Monthly ArchivesJuly 2022

Tommy Tutone could easily get a hold of Jenny at 867-5309, but your business will need more than just a phone number. Before you build your website, you’ll need to register your domain. Knowing the domain naming best practices can help your business stand out online.

What is a Domain?

A domain is a web address that’s easy to remember. When people think of a website, they usually think of the domain. It’s the text you type into your browser when you want to go to a specific website. For example, Hostdedi.net is our domain.

The actual address of a website is a series of numbers known as the IP address. But to make it easier on humans, domains allow us to type in words instead of those numbers.

A URL, or uniform resource locator, is a specific page within a domain. A URL will have the domain name in it but with other information to take you to the specific page. For example, the URL of this post is https://nexcess.net/domain-naming-best-practices.

The “http” stands for hypertext transfer protocol, a set of rules that transfer multimedia files through the internet. The “domain-naming-best-practices” tells you which specific page you’re looking at on the Hostdedi.net domain.

When you put it all together, you get to the specific place you want to see on the web.

Think of it like this: The domain is like a big filing cabinet full of information, and the URL is the specific file you want to read.

Components of a Domain Name

Every domain has specific components. Knowing the names of those particular components can help you better understand domain naming rules.

• Second-Level Domain (SLD): Second-level domains are the part of the domain that make it unique. Most businesses choose their company name as their SLD.
• Top-Level Domain (TLD): Top-level domains are known as domain extensions. They’re the part of the domain with the “.com.”
• Country-Code-Top-Level Domain (ccTLD): These are country-specific domains and are good to add if you want to market your business in a specific country. Usually, they contain two letters, like “.AU” for Australia or “.UK” for the United Kingdom.
• Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD): Similar to TLDs, gLTDs are generic versions of the top-level domain. Some common gLTDs you’ve seen are “.gov” or “.org.”

Domain Naming Rules

The internet can seem like the wild wild west, with no sheriff in sight. But there are rules when it comes to naming your domain. And knowing those domain naming best practices can save you a lot of time and headache when it’s time to register your domain.

When naming your domain, remember:

• Numbers. In addition to letters, domains can also contain all digits from 0 to 9.
• Hyphens. You can use hyphens in your domain, but not at the beginning or end. You also can’t use two hyphens together.
• Special Characters. You can’t use special characters like $ or &.
• Length. Your second-level domain can be at least three characters and at most 63 characters.
• Case Sensitivity. Domain names aren’t case-sensitive, so using upper or lowercase letters doesn’t matter.
• Composition. Generic domain names aren’t allowed, and you can’t use a misleading domain name to attract someone to your site.

Domain Naming Best Practices

Now that you know the rules and what makes up a domain, it’s time to finally pick a domain name. Here are some things to consider before you stake your domain name claim.

Use the Right Name Extension

There are tons of domain name extensions out there. While “.com” is the most common, you could make your domain a “.pizza” if you wanted. And while it may seem fun and kitschy, remember your domain is there for your business. Most people will type “.com” at the end of a domain out of habit because it’s the most common extension, and most smartphones have a “.com” button. Plus, your website is there to establish you as a credible business. Extensions like “.ninja” may make it difficult for some customers to find or trust you.

Use Keywords

The internet is huge, and there are so many websites. Using keywords in your domain name is the best way to stand out. Pick keywords that relate to your industry or niche. These words will tell search engines what your business is all about. Remember that many, if not all, of the common keywords are already taken as domains. So you’ll need to be creative about how you approach this if you want to use them.

Don’t Be Generic

Unique domain names help you stand out online and from others in your industry. Take some time and discover what other businesses in your niche are using so you don’t pick something too similar. Also, watch out for trademarks. Ensure you aren’t using someone else’s trademarked term for your domain.

Short is Better

As you think about keywords and a unique domain, make sure you don’t go overboard. Short and memorable names are better than something long and overly specific. Try to keep your domain name under 15 characters, so your customers are more likely to remember it and less likely to mistype it.

Easy to Pronounce

Picking something easy to pronounce will help customers share your website and recommend your business. Plus, the easier it is to say, the easier it will be to share your domain in conversation or writing. If you plan to use your domain as part of your email address, you want to ensure you can communicate that email address when you share it with others.

Avoid Hyphens and Double Letters

While hyphens are technically OK to include, they can be a sign of a spam domain. And that’s not something you want your business to be associated with. The same goes for double letters. Think of your customers. Think about how likely they are to make typos when typing your domain. Hyphens and double letters increase this chance, which could send them to your competitors when they can’t get to your site.

Leave Room to Expand

You want your domain to convey what you do. And if your domain can give your potential customers an idea of what space you occupy in your particular industry, it can help you stand out among other businesses. But you don’t want your domain to be too specific.

Even if your business starts out focusing on a specific part of your industry, let’s say cheeseburgers, you may eventually branch out and offer veggie burgers. But that would be a difficult transition if your domain was MeatOnlyBurgers.com. Sure, you could transfer to a domain in the future if you need to, but that’s a huge hassle and can cause your business to slip in the search engine rankings.

Ready to Register a Domain?

Now that you know the domain naming best practices and what to consider when choosing yours, it’s time to finally grab that piece of prime internet real estate. We’re here to help! Our domain registration is a simple and easy process, and our fully managed WordPress hosting helps you build a website that works for you and not the other way around.

Part of running a successful ecommerce store is leveraging the right platform. From Magento to WooCommerce, there is no shortage of ecommerce platforms that accommodate a wide range of online store types.

With this said, Magento has consistently ranked as one of the top ecommerce platforms available. Whether you’re new to creating an online store or are considering a future migration, it’s worth analyzing the benefits of Magento to move forward with a decision.

In this article, we’ll discuss 14 benefits of using the Magento ecommerce platform and everything else you need to know about this option.

Magento is an ecommerce platform that provides online retailers with a flexible shopping cart system, as well as control over the look, content, and functionality of their online store.

Magento offers two distinct platforms, Magento Open Source (previously Community Edition) and Magento Commerce Cloud (previously Enterprise Edition).

Open Source is free to download and use, whereas Commerce comes with licensing fees. Both platforms offer users a wide range of benefits and features.

How Does Magento Work?

Magento’s core structure is built on a Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture that makes it possible for developers to customize nearly every aspect of a store.

At the same time, Magento’s modular codebase allows users to integrate third-party modules and themes to further extend the functionality and appearance of their online store.

This is one of the signature pros of Magento. Users can customize every aspect of their Magento store and create a custom marketplace.

14 Benefits of Magento

Magento is used by more than 250,000 merchants across the world. All of these merchants are drawn in by the many benefits of Magento, which include:

1. Versatile Content Management

Magento’s content management system (CMS) is extremely versatile in managing and modifying all kinds of content. You can use it to create pages, blog posts, product descriptions, and more.

And, if you want to get really creative, you can even use Magento’s CMS to create custom landing pages. Plus, Magento makes it easy to manage your store’s content with its intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

2. Mobile-Friendly Configuration

It’s essential for all ecommerce stores to be mobile-friendly. Magento comes equipped with a responsive design that automatically adjusts your store’s layout to provide an optimal experience for mobile users.

