Web Hosting – Sparkle Themes https://sparklewpthemes.com Sparkle Themes - Best Premium and Free Clean WordPress Themes for Personal, Business and eCommerce Store Websites Thu, 15 Sep 2022 11:25:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://sparklewpthemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/16807461_198753970606487_7432317181345843399_n.png Web Hosting – Sparkle Themes https://sparklewpthemes.com 32 32 10 Best Tips To Optimize Your WooCommerce Store for Better Conversions https://sparklewpthemes.com/10-best-tips-to-optimize-your-woocommerce-store-for-better-conversions/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/10-best-tips-to-optimize-your-woocommerce-store-for-better-conversions/#respond Wed, 17 Nov 2021 06:59:54 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=146805 In today’s busy and highly-competitive eCommerce market, nobody has the time to sit around and wait for a poorly maintained website to load.

Even a slight delay can be enough for potential customers to click away in search of a better alternative. With this in mind, it’s vital that your WooCommerce store is fast, responsive, and fully optimized for easy navigation.

In this article, we’re going to explore how to optimize your WooCommerce store. These help to maximize your chances of conversion and turbocharge your store for quick and reliable performance.

These easy-to-implement tips range from choosing the right theme to streamlining your plugins and cleaning up your WooCommerce database.

How Does Website Speed Affect Conversions? 

But first, let’s look a little deeper into why speed matters when it comes to your WooCommerce store. We’ll learn how to measure your site’s current performance as every second is important for keeping visitors’ attention at your WooCommerce store.

Slow loading times increase your bounce rate, with each additional second bumping your bounce rate percentage up. Bounce rates are important because they indicate the percentage of visits in which users viewed only a single page before clicking away.

If bounce rates are high, search engines will lower your rankings. They are a strong indication that your website performance is poor or your content is not useful.

This matters because a low search engine ranking means that fewer visitors will find their way to your store in the future.

Ideally, you want to keep your WooCommerce store loading times no longer than around the two-second mark—that’s where bounce rates begin to increase exponentially. Research has found that one out of every four visitors abandons a website that takes more than four seconds to load.

What’s worse is that if potential customers have a disappointing experience with your store, they are unlikely to ever return again. 

Website speed becomes even more important on important eCommerce holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With competition at its highest and a whole range of tempting offers to choose from, customers are even less likely to stick around on clunky and inefficient websites in this crucial period.

Always make sure that your WooCommerce store is fully optimized before the holidays to maximize your conversions and gain an edge over the competition.

How to Measure the Performance of Your WooCommerce Store

So how to check the performance of your WooCommerce store? And how to measure if your adjustments are having the desired effects?

The next step is measuring the performance of your WooCommerce store. When you’re trying to check the performance or measure if any adjustments made are working out, you can turn to website speed tests. An example of such a site is Pingdom.

This free performance testing tool is one of the most popular among WooCommerce store owners. It’s often given praise for its ease of use and simple, graded results.

Pingdom also gives actionable insights on the areas that can be improved for faster speeds, making it easy for you to identify your problem points.

To test things like WordPress Plugins, themes, and other functions, use Query Monitor.

Query Monitor helps to quickly identify problematic plugins, as well as any themes or functions that are not compatible with each other.

It also enables:

  • Debugging of database queries
  • PHP errors, hooks, and actions
  • Block editor blocks
  • Enqueued scripts and stylesheets
  • HTTP API calls
  • And more

Query Monitor is free and saves time that you’d otherwise spend manually uninstalling and updating plugins while trying to search for the culprit.

The kind of technical information that Pingdom and Query Monitor provide is useful as it provides clear and actionable data on how to improve to boost site performance.

However, be careful not to rely on numbers alone—the actual user experience is far more important than your performance score. Always test the usability of your site by visiting it frequently yourself and don’t be afraid to ask for the opinion of other visitors too.

How to Optimize Your WooCommerce Store

We’ve gained some insights on how to measure your store’s performance—now we need to address improving it.

Naturally, there are quick and simple methods you can utilize to improve your conversions. For example, implementing cart abandonment measures that reach out to customers leaving your site early.

While this optimizes your customer’s journey and experience, there are other ways you can optimize your store in general. Let’s check out a few easy and effective tips that you can implement immediately.

Check Your WooCommerce Settings

The most obvious place to start is by ensuring that your WooCommerce settings are properly adjusted to the needs of your store.

A few effective changes you can implement here include:

  • Disable pingbacks: Pingbacks are unique, automated comments that are created when you link to another blog post. While linking to other sites can be somewhat beneficial to your SEO, pingbacks are often abused by spammers and only serve to clutter your site with low-quality links and unnecessary queries that slow down your site.

  • Limit the blog post’s number on your feed: Keep the blog posts on your feed down to a reasonable number. For example, 10—just like this article. While it might seem a small detail, fewer blogs to load leads to faster loading times. These kinds of small tweaks can add up to the better overall performance.

  • Change login page URL: WordPress provides a site login URL by default, which is domain.com/wp-admin/. Bots, spammers, and other shady characters know this, so it’s a good idea to change it to avoid attacks.

Explore your WooCommerce settings and set limits for any unnecessary features that might slow down your loading times. As well as blog posts and pingbacks, you can also consider implementing limitations on your site. For example, how many reviews and images do you choose to display on your pages? 

Don’t Go Overboard With Plugins

There are thousands of WordPress plugins to choose from. Many of these are useful, which is why many WooCommerce merchants load up on plugins as the answer to all their store’s problems.

However, not all plugins are created with the same quality and compatibility. Some can cause problems and affect your store’s performance.

The more plugins you install, the more likely you’ll see conflicts arise. More plugins make it difficult to keep an eye on their functionality and whether they need any updates.

Think carefully when choosing plugins for a clear and specific purpose. Research plugins thoroughly beforehand and ensure that the benefits outweigh any potential negatives.

One way to lessen compatibility issues is by utilizing WooCommerce Extensions. These are tailor-made for your eCommerce store and are much more likely to work seamlessly together.

There are many different extensions for virtually every need. This includes:

  • Marketing automation
  • Shipping
  • Inventory
  • Analytics

These allow you the freedom to select the areas of added functionality that best fit the needs of your business.

Compress Your Images

High-quality images are vital for any ecommerce site that you should not compromise on. However, images are also your site’s largest element in terms of data. This means they drastically affect your performance if they aren’t properly optimized.

Start by choosing your images carefully, including only those that serve a clear purpose. When you’ve done this, reduce the file size of your chosen images using a tool such as Imagify, Optimole, or Shortpixel. These handy plugins compress your images without sacrificing too much in terms of quality.

WP Rocket is another handy option, especially if your site requires a lot of images. It allows you to introduce lazy loading, meaning that an image will only load when the user scrolls down to it, rather than downloading them all at once upon opening. This will make your initial loading time much shorter, as your site only needs to load the images at the top of the page.

A quick checklist for image optimization includes:

  • Choose your images in the correct format (JPEG, PNG, etc)
  • Compress your images using suggested plugins
  • Make sure your images are responsive to fit mobile devices
  • Use lazy loading on images that require scrolling to reach

Choose the Right WooCommerce Theme

There are thousands of different themes to choose from. It’s tough to settle on the one that best represents your personal taste and the character of your store.

Looks can also be deceiving—your chosen theme might look great, but it may come with several negatives. For example, it might come packaged with unnecessary functions and features that dramatically affect the speed and performance of your site.

The key is to choose a theme that looks great and fulfills your particular business needs, yet is lean and fast enough to keep your loading times down.

To help you make your choice, check out the 10 fastest WooCommerce WordPress themes in 2021 as tested by WP Rocket. Start by listing all of the features that you need for your store (multiple languages, one-click checkout, quick view functionality, etc.) and choose a fast theme that best meets your requirements.

These fast themes are flexible in terms of design, so you should have no problem customizing them to an aesthetic of your choosing.

If you can settle on a fast, reliable, and suitable theme from the very beginning of your eCommerce journey, you’ll avoid many of the most common website performance issues and will drastically cut down on the number of plugins you’ll need to install in the future.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

We’ve looked at some pretty useful ways to directly optimize your store so far, but none of these things solve the problem of distance. If you’re based in the UK and someone is opening your page in Australia, there’s always going to be some performance lag.

This issue can be solved by delivering from a server that’s closer to the user’s location. That’s why it’s useful to invest in a WordPress CDN.

WordPress CDN is a global network of servers that can cache and deliver resources wherever your customers are located. This includes images and JavaScript for faster loading times.

A CDN automatically determines the closest server to the user’s location and delivers your site’s content from there. This results in decreased loading times of up to 50%.

It’s generally better to choose a CDN with a wide variety of server locations spread evenly across the world, especially if your store caters to an international audience. StackPath is a fast and popular CDN that has servers across the world, including:

  • The United States and Canada
  • Australia
  • Spain
  • France
  • England
  • Germany
  • Poland
  • Belgium
  • Sweden
  • Italy
  • The Netherlands
  • Singapore
  • Hong Kong
  • Japan
  • South Korea
  • The Philippines
  • Brazil

Investing in a CDN is essential for global eCommerce businesses. It helps deliver a fast, consistent experience for their customers—no matter where in the world they are located. However, if you have a very localized audience, your optimization efforts would be better directed elsewhere.

Cache Your WooCommerce Store’s Resources

You can temporarily store pages on your site that look the same to all users on the server or user’s device for quicker loading on the next visit. For example, with similar-looking product pages.

