Daily ArchivesFebruary 1, 2022

A brick and mortar store is a solid small business model that can bring you a nice income. However, scaling your income with a brick and mortar store can be hard and expensive to do.

But it doesn’t have to be. Instead of opening up a second brick and mortar store, why not bring your brick and mortar online?

A website can help you expand your reach, get more customers, and easily double your income without the added expenses of paying for additional storage or another set of utilities.

On top of that, a website makes you more discoverable, which means you can capitalize on organic traffic. That ultimately means that you don’t have to spend as much on paid advertising to keep a bigger share of your profits.

Creating a website might seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be with the right tools. This article will show you how to create a brick and mortar website in seven steps.

Let’s get into it.

Step 1: Choose the Website’s Features

Step 2: Choose Your Platform

Step 3: Select a Domain Name

Step 4: Sign Up For a Hosting Plan

Step 5: Install WordPress

Step 6: Add Your Products

Step 7: Market Your Store Online

Final Thoughts: Brick and Mortar Website: Moving Brick and Mortar to Online

Step 1: Choose the Website’s Features

When it comes to bringing your brick and mortar online, you have two options.

The first is using your brick and mortar website as a catalog to display your products and encourage visitors to visit your physical location. That way, customers buy items offline and increase your face-to-face foot traffic.

The second option is to create an ecommerce online store or a storefront for your brick and mortar business. In this way, visitors can purchase from the comfort of their home, resulting in online sales primarily.

Which option you choose will dictate the features you need to include, such as payment methods like which credit cards you’ll accept, an online catalog for online shopping, shipping costs and options, adding product reviews, and similar.

If you want a simple catalog and don’t wish to mirror the route of ecommerce businesses, you won’t need to worry about adding a payment gateway or configuring shipping options.

However, displaying product reviews or testimonials can go a long way to encourage people to visit your physical presence, even on a catalog website.

Step 2: Choose Your Platform

Once you’ve chosen the features you want, you need to choose a platform for your store. One of the best platforms for any website is WordPress. WordPress is not only free, but it also has thousands of themes that make it easy to style your website exactly the way you want.

In addition, there are thousands of plugins for WordPress that help you build any website quickly. One such plugin is WooCommerce.

Thanks to WooCommerce, you can easily build a WordPress online store and sell your products online.

Step 3: Select a Domain Name

The domain is what your visitors will type in to reach your online retailers’ store. It’s best to use your existing brick and mortar store’s name as the domain name for online businesses.

If the name is taken, try adding the word store or shop or choose a .shop or .store extension.

Step 4: Sign Up For a Hosting Plan

Besides your domain name, you’ll also need a hosting plan. Hosting is where the website files will live, and it’s necessary so visitors can access your website.

If you’re looking for a reliable host, Hostdedi has hosting plans optimized for WordPress and WooCommerce websites. Key features include built-in image compression, abandoned cart technology, page builder plugins, and 1-click staging, plus StoreBuilder.

Moreover, our servers are optimized for faster speeds and better security. These features are crucial for online stores to build trust and increase conversions.

Step 5: Install WordPress

As you’re researching hosting options, you’ll inevitably come across some hosts that will pre-install WordPress for you when you sign up for one of their plans.

If that’s not the case with your chosen hosting provider, you’ll need to install WordPress yourself.

But here’s the good news:

Most hosting companies offer a one-click installation process for WordPress. The only thing you’ll need to do is enter your desired username, password, and your site title. The installer will take care of the rest, and you’ll then be able to log into your new WordPress website.

If you’ve decided to sell your products online, you’ll also need to install WooCommerce. You can do that by going to Plugins > Add New and searching for WooCommerce. Then, install and activate the plugin and follow the Setup Wizard to configure the plugin’s options.

Step 6: Add Your Products

Once WooCommerce has been configured, you’ll need to add the products from your retail stores. If you already have a list of your products in a CSV format, you can easily import it into WooCommerce by going to WooCommerce > Home. Then click on Add Products > Import via CSV.

Alternatively, you can add a product manually by going to Products > Add New. You’ll then be able to add a product title, description, images, and configure important product options such as price, variations, type of product, and more.