What’s more, Magento also offers a separate set of tools specifically for creating a unique mobile app for your store. With Magento, you can be sure that your ecommerce store will provide a great user experience no matter what device your customers are using.

3. Improved Performance and Scalability

Magento is built on a modular architecture, which means that it can scale very easily to accommodate the needs of growing businesses.

Plus, Magento comes with a number of performance-enhancing features, such as full-page caching and indexing, which can help your store load faster and run more smoothly.

This means that a Magento 2 store can easily handle high traffic volume without any slowdown or performance issues. And, if you ever need to scale up your store’s capacity, Magento makes it easy to do so without any major disruptions.

Magento is also one of the most secure ecommerce platforms available. It comes with a number of features that help to protect your store from security threats, such as data leaks and malware attacks.

Plus, Magento is always updating its platform to stay ahead of the latest security threats. So, you can rest assured that your store is in good hands when it comes to security on Magento.

4. Advanced SEO Features

Magento comes with a number of advanced SEO features that can help your store rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

For example, Magento allows you to create custom meta titles and descriptions for each of your store’s pages. This can help to improve your click-through rates from SERPs when optimizing Magento 2.

Plus, Magento’s built-in URL rewrites can help to improve your store’s crawlability, which can also lead to better SERP rankings. All of these SEO features can help to bring more traffic to your store, which can lead to more sales and conversions.

5. Large Magento Community

Magento has a very large and active community of developers, designers, and users. This community is always creating new modules, themes, and extensions for Magento.

And, if you ever need help with your Magento store, chances are that someone in the community has already written a tutorial or article on how to do it.

This vast community is one of the biggest benefits of using Magento. No matter what problem you’re facing with your store, chances are that someone in the Magento community has already solved it.

6. Allows for Marketplace Integration

Magento’s marketplace integration feature allows you to easily connect your store with a number of popular marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay.

This can help to increase your product’s visibility and reach a larger audience. Plus, it can also help to simplify your inventory management by allowing you to sell your products on multiple platforms from one central location.

7. Allows for Customization

Magento is a very flexible platform that allows for a lot of customization. With Magento, you can create a completely unique look for your store. Plus, you can also customize the functionality of your store to match your specific business needs.

There are a number of ways to customize Magento, such as installing extensions or creating custom modules. And, if you’re not a developer yourself, there’s always someone in the Magento community who can help you achieve the customization that you need.

8. Customize Your Security Permissions

Magento doesn’t just allow users to customize its functionality. Users can also customize their store’s security permissions. Magento’s security permissions feature allows you to customize the level of access that your employees have to your store’s backend.

This is a great way to prevent unauthorized changes from being made to your store. Plus, it can also help to keep your store’s data safe by limiting who has access to it.

You can easily create custom user groups and assign specific permissions to each group. This makes it easy to give different employees the exact level of access that they need in order to do their job and nothing more. Providing the suitable security permissions to the right employees can prevent security issues from malicious employees or unauthorized people who have no business in your store’s backend.

9. Easy to Integrate Third-Parties

Magento is easy to integrate with a number of third-party services, such as payment processors and shipping carriers.

This can help to streamline your store’s checkout process and make it easier for your customers to purchase your products. Plus, it can also help to reduce your store’s operating costs by allowing you to take advantage of discounts and promotions from these third-party services.

Magento’s platform is also very flexible, which makes it easy to integrate new features and functionality into your store as needed.

10. Built-in Upsells & Cross-Sells for Your Business

Magento’s upsells and cross-sells feature allows you to increase your average order value by displaying related products to your customers during the checkout process.

For example, if a customer is buying a pair of shoes from your store, you can upsell them on a matching belt or handbag. Or, if they’re buying a dress, you can cross-sell them on a pair of earrings or shoes that would go well with the dress.

This is a great way to boost your sales and conversions by promoting complementary products to your customers.

11. Magento Mobile App Framework for Easy Mobile Development

Magento’s mobile app framework makes it easy to develop native mobile apps for your store.

With this framework, you can easily create an iOS or Android app for your store without having to hire a separate development team. Plus, the mobile app framework is fully integrated with Magento’s platform, which makes it easy to manage your store’s inventory, orders, and customers from your mobile app.

12. Advanced Search Functionality

Magento’s advanced search functionality allows your customers to easily find the products they’re looking for in your store.

Your customers can search for products by keyword, SKU, category, price range, and more. Plus, Magento’s search engine is constantly learning and improving over time, which means that it will get better at finding the right products for your customers.

13. PCI Compliance

Magento is PCI compliant, which means that it meets the security standards set by the Payment Card Industry.

This is important for any store that accepts credit card payments, as it helps to ensure that your customers’ data is safe and secure. Plus, being PCI compliant can help you to avoid fines and penalties from your payment processor.

14. Saves You Time & Money

Magento is a powerful platform that can save you time and money. With Magento, you can easily manage your store’s inventory, orders, customers, and more from one central location.

Plus, Magento’s platform is constantly being updated with new features and functionality, which means that you won’t have to worry about your store becoming outdated.

Take Advantage of These Benefits of Magento

If you’re fully convinced and ready to take advantage of the benefits of Magento, you’ll need to choose the right Magento hosting provider before starting a new online store.

Lucky for you, Hostdedi provides fully managed Magento hosting that offers world-class scalability, speed, and security. Give us a call today to speak to a member of our sales team about our managed Magento hosting services.

ATLANTA, GA. Jul 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Hostdedi, the fully managed, high-performance, digital commerce platform built to optimize online sites and stores today announced the release of The 2022 Ecommerce Holiday Survival Guide, a definitive resource for ecommerce store owners preparing for the busiest and most critical time of year.

Ecommerce sales show no sign of slowing down. Throughout 2022, US ecommerce sales are expected to topple $1 trillion. Ecommerce sales will hit 20.4% of all retail sales across the globe this year, just over double from five years prior, according to Statista.

To help online store owners experience a successful holiday selling season, the guide provides site optimization techniques and best practices to increase conversions and prepare online stores for the holiday selling season. The season-by-season handbook outlines when to start testing your site, refining your strategy, running ads, and much more.

“Hostdedi is well-acquainted with the significant challenges that the holiday season creates for businesses of all sizes,” says Terry Trout, SVP of Marketing. “We’ve helped customers successfully navigate these hurdles for over 22 years, and we’re hoping to empower more of them with this guide.”

“Ecommerce is seeing growth in every product category. That means more opportunities to make a sale. Hostdedi has the tools and resources to ensure your online business sees that same growth, whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned pro with ecommerce.”

Decisions like migrating, expanding an online business, or taking a store global all require time and preparation. Add to that supply chain issues, and there is no shortage of reasons for ecommerce business owners to get a head start on the holiday selling season. What’s more is that ecommerce is quickly becoming the standard for holiday shopping across the globe.

