Qode Magazine https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine Learn to Build Beautiful Websites Wed, 11 Sep 2024 09:38:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cropped-fav-icon-1-32x32.png Qode Magazine https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine 32 32 6 Best Product Variation Plugins for WooCommerce https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-product-variation-plugins-for-woocommerce/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-product-variation-plugins-for-woocommerce/#respond Wed, 11 Sep 2024 08:00:38 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=33179

In today’s highly competitive world of online shopping, merchants are often pushed to do everything in their power to attract the customer to buy from their store. Since many shops offer similar products, what is it that will inspire the customer to choose you over so many others? Sooner or later, as a businessman, you come to realize that attractive pricing is only one element that influences the customer’s decision to buy from you. Another factor that is just as important is user experience. There are many different things you can do to level up your online store user experience and maximize your conversion rates, like create WooCommerce product bundles, display popular products in WooCommerce, but you also need to do something to provide your customers the best possible perception of your products. Although you can’t offer the convenience of touching or trying on the goods, you can offer a pretty convincing alternative and that’s where WooCommerce product variation plugins kick in.

These types of plugins come with plenty of useful features that enable you to display products with many different variations like size, color, price so that the customer can have a precise image of how each variation looks.Тhe biggest advantage of product variation plugins is that they simplify the process of adding variable products to your online store – if you have a t-shirt that comes in ten colors and five sizes, instead of adding a separate product for each color/size combination, you can add one product and a menu with different attributes. Your visitors will be able to select and buy the goods based on sizes, prices, and other attributes that match their specifications. Plus, they will appreciate the wide selection of products you have to offer. Bear in mind that all the images you use in your WooCommerce store have to be of high quality if you want to achieve the desired effect.

A good choice of product variation plugin for WooCommerce will help you enrich the user experience and boost your sales at the same time. The list we compiled includes versatile product variation plugins for WooCommerce that will surely help you offer the best shopping experience to your customers:

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QODE Variation Swatches for WooCommerce by Qode Interactive

QODE Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

QODE Variation Swatches for WooCommerce is a simple yet option-rich plugin developed to help you enhance the user experience for all your shoppers. The plugin provides you with a clear-cut way to display detailed product variations alongside your products in lists and on single product pages.

In addition to this, QODE Variation Swatches is fully optimized for mobile devices too.

This flexible tool presents you with a number of easily adjustable product attributes, optional variation tooltips & descriptions, product availability info, and lots more.

You have the option to feature color, image, label, radio button and tab switch attribute swatches, and show them in dropdowns or using labels. Each product variation gets displayed on the fly once it is clicked on.

On top of that, you have an entire assortment of customization options. Color and Image attributes come in five carefully designed, predefined layouts each, while Label attributes come in two variants. You can also easily configure the width, height, and idle/active border colors for each of the attributes.

Each of the attributes can be shown in a classic layout, laid out next to and below each other, or you can feature them in practical sliders.

Moreover, the plugin lets you feature additional information tabs alongside swatch titles and short descriptions. Here you can provide your customers with even more detailed product info.

Another remarkable feature that the plugin boasts is the optional AJAX- powered instant product variation data loading which can easily be enabled.

One more standout feature is the option to display out-of-stock item variants as either crossed out or blurred, or you can opt to omit them altogether.

Last but not least, with the QODE Variation Swatches for WooCommerce, you can activate automatic back-in-stock notifications for your shoppers, keeping them informed when their desired products are available again.

The QODE Variation Swatches for WooCommerce plugin is available in both free and premium versions, with the premium version which offers lots more in terms of options & customizability currently priced at $69.

WooCommerce Additional Variation Images

WooCommerce Additional Variation Images

If you want to provide your visitors with a more complete insight of your products and their variations, check out the official extension called WooCommerce Additional Variation Images. Its main job is to allow merchants to display additional product images for their variations, so instead of just showing, for example, different color swatches, it actually displays the products in different colors. You can add multiple variation images, from different angles, zoomed-in, and so on. This is a proven way of boosting customer interest and can be a great way to increase sales. Additionally, when you provide as much information and imagery to the customers, you’re also reducing the chance of returns and complaints.

The plugin is very simple to use – once installed, an option to add different variation images will appear in the Variable Product section of the dashboard. Simply upload the images to appropriate product variations, and that’s it.

This plugin is quite cheap, too – it currently costs $4.92 for a single site license.

WooSwatches – WooCommerce Color or Image Variation Swatches by WooMatrix

WooSwatches – WooCommerce Color or Image Variation Swatches by WooMatrix

The WooSwatches plugin is particularly useful in cases when you have an unusually large number of product variations to offer. What distinguishes it is that it comes with an inbuilt product filter on an image and color basis. This practically means that in case there are more swatches than those displayed on the page the plugin will offer a “more’ link. Also, if the number of swatches is higher than the set value, WooSwatches features a slider to display more shop swatches.

This responsive plugin supports dropdown select fields, color, image, and text variation swatches. It allows you to display the selected color or image swatches on the shop, category, or archive pages. It also supports a wide variety of sizes for both square and round swatches.

This plugin is not free and comes at a unique price of $19.

WooCommerce Better Variations

WooCommerce Better Variations

WooCommerce Better Variations plugin is a simple-to-use tool that includes many useful and unique options. Apart from allowing you to add different color variations, display price information, and similar handy options, this is one of the rare plugins that enables you to handle out-of-stock variations too. It lets you grey out and make out-of-stock products unselectable and also alter the style of the variations in a way to make the out-of-stock products show at the bottom of the list. This way all variations are visible to the user, but he is clearly informed about the variation availability at the moment.

By choosing the Grid display mode you can display all the product variations in a grid or in a single table and your customers can easily enter the desired quantities for selected products without having to select each variation individually.

The plugin comes in a two-tiered pricing plan – basic and pro with prices ranging from $49 to $89.

WooCommerce Variation Master

WooCommerce Variation Master

WooCommerce Variation Master is a powerful tool that is easy to configure. One of the most distinguished features is probably the cart page popup window. It shows up after the customer clicks the ‘Update’ button that is displayed each time a new item is added to the cart. It is also possible to select different product variations inside the cart. Practically, it means that in case the customer wishes to change the order at the last minute, he does not have to remove the product from the cart and add a new one – he can simply select a different product variation on the cart page.

Many more useful features are included – you can add a border on swatches and show attribute text above them, display swatches on Shop, Archive, and Category pages, add a custom image gallery for each variation, create gallery images slider, etc. The plugin is responsive so whatever features you choose to use, they will be accessible regardless of the device.

As for the price, you can opt between a regular license for $35 and an extended license for $1999.

Color and Image Swatches for Variable Product Attributes by Phoeniixx

Color and Image Swatches for Variable Product Attributes by Phoeniixx

If you want to add image swatches, rounded and squared swatch style to your online store, the Color and Image Swatches for Variable Product Attributes plugin may be a good solution. This free, user-friendly, and comprehensive tool allows you to create unlimited color swatches.

For more advanced options like creating swatches using bicolors, images, radio buttons, and icons or if you want the option to zoom the swatch image on hover, you’ll have to invest in the premium version.

The premium version unlocks a grid library with 300 icons, offers more options for styling the swatch styles, and has many more useful features. You also have the option to create color and image swatches on a per-product basis.

Depending on the number of sites you are going to use the plugin on, you can choose between three pricing plans ranging from $39 for a single site to $129 for up to 25 websites.

In Conclusion

Running a WooCommerce shop requires an agile approach and constant attunement to your customers’ needs. Variation plugins are made to help you describe and display your products in a more detailed and attractive manner. All the plugins in this list can help you level up user experience and boost your conversion rates. If you are running an online store where there is an exceptionally large amount of product variations, then WooSwatches is probably the most recommendable choice. WooCommerce Better Variations plugin is great if sharing the stock status information about products is important to you. WooCommerce Variation Master is often the choice for larger businesses, and the first plugin on our list is ideal boosting engagement by providing quality images of the variations. Investing in a superb user experience always pays off in more than one way and we are sure each of the plugins in this list can prove that to you.

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How to Prevent Your Emails Ending Up In Spam https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/how-to-prevent-emails-from-going-to-spam/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/how-to-prevent-emails-from-going-to-spam/#respond Wed, 22 May 2024 13:00:08 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=22544

Email is an inexpensive yet highly effective channel of communication. It’s been here for a while now – it’s turning 50 in October 2021 – and its popularity doesn’t seem to be waning. Some statistics project the number of emails sent out per day in 2021 will near 320 billion. That’s over forty emails per every person alive today – a staggering number.

What’s even more mind-boggling is that a large chunk of those emails never reach the people they were aimed at. For good reason, too – there are plenty of emails that are unsolicited, harmful, or deceitful, and the place they often end up in the spam folder.

The problem with the spam folder is that the emails you send as part of your email marketing campaign can easily end up in it. This is why it’s important to understand not only how to prevent emails from going to spam, but also how it can get there in the first place.

It seems we have our work cut out for us! We’ll cover:

Why Do Emails End Up in the Spam Folder?

Why Do Emails End Up in the Spam Folder

The most obvious answer to this question is because a spam filter caught the emails and placed them into the spam folder. Often enough, it will do it because the emails are indeed spam – they are unwanted junk emails sent out in email blasts to whoever might get them.

But what if your emails don’t fit that bill? What if they’re sent with all the intention and purpose of a highly-targeted email campaign, and they end up flagged as spam anyway? Some of the things that might have gone wrong include:

  • You might have unwittingly included spam trigger-words in the subject of your emails.
  • You’ve added one attachment too many.
  • You don’t have email authentication set up.
  • People have marked your emails as spam enough times to teach spam filters that you’re spam.

The good news is that you’ll be able to address most of the issues, if you want, either on your own or through cooperation with the email recipient. There are plenty of things you could be doing, so let’s start tackling them one by one.

Pick Your Email Service Provider Wisely

Pick Your Email Service Provider Wisely

It’s common knowledge that WordPress’ email sending capabilities aren’t always up to the assignment you give them. And while you are more than welcome to dive into the reasons behind WordPress’ bad track record of mail deliverability, you would do much better to try and fix it.

Among the methods you have at your disposal is configuring SMTP for your WordPress website, which means updating it to use the latest protocol. One way to do it is by using SMTP service providers, some of which can also serve as email service providers.

Choosing a good email service provider is important because the reputable ones will do their share to help your emails reach the recipients and not the spam folders. So besides working hard to keep their record squeaky clean, they should also be able to help you set up email authentication – a very important step for helping your emails appear less spammy to spam filters. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are authentication methods your email service provider should help you use.

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Get the Names Right

Get the Names Right

Two names appear in your email address – the domain name and the sender’s name. There’s no reason to try and change the domain name or otherwise mask it – you want the recipient to recognize that they’re getting the email from your website, after all.

As for the sender’s name, WordPress’ default is set to “wordpress,” which isn’t that impressive and might turn off some of the recipients. It doesn’t just look generic, it is generic. Luckily, there are more than a couple of ways to change the sender name in WordPress, and any one you use could work wonders.

Just keep in mind that, even if it doesn’t say “wordpress,” the sender name can still make your emails look spammy. Avoid names that include lots of words, gibberish, or long sequences of numbers.

