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:

QODE Variation Swatches for WooCommerce by Qode Interactive

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

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

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 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 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

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.

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!

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:

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:

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:

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:

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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

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:

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:

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!

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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

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

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.

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:

QODE Wishlist for WooComerce

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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 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

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 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 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

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 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

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

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

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.

Having a clear picture of how users engage with your website’s content can greatly help you in developing a better content marketing strategy for your business. This is a commonsense type of approach – the more awareness you have of what your users prefer (or don’t prefer) about your content, the more you’ll know what to improve on. In addition to using the most comprehensive solution in this area, Google Analytics, installing one of the many available heatmap tools and plugins can prove to be extremely valuable in this situation. To save you the trouble of having to dig through the many available options, we’ve gathered a list of the best heatmap tools and plugins for WordPress you can find online.

What is a Heatmap and Why Use It for Your Website?

A heatmap is a graphical depiction of data visualized by color which, when set up with the help of a plugin, visually represents areas of your website that users click and scroll through. Heatmaps allow you to pinpoint the areas that have the most activity, including visual analytics of where the users are clicking, scrolling, and how they are using your website in general. The areas with more activity will be shown as “hotter” than those with less user engagement. This can help you determine the need for improvement when it comes to your website’s usability, structure, or the type of content you post. In short, heatmap analytics show a direct and concrete picture of how users use and interact with your content.

In order to make your website more functional and user-friendly and improve your content marketing strategy as a whole, we invite you to check our selection of some of the best WordPress heatmap tools and plugins out there:

Crazy Egg

With over 300,000 active users, Crazy Egg is an excellent and immensely popular tool for tracking the visitor behavior. It allows you to use visual reports and individual session recordings to learn more about your visitors, including where they’re coming from and the way they navigate your website. The brighter the areas of your website, the more clicks (and more popularity) they have, and vice versa – the darker the areas, the less popular they are. You can adjust the brightness of the heatmap view, filter by date range, and so on.

There is also a Scroll Map that shows how far down people scroll on your page. This is particularly useful as it can indicate the exact area where users lose interest and stop scrolling. Another handy feature that comes with this plugin is the Confetti Report tool that pinpoints every click on your page and allows you to find out various information about the users by filtering the clicks by country, browser type, search engine type, day of the week, and so on.

One thing we don’t particularly like about Crazy Egg is that they’re not very transparent on pricing. You’d expect the pricing page to be located in the navigation menu, but it’s all the way down in the footer. Anyway, the plans start at $49/mo, although some solutions are available for $29/mo. Everything comes with a 30-day free trial.

Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange is an all-in-one conversion optimization suite specializing in heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys. It allows for the automatic monitoring and recording of every single visitor and lets you easily filter and segment your recordings to accurately analyze the reason why visitors aren’t converting. In addition, aside from the standard click heatmaps, there’s also the Conversion Funnels tool that provides an insight into where people abandon a process on your website (such as checking out or creating an account). Lucky Orange has been awarded a number of G2 recognitions, most notably for usability and ease of implementation. It has a free plan for up to 100 monthly sessions. Paid plans start at $32.

Mouseflow

The Mouseflow plugin works by recording the mouse movements of your visitors. These include clicks, scrolls, the areas visitors focus on the most, etc. Additionally, there’s a possibility of getting a user session recording which replays the user activity, while the Forms feature allows you to monitor how people interact with your forms. This is a great plugin that will help you change the way you manage your content (for the better) and consequently boost conversion rates. The likes of Microsoft, Philips, Samsung and Bosch use this plugin, which only further proves its quality and efficiency.

The pricing for Mouseflow starts at €31 a month for 5000 recorded sessions (a single site limitation). If you want to use the plugin for free, you can download it from the WordPress.org repository and use it for one website with a limitation of 500 recorded sessions a month.

Heatmap.com

Heatmap is a simple heatmap analytics tool that operates by using a JavaScript code that is very small and asynchronous, which means it won’t impact your website’s performance. This is primarily a revenue-tracking tool, with a revenue-based heatmap, scroll map and screen recordings. It includes a dynamic extension for Chrome, and comes with custom revenue filters and site speed reporting in the dashboard. Heatmap used to have a free plan, albeit limited to five pages and a single website, but it’s no longer available. You can, however, start a free trial, and the paid plans start at $89/mo.

Contentsquare x Clicktale

Contentsquare x Clicktale is a partnership between the digital experience analytics platform Contentsquare and the customer engagement software Clicktale, created through acquisition in 2019. Trusted by companies like Walmart, GoPro, Dell and T Mobile, the solution runs deep web and app analytics connecting metrics to actual customer behavior. Its features include journey analytics, troubleshooting and, yes, heatmapping, to offer actionable insights that drive growth. The platform uses zone-based heatmaps, among other advanced features that show how users interact with each and every element of the website or app. The live-zoning extension allows for analyses directly on site, with shortcuts to session replay and customer journey analysis. The problem with this solution is that it’s unclear how much it costs. The website doesn’t say anything about prices or plans and interested parties have to request a demo.