Competition in the world of online shopping will only get more fierce. The best way to stand out is to have a fast, user-friendly website. Getting one means putting in the work – and work takes time. Starting ecommerce holiday prep this summer ensures business owners will be ready for Black Friday to Christmas and beyond. The 2022 Ultimate Ecommerce Holiday Survival Guide advises readers on how to keep online stores performing well and customers happy all year round.

To learn more about holiday readiness, read The 2022 Ecommerce Holiday Survival Guide. For more information about Hostdedi, visit nexcess.net.

About Hostdedi

Hostdedi is the best place to build your business online. Optimized for your commerce needs, we provide a managed hosting infrastructure, curated tools, and a team of experts that make it easy to build, manage, and grow your business online.  Serving SMBs and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them for more than 22 years, we provide 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.

If you try to upload files that exceed a specific size to your WordPress website, you may see a server error that says, “WordPress exceeds the maximum upload size for this site.”

While there’s a good reason for that, the upload limit bottleneck can impact your experience, especially if your website handles plenty of media.

So, how do you get rid of this bottleneck? The solution is to increase the max upload file size in your WordPress settings or at the server level.

In this guide, we’ll take you through:

Why You Should Increase the Max Upload File Size in WordPress

Your installation will often come with a reasonable WordPress max file upload limit.

But, if you want to make some significant changes to your site, you may have to raise that limit. 

So, at what point do you do that? You should learn how to change the maximum upload file size in WordPress if you:

Install a Large Theme or Plugin

If you’d like to customize your website using a theme or plugin, you may need to increase the maximum upload file size limit in WordPress.

If you’re uploading and installing these digital assets to your website through your WordPress dashboard, an increased file size upload limit ensures you enjoy a seamless process.

Upload Larger Images and Videos to Your WordPress Website

If you’d like to upload larger images, videos, and design assets to your website, you may need to increase the file size upload limit.

Higher-quality files often take up more space, and you may need to allocate more resources to their uploads.

Update Your High-Traffic WordPress Website

If you update your website frequently because of high traffic, keep your file size upload limit at its maximum.

With enhanced limits, you and your audience can smoothly upload content to your website.

Sell Digital Files

If your website sells digital assets like e-books, audio files, videos, or images, you should increase your file size upload limits.

Doing so ensures your customers download high-quality media from your website every time they make a purchase.

The WordPress Maximum Upload File Size

The standard WordPress maximum upload size usually ranges between 4MB and 128MB. Most WordPress hosting providers set these limits at the server level, and they may vary across hosting plans.

These limits are essential because uploading large files can consume plenty of server resources. To prevent the WordPress exceeds the maximum upload size for this site server error, your host will limit these upload sizes.

You can control these settings directly from WordPress, but usually, WordPress can’t override the defaults set at the server level.

Before you change these limits for your website, here’s how to find out what they are:

How to Check Your Current WordPress Maximum Upload Size

You can check for the maximum upload size limit in two ways:

1. Check Your Site Health Information

Since WordPress version 5.2 introduced the Site Health tool, you can use it to debug your website and find out basic information about your installation.

The Site Health tool will display your WordPress and server maximum upload file limits.

First, open the Site Health tool and select the Media Handling dropdown. Check the value of the Max size of an uploaded file. This number is your WordPress limit.

For the server limit, select the Server dropdown. Look for the value for the Upload max file size.

2. Check the Media Library

You can also find your upload size limit in the media library:

1. From your WordPress dashboard, go to Media > Library.

2. Select the Add New button at the top of your media screen to start the media uploading process.

3. You’ll find your upload size limit inside the Drop file area and upload box.

How To Increase Upload File Size Limit in WordPress

There are several ways you can increase the upload file size limit in WordPress. Let’s look at four of them:

1. Change PHP Settings Through the cPanel

You can change the maximum upload file size limit in the WordPress cPanel dashboard. This dashboard gives you control over many website and server settings.

Follow these steps to increase your maximum upload size limit:

1. Open your cPanel dashboard.

2. Select your PHP Version in the Software section.

3. Click Options.

4. Open the PHP Options dashboard.

5. Under the available PHP options, select upload_max_filesize and adjust the limit upward.

6. Save your changes. If using older cPanel versions, let it save your changes automatically.

2. Use a WordPress Plugin

Suppose you’d rather not go digging into your WordPress settings. In that case, you can still change your WordPress max file upload size using a plugin.

The Increase Maximum Upload File Size plugin is a good example of how to get rid of the WordPress exceeds the maximum upload size for this site error, especially if you like your settings as simple and easy as possible. Here’s how to use the plugin:

1. Install and activate the plugin.

2. Go to WP Admin > Media > Increase Upload Limit.

3. That opens up a new screen. Here, select your new file upload size.

4. Choose the Maximum Upload File Size from the dropdown menu.

3. Update Your .htaccess File

You can also update the .htaccess file to increase your maximum upload size limit and get rid of the WordPress exceeds the maximum upload size for this site error.

The .htaccess file gives you full control over the top-level settings of your WordPress website. Here, you can alter the parameters of the upload _max_filesize, memory_limit, and post_max_size commands.

You must set these three values correctly to increase your upload size limit.

Here’s how to update your .htaccess file:

1. Find the .htaccess file in the website’s root folder. You can find it in your file manager or FTP client if it’s unavailable in the root folder.

2. Open the .htaccess file via your preferred text editor.

3. Add this code to your .htaccess file:

php_value upload_max_filesize 32M

php_value post_max_size 64M

php_value memory_limit 128M

php_value max_execution_time 300

php_value max_input_time 300

4. Set the values of the max_execution_time and max_input_time as above to speed up WordPress and PHP tasks.

4. Contact Your Hosting Provider for Help

If all else fails, or you’d rather an expert handle the WordPress exceeds the maximum upload size for this site issue for you, contact customer support.

Hostdedi offers excellent customer support if you face problems setting custom maximum upload size limits or uploading files to your website.

You can contact our customer support through live chat and phone. Our experts are here to help you with your request.

Final Thoughts

You can now access your settings and increase your WordPress max file upload limit with the information above. Doing so increases the use of your server resources, so ensure your hosting plan is up to date.

Try Fully Managed WordPress Hosting from Hostdedi

Looking for a new hosting partner for your WordPress website? Check Hostdedi’ Fully Managed WordPress hosting for a fast, scalable, and secure website.

Although often overlooked, website breadcrumbs play a key role in improving user experience (UX) and search engine optimization (SEO).

But what are they, and how do they work?

Understanding the meaning of breadcrumbs and how they function gives you insight into the importance of this tiny detail to the success of your website.

This guide will discuss that. It will also explore different ways to add breadcrumbs to your WordPress website.

Read on to find out more about:

Breadcrumbs Meaning: What Are They?

Breadcrumbs (or breadcrumb trails) are secondary navigational links at the top of each post or page of your website.

Breadcrumbs help visitors understand where they are on your site. The trail shows the pages in a hierarchical order, making it easy for your visitors to track their way back to a relevant parent category or page.

