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

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

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

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

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QODE Variation Swatches for WooCommerce by Qode Interactive

QODE Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WooCommerce Additional Variation Images

WooCommerce Additional Variation Images

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

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

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

WooSwatches – WooCommerce Color or Image Variation Swatches by WooMatrix

WooSwatches – WooCommerce Color or Image Variation Swatches by WooMatrix

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

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

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

WooCommerce Better Variations

WooCommerce Better Variations

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

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

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

WooCommerce Variation Master

WooCommerce Variation Master

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

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

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

Color and Image Swatches for Variable Product Attributes by Phoeniixx

Color and Image Swatches for Variable Product Attributes by Phoeniixx

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

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

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

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

In Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Do Emails End Up in the Spam Folder?

Why Do Emails End Up in the Spam Folder

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

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

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

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

Pick Your Email Service Provider Wisely

Pick Your Email Service Provider Wisely

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

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

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

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Get the Names Right

Get the Names Right

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

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

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

Using Double Opt-In

Using Double Opt-In

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

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

Build Your List

Build Your List

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

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

Respect Your Subscribers and Handle Them with Care

Respect Your Subscribers and Handle Them with Care

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

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

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

Be Mindful of the Contents

Be Mindful of the Contents

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

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

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

Keep Good Hygiene with Regular Checkups

Keep Good Hygiene with Regular Checkups

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

Some of the things you should be checking include:

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

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

Complying with Relevant Internet Privacy Regulations

Complying with Relevant Internet Privacy Regulations

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

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

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

Let’s Wrap It Up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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What Causes Website Downtime?

What Causes Website Downtime

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

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

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

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

Why Does Website Downtime Matter?

Why Does Website Downtime Matter

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

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

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

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

Use a Good Hosting Provider and an Appropriate Service Packagee

Use a Good Hosting Provider and an Appropriate Service Packagee

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

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

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

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

Monitor Your Website’s Uptime

Monitor Your Website’s Uptime

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

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

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

Be Careful with Plugins and Themes

Be Careful with Plugins and Themes

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

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

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

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

Keep Your Website Fully Optimized…

Keep Your Website Fully Optimized

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

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

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

…And Safe

And Safe

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

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

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

Perform Regular Maintenance

Perform Regular Maintenance

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

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

The maintenance routine should contain the following steps:

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

Distribute the Traffic Load

Distribute the Traffic Load

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

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

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

Let’s Wrap It Up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Qi Addons for Elementor

Qi Addons for Elementor free and premium

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

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

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

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

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

TablePress

TablePress

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

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

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

Ninja Tables

Ninja Tables

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

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

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

Qode Themes: Top Picks
Bridge New Banner
Bridge

Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Stockholm WordPress Theme
Stockholm

A Genuinely Multi-Concept Theme

Startit WordPress Theme
Startit

Fresh Startup Business Theme

wpDataTables

wpDataTables

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

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

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

Posts Table Pro

Posts Table Pro

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

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

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

League Table

League Table

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

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

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

WP Table Builder

WP Table Builder

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

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

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

Let’s Wrap It Up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check out our list:

Ninja Popups

Ninja Popups

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

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

The pricing for a regular license starts at $24.

Best Themes for Marketing
Borgholm Marketing WP Theme
Borgholm

Marketing Agency Theme

Foton Banner
Foton

Software and App Landing Page Theme

Valiance
Valiance

Business Consulting

WordPress Popup Plugin by Ays Pro

WordPress Popup Plugin by Ays Pro

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

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

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

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

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

Shoplentor’s Popup builder

Shoplentor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Popups by Optinmonster

Popups by Optinmonster

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

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

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

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

ConvertPlus

ConvertPlus

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

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

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

The regular license for ConvertPlus at CodeCanyon is $23.

