Monthly ArchivesApril 2022

Looking for an easy way to increase sales and improve customer experience for your ecommerce store? Want to make an impactful change for your online store that doesn’t require being able to code? Optimizing your WooCommerce category pages can help you do just that!

WooCommerce lists your products on your shop page, where you can filter and search through them. While that’s certainly where you can leave it, there’s a lot more you can do to optimize your WooCommerce category pages. In this article we’ll show you how to:

• Increase your product catalog by displaying variations on your shop page.
• Display product options on the shop page as swatches or buttons.
• Display multiple images per product on your shop page.
• Add products to the cart without ever leaving the shop page.

Displaying Variations

When your customers are looking at your store, they can filter products to narrow the selections down to the exact type they would like to buy. Perhaps they’re looking for green t-shirts, white sweaters, or rainbow headbands. When they only see one product advertised to them, they may not realize the product they’re looking for is available in the color or style they want.

When setting up your products in WooCommerce, you’ll have added attributes to each product. “Red,” or “sweater,” or “Medium” for example. To make things easier for that customer who may not realize the pictured green sweater also comes in red, you’ll want to make it as simple as possible to get them from “searching” to “buying.”

Related reading: How to Improve Conversion Rate: 7 Ecommerce Conversion Hacks >>

Utilizing a plugin such as WooCommerce Show Single Variations by Iconic, you can display additional variations of your products and make customers aware they’re available, all without needing additional SKUs or product pages. Let’s talk about how easy it is to set this up with that particular plugin:

1. After you’ve installed and activated the plugin, click on “Index.”

2. If you have products that are unindexed, click “Run Indexer.” This will run through your entire catalog and ensure your visibility settings are exactly how you want them.

3. Select which options you would like to enable variations on: your catalog page, filtered results, and search results.

4. Select which options you would like for visibility of variable products. For our purposes, leave them unchanged. There are additional options should your needs be different.

5. Go to “Products” on your dashboard to edit the variable parent products. Select “exclude from filtered results” and click “update.”

The parent product will still display in the main catalog page.

6. When you refresh your filtered results page, only the products with attributes you have selected will appear when you filter.

This is a great way to showcase all the different combinations of products you have available in your store. There are also free plugins that function similarly for showing variations on your WooCommerce category pages such as WPC Show Single Variations or Additional Variation Images Gallery.

Related reading: How to Price Your Products: 10 Retail Pricing Strategies Ecommerce Shops Can Adopt >>

Product Options As Swatches or Buttons

When you’re browsing for clothes online, you’ll see variations of products displayed as swatches or buttons. Clicking the different buttons lets you pick the item you want in a different color or style instantly. WooCommerce doesn’t offer this option by default, so you’ll need a plugin.

One plugin you can use to gain this functionality is WooCommerce Attribute Swatches, by Iconic, which we’ll go into detail here:

1. Install and activate your plugin.

2. Navigate to Attributes in your Products menu.

3. Select the attribute you wish to add swatches to.

4. Select “Swatch Type” and select your preferred type from the drop down menu.

5. Edit the options for the swatch type, selecting the option that best fits your attribute whether it’s color, style, size, etc.

6. Update/save your changes and go back to the “Edit Attribute” screen. Select “Configure terms.”

7. If you had already set up these attributes, you’ll notice a new section: “Color Swatch.”

8. Click “Colour Swatch — Select Color” and select the color that best fits your product variation. There are also other options, such as text to select instead of swatch, in case color is not the variation you’re offering.

9. Repeat this process for each variation you have for the selected product. Now you should see swatches underneath each product you’ve edited.

10. Additionally, you may want to go into Attributes -> Edit and turn on the “Show Swatch in Filters” option. This will enable customers to filter by color using the swatches.

This is a great way to add a visual component to your product selections that make it easier for customers to navigate and find exactly what they’re looking for. You can also use free plugins such as Variation Swatches for WooCommerce or Product Variation Swatches for WooCommerce to help optimize WooCommerce category pages.

Related reading: How To Increase Ecommerce Sales on Your Online Store >>

Adding Effects To Product Listings

Depending on what you’re selling, sometimes one image simply isn’t enough. Maybe you have different designs on each side of a shirt. Maybe your product, such as a handmade art piece, needs a couple of pictures to showcase its many features. There are ways to accomplish this without it being flat and boring.

Image Swap for WooCommerce by Iconic offers image flipping and hover effects for your product listings. Let’s explore how we can use this plugin to enhance your product listings and category pages.

1. Install and activate your plugin.

2. After you enter your license key, you’ll be brought to this dashboard screen. If you click on “General” you can choose the effects your images can have on your product category pages. This enables you to flip to the back of the shirt and slide through several images.

Clicking on Effect Settings enables you to change settings such as the timing of the fade effect and how many pictures to use.

3. The images are sourced from your product gallery, and the featured image will be the primary one shown, with the rest of the gallery for each item being sorted through with your chosen effect.

There are a number of effects to choose from. It’s a great way to give your customers additional information without overloading them or forcing them to read through lengthy descriptions.

As long as your product galleries are populated, you’ll have a number of images for customers to sort through, making their purchase decision easier. There are also free plugins that work similarly such as Image Hover Effects Ultimate.

Utilizing Quick View

If you’ve ever shopped online, you’re probably familiar with pop-ups. While ads can be annoying and take away from the customer experience, quick views do quite the opposite. It’s easy to hover over an item and directly add it to your cart without having to navigate to a new page. In ecommerce, the easier and faster it is to buy something, the more likely it’ll be bought.

The WooCommerce Quickview plugin by Iconic helps you do exactly that.

1. Install and activate your plugin.

2. Choose between “Click” and “Hover” to trigger the Quickview screen.

You can also choose to anchor a button. If you’re displaying the Quickview inside a product cart, that’s already an anchor or link. You’d want a button because you can’t nest an anchor inside an anchor.

3. Refresh the page, and now you’ll have the QuickView button available.

When you click on it, the Quickview popup will appear.

4. There are additional options such as Gallery View, enabling AJAX, and general color options which you can further edit as your needs dictate.