In general, breadcrumbs improve the user experience and your website SEO.

Benefits of Using Breadcrumbs on Your Website

Every top website uses breadcrumbs, and that includes the Hostdedi blog. If you’re building a new website, using breadcrumbs has certain benefits:

• Users can use breadcrumbs to map their way around your website, creating a satisfying customer experience.
• Breadcrumbs reduce your bounce rates by making website navigation more intuitive.
• Breadcrumbs improve your SEO. Using them leads to your website ranking higher in search engines and an improved click-through rate (CTR).

Here’s an example of what a breadcrumbs UX looks like:

Types of WordPress Breadcrumbs

There are three types of WordPress breadcrumbs:

1. Attribute-based breadcrumbs: This type of breadcrumbs is common in ecommerce websites. It shows the attributes the user searched for to get to the product they’re viewing.

2. History-based WordPress breadcrumbs: This type leads users back to pages they came from as they navigate from page to page within your website.

3. Hierarchy-based breadcrumbs: Hierarchical WordPress breadcrumbs show visitors where they are on your website. They also show the relationship between the page they’re on and higher pages.

Hierarchy breadcrumbs are the most common of the three types.

How To Add Breadcrumbs to Your Website

Breadcrumbs aren’t a complex feature to add to your website. You can do it in several ways:

1. Install a Theme With Breadcrumbs

If you’re building a WordPress site for your blog or business, you can opt for a theme with built-in breadcrumbs functionality. This method is quick and easy and requires little effort on your part.

Once you upload a custom theme or install one from the WordPress theme directory, your new website layout will display breadcrumbs.

One such popular theme is Astra Pro, which is available with Hostdedi WordPress plans.

Here’s how to set up breadcrumbs on Astra Pro:

1. Navigate to Dashboard > Appearance > Customize.

2. Select the Breadcrumbs tab.

3. Under the Breadcrumbs tab, open the drop-down menu. Here, you can choose where you’d prefer your breadcrumbs to appear:

4. After you select the ideal location of your breadcrumbs, you can customize them in other ways, such as the type of Separator, Spacing, and Alignment.

5. Once done, you can Publish your changes to the Astra Pro theme.

2.  Use a WordPress Breadcrumbs Plugins

One major drawback of new themes is that they can completely change the look of your website. These changes can hurt your brand and website identity, especially if your site is a critical marketing tool for your business.

An easy workaround for this problem is to use a breadcrumbs plugin. An excellent example is Breadcrumb NavXT.

So, how do you install it?

1. Go to Plugins > Add New and install and activate the Breadcrumb NavXT plugin.

2. In the left side panel, select Settings > Breadcrumb NavXT.

3. Once activated, this plugin loads default settings. However, you can change how breadcrumbs work on your entire website by selecting the General tab. The Post Types tab empowers you to specify the breadcrumbs format you prefer for posts and pages.

4. Once done, click Save Changes.

3. Set Breadcrumbs Manually

Although you can add breadcrumbs to your WordPress website using a theme or a plugin, you can also do it using code. If you’re a developer or an advanced WordPress user, you can add custom code to your website and activate breadcrumbs in a way that appeals to you.

Note: Be careful when editing code on your WordPress website. If you change certain functions, you may break some functionality or the entire website.

Ensure you’re using the latest version of WordPress and back up your website before making any major changes. That enables you to restore your website to a previous version in case your site breaks.

To set breadcrumbs manually, you’ll have to add a code snippet to your functions.php file. Once you access and open it with the WordPress code editor, you can add a snippet that looks like this:

<?php
/*=============================================
=            BREADCRUMBS			            =
=============================================*/

//  to include in functions.php
function the_breadcrumb() {

    $sep = ' > ';

    if (!is_front_page()) {
	
	// Start the breadcrumb with a link to your homepage
        echo '<div class="breadcrumbs">';
        echo '<a href="';
        echo get_option('home');
        echo '">';
        bloginfo('name');
        echo '</a>' . $sep;
	
	// Check if the current page is a category, an archive or a single page. If so show the category or archive name.
        if (is_category() || is_single() ){
            the_category('title_li=');
        } elseif (is_archive() || is_single()){
            if ( is_day() ) {
                printf( __( '%s', 'text_domain' ), get_the_date() );
            } elseif ( is_month() ) {
                printf( __( '%s', 'text_domain' ), get_the_date( _x( 'F Y', 'monthly archives date format', 'text_domain' ) ) );
            } elseif ( is_year() ) {
                printf( __( '%s', 'text_domain' ), get_the_date( _x( 'Y', 'yearly archives date format', 'text_domain' ) ) );
            } else {
                _e( 'Blog Archives', 'text_domain' );
            }
        }
	
	// If the current page is a single post, show its title with the separator
        if (is_single()) {
            echo $sep;
            the_title();
        }
	
	// If the current page is a static page, show its title.
        if (is_page()) {
            echo the_title();
        }
	
	// if you have a static page assigned to be you posts list page. It will find the title of the static page and display it. i.e Home >> Blog
        if (is_home()){
            global $post;
            $page_for_posts_id = get_option('page_for_posts');
            if ( $page_for_posts_id ) { 
                $post = get_post($page_for_posts_id);
                setup_postdata($post);
                the_title();
                rewind_posts();
            }
        }

        echo '</div>';
    }
}
?>

After adding those lines, you can now add this line of code to activate it:

<?php if (function_exists('the_breadcrumb')) the_breadcrumb(); ?>

To customize your breadcrumbs further, you can add a class in your CSS file with instructions for your breadcrumbs CSS code. You can use it to change the font, color, and other aspects of the breadcrumbs UX.

4. WooCommerce Breadcrumbs

Another way to add breadcrumbs to your website is to extend its functionality using the WooCommerce Breadcrumbs plugin for WooCommerce.

Installing the WooCommerce plugin to your website lets you sell products on it. It also comes with breadcrumbs functionality, which makes it easier for your customers to find products and pages on your website.

Here’s how to go about it:

1. Install and activate WooCommerce on your WordPress website. Then, install and activate the WooCommerce Breadcrumbs plugin.

2. Navigate to Settings > WC Breadcrumbs to customize your website breadcrumbs.

3. Click the Enable Breadcrumbs checkbox in WooCommerce.

4. You can also customize other breadcrumbs settings here, including a unique separator.

Final Thoughts: 4 Ways To Add Breadcrumbs to Your Website

If you’re looking to improve your customer user experience and site SEO, you can do so by using breadcrumbs. You can either use a theme, plugin, custom code, or WooCommerce. All those methods are easy to use — but take extra care when adding custom code to your website.

Need to build your new website on a robust platform? Try Hostdedi’ Fully Managed Hosting plans and build your first website today. You’ll also enjoy free migration from your old host and a 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans.

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

If you’re one of the many people who’ve always wanted to build apps without knowing how to code, you’re in luck. The no-code movement is here to help you.

The growth of the low and no-code industry continues to skyrocket, with reports showing that the use of no-code tools in the software industry is expected to grow by 71% from 2021 onwards.

