Monthly ArchivesAugust 2021

It’s heartbreaking when you put up attractive offers your audience should rush at, but no one buys anything.

While money makes the world go round, sales keep a business running.

How to get those sales? How to increase ecommerce sales?

The answers lie with the website. A website can be an ecommerce sales machine or yet another ecommerce website.

Read on to learn how to increase ecommerce sales on your website.

How to Boost Ecommerce Sales

1. 1. Have a simple checkout process.
2. 2. Include multiple payment options.
3. 3. Feature social proof on your website.
4. 4. Create an easy search function.
5. 5. Optimize your website for mobile.
6. 6. Guide your customers.
7. 7. Use SEO and content marketing.
8. 8. Start upselling and cross-selling.
9. 9. Nurture with email.
10. 10. Use a reliable web hosting service.

1. Have a Simple Checkout Process

With so many complicated ecommerce websites on the web, you can stand out by providing a streamlined user experience on your website to increase your ecommerce sales.

Ecommerce’s shopping cart abandonment rate has always stayed high, with nine out of every ten orders never making it to the payment. As an online business owner interested in more online sales, avoid a complicated checkout system.

You can simplify your checkout process by:

• Removing unnecessary fields.

• Skipping irrelevant pages and pop-ups.

• Merging the product descriptions and pricing into a single page.

In addition, you can add money-back guarantees and security logos on your checkout page as trust signals.

2. Include Multiple Payment Options

By sticking to a single method of payment, you leave money on the table.

Offer multiple secure payment options to facilitate your customers and increase your ecommerce sales. In general, accept:

• Credit card payments.

• Google Wallet.

• Apple Pay.

• Stripe.

• WePay.

• PayPal.

You can also accept crypto payments to attract the tech-savvy audience — usually early adopters — and increase ecommerce sales.

3. Feature Social Proof on Your Website

Social proof is vital to increase ecommerce sales on your website. It proves your credibility and serves as word-of-mouth marketing to increase the conversion rate as 87% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase.

You can include social proof to product pages in the form of:

• Customer ratings and online reviews from third-party websites.

• Client testimonials.

• Social proof plugins like TrustPilot.

• Press coverage.

• Bestseller or trending collections.

4. Create an Easy Search Function

Most ecommerce customers lack the time to search through tons of products for a specific product. Instead, they prefer searching for the product through the search bar and judge the website based on the results.

That’s why creating an easy search function is crucial to increase ecommerce sales.

You should ensure that the search bar is in a clear, accessible spot, preferably at the top of your page. And it should be fast — customers don’t like slow ecommerce search.

For your ecommerce store, your search bar should have:

5. Optimize Your Website for Mobile

The world has gone mobile. Everything is available on our smartphones, including shopping.

Mobile ecommerce spending reached $47.8 billion in the second quarter of 2020 in the United States, making it a perfect opportunity for marketers.

Optimize your online store for mobile devices to target these spenders and increase ecommerce sales.

To do so, consider the different browsing interfaces like desktop, tablet, and mobile while developing your website.

6. Guide Your Customers

Whenever new customers land on your website, you should guide them in their buying journey by answering their questions and providing in-depth guides.

To increase your ecommerce sales, you should help your customers decide the products by themselves in an informed fashion.

You can offer guidance on your online store in the form of:

• Live chat software.

• Ebooks.

• Calls-to-action (CTAs).

• Demo.

• Product recommendations.

Still, the bottom line is to direct your customers towards buying products from you. You can do so by:

• Helping website visitors locate products they’re searching for.

• Pointing customers to your top products.

• Teaching your customers how to use a specific product.

• Recommending relevant products based on a customer’s previous or current purchase.

By guiding your customers and helping them decide on great products for them, you build customer trust, leading to an increase in ecommerce sales on your website.

7. Use SEO and Content Marketing

If you are looking to increase your website’s visibility and increase your ecommerce sales, SEO (search engine optimization) and an ecommerce marketing strategy go a long way.

SEO helps you attract your customers through search engines. It drives huge website traffic to your online store. The better your ecommerce site’s SEO, the higher your ranking on the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Content marketing refers to sharing and promoting your content. It could be a difference-maker to get your sales up.

You can use content marketing strategy tactics such as:

• PPC advertising (pay-per-click advertising).

• Social media engagement.

• Third-party review sites.

• Social curation platforms and community forums.

• Guest blogging and sponsored content.

Related reading: How To Create an Ecommerce Content Strategy >>

8. Start Upselling and Cross-Selling

Upselling is persuading someone to buy a high-quality product similar to the one they’re willing to purchase. For example, you can upsell a customer looking for simple shoes to buy waterproof shoes.

Cross-selling means promoting complementary products to a buyer. You can recommend a tripod stand to someone who purchased a camera a week ago.

These two practices are common on well-known ecommerce websites like Amazon and Shopify. Apply them to increase ecommerce sales on your online store.

9. Nurture With Email

Email marketing helps you establish a solid relationship with your customers and increase ecommerce sales on your website.

With email nurturing, you can guide potential customers with links to product tutorials, share limited-time offers, and offer personalized recommendations to your customers.

Nurturing your email list helps you build a loyal customer base that generates consistent sales.

10. Use a Reliable Web Hosting Service

Avoid mediocre website hosts that can make you lose customers due to website crashes or slow ecommerce website loading.

Use a reliable web hosting service with capable servers to increase ecommerce sales on your website.

Final Thoughts: How To Increase Ecommerce Sales on Your Online Store

Increasing ecommerce sales doesn’t have to be nerve-racking. Adopt our 10 best solutions for ecommerce businesses to increase sales quickly.

Are you looking to build a fully functional ecommerce store? Try fully managed WooCommerce by Hostdedi for free today.

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Hostdedi is the First Managed WooCommerce Host to Deliver Sales Performance Insights with WooCommerce Hosting Plans 

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. August 11, 2021 — Hostdedi, the fully managed, high-performance digital commerce cloud platform built to optimize WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento sites and stores, today announced the release of Sales Performance Monitor as a feature on all WooCommerce plans. 

“We wanted our WooCommerce store owners to have critical insights into the health of their online store revenue,” said Chris Lema, WooCommerce Authority and VP of Products and Innovation. “Merchants are often unaware when their online store is experiencing degraded services. Most monitoring systems will alert a merchant when their entire site is down but not capture issues with payment processors or site slowness. With Hostdedi Sales Performance Monitor, our intelligence engine will send merchants alerts on sales trends, giving them much needed visibility and allowing them to get back on track if store sales are slowing down.”

Included in the cost of the Managed WooCommerce Hosting plans, the added feature means that store owners can take immediate action to understand revenue trends, should shifts occur. The Hostdedi Sales Performance Monitor will monitor a store’s sales and measure them against a predicted model based on daily/weekly historical performance. When the store’s sales are slowing down or disappearing in a way that is “abnormal” to the specific store’s trends, the monitor will alert the owner.