Using Double Opt-In

Using Double Opt-In

Using double opt-in verification significantly reduces the likelihood of emails being flagged as spam for several reasons. First of all, a double opt-in confirms the validity of the subscriber’s email address, ensuring that messages are sent to active and engaged users. This practice also minimizes the chance of fake or mistyped email addresses entering the mailing list, which can trigger spam filters. Finally, double opt-in demonstrates a clear consent from the recipient, enhancing sender credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of email service providers.

The second step of the opt-in can be a welcome or confirmation email, with a link that the users need to click on to complete the subscription, or a checkbox. If you’re using one of the emailing and newsletter services like Mailchimp or Constant Contant, you will find double opt-in among the features.

Build Your List

Build Your List

If you’re working with WordPress, you’ll have plenty of awesome contact form plugins to help you build your mailing list. Sure, just putting a contact form on your website might not build you a mailing list overnight, but it’s a start. You’ll still need a way to get people to the page that has the form, and you’ll still need to give them an offer that will make them give you their emails.

Still, it’s worth the effort because doing it any other way just means trouble. You should never try to buy email lists and expect to see delivery and open rates as you would with organically grown mailing lists. You shouldn’t even expect to avoid being blacklisted for long if you go down the path of buying email lists. Just don’t do it.

Respect Your Subscribers and Handle Them with Care

Respect Your Subscribers and Handle Them with Care

When you’re collecting people’s email addresses, you should notify them that they will receive emails from you in the future. It might seem like it’s common sense that you’ll take an email address so that you can send emails to it, but you should do your best to let the people know what they’re signing up for.

When you send them the first email, it’s always a good idea to ask the recipient to whitelist your email address. They can do so by adding your address to their contacts list. It only takes a second to do it, and it can save you a world of trouble later on.

Finally, you should give your email recipients a way out – the unsubscribe link or button. You want it to be visible and marked, as it’s not something that should stay hidden. If you’re choosing between having your emails marked as spam and losing a subscriber, it’s always better to lose a subscriber. When enough people mark your emails as spam, you’ll have a much harder time getting through the spam filter.

Be Mindful of the Contents

Be Mindful of the Contents

The contents of the email matter, but so does the subject line. It shouldn’t look spammy. Exclamation points, dollar signs, offers that are just so obvious and aggressive might be something to avoid. Keep it real, informative, and don’t waste people’s time.

As for the contents of the email, you should be mindful that images tend to get blocked when emails are loaded by the recipient, so try not to use too many of them. Make sure that the subject and the contents match. The contents should be written plainly, using proper grammar, and with no spelling errors.

Dynamic scripts, images that are too big, adding too many links, and a bunch of attachments won’t have the desired effects on the spam filters. On the other hand, adding your physical address – if your business has it – to the email might make you appear more trustworthy.

Keep Good Hygiene with Regular Checkups

Keep Good Hygiene with Regular Checkups

Every single component of an email marketing campaign can and should be subject to regular checkups. Everything from your IP to the email addresses on your list and the copy you use should be reviewed and tested regularly to ensure a timely reaction in case something is wrong.

Some of the things you should be checking include:

  • Abandoned addresses
  • Inactive users on your mailing lists
  • The “spam factor” of your messages
  • DNS blacklisting
  • Your sender reputation

Of course, keeping an eye on the KPIs such as open and bounce rate is equally important for gauging the success of your campaign. Remember that, if something goes wrong, you want to know about it sooner than later and address the issue promptly.

Complying with Relevant Internet Privacy Regulations

Complying with Relevant Internet Privacy Regulations

This one is not something that necessarily guarantees the delivery of the emails in the right inbox, but it can significantly affect it, as it helps bypass some IPS blocks. In the past few decades, a whole array of internet privacy laws and regulations has emerged to protect internet users and their sensitive data. One of the most important such regulations is GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which covers the European Union and all businesses and entities having customers or visitors in the EU. Make sure to check out our guide on GDPR for WordPress, as well as the list of the best GDPR plugins.

Also important is the CCPA, which we covered in our piece on CCPA and WordPress compliance, as well as the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), and CAN-SPAM Act.

Bear in mind that compliance to these an similar regulations relative to your operations is mandatory even outside the concerns for emails ending up in spam. It’s always easier to simply adhere to them than to face legal repercussions of ignoring them.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

It’s really hard to imagine the internet without email. The technology’s older than most internet users, and it managed not to lose a smidgen of its usefulness or allure over time.

However, it’s also hard to imagine email without imagining spam emails. It’s unavoidable, but you should still do your best to prevent adding to the problem. Go through all the steps of making your emails less likely to end up in spam folders, and you’ll be doing yourself, the recipient, and the internet as a whole a huge favor.

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7 Tips for Preventing WordPress Website Downtime https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/wordpress-website-downtime/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/wordpress-website-downtime/#respond Fri, 17 May 2024 06:00:26 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=21218

Downtime is an integral part of having a website. Your business website, online store, or even a WordPress blog, will not be up and running one hundred percent of the time – periods of downtime are bound to happen for one reason or another.

Still, you shouldn’t let that dissuade you from doing whatever you can to prevent your WordPress website downtime. There’s a difference between a website that’s down a couple of hours a year and one that’s only up a couple of hours a year.

Before we share our tips, let’s go through some common causes of website downtime and explain why downtime matters.

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What Causes Website Downtime?

What Causes Website Downtime

The fact that your website is down doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something wrong with it. Server maintenance is a perfectly normal occurrence that can cause website downtime. Website maintenance is another cause of website downtime, and you can perform it even when nothing is wrong with the website.

Still, even these benign reasons for downtime can become an issue if they happen too often. A server that goes down for maintenance for more than a couple of hours a year isn’t good. A website that requires lots of maintenance might benefit from a serious looking into and troubleshooting.

Then, there are bad things that can happen to your website and cause it to be unreachable. It can undergo a DDoS attack. It can experience a crippling plugin incompatibility issue. You can put a piece of code on your website that just – breaks it.

Sometimes, the things you do to prevent some causes of website downtime might become causes of downtime, too. You can use a CDN to prevent DDoS attacks or lighten the server load. Then again, using a CDN can sometimes lead to a 504 gateway timeout error. Plugins are incredibly useful for optimizing your website, but they’re among the more common causes of the 503 service temporarily unavailable error. It takes skill, patience, and sometimes trial-and-error to run a website well. Downtimes can happen, and you can cause them.

Why Does Website Downtime Matter?

Why Does Website Downtime Matter

The simple and most obvious reason why website downtime matters is because a website that’s down can’t perform the function you gave it when you built it. A business website that’s down does nothing for your business. An online store can’t sell when it’s not online. People can’t read your blog if they can’t reach it.

But even if you’re confident that your website visitors will come back later after they found that your website is down – which you most likely shouldn’t be – you still want your website to be up and running as much as possible.

A website that doesn’t work well also doesn’t speak well of the person or entity that’s running it. If you can’t be bothered to ensure the proper running of your website, you will look unprofessional, uncommitted, and you’ll start losing your visitors’ goodwill to stick with you through any issues your website might be experiencing.

Now that you know that some website downtime is fine, but lots of website downtime is awfully bad, let’s see what you can do to minimize it. Some of the steps might be obvious but even they bear repeating because there’s nothing as easy – or as embarrassing – as overlooking something very obvious. Here’s what to do:

Use a Good Hosting Provider and an Appropriate Service Packagee

Use a Good Hosting Provider and an Appropriate Service Packagee

Every hosting provider worth their salt will offer some kind of a server uptime guarantee. Usually, it’s 99.9% – the golden standard which means that, in a year, they guarantee the downtime won’t surpass the eight-and-a-half-hours threshold.

One of the ways to spot a sketchy hosting provider is by looking at what they promise – if they don’t offer any guarantees, or if they guarantee absolutes. The chances of not having a single minute of downtime during a year are slim, so no provider should be able to offer a 100% server uptime guarantee.

A hosting provider shouldn’t be able to offer incredibly good packages at ridiculously low prices. That’s another red flag and one that you should take very seriously because your service package can affect downtime.

If your website doesn’t have the resources it needs to run properly with the load it usually operates under, it will go down. You should pick a hosting provider that will let you switch to better, more expensive packages as easily as possible. When more visitors start coming in, it would be best to have the option to upgrade – the alternative is migrating to another hosting provider, and that can be a hassle.

Monitor Your Website’s Uptime

Monitor Your Website’s Uptime

Here’s one of those obvious pieces of advice we mentioned before: you need to know that your website is down to stop it from going down in the future. You have to know the problem exists to try and solve it, right? With a website, this means monitoring its uptime.

There are several monitoring options you can choose from. Some options, such as the popular UptimeRobot, are freemium. Other options, such as Pingdom, are fee-only. While pricing is an important thing to consider, as these services with small fees tend to pile up after a time and present a sizeable expense, it’s much more important that you get the type of service you need.

For example, a free service might check your website a couple of times a day and send you an email if something is wrong, or a report stating your website’s status for the day. If that’s fine with you, great. But if that doesn’t suffice, and you need things like push notifications or SMS alerts and a more frequent check, then you should make sure you get those services even if it means spending a couple of bucks more on your website every month.

Be Careful with Plugins and Themes

Be Careful with Plugins and Themes

Plugins and themes are a huge part of what makes using WordPress great. They can transform your website from a bland, featureless collection of pages on the web to a powerful tool for growing a business, making money, or finding new ways of self-expression.

That being said, plugins and themes are a common culprit for website downtime. Why? Because they have code, and some code doesn’t play well with other code. Incompatibility issues happen all the time. You should catch them before they do some real damage.

There are a couple of things you can do to avoid issues with plugins and themes. The easiest one would be to go through the plugin’s or theme’s documentation, reviews, or support tickets – if you can access them – and see if there are known issues.

You can also create a staging site – a copy of your website that’s not available to the public – and test any plugin or theme or even a setting before you implement it on your live website. Finally, choosing premium plugins and themes will sometimes give you access to support personnel, so you can have help when troubleshooting issues.

Keep Your Website Fully Optimized…

Keep Your Website Fully Optimized

Your website might be up and running, but people still might have trouble accessing it. Slow loading times can cause people to think the website isn’t up. Bad internal links might cause some people to think that parts of the website don’t work. Badly optimized websites might contribute to some client-side errors that can cause people to not be able to access the website.

In general, if you’re running a WordPress website or any other kind of website, speed should be a major concern. You want your website to load as quickly and easily as possible because visitors might not be too keen on waiting for a slow website to load.

There are other reasons to optimize the website, too. But the bottom line is that this part of the work contributes to your website’s proper functioning and it will, either directly or indirectly, contribute to reducing downtime – actual as well as perceived.

…And Safe

And Safe

Finally, you should do your best to keep your website safe, not only for your benefit but also for the benefit of all the people who use it. If you store sensitive data or process payments on your website, any neglect in the safety department might lead to real, palpable, damage to the people who’ve put their trust in you to keep their information safe.

It shouldn’t be pointed out that having a malware-free website is a good thing, and that using security plugins is a very good allocation of your resources. If you find your website is often under DDoS attacks, using services that offer DDoS protection – as some CDNs do – can help your website stay online despite the attacks.

