Monthly ArchivesFebruary 2022

Do you daydream of quitting and walking out of your cubicle for the last time or, more likely, in today’s work-from-home environment, dramatically closing your laptop after quitting over Zoom?

You’re not alone.

More than 47 million Americans made their dreams a reality and quit their jobs in 2021 as part of what’s being called the “Great Resignation.”

As tempting as it may be to quit on the spot, most people plan for what they’ll do instead. Short of winning the lottery, what can you do to continue earning money? The Great Resignation is accelerating as more people embrace the gig economy or launch ecommerce stores from their homes.

So before you draft your resignation letter, let’s examine what you can learn, including:

What Is the Great Resignation?

In the spring of 2021, more and more Americans began leaving their jobs. The trend continued throughout 2021 and into the first part of 2022. Analysts and media started using the term the “Great Resignation” to describe the phenomenon.

People assume the Great Resignation is nothing more than media hype, but any HR manager could tell you otherwise. The numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are staggering.

The Great Resignation Statistics

• More than four million people quit their jobs every month for the last five months of 2021.
• Nearly 4.5 million people quit in November, an all-time high since the government started tracking resignation data.
• In total, 47.4 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021.

Why Are So Many People Quitting Their Jobs?

The Great Resignation is the result of the perfect storm of societal and economic conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many workforce trends already in motion, such as the shift to remote work.

So while we can’t point to one reason why the Great Resignation is accelerating and people are quitting, we can identify some contributing factors.

Better Job Market

Not everyone who quits their job decides to start freelancing or selling homemade pottery online. Some of the people who resigned left to go to another job. Companies can’t fill vacancies fast enough, which makes it easier for job seekers to find better pay, benefits, and overall work fit as employers compete for candidates.

Related reading: Profitable Hobbies That Make Money >>

More Flexibility

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced new flexibility into many workers’ schedules. As people balanced childcare, remote school, and working from home, Zoom meetings at odd times and quick updates over Teams replaced traditional eight-hour workdays at an office.

As vaccines became more widely available, companies started bringing workers back to the office. Many people didn’t want to give up their flexibility, so they quit to find a more flexible workplace or to work for themselves.

Burnout

The pandemic ushered in unprecedented work flexibility for some people and unparalleled stress for others. Frontline workers without the privilege of working from home faced challenging work conditions and an agitated public.

Hospitality, food service, and healthcare industries had the highest resignations and job openings throughout 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

New Goals or Priorities

Some workers decided now was the time to change their lives. The burnout experienced by frontline workers drove some of them to consider changing career fields or going to school for higher-paying jobs.

The unique combination of political, economic, and social turmoil from the last couple of years led some people to search for employers who were more aligned with their personal values.

Where Are People Going?

Just as the reasons people quit vary, their choices of what to do next depend on their circumstances.

People who quit their jobs as a part of the Great Resignation tend to:

• Find Another Job. Finding a job is easier in this market. Some people leave for more lucrative jobs at a different company or in a different industry.
• Return to School. People in demanding jobs with traditionally low wages are going back to school to retrain for new careers.
• Freelance. Some people want to be their own boss and set their own schedule. The high number of job openings also creates a need for more contractors and freelancers. If you’ve ever thought about a freelance career, now is the time. If you’re a web developer, be sure to read our guide to becoming a freelance web developer.
• Start Their Own Business. Did you develop any new hobbies during quarantine, like baking bread or making jewelry? Many people are turning their new or existing hobbies into online businesses.

Related reading: How To Open an Ecommerce Store in 11 Steps >>

How to Earn Income After Quitting Your Job

For people who want to opt out of traditional and more flexible work arrangements like freelancing, starting an ecommerce business is a great way to earn income. In addition to more people quitting their jobs in 2021, more people shopped online. Ecommerce grew more than 14 percent in 2021.

Ecommerce offers a distinct advantage when you’re looking to leave your job. You can start while still employed. Many employers discourage or won’t allow freelancing while you work full time. But running an ecommerce store is a viable side hustle.

You don’t even have to make your own products or even store them. With a dropshipping partner, you just need to create and market your website. The dropshipping partner handles fulfillment.

Related reading: A Beginner’s Guide to Dropshipping with WooCommerce >>

Getting Started With an Ecommerce Store

If you’re ready to take the leap and join the Great Resignation, the team at Hostdedi is here to help build your new business. In addition to our web hosting services, we also offer one of the fastest and easiest ways to make a website to sell products.

With StoreBuilder by Hostdedi, you just answer a few simple questions and the StoreBuilder engine does the rest. You’ll be ready to add products to your site in less than a day. 

StoreBuilder is a quick and affordable solution for building an ecommerce website. StoreBuilder uses WooCommerce, the most trusted ecommerce platform.

Before you try other platforms like Shopify, try StoreBuilder risk-free for 30 days. Sign up for an account today.

Website security threats shouldn’t be taken lightly.

According to an IBM report, data breaches cost an average of $4.24 million in 2021, up from $3.86 million in 2020. Besides financial losses, website threats also damage a company’s reputation and can cause search engines to block the business’ website.

With the 2020 pandemic ushering in a ‘new normal’ in remote work, businesses should be more careful than ever. Cyberattacks are on the rise, with cyberattack costs expected to exceed $6 trillion.

But what are the website threats you should look out for?

Website Security Threats

1. Phishing
2. Ransomware
3. Cloud-based attacks

1. Phishing

Phishing is a type of website security threat wherein the cybercriminals send emails that seem to have come from a trusted source to lure individuals into sharing sensitive information such as credit card details and passwords.

Phishing scams often involve sending links to websites that are infected with malware.

Watch out for wrong grammar, misspelled words, and multiple typos to avoid falling for phishing emails.

Cybersecurity experts expect phishing attacks to increase in 2022 — these website threats increased by 600% during the 2020 pandemic.

2. Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware wherein hackers lock a victim’s computer through encryption. During a ransomware attack, they prevent users from using the device and threaten to destroy data unless a ransom is paid. Ransomware is often spread through malicious software or infected email attachments.

Two-thirds of technology executives expect the number of ransomware attacks to increase in 2022.

According to the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre, there were three times as many ransomware attacks in the first quarter of 2021 as there were in the entirety of 2019. The increase can be attributed to the pandemic and increased online activity in digital environments.

Moreover, Cybersecurity Ventures states ransomware damage is expected to reach $265 billion by 2031. Protect your website from these types of attacks as early as now.

3. Cloud-Based Attacks

With the shift to remote work came increased reliance on cloud apps and, subsequently, an increase in cloud-based attacks. Between January to April 2020, cloud-based attacks increased by 630%.

Cloud-based attacks are often caused by malicious code such as:

• SQL injection attacks
• Cross-site scripting (XSS)
• Trojan horses
• Spyware
• Distributed denial of service (DDoS attacks).

The good news is, many cloud-based attacks can be prevented with good security practices.