“At Hostdedi, our focus is in the SMB space and the freelancers and agencies that serve them. That focus has meant doing the heavy lifting to create an elastic and dynamic platform for online stores. More than simply installing WooCommerce as a plugin (which many other hosts do), our Managed WooCommerce Hosting product is a total solution — bringing custom code, a container-based dynamic platform, partners for analytics, search and abandoned cart technology, and now monitoring for Sales Performance,” said Lema.  

WooCommerce is a pre-eminent ecommerce platform for online store builders and store owners today. It sits on top of WordPress which is well known and free. People choose WooCommerce because it’s an easy-to-use platform with flexibility that provides less limits.

“We’re combining the power of WooCommerce with the industry-leading digital commerce expertise of Hostdedi, and powering the online potential of our store owners with the expectation that they have a provider who is an expert in digital commerce hosting and a partner in their success. We’re excited to be leading the way through open-source innovation that provides tremendous value to the industry,” said Lema.

Hostdedi is at the forefront of continuous innovation for WooCommerce and the store owners and agencies who use the platform. For more information about Managed WooCommerce from Hostdedi, visit https://www.nexcess.net/woocommerce/.

About Hostdedi

Hostdedi has been serving SMBs and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them for more than 20 years by providing a fully managed, high-performance cloud solution built to optimize WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento sites and stores. As a company within The Liquid Web Family of Brands, we own and manage 10 global data centers, and collectively serve over 45,000 customers spanning 150 countries and provide unparalleled service from a dedicated group of experts 24/7/365. As an industry leader in customer service, the rapidly expanding brand family has been recognized among INC. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies for twelve years.  

Learn more about the Liquid Web Family of Brands and StellarWP.

WP All Export is a powerful tool that allows you to export WordPress data to a custom CSV or XML. You can edit WooCommerce products in Excel and reimport them, migrate them to a new site, or upload them to Google Merchant Center.

Keep reading for an in-depth guide to exporting WooCommerce products, including price, stock, categories, and product image galleries. Follow along by going here to WP All Import and selecting “WooCommerce Store.”

How to Export WooCommerce Products

At a high level, here’s how to export your WooCommerce products.

1. Go to All Export › New Export and select “WooCommerce Products” to create a new WooCommerce product export. 
2. Decide if you’d like to export to CSV, XML, or Google Merchant Center.
3. Drag and drop to customize your export file.
4. Run the export to generate your WooCommerce product export. 

Below we will go into more detail for each step.

9 Steps to Export WooCommerce Products

1. Create a New WooCommerce Product Export

To create a new WooCommerce product export, go to All Export › New Export and select “WooCommerce Products” from the drop-down. Create filters to set which products are included in your export, and decide if you’d like to customize the export or automatically generate your CSV/XML for easy migration to another site.

2. Set the WooCommerce Product Export Filters

Export filters allow you to decide which products to include in your export. You can build any combination of filter rules to build the exact file that you need. To create a filtering rule, select the element you want to filter by, the rule for the filter, and then the value to filter by. Add multiple rules with “AND” or ‘“OR” conditionals.

As an example, the below set of filters will only export products that are in stock in the category “Heart Shaped” and were created before November 5 2020.

For now, let’s remove them so that all of our products are included in this export.

3. Customize Your Woocommerce Product Export File

Click “Customize Export File” to continue to the edit export page.

WP All Export automatically adds some relevant fields to the export template to get you started. Drag them around to re-arrange them, drag them out of the template to remove them, and click them to edit their names and adjust other settings.

All of the WooCommerce product data is included in the Available Data section on the right. 

The “Product Data” section contains the most commonly used fields, like SKU, price, stock, and product attributes like size and color. Product variations are automatically detected.

The “Media” section contains all of the export fields needed to export WooCommerce product galleries and attached files. The URL, filename, and all image SEO data are all available for export.

The “Taxonomies” section is automatically populated with all of the categories and tags applied to the WooCommerce products in your export. 

4. WooCommerce Product Export File Types

Click “Export Type” to decide which type of export file to generate. You can choose from the following options: 

• CSV File
• Excel File (XLS or XLSX)
• XML (Simple or Custom)
• Google Merchant Center

CSV and Excel are the best to bulk edit your WooCommerce Products, or process them in Excel or Google Sheets. They also work well for migrating WooCommerce products to another WordPress install.

Other services and systems will sometimes require an XML feed, prepared with a specific schema or format. If you’re lucky, you will be able to use the ‘Simple XML’ option. This creates a simple, single-level XML feed of your product data that will work for the majority of uses.

If you need more customization options than the “Custom XML Feed,” you can fully customize the structure of the XML file (including nested elements), control the names and order of the XML elements, and easily add static data to the feed using this option.

Finally, the “Google Merchant Center Product Feed” option creates a feed tailored to easily upload WooCommerce Products to Google Merchant Center. WP All Export pulls all of the necessary information from your products in WooCommerce, with options to map categories and configure other options specific to Google.

5. Run the Export

Let’s set the export type to “CSV.” Click “Add All” to add all fields to the template and continue to the final step of the export.

The export should be complete in less than a few minutes. After the export is complete you have a variety of options on how to proceed.

6. Migrate WooCommerce Products

In the “Download” section, click “Bundle” to get a zip file containing the export file and the import template. On a different site, upload the bundle to WP All Import and your import file and all import settings will be preconfigured. 

7. Edit WooCommerce Products in Excel

Go to the “Export, Edit, Import” section to download your products. After editing them in Excel, click “Import with WP All Import” and the changes you made in Excel will be reflected in your WooCommerce products on the site. 

For example, you can export the stock and prices for your products, edit them in Excel, then bulk update them via the “Import with WP All Import” button. All of the settings are filled in for you.

8. Export WooCommerce Products on a Schedule

In the “Scheduling Options” section you can set your WooCommerce product export to run on a schedule. Run it every day, every hour, once a week, or whenever you want. WP All Export will run at the scheduled times and update your WooCommerce store with the latest version of your export file.

9. External Apps

WP All Export integrates with Zapier, which means that you can easily connect your export to hundreds of apps. You can automatically send your export file to Google Drive or Dropbox, email it to yourself, and more.

Finishing Up

As you can see, WP All Export makes it very easy to export your WooCommerce product data. Give it a try with these steps outlined above.

With Hostdedi WooCommerce Hosting, Better Is Built In

Hostdedi offers fully managed hosting for WooCommerce designed for fast, high-performing stores. Hostdedi also:

• Offers high performance and site speed.
• Dynamically scales and optimizes.
• Secures your store with always-on monitoring.

Start your free two-week trial of fully managed WooCommerce from Hostdedi today.

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One of the keys to a successful business is selling at the right price. If your products are inexpensive, you may rake in more sales but have a hard time turning a profit. And if your products are too pricey, consumers will turn to other retailers, and you’ll lose your market share. 