You should also follow some safety and security best practices. You can, for example, limit login attempts as a measure against brute force attacks. You can also backup your website regularly – if something does happen, you’ll have a much easier time restoring your website to normal if there’s a backup you can use. Putting up a firewall can prevent suspicious traffic. There’s plenty you could do, and you should do whatever you can to keep your website safe.

Perform Regular Maintenance

Perform Regular Maintenance

Regular monitoring is a must, but these things can easily slip through the cracks especially in peak times when there’s a lot of other work to be done. That’s why it’s handy to come up with some sort of maintenance routine to be performed regularly, perhaps with a calendar alert to remind you. A lot of tasks can be scheduled and even automated, but you definitely want to be on top of things and creating a maintenance routine schedule can be very helpful.

The schedule can be weekly, monthly, or even daily. That’s really up to you and your website’s needs. Complex websites that get a lot of traffic and are prone to sudden spikes, such as eCommerce websites, probably need to perform maintenance checks more frequently. Smaller websites, like personal blogs, as well as portfolios, can even do it quarterly.

The maintenance routine should contain the following steps:

  • First of all, as usual – performing full site backup.
  • Checking site health and speed.
  • Updating WordPress, themes and plugins.
  • Conducting site audit.
  • Keeping detailed maintenance logs.

Distribute the Traffic Load

Distribute the Traffic Load

One of the most common reasons for website downtime is traffic overload. Traffic spikes are common for all sorts of websites, perhaps most notably for news and eCommerce ones, as they are prone to seasonal or circumstantial spikes when the traffic becomes much heavier than usual.

When this happens, the server can’t handle all the requests coming in at the same time, which may result in your website going temporarily down.

The fix for this problem is not something you can do with your website as such, and actually depends on your hosting plan. If you want to make sure your website can handle increased traffic load and to successfully scale up and down as needed, you need a hosting provider that has a global network of servers. With servers located strategically all across the globe, the content of the website is distributed to the users from the server that is nearest to them. Plus, if one data center experiences an issue or becomes overloaded, the content can still be served from another location. Combined with CDN, this guarantees excellent uptime and ensures your website can be accessed at all times, despite the traffic and server circumstances.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

While WordPress website downtime is something you can count on, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do everything you can to ensure your website is online as much as it can be. People usually create websites to put them online, and if yours isn’t an exception to the rule – you’ll have to take steps to prevent and reduce downtime.

Keep in mind, however, that running a website well is a balancing act, and there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Going overboard with safety plugins – installing too many of them – might become a cause of downtime in its own right. So, make sure that you’ve covered all the corners and spread around the downtime-combating measures evenly.

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What to Do If Your Preferred Domain Name Is Taken https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/what-to-do-if-your-preferred-domain-name-is-taken/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/what-to-do-if-your-preferred-domain-name-is-taken/#respond Mon, 13 May 2024 12:00:56 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=20072

There are billions upon billions of possible domain names. The number of existing domain names is in the hundreds of millions. What are the chances to have your preferred domain name taken when you go to the registrar? Math would say slim.

Experience, however, proves otherwise. Coming up with a combination of letters and numbers is one thing. Making sure the combination produces a good domain name is a completely different process. There are simply not that many good ones to choose from.

This is exactly why it’s possible that, when checking domain names, you’ll find that someone has already registered your top picks. These things happen. We’ll show you, however, what your options are if it happens to you.

You’ll read about:

How to Check If a Domain Name Is Available

How to Check If a Domain Name Is Available

When you want to create a website and you’re trying to figure out that perfect name for it, you’d be smart to come up with a couple of ideas in case one of them is already taken. You can figure out the name is taken during the brainstorming or research process if you simply type the domain name into your browser’s address bar and press enter.

Three things can happen. You can visit a website, which means that your domain name is taken. You can be directed to an error page, which likely means your domain name is free for you to grab. Finally, you can be served a sales page asking you to contact whoever owns the domain name and has put it up for sale.

If you worry that visiting an unknown website poses a security risk, you can check website availability at websites such as Whois.com, a tool you might want to remember because we’ll come back to it in a moment or two. Also, some hosting providers that work as registrars might offer you to look up the domain name of your choosing online without going to the website.

In the case of bad news, which can be any news except that your preferred domain name is free to use, you can continue further in two ways. You can either do whatever you can to keep the name, or you can find hacks or alternatives that might work. Let’s explore both options a little bit.

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What to Do If You Want to Keep the Name?

What to Do If You Want to Keep the Name

When you want to use a domain name that is already taken, your first course of action would be to figure out who owns it. Head back over to Whois.com and type in the address. If the contact information of the owner is available – if it’s not made private – you’ll be able to see it and contact the owner directly. If not, maybe the website itself will have some contact information about the seller.

How to Handle the Purchase of a Second-Hand Domain Name

If they’re willing to sell – great, you only have to navigate buying a domain name from a person or company you’ve only ever met online. Usually, this means using services that will help you make the exchange.

A service like Escrow can help. You and the seller agree on the terms and then you put your money in escrow at Escrow. The seller then transfers the domain name to you – something every registrar has a procedure for, you check and approve the domain name, and they get the money.

What to Do if You Can’t Purchase the Website?

Things get more complicated if they’re not willing to sell. In that case, you might try to get your lawyers involved and sue the owner for cybersquatting. Depending on how it’s handled legally in your country, you might be able to win the suit, but only if you prove that they’ve infringed on your trademark, or are generally sitting on the domain name with bad intent.

If you don’t want to get your lawyers involved, or if you simply can’t find out who the owner is, you can try purchasing the domain name with an alternative TLD. So instead of .com – we’ll suppose you went straight for it, as you always should – you can try buying the .org or .net version of the website. Keep in mind, however, that this can lead to some confusion and maybe even brand dilution.

Also keep in mind that people trust .com domains more than any other. A lot of country code TLDs are perceived as spammy (this is particularly the case with .cn and .ru). But then, there are country codes like .me that can be perfect for certain brands. TLDs like .tv are great for businesses from the entertainment, video or gaming industry. Extensions like .net, .tech and .store are also popular, trusted and can make a great fit for a variety of businesses.

In some cases, you might even manage to split your domain name into two and use the second half as the top-level domain. So, for example, you can get examp.le instead of example.com. Again, this might cause some confusion and it might work better if the domain name is made up of two words.

No Luck? Pick an Alternative

What to Do If You Want to Change the Name

For one reason or another, you can also decide to avoid the hustle of figuring out how to get the perfect name and choose an alternative. This can be an exceedingly difficult decision if the domain name you wanted is your brand name, too, but these things happen often, and brands find ways to work around them.

You don’t want to use a name that has absolutely nothing to do with your business, blog, or whatever you tried to register. There still has to be some kind of connection to the original idea.

Expand the Original Domain Name

There are certain words you can add to the original domain name that wouldn’t distract from its meaning – they might even serve to amplify it. The exact thing you can add will vary based on the domain name, the type of business, the industry, and a whole lot of other factors.

But let’s say your domain name of choice was “something.” You can expand the domain name by adding an appropriate verb, such as “dosomething” or “buysomething” or “readsomething” and “makesomething.”

Use Related Words

There are also several kinds of related words that might work as a domain name instead of your brand or business name. Again, these will work better for some brands and businesses than others, but they still might be worth a shot.

You can, for example, use a keyword instead of the brand name. So instead of “something” you can use “beststoreinlondon,” for example, or “orlandoplumber.” In this case, the name of your business doesn’t have to match the name of the domain.

If there’s a way to make a word out of the original domain name that’s similar and brandable, you might also try to do that. So, for a magazine that’s called “something,” the website can have the domain name “somethingians.” You can let your imagination run wild, but you should always make sure that it ties somehow to the brand, business, product, or industry.

Add Location to Name

This is not a solution that can fit all brands or businesses, but it can work great for many. If you’re looking for a domain name to start a website related to a business with physical locations, like a shop, a bar, a restaurant or a cafe, a local output of a big company or franchise, you can only benefit from adding the name of the city, country or neighborhood to the name. It is good for SEO and it is good for user experience since it provides more complete information than just the name.

For instance, if you have a pet store named Paws, and it’s located in Prague, and paws dot com is, as expected, taken, you can go for pawsprague dot com, or even pawsinprague.

It’s even easier if you’re operating in an entire country or region – pawseurope or pawsgreece dot com are quite solid domain names.

Look Into Domain Hacking Options

Although it sounds like something not quite lawful or right (and it shouldn’t be confused with domain hijacking), domain hacking is actually a legitimate practice. It consists of creating a domain name that’s a combination of a word, phrase or name, and the extension, ie. of the adjacent levels of the domain name, to create a name that suggests a word. An example will explain it better – for instance, the WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg has a blog with the domain name www.ma.tt. The .tt extension is the official ccTLD of Trinidad and Tobago. Clever, right?

The Montenegro ccTLD .me is a particularly productive one, and a lot of brands already use it: even Facebook has an URL version fb.me, then there’s WordPress with wp.me that redirects to wordpress.com, and a particularly smart one is ti.me, used by the famous news magazine.

Another good one is the top level country code TLD for Lybia: .ly. It’s particularly popular with lifestyle, fashion and cosmetics brands, but in a lot of other industries, too – just think of bit.ly. If you’re based in the US, but even if you’re not, you could also look into .us, to create a domain nam consisting of an adjective ending in -ous, like delicious, righteous, gorgeous, etc.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

Domain names are important, and you needn’t look further than the reseller industry for proof. When you’re choosing yours, make sure you have a couple of alternatives. If you go to the registrar determined to get one name and it turns out to be taken, you can end up signing yourself up for an unpleasant and maybe even expensive ride. It might be much better to show some flexibility – something that even big brands had to do when faced with a domain sitter who wouldn’t budge.

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How to Create a Digital Products Marketplace Using WordPress https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/how-to-create-digital-products-marketplace/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/how-to-create-digital-products-marketplace/#respond Thu, 09 May 2024 13:00:01 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=44476

You have a passion for creating awesome digital products like eBooks, software, courses, or even artwork? The good news is that now you can sell them and start earning passive income. And how? Well, by selling them online.

And what if you don’t have your own product to sell but you still want to tap into that market? No worries! A digital products marketplace is your answer. It’s like a virtual mall where you connect creators with consumers. You provide the platform, they provide the products, and everyone wins!

In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a digital products marketplace in nine easy steps. So, keep reading!

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Why You Should Create a Digital Products Marketplace

The digital products industry is booming. The latest data shared by ResearchAndMarkets.com shows that the global market is estimated to grow from $23,328.73 billion in 2021 to $33,313.50 billion in 2026 at a rate of 7.4%. The market is then expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.3% from 2026 and reach $45,149.00 billion in 2031.

If you want to get a slice of this huge pie, you need to jump in directly, with an online presence. The industry is not showing any signs of slowing down, so you really shouldn’t wait.

Why? Well, digital products are just plain convenient. They’re:

  • Easy to Access: No waiting for shipping, just download and go!
  • Globally Available: Reach customers anywhere with an internet connection.
  • Scalable: Sell the same product to infinite customers without restocking.
  • Low Overhead: No warehouses or physical products to manage.

So, if you have a skill for design, love writing, or are a coding wizard, you can create a valuable digital product and share it with the world. And if you don’t have products of your own, you can easily connect with creators and sell through your platform.