How To Prevent Common Website Threats

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to keep a WordPress developer on standby to secure your website. You can do things to prevent many of the known vulnerabilities, even if you’re not a techie.

1. Educate Your Customers.

The first step to preventing website security threats is to educate the people using your website — you, your employees, and your customers.

Although customers don’t have access to your website’s backend, they interact with your platform. Attacks against your customers can lead to compromises on your website. Similarly, security vulnerabilities on your site also affect your customers.

Here are some things you can do to raise awareness:

• Warn customers of the potential dangers of common website threats. Remind them not to share private data such as credit card numbers on social media.
• Enforce strong passwords. Remember, it only takes one compromised password to take down millions of WordPress accounts.
• Require multi-factor authentication (MFA).

2. Choose a Reliable Web Host.

Did you know your choice of web host plays a role in preventing website security threats?

If you have a website that collects sensitive data and personal information, such as ecommerce stores, a reliable web host is a must.

When you sign up for a hosting plan from reliable companies such as Hostdedi, you get access to security features such as SSL certificates and security plugins.

All Hostdedi Managed WordPress plans and Managed WooCommerce plans come with:

3. Frequently Update Your WordPress Core, Themes, and Plugins.

Security misconfigurations are one of the most common causes of website attacks. It happens when website owners fail to or inaccurately implement security controls for a web server or web application.

According to a report released by the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), security misconfiguration was one of the top security vulnerabilities of 2021.

The most common examples of security misconfiguration include using default user accounts and passwords and older software versions.

By simply upgrading your WordPress core, you can prevent up to 56% of security vulnerabilities and prevent 44% of cyberattacks by updating your plugins.

Hostdedi’ managed hosting plans include WordPress and plugin updates to ensure your website’s safety.

4. Install a Security Plugin.

Besides keeping your website updated, did you know that 70% of website threats could have been prevented with a security plugin?

Hostdedi Managed plans come with the top security plugin iThemes Security Pro, which prevents website security threats by:

• Stopping brute force attacks
• Enforcing reCAPTCHA to block bad bots and reduce spam
• Scanning your website and applying patches where applicable

5. Install a Web Application Firewall (WAF).

Although a security plugin can prevent most common website threats, many plugins don’t have the features offered by web application firewalls (WAFs).

WAFs monitor and control incoming and outgoing traffic. They block threats before they reach your website.

Final Thoughts — Top 3 Website Security Threats To Look Out for in 2022

Website security issues are no laughing matter.

The good news is, preparing for a cyberattack is not complicated. Website owners can minimize security risks by employing good security measures.

Reduce website security threats by signing up for a Hostdedi Managed WordPress hosting plan, which comes with security features such as daily backups, automatic updates, and free tools.

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

Entrepreneurs and business owners wear many hats. You wake up as a marketer, and you’re an accountant by lunch. A full plate might leave you with little to no time to zoom out and prepare a financial strategy. But this could mean losing money in the long run.

A financial plan for ecommerce business should be a part of your bigger ecommerce business plan.

A business needs a robust business model and financial fortitude to stay operational. Minimizing tax outgo, maintaining enough liquidity, and minimizing costs are vital to building that financial fortitude.

QuickBooks shares that 60% of small businesses consider cash flow a major concern. The number underpins the need to build a financial plan for online businesses, and that’s what we’ll help you with.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

Think of your online business as a sieve. Money comes into your business, passes through the metaphorical sieve, and goes out. What stays in the sieve is your profit.

The sieve analogy is oversimplified for something that can quickly turn into a complex maze of numbers.

When building a financial plan for ecommerce business, you need to look at how the numbers play out on the financial statements.

Below, we’ll walk you through how money flows through your business so you can make financial projections and take a sneak peek into your business’s future.

Estimate Revenue

Revenue is where money enters your business.

Projected Revenue = Expected Sales in Units x Price Per Unit

Projecting revenues is often the most challenging part of creating your financial roadmap. Unless you have a crystal ball, you’ll need to estimate depending on a range of factors.

For an online store, you can use the following to establish a starting point:

• Website’s traffic.
• Average conversion rate
• Average customer value

If you have enough sales data, try to identify a trend. As a last resort, you can use the estimated revenue growth from the global statistics as a proxy.

Look at how things may change in the future.

If you’ve developed marketing strategies that may bring in more leads, factor that into your calculations. Do a competitive analysis to see if your competitors have done something to increase their market share and how that will affect your ecommerce store sales.

List Fixed and Variable Costs

Fixed costs are costs that you’ll incur irrespective of your sales. Operating expenses like rent and salaries are common examples. If you run out of money to buy inventory, you’ll still need to pay the warehouse rent and salaries.

Fixed Cost = Rent + Salaries + Depreciation + Other Fixed Costs

Variable costs are costs you incur every time you sell an inventory unit. The cost of the product, transit, and sales commission are examples of variable costs.

To calculate total variable costs, take the number of units you expect to sell and multiply that with your per-unit variable cost.

Variable Cost = (Cost of One Unit of Inventory + Sales Commission Per Unit + Freight Per Unit + Other Per-Unit Variable Costs) x Expected Sales in Units

Come Up With a Tax Strategy

At this point, almost all of the expenses have been accounted for. But you’ve got one more expense to factor in.

And that’s tax.

Ideally, you should minimize your taxable income by strategizing. Make sure you have all invoices properly organized. If you lose an invoice and don’t notice, you’ll end up underreporting your expenses and pay more tax.

Also, you’ll typically pay both indirect and direct taxes. But taxation differs among jurisdictions, so it’s best to have an experienced consultant by your side.

Project Cash Flow

Revenues, costs, and taxes appear on your income statement and help calculate the net profit.

But an ecommerce company’s profit does not equal cash.

Why?

Your company might have unpaid expenses or expenses paid in advance. Outstanding expenses appear as a current liability on your balance sheet, and advance payments appear as a current asset.

While some of your expenses remain unpaid, they appear on the income statement as soon as they become due and reduce your net profit. But your cash remains unaffected by this expense unless you pay it.

Your cash balance also changes when you raise capital with a business loan or pay an existing lender. In essence, only cash transactions affect your cash flow.

Since the cash flow statement is prepared on a cash basis, not an accrual basis, here’s how you can calculate the expected cash you’ll have at the end of a month, quarter, or year:

Expected Cash Balance = Cash Balance at the Beginning + Cash Inflows – Cash Outflows

Estimate Required Working Capital

Not managing cash well is a big reason why ecommerce stores fail.

Say you expected $5k in cash at the end of the quarter. But you have a $10k debt coming due the following month. Quite a pickle, right?

You can take a loan or use your credit card to pay off the debt. But you’ll still need cash to pay salaries and buy inventory.

Instead of relying on band-aid solutions, consider maintaining adequate working capital to ensure you always have enough money to survive in the short term. Ideally, you should aim for a working capital ratio of 1.5 to 2, but this number isn’t set in stone.