Elementor Pro

Elementor

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

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

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

Layered Popups

Layered Popups

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take a look at our top picks:

eCommerce WordPress Themes
Tonda WordPress Theme
Tonda

A Modern Elegant WooCommerce Theme

Biagiott banneri
Biagiotti

Beauty and Cosmetics Shop

Gioia WordPress Theme
Gioia

Modern Fashion Shop

QODE Wishlist for WooComerce

QODE Wishlist for WooCommerce

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

QODE Quick View for WooCommerce

Qode Quick View for WooCommerce

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

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

WooCommerce Multilingual

WooCommerce Multilingual

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

Product Slider for WooCommerce

Product Slider for WooCommerce

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

WooCommerce Customizer

WooCommerce Customizer

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

ShopLentor

Shoplentor

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

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

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

Qi Addons for Elementor

Qi Addons for Elementor free and premium

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

Qi Blocks for Gutenberg

Qi Blocks for Gutenberg

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

EU VAT Compliance Assistant for WooCommerce

EU VAT Compliance Assistant for WooCommerce

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

Order Delivery Date for WooCommerce

Order Delivery Date for WooCommerce

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

Minimum Purchase for WooCommerce

Minimum Purchase for WooCommerce

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

PW WooCommerce Gift Cards

PW WooCommerce Gift Cards

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

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

WOOF – Products Filter for WooCommerce

WOOF – Products Filter for WooCommerce

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

Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

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

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

Checkout Manager for WooCommerce

Checkout Manager for WooCommerce

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

WooCommerce Currency Switcher

WooCommerce Currency Switcher

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

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

Stripe Payments for WooCommerce

Stripe Payment Gateway for WooCommerce plugin

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

PDF Invoices & Packing Slips for WooCommerce

WooCommerce Currency Switcher

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

Landing Page

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

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

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

Do Not Use AI

Do Not Use AI

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

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

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

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

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

Create an Attention-Grabbing Headline

Attention Grabbing Headline

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

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

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

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

Emphasize the Benefits in Your Copy

Emphasize the Benefits in Your Copy

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

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

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

Be Concise

Be Concise

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

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

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

Qode Themes: Top Picks
Bridge New Banner
Bridge

Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Stockholm WordPress Theme
Stockholm

A Genuinely Multi-Concept Theme

Startit WordPress Theme
Startit

Fresh Startup Business Theme

Include Testimonials

Include Testimonials

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

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

Add a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Add a Clear Call-to-Action

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

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

Use the Power of Statistics to Your Advantage

Use the Power of Statistics to Your Advantage

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

Write for Humans

Write for Humans

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

Conclusion

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

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8 Best Heatmap Tools and Plugins for Your WordPress Website https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/wordpress-heatmap-tools-and-plugins/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/wordpress-heatmap-tools-and-plugins/#respond Mon, 01 Apr 2024 12:00:07 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=7401

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?

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

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

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

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.

Qode WordPress Themes: Top Picks
Bridge WordPress Theme Banner
Bridge

Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Stockholm WordPress Theme
Stockholm

A Genuinely Multi-Concept Theme

Startit WordPress Theme
Startit

Fresh Startup Business Theme

Biagiott banneri
Biagiotti

Beauty and Cosmetics Shop

Heatmap.com

Heatmap

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

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

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

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

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.

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20 Best WooCommerce Extensions for Your WordPress Shop https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-woocommerce-extensions-for-wordpress-shop/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/best-woocommerce-extensions-for-wordpress-shop/#respond Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:00:52 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=32233

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

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

Stripe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

eCommerce WordPress Themes
Tonda WordPress Theme
Tonda

A Modern Elegant WooCommerce Theme

Biagiott banneri
Biagiotti

Beauty and Cosmetics Shop

Gioia WordPress Theme
Gioia

Modern Fashion Shop

Discount Rules for WooCommerce

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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How to Add a Client Feedback Form in WordPress https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/how-to-add-client-feedback-form-in-wordpress/ https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/how-to-add-client-feedback-form-in-wordpress/#respond Mon, 18 Mar 2024 13:00:45 +0000 https://qodeinteractive.com/magazine/?p=26443

Feeling the pulse of your audience and paying attention to what they have to say about your products and services are major prerequisites for business success. By asking for your clients’ feedback, listening to it, and then acting on it, you will establish and maintain a strong relationship with your customers. They will keep coming back to you and trusting you more than competitors as long as you are attentive to their needs, providing them with a superior customer experience. At the same time, their loyalty to your brand will grow, allowing you to stay in the business for a long time. In this article, we’re explaining the importance of feedback and showing you how to add a client feedback form in WordPress.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Types and Forms of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback refers to the opinions, comments, and suggestions provided by customers regarding their experiences with a product, service, or brand. This feedback provides valuable insights for businesses to understand customer satisfaction levels, identify areas for improvement, and enhance their offerings.

