. You can either customize everything yourself or choose from a wide array of stylish, functional themes.

Built-In Analytics

Even if you have no experience in tracking implementation, WooCommerce comes with a built-in data analysis tool that will give you more insight into your growing business.

Integrated Payment Gateways

An efficient payment process is essential for any store. With WooCommerce, you can give your customers the option to choose from several platforms, such as Stripe, PayPal, debit or credit cards, bank transfer, or even cash on delivery.

Various Shipping Options

WooCommerce allows you to provide any variety of shipping options for your customers’ orders, like a pickup from nearby stores, local delivery, or international shipping. You can even restrict shipping options as you see fit.

Automatic Tax Calculation

WooCommerce makes it easy for anyone to calculate taxes for their online shops. All you need to do is configure the settings to automatically compute taxes on every order.

Order and Inventory Management

The built-in inventory management system of WooCommerce allows shop owners to handle and track everything in their supply. Plus, you can oversee the entire order process, from tracking orders to shipping them out.

All these amazing WooCommerce advantages will pair perfectly when used with a Managed WordPress platform, which is another worthwhile investment for any WordPress user.

What Is Managed WordPress?

Managed WordPress is a hosting platform that is fully streamlined and optimized for easy creation and management of your website. As its name implies, the web host manages your WordPress for you, taking over all the server responsibilities.

Our platform, A2 Hosting, revolves around making your site run as fast and secure as possible. We will handle all the administrative tasks, from installing WordPress, to security checks and updates, and even caching your web page. If you have any questions you can speak with our sales team for more information on our new and improved Managed WordPress plans!

WooCommerce is an incredibly powerful tool for WordPress users. When paired with our efficient Managed WordPress platform, managing your online shop will be fast and hassle-free. For an optimized eCommerce shop, get started on managed WordPress today with A2 Hosting!

The post What Is WooCommerce? Explaining the Features and Benefits appeared first on The A2 Posting.

ANN ARBOR, MICH–NOV 22, 2021–Black Friday sales in 2021 are forecasted to break $900 billion in online shopping globally, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index. To prepare, eCommerce companies have begun to buckle down and enhance their websites for the recording-breaking traffic coming their way. A2 Hosting, a leading player in the web hosting industry, just released an accompanying ebook to aid online entrepreneurs in their preparations. “With the impacts of Covid 19 in 2020 and 2021, we know that now more than ever it’s imperative for our customers to experience a win during the holiday sales. We’re trying to give them as many resources as possible to help them succeed,” says Bryan Muthig, A2 Hosting’s CEO. 

This ebook is changing the game for eCommerce owners in 2021. It covers backend technical website improvements, front-end website optimization, and digital marketing do’s and don’t. eCommerce owners will find a thorough guide with step-by-step instructions on how to upgrade their websites as well as insight from A2 Hosting’s top-end development team, marketing team, and support gurus. Along with this ebook and a number of preparatory guides on their blog, A2 Hosting is also offering a Black Friday and Cyber Monday sitewide discount with their lowest prices of the year from 11/22-12/5. 

“We want to give our customers the right resources to succeed,” says Muthig. “Not only does that include the right hosting, but it also encapsulates the hosting experience in general. Our guru support crew will be available 24/7 for our customers throughout the holiday season so we’re here for you when it counts. Whether it’s a website crashing on Christmas Day or client questions on Black Friday morning, we’re a team that values supporting our customers in any way we can all season long.”    

About A2 Hosting

Recently awarded Leader in Web Hosting for Summer 2021 by G2 and Best Cheap Dedicated Web Hosting by Digital.com, A2 Hosting, Inc. is a high-performance hosting services provider located in Ann Arbor, MI. The company delivers ultra-reliable solutions and 24/7/365 US-based support from its Guru Crew team. Since 2003, A2 Hosting has offered innovative, affordable, and developer-friendly hosting for small- and medium-sized businesses as well as web development agencies worldwide. Customers seeking the fastest hosting options in the industry can host websites of any size on A2’s Turbo Performance server platform featuring page load speeds up to 20X faster compared to competing solutions. To learn more, visit https://www.a2hosting.com.

The post Win 2021 Black Friday Website Preparations with A2 Hosting’s Free eCommerce eBook appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Looking to start an eCommerce website or have one but not satisfied where you’re at? Two great options are WordPress and Shopify. But how to choose? While both platforms are great options, it’s important to first understand some key facts and use cases that are particular to each. 

What Are They?

 A2’s Managed WordPress

WordPress is an open-source platform dedicated to helping people get online. A2’s Managed WordPress plans are a cheaper way to get access to a high-quality WordPress site with amazing server management without the price tag. The best part about starting a site on WordPress is that it’s extremely customizable and can be used for many different functions through the implementation of different plugins, themes, and code changes. Users can install plugins like WooCommerce to create an eCommerce store similar to what can be created on Shopify. WordPress caters to a large range of potential users including:

• Web Design Novices
• Users with some web development skills
• Users with the budget for their own web developer

Shopify

Shopify is a SaaS company specializing in eCommerce and specifically built to help entrepreneurs establish online stores. Entrepreneurs that work with Shopify don’t own their own software but they do pay a monthly fee to access all that this company has to offer. Their product packages come with a variety of different drag and drop templates. All sites associated with Shopify are hosted on Shopify’s own servers (equivalent to a shared web hosting plan). 

Pricing

There’s a pretty big jump in the pricing when comparing A2’s Managed WordPress Plans to Shopify’s offerings.

WordPress

A2’s Managed WordPress comes with a significantly lower price tag and with the added bonus of server management and support around the clock. A2 also includes multiple sites on the higher-level plans and added security. All plans come with a free SSL for added security and 24/7/365 assistance through phone, chat, and email!

Shopify

Shopify’s pricing is a bit steeper than A2 Hosting’s Managed WordPress offerings. The most basic Shopify plans start at $29.99 a month. Their lower plans would work for someone just starting out but don’t include many necessary business options for professionals who are trying to grow quickly. For example, the lowest Shopify plan doesn’t include professional reports so users interested in any deeper statistical tracking would need to upgrade. This means that in order to truly take advantage of what Shopify has to offer users would need to buy one of the more expensive plans paying more than double the price of A2 Hosting’s most extensive managed WordPress plan!

Look and Feel: Templates and Themes

Templates and themes are lifesavers when you’re creating the look and feel of your website. Though both WordPress and Shopify offer these options, the variety and prices differ depending on which platform you choose:

WordPress

WordPress has thousands of paid and free themes. Many of them are very easy to edit and are mobile-friendly and responsive. They can be found at sites like Theme Isle or Theme Forest. When looking at the different themes out there, make sure you pick a safe theme for your site. Here’s a guide on how to pick the right WooCommerce theme for your online store.

Shopify

Shopify has 9 free themes and 70 paid themes. You can also get a specialized theme designed through their Shopify designers for an added cost. While their themes are professional they are much more limited than what you can get through WordPress. 

Content Management 

When looking at the CMS capabilities for each of these platforms there really is no comparison. 

WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems online. It has content versioning which allows you to save all versions of your pages and posts in one system and revert back to old versions of your site if need be. WordPress also comes with a block-based editing system giving you more flexibility on page layout. 

Shopify

When comparing content management, Shopify only competes with WordPress in its capabilities for managing products and collections. Since Shopify is a dedicated eCommerce company they’ve made it easy to add products and sort them together. For WordPress users looking for this same capability, it’s as easy as installing the WooCommerce plugin which will allow you these same features and turn your site into an organized eCommerce site! 

Flexibility

WordPress

Seeing as WordPress is so large in the market and is widely used across the web, this CMS is one of the most flexible out there. You have the option to use thousands of plugins, templates, and integrations that will make your WordPress function however works best for you.  Since it is an open-source platform and you have control of your own host (we recommend A2 Hosting’s Managed WordPress plans) you can tailor your site in almost any way you can imagine to fit your needs! Pick from thousands of amazing themes and plugins to make your site completely your own and have the option to add almost any capabilities you can think of right at your fingertips.

Shopify

Shopify is a great site builder for beginners but it isn’t as flexible long-term if your company is looking to scale and grow quickly. Their drag and drop builder is easy to use and customize but it’s limited in its capacity to scale up dramatically without ratcheting up the price tag quite drastically. Though Shopify does have third-party apps that make it easier to add functionality to your online store, the support on these tools can become more complicated as you partner up with separate businesses’ support systems for each tool rather than just working with one party.

SEO and Content

WordPress

SEO and relevant content are an important part of the success of your website. One of the greatest parts about improving SEO when working in WordPress is their plugin YoastSEO. It’s one of the most popular SEO tools in the market! It analyzes content in real-time and guides users on different ways to improve their SEO ranking. Some of its best features include:

• SEO enhanced sitemaps
• Canonical URL’s that make sure there’s no duplicate content
• Analyzation of paragraph structure and keyword density
• Guiding for meta descriptions 
• Link support and more!

Another perk of working on WordPress in relation to SEO is your chance to choose your internet host. Your hosting company and the plan you choose have a big impact on your website’s potential uptime, how it handles traffic, and its overall ranking on google. Managed WordPress Hosting with A2 Hosting is a great choice if you’re looking for someone to take care of your server management so you can focus on your business!

Shopify

Managing SEO for websites set up on Shopify is a little more limited. Their site comes with the option to use an SSL and automatically creates an XML Site Map. You can configure 301 page directs if you decide to change your website’s name, which can be very helpful if you ever want to make big business changes or rebrand down the line. One of the downsides to SEO for websites built on Shopify is that it’s hard to create clean URLs. While Shopify has different SEO plugins available to help you nothing compares to WordPress’ YoastSEO.

Customer Support

At the end of the day, people don’t prioritize customer support until a crisis arises, and then it’s everything. It’s always good to know you have support there when you need them. 