Working Capital Ratio = Current Assets ÷ Current Liabilities

Here, current assets are assets like accounts receivable and inventory that you can turn into cash in the short term. Current liabilities are liabilities like accounts payable that will become due in the short term.

Final Thoughts: How To Build a Financial Plan for Your Ecommerce Business

Having a business idea, creating a marketing plan, and aggressively talking about it on social media are great ways to kickstart your business. But when it’s your own business, you’re also responsible for helping it achieve its financial goals.

If you’re a new business, your financial plan should start with a break-even analysis to know how much you need to sell before making your first dollar. If you’ve been operating for a while, a financial plan will help you estimate your expenditures and optimize your profit margins.

Businesses, especially ecommerce businesses, are inherently risky. A financial plan for ecommerce business goes a long way in giving you a preview of what to expect and keeping anxiety away down the road.

Unlike Amazon, small businesses can’t hire a management team and play many roles.

But you can make your life easier by making the right decisions. Select a Managed WooCommerce Hosting plan with Hostdedi today to be free from website issues. Get secure, scalable, and high performance hosting for your online store.

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

A configurable product in Magento 2 consolidates all variations of a product. On the storefront, it looks like a product that offers options and allows customers to choose between variations based on attributes like color and size.

However, on the backend, each variation represents a different simple product associated with a unique SKU in the inventory. Each variation or “child product” can be tracked separately on the backend.

While it may sound complicated, it’s incredibly easy to add configurable products in Magento 2. The default Magento 2 product creation template guides you through an intuitive, step-wise process and leaves little room for error.

To help you avoid that small margin, we’re going to detail each step of the process. Let’s get right to it.

How To Create a Configurable Product in Magento 2

Before you create configurable products in Magento, create an attribute set that enables your preferred input types for each attribute. Alternatively, you can use Magento’s default set that offers simple dropdowns for the attributes for color and size.

Step 1: Choose the Configurable Product Type

In the Magento 2 admin panel, navigate to Catalog > Products, expand the Add Product menu, and select Configurable Product.

Step 2: Assign an Attribute Set

On the New Product template page, expand the Attribute Set dropdown and search for the applicable attribute set for the product.

If you haven’t created one, you can click on Add Attribute to add a new one or continue with the default set.

Step 3: Add All Mandatory Product Information

First, update all the required fields marked with an asterisk such as Product Name, SKU, and Price.

Next, click on the toggle beside Enable Product to change it from the default Yes to No. We’re not ready to publish the product just yet. We’ll enable this in the end once we create the configurable product in Magento.

To finish, click the Save button on the upper-right corner and continue to the next step.

Step 4: Complete the Basic Product Information

Update the following basic product settings as necessary:

• Tax Class: Select a value from the available options.
• Weight: Enter the weight of a single product unit. All configurable products require this value.
• Categories: Assign an existing category from the dropdown or create a new category by clicking the New Category button.
• Visibility: You can use the default setting of Catalog, Search or select a different value from the dropdown.
• Set Product as New From: Add the product to the New Products List widget in Magento in this section. Or, leave it blank and proceed to the next step.
• Country of Manufacture: Choose a Country of Manufacture from the dropdown.

Once complete, save the product before moving on to the next step to create configurable products in Magento.

Step 5: Add the Configurable Product Configurations

This step consists of four sub-steps that help you assign attributes, attribute values, and generate product variations in bulk.

Step 5A: Select the Product Attributes

Scroll down to the Configurations section and click on Create Configurations.

Then, select the configurable attributes from the available options. Optionally, you can also add a new attribute at this stage using the Create New Attribute button. Once complete, click Next to proceed.

Step 5B: Configure the Attribute Values

First, select the values using the corresponding checkbox for each attribute option.

Now, rearrange the display order of the attributes on the frontend using the change order grid icon to drag and reorder.

Once complete, click Next to proceed.

Step 5C: Assign Images, Price, and Quantity to Variations

Images: Assign a single set of product images to all SKUs, or upload unique images by attribute.

• Price: Assign a product price to all SKUs collectively or add a different price to each product attribute.
• Quantity: Assign a quantity to all product options or customize the product quantity by attribute if needed. If you’re using a Multi-Source inventory, you can assign inventory sources at this stage by clicking the Assign Sources button.

Once you finish, click Next to proceed to the final step.

Step 5D: Generate the Product Configurations

Wait a few seconds till Magento generates the entire list of products using your selections.

Next, verify all the associated products and click Generate Products to proceed. If you’d like to change anything, click Back.

After that, the Configuration section will list the generated configurable product variations.

Step 6: Assign a Product Image

Expand the Images and Videos section and upload an image for the Magento 2 configurable product.

Step 7: Update the Optional Product Information

• Content: Add a brief product description in this section.
• Related Products, Up-Sells, and Cross-Sells: Assign products to recommend to customers viewing and purchasing the product.
• Search Engine Optimization: Customize the product URL and metadata.
• Customizable Options: Add or import custom options for the product.
• Products in Websites: Add the product to different websites if you’re running a multi-store setup.
• Design: Assign custom XML layouts to the product page or use the default layout.
• Gift Options: Allow your customers to add a gift message to their purchase and set the price for it.

Step 8: Enable and Save the Product

Scroll to the top and toggle Enable Product to Yes.

Now, click the Save button to complete the process to add configurable products in Magento.

Step 9: Configure the Shopping Cart Thumbnails

By default, Magento displays the parent configurable product’s image as the thumbnail on the cart and checkout pages. Updating this setting changes that behavior and shows the image of the selected product variation.

To configure shopping cart thumbnails, navigate to Stores > Settings > Configuration > Sales > Checkout.

Next, expand the Shopping Cart section and untick the Use system value checkbox besides Configurable Product Image. Update its value to Product Thumbnail Itself using the dropdown options.

To finish, click Save Config to complete the product listing.

Final Thoughts: How To Add Configurable Products in Magento 2

Repeat the steps described in this guide to add configurable products in Magento and build your online catalog. If you’re having trouble viewing the product on your storefront, make sure you refresh the Magento cache to display the latest data.

Managed Magento hosting by Hostdedi eliminates all worries about caching and performance. Our hosting plans include multi-layered caching, fully optimized PHP, and a free CDN.

Experience the convenience of managed hosting with Hostdedi. Check out our plans to get started today.

BuiltWith reports that over 3.3 million websites use WooCommerce to power their online stores. It even outranks dedicated ecommerce platforms like Magento, OpenCart, and BigCommerce.

But there are other ecommerce plugins besides WooCommerce that can add commerce functionality to WordPress. And that’s not all. Some are tailored to sell specific products and address unique business needs.

So if you’re looking for the best WordPress ecommerce plugins for your ecommerce business, just keep reading.