Step 7: Market Your Store Online

After adding the products, you need to focus on bringing traffic and promoting your new brick and mortar website. Here are a few basic marketing methods that will give you initial traction:

• Promote on social media — add your website to your social media profiles, post regularly, provide value, and engage with your ideal potential customers.
• Add an email signup form with a discount code — encourage visitors to sign up and stay in touch with you so they can get notified when new products are added to the store.
• Blogging — create content on your website and use it as an opportunity to showcase how your products can be used as well as how other customers are using them.
• Paid ads — if you have a dedicated marketing budget, consider investing in Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, or Promoted Pins.
• Optimize for local search engine optimization (SEO) — include your location in your store’s keywords and set up a Google My Business profile that links to your website.

Final Thoughts: Brick and Mortar Website: Moving Brick and Mortar to Online

Building a brick and mortar website is a big task. But once you know what is involved, you can launch your website quickly. Follow the steps in this article and bring your brick and mortar online.

If you want to expedite the process and take your sales insight to the next level, check out Hostdedi’ StoreBuilder. It’s the fastest and easiest way to build an online store with WordPress — and it comes with fully managed hosting too.

There are thousands of WordPress themes (both free and paid) at your fingertips, but selecting the best one for your website can feel like an overwhelming task — especially if you’re launching a WordPress site for the first time.

Before you land on the perfect theme for your site, you might be interested in trying out a couple to see which one provides the look, feel, and functionality that aligns with your goals or brand guidelines. But once you have narrowed down a few themes that you’d like to try, how do you go about installing them?

In this guide, we will breakdown just how to install a WordPress theme step by step. We will also detail what a WordPress theme is, the differences between free and paid themes, where you can find the best WordPress themes, and what you need to do before installing one.

Table of Contents

What is a WordPress Theme?

1. Free WordPress Themes vs. Paid WordPress Themes

1.1 Pros and Cons of Free Themes

1.2 Pros and Cons of Paid Themes

2. Where to Find a WordPress Theme to Install

3. What Is Needed to Install a WordPress Theme?

4. How to Install a Theme on WordPress: 3 Ways

4.1 How to Install a WordPress Theme Using Built-In Search Functionality

4.2 How to Manually Install a WordPress Theme

4.3 How To Install a WordPress Theme Using Your FTP Client

What Is a WordPress Theme?

A WordPress theme is a collection of files (typically a zipped folder that includes different graphics, template files, and stylesheets) that can control the design of your site. Using a WordPress theme, you can easily change the appearance and presentation of your website — such as its layout, typography, or color scheme — without needing advanced coding knowledge. You can think of installing a WordPress theme like dressing-up your site without needing to put together the outfit.

1. Free WordPress Themes vs. Paid WordPress Themes

Both free and paid WordPress themes have their pros and cons.

1.1 Pros and Cons of Free Themes

The main advantage of installing a free WordPress theme is the fact that, as the name implies, it doesn’t cost you anything. This means that if you don’t end up liking a free theme you install, you can easily change it without losing money. When selecting free themes directly from the WordPress theme directory, you can rest assured they’ve been through a rigorous review process and will be compatible with all free plugins WordPress offers.

But free WordPress themes also come with their disadvantages. For example, these themes typically come with limited features, designs, and functionality, and they are likely used by several other websites. Also, free theme developers usually provide limited support for updates or site issues, and free themes found outside of WordPress could be coded poorly — which could lead to poor site performance or security vulnerabilities.

1.2 Pros and Cons of Paid Themes

While paid themes are somewhat of an investment, they offer superior features, functionality, and support compared to free theme s— and they are typically the fastest WordPress themes out there. With these premium themes, you can gain access to features like:

• Superior support for technical issues and bugs
• Frequent theme updates
• More unique site customization options
• Advanced security features
• Enhanced site responsiveness, including for mobile devices
• Increased browser compatibility
• Increased plugin compatibility

The biggest drawback of paid WordPress themes is the fact that you must pay for them. Some premium themes require a one-time fee, while others require yearly subscriptions. If you decide to change your theme after purchasing a premium one, you will have lost your investment.

2. Where to Find a WordPress Theme to Install

Both free and paid WordPress themes can be found in several different theme repositories. Currently, the WordPress theme directory features over 8,000 free themes that are reliable and can provide your site with a dynamic design. There are also several trustworthy theme repositories outside of WordPress — including Themeforest, Elegant Themes Divi, StudioPress, and CSSIgniter — that offer free and paid WordPress themes.