The Quick View feature is becoming more and more common in stores. It’s a great way to help customers quickly see additional options without ever navigating off the page they’re on, as well as giving them the ability to add to their cart at the same time.

Free options that offer similar functionality include YITH WooCommerce Quick View and WooCommerce Quick View.

Choose Hostdedi for the Best WooCommerce Experience

It’s not just your category pages that customers are looking at, it’s your site as a whole. We all know customers expect fast speeds, secure transactions, and easy navigation. When you’re working in the ecommerce industry, you want a hosting solution that provides that — and, hopefully, more.

When you choose Hostdedi, you’re not just getting great hosting. You’re getting access to premium plugins and themes, the ultra fast Hostdedi CDN, and top notch security built right in. What’s more is that all WooCommerce plans get access to our Sales and Plugin Performance Monitors, and WooCommerce Automated Testing.

Try Managed WooCommerce by Hostdedi for your online store today.

Multichannel. Omnichannel. Talking about ecommerce strategies sometimes sounds like shopping for cable TV packages. But, what is omnichannel ecommerce?

In this post, we’ll explain what omnichannel ecommerce is, how it’s different from multichannel, and the why and how of creating a successful omnichannel strategy.

What is Omnichannel Ecommerce?

Omnichannel ecommerce focuses on delivering a seamless shopping experience across every channel and device. Whether the customer is shopping on a computer, a phone, or in a physical store, they receive the same quality experience.

Companies implementing an omnichannel ecommerce want to overcome a siloed approach that treats each channel differently as a stand-alone entity. Omnichannel seeks to make all your sales channels work together.

For example, a shopper is trying on jeans in a store and uses the store’s app to see what other washes are available. Scan-and-go features that allow customers to checkout in an app and bypass the in-store register also illustrate how digital and brick-and-mortar channels can work together.

What’s the Difference Between Omnichannel and Multichannel Ecommerce?

People sometimes use the terms multichannel and omnichannel interchangeably, but they are slightly different. Multichannel refers to selling products through multiple channels. Omnichannel aims to create the same customer and buying experience across all your channels.

Multichannel is More Fragmented

Companies using multichannel ecommerce might sell on a website, on a marketplace like Amazon, and in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. But each channel has its own experience, and they aren’t linked together.

For example, websites using a fragmented multichannel approach may only show inventory available at a warehouse and not what’s available at local stores.

Omnichannel is More Customer-Experienced Focused

Omnichannel unites all your sales channels, so customers shop at their convenience. With the right omnichannel strategy, each sales channel should support and work together to deliver what the customer wants.

Benefits of Omnichannel Ecommerce

Omnichannel ecommerce meets customers’ expectations while also providing benefits to the business. Let’s look at some of the key advantages of omnichannel ecommerce.

Improved Customer Experience

Shoppers will walk into a store and buy basic things like socks or peanut butter without doing much research. But for most other products, the shopping experience begins long before the customer sets foot in a store.

Most customers use various channels for researching and buying products. An omnichannel strategy allows a business to reach customers in every step of their buying journey.

More Loyal Customers

The unified experience of omnichannel fosters a great sense of loyalty in customers. If you can weave your brand and excellent service together in every customer touchpoint and sales channel, customers are more likely to stick around.

Actionable Shopper Insights

Unifying your sales channels and customer experience allows you to track your customers’ shopping habits and searches. You can use this enhanced sales data to deliver more personalized marketing campaigns and product recommendations.

The insights also can provide clarity on which new products might sell best. These insights are especially valuable for ecommerce for entrepreneurs who are just starting their business.

Higher Per Customer Spending

Omnichannel ecommerce leads to more satisfied and loyal customers, which in turn increases per customer spending. The happier a customer is, the more they’ll spend. After implementing an omnichannel sales approach, businesses often see an increase in repeat shoppers and high sales from those returning customers.

Why Omnichannel Ecommerce is Important

Omnichannel ecommerce supports the way today’s customers like to shop. It also provides businesses with enhanced analytics to personalize each customer’s experience. If you’re not taking advantage of omnichannel ecommerce, odds are a competitor is. Failing to deliver a seamless and personalized customer experience could put your business at a strategic disadvantage.

How Do You Create an Omnichannel Strategy?

Implementing an omnichannel strategy is not as simple as flipping a switch. Developing and executing your omnichannel strategy requires careful planning.

Key steps to taking your ecommerce omnichannel include:

• Analyzing Your Customers. Identify your customers’ habits and preferences to know what channels to include and what type of shopping experience customers want from each channel.
• Upgrading Your Infrastructure. Most businesses don’t have the technical or logistical infrastructure to support an omnichannel sales approach. Omnichannel ecommerce works best with headless ecommerce systems.
• Standardizing Your Brand Experience. Implement a consistent customer experience across all customer touchpoints. From branding to product information, everything should match from the website to the shelf in a store.
• Onboarding Customers and Employees. Once you’ve got the technical and experience elements configured, it’s time to roll out the omnichannel experience. While omnichannel focuses on customer experience, you’ll also need to onboard employees. As a primary part of the customer experience, they’ll need to advise customers across multiple channels.

Helping Companies Offer Omnichannel Ecommerce

Omnichannel ecommerce starts with having an ecommerce presence.

From our intuitive website store builder to various hosting solutions, Hostdedi offers the services you need to deliver the best customer experience across all your digital commerce channels.

Check out StoreBuilder to create your online store and start selling today.

Are you a freelance creative or development professional suffering from Cobbler’s Children Syndrome? It’s time to learn how to make a portfolio website.

Cobbler’s Children’s Syndrome is based on an adage, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes.” It means that professionals often neglect to use their expertise for their benefit. Freelance designers, writers, and developers who help create stunning web and marketing experiences for their clients tend to put creating a portfolio website on the back burner.

In this post on how to create a portfolio website, we explore:

Why Portfolio Websites are Important

Ironically the more successful a freelancer, the more likely they are to have a cruddy portfolio website or no website at all. When you’re busy working on client projects, it’s challenging to get motivated to spend non-billable time working on your portfolio. This shortsighted thinking can lead to problems when you’re trying to find your next freelance gig. A portfolio site is essential for marketing your services to potential clients.