Here’s a comprehensive guide that explores:

• Ecommerce Plugins 101
• Factors To Consider When Choosing a WordPress Ecommerce Plugin
• Best WordPress Plugins for Ecommerce
• Final Thoughts: The Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins for 2022

Ecommerce Plugins 101

WordPress is one of the most user-friendly content management systems on the market. But it has a significant limitation. It lets you market your business and services, but you can’t sell products with it.

Ecommerce plugins help you overcome this by transforming a WordPress website into an ecommerce store. The best WordPress ecommerce plugins on the market give you access to additional features such as catalog, cart, and order management.

Some take it a step further with detailed dashboards and helpful integrations. Ecommerce plugins make it easy for you to sell online with WordPress.

Factors To Consider When Choosing a WordPress Ecommerce Plugin

So what plugins do you need in WordPress for ecommerce? The answer is — it depends.

Here are four factors to consider when choosing the best WordPress ecommerce plugins for your website.

Analyze Your Business Model

Review your business model to outline the business tools you need to sell online. Ask yourself:

1. What will you be selling? Digital or physical products?
2. Where will you sell them? Locally or globally?
3. Which payment methods will you accept? Do you need multiple payment gateways?
4. How will you market your products?
5. Do you need integrations for marketing automation or CRM support?

These questions will help you identify the features you need from an ecommerce plugin.

Ensure the Plugin Is Actively Supported

You’ll likely run into an issue at some point in time while using the plugin. It can be a minor compatibility issue or a major bug that breaks your site.

Look for plugins that are actively supported and regularly updated. An easy way to do this is to check their changelog and support requests on WordPress.org.

Check Online Plugin Reviews

Check WordPress.org, TrustPilot, and Google reviews to identify any underlying issues with the plugin or customer support from the plugin developers.

Don’t just look for positive reviews. Look for negative reviews to see which points users highlight and how important they are to your business.

Measure the Impact on Site Performance

Even the best WordPress ecommerce plugins can impact your site speed. What matters is how much.

The best way to check the performance impact of an ecommerce plugin is to test it on a development site with Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Best WordPress Plugins for Ecommerce

1. WooCommerce.

2. WP Shopify.

3. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart.

4. Easy Digital Downloads.

5. WP EasyCart.

6. BigCommerce for WordPress.

1. WooCommerce

You can’t talk about the best WordPress ecommerce plugins without talking about WooCommerce first. It’s the most flexible, scalable, and easy-to-use ecommerce plugin for WordPress.

The WooCommerce plugin lets you sell virtually any product type, including simple, configurable, and virtual products. It also includes a powerful centralized WordPress dashboard that gives you a birds-eye view of your entire online operation.

WooCommerce is the ideal plugin for beginners. And thanks to its popularity, there are hundreds of add-ons for WooCommerce in the WordPress plugin ecosystem.

Price: Free.

2. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart

Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart is the best ecommerce website plugin to sell internationally. It supports over 45 languages, 40 payment options, and popular payment processors like PayPal and Stripe.

Ecwid also includes shipping and tax integrations. And the best part is that Ecwid Shopping Cart is PCI-DSS Level 1 certified. So you don’t need to worry about PCI compliance.

Price: Free plugin. Ecwid subscription starts from $12.50/month.

3. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is one of the best WordPress ecommerce plugins for selling digital goods. It offers a simple yet intuitive interface that covers all basic plugin needs for digital products.

You get cart functionality, checkout, payment forms, customer management, discount codes, and file protection. EDD supports most WordPress themes and even provides developers with access to its API to extend its capabilities.

Price: Free, paid plans start from $99.50/year.

4. WP EasyCart

WP EasyCart is the best alternative to WooCommerce. It gives you all the basic features and adds unique ones like image swatches for product variations and price changes with conditional logic.

WP EasyCart’s order management lets you print receipts, email customers, and manage orders from the admin panel. It also includes table rate shipping calculation based on price, weight, percentage, and quantity.

Price: Free plugin, but WP EasyCart levies a 2% charge per transaction for those on the free plan. The paid plugin pricing starts at $69/year.

5. BigCommerce for WordPress

BigCommerce for WordPress is one of the best ecommerce solutions for B2B businesses. It offers an all-in-one solution that simplifies logistics, order, payments, and catalog management.

You can leverage WordPress’s frontend design flexibility while using BigCommerce for powerful POS, PIM, and ERP integrations. That is important because Google found that over 37% of holiday shoppers want retailers to do a better job of sharing inventory.

BigCommerce makes inventory management effortless and even handles PCI compliance for you.

Price: Free. BigCommerce subscription starts from $29.95/month.

Final Thoughts: The Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins for 2022

WooCommerce might be the most popular plugin on this list, but plugins like Ecwid and WP EasyCart offer some truly unique features. We hope our list of the best WordPress ecommerce plugins helps you find the right one for your online business.

No matter which you choose, make sure you back it up with reliable WordPress hosting. Managed WooCommerce hosting by Hostdedi helps you win at online commerce with performance-optimized servers.

Our plans include free performance monitoring, cart abandonment technology, advanced analytics, and round-the-clock support and security. Get all that and more backed by our 30-day money-back guarantee. Sign up today.

This blog was originally published in February 2015. It has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

It’s exciting to build and complete your first online store.

You started your journey to the top of the ecommerce sales mountain. You’ll need some tools to get there, and digital marketing is an outstanding tool.

According to HubSpot’s report on the state of marketing in 2021, 82% of B2C marketers actively use content marketing in their businesses. This number was 70% in 2020. This alone tells us how valuable it can be to have an ecommerce content marketing plan for your business.

So what if you don’t have one yet? What can you do to create a content marketing strategy?

If you’re just getting started, fear not. You’re not alone. The process of building a strategy may seem daunting, but we’ll walk you through it step-by-step until you master it.

Are you ready to build your first content marketing strategy?

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• What an ecommerce content marketing plan is.
• How to create an ecommerce content marketing plan.
• Other options you can explore outside of content marketing.

Jump ahead to whichever topic interests you:

Ecommerce Content Marketing 101

An ecommerce content marketing plan is a blueprint you can use as a marketer to build an audience and convert them into new customers. With a plan, you don’t just get to grow your online business or make profits. You also bring structure and coherence to your business.

An ecommerce content marketing plan will build customer trust for your brand, position you as a subject authority, and help you solve the problems and pain points of your customers.

Let’s break it down a little further.

An ecommerce content marketing plan will help you determine:

• Who your content creators are.
• Reasons for content creation.
• Who your target market is.
• How to schedule and publish your content online.
• A promotion strategy for your content.
• Responses to look out for from your target audience.
• How to measure success.

Benefits of an Ecommerce Content Marketing Strategy

You have much to gain from content marketing efforts for your ecommerce business.