WordPress 

Managed WordPress with A2 Hosting is known for its support. With 24/7/365 customer service for all customers over the phone, chat, and email, there is always an expert there to assist. Please we have an extensive knowledge base of articles there to help you if you’re the do-it-yourself type of person. Our plans also come with easy backups, a free Jetpack Personal license, and WP-CLI pre-installed. Contact our sales team today with any questions!

Shopify

Shopify Lite customers receive chat and email support but to get phone support you must be on a higher plan. They also have a help center and a forum, but there’s nothing like talking to a real person to help you get your problems solved quickly and accurately. 

In Conclusion

Both Shopify and A2’s Managed WordPress plans have their benefits. If you’re just getting started and looking for a super simple experience without the bells and whistles, Shopify may work for you. If you’re looking to grow your website internationally with many different options and capabilities we suggest our Managed WordPress plans. It’s as easy as picking a theme and downloading WooCommerce so you can get your business up and running today!  If you want 24/7 support, flexibility, a cheaper price tag, and incredible uptime, check out our new Managed WordPress line today! 

The post Shopify vs WordPress: What’s the Difference? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Backend & Technical Improvements

As all eCommerce business owners begin to buckle down and get ready for the upcoming holiday season many are focused on bringing new traffic to their sites to take advantage of the increased spending during Q4. But what happens when your site isn’t ready for the traffic and crashes in the middle of your biggest Black Friday Sale of the year? We want to make sure your website is fast and ready to receive all the new visitors coming your way. Here are some of our team’s top technical tips to make sure your site is ready this season.

Stay Up to Date with Updates

Keeping your website up-to-date is one of the most important maintenance techniques for your eCommerce site. Before the holiday traffic starts, be sure to have all the latest updates installed – both for the CMS itself and any plugins/ modules/add-ons that you already have installed. Luckily for all the website owners out there, it is easy to automate this process by signing up for automatic updates for major and minor releases of WordPress core and plugins. You also have the option to receive email notifications anytime there is a new release available. These updates will provide additional functionality, performance boosts, and patches for known security vulnerabilities. It’s important to verify these updates for compatibility with your combination of plugins and server configuration before updating your production site. This makes sure you don’t update and accidentally break your site.

Identify Your Resource Weaknesses

One of the secret tips to keeping your eCommerce website functioning smoothly is making sure you’re not approaching your resource limits. You should ask yourself…Have you looked at your traffic from last year? Did you run into any issues during your big sales? If so it may be important to check to see if you should move to a plan with more resources to help support a smoother customer experience. Not sure what resources to look at? Here are four important ones to check:

• Disk Space: This refers to the amount of room on your account to store files, including all of your text, code, and images.
• Memory Usage (RAM): RAM stores working data and is a vital part of a computer’s performance. A2 Hosting’s RAM options on our VPS and Dedicated plans range anywhere from 4GB to 128 GB DDR4 ECC, so we have options for any sized website!
• CPU Usage: This is the central processing unit that processes and runs instructions. We offer the choice of AMD and Intel CPUs on our Dedicated hosting plans!
• Inode Usage: This correlates with how many files you can store on your website. If you’re an eCommerce company with lots of files it may be important to get a plan with access to more inodes. Read our knowledge base articles to learn more about how to manage your inode count.

If you’re nearing the maximum usage afforded to your current plan we encourage you to upgrade! Interested in going even faster? Check out A2 Turbo, available on most plans! Confused about what all the web hosting resources are? Check out this blog on four web hosting resources to consider when choosing your hosting plan.

Try a CDN

That’s right, that CDN you’ve been debating? Now is the time to go for it. But what is a CDN? A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, works by utilizing dispersed servers. They use a global network of servers to store static assets for your web page, such as images, at multiple locations closer to the visitor to your site. Not only does this reduce load time as the assets are being delivered from a closer physical location to the customer, but this also reduces the load on your server as it does not need to service that portion of the request. This way visitors from around the world can access your site and all of its information from a server that is closer to them. Here’s a list of the benefits of using a CDN:

• Faster loading speed
• Boost in reliability and response time
• Better global reach
• Increased number of users at one time
• DDoS protection

A2 Hosting offers Cloudflare, a popular CDN, for our customers’ use.

Cache, Cache, Cache

Caching is a great way to speed up your site! Caching stores your web pages in memory, so the server can serve them very quickly, instead of fetching them from the disk each time. This is a way for your site to generate static html versions of dynamic pages that are frequently requested. Caching significantly reduces the load placed on the server to deliver that page as well as speeding up response times. Most web frameworks offer this as an option either directly integrated in the framework or as an additional plugin. Ensuring caching is enabled can make an enormous difference on the amount of traffic and number of concurrent users your site can handle. Our A2 Turbo plans come with Litespeed caching preinstalled! Read our knowledge base article to learn how to use Litespeed on your site.

Improve Your Database Indexing

A frequently disregarded aspect of website performance and scaling is the database itself. Databases include many options to make performance better and one of the most critical is ensuring you have good indexes in your databases.

A lack of indexes, or poorly designed indexes, can increase the time it takes to execute a database query by an order of magnitude. Creating basic indexes is relatively simple and optimizing indexes for your specific use case is something your web developer can typically do for you.

Similarly, it is important to make sure any database queries you are running are well written. It is very easy to write a poor database query during testing or development just to get things working and it is vital to go back later and ensure the query is written as tightly as possible to eliminate unnecessary operations to get the data you actually need.

Traffic Control

How many visitors can view your site? Only as many as your server will handle. This is why it is imperative to ensure that you have fast and reliable hosting. If you frequently experience drops in connection or other general server issues, now is the time to switch to a fast, reliable server. If you’re looking for 99.9% uptime, turbo speeds, and 24/7 guru crew support check out our plans available at A2 Hosting.

Upgrade Your Hardware Stack

You can upgrade the hardware stack powering your website to provide additional resources. A2 Hosting provides an extensive array of packages designed to meet your hosting needs. Our turbo packages are perfect for handling holiday traffic surges. These servers include NVME SSD drives for lightning-fast disk operations, Litespeed web server for dramatically improved page load times, and AMD EPYC CPUs for very high concurrency to handle the flood of holiday visitors. We also have VPS and dedicated server options for those extremely busy websites to ensure your server is not the limiting factor to your business growth during this holiday season.

Security

Security is a must if you don’t want your site becoming unresponsive, or worse, displaying undesirable content. Aside from running updates on the CMS and plugins, removing unused plugins and themes from your site will help reduce potential vulnerabilities.

Install an SSL

All traffic that provides users a way to send any type of information to your site should be secured over HTTPS with a valid SSL. A2 Hosting offers both free and paid versions of different SSLs. To learn the pros and cons of each read this blog. Using an SSL Certificate will help protect your users’ information. The presence of this certificate will help verify your identity to any potential customers and let them know that there’s an encrypted connection when transmitting their information. The great part about paying for an upgraded SSL with A2 Hosting is added security and the benefits of displaying a trust badge. These are symbols you can add to your site that will assure customers that their information is secure and your site is trustworthy (it also avoids the nasty “Unsecured” message that browsers display that makes users worried).

Check Your Authorized Users

You’ll also want to check on your list of authorized administrators/content editors. If you’ve had turnover at the company or previous contractors who have completed work on your site, double-check that their permissions have been removed by reducing their permissions, or deactivating their accounts (this applies to the CMS, as well as any server access that you may have given them). If the system provides for 2-Factor authentication, be sure you update your staff about these settings. Make sure they are aware of the new requirement, that they have their authentication setup, and that each user account is configured to require 2FA.

Increase Your Payment Security

Online security has always been important but in 2021 it’s absolutely essential. You want your information and your customer’s information to be safe and secure to help build consumer trust. Make sure you implement these strategies to help secure your site before the holiday sales:

Implement an Address Verification Service (AVS)

Don’t let those suspicious credit card transactions get by you! An AVS is a fraud prevention system that will help your eCommerce store limit its fraud and chargebacks.

Require Card Verification Value (CVV)

The CVV is the little number on the back of debit cards. By requiring customers to enter this information when trying to check out, you can add an extra level of security to every transaction.

Check Your Payments Processor

It’s also a  good idea to check the fine print on your payment processing system. Make sure you have the right setup so those sales don’t go down the drain when your customers can’t pay!

Make Sure Everything Works As Expected

Testing your key systems to make sure everything you are relying on to go right is a critical point. If you’re in eCommerce, double-check your payment processing is running smoothly.

You most likely have email notifications from your site either to customers (sending out updates, responding to contact submissions, order confirmations, etc) or to your staff (notifications of contact submissions, orders received, etc) – you’ll want to make sure these are being received by their intended target. Just because your site says it’s sending the message, doesn’t necessarily mean the customers are receiving the messages.

All notifications should have some way of retrieving the same information (contact submissions should be stored in the CMS as well as the staff email notification). Here’s our Knowledge Base section on web testing and development to help you get started!

Code Freeze

Your site should be well developed ahead of time to accommodate any changes you want to see during the holidays. By implementing a code freeze, you increase the reliability of your site by reducing the impact of your changes to the underlying system. This will require some advanced planning regarding what you will want from your website.

Have a Disaster Recovery Plan

Having a disaster recovery plan in place before you need it is critical in recovering from any unseen website disasters that may occur. At the very minimum, you’ll want local backups of your database and the site files. If you’re able to get offsite backups too that’s even better!

The second half of your recovery plan is knowing how to restore the backups. It’s just as important to know how to restore your backups as it is to make sure you have them.

Front End Website Optimizations

Getting ready for the holiday shopping season and looking to make some changes to your site? Well look no further, we have a list of great optimizations to help you thrive during Q4. Read more to learn about how we recommend you tweak your online store for success!