This is known as ‘caching’ and is one of the easiest and most effective ways to speed up your WooCommerce store.

Caching essentially reduces the amount of work that WordPress has to do every time someone browses certain static pages on your site. In fact, frequently visited pages with no dynamic content can be loaded almost instantaneously when they have been effectively cached, drastically improving the browsing experience for the user. 

You should try to use caching as much as possible on your WooCommerce store. It helps with load speeds and reduces the strain on your web server. Some hosting providers and CDNs provide caching capabilities, which automatically implement bytecode cache, object cache, and page cache at the server level.

However, if your hosting provider doesn’t handle caching, you’ll need to find third-party solutions in the form of plugins. Cache Enabler is an excellent free option for those on a budget, providing reliable and fast caching for a full range of image formats and with easy-to-use settings. For more advanced options, WP Rocket is again a premium service, but it does come with a price.  

Optimize For Mobile Users

With more than half of all internet traffic now shopping from mobile devices, it’s surprising to find (and annoying for consumers) that many eCommerce retailers have still not optimized their websites for mobile users. 

Check that your store is mobile-friendly by entering your URL into Google’s mobile-friendly test tool. This enables you to see your site as a mobile user would and will list any inconsistencies or issues that you might have. This is the ideal place to start when optimizing your store for mobile devices, in addition to exploring your store with your own mobile device.

A few tips to streamline your store for mobile users include:

  • Choosing the right theme: Not only should your theme be fast, lean, and look great, but it should be responsive for mobile devices too. Take this into consideration when choosing your theme.

  • Keep pages simple: Endless scrolling to find a product isn’t fun, so keep your pages as simple as possible. You can include an easy search function to help customers quickly find what they need.

  • Make checkout an easy process: Checkout on mobile devices can be difficult if there are too many fields to enter, so eliminate steps where possible. Consider adding WooCommerce extensions such as WooCommerce Social Login and One Page Checkout to simplify the process.

Regularly Update Your Store and Plugins

Both WooCommerce and WordPress receive regular updates that improve speed and security, as well as all kinds of useful features. Keep an eye out for these updates and make sure that you install them when they become available. This is an easy and effective way to improve the performance of your site.

Your theme, extensions, and plugins will also receive updates from time to time, so keep on top of these too. If you find that one of these third-party additions to your store has become obsolete and is no longer supported by its developers, make sure you properly uninstall it and find a suitable replacement.

That being said, we’ve all had experiences with updates that were buggy, slow, or less useful than what came before. With this in mind, it’s useful to check out some reviews on WordPress forums first. This is especially true if you rely heavily on third-party plugins—it only takes one malfunctioning or incompatible element to disrupt your entire site.

Remember to keep a recent backup close at hand—just in case something goes wrong with your updates.

Keep Your Database Clean

Your WooCommerce database is growing all the time. It includes things like order history, user account data, product information, and much more. If you leave your database unchecked, all of this information can quickly begin to affect the performance of your site.

Manually removing certain aspects of your database is time-consuming and risky—you could quite easily delete vital information and cause all kinds of problems for your store. Fortunately, there are some handy database optimization plugins that can do the job for you, keeping your database lean and efficient by safely removing unnecessary clutter.

Check out WP Sweep and WP Optimize for database optimization, these are both great options that deliver results quickly and easily.

WP Sweep is the simpler of the two. It’s a smaller plugin that is focused only on cleaning your database. WP Sweep focuses on old revisions, expired transients, and database tables, as well as disabling non-essential features that can slow down your store’s performance.

WP-Optimize also offers these cleaning services as well as a few other optimization features. These include regular scheduling and more granular control of which items you’d like to remove. 

Invest in Quality Hosting

You can optimize everything from your side, but things can still run slowly. With so much of your site’s performance depending on the quality of your server, it’s time to check your hosting provider to make sure that it’s up to scratch.

Shared hosting arrangements, which divide a server’s resources between a number of users, are popular and cost-effective, particularly for eCommerce retailers who are just beginning their journey. This is a reasonable solution if you have relatively low traffic to your growing store and are hosted by a well-known and reliable provider.

However, as your business grows, you’ll need to upgrade your hosting to manage the higher number of visitors to your store. A common step up from shared hosting is via an optimized eCommerce hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS), which allocates server resources to each individual user according to their needs, rather than sharing a common pool. This gives you more control and customization of your settings and allows you to pay for better plans with faster speeds if needed.

Taking it a step further, dedicated hosting enables you to have exclusive access to your own server. This is a much more expensive option but gives you the best flexibility in terms of choosing your own configuration and enjoying the best possible performance.

High-traffic stores that experience considerable spikes over busy periods should consider dedicated hosting, but most other businesses should manage well with a high-quality VPS arrangement. Whichever you choose, make sure you do your research and choose a reputable provider—good hosting is one of the best investments you can make for your WooCommerce store.

Wrap Up

With website conversion rates dropping by an average of 4.42% with each additional second of load time, time is literally money when it comes to the speed of your WooCommerce store.

By taking the time to test, adjust, and optimize your website, you’ll maximize your chances of conversions. Ideally, it should load within two seconds. This way, you’ll make sure that users are getting the shopping experience that they expect.

Not only that, but search engines are much more likely to give you a high ranking if your site is quick, responsive, and has relatively lower bounce rates. 

Run through the tips provided in this article to find areas of your store’s performance that you might be able to improve. Remember, good technical scores and percentages aren’t the only goals here—test your results on real-life users as well as the testing tools suggested.

Ultimately, there are all kinds of different things to consider when running a successful eCommerce business. However, by getting the basics right and offering a fast, reliable WooCommerce store, you can move forward with confidence—safe in the knowledge that you are building on firm foundations.

]]>
https://sparklewpthemes.com/10-best-tips-to-optimize-your-woocommerce-store-for-better-conversions/feed/ 0
How to Create a WordPress Blog by Following These 10 Easy Steps https://sparklewpthemes.com/how-to-create-a-wordpress-blog-by-following-these-10-easy-steps/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/how-to-create-a-wordpress-blog-by-following-these-10-easy-steps/#respond Mon, 15 Nov 2021 05:49:54 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=146677 Learning How to Create a WordPress Blog by Following These 10 Easy Steps

When you’re selling in the digital space, you need to take every opportunity you can get to get your product out there. Some of the ways you can increase your online presence are by sharing on social platforms and maintaining a brand website. 

Your website serves as a central brand hub that can provide information about your brand and products. At the same time, you can use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to build a community and interact with your target market. Setting up social media accounts is pretty straightforward. On the other hand, building and maintaining a website will require more time and effort. 

So, if you’re a marketer or business owner who wants to start blogging on sites like WordPress but don’t know where to start, we’ve got you covered. We’ll show you how to launch your WordPress site in ten easy steps:

1. Choose a domain name that is timeless and best reflects your brand

One of the first few things to do when creating a WordPress blog is securing a domain name to go with your website. As an Amazon FBA seller, choose a domain that’s easy to remember and/or reflective of your brand to increase recall and recognition for your target audience. Similar to a brand name, you’ll know that you’ve selected a good one if it leaves a lasting impact on your audience.

Another thing to know about your website’s domain name is how it affects SEO. Therefore, we suggest (if possible) incorporating your brand or product name in your domain. For example, if you’re selling watches, it’s a good idea to include the term ‘watch’ as a keyword in your web address. Doing this will help increase your organic searchability for a particular keyword when searched.

Here are some tips for choosing a domain name for your website:

  • Use either a .com, .net, or .org. These are the most popular top-level domains for legitimate and authoritative websites.
  • Avoid hyphens and numbers since it may lead to confusion.
  • Avoid short-term trendy names. Instead, think about a long-lasting name that can reflect your brand through time.
Web Hosting

2. Sign up for a web hosting service

A web hosting service is what powers and will help with speeding up your WordPress website. You’ll need this to ensure your store stays running 24/7 with up-to-date information. Without a reliable hosting service, your website can experience site crashes – this is especially true if you’re expecting heavy web traffic due to promotions and sales. Keep in mind that personal blogs and other smaller businesses can rely on WordPress to power your website without a hosting service. If you don’t fall under that category, consider looking into a third-party host. 

When you start building your WordPress website, look into reliable hosting services. There are a lot of available web hosting services out there, so choose wisely. Keep reading for tips on how to decide the best one for your business.

Consider the uptime they can provide

Uptime is how long the hosting service can guarantee your website will stay running through the day. Values closest to 100% mean it will run for the majority of a day. Due to everyday fluctuations, a 100% uptime will be challenging to obtain. A 95% uptime is a perfectly acceptable and impressive number to consider. 

Know your website’s monthly traffic

Since most web hosting services package their services based on your site’s monthly traffic, try to get an estimate of this data for your website. Although the host won’t block people from seeing your store, you may be charged for the excess traffic not covered in your chosen package. 

So before you select a hosting web service, it’s best that you already have a clue on how much monthly traffic you’re expecting. If you don’t have this information handy, overestimating is better than underestimating in this case. 

3. Install the WordPress software and log in to the website

After you’ve decided on a web hosting service and domain, you can begin installing WordPress on your website. Some hosting services, such as BlueHost, let you install it automatically, but if yours does not have automatic installation, you can use third-party tools such as Fantastico.