Benefits of Portfolio Websites

• Improved Visibility. Without a website, you won’t show up in search results. A portfolio website gives you greater exposure to potential clients.
• More Professional Appearance. Freelancers want to give the impression they’re working from a cool downtown loft and not their mom’s basement. A professional portfolio and website gives the appearance of an established business.
• Easier Proposals and Interviewing. When submitting a proposal or interview for a project, someone will ask for samples of your work. If you have a portfolio website you’re proud of, you can just send them a link instead of trying to assemble a collection of screengrabs, links, and PDFs.

How to Make a Portfolio Website

Making a portfolio website is simple when you have the right tools and follow the correct steps. These step-by-step instructions work best for writers, graphic designers, and other creative professionals. If you’re a freelance web developer, you probably already know how to create a website. Feel free to skip to the next section about what to include on your portfolio site if this applies to you.

Step 1: Buy a URL

Just like you need a professional-sounding email address, you need a professional domain. Domain registration costs about $20. Yes, some site builders allow you to create a website for free, but then you end up with a long and unprofessional-looking URL like designerjoe1984.websitebuildingservice.com.

Step 2: Decide What Tools to Use

Many freelancers opt to go with WordPress for their portfolio website. Why use WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular content management system and website software in the world. WordPress makes a great choice for a portfolio website. You could also decide to use a proprietary system like Wix or Squarespace, but WordPress is open source and free. You just have to pay for hosting.

Related reading: Open Source vs. Proprietary: Which Is Better? >>

Step 3: Secure a Hosting Plan

A hosting service provides the servers your website will run on. You may be able to buy the hosting plan from the same company you used to register your domain. If you’re using a web-building tool like Wix or Squarespace, hosting is probably included in your plan.

If you’re building your portfolio site in WordPress, you need to set up a new installation of WordPress before customizing your site. Managed WordPress hosting plans take care of installing WordPress for you, so if you’re new to website building or just want to save time, pick a managed hosting plan. Managed hosting has other advantages, including automatic updates, and some plans include backups.

Step 4: Set Up Your Website and Add Content

If you’re using a proprietary web building tool, follow the instructions from the service. You need to install and customize your theme if you’re using WordPress. When searching for themes, look for portfolio-specific themes. For a detailed step-by-step guide on setting up your theme and building pages in WordPress, read our How to Create a WordPress Website for Beginners post.

Step 5: Launch Your Site

When you’re ready to make your site live, follow your host’s instructions for pointing your domain name to your site. You’ll need to edit the DNS records for your domain. A DNS record is like an address that tells computers and phones where to find your website.

What Belongs on a Portfolio Website

One of the many reasons freelancers end up without a portfolio website is that they’re unsure what to include. For some people, talking about themselves and their work is difficult. Use this checklist to ensure you’ve included all the essentials on your new website.

Create a Portfolio Website That Includes

• Your Best Work. Obviously, a portfolio website should showcase your best work. But you need to do more than just show your work. You need to do a little show and tell. Explain why the work was a success.
• Your Experience. Highlight your experience, which could include education, previous work, and the types of clients or projects you’ve worked on.
• Something Unique About You. This website is your elevator pitch and possibly someone’s first impression of you. Include something that helps you stand out from the crowd. It could be including an interesting fact about yourself, a description of your mission, or explaining the purpose in your work.
• Contact Information. Make sure you include a way for someone to contact you. If they like what they see, they may want to hire you immediately.

Create a Portfolio Website with Managed Hosted by Hostdedi

Hostdedi offers Managed WordPress Hosting that eliminates the hassle of setting up your website. Your new WordPress site is ready to customize in minutes with a managed plan. Sign up today and make your portfolio website.

User experience (UX) is key to growth for both small and large businesses. It helps build great digital and non-digital customer experiences.

If you manage a website, WordPress UX design can make your website stand apart. It lets you acquire more traffic, as customers can easily navigate and find what they need.

Read on to learn more about implementing UI/UX WordPress best practices and how you can optimize your website.

User Experience 101

User experience (UX) covers how a user interacts with and experiences a product or service. UX includes all the touchpoints between a user and the product or service — any interaction a customer has with the business or entity.

If you want to reach more customers and make your present customers happy, you need to improve their user experience — their experience using your products and services.

UX vs. UI

UI and UX are often confused, and you might find it hard to differentiate between the two. Let us clarify: UI is the user interface for the user experience (UX). It is the contact point where the user interacts with the technology and experiences it.

In technology (where the two terms are commonly used), UX dictates the design of the process, while UI serves as the location of interaction. And you need to optimize both to make your customers happy.

UI/UX WordPress Success Tips

Making a phenomenal user experience requires hard work, research, and critical thinking. To help you get started, we’ve compiled a list of the top tips to improve UI/UX on WordPress.

1. Understand Your Audience

If a business spends millions of dollars on a solution without understanding its audience, it might end up losing its money.

Learn how to create a customer profile to better meet the needs of your target audience. You need to understand your user’s motivations, goals, and mental models. Mental models cover your customers’ existing mental impressions: your customers may expect an email confirmation after checking out because they receive confirmation emails from their other purchases.

2. Use Interviews as a Research Tool

What’s better than guessing what your customers need?

Asking them directly.

Your customers know their issues best. Going straight to the source often helps you get the breakthrough you need to develop a great product or service. Here’s how you can interview your customers and get valuable insights:

• Ask open-ended questions and gather as much information as possible regarding your products and services.
• Ask for their feedback on your website.
• Make them feel heard — rephrase their answers to make sure you heard them correctly.

3. Explore Multiple Research Methods

While user interviews are great for understanding users at a deeper level, sometimes people don’t say or even know what solution they need. You can try other research methods to gather data:

These research methods help you see the product and service through the user’s eyes, so you can better understand how to improve it.

4. Learn the Principles of Design

Even if your service or product has nothing to do with design, you’ll still learn plenty about developing a great experience by learning more about UI/UX. Website design principles like balance, contrast, and composition can apply to services like finding a product, ordering food, or buying things at the store. The key is to look at the UX from different angles.