Choose the Right Hosting Company and Hosting Plan

Choosing the right host for your site is an essential part of speeding up your website. Our turbo plans at A2 Hosting are 20x faster with 99.9% uptime! Once you’ve found the right host make sure you’re on the right sized plan for your needs. Don’t run your large eCommerce site with heavy traffic on a shared server because it may not be able to handle the number of resources you’ll need, especially on heavy traffic days like Black Friday. We recommend a VPS or Dedicated plan if possible.

Use A2 Optimized

These days 47% of customers expect a website to load in two seconds or less. The internet is full of opportunities to shop around and if users have to wait, they may abandon your site for another one with similar products. Website speed is affected by many different factors. One big thing that could be affecting yours is your resource usage is too high for your current plan. Some factors that could be affecting this are images, JavaScript, and CSS files. Images should be compressed, and JavaScript and CSS files should be minified and combined if possible.

Image Optimization

Another area to consider is optimizing your images for web delivery. Modern cameras and even cell phones take very high-resolution images. These images can be very large resulting in slow page load times. We recommend either getting rid of them or compressing them so they take less time to load. Most web frameworks include tools to generate efficient thumbnail images as well as render high-resolution images at a lower resolution better suited to web delivery.

Go for Mobile

Many years ago – designs of websites changed to be designed mobile-first because of the shift to mobile devices so this one is likely already covered…but if not, you’ll want to work on this. If your site is not accessible from a mobile device, you will be missing out on potential users. Mobile-friendly sites do not need to replicate 100% of the desktop content or features, however, mobile users should not be missing out on anything critical. All the same, information should be able to be gathered and should be able to do so just as easily. Navigation around the site should be smooth for mobile users without having to do complicated gestures. Here’s a blog to help you through the steps of testing if your site is mobile-friendly.

Informative Website Content

If you have good information all over your store this will help your customers find their answers before they resort to your online chat boxes. Here are some elements to make sure you include or edit for clarity:

• FAQ sections
• Contact us page
• Ways for customers to reach your team (live chat, phone number, email, ticket system ,etc.)
• Social platform links for customers to check out or reach you there

Importance of Call/Chat/Ticket Functionality

Users come to your site for one thing – they are looking to get something from you – that is either information or a product. Your job is to make that as easy as possible. Hopefully, by now, your site is fast, reliable, mobile- friendly, and you’ve checked to make sure everything is working as planned – but sometimes you just can’t predict what your users are going to need. Adding a Support/Chat/Ticket feature to your website gives you an easy way of allowing users to contact you and receive a timely response. Users don’t have too much patience when it comes to getting feedback and this option gives them a way to contact you on their own terms.

Many times when a user is extremely frustrated they may want someone to walk them through a fix. That’s when having a calling system comes into play. There’s nothing like having someone fix a problem step by step over the phone, especially when you’ve tried everything and are very frustrated. Adding this functionality to your business gives users a chance to connect with the people behind a brand, which can be vital when building brand loyalty.

Give Some Love to Your Sales Team and Instructional Content

A lot of the time the people behind your phone and chat lines are having the most frequent interactions with your customers. That’s why it’s important to ensure they have a lot of training not only on your product but also on who may want to buy it and why. Taking extra time to address your clients’ questions now can go a long way when it comes to building a relationship and creating a repeat customer. Investing in interaction now with a potential client could lead to a fruitful relationship for you both in the future.

Adding a human element to a website can help potential clients feel more comfortable and be more willing to make a purchase. Creating an open line of communication with your potential clients for further discussion is very important during the customer buying process. Once that line of communication is opened, it’s time to start thinking about conversations with potential clients. When discussing options with clients, take the time to get to know them and their situation. The reasons they’re shopping with you will vary, and each individual interaction should be given the proper attention and assistance to help find the right solution. The goal here isn’t just to answer generic questions about a product or sell the most expensive option available. Instead, try to find out:

• why the client is looking to make a purchase
• if they have any particular pain points
• what is the reason they’re interested in your product

By investing the time to properly understand the client, it’ll help set up future interactions and hopefully create a long-term relationship. In the days of internet selling and fast purchases, the human element can be the difference between a client purchasing from you or another retailer. While these tips may be simple, the fundamentals of human interaction can often have the largest impact.

Write More Effective Product Descriptions

Determine Your Target Customer

Before you can begin writing the perfect product descriptions for your customers you need to identify who they are and empathize with them. If you don’t know who your target customer is, you won’t be able to write proper descriptions and your efforts will fall short of the mark.

You can do this by using the 80/20 rule. On average, 80% of sales come from 20% of your customers. If you’re trying to narrow down and find your target audience it would make sense to start by examining the top 20% of those who purchase from you already. To begin, use past purchasing data and gather customer profiles of your top 20% of customers. Now examine these profiles and look for patterns in their demographics and psychographics. Use these patterns to create personas. Personas are fictional customers that you can give a name, sex, age, career etc. By visualizing your customers in this way it is easier to write directly to them and create product descriptions that they would find appealing.

Show and Not Tell

When writing product descriptions, it’s important to remember to use clear
and descriptive language. You need to show your customers the benefits of your products rather than just telling them what they are. For example, for a service product don’t just tell your customer, “Our _______ service is reliable.” Instead, show them how reliable it is in your description: “Our ____ service is backed by an uncompromising Service Level Agreement that guarantees 99.9% uptime, a support staff with expert admins availability 24/7/365, and a 30-day hassle-free 100% money-back guarantee.”

Improve Your SEO

While high-quality images are important, search engines can’t see images – or not yet anyway. Images of your products may speak 1,000 words to your target customers and convey the emotion you’re trying to share, but they do little for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). To get your site to rank and become visible to potential customers, you must include product descriptions that are loaded with potential keywords. That way your site will begin to rank for related words to your products and your site will show up in more relevant google searches.

Make Your Descriptions Uniquely Yours

The bottom line is, your brand needs to be authentically itself and your product descriptions should embody this. To get noticed, your description copy needs to break through any commoditization noise that may surround your product. Don’t just look at your competition and try to write a description that’s 10% better, add something unique in your product’s description copy that directly taps into your brand’s authentic self.

Optimize Your Checkout Process

The holidays are the best time to get quick conversions but that can be made more complicated when you have a confusing checkout process. Now is the best time to take a look at what you have and try and spruce it up. Here are a few tips we recommend to make it as effective as possible:

• Add some urgency by including a count-down clock at the top that specifies how soon your sale is ending.
• Avoid adding in surprise costs at the end like large shipping fees. Extra costs are an issue for 60% of cart abandoners according to Optinmonster.
• Include multiple payment options. BigCommerce found that this can triple the conversion rate of your store.
• Highlight your security with a trust seal. You can purchase this with a paid SSL Certificate with A2 Hosting!
• Ask for your customers’ payment information last. You want to give them some time to make sure they trust your site and have all the details of their purchase in order before they start giving you their private payment information.
• Ideally use a single-page checkout process. You want it to be relatively straightforward with as few steps as possible. The worst thing is to have so many extraneous steps that you lose a potential conversion midway through the process.
• If you’re currently running a single- page checkout, declutter your form and only have your customers fill out the most necessary information.
• If you’re running a multi-page checkout try adding a progress indicator at the top of it! That way your customers can count down their progress rather than guessing how long it’s going to take to actually be able to buy from your store.
• Include areas that resolve frequently asked questions. If your support team notices they’re being asked the same questions all the time, include some answers. You can insert FAQ sections or flyouts with critical information that will inform your customers.

At the end of the day, you’re always going to lose some of your customers during the payment process no matter how well your cart is optimized. To try and convert this lost traffic follow up with those potential customers by sending abandonment emails with special discounts. This will serve as a great reminder of your store while also giving them some incentive to purchase from it.

Digital Marketing Strategy

The holidays are right around the corner so it’s a great time for eCommerce companies to capitalize on the opportunities that come with an increase in traffic. With proper preparation, online stores can gain brand recognition and increased conversions as they sail into the new year. Read more to learn about how to crush your digital marketing strategy this upcoming holiday season.

Pricing and Promotional Techniques

Effective pricing is a science and it’s never too late to start leveling up your pricing strategy game. The holidays are a great time to dive deeper into what makes pricing work and how you can use it to your advantage to increase conversions through promotions and deals. But before you begin to decide on your promotional pricing strategy, it’s important to first understand some basic pricing techniques:

• Price Skimming: To price skim, start your prices high and then lower them as you become more competitive in the market.
  Marketing Penetration Pricing: When your company is first starting out, set your prices low so you are more competitive than your competition.
  Premium Pricing: If you have a more wealthy target audience and are selling high-quality products you can start your prices high to signal quality and luxury appeal.
  Economy Pricing: This is when you set lower prices and target customers who are looking to make larger savings overall.

While these are good long-term pricing strategies, you may want to implement short-term pricing and promotions for the holiday months. Here are some examples of different promotional strategies to use to encourage quick conversions.

Refer-a-Friend: Tap into your clientele’s social networks and use social proof to your advantage! Give your customers some type of reward if they refer their friends to your products.

• Buy One Get One Free: This is a great way to entice your customers to try out multiple items from your store.
• Free Shipping: It’s always difficult to get to the checkout and see that shipping costs are going to add $10 or more to your purchase. By swallowing this cost you may raise your overall conversion rate.
• Free Item with Purchase of $X or More: Some customers may be buying holidays gifts in bulk. This is a great way to encourage customers to buy more of your products.
• Loss Leader: A loss leader is when you discount a product or service lower than its production cost. Some companies use this strategy to try and attract new customers or to sell more expensive products. It can also be a smart tactic if you’re trying to penetrate a new target market.