But if you’re a small business owner, don’t fall prey to the misconception that price alone drives sales. 

When it comes to a retailer’s pricing strategy, there isn’t one surefire approach that fits all. You need to perform a product pricing balancing act that considers business and production costs, consumer trends, revenue goals, competitor pricing, and even a little psychology.

In this article, you’ll learn about:

• What retail pricing is.
• What kinds of retailer pricing strategies you can use.
• How to choose the right retail pricing strategy.

What Is Retail Pricing?

The retail price is the final amount consumers pay to purchase an item. 

To make a profit, the retail price you set for a product must include the cost of goods for you, plus an additional markup to make a profit. 

As an online retailer, you can take numerous approaches to pricing products or services. The right strategy for you will depend on your short and long-term business goals.

Here’s the good news.

We’re about to explore 10 approaches, so you can pick the retail pricing strategy that will work best for you. 

Pricing Strategy Examples

1. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP)
2. Keystone Pricing
3. Markup Pricing
4. Discount Pricing
5. Bundle Pricing
6. Penetration Pricing
7. Psychological Pricing
8. Premium Pricing
9. Competitive Pricing
10. Dynamic Pricing

1. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP)

If you sell mass-produced items such as consumer electronics and household appliances, the Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is a good pricing strategy to adopt.

MSRP is a standard price for an item, regardless of who is selling it. It takes the guesswork out of setting prices, but it can dull your competitive edge when your product sells at the same price as other retailers.

2. Keystone Pricing

Keystone pricing is a type of markup pricing. With this strategy, you double each product’s wholesale price to create a healthy profit margin. 

With a fixed percentage, your calculations will be simple. Maybe too simple — it’s easy to end up pricing products too low and too high.

Keystone pricing isn’t a good option if you offer highly unique products or custom items that take a long time to create because you won’t make enough profit. 

It’s just as poor a pricing strategy if you sell standardized, common products. Depending on the availability and demand for an item, it might be unreasonable for a retailer to mark up items at such a high rate.

3. Markup Pricing

Markup pricing (also called cost-plus pricing) is the most common and intuitive pricing strategy for retailers. You add a percentage of the base cost of individual items to create a profit — but you apply a different markup depending on the product. 

When selling a high volume of products or seasonal and perishable items that need to be sold quickly, it’s best to set the markup below 100%.

When selling custom products or privately labeled items like cosmetics, jewelry, alcohol, or electronics, you can set the markup above 100%.

It is straightforward in theory, but markup pricing requires you to spend extra time evaluating factors such as perceived customer value and competitor pricing.

4. Discount Pricing

When retailers mark down their products’ prices to encourage sales, it’s called discount pricing.

One form of discount pricing is the high-low pricing strategy: Products are introduced at a high price point and marked down when demand decreases. 

Electronics retailers use this strategy most often. Computers, game consoles, and smartphones are the most expensive when they’re first released. But when the next model comes out, the previous versions are sold at low prices.

Discount pricing is an effective strategy if you want to clear unsold inventory and increase sales. But if you become known for discounting your products, customers may perceive them as low quality or grow accustomed to waiting for the lower price. 

5. Penetration Pricing

Penetration pricing is another form of discount pricing. A business offers its new product or service at a lower price to attract customers. The idea is to get consumers hooked with a sale price, so they are willing to pay full price after the promotional period expires.

The penetration pricing strategy works best for subscription products, especially in a competitive market.

Businesses that use this pricing model include:

Similar to penetration pricing is the loss-leader pricing strategy, in which products are sold at a loss just to get customers in the door. 

6. Bundle Pricing

Bundle pricing is another discount pricing strategy. It’s useful if you sell related items you can package together. Bundling items lets you curate the customer experience and empowers you to increase sales volumes through up-sells or cross-sells. 

Common examples of bundle pricing are Christmas baskets or deli bundles that include preselected wines, cheeses, and meats.

Similar to bundle pricing, multiple pricing sets products at a lower price when more than one is purchased. For example, “buy one, get one free,” or “buy two, get 20% off.”

This strategy works best when you bundle less popular items with your high-demand products. Sales are hard to resist, especially if the customer is buying something they already want. You can simultaneously attract customers and get slow-moving items out the door. 

7. Psychological Pricing

Psychological pricing is a value-based pricing strategy. Also known as charm pricing, it depends on the customer’s perceived value of the item.  

According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon, people experience pain when they spend money.  It’s up to merchants to minimize that pain.

You see psychological pricing almost every day when retailers give products a price that ends in an odd number. 

For instance, instead of charging $6, retailers price a product at $5.99. The brain sees $5 and the consumer is tricked into perceiving a lower price.

Psychological pricing is best applied to non-essentials, as it encourages customers to spend impulsively.

8. Premium Pricing

Premium pricing (also known as prestige pricing or luxury pricing) is another value-based pricing strategy. High-end retailers sell their products at an additional markup that gives their customers the sensation of status.

Premium pricing works best when your product quality and customer service can match the expensive price tag. It also depends heavily on successfully marketing your brand as high-end. 

It’s how Gucci sells their $1,200 Lady Lock bags. Other companies that use premium pricing include:

As an online retailer, it may be difficult to replicate the luxurious feeling these companies have spent decades cultivating. However, you can validate your premium pricing with a chic design aesthetic, high-quality products, and a stellar customer experience — which includes a fast-loading website.

9. Competitive Pricing

Competitive pricing entails consciously setting lower prices to gain a competitive advantage. It works best if you’re in an industry with similar products, where your competitors’ prices are the only differentiator. 

The competitive pricing strategy is most effective if you’re a larger retailer and can negotiate a lower wholesale price from suppliers so you can still earn a decent profit. However, small retailers can be driven out of business in a price war. 

10. Dynamic Pricing

Dynamic pricing is a retailers pricing strategy where you adjust your prices according to changes in supply and demand. 

Ecommerce businesses are in the best position to use dynamic pricing because it can be done in real-time. When you sell online, you can leverage technology and data to sell the same product at different prices depending on the purchaser. 

The dynamic pricing strategy requires software, data, and manpower. WooCommerce plugins can help you price products optimally on your WordPress website.

Final Thoughts: Retail Pricing Strategy for Ecommerce Stores

When deciding on a retailer’s pricing strategy, online sellers have several factors to consider, including their company’s niche, competition, market behavior, and most importantly, financial targets.

Of all the strategies we’ve shared, no single pricing tactic will be enough. Small business owners should experiment and combine tactics to develop the right pricing strategy to ensure their company’s profitability.

Get your online store up and running fast with Hostdedi’s ecommerce web hosting plans. Experience the speed and scale of fully managed hosting for yourself. Start your free two-week trial today.

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The subscription economy grew 435% in the past nine years. From streaming services to gym memberships, consumers have more subscriptions than ever before.

For bloggers and ecommerce retailers, adopting the subscription business model unlocks the potential for significant business growth.