You can still choose to install WordPress by following instructions manually:

  1. Download the WordPress package file and unzip it.
  2. On your web server, create a database for WordPress. Include all users who will have privileges on accessing your site.
  3. On your web server, upload the WordPress files in your desired location.
  4. Run the script by accessing the URL in your web browser.

4. Choose your site’s title and tagline

In addition to your domain name, consider adopting a catchy title and tagline for your brand and website. All of these should align with your brand and message for your audience.

These elements immediately speak for your brand and are vital parts of your branding process and how you communicate with your target audience.

So if you’re currently choosing the appropriate site title and tagline, here are some tips for you on how you can come up with your own fresh ideas.

How to build a site title for your website:

  1. Use words that best describe your brand or what you do. Be as honest and accurate with your title. The last thing you want is to mislead your target audience through your titles.
  2. Keep the title short and under approximately 66 characters as much as possible. It should be to the point and memorable.
  3. Incorporate the main keyword you want to rank for into your title or tagline.
  4. Don’t forget always to include your brand’s name in the title.
  5. Consider using a word generator if you’re running out of ideas on how to name it. List down the suggestions and see which works best for you.

How to build a site tagline for your website:

  1. The tagline should be short but catchy. You know you have a good tagline if your audience can recognize your brand or product by the tagline.
  2. It should be related to your website’s title.
  3. Use active voice instead of passive voice.
  4. Incorporate powerful words such as expert, best, master, and the like.

5. Create a new post to start blogging on your new WordPress site

Now that you have your WordPress website, the next thing to do is fill it with posts. This is where you’ll add content and exert a lot of time and effort to create high-quality posts. It might get a bit overwhelming to put out enough content, but you can manage it by building out a content plan.

A content plan is an organized way to manage your content. It allows you to plan out your content strategically before you post. You can also use it to manage your topics, plan out the schedule for your posts, and organize it in a manner that best suits your team’s productivity styles. It’s a great way to create a system and stay on track with your website’s content.

If you’re stuck in writer’s block and don’t know what content to post about, here are some ideas to help you get started:

  • Instructions on how to best use your product
  • Information about how you developed your product (material, ingredients)
  • Guest posts from experts in your industry
  • Reviews from your customers that reflect a positive experience with your product
  • Benefits of your products, how it exceeds your competitors
  • A story about how yourself and how you began your business
  • Answer frequently asked questions about your product

These topics are a great way to start but don’t feel limited to posting content about your products. Instead, widen your reach and engagement further by diversifying the topics on your blog. When you include content related to your product and industry, more people can come across it increasing traffic and awareness of your brand or product.  

By now, you should have already decided on a web hosting service, domain and have WordPress on your website. Remember, your content should all be optimized to increase your organic searches. Install WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO so you can see if your post is optimized and searchable. Try reaching the suggested SEO target score so your efforts won’t go to waste!

Upload Blog Content

Don’t entirely focus on text when creating a WordPress site! Instead, make your website visually attractive by incorporating other forms of media like images and videos. Nowadays, many people don’t prefer or have time to read long-form content and simply scroll past it. Ensuring that your content is eye-catching and exciting can help you grab users’ attention, especially with so much competition going on. 

So instead of posting blog posts that are heavy in text, try to break up the long content by adding related images.  As an alternative, if you have the resources to turn the longer pieces of text content into videos, give that a try too. This way, you’re adding more visuals and sounds to your website, making it more immersive than relying solely on text.

Images aren’t only great to make your content more presentable. You can also add tags to pictures and videos with the right keywords and increase your SEO score! Don’t forget, you’re not only doing this for your readers but for the algorithm, as well.

Adding links, such as backlinks and internal linking, are great ways to increase your SEO score further. Unfortunately, not doing this is one of the common mistakes for those just starting to create a WordPress site for their business. 

Don’t be afraid to backlink! As long as you’re pointing your users to an authoritative and non-competing website, you’re good to go. Doing this not only increase your SEO score, but you’re also supplementing more information to your readers, putting you in a position of reliability and trustworthiness. 

7. Plan out the design of your blog by choosing colors and fonts that reflect your brand

When you’re managing an online store, it’s essential to stand out from all the competition. Consider using Amazon DSP and the other advertising services if you want your products to become more visible. With added marketing initiatives, your traffic will increase. Ensure your website is presentable and valuable for a user or potential customer. 

The great thing about WordPress is it allows you to explore your creativity. It offers a ton of customization and colors to check out and select from, so see which ones fit your branding best. Choosing when you have a wide array of choices can get overwhelming, but don’t worry! You can choose from the templated designs available and modify them so that you may personalize your page with ease.

When you’re creating the design for your website, always remember to follow your business’ branding. Ensure this is well-defined before you work on any marketing materials, and that includes your website. If you have a creative team, ask for help developing a branding board that best describes your brand, or, as an alternative, build one out yourself. There are many free tools online that can help create branding boards. The purpose of your branding is so you can create cohesive material across all of your content, whether it be on your website, Amazon, or social media pages.

8. Include widgets like social media buttons and Google Adsense ads for added functionality

Widgets are a great way to promote other initiatives on your website. You could add widgets for many reasons. For example, you can build brand loyalty by sharing your social channels or generate a passive income on your website by promoting advertisements. Keep reading to learn how to use widgets on your website.

Invite your audience to find you on social platforms by adding social media buttons. By doing this, you can connect with them through the platforms that they often visit and inform them of updates and promotions from your brand. By doing this, you can increase your followers across social media platforms, better connect with your customers and build a community for your brand. In addition, you can run interactive content through social media like giveaways, surveys, or polls as a way to get feedback directly. 

Another way to use buttons and budgets is by using add Google AdSense to your website. Enabling this option means you are allowing Google to run ads on your page. So even if monetizing your site from ads is not your main priority, there’s no harm in integrating this option and earning passive income in the meantime.

9. Customize your menus and sidebars for a more “personalized” feel

After choosing the right theme and font for your WordPress website, customize your site by modifying your menus and sidebar. If you’re going for a minimalistic but modern look, a menu will be enough. But if you want to maximize the space, you can always add both.

The menu can contain items that include, About, Services or Products, Location, Contact, Gallery, and Blog, among many others. Of course, you can always customize this with the items that you prefer to highlight. 

Blog archives, categories, search bar, and social media links are typically included in the sidebar. You can also include your Instagram feed in this area, so users don’t have to click on your Instagram page to see how it looks.

Selling on WordPress opens up a lot of opportunities for you to promote your brand, especially if you sell on Amazon. Get creative by personalizing your website features for your brand. Develop the experience you want your customers to have when they encounter your brand.

10. Create pages for different sections of the blog like the “About” section or “Contact Me” page

Now it’s time to fill the page with valuable content that will benefit both you and your site visitors. 

Although creating an About Us” page is optional, we recommend putting some time and effort into building one. It’s an excellent way for you to familiarize your customers with you and your brand, allowing them to connect better with you. By including a “Contact Us” page, you can open communication between you and your customers for questions or concerns about their order or product. It allows you to remedy any issues and avoid your reputation from turning sour from an undealt problem. 

You can include how you came about the business idea and what it was like getting started. Nowadays, consumers don’t just buy the product. More often than not, they buy the brand and the story behind it. 

Your website should be where your customers learn more about your brand. You can be as honest or as selective as you’d like to be. While your social media pages will include many story-telling contents, you should consolidate everything on your website. Remember, your WordPress website has the advantage of sharing long-form content over trying to put all this information together on Instagram or Facebook pages.

Final Thoughts: Start Creating A WordPress Page For Your Amazon Business Today

Are you a seller currently using Amazon as your main e-commerce channel? Increase your reach by thinking outside the box and promoting your brand off the Amazon marketplace! Just because you’re selling on Amazon doesn’t mean you cannot take advantage of other platforms to increase your growth. 

There are so many benefits to being able to promote your products and brand on an external e-commerce site. Working solely on Amazon can often feel limiting on what you can or can’t do creatively on their platform. Having a website off of their marketplace allows you to create the experience you want for your customers on your store and share it the way you want. Maximize your resources and consider building a WordPress site for your e-commerce store!

]]>
https://sparklewpthemes.com/how-to-create-a-wordpress-blog-by-following-these-10-easy-steps/feed/ 0
How To Increase The Max Upload Size On WordPress https://sparklewpthemes.com/how-to-increase-the-max-upload-size-on-wordpress/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/how-to-increase-the-max-upload-size-on-wordpress/#respond Mon, 06 Sep 2021 04:18:11 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=145134 The incessant essentiality of WordPress to numerous users seems to widen constantly by and large, and inaddition to the need for an increased upload size file. WordPress serves as the center of human wants because of the distinct yet important usage it plays for us. It allows you to create websites for various purposes ranging from a simple blog to an eCommerce store blog.

As a beginner or long-term site user, you would discover that the continuous usage of WordPress tools and plugins on your website can help you achieve your goal, in creating awareness or selling some products on your website. 

This goal can however be curtailed by the restriction placed on your website to only allow a certain size of file or plugin or theme. This restriction is created for the user’s and visitor’s convenience. 

Detailed content has been created for your convenience to help you learn various techniques that can be implemented to increase upload size of files, or themes, or plugins on your website. Indeed, this is a great avenue to achieve an high level of optimization of your website on WordPress.

So, let’s dive in!