As it stands, 38% of people use no-code tools to prototype new ideas and create new products. If you’re interested in becoming a no-code citizen developer, read on to find out more about:

No-Code Movement

The no-code movement is a sector of web development that enables people with little or no coding knowledge to build apps, websites, and software using a graphic user interface (GUI). Instead of writing code, you use a simple drag-and-drop interface to build your digital projects.

The goal of the no-code movement is to remove any barriers to entry into web and mobile app development. Essentially, technology should facilitate software development, regardless of the developer’s coding skills.

That way, more entrepreneurs and web developers can participate in the creation process and improve their productivity and efficiency in a business.

An excellent example of no-code is Mailchimp. If you want to build an email marketing campaign, this no-code solution helps you create engaging email designs that will attract your customers to take action.

The Low-Code Movement

The no-code movement also has the low-code movement. Low-code also abstracts and automates plenty of steps in the software development lifecycle, making it easy for coders to optimize the project and deliver products faster.

Depending on the use case you desire, you can find a no or low-code solution that fits. There are plenty of low-code no-code tools for building websites, chatbots, ecommerce stores, forms, and software.

Shopify, for example, is often used as a low-code ecommerce solution.

Differences Between Low-Code and No-Code Tools

Although low-code and no-code tools solve the same problems and share almost similar definitions, they have some key differences. Let’s look at some of them in the table below.

Low-Code	No-code
Low-code SaaS solutions use some written code in conjunction with the graphic user interface of the tool.	No-code platforms only contain drag-and-drop graphic user interfaces. No code writing is needed.
Low-code tools are ideal for developers who want to expedite the creation process and achieve their development goals faster.	No-code tools are Ideal for marketers who need to demonstrate a prototype with some functionality or solve basic functional problems.
Low-code solutions strike a neat balance between coding and non-coding tools, making them more extensible and scalable. You can also customize these tools to meet your specific visual needs.	No-code frameworks are simple and only use drag and drop functionality. You can’t customize them much and can only create basic but functional apps with them.

Although some features set them apart, both low-code and no-code frameworks reduce your workload, thus offering a similar experience and benefits.

Benefits of No-Code Frameworks

Using low and no-code tools has plenty of advantages. Here are some exciting ones.

Fast Solution Development

Using a no-code framework is a faster path to launching a product or a solution. Rather than building an entire system from scratch, you can abstract some solutions and let developers focus on more demanding tasks.

For instance, your marketing team can use a no-code form builder to collect data from prospective customers rather than having a developer build a database and connect it to your dynamic content pages.

If you have a small team, low or no-code solutions allow your team to perform parallel tasks as they build a product. Your team members can conduct research, plan activities and share other tasks since no-code tools take care of the bulk of the work.

Coding Knowledge Isn’t Required

You don’t need coding know-how or expertise to use a low-code or no-code framework. Essentially, you become a “citizen developer.”

According to Gartner, a citizen developer is any employee that creates applications and solutions for themselves or others using tools that your company’s IT and business units don’t forbid.

Rather than a job title, a citizen developer is a persona, and anyone capable of using no-code tools to implement business ideas is one.

For that reason, application development using no-code frameworks has become appealing to startup businesses. No matter the department, team members can now participate in the building process without writing a single line of code.

Lower Production Costs

Programmers and software engineers, although key project team members, can be quite expensive. Their extensive training and impact on any project make them a necessary part, although at a cost to your business.

Low-code applications don’t get rid of developers but reduce their time and participation in critical areas. That also means you’ll allocate fewer resources to the project and cut the time needed to launch.

Helps Progress and Autonomy

Since no-code apps reduce the costs of your projects, you now have plenty of wiggle room to take more risks and try out new ideas. You can test more features to see what might work. You also get to see what you can potentially scale.

The best part? Each team member can also add or remove whatever is needed from a project without needing major rollbacks or upgrades. They can also solve problems independently and try any additions before adding them to the final product.

No-Code Drawbacks

Although low and no-code solutions are extremely useful, they also have some disadvantages. Here’s a quick overview of them.

Limited Customization

Most times, low and no-code solutions have modular components that restrict customization.

Suppose you want to customize a certain feature or tool within the no-code platform to meet your specific needs. Often, this doesn’t work — you may have to change your business processes to use the platform’s capabilities.

However, customization options vary from framework to framework. Some solutions will offer more customization than others. Others allow you to integrate APIs and custom tools to extend some features and how you use them.

Little Integrations

When building some apps and software, you may want your solutions to work together in a seamless ecosystem. However, using no-code frameworks may lead to integration issues in the future.

That means some low-code no-code systems may not be ideal for your business processes, especially if you intend to use custom integrations long-term.

Mixed Quality of Final Results

With no and low-code platforms, your hands are tied, and you may not control every aspect of your prospective solutions. Although these solutions can help you scale rapidly, constraints within the system may prevent you from attaining your desired results.

5 Top No-Code Development Platforms

Here are some excellent examples of low and no-code tools worth checking out.

1. Bubble

Bubble is a no-code platform that enables you to build interactive apps for desktops and web browsers. Using its drag-and-drop editor, you can build a multiuser website like Facebook or Airbnb. Bubble has all the tools needed to create chats, news feeds, and other real-time features that enhance your platform’s customer experience.

With Bubble, you can:

• Manga data and accounts
• Integrate with APIs and Plugins
• Support user-generated dynamic content
• Create multilingual apps
• Support and process payments for your services or products

More than 40 team members can collaborate on your platform to improve it. Bubble also allows them to collaborate in real-time too.

2. Airtable

With Airtable, you can build custom workflows that bring your information together in an organized manner. It features no-code automation that helps you plan and execute tasks seamlessly. Airtable has plenty of templates to choose from, depending on your use case.

Some popular templates include:

• Inventory tracking
• Content calendar
• Event planning
• Gantt

You can extend Airtable’s functionality using many popular extensions, including Google, Jira, and Formstack.

3. Zapier

Zapier is a no-code solution that helps you connect different apps and set up event triggers that automate parts of your business.

You can automate up to 100 actions with just a single Zap, which means Zapier will get more work done for you. You can run your Zaps whenever you need to, or you can delay it.

With this tool, you can also:

• Customize automated processes
• Use 5,000+ different integrations
• Build custom integrations for your app
• Use custom code, webhooks, and APIs
• Move bulk data at once

4. Webflow

Webflow is a no-code website builder that enables you to build a standard or ecommerce website and optimize it for maximum growth. Using its drag-and-drop interface, you get full creative control and flexibility to build it however you like.

Besides that, you can also fine-tune your website for SEO, even as you collaborate with other developers to enhance the functionality of your site.

Webflow also has these features:

• A Flexible CMS
• Exceptional web app security
• Hosting powered by AWS

5. StoreBuilder

Finally, StoreBuilder by Hostdedi is a no-code website building solution that enables you to build the best websites with absolutely no design skills required. With StoreBuilder’s custom templates and bundled selling tools, as well as insights and smart sales tools, your ecommerce business will be up and running quickly.