In this post, we’ll explain the subscription economy, including:

• How a subscription business model works.

• The advantages of subscriptions.

• How to set up your website to sell subscriptions.

What is the Subscription Economy?

The subscription economy refers to the growth of businesses selling subscriptions for products and services. With a subscription business model, customers automatically pay on a recurring basis. Subscriptions are essentially a contract between you and your customers. Customers agree to pay the regular fee in exchange for you delivering a product or service on repeat.

Examples of subscription businesses include:

• Streaming Services. These include TV or movie providers and audio services like Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, and Spotify, for example.

• Software as a Service. SaaS subscriptions include any software you pay for, like Adobe and Microsoft 365.

• News and Information. This area consists of content like magazines and newspapers or information like LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator.

• Food and Consumer Goods. A relatively new area of subscription services, these include items like HelloFresh, Barkbox, or anything with repeat delivery.

• Memberships. Perhaps the oldest form of subscription services, these include things like gyms, theme parks, and golf clubs.

Advantages of a Subscription Business Model

The subscription economy continues to grow as more businesses realize the benefits of subscriptions for their bottom line. Therefore, subscriptions are a smart and profitable business strategy.

Benefits of the subscription business model include:

Recurring Revenue

Why do businesses love subscriptions? The answer is simple: recurring revenue. Without a subscription model, a company starts each month with no revenue. But, when you offer subscriptions, you’ll know the minimum number of sales you’ll make each month. You can count on subscription renewals each month and begin to have a more predictable revenue stream.

Yes, you probably won’t be able to count on 100% renewals. Subscription businesses experience some natural attrition. But, not as much as you’d expect. Think of the subscriptions you’re paying for personally. Most consumers have at least half a dozen subscription charges hitting their accounts each month. If you offer a solid product and customer service, cancelations likely won’t be an issue.

Recurring subscription revenue is particularly beneficial for bloggers. In our post on how to monetize a blog, we addressed how creating a members-only area is a great way to add a revenue stream to your blog. Affiliate marketing and display advertising have low click-through rates, requiring bloggers to generate thousands of page views to receive decent payouts. A subscription membership area offers bloggers the security of recurring revenue while they work to build up traffic and advertising revenue.

Decreased Customer Acquisition Costs

Subscriptions are a powerful tool because it’s easier and cheaper to keep current customers than acquire new ones. Attracting new customers costs six to seven times more than retaining existing customers.

Subscribers offer several advantages to a business. Existing customers are the ones most likely to buy from you again by either trying new products and services or upgrading their accounts. For example, if you’re a blogger with a members’ area and want to launch an online course, your subscribers are the perfect target audience.

Better Content and Customer Insights

Subscribers provide excellent intel on your content and customer service strategies. You know more about subscribers than you do an anonymous visitor to your website. You can track the reading and purchase habits of your subscribers. You can also ask for basic demographic information as a part of your sign-up process.

All of this data can help you build an ideal customer profile. Use what you learn to create targeted marketing campaigns and to tailor your paid content to their preferences.

Adding Subscriptions to a Website

Adding subscriptions to a website is simple, especially if you’re running your website on WordPress. And, since it’s the most popular content management system in the world, odds are your site is running on WordPress.

Adding Subscriptions to a Blog

If you’re a blogger who wants to adopt the subscription business model, we recommend building your membership site with WPQuickStart by Hostdedi. WPQuickStart helps you build a membership site in less time with an intuitive set-up wizard.

Each WPQuickStart plan includes:

• Fully-managed WordPress hosting by Hostdedi.

• Perfect plugins and themes including Restrict Content Pro, a $349 value.

• Built-in payment integrations with Stripe, Braintree, 2Checkout, Authorize.net, and PayPal.

• Multi-level subscription packages.

• Automated emails to communicate and connect with your subscribers.

• Detailed reporting.

Adding Subscriptions to a Store

If you’re trying to add subscriptions for products instead of content, you’ll want to consider adding a subscription functionality to WooCommerce. Look for a WooCommerce plugin with automatic and manual renewals and the billing frequency to match your subscription business model.

For a step-by-step guide and examples, check out our post on how to start a WooCommerce subscription box service.

Embracing the Subscription Economy

The subscription economy will continue to grow. People are dropping cable TV subscriptions and replacing them with multiple streaming subscriptions. You can get anything shipped to your house on repeat, from laundry detergent to dog food.

Consumers love the convenience of subscriptions and are more willing to pay for them as the subscription business model becomes more commonplace.

Adding subscriptions to your blog or ecommerce store is a great way to grow your business.

Hostdedi can help you embrace the subscription economy. Get started with a WPQuickStart Membership Site today, or check out our WooCommerce resources for setting up subscriptions in your store.

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Do you think that online stores are only about showcasing your products to customers?

That’s not all.

A fully functional WooCommerce store handles nearly every process involved in transacting with a customer. It handles payments, facilitates checkout, and updates orders.

Whether you’re looking to move your brick-and-mortar store or start a new business, an online store will help scale your business and grow revenue.

Even if you have closed your physical store due to the pandemic, you can still serve your customers with their shopping needs.

If you are having a hard time understanding how to open an ecommerce store or feel that it’s too much to handle, we have got you covered.

Read on to learn how to start an online store for your business.

Ecommerce Store 101

An ecommerce store is an online business platform to sell products and services over the internet.

It enables customers to purchase products and services without leaving homes or offices.

You can sell anything you want — from physical goods like shoes and jewelry to digital products like ebooks and music. Amazon, eBay, Shopify, and AliExpress are some prominent examples.

Start an Online Store

1. 1. Understand Your Niche
2. 2. Determine Your Product
3. 3. Determine Your Source for Products
4. 4. Think About Your Budget
5. 5. Name Your Business
6. 6. Register Your Business
7. 7. Apply for Permits and Licenses
8. 8. Define Your Brand Identity
9. 9. Choose an Ecommerce Platform
10. 10. Choose a Website Host
11. 11. Showcase Your Products

1. Understand Your Niche.

A niche is your intended market audience. It includes the people you would sell your products to — your prospective customers.

To convert these potential customers into your clients, you need to:

• Recognize your customers’ needs.

• Find out the target audience’s desires.

• Understand your audience’s values.

An easy way to do this is to identify your competitors and check on what they’re up to. Analyze their strategies and understand their whats, whys, and hows to develop your business plan and marketing strategy.

When deciding your niche, avoid overcrowded and brand-dominated niches. While competition lets you know that there is an existing market for your product, a crowded market does you no good.

2. Decide Your Product.

To start a successful online business, you need to decide the products you want to sell.

You can sell:

• Physical products

• Services

• Digital products — software, ebooks, apps

• Courses and subscriptions

You can perform further research on your competitors to decide the range of products you can sell.

Research their business models and their trending products. Find out what you can emulate and pick actionable ideas.

Also, look for social proof for your business ideas. Go to popular online stores and see which items sell better in your niche.