The Importance of upgrading the uploadable size of your website

And before we dive into the main cause of action, let’s take a look at the various reasons as to why it is required though not mandatory to increase the size limit in WordPress.

The varieties of files that can be uploaded on WordPress makes it a great avenue to deliver consistent content to your readers or audience. This is obstructed by the limitation fixed on the uploadable file size on the site. 

On WordPress, there are varying methods that users can employ in their individual strategies. Therefore, if your line of work requires you to upload high-resolution pictures or videos directly to your website, then you might have to consider increasing your upload size. 

Yet this is not mandatory. If you are fine with the allocated upload size on your website then you do not need to change it. Or if your site does not require uploading large files or so on your site. 

It should be noted that even though it is not mandatory, it is advisable because you would attain a better experience upon that. 

The main reason why there’s a limit is to avoid the website from being over jammed or to prevent a server’s time out. Regardless, the restriction may prevent you from uploading themes, plugins, or other files that exceed the size given to you on your website. 

Therefore it is essential for you to increase the max upload size of your website.

Importances

  1. Maximize the little to nothing allocated size on your WordPress website. Although, a big part of it is due to your host provider and the host plans. 
  2. Strengthen your connection with your reader or audience with more in-depth content such as files, themes, and plugins. With a larger file size, you have wider possibilities
  3. .For installing a plugin or theme on WordPress, you might need a large upload size for better uploading and to avoid errors or issues.
  4. For a better user experience, you might consider increasing your max upload size. This however entails not just you as the user but also your site’s visitors.
  5. Also, if your site is about selling digital files, a larger upload size would be better and more feasible for you.

These reasons are however subjective. You as a person may have other individual reasons why you need to increase the max upload size of your website. But the bottom line of all the reasons is to inform you of the essentiality of increasing it because of the restriction. 

Various mechanisms to employ to check the max upload size in WordPress

So, before deciding on whether or not you would want to increase the max upload size of your website, then you should at least know the particular upload size of your website. 

On a normal basis, the max upload size of all WordPress most times ranges between 4 MB to 128 MB. Therefore, your website upload size would fall between those numbers. Your host provider has a major role to play in the upload size allocated to your website, therefore, you should ensure you pick the best web host provider

This is why it is essential to carefully choose one’s host. You have to strategically examine the host you consider and choose it because of its performance and support. It is unsafe to nonchalantly pick out a host without a full examination of how much this host can help your site. 

In Addition, it also depends on your hosting plan. Whether you seek out a big or small plan, it also affects your upload size because the plan feature is the host’s decision to make.

How to check the upload size of your WordPress Site

Now, to the order of the day, if you want to check the upload size of your website, you should move to your Admin Area of your WordPress, select the ‘Media’. Select ‘Add New’. From there you should be able to see the upload size of your website.

You can either select ‘Add New’ seen on the smaller page at the side or from the larger page. Both lead to the same goal but if you select the one on the larger page, it is done in a way to help you upload files from your system. 

Either way, you should be able to see the max upload size of your website. 

You can also selectively check it through the site health page. It is also quite simple. You would simply move into the info page of the site health of your website. From there, you should be able to sight ‘Media Handling’. Click on it and you should be able to view your site’s max upload size.

Study the image to understand more.

Best Practices to employ to increase the max upload size in WordPress

There are some easy ways you can employ to help you up the upload size of your website. The size limit in WordPress can be said to be an obstacle to numerous users whose basics of creating the website in the first place is to share contents that are large sized. They are however obstructed by WordPress restrictions.

However, these are three simple and easy ways to help you increase the upload size of your website. This is categorized from others because it is simple and easy to implement. The other ways you can achieve this involve the use of codes and other technical things. 

You should be able to apply the highlighted ways to achieve a higher upload size for your website. It is also advisable to take on this method before moving on to the ones involving codes and other technical aspects. Though you do not have to strictly follow this, you just have to figure out the one that works for you.

So let’s begin!

Contact your web host provider 

This can be said to be an easier alternative to increasing the upload size of your website. You can easily contact your host provider, state your issues to them, and allow them to proffer a solution to it. They should have the means to solve this. We advise that this should be done first before you begin with other technical alternatives.

And by chance, if you don’t have a hosting provider, you can look up the best web host providers for WordPress on their official website. 

The host you choose can go a long way in creating an impact on your site either positively or negatively. So ensure you choose one that suits your website needs or requirements. 

Multisite 

This entails managing multiple sites with just a single WordPress installation. This type of website is made easy to fix the upload size issue because it allows WordPress to run the site individually on the same installation but performs quite efficiently. 

Although, these sites would have their own media repository but they all share the same resource. 

Here, all you have to do is navigate through the Admin Area, into Network > Settings.

You should be able to see the ‘Max upload file size’

There you can easily change the numbers in the box. 

It should be noted however that you can not exceed the allocated upload size stated by the server of your website. It has to be within what is already stipulated. This method proves useful when you have an upload size lower than that allocated to your website.

Use of FTP/SFTP

You can upload large files directly to your WordPress website using FTP/SFTP. This is a very helpful tool that allows users to upload files from the system to the server or download files from the server to the system, and other useful implements.

So, you can also utilize the use of FTP/SFTP to help upload a large file to your website. Although we do recommend the use of SFTP because it is more secure. 

Another alternative to FTP/SFTP is the Add From Server Plugin. This is in case of any circumstances that prevent you from using FTP/SFTP.

Use of plugins 

This is a great alternative to the use of code or programming languages to change the upload size of your website. They are quite efficient but they require strategic steps, to the extent that if it is not installed or operated rightly, it might not just work for you.

There are numerous WordPress plugins created to help increase the upload size. Some examples are; Upload Larger Plugins, Tuxedo Big File Uploads, and so on.

However, we are going to take on the Increase Max Upload Filesize plugin. It is highly recommended because of its effectiveness. 

To use this plugin, you have to search and install it by navigating through your WordPress Dashboard, then Plugins, and lastly Add New

Search for the plugin afterward.

When found, install and activate correctly.

Open the plugin and change the number given which represents your website upload size.

After the change, don’t forget to save the modification.

It’s really that simple. 

Techniques that can be utilized to increase the max upload size of your website in WordPress

We’ve discussed the basics of this content and also stipulated some easier ways in which you can apply to your site in order to solve the upload size issue. However, there are times whereby you may come across a mulish case or a troublesome host. At this point, none of the preceding alternatives would do any good to you. You can therefore apply these technical methods. 

Although these methods are technical in nature, they do not require special technical knowledge to understand it. And this guide has been created as detailed as possible. So all you have to do is read, understand, and apply the practices to your website. Most even involve just copying the code to your website. 

So sit back and apply the ones practicable to your website and ensure you follow them appropriately to attain your desired result.

1. Use of .htaccess files 

Many of us might not be familiar with this but .htaccess is like the stronghold of your website. It basically controls your website performance and it acts as a channel to communicate with your host provider.

And you can also use this channel to increase the max upload size of your website in WordPress.  

However, you have to make sure that your server is utilizing Apache. You have to also ensure that the PHP of your website is in Apache mode as well.

Therefore, you can copy these codes and add them to the .htaccess file of your website.

1. php_value upload_max_filesize 32M

2. php_value post_max_size 32M

3. php_value memory_limit 64M

4. php_value max_execution_time 300

5. php_value max_input_time 300

To do this, you have to connect your server through an FTP client and locate the WordPress installation file. Afterward, you would open up .htaccess through a notepad and then paste the copied codes. However, ensure that you’ve made hidden files visible because .htaccess is a hidden file.

You can edit the code numbers, fix your desired numbers to the one suitable for your website. You should note that number (4) or (5) is quoted in seconds, so you have to decide which is preferable to your site. 

This techniques are a way of attaining WordPress Optimization.

2. Use of Nginx

Nginx, like Apache, is a web server that is variously utilized for performance optimization in WordPress. So you can also implement the use of Nginx to increase the upload size of your website. These procedures may however vary depending on the host server you are using on your site.

So for this step, it would require you to search for your php.ini file in the Nginx server. Modify the upload max file size and the post max file size to your desired size and save the modification. 

Afterward, in the Nginx. conf file, you need to modify the max upload file as well. You need to set this appropriately at the location, server, and http.

Save modification and restart Nginx to apply changes.

You can employ this code to reload – sudo service nginx reload

3. Make changes to your php.ini file 

This is also a great technique to allow you to increase the max upload size of your website. This technique works great for different users and it’s simple to apply. 

Now, all you have to do is search for the php.ini file in your root directory. You can utilize the use of a file manager in your host’s dashboard at the c-panel to help search for it. Or as an alternative, you can use FTP/SFTP. 

Search for the file, and if not found, you can create another php.ini file.

However, the way it goes, add this code to the file; 

upload_max_filesize = 10M

post_max_size = 10M

max_execution_time = 300

Copy and add these codes to it. And you can try out 64M instead as an alternative. 

4.  Make use of user.ini files

 Sometimes, you might not be able to achieve the desired result with the phi.ini files. There are times where your server configures your website to take cognizance of user.ini files rather than phi.ini files.

However, both require the same process for an increase in the max upload size in WordPress.

Locate the user.ini file in your root directory. Employ the use of FPT or the file manager app of your host’s c panel dashboard. 

If you are unable to locate it, then you can create a user.ini file. 

Add these codes to it

upload_max_filesize = 10M

post_max_size = 10M

max_execution_time = 300

As seen, the code and process are similar to that of phi.ini. 