Here’s a walkthrough of some benefits business owners can enjoy from a content marketing strategy:

• A content strategy cuts down your costs.
• A content marketing strategy helps you set up your business goals and objectives.
• A content strategy helps you track progress on your ecommerce website.
• Good content strategy drives traffic to your ecommerce store and increases conversions.

Now that you know what a content strategy is and why you should have one for your business, let’s explore some elements you need to build one.

Create Ecommerce Content

• Create a persona for your target audience(s).
• Choose your platform.
• Set your content goals.
• Research and create content.
• Publish content and monitor metrics.

Like any other aspect of your ecommerce business, you need a strategy for your content. You can adapt your approach to changing market needs, but you’ll always follow some key guidelines. Here’s how you create content:

Create a Persona for Your Target Audience(s)

To tailor your ecommerce content to your ideal customer, you must first know who they are.

Develop buyer personas around your target customer. A persona is a fictional character representing your ideal buyer through the buyer’s journey, actual data, and marketing insights.

A good rule of thumb is to dial down on specifics with each persona.

How do you do that?

Here are some general features your personas can have:

• Demographics like age and gender.
• Personality to help identify their behaviors and habits.
• Motivation — what drives their purchasing decisions.
• Problems they are trying to solve or needs they want to meet.

Choose Your Platform

Find out where your customers hang out. Every buyer persona consumes content differently, and you will find patterns. Once you figure out how your customers consume content, you can find a suitable platform to reach them.

Need a guide on how to choose a platform? Ask yourself these questions:

• What’s the most popular social media platform your customers use?
• Do they have any unique preferences on how they consume content?
• What type of device do your ideal customers use the most?
• How long do users stay on their favorite types of content?

Set Your Content Goals

Set your content goals to get your potential customers to enter your sales funnel. Your ecommerce product will play a massive role in the goals you set.

For example, you may craft your content around financial management and market your product to website visitors if you’re selling accounting software.

Many ecommerce brands produce content for one of four main reasons:

• To rank high on the search engine results page (SERPs).
• To gain backlinks.
• To educate and inform your audience.
• To increase social engagement.

Which one’s yours?

Research and Create Content

Having set up the ideal foundation for your content strategy, you can now conduct research and create content for your customers. Create the type of content they love.

It could be:

• Podcasts.
• Product reviews.
• YouTube videos and other video content.
• User-generated content like forums, testimonials, and customer stories.
• Webinars.

Key activities you can perform early on include keyword research, SEO strategies, and competitor analysis. Beyond that, you can brainstorm or use tools like Google Trends to monitor trending content.

At this stage, you should also create a content calendar to schedule your posts. Scheduling keeps your posting regular, contributing to a high-quality ranking of your ecommerce website.

Publish Content and Monitor Metrics

Having gone through this entire process, you’re now ready to publish your content. You can post your content to:

• Your blog.
• A white paper.
• Social media — Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn.
• Infographics.
• Email marketing.

With eight out of every ten companies investing in social media marketing, that could be an excellent place to start. Using your scheduler, you can post to your pages as frequently as you like.

Monitor your metrics and measure your success based on your content goals. Metrics help you fine-tune your strategy until you reach optimum sales. They will also help you determine your return on investment. You can use measures such as:

• Conversion rates.
• Time spent on page.
• Shares on social media.
• Engagement.
• Backlinks.

How To Market an Ecommerce Store in the Beginning Without Content Marketing

It’s pretty challenging to start ecommerce companies without content marketing. After all, how will people know about you or your products? How will you convert page visitors into repeat customers?

But it’s doable. You can try:

Final Thoughts: How To Create an Effective Ecommerce Content Marketing Plan

An ecommerce content marketing plan is a crucial cornerstone for achieving your business goals with your website. If you follow all these steps above, you can build an effective content strategy for your business. Combine it with other marketing techniques, and there’s no stopping your business growth.

Although good content strategies are outstanding, factors such as website speed and SEO optimization also boost your ecommerce ROI.

You can get your business online today even without coding knowledge by using StoreBuilder by Hostdedi. Build your WooCommerce store today and get ahead of your competition.

There are several reasons why you should optimize images for WordPress. It can help you use server storage efficiently, reduce bandwidth usage, and improve content delivery. But the most important reason is it can help increase your website conversions.

Swappie, a Finland-based startup, found that focusing on Google’s Core Web Vitals and optimizing images on their website increased mobile revenue by 42%. So if you don’t already, you should learn how to optimize images for WordPress.

Keep reading to learn:

• How Unoptimized Images Slow Down WordPress
• Benefits of WordPress Image Optimization
• How To Optimize Images for WordPress: 6 Simple Ways
• Best Image Size for WordPress
• Best WordPress Plugins To Optimize Images
• Final Thoughts: How To Optimize Images for WordPress & Speed Up Your Site

How Unoptimized Images Slow Down WordPress

Images convey emotions and information more efficiently than words. However, if you aren’t careful, they can also hurt your site speed and user experience (UX).

If you’re like the average WordPress user, you probably upload images on your site without optimization tools. That means you’re not only filling up your server with unnecessary data but also serving excess data to your site visitors.

Besides the file size, using incorrect resolutions, dimensions, and image formats also hurt page loading times.

Large image dimensions can lead to Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) issues. They can also cause browsers to render images offscreen and make your website appear broken.

Benefits of WordPress Image Optimization

Before we learn how to optimize images for WordPress, let’s explore the benefits of optimized images.

It Improves Site Speed

When you reduce file size and compress your images, devices spend less time requesting and downloading data from your WordPress website. The net result will be a boost to your site speed.

It Helps Boost SEO

Optimizing images for the web helps eliminate CLS and LCP issues. As a result, you’ll see higher scores on PageSpeed insights and a corresponding increase in your organic search engine rankings.

It Enhances User Experience (UX)

Lastly, fast-loading WordPress websites also benefit user experience.

How To Optimize Images for WordPress: 6 Simple Ways

Ready to learn how to optimize images for WordPress? Here are six simple ways.

1. Choose the Right File Format

Selecting the correct image format is the first step to optimizing images in WordPress. Generally, most image files are either JPG, GIF, or PNG images.

The JPEG image format is better suited for raster images like photos of people and objects. If you need to upload a WordPress image containing graphics and illustrations, you can use an image file format like PNG. You don’t need a WordPress image optimizer for it.

2. Properly Size New Images

Besides image file formats, you need to resize images to match your website layout. You can use image-editing software like Adobe Photoshop and image optimization plugins for this.

For those on a budget, free online image optimization tools like resizeimage.net can help reduce the image size without sacrificing image quality.

But what can you do about the existing images in your WordPress media library? You can use a WordPress image optimization plugin.

3. Compress Images

Compressing images is the best way to optimize images for the web without losing quality. You can optimize images in WordPress via compression using two methods — lossless compression or lossy compression.

Compressing your images using lossy compression removes data from the image and reduces file sizes. In contrast, lossless image compression retains all data and doesn’t affect the file size.