Inspectlet

Inspectlet is a heatmap, session recording and JavaScript A/B testing tool for customer engagement analytics. Session recording gives insights into how visitors behave, what they click on and how they scroll, and the eye-tracking heatmap feature shows what parts of a site or app users are viewing by analyzing the mouse movement, plus there are scroll and click heatmaps. Inspectlet is designed to work perfectly with single page web technologies (Ember, Angular JS, React), AJAX, HTTPS/SSL and cookies and login/authentication solutions. The free version is for one site and allows for 2,500 recorded sessions per month, 2,500 A/B test visitors and 25,000 pageviews. Paid plans start at $39/mo.

Zoho PageSense

Zoho PageSense is a powerful platform of CRO tools for maximizing website conversions featuring web analytics, goals, form analysis, funnel analysis and, of course, session recording and heatmaps. This feature-rich platform can also be used to create engaging polls, popups, push notifications, as well as for website personalization. PageSense integrates seamlessly with other useful Zoho tools, it’s lightweight and GDPR-compliant out of the box. The cheapest plan currently costs $12/month and you can use it for up to 10,000 monthly visitors and three projects. With this plan, you get six months of data retention, 20 goals and 20 custom dimensions.

Smartlook

If you’re looking for a product analytics and visual user insights tool that’s both robust and comprehensive yet easy to implement and adopt, you should check out Smartlook. It combines session recordings with event-based analytics to show how your site or app is faring against the visitors’ expectations, whether the visitors are doing what you want them to do and where and why they drop off. It features heatmaps, funnel analysis, behavior flows and crash reports, among other solutions. Smartlook has a free plan that’s good for up to 3,000 monthly sessions and one-month data retention. Paid plans start at €55/month and include more advanced product analytics, daily anomaly reporting, as well as a number of addons.

Final Thoughts

Even though these heatmap tools and plugins come with different pricing options and vary in terms of popularity and the range of features, they all offer great heatmap solutions for your website. Some tools provide an even deeper insight into the behavior of your users by offering options such as the ability to view the user’s sessions or the conversion funnels tool that lets you see where people abandon certain processes on your website. No matter which one of these tools you pick for strengthening your content strategy, we are sure you won’t make the wrong choice.

WooCommerce has a special place among WordPress eCommerce plugins for a couple of reasons. It lets you sell any kind of goods, including affiliate products. It helps you manage your inventory, handle payments, and calculate shipping. But to get to what makes WooCommerce so great, you only need to visit the Extensions Store on WooCommerce’s website. There, you’ll be greeted with close to seven hundred different extensions.

WooCommerce is endlessly extensible. The extensions you can find on the WooCommerce website aren’t the only ones you could use. Go over to WordPress.org and search for “WooCommerce” among the plugins and see how many you can count with a 4-star and above rating. You’ll soon realize there’s no point to it, and that this variety can easily turn away some users who don’t want that many choices and just want to get on with things.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the best WooCommerce extensions for your WordPress shop you can find on either WooCommerce’s or WordPress’ website. It’s not a definitive list and it won’t contain every good WooCommerce extension that exists, but it should at the very least save you from some trouble when looking for good WooCommerce extensions – or plugins – for your store.

The extensions and plugins we’ll include are:

QODE Wishlist for WooCommerce

We’re kicking off the list with a remarkably well-rounded and conversion-driving plugin from the Qode Interactive workshop – QODE Wishlist for WooCommerce. In its free version, the plugin helps shop owners elevate the UX and drive engagement by placing a convenient Add to Wishlist button to product lists. The button is fully customizable in terms of position, behavior and appearance. Admins can enable automatic removal from wishlist for an item that’s added to the cart, as well as automatic redirection of users to the cart page once the product is added to cart.

The premium version supports the creation of multiple wishlists per user, with visibility options that include public (and searchable), private and accessible via link, providing shoppers with great flexibility. In addition, admins can choose to allow only registered users to create wishlists, which is convenient for lead generation, or opt to make the feature accessible to all as guests.

The wishlist layout can be adjusted and the same goes for the page where multiple lists are displayed. There’s the option to add an “Ask for Estimate” module and the robust admin options include marketing features like tracking user behavior and sending promotional emails (on sale, back in stock, promo, etc). On top of all that, admins can provide quick wishlist access on their pages using two widgets – dropdown and sidebar.

Stripe for WooCommerce

Choosing a good payment extension is probably one of the first things you’ll want to do if you want to make your WordPress shop accessible to more people. Stripe for WooCommerce is a good choice, and not only because it has stellar ratings – that’s just the icing on the cake.

With this plugin, you can add a whole lot of different payment options to your store. Stripe for WooCommerce supports credit cards, sure, but also Apple Pay, Google Pay, as well as local payment methods, and it can display them on product and cart pages besides the checkout page.

WooCommerce Google Analytics

When insight into your customers’ behavior is what you need, what is that one company you should turn to? With the free WooCommerce Google Analytics extension, you can track basic data such as sessions, users, and events. You can also get basic eCommerce data like product views.

If you want to turn it up a notch, you can opt for a Google Analytics Pro extension from another developer. At an annual price of $79, this plugin adds checkout behavior analysis, advanced settings, and tracking dimensions.