There are several types of feedback. Constructive feedback provides useful and/or actionable suggestions for improvement. Positive feedback highlights what customers appreciate about the product or service, while negative feedback points out areas of dissatisfaction or disappointment. By actively soliciting and attentively analyzing customer feedback, businesses can foster stronger relationships with their customers and continually refine their offerings to better meet customer needs and expectations.

Some of the most popular and most efficient ways to gather feedback include surveys, customer interviews, customer ratings and reviews, user testing, Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, focus groups, social media listening and more. But for businesses with websites, the absolutely easiest, most common and convenient way to hear what your clients have to say are feedback forms. And that’s precisely what we’re going to focus on in this article. Before we show you how to do about it the easy way (which in WordPress usually means – with a plugin) using two user-friendly solutions – WPForms and Contact Form 7.

Why Should You Add a Client Feedback Form to Your Site

When you encourage customers to share their thoughts, likes, dislikes, wants, and expectations with you, you’re sending them a message that their voice matters. They feel important because you value their opinion. By addressing their feedback and showing them you are committed to improving your business, you gain their trust. They will keep coming back to you because you make them feel heard and you genuinely care about customer satisfaction.

On the other hand, client feedback helps you understand how others perceive your brand. You discover what your strengths are and whether you can somehow further augment their power. At the same time, you also learn what the pain points of your business are. That gives you an opportunity to take action, strategize, become better at what you do, as well as meet or even exceed customers’ expectations.

Now, let’s see how you can add a client feedback form to your site using plugins.

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How to Display a Client Feedback Form Using WPForms Lite

WPForms

WPForms is one of the most popular contact form plugins. It includes a myriad of features and a practical drag & drop form builder that facilitates the process of form creation.

To add a client feedback form to your site, you don’t have to purchase a premium plan. Instead, you can use WPForms lite i.e. the free version of the plugin.

Creating the Feedback Form With the WPForms Lite Plugin

After installing and activating the plugin, you will find a new item in your dashboard menu, called WPForms. Navigate to that item and select Add New. This will open a screen where you can name your form and select a template. You will note that the plugin offers two sets of feedback form templates – Customer Feedback and HR Feedback. However, most of them (except for the Feature Request template) are pro templates, so we’re going to head back to the initial panel and select the Simple Contact Form.

Simple Contact Form

Clicking on the template will open the template editing screen. Here you’ll find some fields already inserted, and in the left-hand side menu you can pick among the standard fields to add. For instance, you can add checkboxes or multiple-choice fields, as well as CAPTCHA. The “Fancy Fields” are, obviously, available on the pro plans only. There’s also a selection of payment option fields.

Fields

We’re going to add a Multiple Choice field to our form. If you want one too, simply drag and drop the field where you wish.

Multiple Choice

Click on the field in the right-side panel. This will open a set of options.

Choices

Enter the text (the “title” for your options) and name the options. You can add and remove options by clicking on the plus or minus signs next to each field. Click on Save to apply your changes but don’t click on Submit just yet.

We’re going to add a little thank-you message below the comment field. Click on the Comment or Message field and, in the options, write your note in the Description field. It will appear underneat the message box.

Description

When you’re done, click on Save and then on Embed button at the top of the screen.n But before we show you how to display your form, we’re going to show you how you can customize it using Qi Addons for Elementor.

Embed in a Page

Customizing the Feedback Form With Qi Addons for Elementor

If Elementor is your preferred page builder and you would like to tweak the feedback form some more, we’d suggest you install Qi Addons for Elementor on your site. It’s free and it packs a collection of 60 free widgets that enable you to enhance the power of your website, including the WPForms custom widget that allows for further form customization.