Most Profitable Digital Products to Sell in 2024

These are some of the most profitable digital products to sell in 2024:

  • Online Courses
  • Subscriptions
  • eBooks
  • Research and Data
  • NFTs
  • Audio Content
  • Swipe Files
  • Apps and Software
  • Art and Graphics

You can learn more about these digital products from our article 9 Types of Digital Products to Sell on Your WordPress Website.

How to Create a Digital Products Marketplace Using WordPress – 9 Simple Steps

As we said earlier, we will show you how to create a digital marketplace using WordPress in nine simple steps. You will learn how to:

Now let’s get into the details!

Step 01: Register a Domain Name

The first thing you need to do is register your domain name. Follow these steps to register your domain name:

  • Brainstorm Your Domain Name: First things first, you need to come up with a catchy and memorable domain name for your marketplace. Your domain name should reflect your brand identity and be easy for customers to remember. And if your preferred domain is taken, there’s still a lot you can do to maintain your branding idea.
  • Check Availability: Once you have a few domain name ideas in mind, it’s time to check if they’re available. Use an online domain registrar, type in your desired domain name, and the registrar will let you know if it’s up for grabs.
  • Choose the Right Extension: A domain extension is the suffix at the end of your domain name, like .com, .net, or .org. While .com is the most popular and widely recognized, you can also choose other extensions based on your needs.
  • Register Your Domain: Once you’ve found the perfect domain name that’s available, it’s time to register it, which typically involves providing your contact information and payment details.

Your domain name is the foundation of your digital presence, so take your time to choose the name that reflects your brand and resonates with your audience.

Step 02: Buy a Hosting Plan

Buying a hosting plan is almost the same as buying a domain name. Follow these steps to buy your domain name:

  • Select a Hosting Provider: Look for a reliable hosting provider that offers features like good uptime, security, and customer support. Popular options include Bluehost, SiteGround, HostGator, etc.
  • Choose the Right Plan: Hosting providers offer different plans depending on your needs and budget. For a digital products marketplace, you’ll likely need a plan that provides enough storage, bandwidth, and resources to handle your website’s traffic and transactions.
  • Register Your Hosting Plan: Once you’ve selected a hosting provider and plan, you’ll need to sign up and register for the hosting service. This typically involves providing your contact and payment information, choosing your billing cycle (monthly, yearly, etc.), and configuring any additional services or features you may need.

After registering, you’ll receive login credentials to access your hosting account’s control panel. Then change the password for you.

Step 03: Install WordPress on Your Control Panel

If you don’t want to install WordPress manually, simply ask your hosting provider to install WordPress on your behalf and provide the credentials. They will happily do that for you.

However, if you want to install WordPress on your own, follow this procedure:

Log in to your control panel and look for an option or section related to website management or software installations.

Once you’ve located the installer, select WordPress from the list of available applications. Follow the prompts to begin the installation process. You need to provide some basic information, such as your desired website name, username, and password for the WordPress admin area.

After providing the necessary information, initiate the installation process. The installer will automatically set up WordPress on your hosting account, including creating the necessary databases and configuring the required files.

Install WordPress on control panel 1
Install WordPress on control panel 2

Once the installation is complete, you’ll receive confirmation along with login details for your WordPress dashboard. This dashboard is where you’ll manage your website’s content, design, and functionality.

Step 04: Install a Multivendor Marketplace Plugin

WordPress has a dedicated eCommerce solution called WooCommerce. However, using WooCommerce, you can only create single online stores. To create a multivendor marketplace, you’ll require a multivendor plugin along with WooCommerce.

There are several multivendor plugins available. Among them, Dokan, WCFM, and MultivendorX are popular.

In this blog, we are going to use the Dokan plugin to create a digital products marketplace since Dokan is the most popular multivendor solution with more than 50,000 active installations. Also, Dokan comes with dedicated support for creating digital product marketplaces.

Let’s check how you can install the Dokan plugin!

Navigate to your WordPress dashboard -> Plugins -> Add New Plugin, then type Dokan into the search box and install the plugin from the search result.

After activating the plugin, click on the Activate button to activate the plugin.

Install Dokan Steps

Step 05: Install a Suitable Theme

Now you should install a suitable theme for your digital product marketplace. When you are choosing a theme, make sure it’s WooCommerce compatible. And all the WooCommerce-compatible themes are by default Dokan plugin compatible.

One such theme is Gioia – Modern Fashion Shop theme. It is a feature-rich, superbly designed theme, completely WooCommerce and Dokan compatible. You can use this theme to give your multivendor marketplace a professional look.

Let’s see how you can install and activate this theme on your website.

Since Gioia is a premium theme, you have to purchase it first. After purchasing the theme, go to the WordPress dashboard -> Appearance -> Themes -> Add New Theme -> Upload Theme, then upload the theme as a .zip file.

Finally, install and activate the theme to use it on your website.

Install theme

Step 06: Configure the Basic Settings of Your Marketplace

To configure the basic settings of your marketplace, go to Settings under the Dokan option. There, you’ll find all the basic settings to configure:

  • General Settings
  • Selling Options
  • Withdraw Options
  • Payment Gateways
  • Reverse Withdrawal
  • Page Settings
  • Appearance
  • Privacy Policy
Dokan Basic Settings
  • Set up Commission Type and Rate

To set the commission type and rate, click the Selling Options button. There you’ll find the options to set up commission type and rate.

You can choose either Flat or Percentage as a commission type, then set the rate.

Selling Options

Finally, click on the Save Changes button to save all the changes.

  • Minimum Withdraw Limit

Now you need to set the minimum withdrawal amount. Click on the Withdraw Options button and configure the withdrawal settings.

Dokan Withdraw Options

Don’t forget to click the “Save Changes” button to save these changes.

  • Configure Payment Gateways

Dokan supports all WooCommerce-compatible payment gateways. With Dokan Lite you can use non-adaptive payment gateways like PayPal, bank account transfer, cash on delivery, etc.

Go to your WordPress dashboard -> WooCommerce -> Settings, then click on the Payment tab to get the available payment methods.

Note: If the PayPal option isn’t there by default, you should install the “WooCommerce PayPal Payments” plugin and you will find the PayPal option here.

Dokan Payment Options

Step 07: Prepare Your Admin Store

It’s an optional step for you. If you don’t want to be a seller on your own marketplace, you can skip this step. However, you’ll still get commissions from your registered vendors if you don’t have an admin store.

But if you want to earn more, you can create your store and start selling as a vendor from your own marketplace. Let’s check how you can do that!

First, you need to enable yourself as a seller. To do that go to Dokan –> Vendors and enable selling by turning on the Status button.

Enable Selling Status

As an admin, you’ll get two ways to upload products. You can upload products from frontend or backend.

Let’s check how to upload products from the backend:

Go to your WordPress Backend -> Products -> Add New. There you’ll find options to add the product’s name, description, image, category, tags, price, and so on.

Note: Since it’s a digital product, don’t forget to click on the Downloadable box.

Add New Product

When you’re done, click the “Publish” button to publish the newly added product.

That’s how you can add products from the backend.

Now let us show you how to add products from the frontend. Your registered vendors will also add products following this same process.

Go to your WordPress Dashboard -> Visit Vendor Dashboard -> Products. Then click on the Add new product.

Now add the product title, image, price, etc to complete the process.

Don’t forget to tick the Downloadable box.

Add a New Product

Once you’re done with the configuration, hit the Publish button to publish the product.

Here is the preview of the product that we have just added:

Preview Image

Step 08: Allow Vendors to Register on Your Marketplace

After adding all the functionalities and configuring your marketplace, you can invite vendors to sign up for your marketplace. To make sure vendors can sign up for your marketplace, enable the “Anyone can register” option from WP Admin –> General –> Settings.

Anyone Can Register

It will open the default registration form for vendors to sign up.

Registration Form

That’s all! This is how you can allow your vendors to register on your digital products marketplace.

Step 09: Promote, Promote, and Promote

You’ve built a beautiful marketplace, and stocked it with amazing digital products – now it’s time to promote it.

Here are some ways to promote your marketplace:

  • Social Media Savvy: Utilize the power of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Share engaging content, showcase your vendors’ products, and run targeted ads to reach your ideal audience.
  • Content is King: Create valuable blog posts, articles, or videos related to your niche. This establishes you as an authority, attracts organic traffic, and positions your marketplace as the go-to destination for digital goodies.
  • Email Marketing Magic: Build an email list and send engaging newsletters featuring new products, promotions, and vendor spotlights.
  • SEO Optimization: Optimize your marketplace with relevant keywords to help potential customers find you in search engine results.
  • Influencer Outreach: Partner with influencers in your niche to spread the word about your marketplace to their dedicated audience.
  • Community Building: Foster a sense of community by creating forums or social groups where vendors and customers can connect and interact.

Bear in mind that promotion is an ongoing process. Track your results, experiment with different strategies, and adapt as needed. The key is to consistently put your marketplace out there and build relationships with your target audience.

By implementing these promotional tactics, you’ll attract vendors, and customers, and watch your digital marketplace flourish!

Digital Products vs Physical Products to Sell

Starting a digital products business over physical products has many advantages. Let’s go through some of them.

Easy to Create and Distribute

Digital Products: Creating digital products like eBooks, software, or online courses is a breeze. Once you’ve made them, you can distribute them instantly over the internet to anyone, anywhere. No shipping is required!

Physical Products: Making physical products often involves more steps. You’ve got to source materials, manufacture them, package them up, and then ship them out. It can be time-consuming and costly.

Low Management Costs

Digital Products: Since everything’s online, you don’t need to worry about renting a physical space or stocking inventory. Your main costs are usually related to creating the product itself and marketing it.

Physical Products: Running a business selling physical goods can be expensive. You’ve got rent, utilities, staff wages, and inventory costs. It can eat into your profits pretty quickly.

Scalability

Digital Products: Once you’ve created a digital product, you can sell an unlimited number of copies without any extra effort. Whether you’re selling to one person or a million, it doesn’t matter – it’s all digital!

Physical Products: Selling physical products has limits. You can only produce so many items at once, and you might need to invest in more resources if demand suddenly spikes.

Environmental Impact

Digital Products: They’re eco-friendly! No need for paper, plastic, or transportation – it’s all online.

Physical Products: Producing physical goods can have a big environmental footprint, from manufacturing processes to shipping emissions.

Creating a Digital Marketplace- Key Takeaways

The digital product market is booming, and creating a marketplace with WordPress offers a fantastic opportunity to tap into this potential.

Here are the key takeaways to keep in mind:

  • Target the Right Niche: Identify a specific market for your digital products and cater your branding and marketing efforts to that audience.
  • Embrace the Power of Digital: Digital products offer convenience, scalability, and lower overhead costs compared to physical products.
  • Choose Your Domain Wisely: Your domain name is your online identity, so pick one that’s catchy, memorable, and reflects your brand.
  • Find a Reliable Host: Your hosting plan is the foundation of your marketplace. Choose a provider with features that meet your needs and scale as you grow.
  • WordPress Makes it Easy: Building your marketplace with WordPress is a user-friendly and cost-effective way to get started.
  • Choose the Right Multivendor Plugin: Multivendor plugin like Dokan make it easier to seamlessly manage your multivendor marketplace.
  • Promote, Promote, and Promote: Spread the word about your marketplace through various channels like social media, content marketing, and influencer outreach.