You can use image compression plugins such as WP Smush and ShortPixel Image Optimizer to bulk optimize images on your WordPress website.

4. Serve Images in Next-Gen Formats

Next-gen formats like AVIF and WebP compress images without compromising quality. They load faster in web browsers and consume less bandwidth.

Most compression plugins support WebP images instead of AVIF as it’s compatible with more browsers and offers better results with both lossy and lossless compression.

Popular optimization plugins for WordPress like EWWW Image Optimizer and WP Rocket offer WebP conversion.

5. Defer Offscreen Images

Suppose you want to avoid compressing images for WordPress. In that case, you can lazy load images. Lazy loading delays loading WordPress images below the fold and improves the site UX.

Since WordPress version 5.5, all WordPress sites support lazy loading by default. However, it’s best to use optimization plugins because lazy loading images above the fold, such as featured images, can cause LCP issues.

Image optimizer plugins let you exclude images from lazy loading.

6. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

CDNs cache and serve static content like images through a network of servers distributed globally. Some CDNs even offer a WordPress plugin to optimize images and improve the delivery and distribution of cached content on their network.

Serving cached content through a CDN can reduce the load on your WordPress hosting and bandwidth usage. It’s no surprise that more than 27 million websites on the internet use a CDN.

Best Image Size for WordPress

The best image size for WordPress websites is 1200 x 675 pixels. These dimensions will support most device displays and WordPress themes without compromising image quality.

However, if you’re using a custom site width, make sure you resize your images before uploading to suit the maximum site width.

And don’t worry about making images responsive in WordPress for different devices. WordPress automatically resizes images into three additional sizes post upload:

• Thumbnail size (150 x 150 pixels)
• Medium size (300 x 300 pixels)
• Large size (1024 x 1024 pixels)

You can find these values in the WordPress admin under Settings > Media. You can specify image dimensions or use the default WordPress values.

Best WordPress Plugins To Optimize Images

If you’ve ever tried to optimize images for WordPress, you know how tedious it can be. A better way to do it is using image optimizer plugins.

Here are our top three optimizer plugins for WordPress.

1. EWWW Image Optimizer

EWWW is one of the best WordPress image optimizer plugins on the market. It’s a free image compression plugin that’s compatible with most themes and plugins for WordPress.

EWWW lets you configure the image compression level and supports automatic WebP conversions.

2. WP Smush

Smush is a well-rounded caching and compression plugin that can do it all — well, almost. It acts as a caching plugin, optimization tool, and lazy loading plugin.

The only downside to Smush is that WebP support is only offered to Pro users.

3. ShortPixel Image Optimizer

ShortPixel Image Optimizer is a freemium plugin for WordPress that is perfect for compressing images. It lets you remove EXIF data from images and automatically detects and converts PNG to JPG when appropriate to reduce the file size.

The downside with ShortPixel is that you only get 100 free credits per month. If you have a large WordPress website, you will need to purchase image credits separately.

Final Thoughts: How To Optimize Images for WordPress & Speed Up Your Site

We hope our guide explaining how to optimize images for WordPress helps you improve your site load time and UX. Images are only one of several factors that influence WordPress performance.

The most important factor is your WordPress host. Managed WordPress hosting from Hostdedi includes a CDN, image compression, and lazy loading out of the box, so images don’t bottleneck your site performance.

Check out fully managed WordPress hosting from Hostdedi to get started today.

Do you have a clothing store and seek a way to expand your customer base? Or perhaps you want to start your ecommerce website selling custom t-shirts?

Whatever the case, selling clothes online is a great way to reach new customers. You can start a clothing business without dealing with the usual overhead costs of a traditional brick and mortar store.

All you need is a website. And you can make that with ease if you have the right tools and templates.

Let’s discuss how to make a clothing website, so you can launch your online clothing store and join the ranks of small business store owners online.

How To Make a Clothing Website

1. Choose A Clothing Niche

2. Pick A Domain Name

3. Choose Your Platform

4. Sign Up For a Hosting Plan

5. Install WordPress

6. Install And Configure WooCommerce

7. Add Your Products

8. Start Marketing Your Store

Step 1: Choose a Clothing Niche

The first step to making a clothing website is deciding on a niche for your clothing store. You need to decide what kind of clothes you’ll sell and who would be interested in buying those clothes.

You’ll have an easier time selling clothes if you target a specific demographic need than if you try to serve everyone. You will benefit from targeted messaging that resonates with one group and avoid speaking to people with different tastes and needs.

An example of a clothing niche is a clothing store selling newborn and toddler clothes.

Step 2: Pick a Domain Name

Once you’re clear on who you’re targeting, you need to choose a domain name for your clothing store. A domain name is what your visitors will type in the browser’s address bar to visit your website.

It’s a good idea to keep your domain name short and memorable to make it easy for your visitors to type it in.

Step 3: Choose Your Platform

Once you have decided on a niche and the domain name, it’s time to pick a platform.

While you have several options, WordPress is often the best choice. WordPress is a free and open-source platform that powers more than 40% of all websites on the Internet.

Besides that, you have several free and premium themes and plugins for WordPress that make it easy to build a website without any coding knowledge.

Thanks to plugins, you can add all sorts of functionality to your website. For example, WooCommerce is a plugin that turns your website into a robust online store.

Step 4: Sign Up for a Hosting Plan

You’ll also need a hosting plan. A hosting plan provides server space — digital space where the website files live. It’s necessary so visitors can access your store through the internet.

You’ll benefit from a hosting provider with plans built with small business owners and their needs in mind. Hostdedi has hosting plans optimized for WordPress and WooCommerce.

We have optimized our plans for faster speeds and better security, which are crucial features for online stores to build trust and increase conversions.

Take a look at our pricing plans and choose one that fits your needs.

Step 5: Install WordPress

Once you’ve signed up for hosting, you’ll need to install WordPress if your chosen hosting provider doesn’t pre-install it for you.

Most hosting providers have a one-click install process for WordPress, so you’ll only need to enter your username, website title, and password to finish the installation.

Once WordPress has been installed, log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearance > Themes.

Search for a theme compatible with WooCommerce to ensure it has all the necessary features, layouts, and web design you need.

You can then customize your homepage or storefront with a drag and drop interface and sort out your technical search engine optimization (SEO). In other words, you can craft an ecommerce site that speaks to your target audience.

Step 6: Install and Configure WooCommerce

The next step in making a clothing website is to install and configure the WooCommerce plugin.

In your WordPress dashboard:

1. Go to Plugins > Add New.
2. Search for WooCommerce.
3. Click Install.
4. Click Activate.

As you activate WooCommerce, you’ll enter the Setup Wizard.

Here, the plugin will create necessary pages for your ecommerce store, and you’ll need to enter your fashion store details.

You’ll also have the option to configure your payment options, which credit cards you’ll accept, and shipping options for your online business. You will set up the checkout process as well.