3. What Is Needed to Install a WordPress Theme?

Depending on how you install a WordPress theme on your site, you might need a few things first. For example, if you plan on installing a theme directly from the WordPress theme directory, you won’t need to upload any files to your site. However, if you want to install a theme from a third-party theme directory or via your file transfer protocol (FTP) client, you will first need to download the theme’s zip file to your computer before getting started.

4. How to Install a Theme on WordPress: 3 Ways

4.1 How to Install a WordPress Theme Using Built-In Search Functionality

If you’ve found a free WordPress theme via the WordPress theme directory, the simplest way to install it is through the built-in theme search functionality in your WordPress admin dashboard. Once you’re logged into your dashboard, navigate to your admin control panel on the left side of the page, find the “Appearance” tab, click on “Themes,” and then click the “Add New” button.

At this point, you can filter through the WordPress theme directory for things like “Featured,” “Popular,” “Latest,” and “Favorites.” You can also make your theme search even more granular with the “Feature Filter” option, or manually search for themes using the search bar.

If you choose to use the “Feature Filter” option, you will be prompted with a list of theme filters to select from to whittle down your search, such as:

• Themes by subject (e.g., blogs, e-commerce, photography, education, etc.)
• Theme features (e.g., accessibility readiness, custom colors, editor style, etc.)
• Theme layouts (e.g., grid, one column, two columns, three columns, etc.)

Once you find a theme you would like to install on your site, hover your cursor over the theme thumbnail. This will display the theme install and preview buttons, as well as a details button.

When you select the “Preview” button, you will be able to see a preview of your chosen theme with filler copy.

When you select the “Install” button, WordPress will automatically install your theme, display a successful installation message, and present “Activate” or “Live Preview” buttons.

By clicking the “Activate” button, you will enable the theme to work on your website. You can now navigate to the homepage of your site to see the theme change.

Note: You might need to refresh your browser to see your website’s new theme.

At this point, you can click the “Customize” button (or head back to your admin control panel and find the “Customize” option under the “Appearance” tab) to start tweaking your theme to your liking.

Note: Each theme in the WordPress theme directory is different, and some might recommend that you install certain plugins or review theme settings before it will function properly.

4.2 How to Manually Install a WordPress Theme

If you are interested in a theme outside of the WordPress theme directory (typically paid themes from third-party theme repositories), you will need to manually upload it using your admin dashboard. No matter which theme repository you use, you will need to download the “.zip” file of your chosen theme to your computer first.

Note: To use the WordPress theme upload feature, you must have a self-hosted WordPress.org website.

With this file downloaded, navigate to your admin control panel, find the “Appearance” tab, click on “Themes,” and then click the “Add New” button. From here, locate the “Upload Theme” button at the top of the page and upload the “.zip” file you downloaded earlier. Select the “Choose File” button, choose your saved “.zip” file, and click the “Install Now” button.

Once your theme is installed, you will be prompted with a “Theme Installed Successfully” message. At this point, click on the “Activate” link for your theme changes to take effect on your website.

4.3 How to Install a WordPress Theme Using Your FTP Client

While a more advanced technique, you can manually upload a WordPress theme using your FTP client — which is software that allows you to directly connect to your website’s server to make site changes.

Note: If you haven’t done so, you will need to download FTP client software to your computer. You will also need to create an FTP account through your website hosting provider. Typically, you will have to manually set up your own FTP account within your hosting dashboard. Sometimes hosting providers create an FTP username and password for you when you create a new account.

To begin, start by downloading your theme’s “.zip” file to your computer. Once downloaded, you will need to unzip the file, which will create a new folder with your chosen theme’s name on your computer.

With your unzipped folder, you are now ready to begin the upload process to your website using your FTP client. First, you will need to connect to your site or WordPress hosting account using your FTP client. Once connected, navigate to your “/wp-content/themes/” folder, which contains all themes currently installed on your site.

Now you can upload your unzipped theme folder from your computer directly into your “/wp-content/themes/” folder.

Once uploaded, navigate back to your WordPress admin dashboard, find the “Appearance” tab in your admin control panel, and click on “Themes.” Here, you can see the theme you uploaded via your FTP client and “Activate” it.