Once you save the feedback form you’ve previously made with WPForms lite, you can install the Qi Addon for Elementor widget pack. Then, open the page where you would like to display the form and add the WPForms widget to it.

Qi WP Forms

The widget will automatically display the feedback form on the page. Currently, our form looks like this:

Qi WP Forms Default Preview

When you click on your form, the WPForms’ customization options will appear on the left-hand side of the screen. You can modify the content and the style of the form to further improve its appearance.

The Content section allows you to enter a custom class as well as to choose the feedback form you wish to edit (in case you’ve made several of them).

Qi WP Forms Content Tab

The Style tab lets you make changes to the label text and color, choose a style of the input text, add background colors to all fields, set spacing and padding values, alter the appearance of the form button, play with numerous typography settings, and much more.

Qi WP Forms Style Tab

Simply click on any of these tabs and you will see the list of all available options. For example, this is what Input Style settings include:

Qi WP Forms Input Style

Additionally, some of these options allow for even more customization. When you click on the pencil next to Input Typography, a dropdown menu will appear with a plethora of font styling settings.

Qi WP Forms Input Typography

You can choose a font, set letter size, weight, and style, add an underline and overline to your text, and much more.

Customization options are tremendous, allowing you to style your feedback form exactly the way you want. And best of all, you can get all of this for free.

Once we applied the WPForm widget’s styling options to our form (along with some default Elementor’s customization settings), this is how it ended up looking:

Qi WP Forms Preview

And while this is far from being the world’s prettiest client feedback form, we simply wanted to show you just a small part of what you can achieve with the WPForms widget and Elementor. Adjust the settings to your liking and go for a style that best matches the aesthetic of your site.

Setting Up Notifications and Confirmations for Your WPForms Feedback Form

When you’re happy with the way your feedback form looks, it’s time to set up notifications and confirmations. Notifications are for you, alerting you when someone submits a form. On the other hand, your clients will receive confirmations upon successfully sending feedback.

To manage both notifications and confirmations, select Settings from the WPForms panel.

WPForms Settings

Notification and confirmation settings are placed one below the other.

As for notifications, the platform will send them to the admin email address by default. But you can change that and even enter several email addresses, in which case you should separate them with a comma.

WPForms Notifications

Regarding confirmations, you should first choose what kind of confirmation you wish to send to your clients.

WPForms Confirmation Type

If you decide to send them a message, you have the option to customize the confirmation text.

The Show Page setting lets you redirect users to a specific page on your site.

WPForms Confirmation Page

Alternatively, you can also redirect them to some other website.

WPForms Confirmation Redirect URL

Displaying a Client Feedback Form on Your Site Using the WPForms Plugin

When you’re done making changes to the form and you’ve set up confirmations and notifications, it’s time to add the client feedback form to your website.

For starters, go to the page or post where you would like to display the form.

In Elementor, you can do it simply by using the WPForms widget, as we showed you earlier in the article.

If you decide to forego the Qi Addons for Elementor pack, the Elementor page builder has its own WPForms widget.

WPForms Elementor

In case you created several forms, you can select which one you wish to display on the preferred page.

WPForms Select a Form

Click on the desired form and you’ll see it appear on the page.

WPForms Elementor Preview

If you’re using Gutenberg, you have to add the WPForms block to the chosen page or post (the block will automatically appear in the block panel once you install the WPForms plugin).

WPForms Gutenberg

On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see some options regarding the WPForms block. There you can choose the form you wish to add to a page and decide if you wish to display its title and form description.

WPForms Gutenberg Settings

In the Classic Editor, you will notice the Add Form button just above the text editor (the button becomes visible upon activating the plugin).

WPForms Classic Editor

Click on that button, select a client feedback form from the list, and check the boxes if you want to display the form’s name and description. And lastly, press the Add Form button.

WPForms Classic Editor Insert Form

How to Display a Client Feedback Form Using Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7

Another widely popular contact form plugin is Contact Form 7. It is very simple to use and completely free, so it’s no surprise that it currently counts over 5 million active installations.