Google Listings and Ads

Staying in the realm of Google and its services, having an easy way to connect with Google Merchant Center can save you lots of trouble if you plan to run Google Ads. Thanks to the Google Listings and Ads extension, however, you can cross that off your list of things to worry about.

This free extension allows your WooCommerce store to automatically sync your product information to Google Merchant Center. From there, you can use that data for free listings in the Shopping tab in Google search, as well as ad campaigns you create with Google Ads.

Mailchimp for WooCommerce

Email is one of the most consistently effective tools marketers and advertisers have in their arsenal. Email marketing can do wonders for your WordPress store, too – if you have the right extension for it. So why not Mailchimp? Mailchimp for WooCommerce is a free plugin, as is the basic Mailchimp service – and the paid plans make it ideal for small and medium businesses, too.

With the plugin, you’ll be able to connect your WooCommerce store to Mailchimp’s system and easily share information between the two. From there, you can use any of Mailchimp’s services for email and marketing automation you have access to based on your Mailchimp plan.

Name Your Price

Do you want to let your customers set their own prices for the products you’re selling? The name-your-price model could be risky but rewarding. Thanks to the Name Your Price extension, you’ll be able to try it out in a couple of novel ways.

Name Your Price works with many different product types you can sell through WooCommerce. You can use this extension along with subscriptions, gift cards, bundles, but you could also use it to collect donations. Name Your Price is a premium extension, and it costs $49 per year.

QuickBooks Sync for WooCommerce

Is there a better investment for a store than accounting software? Good booking is essential for any store’s success, and WooCommerce accounting can be easy – if you have the right tool. QuickBooks is one of the best ones, and QuickBooks Sync for WooCommerce is the extension you need to be able to use this tool with your WordPress store.

With the extension, you can sync your store with QuickBooks for two-way sharing of data on orders, customers, inventory, products, and anything else you can throw at QuickBooks. The services you’ll get from the platform, however, depend on the type of package that you have. While the extension might be free, QuickBooks offers a free trial, and the basic plan starts at $25.

Smart Coupons

Need a way to attract more customers? Coupons, gift cards, and giveaways are a time-honored sales method to give the bottom line a boost. When talking about coupons and WooCommerce, one of the first extensions that have to cross the mind is Smart Coupons.

This extension has everything you need to be able to create coupons and other types of special offers for existing and prospective customers. Whether you want to create a fixed amount or percentage coupon, offer free shipping, offer a discount via a shareable link, or set up store credits of vouchers – you’ll be able to do it. The extension is premium, and it costs $99 per year.

Customer Reviews for WooCommerce

Sometimes, a little bit of social proof is all your store needs to fly to stellar heights. Customer reviews are great social proof, and thanks to the Customer Reviews for WooCommerce extension, you can incentivize your customers to leave reviews, too.

The extension’s major draw is its streamlined process. When someone makes a purchase and some time passes, they receive an email asking for a review. The extension provides a form for the review, and once the form is filled and submitted, the review gets published on your website. You can even send a thank-you coupon. The extension is freemium, with the paid version offering lots of customization and branding options, and starting at $7.99 per month plus VAT.

Discount Rules for WooCommerce

Who doesn’t love a good discount? If you want to make the most out of this natural proclivity towards good deals, you’ll tie it with something like – volume. Offering bulk discounts and other types of dynamic pricing is very common, and thanks to the Discount Rules for WooCommerce extension, it’s easy, too.

This extension will let you apply any type of discount you can imagine. You can set rules based on date, products, count of items, order total, cart size, quantity range, and many other variables. The premium version of the plugin – $49 per year – even offers discount rules that turn this extension into a genuine product-bundling plugin.

Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

Some extensions are so good that, even though they’re freemium, their free version is useful enough to easily be one of the best free WooCommerce plugins you can use. Variation Swatches is one of those extensions.

What this plugin does is necessary if you’re offering variations of the same type of product. The plugin allows you to create variation swatches based on color, size, brand, image, and label. The swatches will be displayed automatically instead of the usual dropdown menu. The Pro version, which starts at $49 per year, adds a whole lot of functionalities such as blurring and multi-color swatches.

Advanced Shipping Tracking for WooCommerce

Shipment tracking is one of the modern conveniences that take the edge off usually frustrating things and having to wait for a package without knowing where it can be frustrating. If your shipping provider offers to track, use one of the best shipping extensions out there, the Advanced Shipping Tracking extension, to keep the customers in the loop.

This extension lets you add tracking numbers to orders, fulfill the orders when the number is added, and provide your customers with a link where they can check the status of their shipment. With the pro version, which starts at $129 per year, you get access to additional features that include a fulfillment dashboard, built-in integration with third-party plugins, and more.

Product Recommendations

Upselling is a fine skill that takes plenty of practice and knowledge to master. At least in-person upselling is. If you have a WordPress WooCommerce store, all you need is an extension like Product Recommendations.

This extension allows you to show your customers products that are frequently bought together with the product they are browsing. You can add recommendations manually, as well as let an algorithm take care of it for you. The extension even lets you create your recommendation engine. A premium extension, Product Recommendations costs $79 a year to use.