Now you know how to create a digital products marketplace using WordPress. So, create your own multivendor marketplace now! If you have any questions related to this tutorial, feel free to ask us using the comment box. Take care!

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Top WordPress Server Requirements to Keep in Mind https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/wordpress-server-requirements/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/wordpress-server-requirements/#respond Fri, 03 May 2024 13:00:03 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=44435

One of the first questions to address when starting a new WordPress website is what kind of server you need and how to pick a hosting provider based on server features. One of the many great things about WordPress is that it can work in almost any sort of environment. It’s not resource-heavy by itself, it’s easy to install even manually, and if you don’t expect much traffic right from the beginning, it doesn’t require a lot of hosting bandwidth. However, if you really want things to run smoothly and not have to upgrade your plan every once in a while, there are some WordPress server requirements to keep in mind.

All websites need a server to run on. A server is where all the files are stored, which includes media files, databases, content, and everything else. Some users have their own servers and host their own websites, while others (which is actually a majority of WordPress users) buy a hosting plan with a provider that has a number of shared or managed servers.

The sort of plan you will pick depends to a great extent on server performance. Servers that run on outdated software, have limited hardware specifications or don’t support HTTPS will still allow you to run a website, but it definitely won’t run smoothly. So, to help you avoid these situations, we’ve compiled a list of the basic WordPress server requirements that should help you pick the right specifications for your next WordPress website:

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Recommended Disk Space for WordPress

Recommended Disk Space for WordPress

Just like a computer, a server has a hard disk that has a certain amount of space on it. The WordPress installation itself is very lightweight (1GB, which is way less than what an average smartphone has) but disk space is required for additional resources, most notably for themes, plugins, media files, and especially videos. This storage affects the processing speed, which is one of the most important requirements in a web server. So in addition to looking for high processing performance, you should also look for a server that has considerable disk space, especially if your website is going to be media-heavy.

You should also consider the type of hardware used: HDD or hard disk drive is an older solution used for lower speed requirements and for data that’s not frequently used, while SSD or solid-state drive is a modern high-speed solution that’s less susceptible to physical damage.

Some providers use a combination of the two – SSD for databases and HDD for other, less sensitive resources. You will find some cheap providers that use HDD only, and it will work okay for WordPress, but for fast processing and reliable data delivery it’s probably a better idea to opt for ones that use SSD, or at least the combination of the two.

As for the size, you will find hosting anywhere from 10GB to 250GB. The lower end will work just fine for small to medium websites, online shops and personal blogs. Larger hard disks are more suitable for big websites with a lot of heavy media and a lot of traffic, massive portals or forums, as well as enterprise websites.

Recommended RAM for WordPress

Recommended RAM for WordPress

RAM (Random Access Memory) plays an important role in server performance for WordPress websites. As WordPress sites handle dynamic content and user interactions, sufficient RAM ensures smooth operation and faster response times.

The WordPress software itself requires at least 512MB. However, typically, servers for WordPress require a minimum of 1GB RAM for basic functionality, and for optimal performance, 2GB or more is recommended.

RAM speed and type also impact performance, with DDR4 being a common choice for its efficiency. Higher RAM capacity allows for handling multiple concurrent requests and caching, enhancing user experience and site reliability. Ultimately, adequate RAM ensures that WordPress sites can handle traffic spikes and complex tasks efficiently.

Processing Power (CPU)

Processing Power

The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is something like the brain of a server, crucial for handling WordPress websites efficiently. It processes instructions, executes code, and manages tasks. A powerful CPU enhances performance, especially during high-traffic periods or when running resource-intensive plugins.

Fortunately, WordPress doesn’t demand excessive CPU power by default. Still, factors like website complexity, the amount of users accessing the site at the same time, and plugin usage impact CPU requirements. Common server CPUs include Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC series, offering varying core counts and clock speeds.

When it comes to actual values, WordPress will function on just 1.0 GHz. However, these days, instead of the GHz values, hosts focus more on the number of processing cores. Two cores perform the tasks twice as quickly as just one, and servers with five or six cores will be that much more efficient. For small WordPress sites, a server with at least a dual-core CPU suffices, but larger sites benefit from quad-core or higher CPUs to ensure smooth operation and responsiveness.

PHP Version

PHP Version

When you are about to install WordPress, the application itself will tell you which version of PHP is required. Right now, it’s version 8.0, or higher. Each version receives updates for up to two years. It’s always recommended to use hosting that includes the latest PHP version – but, fortunately, most of them do. If you already have WordPress installed, you should regularly check for the latest versions and update.

PHP is an open-source programming language used for dynamic interactive websites. WordPress itself is written using PHP. Using the latest version assures proper performance, faster running of processes and reduction of memory usage. In addition, it protects the website from bugs and malware.

Server Location and CDN

Server Location and CDN

These days, with cloud hosting and virtual private servers, one would think that server location doesn’t matter. However, the server is still physically located somewhere, and the closer it is to your visitors, the better the website will perform for them. If your website is focused on users from a specific country or region, then you’ll obviously choose a server located in that country or region. But most WordPress websites count on international visitors, from all over the world, which is why you should opt for a hosting service with access to a global server network. Then, if the majority of your visitors is, say, from US, you will find a US-based server. Of course, your website will work fine even for visitors outside of that area, but it will perhaps be slower.

If you want to ensure the best possible performance of your WordPress website regardless of where it’s accessed from, we strongly suggest you find a host that offers access to CDN.

CDN or Content Delivery Network is a network of servers located all across the globe, storing static versions of your website. When a visitor accesses the website, it is served from the nearest possible server, assuring optimal performance and speed.

Database Management

Optimize and Maintain Your Database

Database management systems (DBMS) play a crucial role in WordPress websites by storing and organizing site data, including posts, pages, user information, and settings. WordPress relies heavily on its underlying database for content retrieval and management. Efficient database management can significantly impact website performance, influencing factors like page load times and overall responsiveness.

When choosing a server to host your WordPress website, the performance and compatibility of the server’s database management system are essential considerations. WordPress uses MySQL and MariaDB to store and retrieve data. You don’t need both – just one of these systems. When considering a hosting service’s server requirements, make sure that either MySQL or MariaDB are stored on the server, ideally on SSD.

Also ideally, the service should offer automatic database optimization and a multi-user environment.

Recommended Web Server Software for WordPress

Recommended Web Server Software for WordPress

When selecting a web server for your WordPress website, looking into available web server software applications is an important consideration. For WordPress, Apache and Nginx are two popular choices. In fact, WordPress itself recommends using one of the two. The website will function without them, as you can technically use any server to run WordPress, but Apache and Nginx have certain significant advantages.

Apache is known for its flexibility, rich documentation, and compatibility with various modules. It is a good choice both for seasoned WordPress users and for beginners. On the other hand, Nginx is newer and faster and excels in handling concurrent connections efficiently, making it ideal for high-traffic sites.

The choice between them depends on factors like site traffic, server resources, and configuration preferences. Apache’s .htaccess file provides easy per-directory configuration, while Nginx’s configuration syntax is somewhat more straightforward and excellent under heavy loads.

To learn more, check out our article on how to choose between Nginx and Apache.

HTTPS Support

HTTPS Support

HTTPS or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is an internet communication protocol that protects the integrity and confidentiality of data exchanged between users and websites. It is an extension of HTTP and uses encryption to secure the data transmission.

HTTPS uses SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) protocols to encrypt data. This ensures that even in the case of unauthorized data interceptions, the data cannot be deciphered easily.

When choosing a server for WordPress, it’s important to look for HTTPS and SSL among the server features. These days most renowned hosting providers include HTTPS and SSL in their plans, especially the more advanced ones, but it doesn’t hurt to check.

If you already use a server that doesn’t include these security features, check out our article on how to add HTTPS and SSL to your WordPress website and also our list of the best SSL plugins for WordPress.

Wrapping It Up

Summing it up, there are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a server for your WordPress website. As we said, WordPress is not resource-heavy and most basic servers will probably do the job. However, if you want to ensure speed, reliability and performance, we recommend you follow the guidelines we laid out in this article and check for the requirements we mentioned – from disk space, RAM and CPU to PHP and web server software, as well as CDN, HTTPS and SSL availability.

Most hosting companies list the features clearly in their plans, so picking one that meets these requirements shouldn’t be hard, and shouldn’t put too much strain on your website budget. Good luck with your new website, and let us know how it goes!

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7 Best WordPress Table Plugins for Your Data https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-wordpress-table-plugins/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-wordpress-table-plugins/#respond Thu, 25 Apr 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=21817

There’s nothing like a good, clean table to present your audience with a bunch of data in a way that allows for comparison and appreciation of precision. There’s no need for the flashy visuals of charts, or the flowing relational representation of graphs – a table is there to give your audiences the data and let them do the rest of the work for themselves if they want to.

So whether you need a way to display a list, or arrange a bunch of product information from your online store in a way that makes it easy to compare, you could use a way to create a good table. And even though you can create a table using the Gutenberg block editor, it might lack the options you’d be able to get using plugins.

For that reason, we’ve compiled a list of the best WordPress table plugins for your data. The list includes:

Qi Addons for Elementor

Qi Addons for Elementor free and premium

We’re kicking off our list of the best WordPress table plugins with a collection of widgets for all sorts of purposes that packs not one but several solutions for creating data tables – Qi Addons for Elementor.

The plugin includes 100+ Elementor widgets for everything from showcase and infographic elements to business, SEO and eCommerce solutions. Among them, you’ll find a couple of widgets designed specifically for creating data tables. The Data Table widget, for instance, provides a simple yet efficient way to display data, add icons, and illustrations, adjust headings and items, add background, pagination, and much more. Then there’s the Comparative Table widget, ideal for when you need to compare items, prices, show what’s included in a plan or service, and so on. Like the Data Table widget, this one is also highly customizable in terms of appearance.

And if what you want to display and compare are prices, there’s the Pricing Table widget, with six predefined layouts (standard and cascading), icons, images, ribbons and badges. You can opt for vertical pricing tables or minimalistic ones, and adjust everything from typography to colors, and more.

The best thing about Qi Addons for Elementor is that it’s a plugin that, for the price of one, offers an astonishing array of features and functionalities, so if you decide you need something else and not just tables, you will find it right there in your Elementor dashboard.

Qi Addons for Elementor currently costs $49 for a single site license.

TablePress

TablePress

With over eight hundred thousand active installations and a nearly flawless five-star rating, TablePress is the most popular table plugin you can find on WordPress.org. It has the top spot for good reason, too – TablePress is a plugin that offers an incredible lot, and it doesn’t ask you anything in return. An awesome plugin you can use for free.

TablePress lets you create tables you can populate with all sorts of data – images are as welcome and supported as are numbers or text. The very process of making the tables is straightforward and easy, as you can do it all from your dashboard. You add the tables to pages or posts using a shortcode, you can change their style using CSS, and you can import and export tables to and from the plugin.

You get all of that with the basic plugin. If you choose to install the extensions available from the plugin’s website, your tables can become responsive, you can enable row filtering and sorting options, and even set up an automatic import for tables. Some of those extensions are premium, but they don’t come at a set price – you’re encouraged to donate instead of purchasing them.