You can also try Google trends for brainstorming product ideas.

Nonetheless, pick a product you’re interested in and are familiar with. It will make it easier for you, as a business owner, to relate to your customers and deliver the best products.

3. Ascertain Your Product Source

Depending on what you’re selling, you need to decide your sourcing for your products. You can opt for:

• Buying in wholesale — and operating as an online retailer.

• Partnering with a manufacturer.

• In-house manufacturing — for new products.

• Dropshipping the product.

4. Set a Budget

Before you create your online store, you need to plan your finances upfront.

Depending upon the niche and the nature of the business, it can cost you between $100 to $100,000 to set up your online store.

Plan your budget for:

5. Name Your Business

Your business name should fit your business. Either go for a unique name that stands out in public or a relevant name that describes your business.

For example, business names like Target and Yahoo stand out. In contrast, names like Diehard Batteries and MyFitnessPal let the customers know what they are about.

You can also try a business name generator to brainstorm names for your business.

Once you have selected a business name, get a domain name — the permanent online address to your ecommerce site. It allows customers to find you on the web.

6. Register Your Business

While it depends on local rules and regulations, it is usually better to register your online business.

It helps you with credit card processing and product sourcing. Also, it lets the buyers know that your startup is operating legally.

7. Apply for Permits and Licenses

Depending upon your location, you may require business permits or licenses to operate your online business.

The exact permit depends upon the ecommerce business and the business regulations in your state and country. It is better to get legal consultation.

8. Define Your Brand Identity

Everything from your business name to your web page design should be consistent with your brand.

For that, pay close attention to:

• Page layout

• Color scheme

• Typography

• Business logo

• Photos

9. Select an Ecommerce Platform

It’s time to choose an ecommerce platform and create your online storefront.

While there is a wide range of ecommerce platforms to choose from, you need to consider the budget, ease of use, and features — like templates, tutorials, and support for SEO and social media — to decide the one that is best for you.

As a feature-rich ecommerce platform with low costs, Hostdedi’s StoreBuilder with WordPress is a great choice to create and manage your store.

10. Choose a Website Host

In your quest of how to open an ecommerce store, a good website host is vital.

While the domain name points to your shop, the strength of that shop — how many visitors it can support, how secure it is, and how fast it is — depends upon the website host.

If you are working toward a secure, fast, and high-performing WooCommerce store, check out Hostdedi managed WooCommerce for free.

11. Showcase Your Products

You have reached the final step of our guide to how to open an ecommerce store and have built your online shop.

It’s time to configure your product pages:

If you chose Hostdedi to create your WooCommerce store, you can create your product pages and publish your store easily without doing things from scratch.

Final Thoughts: How To Open an Ecommerce Store in 11 Steps

You know how to open an ecommerce store for your business. Don’t postpone this opportunity and take a step to launch your ecommerce website now.

All you need is to determine the right product for the right market. After that, you can develop your online store without coding.

Ready to open an online store for your small business?

Start your journey today with StoreBuilder — a powerful website builder.

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Building organic traffic is easy peasy, right?

Wrong.

Going organic is not for you if you’re looking for a quick fix for driving traffic to your website. It’s hard work and requires patience to see results.

Having said that, choosing organic traffic boosting strategies might be the greatest investment you can make for your ecommerce business.

Ideally, you can drive traffic to your website either through the search engine results pages (SERPS) using search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) ads that are placed before organic results (such as Google Ads).

In paid advertising, the results are almost immediate but you must pay every time a user clicks on your ads. This is a shortcut to your goals and might only give you temporary customers and a high bounce rate.

Building organic website traffic is free but requires long-term effort.

If you want to know exactly how to get organic traffic to your website, keep reading.

Organic Traffic: Why It Matters for Your Business

Organic traffic refers to visitors that come to your website after performing a search on a website like Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

Organic traffic takes time for SEO to generate results, but it’s the most superior form of traffic for your website.

Here’s why.

Organic traffic is targeted — meaning the users who click through to your website have a specific intent and have a higher conversion rate than a random visitor from a paid search.

Organic traffic can also increase your credibility since users are more likely to trust websites that rank organically.

How To Increase Organic Traffic to Website

1. Use long-tail keywords.

2. Consider influencer marketing.

3. Leverage on-page SEO.

4. Find and remove non-performing content.

5. Become a guest blogger.

6. Create video content on YouTube.

7. Promote your content on social media.

8. Answer questions on Google’s People Also Ask.

Ranking high on search results is a dream for any website owner or marketer. If you rank on the first page, you’re sure to generate plenty of organic traffic. Fail to rank on the first page, and your dream remains just that — a dream.

Here are eight practical tips on how to get organic traffic to your website:

1. Use Long-Tail Keywords

Writing high-quality content is only half the battle if you want to learn how to drive traffic to your website. You can increase organic traffic to a large extent if you focus on long-tail keywords in your keyword research.

Long-tail keywords are a combination of three or four words, such as “best WordPress security plugins” or “restaurants in Lagos.”

You can create compelling titles for your blog posts by using long-tail keywords. Consider using tools like Ahrefs’ free keyword generator] when you search for keyword ideas.

2. Consider Influencer Marketing

Influencers tend to have lots of followers who regularly engage with them. Having them mention and recommend your brand can be a total game-changer and drive massive organic traffic to your website. They can also create original, new content for your brand.

You can get new potential customers using an influencer as your brand ambassador, especially if you run a small business.

3. Leverage On-Page SEO

Besides creating and publishing great content, you need to optimize your webpages for search engines when learning how to drive traffic to your website.

On-page SEO includes optimizing your images, HTML tags, and headlines. Ensure your images support your content, and optimize your meta description and title tags. Your header tags make your posts easier and more enjoyable to read, which can also impact your rankings.

Overall, your on-page SEO will increase website traffic and boost your website’s visibility in the SERPs.

4. Find and Remove Non-Performing Content

Non-performing content is content on a website that doesn’t fulfill its original purpose. This can cause major bottlenecks and compromise your chances of ranking in the SERPs.

That is because search engines experience a snag in the crawling process and leave your website before getting to important pages.

Removing non-performing pages enables important content to rank higher in results pages and will help you earn more organic traffic.

5. Become a Guest Blogger

Guest blogging is a two-way street. You can become a guest blogger for other websites, or you can invite people in your niche to blog on your website.

Your guest post on a high-authority website can significantly increase traffic to your website and help boost brand recognition. Usually, the website’s business owner will encourage you to share the link on your own website. This can give you referral traffic, and you’ll earn backlinks on your website.

6. Create Video Content on YouTube

Your content strategy shouldn’t stop at crafting excellent material for your website — you can turn it into different formats, including audio or video.

For instance, YouTube videos can help attract and engage new subscribers. Uploading videos is an online marketing strategy that allows your customers to see a demonstration of your product or service. It also helps answer questions about your brand.