FiboSearch – Ajax Search for WooCommerce

It’s a generally good idea to make a customer’s journey from landing on your website to getting what they’re there for as quick and frictionless as possible. Search bars play an important role in removing that friction, and FiboSearch is one of the best search bars for WooCommerce you’ll find.

The free version of the plugin supports search by product title, description, terms, and SKU. It shows product image, price, and description in the results, and allows you to limit the number of suggestions that are displayed. The paid version, which starts at $49 per year, adds synonyms and fuzzy search to the list of features, as well as search for posts, pages, tags, categories, and attributes.

Checkout Field Editor

Just like any other part of your store, the checkout page needs occasional optimization. Since this is another one of the fields where core WooCommerce doesn’t excel, you’ll be better served by an extension. Checkout Field Editor is just the one.

With this freemium plugin, you’ll be able to add seven new types of fields, as well as customize the existing ones that are already on the checkout page. There are options for arranging, renaming and validating checkout fields. With the premium version of the extension, which starts at $49 per year, you’ll get additional custom fields, conditional display of fields, custom validations, and many more options.

Request a Quote for WooCommerce

In some business models, it makes sense to give shoppers the option to send you a request for a quote. If you’re selling in bulk, or if you run a B2B store, this might make perfect sense for you. In that case, you’ll need an extension like Request a Quote for WooCommerce to help you out.

Request a Quote for WooCommerce is a premium extension that adds a “request a quote” button to specific products. You can display it instead of the “buy” button or create rules for when it appears. You can customize the form they then use to ask for the quote. The annual price for the plugin is $69.

Custom Product Tabs for WooCommerce

If it ever bothered you that WooCommerce doesn’t allow you to add custom product tabs to your website, don’t worry – you’re not alone. With over a hundred thousand active downloads, Custom Product Tabs for WooCommerce is proof that this is a much-needed feature.

Luckily for you, the extension lets you add it effortlessly. Once you create the tabs, you can move them around and delete them – it’s as simple as that. The plugin has a premium version, too, which starts at around $30 and includes additional features, such as the inclusion of tabs content into search results.

WooCommerce Zapier

When you have to integrate a number of disparate tools and services, you usually turn to an in-between, a platform, or a service that lets you set it all up easily. Zapier is one of the most popular integration platforms that also offer automation tools. With WooCommerce Zapier, a premium plugin with an annual price of $59, you can use the platform for WooCommerce, too.

Zapier works with a combination of triggers and actions, allowing you to automate certain processes. For example, you can use a sale in WooCommerce as a trigger, and “add to Google Sheets” as an action. It’s a simple yet powerful way to bring different services together without having to do too much work.

WooCommerce EU VAT Assistant

Who can keep account of all the rules and regulations of doing business with the EU? Thanks to the WooCommerce EU VAT Assistant, you don’t have to when it comes to charging for value-added tax. The extension will do most of the work for you.

You can use WooCommerce EU VAT Assistant for a variety of tasks. The extension will gather necessary information, including customer location. It will validate VAT numbers and perform currency conversions for you. Most importantly, it will automatically apply the VAT rates for you. It will do all of this free of charge, although you’re welcome to sign up for premium support from the developer.

WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips

How tedious would it be if you had to create an invoice or packing slips manually after every sale? Not that you have to, though – all you need to do is download and install the WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips extension, and you’ll be done with most of the work.

This free extension lets you create and customize invoices and package slips you can automatically attach to WooCommerce emails of your choosing. You’ll be able to download them, too, generate them in bulk, and include sequential invoice numbers.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

With a wide user base and a strong development community around it, it sometimes seems like WooCommerce very much resembles WordPress itself. Both are extensible endlessly with third-party tools, and both seem to suffer for it – even though they still dominate their markets. Still, if you know where to look, you can easily sort through the rubble and find some great WooCommerce extensions. The ones we’ve listed here are among the best ones.

When it comes to eCommerce, the demand for effective solutions to unlock sales and engagement potential remains constant. Among such solutions are customer wishlists. Wishlists are by no means a new thing, but a surprising number of online stores still don’t offer this handy little feature that’s designed to boost sales and engagement and can be added in WordPress with absolute ease using one of the WooCommerce wishlist plugins.

Before we check them out, let’s first see why every online store should have the wishlist feature.

Why Are eCommerce Wishlists Important?

Adding the wishlist feature to an online shop benefits both the customers and for the shop owners.

For customers, they offer, above all, a way to make online shopping even more convenient. Wishlists act as a personal shopping cart, saving desired items for later purchase or comparison. They are a great reminder of the products that piqued our interest but that we can’t purchase at the moment.

Wishlists are also great for gift inspiration. They can become curated lists for friends and family seeking perfect presents. On top of that, they can be used for price tracking, as they allow users to monitor price changes and snag deals when the time is right.

And because they’re good for customers, wishlists are consequently good for shop owners, too, as they improve UX and boost engagement. Wishlists nurture leads, reminding users of their desires at the right moment. Also, sharing wishlists on social media expands reach and attracts new customers. Finally, wishlist data reveals popular products and potential promotions.