This method has proven to be quite useful to individuals that employ this method. Therefore, endeavor to follow it systematically and appropriately. 

5. Make changes with the use of WordPress themes to increase max upload size

If it’s more comfortable for you, you can increase the max upload size in WordPress by changing your theme. Doing so would change the value of the current upload size of your website into a default value. Then you would add these codes to the functions.php of your theme.

@ini_set( ‘upload_max_size’ , ’64M’ );

@ini_set( ‘post_max_size’, ’64M’);

@ ini_set( ‘max_execution_time’, ‘300’ );

You can set it to your preferred size from the code. However, it goes, ensures the code is inputted correctly to the functions.php file of your WordPress theme to change the upload size of your website.

How to confirm the max upload size of your website after applying the given techniques.

After taking up any of these techniques, you can check and confirm if the technique was successfully implemented on your website. For this, you would have to follow the same procedure as explained before. Move into the Media Library of your website dashboard in WordPress.

Confirm if it has been successfully changed.

If it has, congratulations to you then. You can unrestrictedly upload files, or themes, or plugins as you please. This entails that although there is still a limitation as to things you can upload on the site you have a wider spectrum than the previous size.

However, if not successful, you can try out other techniques which you have not tried out and apply them accordingly on your website.

Conclusion 

These are the varying ways you can increase the max upload size of your website on WordPress. These distinct ways can be tasking and perhaps difficult to apply accordingly, so you have to figure out which you could work on and apply it on your website appropriately. 

As earlier stated, the reason why there’s a limitation in the first place is to prevent issues that could reduce WordPress optimization of websites and ensure that WordPress distinct features satisfy user’s needs and also user’s convenience. 

Therefore we can say that WordPress is a Versatile Content Management System that provides extendable features that can be easily harnessed by the user for various individual reasons. Even the WordPress Community is a great avenue to seek answers to any issue related to WordPress that you require to be solved. 

]]>
https://sparklewpthemes.com/how-to-increase-the-max-upload-size-on-wordpress/feed/ 0
WooCommerce Tips To Increase Sales https://sparklewpthemes.com/woocommerce-tips-to-increase-sales-2/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/woocommerce-tips-to-increase-sales-2/#respond Sun, 29 Aug 2021 05:20:30 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=145261 You might wonder what exactly is WooCommerce and why haven’t I heard of it?. There’s no shame in this because a lot of us are not deeply inclined to the amazing techs of WordPress or just haven’t come across it. However, this guide has been set up to give you simple, yet understandable content on WooCommerce tips, as well as other distinct tips, to help you increase sales on your store website. 

Adding WooCommerce to WordPress is a limited privilege available to WordPress sites only. Therefore, if you have a site that’s not WordPress, these features do not apply to you. 

WooCommerce is software that has been coded to work only on WordPress websites. So to enjoy the great benefits of the WooCommerce tips, be sure to have created a site on WordPress or have an existing site on it. 

For easy guidance, a table of content has been created for your convenience. At the end of this guide, you would have so much to tell on WooCommerce and how you can effortlessly apply it to your website.

TABLE OF CONTENT

  • What does WooCommerce do?
  • How does it work?
  • How to successfully add WooCommerce to your WordPress site.
  • Various ways to increase sales using WooCommerce tips. 

What does WooCommerce do?

As earlier stated, WooCommerce offers various productive tips and tools that are used to greatly improve your website, increase sales, and additionally give it that professional look and touch.

You should remember that this is a plugin. Therefore, you can easily add it to your WordPress site and enjoy the improved performance of your site with just a few settings changes.

The productivity of WooCommerce will go a long way in positively changing your site’s performance and getting the sales or frequent customers you seek on your site. In other phrases, WooCommerce improves the site with some effective marketing tactics.

This is exceedingly advantageous to users. And with over twenty-seven million downloads with millions of active installations as well, WooCommerce is everyone’s choice and its productivity is glaring from the number of people that use and download it.

How does the WooCommerce tips work?

WooCommerce tips offer amazing features to its users. It is more amazing knowing that it is free to download. However, it is not free to effectively use and manage it. Here, I mean the cost that comes with marketing, domain fee, advertising, hosting fee, and customization. This is of course to be paid according to your discretion. You should know how much rebranding you would like for your site.

In this guide, we are going to show you how to easily download and connect WooCommerce to your WordPress account.

How to successfully connect WooCommerce to your WordPress website.

Step 1:First thing first, download WooCommerce from the WordPress store or directly from the WordPress dashboard.

Either way, download and connect it to your WordPress website.

.

If you are installing it from your dashboard, activate it after installing the plugin.

Step 2: Moving forward, the Setup Wizard consists of some essential questions about your store; this helps WooCommerce understand your store, the marketing tactics you want to employ, and so on.

The front page of the Setup Wizard should look like this:

The Setup Wizard is user-friendly and although optional but advisable. So for the front page, it asks you questions like where your store is based, currency type, and a host of others.

You don’t have to worry, the settings selected can still be changed in the future, if need be.

Step 3: For the next step, choose your preferred payment option. For online payment, there’s Paypal and Stripe.

As indicated, an additional payment can be installed too if you do not prefer any of the options. And offline payment is also made available for users to use conveniently.

Step 4:The next is the shipping page.

Here, you would choose your preferred shipping rate and may choose different shipping rates for your customers based on their location/zone. You can also make it cost-free as well.

Step 5: At this point, you’ve completed and answered the questions needed to set up your store. The next step is the recommendation page.

These are recommended features, though not compulsory to use them all. This would enhance your store website and give it that final touch to perfection. The Storefront Themes is highly recommended too.

Step 6: The next step is the Jetpack installment.

It is not compulsory, so it’s purely discretionary in its use. Although, it offers a lot of analytical features plus security, and others.

Step 7: Your WooCommerce is connected and ready to drive up sales for your store website!

At this point, you’ve successfully connected WooCommerce to your website and can now enjoy the thrilling benefit that comes with it.

Step 8: After successfully connecting it, you can now set up your online store. In your WordPress dashboard, two new outlines came up because you connected WooCommerce to it.

-General

– Product

However, to add new products for your store, go through Products > Add New. It would bring you to this page;

Add a title and a short yet catchy description for the product. Then you should have something like this at the end of it all.

Note: This is just a preview, yours might differ in other ranges. You just have to make sure that all details inputted are done correctly and appropriately. You do not want to defer your customers from buying the product or from visiting your website because of a perpetual mistake.

Various ways to increase sales using WooCommerce Tips.

As earlier discussed, WooCommerce is very beneficial to users who run a store website. It gives you numerous features that can be used to increase sales to your website, and turn your one-time customers into a more regular one.

So, whether you just opened up your store website or have been running it for a considerable amount of time, you might want to take a step back and evaluate your e-commerce store and observe deeply the marketing tactics applied.

This is where the WooCommerce tips helps the user. This is a WordPress plugin that widely helps users to add effective e-commerce tips and tools that can heighten the websites’ views and commercialization.

Easy-to-follow tips have been created. They are simply explanatory, so you follow these tips accordingly and apply them to your store website.

Choose the right theme for your store website

As much as we hate to admit it, we all judge a book by its cover. Having an eye-catching, attractive theme that is professional and speaks about your store can go a really long way in attracting customers and increasing sales. 

The theme of your site should be attractive, easy, and speaks about your product or store. You do not want a clustered theme that does not give an easy interface to your site. It would definitely drive the customer into frustration and we know how that ends.

In addition, your theme should speak more of your product or your store. It has to fit in. For example, you are managing a store website and marketing “baby dolls”. You should consider having a light theme that can depict a friendly attraction. Having a dark theme might not fit so well with your product.  

So, your theme should fit your store website or product.

Next is considering the type of theme you would like to apply to your site. Predominantly, WordPress themes can be categorized as;

  • Free Themes,
  • Paid Themes; and
  • Customized Themes

Although you have to go along with your budget and strength, it is more advisable to go for the paid themes. They have better features, attractive schemes, and all others to help your customers enjoy the beauty of your store website. 

At Sparkle Themes, they offer elegant and versatile themes that would suit your taste and budget. Highly recommendable. And in addition, you have wide varieties of choices to pick from. Themes can go a long way in increasing sales on your store website.

Let’s begin by differentiating these themes.

On Sparkle Themes, themes created especially for e-commerce are made available. This means that the theme has been coded to match your store website. 

There are; 

Appzend Commerce – WordPress WooCommerce Themes

This category has stunning themes and even lets you customize. There are over ninety demos in this category and are termed to be perfect for modern online stores, and other features that make this theme excellent and compatible for a wide range of products. 

You can learn more info and description from the website.

Online eStore – WooCommerce WordPress Theme

This creates a functional and effective theme that can match users’ experiences. Also, this has been categorized to be a great choice for modern digital agencies, bloggers, e-commerce shops, construction companies, etc. Additionally perfect for WooCommerce. It has a whole lot of other valuable features on it. You can get more details on the site.

CrazyStore – Best eCommerce Theme on WordPress

The e-Commerce theme is easy to use and install. With over twenty demo templates ready to serve you, and it is also compatible with most plugins to give you the best experience and further promote sales on your store website through the eye-catching theme.

SparkleStore Pro – Best Premium eCommerce Theme on WordPress

Sparkle Store Pro is simple and easy to install. Also, offers compatible and functional themes for users. With over twenty-five templates available, you have varieties of choices to pick from.