Step 7: Add Your Products

After the setup wizard is complete, you’ll have the option to add your first product pages for your clothing line.

Click the button that prompts you to add a product, and you’ll be taken to the screen where you can add product information.

You can add a title, product description, and images. And you can set the price, product variations, and more. When you’re done, click Publish. To add another product, click on Products > Add New.

If you have a lot of products, you can also go to WooCommerce > Home > Add Products. You can then add products using a CSV file by the CSV import option.

Step 8: Start Marketing Your Store

After you have added all the products to your store, the last step is to start using the included marketing tools to promote your online fashion store and drive traffic. After all, without any traffic, you won’t be able to sell online.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Promote your clothing company store on social media platforms where your ideal audience spends time.
• Add an email signup that offers a discount code in exchange for their email address to send out email marketing messages to potential customers.
• Blog on your website to incorporate product-related keywords and links to your own clothing in your content to benefit from the marketing funnel. 
• Paid ads with Google AdWords or Facebook Ads.
• Optimize your site for search engines by including relevant product keywords in your product title, description, and URL, and more.

Final Thoughts: How To Make a Clothing Website — Startup Guide for Retailers

Learning how to make a clothing website can seem daunting. But once you’re familiar with all the steps involved in the process, you can launch your store quickly.

Implement the steps we discussed and build your clothing brand retail website with Hostdedi’ StoreBuilder today. It’s the fastest and easiest way to start an online store with WordPress.

The global ecommerce industry continues to grow exponentially.

In March 2021, Adobe forecasted 2021 U.S. retail ecommerce sales to reach anywhere between $850 billion and $930 billion, up from $760 billion recorded in 2020. And it expected 2022 to be the first trillion-dollar year.

We expect the same growth from ecommerce-related innovation in the coming years.

The 2020 pandemic has been a major catalyst for this innovation. From frictionless shopping experiences to improved automation, the pandemic forced ecommerce shops to develop new technologies to meet the consumers’ demand, making way for the “new normal.”

Let’s look at the ecommerce trends we can expect in the coming year:

Future of Ecommerce

The pandemic accelerated ecommerce trends as customers relied on it during periods of lockdown. You can expect that to continue. New ecommerce trends will center around reducing friction in the buying journey, selling anywhere and everywhere, and creating rich brand experiences.

1. Reducing Friction in the Buying Journey

While ecommerce adoption has increased, the buyer’s experience leaves plenty to be desired. The average shopping cart abandonment rate stayed at 70%.

Many online businesses are turning to technology and automation to improve the ecommerce experience and reduce cart abandonment.

Voice Search

Often called the future of SEO, voice search is also considered the future of ecommerce.

Voice search has become a big part of our everyday lives. Voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri have broken into the ecommerce market. And brands continue to take advantage of voice-controlled devices to increase online sales.

While it may feel odd to order an item without seeing it or checking reviews, voice shopping finds frequent use in ordering and reordering everyday items, such as groceries. For example, Amazon remembers your brand and quantity preferences, making reordering a breeze.

Better Payment Processing

Payment processing is a part of the customer journey and plays a major role in the conversion process. Customers can decide to exit their online purchases at the last minute.

Online stores are starting to offer low- to no-interest financing alternatives to entice customers. Coupled with already available payment gateways such as credit cards, Apple Pay, Venmo, and PayPal, they encourage shoppers to purchase items online.

One popular low-interest option is buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) offered by companies like Klarna, Afterpay, and PayPal. A Statista study on select post-pandemic technologies showed that millennials are the likeliest to use BNPL.

2. Selling Anywhere and Everywhere

With so many brands competing for everyone’s attention, ecommerce businesses recognize the need to meet their customers where they hang out.

Omnichannel Ecommerce

Omnichannel ecommerce is the future of ecommerce.

Modern customers interact with a brand across 20 different channels. Common channels include websites, mobile apps, voice search, and social media platforms.

Adopting an omnichannel strategy may be challenging to execute, but it pays off. It lets you create a consistent and seamless customer experience at every touchpoint of the buyer’s journey, improving customer retention and revenue.

You can take inspiration from Starbucks, a brand with a fantastic multichannel marketing strategy. Customers can preorder drinks from the mobile app and pick up their orders from the store.

Direct to Consumer (DTC)

The pandemic altered the way of business by increasing customer demand for online shopping and home delivery. The future of ecommerce will involve traditional retailers moving away from traditional business models to newer business models such as direct to consumer (DTC).

DTC refers to manufacturing and selling products directly to consumers, bypassing retailers and wholesalers. Pioneered by digital commerce natives, DTC brands usually only sell online.

By cutting out the middlemen, you reduce overhead costs, increase personalization, and have more control over customer data.

Examples of popular DTC brands include Glossier and Dollar Shave Club.

3. Creating Rich Brand Experiences

Personalization is going to be a major trend for the future of ecommerce. You will see personalized content and personalized products.

Augmented and Virtual Reality

Visiting an online store and shopping for your favorite item saves time, but it lacks the personalized experience of shopping at a physical store.

Augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) can fill this gap by showing you what the product looks like in use. Online shops that invested in AR/VR to replicate the experience of shopping at brick and mortar stores have seen sales go up by 200%.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Statista shares that 70% of ecommerce decision makers in the U.S. and Europe believe AI would help them provide personalized services.

Many ecommerce platforms have already implemented AI to improve their processes.

Prominent AI applications include:

• Chatbots: Chatbots primarily assist online shoppers with customer service inquiries. They provide product recommendations and share current sale offerings.
• Forecasting: AI is handy in logistics applications. Advancements in AI prevent supply chain shortages by using algorithms and machine learning’s predictive powers to monitor shifts in customer demand and forecast demand and transit times.
• Pricing optimization: Many companies employ a dynamic pricing strategy wherein prices depend on market demand and supply. AI helps you predict the minimum discount needed, which items to discount, and when to implement the discount to achieve maximum profitability in real time.
• Customer segmentation: AI can spot patterns between purchases and consumer behaviors, letting you provide personalized product recommendations.

Final Thoughts: Future of Ecommerce — Trends To Look Forward to in 2022

The future of ecommerce is bright.

As the digital commerce space continues to grow, expect technology advancements to grow as well.

If you’re an ecommerce store owner, pick the trends relevant to business and prepare your store for the upcoming ecommerce shift.

If you’re looking to get into ecommerce, look no further than StoreBuilder by Hostdedi to get started. It’s the fastest and easiest way to make an online store with WordPress — no coding needed.

Check out StoreBuilder today.

‘Tis the season of love — Valentine’s Day! It’s the day to express our love for one another…and for WordPress.

WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, powering over 40% of all websites online. And for good reason.

We know all the things we love about WordPress, but we also wanted to hear what experts and users around the world had to say — so we asked them.