Power Your WordPress Site with Hostdedi

Now that you’ve learned how to install a WordPress theme, it’s time to partner with a hosting provider that will help you take your website to the next level.

With fully managed WordPress hosting from Hostdedi, you gain access to an expert team that will help you optimize and manage your WordPress site.

Not only can we help you make your site faster with premium image compression, a built-in content delivery network (CDN), and advanced caching, but we can provide you with professional website infrastructure management and monitoring 24/7/365.

Check out our fully managed WordPress hosting plans to get started today.

Running a WooCommerce store can be as exciting as it is frustrating. Besides identifying targeted sources of traffic, you also need to increase revenue across those traffic sources. Often, this requires implementing sales and ecommerce marketing tactics to draw in more consumers and direct them to the products they need.

Another way to increase revenue, however, involves leveraging the customers you already have and increasing average order value (AOV). Knowing how to increase average order value in ecommerce is a great way to boost the sales on your online store.

Average order value is the average value of a single order through your store. For example, if one customer purchases several products for $10 total, and another customer purchases a single product for $8, your average order value is $9.

Increasing ecommerce AOV is a surefire way for you to move the needle quickly and effectively, allowing you to drive revenue growth without having to generate more traffic. While it still involves some careful planning, it’s often easier and quicker to cross-sell products than it is to find new customers.

Keep reading to learn how to increase average order value in ecommerce.

How to Increase Average Order Value in Ecommerce: 5 Ways

1. Bundle Products That Work Well Together

Bundling works well for physical and digital products and is a proven way to increase your average order value in ecommerce. This is because it helps your customers understand which products play nicely together and which don’t.

For example, you could bundle an essential oil dispenser with a set of oils at a slightly discounted rate. Or, if you’re in the fashion industry, you could bundle a pair of trousers with a complimentary shirt. As a merchant, it is your job to find which products work well together, and market them as such.

Once you’ve decided which products should go together, there are many reliable plugins for WooCommerce that let you create bundles. A few of these include the Product Bundles plugin and WPC Product Bundles for WooCommerce. There is also Composite Products, which allows your customers to configure their own type of bundle.

You can also target specific consumers with suitable bundles. To do this, you will need access an ecommerce analytics tool that allows you to segment your audience. According to Gartner, 32% of businesses prioritize marketing analytics in their budget, with 76% saying they use data to drive key decisions. That’s why we include an analytics and segmentation tool – Glew.io – as part of our Managed WooCommerce solution as standard. 

2. Use Minimum Quantities for Discounts & Perks

Many online stores already implement this strategy in the form of a banner offering free shipping on orders over a certain value. Offering free shipping for orders that exceed your target ecommerce AOV is a win-win situation. Firstly, you can use this technique to increase your bottom line. Secondly, customers feel good because you’re offering them a free shipping option.

Don’t rush to your WooCommerce admin area to set up that banner now, at least not if you don’t know what your free shipping threshold should be. Without knowing that threshold, you can easily find yourself in a situation where you’re losing money, due to the cost of shipping that now needs to be added into your price calculation.

When calculating your threshold, it should be a target AOV where your customers have to purchase multiple products or a bundle – it has little psychological value if it’s easy to attain. Conversely, if you set the free shipping threshold too high, you can turn off your customers and they won’t even try to reach it. You’ll need to balance your price to effectively increase your AOV.

You can take this strategy to the next level by not just having a static banner at the top of your shop (the WooCommerce notification bar works well for that banner), but by having a dynamic element on your Cart and Checkout pages that tells your customers how far away they are from reaching the free shipping threshold. You want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to understand how close they are to getting free shipping.

3. Leverage One-Time Offers

One-time offers (OTO’s) are presented to your customer right after they purchased one (or multiple) products in your WooCommerce shop, and provide them the option to add another discounted product to their order with a single click. OTO’s can be super effective if you set them up correctly. Let’s go through a few of their key characteristics:

• Relevancy: the offered product adds value to the products already purchased.
• Pricing: The OTO needs to be at a discounted level and should be lower than the order value, so that the perceived added value is as high as possible.
• Ease of use: Adding the OTO must work with a single click. If you make your customers enter their billing details again, they’ll likely cancel the order process for the OTO.