Plan Out Your Target Audience and Social Media Advertising Strategy

To ensure your promotions are a success it’s important to put a lot of thought into your advertising strategy and approach it with a target audience in mind. That way it’s easier to decide how you want to strategically choose the products you are featuring. When determining your product choice and targeting within your marketing campaigns, each social network has different options to choose from. Here’s a list of the different types of audience segments on some of the most popular social platforms:

Facebook/Instagram:

• Location: You can choose by city, community, and country.
• Behavior: Base your ads on behavioral attributes like prior purchases or device usage.
• Demographics: Choose from different demographics like gender, age, education levels, job titles, and more.
• Interests: You can segment your audience by hobbies or traits like the type of movies they like to watch or their dietary preferences.
• Connections: This allows you to decide if your audience is currently already connected to your business or unfamiliar with your products. This can be important if you’re trying to target an audience that is currently already interested in your business for an easier conversion rate.
• You can also use lookalike audiences which are created from source audiences of people that already interact with your ads! This connects you to people that are very similar to people that already follow your page.

LinkedIn:

• Job Experience: This includes job titles, seniority, job functions, member skills, and years of experience.
• Education: You can target based on degrees, subjects studied, schools attended.
• Demographics: Unlike Facebook and Instagram this is only split by age and gender.
• Company: You have access to target audiences based on industry, company names, company followers on LinkedIn, the growth rate and company size, and company category.
• Interests and Traits: Segment your audience by your potential customer’s interests, the groups they are a part of, and their traits.

Twitter:

• Demographics: You can filter by location, language, device (like phone type), platform (like phone carrier), Wifi (like internet provider), age, and gender.
• Targeting Types:
  • Conversation: This is based on the content of people’s tweets and conversations.
  • Event: Target people who attended various online and offline events.
  • Tweet Engager: Market to people that have organically engaged with your previous tweets.
  • Keyword: This allows you to search based on words your target audience used in previous tweets.
  • Movie and TV: If people mentioned any tv or movies this is how you would interact with them.
  • Interests: Twitter offers over 350+ present interests to choose from.
  • Look-Alikes: Like Facebook, Twitter lets you target people who behave similarly to accounts that already follow you.

YouTube:

• Audience targeting: Find people based on their interests, who they are, their daily habits, what they’re looking up, and their interactions with your business. This is split up based on google analytics.
• Affinity: Reach people based on their lifestyles, passions, and habits.
• Life Events: This narrows your audiences based on milestones like graduations or getting married.
• In-Market This allows you to target people who are looking up products and businesses similar to yours.
• Custom: Craft this audience based on keyword research, URLs, and apps.
• Remarketing: This helps you reach people that have already had some sort of historical engagement with your videos.
• Detailed Demographics: This is more like the other platforms and helps you create target audiences based on shared traits like their hobbies, occupations, or ages.
• Similar Audiences: This is like the lookalike audiences from above and allows you to find people that are similar to consumers that already follow you.

Publicize Your Sales with PPC and Google Ads

Now that you have a well-thought- out marketing strategy in place it’s important to promote and publicize it! PPC and Google Ads are a great way to increase the traffic to your site. Get that keyword strategy together and start bidding on the words that are most relevant to your business. It’s amazing what a good PPC strategy can do to garner traffic and conversions. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Make sure the landing page you’re linking to is relevant and optimized for conversions.
• Optimize your negative keywords so your ads aren’t showing up on searches that don’t align with your strategy.
• Research and understand the basics of keyword matches:
  • Broad: match searches with any words or synonyms of your target words
  • Broad Match Modified: match only with searches that include all of your keywords within the query
  • Phrase Match: match only when searches use the exact phrase you are targeting plus searches that include the meaning of your keyword
  • Exact Match: match searches that have an exact keyword match and order (searches must contain all keywords in the exact order you list them plus close spelling errors)
• Adjust your bids for geotargeting. If your products are weather dependent or popular in certain areas you can adjust geotargeting spending so your ads show up to people in the most appropriate locations.
• Run mobile-centric campaigns. We recommend checking your campaign conversions by device so you can see which ones to shift to target certain users’ search preferences.

Capitalize on Heavy Traffic and Grow Your Email List with Lead Gen Tactics

Lead gen, lead gen, lead gen. It’s always important to keep building your mailing list with potential customers. With all the traffic you’re bringing in from the holidays, now is a perfect time to implement some new tactics! Here are some ideas:

• Add a place on the homepage where they can enter their email to gain access to special mailing lists (like a newsletter).
• Implement pop-ups with places for them to submit their emails in return for different deals or discounts.
• Create an interactive quiz or tool that requires them to enter their email to get the answers.
• Create special contests where you can only enter by giving you their information.
• Provide gated offers or informative content that require an email to access.
• Offer free trials so you can collect more than just their emails.

Be Strategic About Your Email Marketing Tactics

It’s important to tap into your established leads list with a well- thought-out email drip campaign. You want to make sure you’re touching your pool of potential holiday shoppers more than once to remind them about your upcoming sale and create some urgency. This is a great opportunity to use some advanced email tactics like last-chance opportunities and special offers catered to certain mailing lists. Here are a few rules of thumb to follow:

• Split your email lists into segments and groups so you can specialize the copy, graphics, and promotions displayed.
• Use perfect timing setting options when sending your emails so it lands in your customers’ inbox at the time they are most likely to open it.
• Use A/B testing on your sales emails to see which strategies worked the best so you can utilize them for your next sale.
• Optimize your emails for mobile. Around 47% of emails are opened on people’s phones according to email marketing firm Litmus. Here are some quick optimizations you can use:
  • Use one-column templates.
  • Increase your font size.
  • Make your call to action easy to identify, in the middle of the page, and easy to tap.
• Measure your performance as you go by looking at open rates, click rates, and eCommerce data through UTM tracking and your email marketing providers’ tools.
• Implement a last chance email list. Look at your email results a few days before the end of the sale and send a last chance email offer to some of the mailing lists with the highest open rates.
• Remind loyal customers why they subscribe: If your brand has a mission that’s months in the making, the holiday season may be a great time to remind your customers of their goals outside of the products you offer. This mission may be the reason why your customers stuck around in the first place.

Some email marketing plans have begun to change since Covid-19. Read our blog to see how it may impact your strategies this year!

Create Holiday Content Converts By Adding Retargeting Pixels to Your Ads

Did you know that 96% percent of customers will leave a website without actually purchasing anything? Utilizing retargeting pixels in your ads is a great way to bring customers back to your website! But what is a retargeting pixel and how does it work?

By attaching a small piece of code to your site you can track potential customers that leave your eCommerce stores and display more advertisements on Facebook and Google to remind them of your sale! This is a very effective marketing strategy because it helps you turn some of your bounced traffic into conversions down the line.

Check out our blog that describes how to implement retargeting pixels into your marketing campaign!

Ready, Set, Sell!

Now that you’ve worked on the back end of your website, the front end of your website, your digital marketing strategy, and everything in between, you are prepared and ready to capitalize on all of the positive things that come with the holiday season. If you have any further questions or want to ask our team about anything stated above feel free to contact our sales and support teams! We are available 24/7/365 and love talking with you!

The post The Ultimate Guide to Getting Your eCommerce Website Holiday Ready with A2 Hosting appeared first on The A2 Posting.

By embracing industry trends, you can drive more traffic to your site and convert visitors into paying customers. What’s more, staying in the know can help you maximize your revenue today while future-proofing your business for tomorrow.

In this article, we’ll help you keep your store at the cutting-edge throughout 2021 and beyond. We’ll introduce you to the importance of e-commerce trends, explore nine of the biggest ones currently, and discuss how you can implement them. Let’s get started!

An Introduction to E-Commerce Trends (And Why They’re Important)

Market trends are patterns of consumer behavior that can be found across all industries. As an online store owner, you likely depend on website traffic.

More people visiting your store means more potential customers and sales. Staying at the cutting edge of the latest e-commerce trends can help you generate more buzz around your offerings.

Once people arrive at your store, your next task is to convert them into customers. If your site reflects the latest e-commerce trends and consumer preferences, it can help you boost their experience, and in turn you can maximize your conversion rates and revenue.

It’s always been important for businesses to keep up with consumer trends. However, since the ongoing pandemic is having a massive impact on the world of e-commerce, it’s perhaps more vital now than ever.

A recent survey revealed that, throughout 2020, COVID-19 drove online shopping to an all-time high. By embracing industry trends, you can increase your chances of connecting with this huge potential audience of people looking to shop in a safe online environment.

There’s also evidence to suggest that new customers you acquire now are likely to stick with your business for the long haul. The aforementioned survey showed that nearly 9 out of 10 people worldwide plan to continue spending money with an online store they discovered during the lockdown.

The world of e-commerce is always changing and evolving. Staying on top of the latest topics and trends can prevent you from falling behind and becoming irrelevant.

9 Important E-Commerce Trends to Watch in 2021

To help you identify exactly where your e-commerce store should go next, it’s critical to monitor industry trends. To set you on the path to success, let’s take a look at nine e-commerce trends expected to shape the industry throughout 2021 and beyond.

1. There’s an Increasing Demand for Personalized Shopping Experiences

Today, the vast majority of stores have an online presence. With plenty of e-commerce sites to choose from, customers are in a strong position to demand a five-star experience. There’s evidence to suggest that, for many customers, personalization massively improves the purchasing process.

According to marketing specialists Epsilon, 80 percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer a tailored experience. By customizing the experience for each shopper, you can help drive conversions.

Also, over 36 percent of consumers say retailers need to do more to offer personalized experiences. That means this strategy can help you get the edge over your competitors.

Every purchase has a positive impact on your revenue. However, repeat customers are particularly valuable, as they deliver a high Return On Investment (ROI) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV).

Personalization can help you build rewarding long-term relationships by improving the quality of the customer experience. You can even use it to present yourself as a helpful service, rather than just another online store. For example, you might recommend new products based on a customer’s previous purchase history, or remind them when it’s time to reorder their favorite items.

If you’re going to provide this kind of helpful service, you’ll need to record information about the customer’s habits and behavior. You can achieve this by adding membership functionality to your site using a plugin such as Members:

Members ensures that all the customer’s actions are added to their user profile, ready for you to use to craft tailored experiences. You could even use this plugin to sell members-only products or offer exclusive pricing to your best customers. Also, memberships can create a sense of exclusivity, which is another powerful way to encourage long-term loyalty.