If your shop runs on WordPress, you’re likely using WooCommerce for the shop functionality. WooCommerce doesn’t include wishlist as the core feature of the plugin, so it’s something you’ll have to add separately, using one of the many WooCommerce wishlist plugins. We checked a great number of these plugins for you and came up with this list of the best contenders:

QODE Wishlist for WooCommerce

We’re kicking off our list with a remarkably well-rounded WooCommerce wishlist plugin from the Qode Interactive workshop: the QODE Wishlist for WooCommerce. The plugin was created after extensive research into what both users and shop admins can benefit from the most when it comes to wishlist functionality and its options. As a result, the plugin offers extensive customization options such as the behavior type for the button, the layout style and position, labels, icons, colors, etc. Admins can also choose to enable the automatic removal of wishlist items that are added to the cart. The wishlist feature is available to all shop visitors, whether they’re logged in or not. Adding the product to a wishlist is as simple as a button click, and the feature is extremely easy to implement.

And this is all just in the free version of the QODE Wishlist. The premium version is among the most advanced plugins of this type that you’ll find on the market. Most notably, it allows users to create multiple wishlists, with adjustable visibility – they can be public, private or accessible only via a link.

Another impressive feature is the wishlist product count, showing how many times an item has been added to a wishlist, which is useful for building hype.

Rich customization options cover two distinct layouts for single wishlists – table and gallery. These can feature a sorting switcher, related products, total product amounts, etc. Two layouts – gallery and modern – are also available for pages with multiple lists. The plugin includes two widgets for quick access to the wishlist – as a sidebar or as a dropdown, both with advanced customization options. Another premium feature is the choice between requiring the login for creating wishlists or not.

Finally, QODE Wishlist for WooCommerce includes marketing features like promotional email campaigns (on sale, back in stock, etc) and the “Ask for Estimate” forms (useful if you want to put the shop in catalog mode and decide to hide the prices) , as well as dashboard analytic data on conversions.

The single site price of this remarkable plugin is currently $89.

WPC Smart Wishlist for WooCommerce

Those looking for a more straightforward and stripped-down wishlist plugin can check out WPC Smart Wishlist for WooCommerce. It’s easy to configure and manage and comes with some neat options for customizing the wishlist and the button. You can opt for an additional action button and link classes, enable or disable auto removal from the wishlist once the item is added to cart and set categories that allow the wishlist button.

As for visual customization, users can set colors for the wishlist popup, define the position of the wishlist icon on archive and single pages, edit the button or link text, and so on. And when the user navigates away from the page, you can set it to trigger the wishlist popup.

All these come with the free version, and if you want to upgrade, the premium one includes multiple wishlists per user, the option to add notes to each product, advanced customization to match the style of the wishlist with the rest of your website, and lifetime dedicated support. The premium plugin currently costs $34 for the single site license.

TI WooCommerce Wishlist

If popularity is your main criterion when choosing a plugin, you will want to check out TI WooCommerce Wishlist, which currently has more than 100,000 active installations for the free version. It’s a solid plugin that adds the wishlist functionality and features a handy setup wizard to guide you through the process. It comes with predefined icons for the “Add to wishlist” button but it also allows you to upload your own. Plus, you can define the position of the button on product pages or use a shortcode to add it anywhere on your pages. The free version also has the storewide stats for each product added to a wishlist, as well as a wishlist products counter.

The appearance of the wishlist is completely customizable. The plugin is translation-ready and supports custom CSS styles.

The premium version supports multiple wishlists per user, product sorting within the wishlist using drag and drop, as well as different wishlist privacy settings, automatically calculated total price, promotional emails, predefined skins and product analytics. The premium version currently costs $79/year for a single site, which makes it one of the costlier plugins of this kind.

WishSuite

WishSuite is a completely free WooCommerce wishlist plugin that provides an easy and intuitive way to create wishlist pages and add wishlist buttons to products. It generates a shortcode so you can place the wishlist button anywhere you want on your website. After a product on the wishlist is added to the cart, the product is automatically removed. The button on product pages or catalog can be added to various positions, for example before or after the cart button, or before or after the price.

Customization options are numerous and include customizable text, customizable fields (you can remove the fields you don’t want, like price, quantity, etc) and options to set fields heading text, empty field text and so on. As for styling, you can set the button style, icon type, table style, added button type and so on.

Premmerce Wishlist for WooCommerce

Another free and relatively new solution for shop owners on a budget is Premmerce Wishlist for WooCommerce. It’s not the most feature-rich option out there, but it’s easy to use and, being completely free, represents a great solution for small shops that are just starting out. One of the features that sets it apart from many other plugins of this kind is the ability to view which items the customers have added to their wishlists. This information can be used for targeting with promotional emails or deals, for upselling, cross-selling, etc.

The wishlists can be shared via URL and the wishlist can be displayed as a widget. The plugin is compatible with most WordPress themes and also with Elementor, AIOSEO, RankMath, Polylang and WPML.