SparkleStore – Best Free eCommerce Theme On WordPress

This theme helps users get classy themes compatible with most major plugins at zero cost. Another thrilling thing about this theme is that it requires low maintenance. So best pick your choice.

Buzzstore Pro – Best Premium eStore Theme On WordPress

Another Premium theme for eCommerce stores. It has somes premium features and can be easily used by users. More information can be gotten from Sparkle Theme website. 

BuzzStore – Free eCommerce WordPress Theme For Online Store

Buzzstore offers simple to install, pre-installed homepage layouts, and a host of others. More information can be gotten from the site. You should know that the features offered here are 100% free.

All these Sparkle themes are available on the store website. Short details are provided here but you can attain more details from the website. And although all these themes are distinct and peculiar in their way, it’s your job, however, to figure out which theme is compatible with your store website and the product you market. You can also employ the advice of a professional if need be.

This WooCommerce tip has proved to be very helpful and resourceful to users.

2. Start out a strategic discount coupon 

Everyone loves coupons. After dealing with activating or connecting WooCommerce to your site, and after generating a considerable amount of customers, you can start by creating a strategic discount coupon that you know the customers would not be able to resist that easily. This can really help you increase sales on your store website.

This coupon, if done accordingly and appropriately, should be able to drive new customers to your store market and make old passive customers more active. 

Since you’re in charge of giving out the coupon, you could be more strategic and give out the coupon in a way that’s more beneficial to your market, like targeting a specific category. All you have to do is pick out the right distribution channel and also pick the best campaign website that works for you.

In addition to picking out who gets the coupon, you are also in control of the sustainability of the coupon, the limit of the coupon, its impact, and so on. This can also be strategically tuned to drive sales to your store website. 

You can even use the discount and coupon together. For example, use COUPON 456 to get 10% off any product. And running a discount sale periodically can drive more customers to your store website to take advantage of the opportunity.

All you have to do is set up the coupon/discount and create awareness of it. Give it an attractive look and description that would make it difficult for anyone to turn a blind eye to it. Therefore, it has to be distinctively attractive and eye-catching.  This is also a great WooCommerce tip to users that utilise it properly.

3. Provide a user-friendly experience

The truth is your website visitors are not going to find your site great if it is hard for them to navigate through the site or the site is clustered or understandable. That is so wrong. Create a website that can be easily navigated, clear, and responsive. 

There is lots of competition and you have only a few seconds to prove to your visitors that your store website is the best they can find and you have just the thing to fill their taste buds, and this also aids you in increasing sales to your website.

Now, a tool you can use to create an easy-to-navigate site is WooCommerce Breadcrumbs.

This aids navigation for your visitors. All you have to do is change the default settings and enable a way whereby your visitor can go back to their previously browsed categories without leaving your page. This keeps them on your site for a prolonged period. Moreover, this also aids search engines in cataloging our page search rank. So you can kill two birds with a stone here; aid navigation for your customers and earn better search ranking with an easy-to-navigate site. 

In addition, WooCommerce SEO is better experienced with Breadcrumbs. Here, you have an SEO extension that can help optimize your content as well as other pages in your website such as the sitemaps, product pages, and so on. Although this does not automatically give you a better ranking, it’s an ongoing process; and it rather aids it.   

A product table can also be set up for your visitors’ convenience.

As seen, this organizes your content or product into a list and keeps them there whenever the customers use your site by searching or filtering. However, this aids your customer’s navigation and further creates a user-friendly experience because they would find your website more convenient and comfortable.

There are WooCommerce tools that can help in setting this up. We have ‘Product Table for WooCommerce by Nick McReynold’.

4.  Start a contest 

Contests are the biggest thing for marketers because if done correctly, it ends up winding up lots of sales and interest from visitors far and near. 

Therefore, you set up a contest where the winner(s) takes a valuable prize. Although I do not advise you to do this out of your budget, ensure that this is something you can lose conveniently. 

And, short-lived contests do not actually bring out the result we seek. Instead, you can divide it consistently and make it into an ongoing edition. Therefore, there’s going to be more coming up. This is why some marketers hold an annual contest or monthly, purely discretionary. 

So, organize a contest and set out the terms of the contest, and decide on the prize to be won. This has to define your store and should be strategic enough to keep them on your store website. For example, a talent hunt. However it is, let it speak of your brand.

5. Selling vouchers/gift cards

This is another strategic way in which you can harness the tool provided by WooCommerce. This entails selling gift cards or vouchers on your store website and making them redeemable by the purchaser or the recipient if gifted. 

Gift Cards are a great way to heighten your customer’s loyalty, improve performance, and drive more sales or revenue. Using gift cards is very convenient and people appreciate it the most. So, try and create gift cards or vouchers for your customers, and this is sure to increase sales to your store website. 

6. Flash Sales

Flash sales are an excellent and popular way of driving sales to your product. You would be surprised at how much people pay or look forward to events like this. 

Flash sales are discounted prices on products that most online stores employ to drive up sales. In this type of thing, the product in question is limited and there’s also a ticking time set, therefore stating how long the flash sale would last. Flash sales are not for long; most times they are done just for a day. This is to balance the owner’s market and also give the visitors the taste of ‘impulse buying’.

And flash sales are most times propagated with the use of social media. Make sure you create a lot of awareness. It is a very resourceful WooCommerce tip.

7. Provide points on some selected activities.

This is another great strategy. You can provide points for purchases, referrals, and other activities done on your store website. These points earned on your site would be able to make your customers continue that act and come back for more points. The redeemability of these points is up to you, you can make the point redeemable for every product on your store website or just some selected ones.

At Starbucks, for example, their customers earn stars for every purchase.

A Lot of online stores make use of newsletters but very little pay close attention to the customization. You can utilize the use of a newsletter to engage your customers and update them on a new event going on your website.

It’s a great revenue strategy that you can also employ.

8. Use of Customized Newsletters

A Lot of online stores make use of newsletters but very little pay close attention to the customization. You can utilize the use of a newsletter to engage your customers and update them on new events ongoing in your website.

However, when using this, you should try to individualize it. For example, by writing out their names in the newsletter. This would make them feel more ‘talked to’, instead of the usual broadcast message that is normally used.

9. Provide an easy-to-share button

Another great tip is creating an easy-to-share button for your customers to engage their social media friends and thereby creating a shopping community.

This is especially effective when you have a referral contest or you enable the referral button on your website. Customers can utilize this and share your store website nor product on their social accounts. This would further aid your awareness scheme. You can make use of Envite for this tip.

10. Emails on deserted carts

Another great tip is sending out emails on a customer cart that is occupied but deserted. Here, you have to send the email out in a positive and impactful manner; even much better if it is accompanied by a discount or coupon offer or any other beneficial event ongoing on your site. 

This way the customer can keep up with the cart and if forgotten, your email can do the wonder of reminding him or her. This could try up sales and even increase the conversion rate.

Conclusion

These tips have been carefully crafted for your understanding. And if followed promptly and accordingly, they would constantly increase sales and also heighten the awareness of your online store. And in a while, your stores are already booming with satisfied customers who leave great reviews on your site that would entice other customers to your online store. These WooCommerce tips can give you what you seek in your store accordingly.

]]>
https://sparklewpthemes.com/woocommerce-tips-to-increase-sales-2/feed/ 0
11 Best WordPress Hosting Providers https://sparklewpthemes.com/11-best-wordpress-hosting-providers/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/11-best-wordpress-hosting-providers/#respond Fri, 09 Oct 2020 11:47:20 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=135574 Are you looking to set up a new WordPress website but haven’t yet decided which hosting can be on the top of the line for your website? Or, even if you already have one and planning to upgrade your hosting, you might want to learn more about the different WordPress hosting providers.

Worry not! We got you covered. We are here with the go-to resource on WordPress Hosting to help you decide which hosting can better fit your needs.

With too many to count, not all hosting services are equally worthy. Before you buy one of them, we recommend you go thoroughly through this post and know the basics of WordPress Hosting to make an informed purchase and not ruin your hard-earned dollars. In this post, you will learn about

  • What is web hosting
  • why is web hosting necessary
  • what are the different types of hosting for WordPress 
  • What to look for when choosing the best hosting provider?
  • What are the top best 10 WordPress hosting providers

What Is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a service that lets your run your website or any web application on the web. Web hosting provides you with all the features and technologies that make your website viewed on the internet.

Why Is Web Hosting Necessary

Before you can make your website run on the internet, you will need a hosting service.

What actually this hosting has to do with your website?

Well, When you host your website with a hosting provider, they will give you some space on their server so that you can store your website’s files and data. Once your website details are on the server, people can access it from anywhere at any time.

What Are The Types of WordPress Hosting?

types of hosting

Getting to know the types of hosting will help you decide what kind of hosting your website needs. There are different kinds of hosting for WordPress, and one single hosting might not fit all types of websites.

Choosing the suitable hosting out of many can often be a daunting task. Understanding different types of hosting and knowing how they work to simplify your search process. Let’s get into this.

Shared WordPress Hosting

Shared web hosting is the most popular and economical hosting plan. One server hosts hundreds of websites like yours. As a result, all the websites will have to share the same server’s space and resources. 