This can greatly increase purchases and drive organic search traffic to your website.

7. Promote Your Content on Social Media

While sharing content on social media platforms is an excellent content marketing method, you have to be assertive.

Participate in discussions with relevant hashtags on Twitter. To engage with visitors, answer questions on your Facebook page and respond to comments.

You can also post your content on relevant, high-traffic communities, including Reddit, Slack, LinkedIn, Quora, and Facebook groups. Build trust and cultivate a relationship with the community before you promote your content (and make sure the group allows it). Anything other than that could look spammy.

Ensure you interact with your followers on various social networks so you can build a rapport with them and establish long-term trust. That way, they’re more likely to share your content with their contacts, promoting traffic and brand awareness.

8. Answer Questions on Google’s People Also Ask

Instead of creating generic content about a topic, dig deeper and search for questions people are asking on Google Search. A vast majority of those who ask these questions are entrepreneurs looking for specific solutions.

You can create content with a target audience that will earn organic traffic. So, if you’re a blogger, use Google’s People Also Ask to find questions to answer and generate blog posts.

If you create content around actual questions that users have asked, you are sure to drive organic site traffic.

Final Thoughts: How to Get Organic Traffic to Your Website in 2021

This guide doesn’t exhaust every method on how to get organic traffic to your website, but the tips we discussed will help you build a successful organic traffic strategy.

From guest posting to creating videos to social media marketing, you might spend a lot of time until you see results. For new website owners, it won’t happen as quickly as you might want, but consistency and quality will generate organic traffic in time.

Choosing a reliable web host is a crucial step towards driving traffic to your website. With Hostdedi’ Fully Managed WooCommerce and Fully Managed WordPress hosting, we take care of what matters most to your online business. Get started on your path to success with our hosting solutions today.

Start your free two-week trial of fully managed WooCommerce or WordPress hosting today.

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In today’s online landscape, if your site is slow, you’re forgotten.

Site visitors will bounce if your site takes too long to load. Slow sites hurt your rankings on Google too. Faster sites are rewarded with higher positions on the search engine results pages.

And when it comes to online stores, a slow site can really cut into your sales.

Website performance matters. And a good host can make all the difference in the speed of your site. That’s because the greatest factor affecting site speed is your host. But not all hosts are created equally.

A good WooCommerce host can provide the speed you need. Keep reading to learn what to look for and who offers the fastest WooCommerce hosting.

Understanding the Unique Needs of WooCommerce Hosting

Many hosts provide managed WordPress options. A number of hosts also provide Managed WooCommerce hosting. Proceed carefully here.

You need to examine hosting providers closely. Many focus on WordPress and also offer WooCommerce hosting. You’ve probably heard of Bluehost, GoDaddy, and WP Engine, just to name a few. The primary focus of these companies is WordPress — not WooCommerce.

But the resources they’ve spent on WordPress may not translate well over to WooCommerce when it comes to hosting. While WooCommerce is built on WordPress, it comes with its own unique needs in hosting.

For example, caching layers may work for WordPress sites. But when it comes to the ecommerce experience, it just doesn’t work the same. You can’t cache a site for someone who needs to browse your products and add them to their cart. These interactions can’t be cached.

That’s why you need to find a WooCommerce hosting solution that is uniquely dedicated to the ecommerce experience.

But where to start?

We ran an experiment to find the fastest WooCommerce hosting. See what we found.

Running a Test to Find the Fastest WooCommerce Hosting

To find the fastest WooCommerce hosting, Hostdedi ran an experiment.

Creating the Sample Store

First, we created a sample store with 2000 products in it. For this test, we loaded 37,000 orders in the sample store. We also added 9,000 customers.

Selecting Different Hosts to Test

From there, we tried out hosting plans at different hosting companies and imported our store into each of them. Here are the hosts we tested.

• BlueHost
• GoDaddy
• WP Engine
• SiteGround
• Kinsta

Testing Different Ecommerce Interactions

Next, it was time to test a few different user journeys: store browsing and store buying.

Store browsing included navigating between the main pages as well as the individual product pages. For store buying, we tried adding items to the cart and checking out.

For these tests, we used 50 to 200 VUs (virtual users). To keep things consistent, the same store and steps were tested in the same way for each host.

The Results

As you can see, Hostdedi by Liquid Web was the clear winner.

Here’s how we provide the fastest WooCommerce hosting.

How Hostdedi Provides the Fastest WooCommerce Hosting

Unlike hosting providers who mainly focus on WordPress, Hostdedi provides a very specific setup and plans truly optimized for hosting your WooCommerce store.

PHP Workers

Hostdedi providers have much higher PHP worker levels than a number of other hosting providers. Think of PHP workers as different checkout lanes. The more checkout lanes there are, the more customers can check out in the store. If the store offered only a couple of checkout lanes, it would take forever. That’s why it’s important to have enough PHP workers to keep your site fast.

Dedicated Hosting

Other hosts might end up hosting your store or stores on high-density shared hosting, which means you are sharing resources with other customers’ stores.

Site Optimization

Hostdedi provides site optimization to your store after it has been migrated and is love. All you have to do is submit a support ticket. We’ll make sure that your store is fast for customers.

Scaling & Caching

Hostdedi provides high-performance Managed WooCommerce plans which include many performance features, like higher PHP worker levels, auto-scaling, Redis object caching and a built-in full-page cache.

Full-page caching will help reduce the number of PHP workers that are used on your store’s server. That’s because the static HTML version will be served out for customers with cart, checkout, and “My Account” pages being excluded from being cached.

Built-In CDN

Hostdedi provides fast WooCommerce hosting as well as an easy-to-use portal. Hostdedi even provides its own in-house CDN. This ensures that site assets are served out quickly to customers. The Hostdedi CDN can be integrated using a number of full-page caching plugins.

Optimized Front-End and Back-End

It’s one thing for a site to be fast just on the front-end when browsing through the site.

It’s a whole other thing to be fast when you’re adding products to your cart or checking out — and also for shop owners to manage the store in wp-admin.

Hostdedi hosting helps improve the front-end and the back-end performance of your WooCommerce store.

Get Fully Managed WooCommerce Hosting with Hostdedi

The higher number of PHP workers, solid platform, built-in full-page caching, cloud accelerator, Redis object caching and in-house CDN are all built into Hostdedi’ hosting plans.

All of these elements work together to load your WooCommerce store fast for customers. Whether they’re browsing products or checking out, you can be sure they’ll have a great experience on your site when you host with Hostdedi.

One of the easiest ways to improve performance for your existing WooCommerce store is to move your store to Hostdedi. Hostdedi has plans designed specifically for hosting high-performance fast optimized WooCommerce stores.

Hostdedi offers fully managed hosting for WooCommerce designed for fast, high-performing stores. Hostdedi also:

• Offers high performance and site speed.
• Dynamically scales and optimizes.
• Secures your store with always-on monitoring.