2. Smartphone Shoppers Are Continuing to Increase

The number of global smartphone users has passed three billion. With so many mobile devices out there, it’s essential to optimize your online store for this demographic.

In 2019, mobile devices accounted for 65 percent of all e-commerce traffic, and 53 percent of sales. Depending on your industry, this number may be even higher. For example, fashion retailers receive 67 percent of their sales from mobile devices.

The number of smartphone users is projected to grow by several hundred million in the next few years. Therefore, we predict that mobile optimization will be a massive trend throughout 2021 and in the years to come.

To ensure that your store provides a favorable experience for smartphone and tablet users, we recommend using a mobile-responsive WordPress theme:

It’s also a smart idea to remove popups, as these are particularly obtrusive on the smaller screen of your typical mobile device. Similarly, consider reviewing each web page to look for opportunities to trim unnecessary content.

Remember that your typical smartphone or tablet screen can display far less content than a desktop computer. By streamlining your site, you can minimize how much mobile users need to scroll to access the information or features they need.

Chances are your e-commerce store features a lot of product images. Beautiful, high-resolution images are essential for driving conversions. However, they also impact your page loading times.

If your site takes too long to load or provides a poor experience, you can assume that consumers will be less likely to make a purchase. To meet consumer expectations and drive sales, it’s important to optimize your product images for mobile.

3. Omnichannel Selling Is Becoming Essential

Today’s consumer expects to purchase content in multiple ways, such as browsing your product catalog on both their desktop and mobile browsers. Some online stores even have a dedicated mobile app:

As an e-commerce site, it’s crucial that you meet your customers wherever they are, and provide a seamless experience across all channels. A headless e-commerce architecture can help you deliver this kind of omnichannel experience. By opting for a headless setup, you’ll be able to create your content once, and then publish it on multiple platforms.

If you’ve built your site using the popular WooCommerce e-commerce platform, you’ll have access to the WooCommerce REST API. This API gives you the flexibility to use your data in other contexts, including Single Page Applications (SPAs) and mobile apps:

As an online retailer, you’ll likely want to promote your content on every conceivable channel. However, it’s important to be selective about your omnichannel experience. Building and maintaining a presence across a long list of platforms requires a significant amount of time and effort. As a busy website owner, this may not be practical.

Different channels also have different target audiences, and there’s no guarantee that these people will be your ideal customers. Focusing on a platform that isn’t widely used by your target audience will likely deliver a low ROI.

Ideally, you’ll zero in on the channel(s) that your audience spends the majority of their time. Here, it may help to deep-dive into your visitors and their behaviors using a platform such as Google Analytics.

4. Environmentally-Conscious Consumers Are Encouraging Brands to Go Green

In 2021, environmental issues are no longer reserved for eco-friendly brands. Many major online retailers have taken the pledge toward sustainability, including e-commerce giant Amazon:

Sustainability is a great cause, and every business should strive to become more eco-friendly. However, there’s no denying that ‘sustainability’ is also a huge buzzword, particularly among millennials.

According to a recent study, 61 percent of consumers said that they would switch to a brand that’s more environmentally friendly than their current favorite. This means that taking steps towards sustainability isn’t just the right thing to do – it can also help you get an edge over the competition.

Your customers may even be willing to pay more for eco-friendly products, especially the younger generation. The same study showed that 61 percent of millennials and 58 percent of Gen-Z agree that they’d pay a higher price tag for a ‘green’ product.

This suggests that, even if you have to increase your prices, your customers may be happy to foot the bill. Sustainability could be one of the few ways for you to increase your prices, while also improving the customer experience.

To set your e-commerce store on the green road, we recommend reviewing your current offerings. Consider whether your products are made through sustainable processes or with eco-friendly materials. Wherever possible, it’s a smart idea to replace items that aren’t with more sustainable alternatives.

Additionally, if you ship to your customers, you might look into ways to reduce the amount of packaging used. You could also replace non-recyclable materials, such as plastic, with recyclable alternatives, such as cardboard. To boost your green credentials, you may want to provide instructions on how to recycle the packaging, or even the product itself.

5. Social Media Continues to Drive Purchasing Decisions

For years, social media has been an integral marketing tool for online stores. However, in 2020, we saw a few initiatives that strengthened this link between social media and e-commerce, such as the partnership between Shopify and TikTok and the launch of Instagram Shops:

These projects reflect the increasing number of customers who make purchasing decisions directly from their social media feeds. To capitalize on this trend, you can look for opportunities to create shareable content related to your e-commerce offerings. For example, you might create unboxing videos of your products.

You could also generate social media buzz by encouraging your customers to create their own content. Consumers generally perceive User-Generated Content (UGC) as more trustworthy than traditional promotional and marketing content.

Therefore, you may want to provide an incentive to shoppers for creating valuable UGC. For example, home-ware brand MADE has an ongoing Instagram campaign where customers share photos of their favorite MADE products:

How you promote your store on social media also makes a difference. Although it’s difficult to prove, there’s a common belief that social media algorithms reward the adoption of new features.

Every time new functionality is introduced, you may want to put it to the test by incorporating it into your social media activities. Then you can measure the impact it has on your engagement, conversions, and other key metrics. Armed with this information, you can adjust your social media efforts accordingly.

Experimenting with the latest social media features can also help boost your profile. You may even earn a reputation as a business at the cutting edge of social media trends. This can increase your appeal, particularly among the tech-savvy younger generations.

6. Online Influencers Are Assuming a Content Creator Role

An online influencer is someone who has a significant digital following. They can promote your business or products to their existing audience, similar to a traditional celebrity endorsement.

The influencer marketing industry is expected to reach $9.7 billion in 2020, making it clear why these partnerships deserve a spot on the list of important e-commerce trends to consider. The right person can send a fresh wave of traffic to your online store, and even increase your sales.

Influencers can promote your brand, but they also fulfill a content creation role. With more social media platforms than ever before, busy website owners may struggle to create enough content to feed the machine. Instead of partnering with an agency, you could consider teaming up with someone who will create content based on your brand.

The key to a successful partnership is to find a fitting match. Ideally, there should be some crossover between their fan base and your target audience, as this will typically result in more conversions.

It also helps if there’s some connection between the influencer and the product(s) they’re promoting, so the content seems more authentic. Even though the work is strictly business, fans like to believe that their favorite creators are discerning about brands they promote. If the audience thinks the promoter is genuinely passionate about your product(s), it’s more likely to result in sales.

While it’s tempting to go after the biggest social media stars, sometimes it makes more sense to partner with a micro-influencer within your niche. They may have a smaller audience, but if their fan base represents your ideal customer, the collaboration could yield a high ROI.

7. More Online Stores Are Becoming Multilingual

Thanks to the internet, your store has the opportunity to reach audiences worldwide. With online shopping more prevalent than ever, we predict that more businesses will try to capitalize on this global increase by producing multi-language content.

According to estimates, 60 percent of all online content is in English, but 74 percent of internet users speak a language other than English. If you restrict yourself to a single language, you’re missing out on a huge audience – and a lot of potential sales. Plus, this is one of the e-commerce trends you can take advantage of to make your site more accessible.

Even if your customers are multilingual, most people appreciate a business that attempts to communicate in their first language. Research shows that 65 percent of consumers prefer to access content in their native tongues.

When it comes to translating your content, we recommend working with a native speaker wherever possible. They typically offer the highest quality results, and will have an innate understanding of the cultural etiquette surrounding the language. Rather than providing a word-for-word translation, a professional can use this insight to help you create interpreted content that is more engaging and persuasive.

After translating your e-commerce site, you’ll need to give visitors a way to switch between the supported languages. You can add a language picker to your online store using the Polylang plugin:

You can also use this plugin to optimize your site’s categories, tags, and custom taxonomies for the different languages your store supports. The tool can help your translated content appear in relevant search engine results, and drive more international customers to your online store.

8. Customer Support Is Getting an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Boost

Customer service is essential for driving sales. Studies indicate that a consumer will spend  140 percent more after having a positive experience.

Many factors contribute to the quality of your customer experience. However, how quickly you respond to inquiries is a huge one. Ideally, you’ll answer immediately, and at any time of the day or night. Of course, for many online store owners, this simply isn’t feasible.

Chatbots can be a powerful way to provide customers with instant access to support, regardless of the date, time, or number of other people currently seeking help. There’s also evidence to suggest that these AI tools are becoming increasingly popular, with over 67 percent of consumers using them for customer support in 2019.

Even if you have a 24/7 customer services department, chatbots can streamline your support process. For example, you might use one to automatically gather important information, such as the customer’s account number and contact details. This information will then be shared with your support staff.

In this way, chatbots can reduce the amount of time required to resolve a customer’s query. When it comes to routine questions, research indicates that they can reduce response times by up to 80 percent.

There are various chat tools that integrate with WordPress. If you’re using WooCommerce, the WoowBot plugin is a popular standalone chatbot that has full support for the e-commerce platform:

Another well-known option is Chatbot by Collect.chat. This plugin is free to use, and lets you add a chat widget to your site without any technical knowledge.

9. There’s a Growing Need for Online Businesses to Invest in Dedicated Hosting

Behind most successful websites are reliable, high-performance hosting providers. The type of hosting you use influences all aspects of your site, particularly its speed and performance.

Business-critical websites, especially online stores, come with a unique set of challenges and demands. Not only are fast page loading times and quick checkout processes necessary to ensure a seamless UX, but any amount of downtime can be disastrous.

As more companies move operations online, it ushers in an increasing need to invest in dedicated hosting:

In a nutshell, dedicated hosting means you aren’t sharing your server resources with other websites. In turn, you have the benefit of improved security and overall better performance. You can feel confident that your store will remain online, even during unexpected traffic spikes, and as your site continues to grow throughout 2021 and beyond.