5. Work in a Diverse Team

While many small businesses ignore this tip for quick gains in the short term, diversity is a crucial element in creating a great user experience. Getting different perspectives on the research you’re looking at can spawn different solutions. The more diverse the perspectives while researching and answering users’ problems, the better.

User Experience: Heuristics Evaluation

Heuristic evaluation is defined as an inspection method for computer software that helps to identify usability problems in UI design. It specifically involves evaluators examining the interface and judging its compliance with recognized usability principles.

The main set of heuristic principles used in UX and UI design are Jakob Nielson’s 10 Usability Heuristics:

1. Information on the ongoing process — Show the progress.
2. Simpler language — Make descriptions free of jargon.
3. User control — Add a return or exit button.
4. Consistency — Try to be consistent across your website and even the industry.
5. Error prevention — Avoid critical errors.
6. Contextual help — Offer tips to customers where they need it.
7. Flexibility — Offer multiple ways to perform the same task.
8. Minimalism — Avoid overcrowding the details by adding unnecessary designs.
9. Troubleshooting — Help users resolve their errors by offering helpful troubleshooting messages.
10. Documentation — Help your customers resolve their issues with written documentation and tutorials.

Final Thoughts: UI/UX WordPress Tips and Heuristics for Developers

By now, you should have a better idea of UI/UX WordPress best practices and how to improve your products, services, or systems. With a WordPress website focused on great UX, you will be able to stand apart from other websites and solidify your business with your clients.

If you spend more time researching your client’s user base, you can optimize your client’s offerings and help your client improve their business. And with WordPress running more than 40% of the websites, you will also change the face of the internet for the better.

You also don’t have to worry if you are also new to WordPress. Go through the tips mentioned above, install WordPress, and get a managed WordPress account.

Leave the technical stuff to us with a fully managed WordPress hosting plan from Hostdedi. Check out our plans to get started today.

Ecommerce is an incredibly powerful tool for small businesses. Understanding how ecommerce is useful to entrepreneurs can persuade even the most wary of small business owners to open an ecommerce store.

In this post, we examine what ecommerce is and the top advantages of ecommerce for small business owners.

What is Ecommerce?

Ecommerce is the selling of goods or services online. Many people assume that ecommerce only refers to selling traditional retail products like clothing or home goods. But, ecommerce encompasses a wide range of products and services, from used clothes to subscriptions for coaching services.

The two main types of ecommerce are:

• Business-to-Consumer (B2C). This type of ecommerce is what most entrepreneurs are familiar with, selling products to the public.
• Business-to-Business (B2B). B2B ecommerce covers ecommerce transactions between two business entities.

Benefits of Ecommerce to Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses

The advantages of ecommerce to entrepreneurs and small businesses all relate to the profit potential and the relative ease of setting up an ecommerce business. Each of the following benefits underscores the importance of ebusiness to entrepreneurs.

1. Lower Upfront Costs

With no building to rent or store displays to stock, entrepreneurs can start an ecommerce business for much less than traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. Other than securing a website and the right ecommerce business license, the startup costs are minimal. If you’re selling services or decide to sell products using a dropshipping partner, you don’t even have to purchase inventory to start your business.

2. Works With Multiple Types of Products and Services

Ecommerce supports various business models. For example, a brick-and-mortar store might add ecommerce as they develop their omnichannel ecommerce sales strategy. But more realistically, for an entrepreneur, ecommerce can be a main or supplemental source of revenue. For example, a consultant or coach might add ecommerce to sell books or other merchandise. They also could use the ecommerce platform to sell coaching packages.

4. Ecommerce is Growing

Ecommerce isn’t new. People were already shopping online before the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic and the resulting extra time people spent at home only increased ecommerce sales. Your customers are shopping online. If a small business wants to be successful, it needs to be selling online to meet customers’ expectations.

5. Ecommerce is a 24/7 Sales Channel

With ecommerce, an entrepreneur can make money while they sleep. An ecommerce business operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But that doesn’t mean the business owner is working that much. You need staff to greet customers and ring up sales every hour your store is open with a traditional business. With ecommerce, your website welcomes customers and processes transactions. You just need to spend a couple of hours preparing orders and updating the website.

6. Work From Home or Anywhere

Another advantage of ecommerce for entrepreneurs is the ability to work wherever they’d like. Many small business owners don’t have the budget to rent office or retail space. With ecommerce, you can launch your business from your garage, basement, or spare bedroom.

7. Allows for Concept Testing

Ecommerce sites provide a wealth of ecommerce analytics to guide entrepreneurs in making business decisions. Small business owners can see which products and marketing campaigns resonate best with their customer base by analyzing web traffic and sales trends.

8. Easily Scales

The low startup costs and flexible schedule make ecommerce one of the most scalable business models. You could start an ecommerce business as a side hustle without quitting your day job. As the business grows, you can consider hiring more people or adding additional products.

Ecommerce allows entrepreneurs to test and optimize their business with minimal risks. Traditional businesses with a physical storefront require leasing or buying a space, hiring a team, and stocking a store. You have to spend money on new locations when you want to grow.

Scaling an ecommerce business is easier. You can hire people to work remotely if you want and consider only hiring part-time or seasonal employees.

Once you’ve mastered your basic ecommerce store, you can tackle more advanced configurations as outlined in our post on headless ecommerce.

Greatest Advantage of Ecommerce for Entrepreneurs: It’s Easy to Set Up

Setting up an ecommerce store doesn’t have to be challenging, even for the most technically novice of entrepreneurs.

With an online store creator, like StoreBuilder by Hostdedi, you can have a fully functional ecommerce store with just a few clicks. StoreBuilder runs on the powerful WooCommerce platform that turns any WordPress website into an ecommerce store.

The Hostdedi team pre-loaded StoreBuilder with the best plugins and themes for running an online store. Just answer a few questions about your business, and StoreBuilder takes care of the technical configurations.

All you need to do is tweak the design to match your brand and add in your products.

Try StoreBuilder risk-free for 30 days.

Worried your WordPress website might be a bit sluggish? Help is on the way! Use this list to find the best database plugins for WordPress to help optimize your site.

Keeping your database in tip-top shape can be challenging if you lack experience with MySQL databases. These database plugins allow you to optimize or reset your database from your WordPress admin.