Ninja Tables

Ninja Tables

Ninja Tables is the free version of the Ninja Tables Pro plugin. The plugin has plenty to offer in terms of speed and ease of use, as it will help you create a table in no time. It also has plenty of features that could make it your go-to WordPress plugin for tables, but to get the most of it you will need the pro version.

With the Ninja Tables version you can download off WordPress.org, you can create or import a table, select one of three styling libraries, and choose among the style options, and export the table. You can also set global styling options and choose limited color options.

The Pro version makes Ninja Tables more vibrant and fuller of features. So not only do you get more colors for your tables, but you get advanced options such as Google Sheets integration, a WooCommerce product table functionality, and even frontend table editing and export. And that’s just a taste of what a $49, single-site annual license gets you.

Qode Themes: Top Picks
Bridge New Banner
Bridge

Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Stockholm WordPress Theme
Stockholm

A Genuinely Multi-Concept Theme

Startit WordPress Theme
Startit

Fresh Startup Business Theme

wpDataTables

wpDataTables

Another plugin that comes in a free – Lite – version and a full one you have to pay for, wpDataTables is more than capable of taking care of your data-presentation needs even with the free version – as long as you don’t need too much from your table plugins. In that case, the paid version would serve you much better.

Using wpDataTables starts with providing the data for the table. With the free version, you can either create the table from scratch or create a table that’s linked to an existing data source – an Excel, CSV, or JSON file, for example. You’ll be able to do things such as merge cells, enable sorting and pagination, and customize the table to some extent.

With the Premium version, you’ll get support for creating tables from Google Spreadsheets, multiple database support, responsive tables, front-end editing, and lots of other features and functionalities a website that uses a lot of tables would require. The Premium version is available for annual subscription or lifetime purchase, with the most affordable option setting you back $59 a year.

Posts Table Pro

Posts Table Pro

Here’s one plugin that takes table creation and puts a twist to it – Posts Table Pro will use the data from your website to create tables. So instead of allowing you to, for example, import tons of data you’d later display using a plugin, this plugin will help you display the content you already have – in table form.

How does this work? Well, if you’d like to display a table that contains your website’s posts or pages, or even products, documents, or audio or video content – you simply use this plugin to create a table. The process is simple and streamlined, and your table will be updated as your content is.

Of course, you’ll be able to customize the table and have functionalities such as search, sorting, and filtering. All of this comes at a price, however, as the plugin doesn’t have a free version, and the starter package will cost you $69 a year.

League Table

League Table

One of the benefits of getting a paid-only table plugin for your WordPress website is that you don’t have to think too much about which options are included in the free version and which aren’t. With League Table, for example, you’ll get a whole lot for the price you pay for it, and you won’t have a single doubt about what it can and can’t do.

The $29 price gets you a plugin that’s fast but not furious, so you’ll have no trouble wielding it. Each table has 105 different options you can set. Each cell has 17 options you can set. There are also 13 general options, totaling a whole lot of tinkering possibilities for those who want an incredible level of control over their tables.

If you’re not too interested in having that many options, it might suffice to say that the plugin will let you do all the useful things like import and export data, create responsive tables, and install the plugin in a WordPress multisite environment.

WP Table Builder

WP Table Builder

Want a drag and drop WordPress table builder? Why not try WP Table Builder. This plugin comes in a free and a premium version but is more than capable of impressing you with the free version alone.

For starters, it is a drag and drop builder – you’ll have seven different elements at your disposal to populate cells, including buttons, lists, star ratings, and custom HTML. You’ll be able to customize those elements much as you would elements on your website, with setting borders and padding and the like. All the normal functionalities you’d expect from a table plugin, such as export and import, are also supported.

The paid version, which starts at around $39.99 per year, brings five new elements you can add to your tables, including ribbons and icons. It also provides support for choosing different border colors, column and row separation, and functionalities such as column or row duplication. On top of it all, the paid version also gives you access to prebuilt tables.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

From sports scores and stats to lists of products, it’s hard to imagine a better way to display information than with a table. Even though you can create tables with the Gutenberg block editor, the only way to supercharge your tables is to use a plugin to create them. The ones we listed here are some of the best you’ll find.

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7 Best Popup Plugins for WordPress https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-popup-plugins-for-wordpress/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-popup-plugins-for-wordpress/#respond Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:00:24 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=16361

If you’re in search of an effective way to capture more leads and get more converting customers, or you simply want to get more subscribers on your WordPress website, installing one of the available WordPress popup plugins can certainly help you achieve those goals more effectively.

While website popups may be regarded as annoying from an outsider perspective, they actually do work. In fact, according to some popup statistics, the average popup conversion rate is 3.09% in 2020 for all popups, with the very best popups having a rate of whopping 9.28%. Plus, there are different strategies you can use to maximize the practicality and success of your popups and minimize their intrusiveness.

To get the best results out of your popups, you need to use a tool that will not only allow you to build beautiful, practical and user-friendly popup forms, but you also need to find a way to make your popups appear at the right place and at the right time. This includes the ability to set the behavior of your popups according to the actions of individual users, and throw in some trigger-based popups into the mix.

Luckily, if you use a plugin that comes with the right set of targeting and personalization features, implementing these strategies will be quite easy. And this time around, we will present some of the best WordPress popup plugins that will help you step up your conversion game to the max.

Check out our list:

Ninja Popups

Ninja Popups

Here’s one of the most popular plugins in this category you can find on the Envato Market. With more than 37,000 sales and a 4+ star rating, Ninja Popups easily falls in the category of best plugins to help you boost your conversion rate. It uses a professionally designed popup system to convert your visitors into customers by urging them to take the desired action – like a limited-time offer (a coupon or a discount), a newsletter subscription, etc. Using a drag & drop visual editor, you will easily create your own popup in no time. Some of the plugin’s features include page-level targeting (which means you can set different popups on different pages), A/B testing of popups, bars, and sliders, the ability to open a popup after a specified time of inactivity or after certain scrolled page percentage, and so on.

With Ninja Popups, you also get a built-in anti-blocker system (which means your popups will always be displayed), some free opt-in panels, over 70 different animation effects, and more. Last but not least, you get integration with all the necessary email marketing tools, such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, and SendPress.

The pricing for a regular license starts at $24.

Best Themes for Marketing
Borgholm Marketing WP Theme
Borgholm

Marketing Agency Theme

Foton Banner
Foton

Software and App Landing Page Theme

Valiance
Valiance

Business Consulting

WordPress Popup Plugin by Ays Pro

WordPress Popup Plugin by Ays Pro

WordPress Popup Plugin is an efficient tool for creating engaging, responsive, and fully customizable popups. The plugin offers advanced features that will fit absolutely everyone, irrespective of the profession.

This WordPress popup plugin has 10+ advanced popup types, like Shortcode, Video, Yes or No, Subscription, Subscribe and get a file, Embed (Iframe), Contact Form, Coupon, WooCommerce Product, Countdown, Google Map, Download, etc.

Besides all these advanced and powerful popup types, the plugin offers a great variety of features, triggers, and styling options. You can choose specific pages to display popups on. Moreover, in the plugin, you will find various triggers, using which, you can show the popups based on the actions the visitors take on your website. The plugin serves as a great tool to target your website visitors and offer them relevant content.

The WordPress Popup Plugin offers a great variety of limitation options, allowing you to effectively target your desired audience when displaying popups. You can limit users by user roles, for certain OS, tablets, and browsers, by country, by view count, and many more.

The plugin has Free and Premium versions. The pricing for the Premium version of the plugin starts at $59.

Shoplentor’s Popup builder

Shoplentor

Another interesting tool for elevating your WooCommerce website’s engagement, is the ShopLentor Popup Module. It comes with the popular ShopLentor plugin, boasting over 100,000 active installations. It offers a versatile and sophisticated solution for creating engaging popups on your website.

The module precisely controls conditions, triggers, settings, and advanced options. This enables you to place popups to strategically grab your audience’s attention.

Engage your audience with timely, relevant pop-up content triggered by actions like page load, scroll, click, or exit intent. Enhance the user experience by using popup controls to disable page scrolling and dismiss the popup using the Esc key or a mouse click. You can also set the popup to dismiss automatically after a delay.

Customizable appearance options like vertical/horizontal positioning, dimensions, z-index, margin, and padding allow users to seamlessly integrate the module with their website and achieve a uniform style.

Advanced settings for precise customization include toggling the ‘Do Not Show Again’ feature to prevent repeated popup displays for returning visitors and implementing URL-based visibility restrictions to display popups only on specific pages or under certain conditions.

The Popup Builder features ready-made templates that simplify the design process. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface enables seamless customization, while the user-friendly dashboard makes managing popup creations a breeze.

The Pro version extends these capabilities, offering enhanced control for an optimized user experience. It allows for integrating multiple popups, each with unique settings and designs customized to meet your specific requirements.

The ShopLentor plugin has Free and Premium versions. The pricing for the Premium version of the plugin starts at $59.

Popups by Optinmonster

Popups by Optinmonster

Easily the most popular lead generation software on the web with over 700,000 websites using its features, OptinMonster is a great popup plugin that can help you with generating leads and converting visitors into customers. Aside from helping you build beautiful and functional opt-in forms, OptinMonster also comes with smart targeting and personalization features that allow you to show the right popup message to a specific user at the right time. In other words, you can show a custom popup for a specific page or part of your website, based on users’ geolocation, when users click on a particular link, based on their previous behavior, and more.

You can also easily create various types of popups, be it a newsletter popup, fullscreen welcome mat popup, slide-in scroll popup, floating bar, or any other popup type. Moreover, you will be able to customize their appearance according to your preferences and even add some dynamic popup elements (like countdown timers, spin-a-wheel, etc.) that can be set to change according to the behavior of your users. OptinMonster also comes with an integrated exit intent popup system that allows you to convert visitors into customers just as they’re about to leave your site.

Finally, while OptinMonster is mobile-friendly by default, it also allows you to create mobile-specific popups only shown to visitors who use mobile phones and tablets.

The Basic pricing for OptinMonster starts at $9 a month (billed annually).

ConvertPlus

ConvertPlus

ConvertPlus is an easy-to-use popup plugin that allows you to generate more conversions and subscriptions with the help of various popups, header and footer bars, slide-in forms, in-line forms, and more. It comes with many conversion-ready templates that you can use just as they are, or you can customize them in any way you like. Plus, with over 80 different entry and exit animations, you can also tailor the way a module will enter and exit the screen.

Another great thing about ConvertPlus is its real-time analysis feature that gives you an overview of the number of clicks, unique views & conversions. Thanks to these insights, you can easily pinpoint what works for your business and what doesn’t, and use this information to your advantage by making data-driven decisions. There is also the Trigger feature that allows you to create well-timed, trigger-based popups that will bring you the maximum possibility of conversion. Some of the popups include those that get triggered by user inactivity, exit intent, scrolling, and more.

Of course, ConvertPlus also works with all popular marketing platforms and allows integrations with HubSpot, MailChimp, SendinBlue, Constant Contact, and others.

The regular license for ConvertPlus at CodeCanyon is $23.