Additionally, your website can be limitlessly customized to your liking with no additional fees, all at the lowest prices on the market.

These features can be found on StoreBuilder:

• Built-in abandoned cart recovery
• Free SSL and security monitoring
• 24/7 ecommerce support
• And much more.

Final Thoughts — The No-Code Movement: Benefits and Drawbacks

The no-code movement has revolutionized how building apps and software is done. Even without knowledge of any programming languages, you can still build robust and functional apps using drag-and-drop interfaces within no-code frameworks.

Today’s most popular low-code no-code platforms include Zapier, Workflow, and Airtable. Don’t just read about them. Try them out and experience how to build solutions without coding knowledge.

How would you like to build your own ecommerce website quickly using a no-code tool? Try out the Hostdedi StoreBuilder and build an outstanding web store for your business today.

This blog was originally published in December 2020. It has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

There’s a lot to consider and many decisions to make when opening an online store. Selling physical products vs. digital products. Creating content on TikTok vs. creating content on Instagram. You may also be considering WordPress vs. Shopify, and which option is best for your business.

You know your business. Before you choose WordPress or Shopify, get to know them a little too.

Comparing WordPress vs. Shopify

Comparing all the bells and whistles of WordPress and Shopify can help you choose a platform for your ecommerce business. Each platform has unique features.

WordPress

WordPress allows you to create an online store, but you can also run a multi-contributor blog, online forums, and video channels. This flexibility means you can create tons of content to bring your customers to you.

You can sell your products directly from your blog posts, and if you already have a WordPress website, you can turn it into a store in the time it takes to add a plugin and your products.

And because WordPress has so many options for content, you can add affiliate links to your content. That means, in addition to selling your products, you can also make a commission for mentioning products from other stores.

WordPress won’t limit the type of products you can sell either. You can sell digital items customers download or physical products you ship to them. You can also create a dropshipping store, where you rely on other vendors or print-on-demand suppliers to ship the products. And if you’d like to create an e-course, you can sell access to a course or a membership.

If your customers are mostly local, you can take bookings for local services online, deposits, or pre-sale payments. You can also market an event. WordPress allows you to take reservations and sell tickets online or via download.

WordPress is a great platform for many different businesses. But as a business owner, here’s what you need to know upfront:

• Pricing. WordPress is free, and so are many of the best ecommerce plugins. But, you will have to pay for site hosting, your theme, and some plugins. You can start a WordPress store for just the cost of hosting at first, but most sellers need paid plugins and themes to help them run and scale their business.
• Customizations. WordPress offers seemingly infinite theme options, with many ready-to-install ecommerce themes. And you can customize many of these themes without learning to code.
• Transaction Fees. Most WordPress ecommerce plugins don’t charge a transaction fee. That means payment processors like PayPal and Stripe will charge any payment fees.
• Payment Methods. Your payment options will depend on the plugin you choose. Some only support PayPal, while others offer Stripe and Square functionality. WooCommerce allows more than 100 payment gateway options.
• Data Ownership. Any content you put on your site is up to you, meaning as long as your content doesn’t go against your web host’s policies, you’re good to go. You can also collect data about your users, provided you disclose that on your site and follow GDPR guidelines.

Shopify

Shopify is a platform for businesses to build and launch their online stores. Depending on the type of business you have, you can customize your Shopify store to your needs, and you can sell physical and digital products. It also has dropshipping capabilities and integrates with a print-on-demand supplier.

Shopify does make it easy to start your online store. There’s a built-in payment processor and a built-in shipping label printing feature. You can keep inventory and your product information all in one place with easy-to-use management tools.

You’re also not limited to just selling from your site. Shopify offers multichannel marketplace selling on Amazon and eBay, and you can sell on Facebook Shops and Instagram. There are also some built-in marketing tools for Facebook ads, email marketing, and abandoned cart recovery. Plus, if you have a brick-and-mortar store, you can use Shopify as your in-house point-of-sale system.

There’s even 24/7 customer service to help troubleshoot issues you may encounter. But with all that, it’s essential to know the cost and customization options.

• Pricing. There are five Shopify plans that range from $9 up to about $2,000 a month. Shopify offers a 14-day free trial option as well.
• Customizations. Shopify offers many professionally-designed themes that work for mobile, tablet, or desktop. You can also purchase templates from third-party designers like Shoptimized and Theme Forest, but Shopify doesn’t have nearly as many theme options as WordPress.
• Transaction Fees. Shopify offers its own payment processor, but if you don’t use it, you’ll pay an added fee per sale, anywhere from 0.5% to 2%, depending on which Shopify plan you have. And if you want to use the in-store point-of-sale option, you must use Shopify Payments.
• Payment Methods. You can offer the option to use processors like PayPal, but Shopify will penalize you with a per-transaction fee, as mentioned above.
• Data Ownership. Shopify can remove content or potentially your whole site if they think you posted something that conflicts with their acceptable use policies. And while you can export product data from your Shopify store, you can’t easily download your pages or blog posts. If you wanted to have them, you’d have to copy and paste that content manually.

Using WordPress for Ecommerce

It’s easy to see that WordPress gives you more freedom and ownership over your ecommerce store than Shopify does. Plus, you don’t have to worry about monthly subscription or transaction fees. And the best way to run your ecommerce store from your WordPress site is by using the WooCommerce plugin.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an easy-to-use free plugin, and it’s what makes your website and ecommerce store. It’s the most popular ecommerce plugin available for WordPress, and you can set it up and configure it yourself if you want, usually in less than an hour. And no matter what theme you use for your WordPress site, you can use WooCommerce. So regardless of what you sell or how your business adapts to your customer needs and the market, WooCommerce can help you.

Ready to Get Started With WooCommerce?

If you’re ready to launch your ecommerce store or migrate your current online store to a WooCommerce site, we can help. Our StoreBuilder allows you to create a customized WordPress store with intuitive design features and live expert support. And our fully managed WooCommerce hosting plans can keep your data secure while allowing you to scale your business. StoreBuilder and managed WooCommerce hosting give you the support and structure you need to build your business quickly and easily.

Customers value receiving high-quality support whenever they encounter an issue with your product or service.

Using WordPress live chat to offer interactive customer support on your website is an excellent way to do so and attract more customers. In fact, Statista shares that 12% of consumers in the U.S. choose one retail service over another based on its live chat functionality.

As a WordPress website owner, you can add live chat functionality to your website via a WordPress live chat plugin.

But with so many WordPress live chat plugins to choose from, you may have a hard time deciding on a plugin. To help you find the right plugin, we’ve compiled a list of the five best WordPress live chat plugins.

Read on to learn:

Live Chat Solutions — Benefits

Adding live chat functionality to your WordPress site can help you with customer support and word-of-mouth marketing. Let’s explore some of the benefits you’ll enjoy with a live chat plugin.

Provide Instant Customer Support

WordPress live chat lets you offer instant support to your customers. When website visitors have questions about your products or services, they can contact a customer rep via the chat box.