Once you install it on your site, go to Contact > Add New to start creating a client feedback form. By default, each form is asking clients for their name and email address as well as to enter the subject of their message and some text:

Contact Form 7 Default Values

The list of additional fields you could add to the form is available in the Form tab. You can insert fields for the customers’ phone number, date, checkboxes, a dropdown menu, and a few others.

Contact Form 7 Fields

Say you wish to add checkboxes to the form. In that case, you should click on that tab in the panel. Once you do that, the following window will appear on the screen:

Contact Form 7 Checkboxes

You can specify if you want the field to be required or not, change its name, insert some options, and more. Each field comes with its own array of settings you can customize to make the field suit your needs.

If some of the default fields don’t serve you, feel free to remove them from the form.

When it comes to styling the form, the best way to customize its appearance is to use the Contact Form 7 widget that comes packed with Qi Addons for Elementor.

Qi Contact Form 7

This is what the default form looks like:

Qi Contact Form 7 Preview

To begin altering its design, click on the form and look at the menu on the left side of the screen.

Qi Contact Form 7 Tabs

The Content tab lets you enter a custom class and select a specific form you want to insert to a page.

The Style section includes a mélange of settings that enable you to change every single detail about your form, just like you could do with the WPForms widget.

Qi Contact Form 7 Style Tab

From adding borders to the button and changing the color of the labels to specifying the input background color, the alignment of the form, and heaps more, the Contact Form 7 widget has all you need to style the form the way that works best for you. Check out just how many options this widget has regarding the button alone:

Qi Contact Form 7 Button Style

The Advanced tab contains options included with Elementor by default. You can use them to change the background color of the form, select entrance animation type, customize responsiveness, and more.

We tweaked the appearance of our form a bit and this is what it looks like now:

Qi Contact Form 7 Style Preview

Again, you can try out all of the options and combine different styles until you are satisfied with how your form looks. The combination of the Contact Form 7 widget and Elementor is guaranteed to give you a lot of room for experimentation.

Setting Up Notifications and Confirmations for Your Contact Form 7 Feedback Form

In the Mail tab of the Contact Form 7 plugin, you can make adjustments to the mail template that you will receive when someone submits a contact form.

Qi Contact Form 7 Mail

The most important thing to do here is to check the To field. That is where you need to enter the email address where you wish to receive email notifications. You can make some more changes to the email template, add or delete form-tags in the message body, etc.

Confirmation and other kinds of messages the customers might receive from your end can be set up within the Messages tab.

Qi Contact Form 7 Messages

This is where you can specify the text your clients will receive when they submit feedback or when they fail to do so, as well as when their response is regarded as spam, and loads more.

Displaying a Client Feedback Form on Your Site Using the Contact Form 7 Plugin

If Elementor is the page builder of your choice, at the moment, the only way of adding a Contact Form 7 feedback form to it is by using a third-party widget, like the above mentioned Qi Addons widget. It’s free yet bustling with customization possibilities and it will allow you not just to add a form using Elementor, but to style it to perfection. And as we’ve mentioned earlier, you just need to drag the widget to the page or post where you want to add the form, and you’re done.

In Gutenberg, you have to add the Contact Form 7 block to your page.

Contact Form 7 Gutenberg

This block does not offer any extra options but it does do the job of displaying the Contact Form 7 feedback form on your site.

And lastly, in the Classic Editor, look for the form shortcode displayed above the form editor and copy it. It should look like this:

Contact Form Shortcode

Next up, you need to open the page or post where you want to add the form. Paste the shortcode in the text editor field and save the changes.

Contact Form 7 Text Editing Mode

Closing Words

Prioritizing customer experience is indispensable for making it in any business. By asking your clients’ for their opinion and making a conscious effort to improve your service upon receiving feedback, you will build a loyal customer base. Users will be glad to collaborate with you because you care about delivering products that make them happy.

Whether you choose to create a client feedback form by using the WPForms Lite or the Contact Form 7 plugin doesn’t matter that much. It all comes down to your personal preferences. Both plugins are free and easy to use, allowing you to make forms in no time. Best of all, the Qi Addons for Elementor collection includes widgets for both of these plugins, giving you the power to customize and improve the appearance of your forms to your liking.

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