See why we have a 4.3 out of 5 star rating on TrustPilot.

Start your free two-week trial of fully managed WooCommerce from Hostdedi today.

Explore WooCommerce Hosting

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As technology goes through rapid changes, it becomes more and more challenging for companies of all types to keep their data on the web secure.

A proactive security strategy reduces the risk of spreading and escalation of malware attacks on other sites and any IT infrastructure out there. If a hacker gets malware into your software, it can easily spread from computer to computer, without knowing the exact origin.

Keep reading this blog to learn why security is so important, how to make your website secure, and how Hostdedi can help.

Why Security Is Critical for Any Website

30,000 sites are hacked on a daily basis. And more than 60% of companies all over the world have had at least some form of cyber attack.

These numbers are getting bigger every day, which is why it’s getting even more important for companies to secure their websites and the data they hold at the moment. Here are a couple of reasons why website security is so important.

When Your Website Is Hacked, It Can Affect Your Visitors

Hackers use malicious software to infect sites, collect data, and sometimes even get to the computer resources to hijack them. There are plenty of different ways to do that and most of them are performed by automated hacking tools.

Hackers don’t go for your business or site specifically, but for the software you use. When an attacker gets access to the software, it can use your website to redirect traffic and target your customers. That way, they can install malware on their computers.

Your Business Can Lose Reputation

There are more than 1.5 billion sites on the internet today. When looking for relevant information, people mostly rely on search engines. Therefore, search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial — it’s a set of practices to increase both the quality and the quantity of traffic to your site through organic search results.

Search engines give a warning to your visitors and restrict them from entering your site if it doesn’t recognize it as safe. For instance, Google marks every website without SSL (HTTPS) as insecure, which can negatively affect the position of a certain website in the search results. Without SSL, your company will struggle to reach users.

In other words, proper website security builds a better reputation, which is vital for your business. If your visitors see your website is safe, they are more likely to come back to repeat the purchase. On the other hand, if they get hacked and experience safety issues, they probably won’t come back. That way, not only will you lose the existing customers, but you’ll be less able to reach new ones.

Your Website Can Get Blacklisted

Not only will you fail to rank in the search engine results, but Google can put your site on its “blacklist” if they find it’s not secure. What does that exactly mean?

Google marks at least 10,000 sites as suspicious on a daily basis. Google warns visitors to stay away from insecure sites with their message, “This site may harm your computer” in the search results.

In most cases, a site will get blacklisted when it contains something that might be harmful to the visitor, like malware.

Protection is Cheaper than Website Clean Up

You’ll find many articles and blog posts on cleaning up a hacked site, but most of them will recommend you use a professional to help you solve the problem.

It’s not easy to clean up a website and it’s not cheap either — it can cost you more than $150 per website.

Malware is mostly hidden from the database and the original files because hackers want to make sure you won’t be able to remove it so easily. That means that, even after the cleaning process is finished, you still can’t be entirely sure that your website was properly cleaned.

How to Make Your Website Secure

Get an SSL Certificate

What is an SSL certificate? A Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is one of the first steps to making sure your website is secure. With an SSL certificate, the site’s URL starts with HTTPS instead of HTTP.

It’s a standard security protocol that ensures any data transferred between sites and users (or even between two systems) remains secure and impossible to read.

In other words, SSL creates an encrypted connection that stops hackers from reading the transferred data. This can include sensitive information like addresses, names, credit card numbers, etc.

Use Security Plugins

Security plugins are another way to secure a website. Let’s say you want to get a WordPress security plugin. How exactly does it work? Well, it covers three main tasks — scanning, cleaning, and protection. Scanning is a process where the software detects malware on your site.

After it finds it, the plugin starts the process of cleaning and removing all instances of malware. The final step, protection, includes taking security measures to make sure no one breaks into your site.

Keep Your Software Updated

Don’t ignore those little pop-up windows that remind you it’s time to update your operating system. They can be annoying when you’re in the middle of work tasks, but it’s crucial for the safety of your computer to keep it updated.

The newest updates usually contain advanced features that repair security holes, fix or remove computer bugs, and protect your data.

Use Complex Passwords And 2FA

One of the ways to make your website secure is by using strong passwords and two-factor authentication, or 2FA. Don’t create a password using your name, date of birth, simple sequential numbers and letters (1234, qwert), or some other information that’s easy to guess. Try to make it more complex.

Still, even a strong password is not enough to keep your website safe, which is why it’s recommended you enable 2FA too. It can be a combination of two or more elements such as:

• “Something you know,” like a PIN or password.

• “Something you have,” like a smartphone where you can receive confirmation codes or some sort of hardware-based security device.

• “Something you are,” like a fingerprint or some other way of biometric ID check.

Use Antimalware Software

Antimalware is software created to protect you from hacker attacks. It scans all incoming data and can even detect advanced forms of malware. Antivirus software remains focused on viruses and similar threats, while antimalware covers a broader spectrum of things threatening your website, such as trojans and ransomware.

Use a Web Hosting Service With Security Built In

It’s essential to choose secure web hosting for your website to protect any type of private information you may have on your site.

Not every host offers the same level of security or type of protection. Whichever hosting plan you choose, look for CDNs, firewalls, SSL certificates, and hacker attack protection.

Make Your Website Secure With Hostdedi

Founded 20 years ago, Hostdedi has provided companies with the ability to deliver quality user experiences online. Safety comes first, which is why our hosting plans primarily include:

• 24/7 monitoring & alert response.

• Premium SSL certificates.

• PCI-certification for compliance.

• Proactive patching & updates.

We’re here to handle your website, so you can focus on further improving your business.

Give it a try. Start your free two-week trial today of fully managed WordPress or WooCommerce.

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Creating your very own website used to be reserved just for those who were familiar with programming languages like HTML and CSS, but as the world goes forward, the online world evolves too. We have reached the point where anyone can have a fully functional website with just a few clicks.

One of the most famous Content Management Systems (CMS) is WordPress. Why choose WordPress? The main reason is that it’s incredibly simple and easy to use. The simplicity of use helped it rise to the top. With a long and rich WordPress history, it’s become the largest CMS today, running more than a third of all global websites.

You may be wondering, what is WordPress used for? Users can get confused as there exist two instances with the same names, wordpress.com and wordpress.org.

Even though they have the same name, there are many differences between them. Keep reading to understand the differences between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is, in short, a service that will take care of hosting your WordPress website for you. With WordPress.com, a user can create a website, and then relax and focus on other tasks at hand, such as marketing or content creation.

You may be wondering, is WordPress a hosting site? In this case, it is, as it is actually hosting your website.

One of the biggest advantages of WordPress.com is that it is completely free to use. Anyone can sign in and start creating a fully functional website. It will, however, be necessary to upgrade from a free plan to a personal plan if you wish to use a specific domain name and remove the WordPress marketing from your website.