Your customer support agents can host direct chat sessions with your prospective customer and move the customer further down the sales funnel.

Increase Sales

Offering intuitive customer support via live chat can help increase conversions across your ecommerce website.

Your customer reps can clear any misinformation about the product or service, lead potential buyers through the purchasing process, and increase conversion rates.

Enhance Customer Retention

Live chat functionality on your WordPress website can help you improve customer satisfaction and retain more customers.

For instance, Kayako’s data shows that 51% of buyers make repeat purchases from companies that provide proactive chat support.

WordPress Chat Plugins: Features To Look For

Let’s move on to the features — what features should you prioritize over others?

As your goal with a live chat plugin is to deliver quality customer service, you should look for a WordPress live chat plugin with features that help you offer that experience.

For instance, you can look for:

Automation

If your plugin supports automation, you can set it to resolve common customer queries and issues. Automation involves triggers that occur when a customer selects certain options or conditions.

Intuitive User Interface

An intuitive user interface enhances customer experience and facilitates your help desk staff.

For instance, if your customers require help in navigating your website, an inline chat window may serve them better.

Analytics and Reporting

Ensure your live chat software supports analytics and reporting. It should collect customer feedback and report it to your customer support team in an actionable way.

Best Live Chat Plugin for WordPress

• LiveChat.
• Olark.
• 3CX Live Chat.
• HubSpot WordPress Plugin.
• Tawk.To.

LiveChat

LiveChat is an all-in-one customer service platform you can use to chat with customers on your website. LiveChat is compatible with plenty of site builders and themes. Also, its intuitive design makes it easy to install on your website.

Key features:

• Access to reports and analytics.
• Messaging mode for talking to customers online and offline.
• Ratings for support services and staff members.
• Notifications and customized and automated responses.
• Multi-channel support.

Best WordPress Live Chat Plugin For: Managing live chats, social media, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, email ticket support, and SMS from one platform.

Pricing: Premium plans start at $16 per month per agent when billed annually.

Olark

Olark is an elegant live chat software with a simple and intuitive interface. It’s pretty easy to install and use on your WordPress workflow. Once installed, it instantly goes live, and your chat window becomes ready to use.

Key Features:

• Supports integrations and APIs.
• Offers live chat analytics.
• Chat history.
• Supports automation and custom messaging.
• Language translation.

Best WordPress Live Chat Plugin For: Live language translation.

Pricing: Premium plan starts at $29 per month per agent.

3CX Live Chat

3CX Live Chat is another decent option for your WordPress website. It offers a dynamic and customizable suite and a live chat widget. Besides that, your plugin enjoys a full integration to the entire 3CX communication system — which offers live voice and video calls.

Key Features:

• Support for surveys and polls.
• Chart analytics and visitor tracking.
• Third-party integrations.
• Cross-device compatibility.

Best WordPress Live Chat Plugin For: Surveys, contact forms, and polls in your chat box.

Pricing: Free plan with limited features. Paid plans start at €150 (~$161) per year for 10 users.

HubSpot WordPress Plugin

HubSpot offers a WordPress plugin that helps you engage your customers using live chat, chatbots, pop-ups, and more. You also enjoy access to HubSpot’s free CRM, marketing automation, and inbuilt analytics.

According to Datanyze, HubSpot is the leading marketing automation software with a market share of 35.53%. With the HubSpot WordPress plugin, you can automate many of the common live chat features and work toward automating other marketing functionalities.

Key Features:

• Hundreds of integrations.
• Access to HubSpot’s CRM software.
• Support for chatbots and automation.
• Forms, surveys, and pop-ups.

Best WordPress Live Chat Plugin For: Integrations and automating customer support.

Pricing: Free version with limited features. Premium plans start at $45 per month with extended features (for email marketing, landing pages, and website forms).

Tawk.To

If you’re looking for a live chat plugin that monitors live chat on your website in real-time, Tawk.To is the way to go. Using this free live chat app, you can interact with all your customers, no matter their device.

Tawk.To has iOS and Android mobile apps that help you keep in touch and have unlimited chats with your website visitors.

Key Features

• Support for cross-device apps.
• Real-time language translation.
• Intuitive interface for chat agents.
• Reports and analytics.

Best WordPress Live Chat Plugin For: Small businesses looking to connect with customers across devices and platforms.

Pricing: Free.

Final Thoughts: 5 Best WordPress Live Chat Plugins

Live chat is an excellent way to interact with your customers online. Using WordPress live chat plugins, you can increase your conversions, offer instant support and enhance your customer experience.

Besides customer engagement through live chat, you can invest in your website’s performance to load your website quickly and serve your website visitors better.

Sign up for Hostdedi Managed WordPress hosting today to enjoy an optimized, secure, and scalable website.

Check out our plans to get started today.

This blog was originally published in June 2017. It has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Inventory is at the center of an ecommerce business. Ecommerce inventory management offers business owners benefits on multiple fronts, from streamlined warehousing operations to improved profitability.

Even without considering those benefits, ecommerce inventory management is almost a necessity for online businesses — and more so as they grow.

Think about it.

How would you feel when you order a bag of dog food every month, but this month the ecommerce store says it’s sold out? You’d probably look for dog food elsewhere. If the new store managed to offer a better customer experience, you’d likely stick with them.

But ecommerce inventory management ensures that you always have at least a few units of inventory in your warehouse to avoid losing business and loyal customers because of stockouts.

Don’t know how to manage ecommerce inventory? We’ll help you get familiarized with some of the best ecommerce inventory management techniques out there in this guide.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

Ecommerce Inventory Management

You need to look at multiple factors for ecommerce inventory management. For instance, check how quickly inventory was sold in the past, how fast you expect to sell it in the future, when you should order more inventory, how much you should order, and so on.

There are various ecommerce inventory management techniques that help address these issues. We’ll discuss them below.

1. Set PAR Level

You’ve probably unknowingly thought about periodic automatic replacement (PAR) level when considering the question of how to manage ecommerce inventory.

PAR level is the number of units in inventory required to meet the demand for the time your supplier usually takes to deliver the next order (also called lead time). It also accounts for some extra units as a cushion for a sudden surge in demand or unexpected delays in delivery.

PAR is also often referred to as safety stock.

For example, say you sell vintage radio sets. You sell close to 300 radio sets every week, which is also how long it takes for the next batch to reach you after you place an order with the supplier.

In that case, you can use 375 radios as your PAR level. The 300 radios meet your weekly demand, and 75 extra radios (an estimated number) can cover you in case people want to buy more from you during the week.

By the time you sell these radios, you’ll receive your new batch from the supplier and bring your stock levels back up.

On WooCommerce, you can set a Low stock threshold. The built-in option acts as a trigger and notifies you when your stock goes below a certain level.

This ecommerce inventory management technique ensures that you always have enough inventory to meet your customers’ demands without holding too much inventory at a time.