Why use shared hosting 

  • Affordable and economical to get started with
  • Suitable for love traffic sites 
  • Easy to setup 

Why avoid shared hosting

  • You only get what you pay for. You can’ expect any top-level performance
  • Resources are shared, and you get a limited portion. 
  • Low-quality support 
  • Less secure and vulnerable to security threats

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is a web hosting technology in which your files are stored across multiple servers, and your resources can be fetched from different servers in different places. 

How is this good for you? 

In a single server hosting, if the server is down for some reason, your site is down. But in the cloud hosting, if a server goes down, other servers in the network for you. Isn’t this something scalable? 

Cloud hosting is a “pay as you go” model of hosting where you get to use the space in the server according to your need and only pay for what you use. 

Why use cloud hosting 

  • Flexible and scalable hosting
  • Only pay for what you use
  • Automated solution 
  • Better performance due to multiple server involvement

Why avoid cloud hosting 

  • More expensive than other third-party hosting providers
  • Has more security risks unless you are with a reputed provider
  • New users can find it difficult to implement due to the difference in interface and technology. 

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting allocates Virtual Private Server ( dedicated resource) on a server with multiple users. Comparatively, it is better than a shared hosting plan in the sense that you get a personal (private) resource here.

If you are one with a medium-level traffic website, this hosting is for you.

 Why use VPS Hosting 

  • Cheaper than the dedicated servers due to virtualization technology
  • Flexible and easy to setup 
  • Easy to upgrade
  • You are allocated dedicated resources so won’t be affected by your sharers

Why avoid VPS Hosting 

  • More expensive compared to shared hosting 
  • Not complete control over the server compared to dedicated hosting
  • Chance of resources being not appropriately allocated. 

Dedicated Hosting 

Dedicated Hosting is a physical server that hosts only one website. If you are hosted on a dedicated server, there is only your website getting the whole server resources.

Dedicated hosting servers are generally of two types.

✔ Managed Hosting: In the managed Hosting, your service provider will take care of all your server operations, making it easy for the user to handle the control panel. 

✔ Unmanaged Hosting: in the unmanaged hosting plan, the service provider cannot take care of your server operation. For this reason, this Hosting is suitable for technically savvy people. 

What to look for when choosing the best hosting provider?

what makes a good web host

You can only benefit from the hosting service if you can find the right hosting provider. With so many companies mushrooming each year, many of us struggle to find the real deal. It gets even more challenging if you are new to server technology.

Here are essential features that you should look for to test the reliability and worthiness of a hosting provider

Reputation

The reputation in the industry gives you a sense of how the business is doing. Look at the third-party source for their credibility and reputation they have managed to own. Find out how users and tech experts mention them. 

Uptime

A website that frequently goes down is never a pleasing experience. That will only ruin your brand and bring Loss to the website. Your web hosting provider is responsible for keeping your website up and accessible. Most hosting providers have 99% server uptime, but some provide you up to a 99.99% uptime guarantee.

Customer support 

Make sure that you don’t have to wait for hours to get your issue resolved. 

Look at how they are supporting their existing customers. Are there multiple ways like phone, chat, email, etc., to get support? 

Hosting Plans

While buying a web hosting service, don’t look for a short-term plan. You may want to stick with the plan that fulfills your current requirement, but what if you needed some advanced upgrades sometime later. 

Make sure your plan gives you room to grow. Take some time to find out if your hosting provider has plans that can match your needs if you grow bigger. 

The pricing 

Pricing is an important factor in deciding the right web hosting for your website. Make sure the cost of the plan worths the features you receive. Some hosting providers provide greater bandwidth and more features at the same price the other is offering. 

Website Backups

Look for an automatic regular backup feature while looking for a web hosting provider. Backing up the website and database is important in case something unexpected happens. 

Add-on domains

Having add-on domain features is a great way to manage multiple websites. It is good to make sure your web hosting company lets you add multiple domains.

Bandwidth

Most of the hosting providers offer unlimited bandwidth. However, if the bandwidth is limited by your provider, You will have to pay an extra charge.

You may also want to read: Free WordPress Blog Themes

Best 10 WordPress Hosting providers

Now you know what web hosting is and what it takes to be a good web host, let’s learn about the ten best web hosting for WordPress. With so many to choose, we have come up with some of the best ones in the industry that have been recommended by experts, businesses and rated high by customers. Let’s dive in.

BlueHost

bluehost

Quick overview

You can take Bluehost as the most popular web host for WordPress. Being officially recommended by WordPress, they are great for all kinds of websites. Bluehost is mostly loved by small business owners and bloggers using WordPress website. There is no reason they shouldn’t as Bluehost has an excellent introductory price and one-click demo import.

Uptime: 99.98%
Support: 24/7 live chat, knowledgebase, phone

Pricing: Starting from $2.46 per month.

Features of Bluehost

  • Bluehost is easy to use with customized cPanel
  • Great add-ons available
  • you get site builder for free
  • server uptime is superb 
  • domain-specific email for free
  • fast page loading 
  • Cloudflare integration for speedy loading 
  • Provides free SSL certificate 
  • The security level is trustworthy

What’s good about Bluehost

  • Recommended officially by WordPress and trusted by millions
  • wide range of plans and options for a different type of users
  • Easy upgrade
  • offers anti-spam built-in solution 
  • you get Cloudflare support
  • provides security features like SSL and sitelock protection
  • 30-day money-back guaranteed 
  • the server uptime is great

What’s bad about Bluehost

  • The shared hosting plan is not available on a monthly basis.
  • They make you pay for moving from a different hosting service to Bluehost, and you get this for free with most other providers.
  • No windows server is available. 
  • Their backup service can’t be appreciated

SiteGround 

SiteGround WordPress Hosting

Quick overview

This Bulgarian startup by University students in 2004 is now a million-dollar company with currently more than 500 employees. The top-notch support and high value they provide has managed to rank them the top hosting service provider today. All you get from Siteground as a host is their impressive features and excellent performance. Once you start using their server you will find no reasons to turn back. 

Uptime: 99.99%

Support: 24/7 Live Chat, Phone Support, and Tickets

Pricing: Starting from $6.99 per month.

Features of SiteGround

  • They provide you with unlimited bandwidth 
  • One-click WordPress installation 
  • WordPress expert tech support
  • Supports PHP7
  • Let’s Encrypt and SSL support with free SSL certificate
  • SG Optimizer is the lead player 
  • The response time is exceptional 

What’s good about SiteGround

  • SiteGround has excellent uptime 
  • Because of the SG optimizer software and their hardware type, you can expect the speed that is par excellence.
  • The customer support is beyond comparison.  
  • Multiple server locations to choose from. 
  • They provide amazingly advanced features like stagging and own caching
  • No limit to the traffic. 

What’s bad about SiteGround

  • I believe the price you pay for the SiteGround level of hosting is totally worth but for many, it is certainly not the cheapest in the market. 
  • You need to pay an extra price if you want the SiteGround support team handle your site migration
  • For a huge site, the database size can be an issue. 
  • No windows based servers

Hostgator

Hostgator Hosting

Quick overview

Hostgator is one of the biggest and oldest players in the web hosting industry with excellent customer support. They are more liked for their affordable web hosting packages, which come under three different plans, Hatchling, Baby, and Business. With each hosting plan, you get a built-in Gator, you build your site using drag and drop page builder. Hostgator has built-in tools to help you install WordPress, blog, and gallery. 

Uptime: 99%

Support: 24/7 Live Chat, Phone Support, and Tickets

Pricing: Starting from $2.75 per month.

Features of Hostgator

  • Hostgator gives you an unmetered bandwidth
  • 99.9% uptime guarantees
  • You get free migration of your websites
  • They have Google AdWords and Bing Ads credits for their users
  • cPanel control panel, which is extremely user friendly for the beginners
  • PHP version 7 and SHS access
  • Hostgator gives you unlimited email accounts
  • Unlimited Sub Domains, FTP Accounts, and Email Accounts

What’s good about Hostgator

  • One good thing about Hostgator is they help you transfer your site for free
  • They have a 45-day money-back guarantee, which gives you more time to test their server. 
  • The offer you credits for Google Adwords is cool for getting started with Search engine ads. 

What’s bad about Hostgator

  • The pricing is fair only if you opt for long term plans. 
  • Support is on average

Cloudways

Cloudways hosting service

Quick overview

Cloudways is a perfect balance between affordable pricing and great functionality. Founded in 2011, this dynamic company is based in Malta. 

The cloud way is an intermediate gateway between cloud hosting and users. The hosting is more targeted to experienced users to help them choose one of the cloud hosting providers. With them, you get access to more data centers, which would otherwise not be easy, and they integrate them with their customized features. Cloudways is partnered with most cloud hosting providers and provides a reliable performance when you host on their cloud server. 

Uptime: 99%

Support: 24/7 Live Chat, Phone Support, and email.

Pricing: Starting from $10 per month.

Features of Cloudways

  • Cloudways will take care of your website migration
  • You get a faster loading site with Cloudways CDN 
  • Auto healing feature to protect your site from crashing 
  • Dedicated firewall to keep your site more secure
  • Built-in Lets Encrypt SSL to allow more secure communication
  • They provide one-click installation for apps
  • Single click site installation with the easy setup process
  • Dedication 24/7 support

What’s good about Cloudways

  • 3-DAY free trial without adding a credit card
  • You can add any number of WordPress sites as no installation limit is imposed
  • The Console is userfriendly and easy to use with plenty of tools and features 
  • Your site is stored in multiple servers in multiple locations loads abruptly.
  • Can be easily migrated in the case of any unexpected incident
  • Improved performance by using SSD
  • Highly scalable hosting 
  • This is a pay as you go model of hosting, so full payment control with yourself

What’s bad about Cloudways

  • You cannot use cPanel as they have their Console
  • The hosting can be complicated for beginners since it requires some level of expertise. 