👉 Why Do You Need Hosting for WordPress? >>

If you are, however, in need of a more complex website with more features, you will need to upgrade to a more expensive plan. Some of the features are only available with a more high-priced plan. For example, one of the more handy features that a user can get with WordPress Business plan is to purchase a WordPress theme elsewhere and install it on the website.

Overall, WordPress.com is more suitable for those that are new to the world of websites and hosting, and it is also an appealing option for those users that simply wouldn’t like the responsibility of running their website to fall on their shoulders. It is guaranteed that the site will be up and running at any time.

WordPress.com offers the user a simple way of installing the software and it provides its users additional maintenance of the website.

When you are first accessing WordPress.com interface, you will be greeted and encouraged to create an account.

After signing in, you can choose your domain name, and if you plan on registering your domain name elsewhere, you can simply choose the WordPress free option, for-example.wordpress.com. If you already own a domain name, you can connect it to your WordPress.com site through mapping or transfer. That option will be presented to you on the right side of the screen.

Once you are finished with setting up a domain name for your future website, WordPress.com redirects you to choose a payment option. Aside from a free option that you can choose, the cheapest one is a personal plan for $4 per month. With that plan you can get a free domain name for an entire year. Your website will be free of WordPress advertising, and you will get unlimited email support. 

Of course, as the price goes higher, the possibilities multiply. With the $45 ecommerce plan, you can have more advanced features such as SEO (search engine optimization) tools and even earn ad revenue from your site.

👉 The Essential Guide to WordPress Plugins >>

And now, the fun can begin. After choosing the payment plan, you will be redirected to an interface where you can create your very own website. You will be given an option to name your website, update your homepage, confirm the email address, and edit the site menu.

From there, you have several convenient options available. For example, you can use the WordPress app for both Android and iOS mobile phones, which enables editing your site on the go. You can also access a large WordPress knowledge base, which can be tremendously helpful. Furthermore, WordPress.com has a large library of copyright-free photos you can use when creating a website.

On the left side of the WP-Admin Dashboard, you can find some account-related functions. If you wish to change your payment plan, you can manage that under the Upgrades section. All the comments users leave on your website can be conveniently found in this section when you click on the Comments link. The appearance of the website, as well as plugins that you have installed or are available to you, can also be accessed from this section.

Everything is simple and ready to be used. For example, if you wish to install a plugin on your website, simply click on the Plugins link. You will be taken to an interface where you can easily install any plugin you want with the click of a button.

It’s really as simple as that — and it’s easy to understand why WordPress.com became so popular in the world of user-friendly web development. But what about WordPress.org? 

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is open-source software — its code can be accessed and modified by anyone. WordPress.org is known as self-hosted WordPress. That means that the user has more control over the creation of his or her site.

You can install themes and choose from a variety of plugins to make your site. The user is not limited in any way when choosing from a variety of themes and plugins, which can be significant if you are trying to stand out from the crowd. You will, on the other hand, be responsible for the hosting of your site.

👉 Learn How to Use WordPress With Our Most Helpful WordPress Resources >>

With WordPress.org, you can customize any theme you want, and you can even build your own theme from scratch with the help of CSS and PHP.  WordPress.org can make your life easier with features that take care of security, analytics, and more.

If you’re wary of being self-hosted, know that there really isn’t much to be afraid of. There are many WordPress communities and forums dedicated to finding help for any issues that may occur. There are also a number of available resources on WordPress.org as well, both in the form of workshops and articles. 

Additionally, hosting companies offer Managed WordPress services that can relieve you of some of those duties.

How to Use WordPress.org to Create a Website

If you choose to create your website with WordPress.org, the first step in the process would be an installation. WordPress is software which you can download from their official WordPress.org website on your device for free. If you already have a cPanel account, you can download and install WordPress in cPanel using Softaculous or Fantastico.

After installing the software, You will be looking at an interface that resembles the one of WordPress.com. On the left, in a darker box, you can access administration functions, such as updates for your WordPress account, plugins, and themes. From there the user can also review all of the comments from his or her WordPress website, which can vastly improve interaction with the visitors of your website.

Installing a plugin or changing its appearance is effortless. In only a few clicks you can completely change the appearance of your website without worrying about losing your content. The possibilities are endless here — creating the content is complicated enough, and with WordPress you can easily decide what looks best for the content of your website simply by trying various themes. It’s as painless as choosing a pair of pants in a dressing room.

You may be wondering, what is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org? And how is all of this significant to me?

There are advantages and disadvantages with both WordPress.com and WordPress.org, and in the end, all that matters is what kind of website you are building and what are you expecting from your CMS.

One of the main polarities in WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com is that with WordPress.org you can host your own website, while if you are using WordPress.com, it will be WordPress.com that is hosting your website. That makes WordPress.com painless if you are just getting started, but it gives you less freedom than its counterpart. 

👉 Beginner’s Guide to WordPress Performance Optimization >>

With WordPress.com you can have a simple website in a couple of clicks, but for more complex themes and plugins, the user will have to upgrade his or her payment plan. Besides that, there are not a lot of themes the user can choose from if he or she does not upgrade to a higher payment plan. This can raise some concerns if you are trying to make a distinctive website that will be instantly recognizable. 

If you care about the appearance and the variety of plugins, but you would not like to spend a lot of money, then WordPress.org could be a better solution for you. But if you don’t mind that your blog or a website has the same theme as possibly thousands of other websites, and the simplicity of it all is appealing to you, then WordPress.com might be the way to go.

Either way, with either one you get to create a fully functional and great looking website from scratch, without any experience.

However, there is also the option of Managed WordPress. This option lets you have it all — simplicity and a trouble-free experience paired with as much creative freedom as you need.

Consider Managed WordPress Hosting from Hostdedi

Combine the freedom and convenience of WordPress software with a carefree experience of managed website hosting. But what is WordPress hosting? And what is managed WordPress? 

Essentially, the term managed hosting describes a service where your hosting provider takes care of the administration and security of your website, as well as keeping it up and running steadily. As we already know, WordPress websites make up more than a third of all websites on the internet, and a convenient option for WordPress users is to have managed WordPress hosting. 

Some features that make Hostdedi fully managed WordPress so convenient include:

• Security monitoring that is always on.
• Support from WordPress experts 24/7 every day of the year.
• A built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN) with 22 locations.
• And advanced caching for ultrafast loading of the website.

Hostdedi also offers image compression which can significantly improve the browser loading time. Premium tools with Hostdedi managed WordPress plans include Visual Compare, WP Merge, iThemes Security Pro, iThemes Sync, TinyPNG, and Qubely Pro.

What Hostdedi doesn’t have are overage fees, traffic limits, and metered pageviews. 

Hostdedi offers a variety of fully managed WordPress hosting plans, and with every plan you choose, you have a staging environment, 30-day backups, and unlimited email accounts. You also have an option of a 30-day money back guarantee, so you can be confident when choosing your plan.

Give it a try. Start your free two-week trial of managed WordPress today.