Elementor Pro

Elementor

As one of the most popular page builders around that is used by millions of websites, Elementor has managed to build quite the reputation in the WordPress market – and for a good reason. Not only is Elementor easy to set up by beginners and pros alike, but it also comes packed with a wide range of useful features, one of them being the Elementor popup builder. This useful feature allows you to build and design stunning WordPress popups in any way imaginable. Some of the modals include Fly-In, Full Screen, Hello Bar, Classic Slide-In, Bottom Bar, etc.

You can easily integrate these popup forms with various email marketing tools and grow your subscribers, create different announcements, and even choose to reveal premium content only to users who opted in or agreed to your terms. In addition, you can take advantage of the advanced targeting and trigger features, include promotion and sale banners inside your popups, create popups that display related WooCommerce products to grab more sales, and much more. With Elementor, you also get to pick from 100+ premade stylish popup templates that will help you easily generate beautiful popup forms, or you can create your own from scratch.

The pricing of Elementor Pro with popups for one site starts at $59 a year.

Layered Popups

Layered Popups

If you want to do something a bit different when it comes to building popups and distinguish yourself from the rest, we suggest that you look into the plugin called Layered Popups. This plugin can help you create innovative-looking popups capable of standing out and grabbing the attention of your visitors. You can generate multi-layered animated popups, choose from a constantly-growing library of over 150 templates, and pick different displaying modes and set how and when the popups will appear (on idle, on page load, on exit intent, on scrolling, etc.). Moreover, you will be able to view any changes as you create your popups live thanks to the powerful visual popup constructor. With Layered Popups, you also get integrations with your popular marketing systems, like AWeber, GetResponse, Constant Contact, Active Campaign, and so on.

The regular license for the Layered Popups plugin is $21.

Final Thoughts

Out of many available popup plugins that can be found across the web, the five plugins we listed above are among the best of the best. By adding one of them to your WordPress site and creating and inserting carefully generated popups into your pages, you will be able to maximize your conversion rate and turn casual visitors into customers easier than ever.

That being said, we do have to note that the plugins we included in our list all come with different customization options and offer various levels of targeting practices and analytics, so we do advise you to carefully inspect their features to find the popup solution that best suits your needs.

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18 Best Free WooCommerce Plugins https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-free-woocommerce-plugins/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-free-woocommerce-plugins/#respond Wed, 10 Apr 2024 12:00:04 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=17607

If you own an eCommerce business, or if you’re currently planning to create an online store, chances are you’ve heard of WooCommerce – that is if you’re not using the platform already. With almost 4 million websites using its features, WooCommerce is among the most used and easily most powerful eCommerce WordPress plugins available.

While this popular and convenient eCommerce platform has a wide range of options that allow anyone to build a fully functional online store on their website, it still leaves plenty of room for extension. So, if you already have a WooCommerce-friendly online store WordPress theme installed on your website, but want to further customize your online store to fit your own needs to the fullest, you can do all this and more using one of the many available free WooCommerce plugins.

For this reason, we’ve gathered a list of the best plugins in this category that can be found on the web. Aside from being free – just like WooCommerce itself – all of these plugins can also be integrated into the WooCommerce platform with ease.

Take a look at our top picks:

eCommerce WordPress Themes
Tonda WordPress Theme
Tonda

A Modern Elegant WooCommerce Theme

Biagiott banneri
Biagiotti

Beauty and Cosmetics Shop

Gioia WordPress Theme
Gioia

Modern Fashion Shop

QODE Wishlist for WooComerce

QODE Wishlist for WooCommerce

We’re kicking off our list with a plugin that helps users add a highly useful feature that doesn’t come out of the box with WooCommerce – the wishlist feature. QODE Wishlist for WooCommerce is an amazing plugin that lets shop admins add an “Add to Wishlist” button to their shop, so the visitors can create practical lists of desired items and, hopefully, purchase them when they get a chance. Rich customization options include layout styles for the wishlist element (icon, tooltip, text), button behavior for items in the wishlist, position of the button, its appearance, and more. Admins can also enable automatic removal of items from the wishlist after they’ve been added to cart. In short, this is an excellent tool for enablish customer wishlists and boosting engagement and conversions. The plugin is lightweight, user-friendly and well-documented. For more features, like multiple wishlists, choice of layouts, wishlist counts on products and promotional emails, check out the premium version of QODE Wishlist.

QODE Quick View for WooCommerce

Qode Quick View for WooCommerce

One of the surest ways to boost conversions and grow sales in your online shop is to provide a seamless user experience for users visiting and browsing your catalog. Providing a quick view option so the visitors can explore a product is an excellent UX booster, and QODE Quick View for WooCommerce is just the tool for the job. It provides a simple and hassle-free way to display complete product info on a single click, so that the visitors can learn more about it without having to navigate to the product page. The quick view form is triggered with a single click on the product in the list or loop. Customization options cover button stylization, custom labels and adjustable close icons. In addition, quick view can be disabled for mobile devices, although it’s worth mentioning that the plugin is completely responsive as is.

All this comes with the free version. The premium QODE Quick View for WooCommerce plugin offers even more – it can display the form as a popup, as a drop form or sidebar, completely open-ended customization, AJAX-powered adding to cart, etc.

WooCommerce Multilingual

WooCommerce Multilingual

The main purpose of WooCommerce Multilingual is to enable multilingual support on WooCommerce-powered WordPress sites using and combining the WPML plugin with WooCommerce. Its main features include the ability to translate all WooCommerce products, the easy translation for categories, products, and attributes, running a single WooCommerce store with multiple currencies based on location or a customer’s language, and different payment gateways according to the customer’s location.

Product Slider for WooCommerce

Product Slider for WooCommerce

If you want to present your products in a dynamic and user-friendly manner, Products Slider for WooCommerce is ideal for the job. This easy-to-use plugin will allow you to create beautiful and practical product sliders and display them anywhere on your store using a shortcode. You can easily customize your sliders and even add your own CSS to further style it according to your preferences. Additionally, you will be able to control the speed of your slides, choose whether you want to show or hide slider navigations and dots, set the slider to rewind and loop, and so on.

WooCommerce Customizer

WooCommerce Customizer

While WooCommerce comes with plenty of filters that allow for customization of your eCommerce store, you do have to write PHP code in order to use them. This is where WooCommerce Customizer comes in handy. Namely, this plugin comes with a user-friendly settings page that makes it quite easy to add your customizations using WooCommerce filters without any code or modifying any of your theme templates. With these filters, you can customize your Add to Cart button text, heading text for the “Product Description” and “Additional Information” tab, checkout page coupon/login text, and more.

ShopLentor

Shoplentor

ShopLentor WooCommerce plugin is an all-in-one solution designed to streamline your e-commerce journey by replacing the need for multiple plugins. ShopLentor empowers you to create stunning online shopfronts effortlessly without any coding knowledge.

Featuring over 105 Elementor widgets and 54 Gutenberg blocks, customization becomes a breeze, allowing you to tailor your website perfectly. To enhance your store’s functionality, access more than 24 advanced modules, including multistep checkout, backorder, pre-order functionality, email customizer, product comparison, and quick view capacity.

ShopLentor offers intuitive integration into both Elementor and Gutenberg, providing a seamless experience for users of both platforms. Explore a vast collection of pre-made page templates with user-friendly customization options to kickstart your store’s design.

Qi Addons for Elementor

Qi Addons for Elementor free and premium

We’re closing our list with something that doesn’t exactly qualify as an individual plugin or addon, but nevertheless deserves your attention. Qi Addons for Elementor is a rich collection of 100+ widgets for all sorts of purposes. Among them, you will find a range of widgets created specifically for WooCommerce, and many of them are free, too. Specifically, Product List and Product Slider widgets can help drive conversions by creating advanced product layouts and interesting, dynamic ways of presenting your goods. There’s also the Add to Cart Button widget that takes the native WooCommerce functionality to a whole new level. The collection is created with the idea of helping any user create a website or an online shop that looks and works perfectly, so in addition to these Woo-related addons you can also use a myriad of other, super-useful widgets, all in the free version (plus more in the paid one).

Qi Blocks for Gutenberg

Qi Blocks for Gutenberg

In case you like Qi Addons for Elementor but don’t feel like switching from block editing to Elementor, don’t worry. Qi Blocks for Gutenberg bring essentially the same functionalities, except they come in the form of Gutenberg blocks. One difference is that here only the Product List comes as a free block – the others are included in the premium version. Still, considering you get other exceptional functionalities that are not eCommerce-specific (modern showcase and typography options, SEO, business blocks, etc), this plugin is definitely worth checking out.

EU VAT Compliance Assistant for WooCommerce

EU VAT Compliance Assistant for WooCommerce

Here is a rather useful plugin if you’re operating your business across EU countries. As its name suggests, EU VAT Compliance Assistant for WooCommerce comes with the features that assist you and your shop with the EU VAT law compliance (VAT or Value-Added Tax is a consumption fee that applies to all products and services in the EU). The plugin features include the ability to identify your customers’ locations, to distinguish VAT from other countries, to enter and maintain each country’s VAT rates, and more.

Order Delivery Date for WooCommerce

Order Delivery Date for WooCommerce

Order Delivery Date for WooCommerce is a plugin ideal for the improvement of your customer service. It works by allowing your customers to specify the preferred delivery date on the checkout page. The selected delivery date will be displayed in your admin area, on the WooCommerce Edit Order page. If you want, you can disable the days on which you do not do product delivery, limit the number of deliveries or orders you wish to be placed per day, and so on.

Minimum Purchase for WooCommerce

Minimum Purchase for WooCommerce

With the Minimum Purchase for WooCommerce plugin, you will be able to easily set minimum purchase rules for your products. Customers should reach these purchase requirements in order to proceed to the checkout page. These requirements can apply to the minimum purchase amount or the minimum number of products. You can even add your own custom minimum purchase messages and show error messages until the customers “resolve” these errors by abiding by your minimum purchase rules.

PW WooCommerce Gift Cards

PW WooCommerce Gift Cards

PW WooCommerce Gift Cards is a plugin that will allow you to easily create and sell gift cards in WordPress. Your customers will get to set the amount, recipient, and a custom message when purchasing their gift card. One of the best things about this plugin is the fact that gift cards are not tied to any specific account, which means your guests will be able to receive their gift cards without having to create an account.

The pro version of the plugin comes packed with some additional features, such as the ability to specify a default amount, allow customers to set custom amounts and schedule delivery dates, and so on.

WOOF – Products Filter for WooCommerce

WOOF – Products Filter for WooCommerce

WOOF is a product search plugin that will let your customers filter your products by categories, product tags, attributes, price, and product custom taxonomies. It can be easily added to your WooCommerce website via a widget or a shortcode. Some of the features include infinite scrolling, quick search technology, products searching by AJAX, and plenty more.

Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

As is already apparent from the plugin name, Variation Swatches for WooCommerce comes with the ability to add beautiful variation swatches to your products. You can create size, brand, image, color, and label variation swatches.

If you opt for the pro version of the plugin, you get some extra features like multi-color variation swatches, the ability to blur, hide, or show cross sign for out of stock variation swatches, etc.

Checkout Manager for WooCommerce

Checkout Manager for WooCommerce

Checkout Manager for WooCommerce is a neat plugin built with the intention to help online store owners modify their checkout pages in an intuitive way. If you install this plugin, you will be able to fully customize the checkout process. Some of the features include an option that allows you to remove the toggle checkbox for displaying the shipping fields (this means shipping fields will always be displayed to your customers and they will be required to fill them in), the ability to add or remove the requirement for users to create an account during the purchase, and to add a custom message before or after the checkout form.