My Wish List for WooCommerce

If you prefer official WooCommerce extensions, My Wish List for WooCommerce is a popular choice. It allows users, registered or not, to add products to their wishlist. Registered users can view their wishlist on their My Accounts page. The extension comes with shortcode support for adding the wishlist anywhere on the pages for non-registered users. The extension uses Ajax for seamless adding and removal of the items from the wishlist. As for admin controls, you can see lists of most frequently added products and sort them from least to most added ones, thus gaining valuable insights. The extension currently costs $29/year.

WooCommerce Wishlists

WooCommerce Wishlists is a similar solution to the previous one – a premium Woo extension for adding wishlists to your shop. However, unlike My Wish List for WooCommerce, this one allows both registered and unregistered users to create unlimited wishlists in your online store. Guest wishlists are kept for 30 days, which is essentially the cookie lifetime. Of course, if the user deletes their cookies before that, the wishlist will be deleted too.

Wishlists can be personal or shared and their number is unlimited. Customers have full privacy control and the lists are easily shared on social media or through email, with a personalized message. The extension supports grouped and variable products.

The button is customizable in terms of icons and text. You can upload your own icon and set the text you like. The extension inherits the theme style for button and other elements. It adds its own settings tab in WooCommerce admin, from which colors, button appearance and everything else can easily be adjusted.

This premium extension is a bit pricier and costs $89/year.

Wrapping It Up

WooCommerce wishlist plugins and extensions are the safest, quickest, and most beginner-friendly way to provide your customers with the ability to create lists of their desired products. As we saw, the benefits of having the wishlist feature in your shop are multiple, ranging from better engagement and customer retention to data insights, improved targeting and, ultimately, more sales. If there’s a WooCommerce wishlist plugin that you like but we didn’t mention in this list, do let us know in the comments below – we’re always updating our lists and we’d love your feedback!

There is no overestimating the importance of a search function for your website. Even if your website is remarkably easy to navigate, your visitors might still have a little trouble finding what they want. It’s up to you to give them a hand. And you can do it if you add a search bar to your WordPress menu.

WordPress itself has a default search functionality. However, you may be dissatisfied with it, or you might want to include functionalities it doesn’t come with.

A functional search bar is a feature that’s often integrated in themes. This includes our own premium WordPress themes. For the purposes of this article, we’ll be using the Bridge theme to demonstrate how to add a search bar to your site. However, please note that the options for adding a search bar may vary, depending on the theme you’re using. And in case you’re not using one of our themes at all, we’ll also cover how to add a search bar to your site using a plugin. Here’s what we’ll cover:

Why Add a Search Bar to the Menu?

Good search functionality is one of the pillars of good user experience. Only a few things are more annoying for visitors than failing to find what they’re looking for, quickly and easily.

There’s a lot that can be done to improve the search. For instance, you can add live Ajax search for a faster, interactive search experience. You should certainly consider adding the autocomplete search feature, too. If you’re running an eCommerce website, you can set up the search filters for your products. Finally, you can even completely remove the search feature from your WordPress website.

But in terms of improving the usability and navigational experience of your website, you can also consider the best locations for placing your search bar.

By default, since the search bar is a widget, WordPress only allows you to add it to your widget-ready areas. These are dependent on the theme you’re using and you’re limited by those options, unless you know how to make custom widget areas.

An excellent location for the search bar is the navigation menu. Search is, after all, an important part of the website navigation, and placing it in the menu is a natural choice and a logical place where your visitors will look. The navigation menu is located at the top of the page, and the users will be able to find the search easily and instantly, which will, in turn, increase engagement and reduce the bounce rate.

If you feel like your website can benefit from placing the search bar to your WordPress menu, read along to discover two ways to do it.

How to Add a Search Bar in the Bridge WordPress Theme

Adding a search bar to your website using Bridge is very easy.

First navigate to Qode Options > Header.

Once you have found the Header screen, click the Qode Search button in the bottom bar, and you will be taken to the search switch. You will need to enable it.

Having enabled the search bar, all you need to do is Save your changes. Now, when you visit your site from the frontend, you will see the search icon in the header. Clicking on it will open the search bar at the top.

We also have a video tutorial with detailed instructions on how to easily add a search bar to the menu of our Bridge theme, as well as how to configure it to match your website design and functionality preferences. Check it out below.

As you can see, in just a few short steps, you will have helped your visitors sort through your content and find what they were looking for.

How to Add a Search Bar to WordPress Using a Plugin

In case your theme doesn’t come with an inbuilt search functionality, adding a search bar to your WordPress menu works a little differently. For this demonstration, we will use the Better Search plugin – a free and simple solution which greatly improves upon WordPress‘s default search functionality.

First, you need to install and activate the plugin. If you are not sure how to do this, you can check out our article on installing WordPress plugins. Once you have Better Search installed and activated, you will need to configure it. This plugin is well-annotated, with explanations in italics, and you will never be in doubt as to which command does what.

For this demonstration, we won’t touch anything with regards to the General settings. We just need to make sure that the Enable seamless integration checkbox is checked. This means that the plugin will use your theme’s settings and style in order to blend in.

In the Search tab, we will take a look at three functionalities. The Number of Search Results should be set to how many results you want to appear per page, and the Post types checkboxes should be checked for each post type you want to appear in the searches.