What to Look for in a WordPress Database Plugin

Most people have a junk drawer in their house. If you have one, you know the pain of trying to find what you need in the junk drawer. You have to look under the owner’s manuals for a toaster and a lawnmower you no longer own just to find the nine-volt battery for the smoke alarm.

WordPress databases can be a lot like junk drawers. WordPress saves drafts of posts and copies of spam comments. Finding useful data for pages or products takes longer when the database overflows with junk. A clean and optimized database improves your site’s performance.

The benefits of using a database plugin for WordPress include faster sites, improving your customer experience, and search engine rankings. For more information on WordPress basics and how to optimize your website, check out our guides on What is WordPress and WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org.

Key Features and Capabilities

WordPress database plugins can rid your database of junk or optimize how you manage and use data.

Common uses of database plugins include:

• Database Cleanup. Remove necessary and unused entries from your database.
• Backup. Save a copy of your data.
• Reset. Return your database and site to the default settings and clear your data tables.
• Migration. Move data from one website to another.

Technical Considerations for a Database Plugin

Before installing and using a database plugin, check to ensure the plugin is compatible with your WordPress version. You’ll also want to see what database optimization settings your web host provides. Some database plugins could interfere with your host’s optimization programs and settings for database optimization. You’re better off picking a quality hosting provider than trying to install a bunch of plugins to make up for a slow server.

Top Picks for Best Database Plugins for WordPress

Use these plugins to help with managing and optimizing your WordPress database.

1. Database Reset

This free database plugin for WordPress allows you to reset your database with just one click. You can reset the entire database or select individual tables to clear. With this plugin, you can return your database to its original setting without reinstalling WordPress or modifying files. Theme and plugin developers use this plugin to clear unnecessary content out of the database when testing products.

• Active Installations: 50,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: WebFactory Ltd
• Pricing: Free

Download Database Reset

2. WP Reset

WP Reset is a more advanced plugin option from the same developers as Database Reset. WP Reset enables you to reset a site to a blank WordPress site or to a saved “snapshot.” You can also delete themes and plugins. An upgraded Pro version includes resetting options, automatically creating snapshots, and deleting content and widgets.

• Active Installations: 300,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: WebFactory Ltd
• Pricing: Free or a Lifetime license for the Pro version starting at $49

Download WP Reset

3. WP Database Backup

This WordPress database backup plugin takes the hassle out of backing up and restoring your database. Create a backup or restore your database with one click. The paid Pro version supports automatic scheduled backups and integrations with Dropbox, FPT, Email, Google Drive, and Amazon S3.

• Active Installations: 60,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: Prashant Walke
• Pricing: Free or $22 for a single site Pro license

Download WP Database Backup

4. WP-Optimize Cache

WP-Optimize Cache is an excellent choice for people who want to improve their website’s speed and performance. The plugin cleans and optimizes databases, compresses images, and caches pages. Upgrade to the Premium version for more scheduling, integrations, and support options.

• Active Installations: 1 million+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: David Anderson, Ruhani Rabin, and Team Updraft
• Pricing: Free or Premium version starting at $70 for the first year and renewing at $42

Download WP-Optimize Cache

5. Advanced Database Cleaner

Old revisions, spam comments, and orphaned post metadata can clutter up your WordPress database. This extra bloat slows your site down. The Advanced Database Cleaner plugin removes the clutter to reduce your database size and improve website performance. Another benefit is faster backups since you won’t need to back up all the unneeded data. The upgraded Pro version of the plugin also removes any leftover data from deleted plugins and themes.

• Active Installations: 80,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: Younes JFR
• Pricing: Free or lifetime license for the Pro version starts at $39

Download Advanced Database Cleaner

6. WP-Sweep

This database plugin cleans up your extraneous data for a faster-running website. The plugin helps remove revisions, auto drafts, deleted or spam comments, and orphaned metadata for posts, comments, users, and terms.

• Active Installations: 100,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
• Pricing: Free

Download WP-Sweep

7. Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions

This plugin makes optimizing your database a breeze. You can delete revisions, delete trash, and remove orphan items with just one click.

• Active Installations: 100,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: CAGE Web Design | Rolf van Gelder, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
• Pricing: Free

Download Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions

Additional Database Tools

The next plugins won’t help with database cleaning and optimization, but they will make managing your data and website faster and easier.

WP All Import

This plugin allows you to import any XML or CSV Files to WordPress in four simple steps. The intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes importing data simple. This plugin is a great option for people still learning WordPress for beginners. The most common use case for the plugin is migrating content from an old site or different CMS. You could also upgrade to the Pro version to unlock additional features such as importing products into WooCommerce.

• Active Installations: 100,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: Soflyy
• Pricing: Free or Lifetime license to the Pro version starting at $99

Download WP All Import

WP All Export

This database plugin is a companion to WP All Import. Made by the same developer, it helps you export items from your WordPress database. If you’ve ever needed to view data from your WordPress website in Excel or another program, this is the plugin for you. You can use the plugin with the import option to simplify your WordPress data bulk editing. For example, you could export entries as a CSV file, edit the entries in Excel, and use the WP All Import plugin to add the changes back to WordPress. Like the import plug, WP All Export includes a Pro version. You can also purchase a combo license that includes the pro version of the export and import plugins with all addons for $299.

• Active Installations: 90,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: Soflyy
• Pricing: Free or Lifetime license to the Pro version starting at $99.

Download WP All Export

Contact Form 7 Database Addon

Contact Form 7 is one of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress, but the plugin only emails form submissions. The submissions don’t get saved in your WordPress database. The Contact Form 7 Database Addon plugin solves this problem. The plugin automatically captures form submissions and saves them to your WordPress database. The plugin also includes an option to export form submissions as a CSV file. The plugin is free but does include several paid upgrades for additional Contact Form 7 add-ons.

• Active Installations: 400,000+
• WordPress Repository Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
• Developer: Arshid
• Pricing: Free with paid add-ons available

Download Contact Form 7 Database Addon

Managed WordPress Hosting from Hostdedi

For the best WordPress hosting experience, trust the experts at Hostdedi. Our managed WordPress hosting plans include the security, features, and performance you need to deliver a fast Website.