WooCommerce Currency Switcher

WooCommerce Currency Switcher

Here is a multi-currency switcher type of plugin that provides the ability to your visitors to switch currencies according to set currency rates in real time and even allows them to pay in their local currency, or the one they selected. You can set the currency rates to update hourly, multiple times a day, monthly, or you can simply enter a custom currency rate.

WooCommerce Currency Switcher can be added to your website both with a widget and a shortcode.

Stripe Payments for WooCommerce

Stripe Payment Gateway for WooCommerce plugin

With more and more people using Stripe to make their online purchases, no web shop can afford not to include it among its payment options. If you haven’t done that already, or if you want to but don’t know how, check out Stripe Payments for WooCommerce. This plugin, developed by FunnelKit, provides a free, fast and reliable way to add a Stripe gateway to your WooCommerce shop through credit and debit cards like Visa, MasterCard, Diners, AmEx, and many others. Plus, it also integrates with Google Pay and Apple Pay.

PDF Invoices & Packing Slips for WooCommerce

WooCommerce Currency Switcher

If you’re looking for a really simple, really user-friendly and fast way to add PDF invoices to your order emails, then PDF Invoices & Packing Slips for WooCommerce is the thing for you. It comes with a basic invoice template but there’s also the option of creating your own. You also get to download and print the invoices for your physical archive, straight from yourWooCommerce order dashboard. This popular plugin has 300k+ active installations and a five-star rating, a testimony to its reliability and good performance.

Conclusion

Each one of the free WooCommerce plugins we presented above contains rather useful and practical features that will surely help give your WooCommerce store a fresher look, a broader range of capabilities, and personalize it in a way that best suits your business. You can find all sorts of plugins in our list – from those that offer the creation of product sliders and gift cards to plugins that come with quickview and variation swatches. So, we urge you to check them all out carefully so as not to miss any opportunities to improve the functionality and efficiency of your eCommerce business in the best possible way.

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Tips For Writing Landing Page Copy That Converts https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/tips-for-writing-landing-page-copy-that-converts/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/tips-for-writing-landing-page-copy-that-converts/#respond Fri, 05 Apr 2024 11:00:06 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=24732

Landing pages are powerful tools usually made with one goal in mind – to make a conversion. These types of pages have the purpose of getting the viewers to focus on one specific objective and encourage them to take action by offering them a concrete solution – before they have a chance to click away. The final goal is usually to make a profit by turning casual visitors into actual, paying customers or clients, or reach whatever other business bottom line. So, no matter if you offer a digital or physical product, a webinar, a free demo of any sort, or something else entirely, you should consider using a landing page to achieve your marketing-oriented goals.

Landing Page

Now, as in many other cases of content marketing, the basis of every converting landing page is a persuasive and well-written copy. Namely, if the copy you produce doesn’t manage to incite users to take the desired action, this can be detrimental to your conversion rate.

Of course, the design of your landing page matters a great deal, too. Using appropriate images and colors, adding your logo, emphasizing your headline and CTA – all this serves to enhance the visual identity of your brand and highlight the copy itself. The design and the page copy are inherently connected, so making sure that they work well together is vital for the success of your conversions.

This time around, however, we’ve decided to focus on the ways in which you can take care of the landing page copy in particular. So without further ado, here are some useful writing tips that will help you generate a compelling and actionable copy for your landing page and skyrocket your conversions:

Do Not Use AI

Do Not Use AI

It’s a bit awkward having to stress this, but a surprising amount of copywriters and content editors rely a bit too much on AI chatbots and other tools for writing website copy. Ever since the big breakthrough of ChatGPT in 2022, starting the so-called “AI boom” we’ve been witnessing a surge in writing assistants like Jasper, Gemini, Copy.ai, Writesonic and others, most of which appear or promise to be useful in writing landing page and other web copy.

AI tools can be good for some purposes: for instance, there are several ways in which bloggers can use and benefit from AI, from research to proofreading and beyond. AI can be used for generating text to video, and they can make solid chatbot plugins for WordPress. There’s a lot you can do with AI tools but writing landing page copy is not one of them. Or, at least, it really shouldn’t be.

The landing page is an extremely important asset for conversion, brand identity, SEO and UX. It’s your crucial piece of material for reaching your target audiences and getting them to perform the desired action. It’s also vital for expanding the reach, for establishing trust and sending a clear and unique message. You definitely don’t want to entrust this sensitive and important task to a tool that starts every piece with “In today’s digital landscape…”

The main thing about using AI tools like ChatGPT successfully is to feed them the right prompts. However, even with the right prompts, they are highly likely to output extremely generic content, phrases that have been repeated so many times they are no longer perceived as messages, and unbacked claims. Since they’re pretty widely used, people are already getting a hang of what their copy sounds like, so it’s fairly easy to recognize that something has been written by AI. And if your landing page sounds and looks like it’s been AI-generated, what sort of impression is that supposed to make on the visitors? Not a very good one, for sure.

So, however tempted you get, do not use AI for your landing page copy. Just put in some effort and write your own and we promise it will be a thousand times better than anything a run-of-the-mill piece of AI could ever write.

Create an Attention-Grabbing Headline

Attention Grabbing Headline

As in many other types of online copy, headline is the key element of your landing page that can make or break your conversions. Since your headline is often the only thing the visitors will truly focus on when viewing a landing page, it can also be your only selling point. After all, the headline should represent your main message, in a way, which is all the more reason to take extra care when creating it.

While there are numerous ways in which you can generate a captivating headline (as well as many headline analyzer tools that can help you out), there are some general rules you should stick to for the best possible results. These include:

  • Adding a value proposition. By emphasizing the key benefits of your offer in your headline, you allow your message to reach the right customers right from the get-go. So make sure to include at least one good reason why people should use your product or service in your headline.
  • Being concise and straight to the point. If you ask us, this is pretty self-explanatory. The shorter and more concise your headline copy, the easier it will be able to convey a clear message to those reading it.

Of course, you can (and should, for that matter) also add a subheadline right underneath that will further support your headline’s main message. Here you can offer any additional info related to your offer. You can explain in more detail what the service or product does, as well list any other reason (or reasons) why they should use it in the first place.

Emphasize the Benefits in Your Copy

Emphasize the Benefits in Your Copy

While it’s totally okay to mention the final “solution” your products or services may bring to users, we advise you to put extra focus on the actual benefits instead. What we mean by this is that people usually know what “solution” is. Therefore, if you ask us, you should focus on creating a landing page copy that is all about offering a strong value proposition to potential customers.

The best way to do this is to list and describe the benefits of your product or service clearly and explain exactly how they are valuable to your customers. Say that you’re offering food products meant to help people lose weight in a healthy way. The “solution” in this case would be “food products that help people lose weight”, but you can also emphasize all (or most) of the benefits of using your product. For example, you can mention that it will reduce the risk of getting certain diseases, help them get better sleep, get more energy, boost their immune system, and so on.

There are also multiple ways in which you can list the benefits of your offer. For example, you can include them by using quotes from your satisfied customers (more on that later), insert one of the most important benefits into your headline (like we mentioned in the beginning), and so on. You can even use a bulleted list if you want to be as concise as possible while providing all the important info at the same time – which brings us to our next point.

Be Concise

Be Concise

The truth is, people have no time to read every piece of content they find on the web in full detail – and the same applies to your landing pages. Most people want to get to the information fast, which is why many of them engage in so-called speed reading, or even scanning of the text to find its most important bits. For this reason, it’s always important to create scannable content, no matter if you’re writing for a blog post or a landing page copy.

The general rule of thumb would be to use clear, concise sentences when crafting the copy of your landing page. Try describing your product or service, as well as its benefits using fewer words that are easy to understand in general. If you want, you can also achieve this using the above-mentioned bulleted lists, for example.

Alternatively, you can mention only the most essential features of your product or service and then mention them more than once throughout your landing page (in your headline, in the CTA, etc.). By doing this, you ensure that the “scanners” don’t miss out on the important bits of your offer without throwing them off with too much info either.

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Include Testimonials

Include Testimonials

When it comes to converting landing page copy, sometimes there’s no better way to present your offer than to let the customers do the talking. We suggest using customer testimonials in your landing page copy as they can help contribute to the credibility and value of your offer. This way, you have a chance to mention the most important aspects of your products and services while being genuine at the same time.

Testimonials, which are rather easy to add, especially if you use a testimonials plugin, can be presented in a form of a video or textual quote. They can come from your social media networks (like Twitter or Instagram), comments on your blog posts, and any other online interactions. You can place them as the centerpiece of your landing page (they can even be a part of your headline), below your headline and subheadline, or even at the bottom – your choices are practically limitless.

Add a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Add a Clear Call-to-Action

A Call to Action (or CTA) is a key element of every copy that has a goal to convert. A solid CTA helps ease the customer journey and contains a clear message that indicates what step you want them to take next. In fact, we’d go as far as to say that all your copy should be made with this message in mind, as making conversions is the main reason why you created a landing page in the first place. Do you want your visitors to buy a product from you, download an e-book, use your service, or simply want them to learn more about what you have to offer? Take your ultimate goal into consideration, and then create an actionable CTA in accordance with that.

Speaking of a converting call to action, you mustn’t forget to focus on the copy of the CTA button itself either. Namely, CTA buttons are among the first things that visitors notice when glancing upon a page, so make sure they contain a verb that suggests immediate action and clearly lets visitors know what you want them to do (like buy, download, etc.). You should also try creating a sense of urgency and encourage users to really click on that button by adding a word like “now” next to your action verb. Finally, don’t forget to design your CTA button in a way that will make it instantly visible on your page, as this can largely contribute to your conversions as well.

Use the Power of Statistics to Your Advantage

Use the Power of Statistics to Your Advantage

When it comes to creating a convincing landing page, numbers can make all the difference. We suggest that you provide statistics related to your offer, but do so in a way that will best resonate with your audience. Say that you have an environmentally-friendly product or service, for example. Instead of offering a percentage of reduced carbon emissions that can be achieved by using it, you can be even more specific by displaying the number of trees people can save if they use your products instead. By giving a more vivid mental description and combining it with a clear number, you can make your offer more relatable and can really inspire them to make a purchase.

Write for Humans

Write for Humans

Maybe you’d think that this goes without saying, but some marketers actually forget this simple rule – write your landing page copy for humans, and not for machines. What we mean by that is that you should try and keep the tone in your copy as natural-sounding as possible. You can achieve this by avoiding any overly complicated language and aiming to write as you speak in your everyday life. Also, try using shorter sentences and don’t hesitate to throw in casual phrasing here and there. Using a conversational tone rather than a robotic one will definitely resonate better with your visitors and thus has the real potential to raise your conversions.

Conclusion

The goal behind every successful landing page is to lead the visitors and encourage them to take action in order to boost conversions and increase sales. And to do all that, producing a captivating landing page copy is crucial. So, go ahead – make sure to generate some killer headlines, properly emphasize the benefits of your offer, be as concise as possible, and don’t forget to include a clearly noticeable and actionable CTA. If you follow these principles, you will have much greater chances of turning those visitors into customers and making profit.

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