Next, if you scroll all the way down, you will find the Filter these words field. There are some words which are not included in the searches by default. These are profanities in English, and you may want to review this list, depending on your content. Note that this field may be used for all terms, not simply profanities, making this field an important tool in refining your search.

We won’t be changing anything in the Heatmap tab for our demonstration, since we are using the plugin in seamless integration mode. If you wish to use it, however, check Include heatmap on the search results. The options in this tab will help you customize the appearance of the “heat map” of popular searches, to further help your visitors find what they want. The Styles tab is there for custom CSS you might want to use.

Once you have your plugin configured and all settings saved, you need to find a place to add the search bar. This is done using a widget included with the plugin. Use your right-hand side menu to reach the Appearance/Widgets screen. We are using the Bridge theme, so the name for the widget area we’re adding our search to is Header Bottom Right. Note that themes may have different names for different widget areas.

In your list of available widgets on the left-hand side, find the Search Form [Better Search]. In its drop-down menu, find and select Header Bottom Right, then click the Add Widget button.

Your search form widget will now appear in the Header Bottom Right area on the right-hand side. You may choose to change the title of the field. We have gone with “Looking for something special?“. Once you Save your title, your search field should appear in your menu.

When you visit the frontend of your site, you will see what your search plugin looks like.

And that’s all there is to adding a search bar via a plugin in WordPress.

In Conclusion

While WordPress offers its own search functionality, it has been described by various users as rudimentary. We recommend you either use your theme’s in-built capacities, or a search plugin which best suits your website. Either way, adding a search bar to your WordPress menu is really simple, as we have shown. With a functional search bar, you’ll be a step closer to fulfilling your visitors‘ content needs – and you can be certain they will appreciate that.

If you’re in the real estate business and looking to create a website with all the required functionalities, you may have heard of IDX, software used to add MLS (Multiple Listing Service) listings to real estate websites. In this article, we’ll show you how to create an IDX website to attract visitors and potential customers, using minimum resources and without advanced technical expertise. You’ll learn about:

What Is an IDX Website for Realtors?

If you’re a realtor, individual or working for a real estate agency, you have a couple of options regarding your online presence. You can have a simple website using one of the available platforms, like WordPress.com, Wix, etc. You can have a more complex and robust website made on WordPress.org, with your own hosting, custom domain name, etc. You can even have a custom-made website created by a professional web developer. Finally, you can have an IDX website for realtors built on WordPress, which is the best possible solution.

An IDX website is a real estate website that displays active listings directly from a Multiple Listing Service (MLS). A MLS is a database, maintained by real estate professionals, that holds information about properties currently on the market. Think of it as a giant, exclusive catalog of homes for sale. This info includes details like price, bedrooms, location, and photos. Only licensed real estate agents can access the complete MLS, but some basic info is displayed on public websites like Zillow or Trulia.

So, IDX acts as a connection between the MLS and public websites like the one you want to create. It allows websites to securely pull and display accurate, up-to-date listings directly from the MLS, without needing to manually submit each property. This guarantees that the users see the latest information and agents can showcase their listings to a wider audience, all on a single platform.

The advantages of these sorts of real estate websites are obvious. They are better for customers since they provide a more convenient search experience. They’re better for realtors, too, since they can be a tremendously useful tool for attracting new leads.

WordPress as a Platform for an IDX Website

Here at Qode Interactive, we firmly believe that WordPress can be used to create any sort of website. Creating a website with WordPress is something that even non-experts can do, with proper guidance. There are tons of specialized real estate themes out there, and a lot of amazing real estate websites have been made with Qode themes, too. So, WordPress makes a great choice for realtors when it comes to boosting their online presence. But can it be used to make an IDX website for realtors? The short answer is: yes.

WordPress packs amazing functionality out of the box, but a lot of times it is the WordPress ecosystem of plugins and themes that really takes the experience to the next level, adding required design solutions and extending functionalities.

We’ll talk more about how this can be applied to IDX websites specifically, but now let’s see what you’ll need to get such a website up and running. The essentials include:

Hosting and Domain Name

In order for your site to be accessible on the web, it needs to be hosted by a specialized service that offers all the required facilities, services, space and bandwidth for it – a web hosting service. We’ve written extensively about hosting so we invite you to check out our article on the difference between shared and managed WordPress hosting that should help you figure things out. If you’re on a tight budget, you should know that there are free options, but before you commit, please check out the pros and cons of free hosting. In any case, make sure to check out our guide on how to choose a hosting provider first.

As for the domain name, you can get one even before you figure out hosting. However, if you don’t already have a domain name paid and parked, bear in mind that a lot of hosting providers include domain names in their services so that may be a more convenient solution.

Once you have a hosting plan and domain name in place, it’s time to install WordPress (check out our guide on how to install WordPress manually) and set up your IDX website for realtors. Depending on the type of hosting you’ve chosen, you may already have WordPress installed, but either way after this step you can go ahead and install a theme of your choice.

Picking the Right WordPress Theme for your IDX Website

Fokkner – Real Estate and Property Theme

The choice of WordPress theme for an IDX website for realtors is one of the most important choices, as the themes not only set a certain visual mood and engage the visitors in a certain way, but they also come equipped with specific elements, sections and functionalities designed to boost engagement and conversions.