Managed WordPress hosting from Hostdedi includes:

• Free premium image compression, advanced caching, and built-in CDN
• Automatic plugin updates with visual comparisons
• Free migration services
• Automatic backups

People often look for WordPress database plugins for migration or backup services. Hostdedi hosting plans include both, so you don’t need an extra plugin. For any plugins you need, our exclusive Plugin Performance Monitor continuously analyzes your site’s performance. Anytime you make a plugin or theme change, the monitor compares the site performance before and after to alert you if a plugin negatively impacts your site’s performance.

Make the switch to a better host today. Pick your plan and sign up today.

A new generation of shoppers is reshaping traditional and digital commerce, and sellers need to keep up. Identifying and adapting to Gen Z shopping habits can set your business up for success.

Contrary to popular belief, Gen Z and Millennials are two different generations with distinct shopping habits. Millennials remember dial-up internet and paying 10 cents to send a text message. Gen Z shoppers were born after Amazon started selling books.

If you’re still trying to catch up to Millenials’ shopping preferences, you’ll be behind the curve trying to meet Gen Z’s expectations. Let this post be your crash course in Gen Z consumer habits and what Gen Z shoppers expect from ecommerce stores.

Gen Who?

Generation Z, also known as Gen Z, iGeneration, or zoomers, is the generation that grew up around the transition from the 20th to 21st Century. Gen Z was born between the late 1990s and early 2010s. The Pew Research Center studies generational cohorts and said some things about Gen Z.

Gen Z is considered:

• More racially and ethnically diverse than previous generations
• The most well-educated generation in history
• More concerned about the environment and social justice issues than previous generations
• More digitally savvy than pre-internet generations

What Do Gen Z Shoppers Want?

Many Gen Zers are earning their first paychecks working part-time jobs in high school or are entering college or the workforce. The generation has a combined spending power of more than $140 billion. If your business wants to remain viable, you’ll need to adjust to Gen Z shopping habits.

Gen Z shoppers value:

• Authenticity. Gen Z shoppers place a higher value on brand authenticity and transparency. They want to buy from brands that support social causes they believe in.
• Sustainability. This generation is more concerned about the environment and wants sustainable products and delivery models.
• Quality. Their desire for sustainability drives Gen Z shoppers to look for quality products that will last longer. Be sure to do product research to find the best items for your store.
• Affordability. Gen Z shoppers grew up during the Great Recession and witnessed their parents struggling with finances. Gen Z shoppers tend to be a bit more cautious with their spending, including being less likely than Millenials to purchase on credit.

Connecting Gen Z Shopping Habits and Values

Gen Z consumer habits are directly related to their values. While Gen Zers value affordability, competing on price alone won’t cut it for this generation.

Gen Z shoppers are more likely to question a cheap price. If the price seems too low, they may wonder if the quality is poor, the price results from unfair labor practices, or the product was made or shipped in a non-sustainable way.

Highlighting quality or sustainability features can help appeal to this new generation of shoppers.

Digital vs. Brick-and-Mortar Shopping Habits

Gen Z buyers are omnichannel shoppers. Gen Z shoppers rank websites as the top source for their purchase inspiration. But, social media, friends or family, and in-store shopping basically tied for second place.

Surprisingly, every older generation surveyed, from Millennials to the Silent generation, was less likely to rank in-store shopping at a brick-and-mortar store as an influence for making a purchase.

Gen Zers desire quality products that will last. They’re willing to put in the research to find the best product. That research often starts online but can include brick-and-mortar stores as well.

Turning Social Inspiration into Purchasing Decisions

Social media also plays a role in Gen Z’s shopping research. YouTube and Instagram take the top spots for Gen Z shoppers’ social media use. Older generations tend to favor Facebook.

Due to the popularity of social media with Gen Z shoppers, influencer marketing will likely yield better results with this generation. Google found that 70% of teenagers who watched YouTube found YouTube creators and influencers more relatable than traditional celebrities. Adding influencer marketing into your tactics could help you reach Gen Z shoppers.

Gen Z’s increased use of social media for research also means they’re more likely to make social commerce purchases. Social commerce is the direct selling of goods and services over social platforms. For example, Instagram’s shopping feature allows brands to tag and post their products for sale so users can click to buy the item.

Social commerce removes the friction of going to an ecommerce site and finding the product by keeping the transition inside the social platform. Given that Gen Z is more likely to listen to a social media influencer, investing in social commerce is a great way to reach the new generation of shoppers.

How Gen Z Shopping Habits Are Changing Ecommerce

Gen Z is already making an impact on the ecommerce industry. In our list of the top ecommerce trends to watch in 2022, several were directly related to Gen Z shopping habits.

Trends you can link to Gen Z include:

• Social media driving sales
• Environmental concerns influencing buying decisions
• Growth of omnichannel shopping
• Increasing effectiveness of video as an ecommerce marketing strategy.

To be successful with Gen Z shoppers, businesses don’t need to abandon everything they’re doing. In fact, many tactics that worked with earlier generations will work with Gen Z. Savvy business owners need to take a data-driven sales approach to analyze their current sales, customers, and marketing to determine what works and what needs tweaking.

Building an Ecommerce Store for Gen Z Shoppers

You need a well-designed and functional website no matter what generation of shoppers you serve. But your digital commerce experience is critical for adapting to Gen Z shopping habits. This generation grew up with the internet. They’re the first fully digital generation.

At Hostdedi, we help ecommerce businesses deliver the best shopping experience with our innovative online store builder.

With StoreBuilder by Hostdedi, you can launch your new site in days instead of months. Our store building engine will set up your store for you, so all you have to do is customize the look and start adding your products. Try StoreBuilder risk-free for 30 days.

ATLANTA, GA. April 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Hostdedi, the fully managed, high-performance, cloud platform built to optimize online sites and stores, today announced the release of “The Best States to Launch an Ecommerce Business,” a definitive guide ranking of all fifty states based on how conducive each one is for launching an online store. The guide is based on a study conducted by Hostdedi which evaluated economic outlook, local taxes, and more.