Conclusion

Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many consumers to shop online and triggered an e-commerce revolution. Now it’s time to prepare your business for the next step.

To set your site up for success, it’s a good idea to provide a more personalized shopping experience. By offering membership features, you can encourage customer loyalty and increase your chances of securing repeat purchases. We also predict that consumers will continue to favor sustainable brands, and may even be willing to pay a premium for sustainable products in 2021.

Following the latest e-commerce trends is essential for driving traffic and conversions. This includes getting the foundations right, such as your web hosting. At A2 Hosting, we offer dedicated hosting plans that can help keep your e-commerce site up and running 24/7!

Image credit: Pexels.

The post 9 Important E-Commerce Trends to Watch in 2021 appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Introduction

We love the color green so St. Paddy’s Day is one of the best holidays in our book! This year we’re celebrating with  seven digital marketing tips and tricks to help your business take advantage of this lucky time of year. 

1. 1. Be Authentic and Use the Right Tone and Voice
   2. Be Culturally Sensitive
   3. Add Festive Decorations and Go Green
   4. Help Your Customers Call On the Luck of the Irish
   5. Don’t Miss an Opportunity to Go Live!
   6. Send Out a Holiday Themed Email Campaign!
   7. Do Research on Other Successful Campaigns to Help Plan Your Own

1) Be Authentic and Use the Right Tone and Voice

As with any major holiday or promotion, it’s important to be authentic to your company’s brand when coming up with a digital marketing campaign. It’s all good fun to come up with holiday puns and green themed campaigns, but above all you must do your research and make sure your posts align with how you want to portray your company to the marketplace.

Know Your Brand’s Personality on Social and be Consistent

Do research on past posts and make sure your tone aligns with what you’ve published previously. It’s important to follow your brand guidelines and be consistent, even as you play with puns that fit the St. Patrick’s Day theme. Posting something that’s drastically different from previous content won’t help in building a strong brand

It’s also important to remember why people follow you. What are they looking for when they come to your site? For example, if you own a crafting store people are likely following you to see the latest trends in crafting materials or what cool things you’ve created with your craft supplies. Likewise if you own an outdoor clothing store, people may follow you to see your clothes in action or find awesome new hiking trails. It’s important you can deliver what your customer wants to see on your social platforms. This will make it easier to keep your followers engaged with your content and refer them back to your site. The perfect combination is:

2) Be Culturally Sensitive 

Be creative! Come up with new puns or ways to make old puns fit your brand. Remember to be historically and socially conscious before you post. Don’t be tone deaf and post offensive or charged content. Be relevant and timely while also socially conscious. A good publicity stunt can work wonders on brand identity and public image, but make sure to do it in the right way. Have your public relations team and any marketing members meet before posting and discuss implications of your campaign from all angles in order to uncover any miscommunication or issues that could arise later on. 

3) Add Festive Decorations and Go Green

It’s always important to follow online trends and be timely in your advertising, and one of the biggest trends during St. Patrick’s Day is the color green. Historically green was worn to represent the Emerald Isle and the people of Ireland, but today it has turned into a folkloric attempt to avoid the pinch of an errant leprechaun. St. Patrick’s Day marketing is a perfect time to use this color to entice your audience to purchase from your online store!

If you have merchandise that’s green or your brand uses this as one of their colors, this is a great time to highlight this. It’s also a great opportunity for online creativity. Add green banners to your website or pop in some green accent colors here and there.  Reap the rewards of your environmental efforts while joining in on the holiday spirit. Use this opportunity to advertise any “green initiatives” your company is participating in!

4) Help Your Customers Call On the Luck of the Irish

In addition to decorating your store, St. Patrick’s Day is a great time to run discounts and deals on your site! Use this opportunity to give a percentage off on all green items (color or environmentally sound) or create a custom sales item with your favorite St. Patrick’s day slogan or image. Create a sense of urgency and run your sale for a limited amount of time. Encourage User Generated Content (UGC) by creating drawings or picture-sharing promotions asking followers to participate if they’re “feeling lucky.” This is a great way to create talk about your brand and encourages followers to interact with your posts. 

5) Don’t Miss an Opportunity to Go Live!

You could use St. Patrick’s Day as an opportunity to do live video on your social accounts by sharing real time updates with your followers. Dress up and stream your live reactions as they send their selfies in or record as you contact the winners of your promotional contest. Create a funny behind the scenes video of your employees as they grant wishes or chase the rainbow. This is a great way to personalize your accounts and share the people behind your brand! 

6) Send Out a Holiday Themed Email Campaign

To increase touches, send out a holiday themed email campaign. You could stick a shamrock themed logo on your header and cross-promote any social media campaigns you have running. Increase your marketing reach by requiring email sign ups to enter social promotions you have planned. Then attach a secret promo code that can be used by people who subscribe! The possibilities are endless and it works well to coordinate your overall marketing strategies across all marketing channels and promotional materials.

7) Do Research on Other Successful Campaigns to Help Plan Your Own

We know all of this might sound like a lot, but sometimes it helps to look at successful campaigns when trying to come up with some ideas of your own. We’ve got three examples below that may help spark some ideas for your own festive campaigns. 

Guinness: Make St. Patrick’s Day the Friendliest Day of the Year

Their Friendliest Day of the year campaign was a huge success. By emphasizing coming together with friends and family, they were able to tie the theme of community to their product, eliciting warm feelings when followers thought of their brand. They included infographics with St. Patrick’s Day facts that could be shared worldwide, helping spread their brand awareness through increased follower interaction. They were timely, relevant, and socially aware as they ran their St. Patrick’s Day campaign. 

M&M’s: Ms. Green Campaign

M&M used their iconic candy personas to bring their brand to life. Ms. Green embarked on a spokes candy campaign around Ireland, stopping off in famous cities to meet the locals and see the sights. Her tour was documented and shared as she educated her followers on Irish history and phenomena. Not only was the campaign relevant and shared accurate cultural details, but it encouraged fans to interact with their brand by posting selfies in order to win a trip to New York. They used ‘here for the craic, not as a snack’ as their tagline, an Irish pun that had the right comedic tone to spark laughs rather than controversy. 

McDonald’s: Shamrock Shake

Finally, shamrock shake season. Every year McDonald’s releases their limited edition shamrock shake, a mixture of chocolate and minty goodness. Their timely release, limited timeline, and extensive media coverage creates a sense of urgency as people line up every year to get a green milkshake while it’s available. Rather than just releasing a mint chocolate chip shake they were able to turn their St. Patrick’s Day campaign into a hot commodity. 

Conclusion

Most importantly, make sure you use this holiday as a point of connection with all of your customers. You want your brand to be engaging and personal, so celebrating this holiday together is a great way to achieve this! Personalize your campaign and share any employees with Irish descent. Use real time trends  as a way to connect with your socially savvy customers. Run video marketing campaigns and highlight topics relating to St. Patrick’s Day. Holidays are a great time to gain new customers and connect with loyal followers. Personalize your marketing content this year and make this the best celebration yet!

The post 7 St. Patrick’s Day Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Ecommerce Sales appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Thankfully, with the right tools you can build a fast, reliable online store without having to write a single line of code. Using these tools, you can launch your e-commerce business and start collecting payments, with minimal effort and very few upfront costs.

In this article, we’ll show you how to launch an e-commerce store using WordPress and the popular WooCommerce platform. Along the way, we’ll share advice on how to maximize your sales, by prioritizing your store’s performance and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Let’s get started!

Why You’d Want to Start an Online Store

Over the last few years, e-commerce has completely changed consumer habits. Today, online shopping is an indispensable part of the global economy, and online-only stores such as Amazon and eBay are some of the biggest names in retail. It’s difficult to even imagine a modern company that doesn’t offer customers the option to purchase products and services online.

In 2019, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to $3.53 trillion, and 2020 seems set to be a record-breaking year for online retail. Throughout 2020, physical stores around the globe were forced to close in an attempt to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. This caused online shopping to skyrocket, as consumers embraced e-commerce as a way to access goods and services in a safe environment. In June 2020, global retail e-commerce traffic stood at a record 22 billion monthly visits.

With more people shopping online than ever before, you could find a large audience for your e-commerce business. By launching your online store now, you can maximize sales while helping your customers access the goods and services they need, without the risks currently associated with in-person shopping.

Introducing the WooCommerce Platform

There are a number of e-commerce plugins available for WordPress. However, with over five million active installs, WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms.

Out-of-the-box, WooCommerce provides everything you need to build an engaging online store, sell products, and accept payments. This has made WooCommerce a popular choice among online stores of all shapes and sizes.

Today, WooCommerce is used by many big-name brands. Aeropress, Weber, and the All Blacks all rely on WooCommerce to power their online stores.

There’s also evidence to suggest that WooCommerce can help you build a successful e-commerce store. According to research, 28 percent of the top one million e-commerce stores use WooCommerce as their e-commerce technology of choice.

WooCommerce was originally developed by WordPress theme developer WooThemes. However, in 2015, WooCommerce was acquired by Automattic – the company behind WordPress – who run and operate WooCommerce today.

As an Automattic product, WooCommerce is a stable, reliable e-commerce solution that’s regularly updated. If you want to create an online store, it’s always worth considering WooCommerce.

Why Build Your e-Commerce Store With WooCommerce

As a free WordPress plugin, WooCommerce is accessible to organizations of all shapes and sizes. This includes startups and smaller businesses, who typically have tighter budgets than established enterprises. Using WooCommerce, you can launch an e-commerce store with minimal upfront costs.

WooCommerce has a range of features built-in, but it’s also extensible. If vanilla WooCommerce doesn’t meet all your needs, you can choose from a wide range of WooCommerce extensions.

If you can’t find the perfect extension ready-made, WooCommerce is open-source software. This means you can always modify or extend the WooCommerce code to suit your exact needs – or hire a coder to make these changes for you.