For realtors, this includes above all a professional search functionality that allows visitors to quickly find the property they’re looking for, as well as all the necessary info about a property. Then there are individual property listings equipped with multiple photos, galleries, videos and sliders. Maps, contact forms and client testimonials are also a must.

The best real estate WordPress themes usually come equipped with all this, and more. You should always opt for a theme that, in addition to modern and professional design, ease of use and speed, also offers a comprehensive real estate module – a set of functionalities, sections and elements designed specifically for realtors. To get inspired and see some great themes in action, check out our list of the best real estate websites made with Qode themes.

Make sure the theme you pick has good reviews, comes with professional customer support, that it’s regularly updated and that has a good performance and speed score.

Sometimes, a WordPress theme for real estate will also include IDX/MLS integration, which is a plus, but in majority of cases this functionality is added via plugins.

Best WordPress IDX Plugins

Before we check out a couple of excellent IDX plugins for a real estate website, let’s quickly go through what IDX and MLS are and how they work.

We said previously that IDX is software that allows site visitors to go through real estate listings in a specific area. These listings are pulled from MLS (Multiple Search Listing) platforms, which are real estate portals updated by local realtors. These are comprehensive, detailed and large aggregations of listings and it’s the realtors’ responsibility to keep them up to date – after all, it’s in their best interest. MLS platforms are for realtors only, and if they want to add these listings to their own websites, they need to use IDX as a sort of bridge.

The easiest way to create an IDX-based real estate website is to first create the site using WordPress, as we described above, and then use one of the several available IDX plugins to add the functionality. Here are a couple of our favorites:

Realtyna Organic IDX

Realtyna Organic IDX + WPL Real Estate is a freemium plugin designed to manage property listings by adding MLS/IDX/RESO/VOW/XML/DDF functionalities to any WordPress website. With the free version, you can easily pull listing features, addresses, appliances, neighborhood info, videos and images and display them on your website. The plugin supports all MLS providers in North America.

With the paid version, which costs $199 (one-time payment, lifetime updates and one-year support), you can host all the IDX/MLS data on your own server, which is ideal for realtors who want more control over their data.

DS IDX

The WordPress IDX Real Estate Listings & MLS Search takes pride in being the only IDX plugin that offers live support, a custom marketing solution and IDX listing feeds from more than 730 MLS platforms in Canada and the United States. The plugin adds user-friendly search widgets with a map and a slideshow of featured properties. Listings are comprehensive and informative, and can include school information and similar properties in the desired area.

This plugin also features useful lead-capture tools, like forms for scheduling property showings, tools for adding favorite listings, saving property search criteria for the next visit, and more.

Note that this is not a free plugin. It does come with a free 7-day trial. The basic package costs $59.95/month, and includes live listing shortcodes, an interactive IDX widget and indexable city and neighborhood pages. The Pro version costs $89.95/month and includes full IDX search interface, flexible site registration options, saved searches and favorites, lead capture tools, additional widgets and CRM with lead behavior insights. The Pro Plus plan costs $299.95/month and includes everything from the Pro version plus dedicated help from digital marketing and SEO experts.

Showcase IDX

Showcase IDX Real Estate Search is a freemium solution for real estate agents and companies, providing them with portal-quality listings search functionality, fully integrated into WordPress and managed from the WordPress admin. It basically works as a CRM solution, on top of providing the IDX search functionality. The listings are responsive out of the box and fully customizable to match the style of your theme. You can create neighborhood and community pages and import MSL in batches, with custom styling for each batch. Showcase IDX is the only IDX that allows for multiple polygon search, with customizable map elements.

Showcase IDX comes with a free 10–day trial, and the paid plans start at $74.95.

MLS Import

With MLS Import, you can easily connect to the MLS platforms you choose and import listings in batches, using your own criteria, and sync their information. The plugin is created specifically for WordPress and can be used with most real estate themes. It is built on the latest RESO API technology, which is important since RETS is a deprecated data standard that no longer works. Selected properties are imported directly to your domain and images and videos are served through a CDN, which improves performance and guarantees a fast user experience. MLS Import works with 800+ platforms across North America and the listings changes are synced hourly, guaranteeing your content will always be up to date.

MLS Import has a 30-day free trial, after which, if you decide to use the plugin, you will pay $49/month.

Wrapping It Up

After you’ve installed and activated the plugin of your choice and imported the listings from MLS platforms, you’ll be ready to go. At this point, it’s time to grow your audience and turn them into customers. Check out our tips for WordPress lead generation and consider using some of the lead generation plugins for the platform. One thing you’ll want to do is promote your website on social media and use email marketing. For realtors, it’s also important to implement proper local SEO techniques. Don’t forget to monitor your metrics, as they can tell you with certainty which aspects of your website are performing well and which ones need improvement. Many of the IDX plugins come with built-in insights, especially those with the user registration option. Finally, make sure to check out Qode Magazine regularly since mastering WordPress is a sure way to get your business out there, attract more customers and close more deals.