As digital commerce experts, Hostdedi empowers entrepreneurs to open high-performing online stores, all backed by the power of fully managed hosting. Given the recent acceleration of ecommerce due to the pandemic — and its continued projected growth — the time has never been better to open an online store.

For instance, throughout 2022, ecommerce sales are expected to topple $1 trillion for the first time — which is two years earlier than initially anticipated, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“At Hostdedi, our goal is to help entrepreneurs who want to make money online,” says Terry Trout, SVP of Marketing. “We’ve been the trusted leader in open source ecommerce for over 22 years, helping merchants and digital agencies of all sizes start, manage, and expand their online businesses.”

“Skyrocketing ecommerce trends are being fueled by new businesses starting or moving online and we’re evolving our solutions to help these entrepreneurs with simplified, no-code ecommerce solutions that make it fast and easy to build a store.”

While the beauty of ecommerce is that online shopping can be done from anywhere, at any time, Hostdedi conducted this ecommerce study to determine which states provide the best environment for new, online businesses. From a state’s tax climate to infrastructure concerns, several location-related factors were considered in the study by Hostdedi.

For instance, the state in which one launches an ecommerce business could play a more significant role in operations than one may think. Several states across the country offer more advantages for new digital entrepreneurs, which may influence the success of their business — and that’s how the ranking for “The Definitive Ranking of the Best States to Launch an Ecommerce Business” was calculated.

Scores for each state were determined based on four factors:

• Tax climate — Including corporate, individual, and sales tax.
• Economic outlook — Including job growth, new business survival rates, and the Small Business Policy Index (SBPI).
• Infrastructure — Including internet access, power grid reliability, and road and bridge quality.
• Financial Resources — Including venture capital rank and SBA loan availability.

The study found Florida to be the most conducive state for new ecommerce business owners, followed closely by Utah and North Carolina. Top states boasted low tax rates for individuals as well as organizations, strong economic outlooks, and robust resources for aspiring entrepreneurs.

To learn more about the study and see how all 50 states rank, read “The Best States to Launch an Ecommerce Business” here.

For more information about StoreBuilder, the fastest and easiest way to build a store on WordPresss visit nexcess.net/storebuilder.  For more information about Hostdedi, visit nexcess.net.

About Hostdedi

Hostdedi has been serving SMBs and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them for more than 22 years by providing a fully managed, high-performance cloud solution built to optimize WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento sites and stores. As a company within The Liquid Web Family of Brands, we collectively manage 10 global data centers, have more than 500,000+ sites under management, serve over 170,000 paying and 2.5 million freemium software customers spanning 150 countries, and provide unparalleled service from a dedicated group of experts 24/7/365. As an industry leader in customer service, the rapidly expanding brand family has been recognized as an industry leader and among INC. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies for twelve years.

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

A wedding website is a perfect way to announce the happy event to your friends and family. For starters, it helps keep everyone updated on the plans leading up to your own wedding day without having to notify them individually.

Secondly, it facilitates collecting RSVPs, so you know who’s coming to your wedding.

In this guide, we share how to make a wedding website and simplify your wedding planning process.

How To Make a Wedding Website

1. Choose a domain name.

2. Choose your platform.

3. Sign up for hosting.

4. Install a wedding theme.

5. Create an RSVP form.

6. Share your website with friends, family, and other guests.

1. Choose a Domain Name

The first thing you need to do is choose a domain name for your wedding website.

The custom domain name is what the visitors will enter into the browser’s address bar to reach your website. Since this is your wedding website, the best idea is to use your names.

For example, Amelia Hancock and Steve Klise combined their first names and chose ameliaandsteve.com as their domain name.

You can also combine your last names or add the word wedding.

2. Choose Your Platform

The next step in how to make a wedding website is to decide the platform you’ll use to build your website.

We recommend WordPress for several reasons:

1. WordPress is easy to use, even if you’re a beginner. You can create a beautiful website quickly without any coding knowledge.

2. With numerous themes and templates, you can easily customize and style your wedding website to match the color scheme you chose for the wedding. 

3. Besides themes, numerous plugins — like wedding registry plugins — make adding RSVP forms, wish lists, and gift lists easy.

On top of that, many hosting companies pre-install WordPress for you during the sign-up process, so you can log in to your dashboard and start setting up your wedding website right away.

3. Sign Up for Hosting

After choosing your domain name and deciding on WordPress, the next step in how to make a wedding website is to sign up for a hosting plan.

Your hosting company will provide you with the necessary disk space where your website files will live. That’s how your visitors will be able to see your website.

When choosing a hosting company, look for a host that focuses on speed and security.

In today’s day and age, nobody likes a slow website. The slower your website loads, the more likely it is for your visitors to leave instead of completing your RSVP form.

Security is also important because a secure website ensures that your visitors’ sensitive information won’t fall into the wrong hands.

Hostdedi has hosting plans optimized for faster speeds and better security. Check out our pricing plans and choose one that fits your budget.

4. Install a Wedding Theme

Once your website is ready, you’ll need to install a wedding theme. WordPress database has several themes made with wedding websites in mind. You can search for those right in your WordPress dashboard.

Go to Appearance > Themes and search for a wedding theme. You will have a few themes to choose from. You can preview each theme to get a better idea of the style and how your website might look.

Once you’ve found a theme you like, click on Install. Then, click Activate. The theme will then be active on your website, and you can start customizing your website design by changing the layout, modifying the fonts, and adding photos.

You can also add wedding details like:

Event Information:

• The wedding date and wedding venue information.
• The wedding party — including bridesmaids and groomsmen — and dates for the bridal shower, bachelor party and other wedding events like the rehearsal dinner.
• Travel info for destination weddings (with Google Maps integrated).

Guest Support:

• Your gift registry information.
• A button for honeymoon fundraising.
• A save the date option.
• A countdown timer.

Your Story:

• Information about your happy couple or a love story about how you met.
• A photo gallery — you can include engagement photos.
• And other important details you need to convey.

5. Create an RSVP Form

Besides a wedding theme, you’ll also need an online RSVP form on your wedding site. This will make it easier to collect RSVPs and track who’s coming to the wedding.

You have several WordPress form plugins to choose from for this purpose.