WP Engine

WP engine hostng

Quick overview

WP engine is the best know WordPress managed hosting provider. Spread across 140 countries 12,0000 customers using its server. WP Engine’s hosting environment is highly optimized for WordPress Websites. They are a great option for users looking for affordable yet featured-packed performing hosting.

Uptime: 99%

Support: 24/7 Live Chat, Phone Support, and email.

Pricing: Starting from $25 per month.

Features of WP Engine

  • Cloudways will take care of your website migration
  • You get a faster loading site with Cloudways CDN 
  • Auto healing feature to protect your site from crashing 
  • Dedicated firewall to keep your site more secure
  • Built-in Lets Encrypt SSL to allow more secure communication
  • They provide one-click installation for apps
  • Single click site installation with the easy setup process
  • Dedication 24/7 support

What’s good about WP Engine

  • Excellent server uptime.
  • Customer service satisfaction.
  • Frequent backups.
  • .Optimized for WordPress
  • Robust and consistent performance

What’s bad about WP Engine

  • The plan may not fit most of the startups and small businesses.
  • They only have managed hosting on shared servers

GoDaddy

Godaddy hosting

Quick overview

GoDaddy is one of the most famous all in one hosting solution for websites. More than 20 million customers trust GoDaddy, and they have already managed more than 80 million domains.

They have a WordPress, optimized, shared hosting service to give you a higher WordPress performance. There is nothing that big to expect from GoDaddy, but it is the right choice for small businesses and starters. Their pricing plan is not the best in the industry. 

Uptime: 99.95%

Support: 24/7 Live Chat, Phone Support, and email.

Pricing: Starting from $5.99 per month.

Features of GoDaddy

  • Cloudways will take care of your website migration
  • You get a faster loading site with Cloudways CDN 
  • Auto healing feature to protect your site from crashing 
  • Dedicated firewall to keep your site more secure
  • Built-in Lets Encrypt SSL to allow more secure communication
  • They provide one-click installation for apps
  • Single click site installation with the easy setup process
  • Dedication 24/7 support

What’s good about GoDaddy

  • The interface is straightforward, pretty simple, and easy to use, especially for beginners.
  • The speed of their server is pretty reliable
  • They have windows based hosting option
  • The storage limitation is generous
  • The bandwidth you get is unlimited. 

What’s bad about GoDaddy

  • The deals are not the cheapest 
  • Uptime is not very good at all 
  • No SSL and no backup unless you pay for extra add ons 
  • No free migration offered 
  • No advanced features for developers 

DreamHost

DreamHost Hosting

Quick overview

DreamHost is more prevalent among developers, designers, and marketing professionals. Founded in 1996, DreamHost is one of the oldest hosting providers that now powers more than 1.5 million websites. 

WordPress officially recommends DreamHost’s impressive performance. 

Uptime: 99.99%

Support: 24/7 Live Chat, Phone Support, and email.

Pricing: Starting from $2.59 per month.

Features of DreamHost

  • Unlimited bandwidth and storage
  • Easy use advanced Panel 
  • one-click powerful installer
  • Free domain, free email, and free privacy protection
  • Free SSL and automated backups
  • Easy and instant WordPress setups 
  • Unlimited disk space and network transfer limit

What’s good about DreamHost

  • The speed is above the average
  • Dream host give you 97 days money-back guarantee
  • The pricing plan is very affordable
  • They are proud green hosts trying to be more environment-conscious
  • They don’t push you forcefully for add ons and upgrades.

What’s bad about DreamHost 

  • The chat support is not very impressive. They don’t have 24/7 chat support and is limited to ticket
  • Doesn’t give your cPanel but provide their custom panel
  • website migration is offered in the paid version
  • All the servers are located in the US only. 

A2 Hosting

A2 hosting

Quick overview

A2 Hosting is an excellent blend of performance and pricing. The price you pay for their service is totally worth it. They have a strong focus on performance with powerful turbo servers. They are one of the oldest hosting provider running since 2001, with long years in the industry service, they proudly promise 20x faster servers. Not only their pricing seems exciting, but also their features and performance are excellent. 

Uptime: 99.95%

Support: 24/7 24/7 via phone, chat, or email (ticket system

Pricing: Starting from $2.99 per month.

Features of A2 Hosting

  • They give you unlimited bandwidth to let you transfer as much data from elsewhere.
  • They assist you in moving the site from another server to their server for free of cost. 
  • Turbo server offering 20X times faster speed
  • WordPress installation in one click 
  • 99.99% uptime guarantee
  • They offer free Cloudflare CDN. 

What’s good about A2 Hosting 

  • They provide great speed regardless of the plan you go for
  • They have data centers in different parts of the world, including the USA, Europ, and Asia, making it easy to provide the content faster.
  • Even for the shared hosting plan, they provide 99.99% server uptime. 
  • A2 hosting is highly scalable, giving you enough room to grow. 
  • They are packed with lots of features to give your necessary options for setting up an eCommerce store. 

What’s bad about A2 hosting 

  • They charge you for upgrading and downgrading 
  • The turbo server providing 20X speed is available in the expensive hosting plan. 

Inmotion Hosting

Inmotion hosting

Quick overview

Inmotion hosting is more known for its VPS hosting plans for WordPress. This is one of the cheapest hosting plans that come with excellent features. With each plan, you get a free site migration service, and also they have SSD storage for free. Inmotion hosting takes care of all the software and plugins with full automation.

Uptime: 99.99%

Support: 24/7 24/7 via phone, chat, or email (ticket system

Pricing: Starting from $6.99 per month.

Features of Inmotion Hosting 

  • Inmotion hosting provides unlimited and free domain
  • You get unlimited disk space
  • Unlimited bandwidth with all the plans 
  • Marketing tools with all plans 
  • Free SSL on all plan and free security pack with the advanced plans

What’s good about Inmotion Hosting  

  • Great server time that is above average
  • Excellent Customer Support 
  • 90 days money-back guarantee 
  • They highly support open source projects
  • You get a premium Sucuri plugin if you are a WordPress user
  • Site transfer for free
  • They provide eCommerce support

What’s bad about Inmotion Hosting 

  • The low pricing is only for 24 months. Then after you pay an increased price
  • The server speed is not remarkable compared to the competitors.

Hostinger

hostinger web hosting

Quick overview

Hostinger is one of the most affordable web hosting available with the lowest plan starting at less than a dollar. They provide you hosting at

 $0.99/month if you choose to get locked for a 4-year plan and this is something crazy deal. But don’t worry, they won’t let you feel like they are a cheap hosting provider. They have amazingly performing servers together with an excellent customer support team and extremely easy to use interface

Uptime: 99.9%

Support: 24/7 24/7 via, chat, or email (ticket system

Pricing: Starting from $0.99 per month.

Features of Hostinger

  • You get an unlimited number of website hosting 
  • Unlimited disk space and bandwidth with each plan 
  • Unlimited database and disk space
  • Easy to use user-friendly website builders 
  • Highly optimized speed for wordpress 
  • Free domain name under the yearly plan

What’s good about Hostinger

  • Hostinger is known for excellent customer service
  • Uptime is practically great 
  • Minecraft servers with 3X speed optimization
  • 30 Days risk-free money-back guarantee
  • You get multilingual customer support
  • Easy to use a free builder

What’s bad about Hostinger 

  • Lack of dedicated hosting 
  • Windows hosting option is limited to a certain plan
  • You don’t get phone support

Green Geeks

green geek wordpress hosting

Quick overview

GreenGeeks are hosting provides based on renewable energy. Don’t only consider them as eco friendly, they are equally great with their service. The features are great, the service is top-notch and the pricing is affordable making them a perfect hosting provider. For WordPress users, they have one-click WordPress install features that make installing Wordress extremely easy for the beginners and non-technical users. 

Uptime: 99.9%

Support: 24/7 24/7 via, chat, or email (ticket system)

Pricing: Starting from $2.95 per month.

Features of GreenGeeks

  • 100% carbon neutral green hosting 
  • Unlimited web space based on SSD storage
  • Free domain registration with a free site builder
  • They give you Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for free
  • Free CDN integration and free regular backups. 

What’s good about GreenGeeks 

  • 100% carbon-free green web hosting
  • Highly scalable hosting service
  • Great server time with 99.99%
  • They let you migrate your site for free
  • Your data is backed-up nightly

What’s bad about GreenGeeks 

  • If you are looking for windows hosting options, you are disappointed
  • dedicated and VPS hosting is more expensive compared to other hosting providers

Wrapping Up

This brings us to the conclusion of our top 11 WordPress web hosting to choose from. All the above hosting providers are worth their service in one or the other way and they are targeted to different customer segments. Siteground may be a good fit for if you want an overall value but Hostinger or BlueHost can be the better option for someone looking to start with the cheapest plan. The choice of Hosting service and plan depends highly on what your needs are.

Which hosting provider are you using for your WordPress website? Share your thoughts in the comment.

]]>
https://sparklewpthemes.com/11-best-wordpress-hosting-providers/feed/ 0