Let’s dive into the 14 reasons why WordPress is so loved and how you can get started with the most popular CMS if you haven’t already.

Why We Love WordPress

1. It’s FREE

“The number one reason why I love WordPress is that it is 100% free,” says Matthew Robbs, Founder of Smart Saving Advice. “I have a couple of businesses that use Shopify, and the monthly fees are absolutely horrible. You don’t have to deal with that with WordPress, as there are no ongoing fees!”

Note: although WordPress itself is free, you do have to pay for a domain name and web hosting.

Related reading: Is WordPress Hosting Worth It?

2. Easy to Use

“I’ve worked with nearly every other CMS platform that’s out there (Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, etc.). WordPress is by far my platform of choice mainly because of its flexibility, ease of use, and the economical aspect of the free open source mindset that surrounds WordPress and the entire WordPress community of developers,” says Joe Mangum, Founder of the QuickBooks rental software Adelie Logistics with 15 years of WordPress experience.

3. Open Source Customization

“WordPress is an open source platform that offers a lot of flexibility with extensive features and extensions and is customizable with thousands of themes. Being a developer, I can’t refuse the benefit of the open source code that can be improved or modified to create the right site for our needs,” says Richard Lubicky, Founder/CEO of RealPeopleSearch and former WordPress developer.

4. Huge Directory of Plugins

“One of the top advantages of using WordPress is its ease of use for small business owners, thanks to its huge directory of plugins,” says Chloe Brittain, Owner of Opal Transcription Services.

“For example, I frequently make changes to my site, and no matter what kind of feature I want to add, I can almost always find a plugin for it. Many plugins have preconfigured settings, so I can easily set it up myself without the trouble of hiring a web developer.”

5. Beautiful & Fast-Loading Themes

“I design all my websites and those of clients on WordPress because WordPress comes with beautiful, fast-loading, and SEO-friendly themes that can be customized to suit any business needs,” says Jon Torres, Founder/Digital Marketing Consultant of JonTorres.com. “I also like the fact that the WordPress app, themes, and plugins are updated frequently to guarantee site security.”

Related reading: The 7 Fastest WordPress Themes

6. SEO Amplification Powers

“By far, WordPress tops the list of system software because of its SEO amplification powers and the ease of integrating other SaaS tools,” says Mathias Ahlgren, Founder of Website Rating.

“I run an SEO company, so I don’t take SEO lightly. Beyond WordPress’ standard SEO guides to enhance meta descriptions, among other basic SEO practices, WordPress has enabled our developers to seamlessly connect other SaaS solutions to really monitor client performance and management. We’ve implemented creative, savvy ways to integrate Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and Mangools — it’s an SEO/customer performance dream come true.”

“In the grand scheme of things, while other system software helps customize a brand’s operations and website functionality, WordPress allows a brand to customize its operations and website functionality on its own — from the ground up.”

7. Selling With WooCommerce

“The main reason why I love WordPress: it’s so easy to sell products with WooCommerce! I use WordPress with WooCommerce to sell my services and some products online. It has all the features you need, 100% free. If you want, you can buy more plugins from WooCommerce to add even more advanced features, or you can code them yourself,” says Eloy Caudet, Owner of Wood and Fire Studio in Aachen, Germany.

Related reading: What is WooCommerce? How It Works and 10 Reasons to Choose WooCommerce

8. Versatility

“It’s a robust tool for creating and managing your website. Blogs, business websites, personal sites, and ecommerce stores alike can benefit from using WordPress,” says Kamyar Shah, COO and Founder of a consulting firm, KamyarShah.com.

9. Full Control & Ownership of Your Data

“One underrated reason we love WordPress is that we have full control and ownership of our site and its content,” says Marcello De Lio, Co-Founder of High Seas Cruising.

“Platforms like Wix and Shopify are great, but you are relying on their infrastructure at all times. More importantly, server issues and data loss can happen, and you are never fully in control of your website. With WordPress, we have 100% control of our entire website.”

10. Safe & Secure

“WordPress is also dependable, robust, and secure. Hundreds of thousands of websites are hosted on the WordPress platform, and these websites consistently experience very few security breaches,” says Randy VanderVaate, CEO and Founder of Funeral Funds of America.

Related reading: Hardening WordPress: How to Keep Your WordPress Site Secure

11. Scalability

“Scalability — what’s a business without scalability? WordPress can be a large-scale web solution,” says Mario Cacciottolo, PR & Branding Manager of SBO.net.

“Our company caters to customers from all over the world. Each day, our customer base keeps growing in the online sports entertainment space. WordPress allows us to keep a good caching system in place while ensuring that our website can always function at peak performance with high traffic.”

Related reading: Caching for WordPress

12. Accessible

“Over the years as we grew, WordPress has grown too and is now a medium through which small businesses are able to establish an online presence without burning a hole in their pockets, which is honestly a fabulous achievement,” says Alex Mastin, Founder/CEO of Home Grounds.

“If we must grow in the age of the internet, it is important that we have a platform that is willing to uplift us, upgrade their services with changing times, and in general promote creative endeavors.”

13. The Amazing WordPress Community

“I love WordPress for a variety of reasons, but the main one is that it has the greatest community in the world. Thousands of people give their free time to make software better for millions of people — who lend a hand on internet forums, Slack, and Facebook groups by assisting them with their difficulties,” says Luke Kowalski, Creator of TechTreatBox.

“I appreciate how open and encouraging this community is, as well as how welcoming they are to encourage more individuals to get involved. There is no other CMS with such strong people behind them.”

14. It’s the Best of the Best!

“I just built my site in WordPress, and it’s the best website-building experience I’ve had yet. I’ve used various website-building software, including Squarespace, GoDaddy, Wix, and Adobe Portfolio — none of these compare to WordPress,” says Elizabeth Stryd, Freelance PowerPoint Designer at Elizabeth Stryd Design.

“WordPress offers an unbelievable amount of plugins and templates. Most of which are free, easily accessible, and incredibly helpful. I’ll be using WordPress in the future for any website-building projects!”

Related reading: Why WordPress Remains the Best Choice for Your Next Website Project

All You Need Is Love…and Fully Managed WordPress Hosting

Give your website some love with Hostdedi’ fully managed WordPress hosting. Whether you’re a newbie or intermediate user, our WordPress experts are ready to help. WordPress hosting by Hostdedi includes:

Advanced Features for Faster Sites

To ensure that your site loads quickly every time, we provide premium image compression, a built-in CDN, and smart caching.

Automatic Updates

Automatic plugin updates with visual comparisons are included in all plans.

No Hidden Fees

There are no overage fees, bandwidth limitations, or metered pageviews to worry about.

Free Migrations

Sit back and relax while we take care of the rest. With our free migration service, you can easily migrate your existing website to one of our hosting plans.

Premium Support and Security

Our WordPress professionals provide 24/7/365 security monitoring and assistance to guarantee that your site functions properly at all times.

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