Here are a few popular form plugins:

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is one of the oldest and most popular contact form plugins for WordPress. This plugin is a perfect choice if you’re looking for a straightforward solution.

You can add as many forms as you need and create as many form fields as you want to collect relevant information.

WPForms

WPForms is another popular plugin for WordPress that makes it easy to create any form.

You can use the intuitive drag and drop interface to add different form fields. This form plugin also offers a premium version if you want advanced features, such as limiting the number of entries or stopping form submissions after a certain date.

Ninja Forms

Ninja Forms is an easy-to-use plugin with robust options and a drag and drop form builder.

You can also use one of the numerous add-ons Ninja Forms supports to extend the functionality of your form even more.

6. Share Your Website With Friends, Family, and Other Guests

Your website is complete.

It’s time to tell everyone who’s coming to the wedding about it.

Here are a few ways you can start promoting your wedding website and share it with your loved ones and other guests:

• Send a personal email to everyone on your guest list you plan on sending wedding invitations to.
• Add the link to your website to your Instagram bio.
• Share your wedding website on your profile on Facebook and Twitter.
• Add your website URL to your email signature.
• Send a text message and let your guests know where they can find all the information about the wedding.

Final Thoughts — How To Make a Wedding Website: A Quick-Launch Guide

Creating a wedding website to announce and celebrate your big day is not hard when you have a clear roadmap to follow.

Use the steps outlined in this guide to design, build, and set up a beautiful wedding website.

And you can easily secure managed WordPress hosting here with us at Hostdedi to ensure a smooth operation.

Check out our WordPress plans to get started today.

While building ecommerce websites can be profitable for freelance web developers, many new freelancers struggle to learn how to get ecommerce clients.

If you want to find ecommerce clients, stop blindly sending cold emails. Instead, follow these steps to start building your ecommerce client roster.

Step 1: Build Your Online Presence and Portfolio

Whether you’re building blogs or ecommerce sites, prospective clients want to see samples of your work. Freelancers often neglect their own websites. Who can blame them? Paying gigs take precedence over non-paid work. But, if you want to find more ecommerce clients, you’ll need a professional-looking website and portfolio with ecommerce examples.

To attract more ecommerce clients, consider adding ecommerce-specific content. From case studies to blogs, add content to demonstrate your expertise and provide helpful resources to people wanting to open an ecommerce store.

Step 2: Market Yourself to Ecommerce Clients

After setting up your online presence, you can use your site and content to market yourself and find ecommerce clients. Consider using social media, paid advertisements, and freelance platforms to market your services.

Social Media

Use the portfolio examples, case studies, and content from your website to update your social media profiles. Your social network can be an excellent resource for potential clients. Even if someone isn’t looking to start an ecommerce business, they might know someone who needs help and can make an introduction for you.

Paid Advertising

From search to social media, digital advertising offers an affordable and easy way to find ecommerce clients. Advertisers face fierce competition for keywords related to ecommerce website building. You can decrease your advertising costs and increase conversions by focusing on a specific niche such as a location or type of ecommerce store.

Freelancing Platforms

Many ecommerce business owners look for web developers on freelancing platforms as an alternative to hiring an ecommerce agency.

Freelancing platforms for ecommerce website projects include:

Some freelancing platforms charge freelancers a commission, so you’ll want to check the terms and adjust your pricing accordingly.

Step 3: Nurture Leads and Close Deals

Not every visitor to your website or freelancing profile will be ready to start a project. Learning to nurture your leads helps you build a solid pipeline of potential projects.

Lead nurturing ideas include:

Email Campaigns. Set up an email newsletter or implement drip campaigns to keep prospects engaged. A regular email update can keep your name top-of-mind when prospects decide they’re ready to begin a project.

Retargeting. Retargeting ads help you stay in front of prospects wherever they go on the internet. If you’ve ever looked for something on Amazon and then your social feeds suddenly have several ads for that item, you’re familiar with retargeting. Put it to work for your business. Consider highlighting how you can solve major pain points for ecommerce business owners. Time to launch is a significant concern for many people. Use your retargeting ads to illustrate how fast you can build a site.

Personal Outreach. Personalization goes a long way in making prospects feel like you understand their business. After you’ve launched a new site or solved a problem for a client, consider sending personalized emails to some of the prospects in your pipeline. For example, if the new site you built for a client reduced their cart abandonment rate, email prospects a link to the site. Write something like, “We helped XYZ company increase conversion and decrease cart abandonment. What problem can we help you solve?”

Step 4: Deliver Top-Performing Sites

One of the best ways to grow your ecommerce website clientele is to deliver great sites quickly. From proprietary systems like Shopify or BigCommerce to open source solutions like WooCommerce, ecommerce business owners have choices for self-service ecommerce platforms. But most business owners don’t want to take the time to learn them. As a freelance developer, you can deliver value to clients by building sites quickly and making them easy for clients to update.

Word-of-mouth advertising is a freelancer’s best friend. Ask your clients for referrals. Referral projects often close faster because the client who recommended you can vouch for your skills and services.

How to Get Ecommerce Clients with Hostdedi

Figuring out how to get ecommerce clients is only half the battle. You also need to build great sites. StoreBuilder by Hostdedi helps freelancers build stellar WooCommerce sites in less time.

StoreBuilder gives developers a jumpstart on building ecommerce sites. Custom integrations and optimizations get your online store up and running in just a few clicks. With StoreBuilder, you bypass many manual WooCommerce configurations and installation steps.

Reasons Freelancers Love StoreBuilder

Preconfigured Premium Plugins. StoreBuilder automatically installs all the plugins you need to run an ecommerce site.

Fast Themes. StoreBuilder includes a selection of premium themes that are easy to customize and won’t slow down your site.

Simplified WordPress Admin for Easier Client Handoffs. StoreBuilder replaces the traditional WordPress navigation with a friendly and focused menu, so clients only see the section they need to manage their store.

Sales Monitoring. StoreBuilder allows you to offer enhanced analytics to clients. StoreBuilder monitors the store’s sales against historical performance to alert store owners when their sales start to trend downward.

As your freelance business grows, consider adding StoreBuilder to your development workflow for faster ecommerce sites.

Get started today with a 30-day risk-free guarantee.