WooCommerce is also designed to be user friendly. Using WooCommerce, you can potentially build a professional e-commerce store without having to write a single line of code. If you have previous experience with WordPress, building a store using WooCommerce will likely feel intuitive and easy.

Collecting payments is one of the most important parts of running a successful e-commerce business. WooCommerce can securely accept cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers. It also integrates with over 100 payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe, and Square.

Today, many customers shop on their smartphones and tablets. In 2017, $1.4 trillion of total retail e-commerce sales were made using a mobile device. In 2021, it’s estimated that mobile e-commerce could account for $3.5 trillion of total e-commerce sales.

If you’re going to maximize your revenue, it’s essential your e-commerce store is mobile-friendly. WooCommerce works across all devices, including smartphones and tablets. The WooCommerce team is also continuously improving the plugin’s performance for mobile. For example, WooCommerce 3.0 optimized the product gallery for mobile users, and added support for touch gestures.

How to Start an Online Store (In 9 Easy Steps)

In this section, we’ll show you how to build a complete e-commerce store, using WooCommerce and WordPress. As promised, you won’t have to write a single line of code. Let’s dive in, and start your e-commerce business!

1. Choose the Right Web Hosting Provider

Your choice of hosting provider has the potential to make or break your e-commerce business. Downtime is always bad news, but for e-commerce stores downtime can mean an immediate drop in sales. To avoid downtime, we recommend opting for a provider that offers an uptime guarantee.

Performance is another crucial factor, as today’s consumer isn’t willing to wait around. Amazon calculated that a page load slowdown of just one second would cost them $1.6 billion in lost sales each year.

Performance can also impact your e-commerce store’s SEO. In particular, it can affect how quickly crawlers can index your content and serve it to customers. If your hosting provider doesn’t prioritize speed, your latest products and special offers may not even appear in Google’s search results for a significant period of time.

Google also uses page speed as a ranking factor in both its desktop and mobile search results. Research indicates that 39 percent of online purchases are influenced by a relevant search. Where your store appears in Google’s search results can have a huge impact on your sales and revenue.

There are many factors that can impact your site’s performance. However, your choice of hosting provider is one of the most important decisions you can make, particularly at this early stage.

At A2 Hosting, we take performance seriously. That’s why we’ve created a series of e-commerce hosting plans that are optimized for WooCommerce. These plans can deliver 20X faster page loads than competing WooCommerce hosting providers.

2. Set up WooCommerce

After activating the WooCommerce plugin, you’ll encounter a Welcome to WooCommerce screen. This is the WooCommerce configuration wizard, which is the quickest and easiest way to create a basic e-commerce store. By completing the wizard’s various screens, you can fast-track through much of the initial configuration, and get your e-commerce business off to a strong start.

If you accidentally dismiss the Welcome message, don’t panic! You can simply select WooCommerce from WordPress’ left-hand menu. WordPress will now display a list of all the steps required, in order to successfully complete the initial WooCommerce configuration.

You can now work your way through this list, by clicking each item in turn and following the onscreen instructions. Once you’ve successfully completed each task, it’s time to progress to the next step.

3. Add Extra Payment Gateways

As part of the setup process, WooCommerce will prompt you to add a payment gateway. A payment gateway enables customers to pay for goods and services using a payment system such as PayPal. By default, WooCommerce supports a number of core payment gateways. However, you can also add payment gateway extensions.

As part of the initial setup process, WooCommerce should prompt you to add at least one payment gateway. However, to maximize revenue we recommend offering at least two payment gateways.

There’s no guarantee all your customers will have access to the same payment gateway. Some gateways may also experience downtime. If you only support a single gateway, you’ll be unable to process payments until that gateway is back online. This could result is missed sales, and a significant amount of frustration on behalf of your customers.

Payment gateways may also have varying rules, regulations, and associated charges. Depending on factors such as geographical location, some payment gateways may represent better value for you and your customers.

You can enable additional payment gateways, by navigating to WooCommerce > Settings and then selecting the Payments tab. This screen displays all the payment gateways WooCommerce supports.

To add a payment gateway, click its accompanying Set Up button. This will open a menu where you can configure your chosen gateway. For example, if you’re configuring PayPal you’ll need to enter your PayPal email address and PayPal API credentials.

Once you’ve configured your payment gateway, select Save Changes. You can then enable the payment gateway by pushing its accompanying slider into the on position.

You can repeat these steps to enable multiple payment gateways. Just be wary of offering too much choice, as a list of unfamiliar payment options could potentially confuse your customers.

4. Create Your Product Categories

Product categories are an important way to organize your products, and help visitors find the items that matter to them. To ensure your e-commerce site is easy to navigate, it’s worth taking the time to define your product categories in advance.

You can always create more product categories as your store grows. However, by defining some product categories now, you can lay the foundations for an organized, logical e-commerce store.

To create a product category, navigate to WooCommerce > Categories. In Add New Category, enter the name of the parent category that you want to create.

In Description, provide a description for this particular category. By adding a description to each product category, you can help search engines such as Google understand your site’s content, and rank it appropriately. Relevant, keyword-rich product descriptions can also help boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Once you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, select Add New Category. Rinse and repeat to create multiple categories.

You may also want to create product subcategories. For example, you might create a Clothing category consisting of Sweatshirt, T-shirt, and Jeans subcategories. To create a subcategory, open the Parent Category drop-down. You can then select the parent category that you want to assign to this subcategory.

5. Create Shipping Zones and Shipping Methods

If you’re going to physically ship products to your customers, it’s important to create at least one Shipping Zone. A Shipping Zone might be a country, region, or even a specific zip code where you ship your items. Your customers will see only the shipping methods that are available for their zone.

To create a shipping zone, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping. You can then select Add shipping zone.

Give your zone a name, choose a region, and select Add shipping method. WooCommerce supports several shipping methods by default, including free shipping.

According to a recent survey, almost half of consumers prefer stores that offer free shipping. What’s more, 77 percent identify free shipping as the most important factor when making purchasing decisions. To drive conversions, you may want to offer free shipping when certain conditions are met.

WooCommerce also provides a local pickup option. This is great if you’re selling bulky items that are expensive to ship, or you anticipate lots of local trade. Note that if you offer local pickup then store base taxes will apply regardless of the customer’s address.

Make your selection, then click Add shipping method. You can repeat these steps, to create multiple shipping zones.

By default, WooCommerce generates the following option: Locations not covered by your other zones. If no appropriate zone is found, WooCommerce will default to this shipping zone. You can edit or delete this zone, as required.

You can also add more shipping options, using a WooCommerce shipping plugin. These plugins give your customers more options, and some even integrate with well-known shipping services such as DHL. Some popular choices include WooCommerce ShipStation Integration, and Advanced Shipping.

6. Create Your First WooCommerce Product

It’s time to stock those shelves! To create a product, select Products > Add New from WordPress’s left-hand menu. You can then give this product a name, enter a description, and upload some images that represent the item or service you’re selling.

Next, open the Product data drop-down menu and specify the type of product you want to create. Here, you have a few choices. WooCommerce supports simple products, which are defined as products that are shipped and have no options. The opposite of a simple product is a variable product. A variable product has multiple options, for example a coat that’s available in different sizes and colors.

A grouped product is a collection of related items. Finally, an external/affiliate product is sold on a third-party website, but featured on your e-commerce store.

The next steps will vary, depending on the type of product you’re creating. For example, if you select Grouped product, you’ll be prompted to enter the product’s Stock-Keeping Unit (SKU). This is a unique string that represents this product in your e-commerce store. Alternatively, if you select Simple Product, you’ll be prompted to specify whether this product is downloadable.

After creating your product, it’s time to set your price. You can specify the everyday, non-sale price in the Regular price field.

You can now assign this product to at least one category, and add product tags. Both of these elements are essential for helping visitors navigate your store, and find the exact items they want to buy.

7. Create an Inventory and Stock Notifications

At this point, we’ve entered some basic information about our product. However, before we go ahead and publish the product, it’s a good idea to perform some stock management. This involves entering the total number of units currently in stock, and configuring some optional low stock warnings.

Stock management ensures you know when to order more stock. It also helps you avoid unpleasant situations, where you have to explain to customers that the product they’ve just paid for isn’t actually in stock.

To start, select the Inventory tab and create an SKU for this product. You can then enter the number of units you currently have in stock.

WooCommerce can email you when you’re running low on stock. If you want to receive these notifications, select the following checkbox: Enable stock management at product level. In Low stock threshold, specify the point where you’d consider this product to be approaching low stock.

By default, WooCommerce doesn’t allow for back orders. However, back orders can help you secure sales, even when an item isn’t currently available. This can be particularly useful during peak retail seasons, where it’s generally accepted that some items may be temporarily out of stock.

If you want to permit back orders, open the Allow back orders drop-down. You can then select either Allow or Allow, but notify customer. If you choose the latter, the product page will display an Available on back order notice. The customer can then decide whether to purchase this product, fully aware that it’s not currently in stock.

8. Build an eBay-Style Product Menu

To drive conversions, your customers should be able to find their perfect product, in just a few clicks. WordPress supports a range of navigational menus. However, drop-downs are particularly popular, as selecting a parent category displays all the associated product subcategories. This is exactly what we see with many popular e-commerce sites, including eBay.

By default, you can’t add product categories to a WordPress menu. To enable product categories, select Appearance > Menus > Screen Options. You can then select Product Categories.

Next, scroll to the Add menu items section. You can now add product categories to your WordPress menus.

Since we’re creating a drop-down menu, position each subcategory beneath its parent. You can then grab each child category and drag it slightly to the right, so it appears indented beneath its parent.

You can now create your menu, as normal. To ensure this menu appears across your entire e-commerce store, we recommend setting it as your top menu.