WooCommerce developers recognize the importance of one-time offers and have created many powerful plugins to support this functionality. These plugins often get used in funnels built with WooCommerce.

In this post, Chris Lema describes example funnels using the plugin WooCommerce Redirect Thank You, but you could also look into the plugins WooStroke (see screenshot below for an example flow) or Smart Offers.

4. Start Selling Gift Cards

If you want to know how to increase AOV in ecommerce, consider offering giftcards. Gift cards can be a powerful tool to increase the average order value in your WooCommerce shop, but also need to be used with caution in certain situations. Let’s see how you can use them to not just increase your ecommerce AOV but also potentially reduce future ad spend for recurring purchases.

Begin by determining average product value. It may be that your typical product has a price tag of $25 or higher. In this case, you could send every customer a free $5 gift card for them to use on their next purchase. You can send them the gift card electronically or, better yet, have a batch of them printed and added to each package you send out.

Having that gift card at hand increases the likelihood your customer will order again from your shop, to spend that $5. This helps you reduce the retargeting ad spend to get this customer to shop with you again.

Keep in mind, the prices for your products need to be high enough to leverage this strategy. “High enough” means that the gift card should not result in a free order, causing a loss for you. Additionally, if you’re running “Free Shipping” campaigns, ensure that the gift card cannot be used on shipping costs.

Even if you’re not giving away a gift card with each order, you can sell them directly in your shop. There are plenty of plugins for WooCommerce that allow you to do that. Take a look at Gift Cards for WooCommerce (see screenshot for an example) or YITH Gift Cards. If you want to dive deeper into the ways to create gift cards in WooCommerce, read this article on Business Bloomer.

5. Incentivize First-Time Buyers with Deals

Offering discounts to first-time buyers is a common method of incentivizing visitors to become a customer. You could use hooks like a percentage discount, free priority shipping, a free gift card (see above) or a free product to encourage customers to buy from you. When visiting almost any web shop, you’ll see an offer to save X% on your first order when subscribing to their email list. That’s an example of this strategy put into action.

A second strategy involves adding these opportunities to the cart or checkout page, and to not advertise them as aggressively. Similar to the “do you want chips with that?” question you are always asked when ordering a fast food burger, you can add special offers your customers can put into their carts with a single click.

There are plenty of plugins you can leverage to add a function like this to your WooCommerce shop. Two that I recommend are WooCommerce Multiple Free Gift (see screenshot below for an example) and WooCommerce Checkout Add-Ons.

Bonus: Implement Price Anchoring in Your Products

Price anchoring is a psychological principle that controls how your visitors perceive the prices in your WooCommerce shop, without actually selling anything.

To efficiently use price anchoring, you need to understand what your target Average Order Value is – as that’s the base price. You’ll then position a product with that AOV (could be a bundle if you don’t have a single product at that price) between one product that provides much lower value at a much lower cost (e.g. one piece of the bundle) and another product with a higher perceived value at a much higher price.

This strategy helps to make the product with the target AOV look like the most reasonable and well-priced choice. The other product options are designed to not look valuable or to have such a high price-tag that they feel unattainable to most of your customers. Using this strategy, you’ll find that you’re enticing most of your web shop’s visitors to click on the Average Order Value product. That’s the goal of the strategy.

Implementing price anchoring in your WooCommerce store is fairly straightforward. You have to create multiple products that match the pricing categories outlined above. One type of product goes into the “low-value” category, then you’ll have another category for the target AOV products and one category for the “high-value” products.

Keep in mind that the term “category” is used here as an abstract way to categorize the products for yourself. You should not create customer-facing WooCommerce categories that only contain one type of product.

After creating those products, you need to place them side-by-side, so that your customers can compare them directly. To do that, you can use a plugin like Rearrange Woocommerce Products, or use your page builder of choice.

Start Increasing AOV in Ecommerce

Now you know how to increase AOV for ecommerce. As you can see, there are many ways to increase the average order value in your online store. You can get quite creative in your approach and find ways that work perfectly for your brand and setup.

Power your online store with fully managed WooCommerce hosting from Hostdedi, your digital commerce experts.

It comes with cart abandonment technology, built-in sales performance monitoring, automated testing, and incredibly fast loading times.

Check out our WooCommerce fully managed hosting plans to get started today.