9. Boost Your Revenue With Related Products

As an e-commerce store, you’ll naturally want to push customers towards purchasing additional products, or more expensive alternatives. One method is to display related products.

WooCommerce tries to generate related products automatically. However, you can often get better results by linking products manually. To start, navigate to Products > All Products. You can then open any product for editing, and select its Linked Products tab.

You can define two types of linked products: ‘upsells’ and ‘cross-sells’. Upsells are typically more expensive alternatives, whereas cross-sells are complimentary items. For example, potential cross-sells for a laptop might include a Bluetooth mouse, or a laptop bag.

Conclusion

If you sell products or services, chances are your customers are already online and looking to make a purchase. If you aren’t offering your goods via an e-commerce platform such as WooCommerce, you could be missing out on sales.

When building your online store, we’d recommend paying particular attention to your product tags and categories. These elements are often overlooked, but are vital for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

To climb Google’s search engine rankings, it’s also important to choose the right hosting provider. By opting for a hosting package that delivers high performance and an uptime guarantee, you can give your store the best possible chance of attracting a large volume of traffic, and securing lots of conversions.

Image credit: freestocks.

The post How to Start an Online Store (in 9 Easy Steps) appeared first on The A2 Posting.

In either case, a multisite setup using WooCommerce might be the solution. WordPress multisite enables you to set up a network of websites under a single domain. Then, with WooCommerce, you can transform all of those websites into individual online stores. It’s a powerful combination that can enable you to start a modest e-commerce empire.

In this article, we’ll go over several situations when it makes sense to use multisite with WooCommerce to manage multiple stores. Then we’ll teach you how to set up that combination in WordPress. Let’s get to work!

Why You Might Want to Use Multisite to Manage Multiple WooCommerce Stores

Whenever you set up a new website, you need at least two things: a domain name and a hosting plan. Some hosting plans enable you to launch multiple sites, all while paying one single fee.

If you’re working with multiple WordPress websites, however, that still involves managing each of them separately. You’ll need to worry about separate login information, individual customizations, updates, and more.

When you add e-commerce functionality into the mix, things get even more complicated. Every store needs to keep track of orders, users, purchases, and so on. Ideally, if you want to run multiple stores, you should have one central hub that enables you to access and monitor all of them.

WordPress multisite can be a great option in that situation, since it enables you to set up multiple stores with a single installation. This approach also works if you want to create one single online store, but break it down into categories, each with its own product catalog.

Keep in mind, though – we’re talking about running multiple online stores using a single web hosting plan. That means whichever provider you choose needs to be blazing fast, or your stores won’t offer the best customer experience possible.

How to Set Up WooCommerce on WordPress Multisite (In 3 Steps)

The first thing you’ll need to do is enable multisite, for which you’ll need a new WordPress installation.

Step 1: Enable WordPress Multisite

Some web hosts enable you to set up a multisite installation when you install WordPress. However, in most cases you’ll need to turn on multisite manually.

That process involves manually editing a WordPress core file. Fortunately, we’ve covered this step in its entirety within a previous tutorial. Check it out, and once you have a multisite network up, you can get to work on adding in e-commerce functionality.

Step 2: Install WooCommerce on Your Network

For this next step, we’ll go ahead and assume that you’ve already added some websites to your network:

So far, each site is using a clean WordPress installation. To add e-commerce functionality, you’ll need to use plugins, which means picking up (you guessed it) WooCommerce.

Adding new plugins to multisite works much the same as with a regular WordPress install. The only difference is that you need to add plugins at a network level.

Once a plugin is installed for the network, you can choose which websites to activate it for. Individual websites can’t install plugins that aren’t set up for the entire network, however.

As the admin, it’s your role to install WooCommerce, so go ahead and do that now:

Although multisite enables you to activate plugins for the entire network, each site still uses an individual copy of the plugin. That means you can configure each site’s WooCommerce setup differently, depending on what it needs.

Step 3: Configure WooCommerce and Start Adding Products

To configure the first store within your network, jump to any of the sites you set up before, which you can access from Sites > All Sites.

Once you enter one of your store’s dashboards, you’ll see the option to use the WooCommerce onboarding wizard. We recommend following it, since it makes configuring WooCommerce simple:

When your store is ready, you can add products in the Products > Add New tab. This step works precisely the same as with any other WooCommerce installation:

There are a few things you’ll need to keep in mind when using WooCommerce within a multisite network, however:

• The stores within your network don’t share user registrations.
• Registering a product on one site doesn’t make it available for the rest of the network.
• You can only update WooCommerce at a network level.
• Not every website on the network needs to activate the WooCommerce plugin.

That last part means you can have one site set up as a blog, in order to drive traffic to your online stores (just to give one example).

Finally, multisite networks share the same theme, so using a multipurpose theme is usually the best option. That way, you have options when it comes to customizing the style of each store within your network.

Conclusion

Imagine being able to manage multiple online stores, all while using a single domain and hosting plan. If that sounds like something that might make your life easier, what you need is a WordPress multisite network running WooCommerce.

Setting up a multisite network is easy, and so is installing WooCommerce. Then, it’s just a matter of adding products to each store and making sure you don’t miss any orders. The best part is that you can customize each sub-store as you see fit, since they’re all separate entities.

Image credit: Pixabay.

The post How to Set Up WooCommerce on WordPress Multisite (In 3 Steps) appeared first on The A2 Posting.

An Introduction to Unmanaged WordPress Hosting

Unmanaged hosting sounds like a negative term, but it really isn’t. In fact, most hosting plans you’ll run across are unmanaged, which simply means that you have full control over your own hosting. That means you’re responsible for maintaining your WordPress website, ensuring its security, and optimizing it if necessary.

That sounds like a lot of work, but those are standard tasks involved in running any type of website. Plus, unmanaged hosting offers a few benefits in exchange for the added responsibilities:

• It’s almost always cheaper. This is the main selling point, and the reason that most plans are unmanaged. If you don’t mind maintaining your site, you can save a lot of money by sticking to regular hosting plans.
• You have more control. Managed hosting often restricts how you interact with your server, to keep everything running smoothly. If you have experience running a website, this can be an annoyance, since you’ll have less freedom to tweak everything to suit your needs.
• You get access to a full control panel. Most unmanaged plans offer you access to a full-featured hosting control panel, such as cPanel (that’s the one we use!). Managed hosting, on the other hand, often involves custom panels with fewer options.

The trade-off unmanaged hosting offers you is very straightforward. You need to put more effort into managing your website and performing tasks such as running backups, optimizing your loading times, and more. In exchange, you’ll pay less than with a managed service and get more control, since there’s less hand-holding involved.

Of course, not everyone enjoys doing that type of work, or has the time required. If you don’t have experience running a website, learning how to do so efficiently and effectively can be an involved process. Fortunately, there’s another option.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Managed WordPress Hosting

As we mentioned earlier, managed WordPress plans are often considered a luxury service. Their exact makeup varies, but in most cases your hosting provider will take care of all the extra work we discussed earlier in exchange for a higher price. Managed plans can come in any flavor, including shared tiers, Virtual Private Servers (VPSs), and dedicated servers. The common factor is that your provider takes responsibility for your site’s hosting off your hands, and keeps everything running smoothly.

With that in mind, let’s look at the primary benefits of managed hosting plans:

• You have fewer maintenance tasks to worry about. With managed hosting, you often get perks such as automated backups and WordPress updates, constant security scanning, and so on.
• More time to focus on creating content. Managed hosting saves you time, so you can concentrate your efforts on creating more and better content.
• Access to WordPress experts. Managed WordPress hosting services will provide you with access to support staff who know the platform inside and out.
• WordPress-specific features. If you’re lucky, your hosting provider will also offer WordPress-specific bonuses, such as special security features or free access to certain premium plugins and themes.

As for downsides, the main potential issue is that managed hosting is more expensive than non-managed plans. They won’t necessarily break the bank, but could be a challenge for small sites with limited budgets. Another drawback is that you often don’t get full root access to your site. This enables your provider to ensure that your server is always running in top shape, but prevents you from making your own customizations if you’re more technically savvy.

With the above pros and cons in mind, the central question when it comes to managed plans is whether you value the time they save you enough to pay the extra cost. E-commerce websites are an excellent example of projects that can significantly benefit from managed services. You’ll be freed up to focus on product optimization, A/B testing, and other critical tasks that can make you more money in the long run. Under the right circumstances, managed hosting can be a smart investment.

How to Choose Between Managed and Unmanaged WordPress Hosting

We’ve covered a lot of information throughout the past two sections. Let’s summarize the key points by providing some simple recommendations for who should consider using each type of plan:

1. Unmanaged WordPress hosting. If you have experience running WordPress websites, then chances are you don’t need managed hosting. Even if you’re new to the platform, you can learn everything required to take care of your site with a little work. These plans work well for those with small budgets and time to spare for managing their own sites.
2. Managed WordPress hosting. This type of plan is all about convenience, and maximizing your site’s performance by putting it in the hands of experts. If you have the budget to pay for a managed plan and you take advantage of the benefits you receive, it can be a great investment that saves you a lot of time and hassle.

Finally, we wouldn’t recommend that brand new WordPress users to jump straight into managed hosting. Your best course of action would be to try a simple shared hosting plan until you’re well acquainted with the platform. Then you’ll be in a better position to know whether managed hosting is a smart investment for you.

Conclusion

WordPress users have a lot of choices when it comes to hosting services and plans. The platform is so popular that there are even web hosts that build their services entirely around WordPress sites. Whether to use managed or unmanaged WordPress hosting is up to you, but there are some factors you should consider before making that decision.

For example, managed WordPress hosting is almost always more expensive than the alternative. If you have a tight budget, it’s probably not for you. On the other hand, if you can spare the money, managed hosting plans can make your life easier, since you won’t have to deal with tedious maintenance tasks. If you value your time and want to focus on creating better content, then managed hosting should be an excellent fit.

Image credit: Pixabay.

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