2. Forecast Inventory Needs

If you prepare monthly, quarterly, and yearly budgets, you know how difficult it can be to forecast your inventory needs. You can make an educated guess and look at historical sales data, but your estimates will always be at least slightly off from the actual sales.

The reason? Volatility in demand. Multiple external factors outside your control — such as the economy, wars, seasonality, and pandemics — influence customer demand for your inventory.

Note that the inventory forecasting technique doesn’t apply if you sell perishable goods. For instance, if you sell vegan milk in your ecommerce store, you won’t need to forecast the demand for the next quarter.

Planning your inventory needs right at the beginning of a period gives you a framework for placing purchase orders and expected sales patterns. When you know when you’ll need how much inventory and have planned for it, you’re much less likely to experience stockouts.

3. Use EOQ

Economic order quantity (EOQ) is the optimum quantity you should order based on the demand, per-order cost, and cost of obsolescence.

While this ecommerce inventory management technique may seem insignificant, the effect it can have in the long-term is remarkable — especially if your turnover is high.

Here’s the formula for EOQ:

The annual demand is the number of units you expect to sell during the current year. The ordering cost (or the order fulfillment cost) is the cost of placing an order with your supplier. It includes the cost of freight but not the cost of goods itself.

The carrying cost is a little trickier. It includes both explicit and implicit costs.

First, you should calculate the cost of storing a unit of inventory in the warehouse.

Account for things like warehouse insurance, depreciation of racks on which the inventory is stored, cost of obsolescence (i.e., cost of units that generally end up in an unsellable condition when stored for very long), and other costs specifically associated with inventory storage.

Second, you should also account for the opportunity cost of inventory value. For instance, if you overstock $10,000 worth of inventory, you could be earning a 3% interest on that money. Since you’ve invested it in inventory instead, you’re now earning $300 less.

Based on these costs, the EOQ formula will give you an optimal order quantity which will minimize both your total annual ordering costs and total annual carrying costs.

Each time you reach the reorder point (i.e., your PAR level), you can place an order based on the EOQ to ensure financial efficiency.

4. Prioritize Inventory Items With ABC

The ABC approach to ecommerce inventory management involves grouping inventory items based on their value, where items in group A are the most valuable. ABC analysis draws from the Pareto principle, according to which 20% of inventory accounts for 80% of your revenue.

The value of stock-keeping units (SKUs) may often be significantly different, so there’s no exact grouping methodology you need to follow. But you can use the following as a framework:

• A = 10% of your inventory that are high-value items bringing 70% of your revenue.
• B = 20% of your inventory that are mid-value items bringing 20% of your revenue.
• C = 70% of your inventory that are low-value items bringing 10% of your revenue.

You can determine the value of SKUs as:

Annual Number of Units Sold x Cost per Item

Essentially, it’s the amount of revenue that each SKU contributes to your total revenue. Once you’ve classified the SKUs, you can focus your optimization efforts on class A items.

Class A items are usually fast-moving products that bring a large chunk of value to your business. You can allocate more warehouse space to them and minimize storage expenses on less popular inventory items.

5. Use JIT Inventory

Just-in-time inventory (JIT, also known as the Toyota Production System) is an inventory management system where goods are received from suppliers only as they’re needed. The fundamental idea behind JIT is to take on more risk in exchange for a reduced cost of storage and obsolescence.

With JIT, you keep enough inventory to meet customer demand, but no more. For instance, if you estimate that you’ll need 200 units of product A during the month of June 2022, you only order 200 units. Should you need more, you place another order.

The key here is finding a reliable supplier who can deliver orders quickly. At the end of June, you’ll estimate the inventory required for July and so on. If your supplier frequently delays deliveries, it can have a huge negative impact on your business.

Implementing JIT for ecommerce can be challenging because there’s little room for error. If you’re a high-growth ecommerce business, your inventory control needs to be dynamic.

Given the risks of stockouts owing to supply chain failure, implementing JIT inventory can be a tough nut to crack in an ecommerce setting. But if done right, it can produce significant cost savings.

6. Use Inventory Management Software

Inventory management software offers a suite of inventory control functionality that can provide valuable insights and streamline ecommerce inventory management.

Here’s how inventory management software can help:

• Real-time monitoring of inventory levels so you can make replenishment orders and decide what to do with unsold inventory.
• Integrations for ecommerce platforms, ERPs, and other apps in your tech stack.
• Multi-channel inventory tracking, which is helpful when you sell through multiple sales channels like brick-and-mortar, online store, and others.
• Ecommerce automation features minimize manual work and risk of human error.
• Eliminates the need for manual inventory counts and gives you inventory data based on your chosen inventory recording method, such as FIFO (first in, first out) and LIFO (last in, first out).
• Makes related tasks such as inventory auditing, order management, and warehouse management easier.

5 Benefits of Ecommerce Inventory Management

Once you know how to manage ecommerce inventory, you’re in a better position to improve your business’s inventory efficiency, cash flow management, and profitability.

The following is a list of benefits you can expect to get out of planned and consistent ecommerce inventory management.

1. Optimized Profitability

Inventory has various expenses associated with it, including:

• Carrying costs.
• Ordering costs.
• Cost of obsolescence.
• Opportunity costs.

The problem is that online retailers can’t monitor these costs with spreadsheets. On the other hand, small businesses don’t feel fully confident about investing in inventory management solutions because of the associated cost.

However, when you use inventory software, you get the data you need about inventory-related costs. Once you have this information, you can formulate an inventory management strategy (with methods like EOQ and ABC) to minimize your costs and optimize profitability.

2. Cash Flow Management

Businesses can fail because of poor cash flow management.

Even though it might seem that you possibly can’t free up any significant amount of cash by managing inventory well, you’ll be surprised just how effective this additional working capital can be when you’re in a cash crunch.

3. Better Internal Controls

If you have warehouses in multiple locations, there’s always a risk of theft. When you don’t monitor exactly where your inventory is going, it gives an employee a chance to misappropriate it.

An inventory system empowers you to set up internal controls that can provide better visibility over your inventory.

Bigger brands like Amazon and eBay have a team of internal auditors, but small businesses usually can’t afford to hire such teams. That’s exactly why a robust inventory management process — supported by inventory management software — is crucial for better control over inventory.

4. Minimized Order Costs

Every time you place an order, you incur costs like freight and use up human resources in the receiving department and warehouse. The fewer orders you place, the better it is for your bottom line.

Implementing the EOQ technique helps minimize ordering costs. You’ll always be more prepared with restocking and able to place orders consistently with your suppliers — which makes them happy, too.

5. Complete Information for Forecasting

The more historical data you have, the more accurate your forecast will be. Note that this is only probabilistically true. Your forecast may still be off in cases where the world is hit by a pandemic, for example.

It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to forecast exactly how much you’ll sell during a given time frame.

However, having a framework helps get a sense of how much you need to order and how frequently. You might also be able to identify and plan for potential supply chain management issues.

Final Thoughts: Ecommerce Inventory Management

As an ecommerce store, inventory is at the center of your business. Ideally, you should use platforms and tools that enable better control over that inventory.

WooCommerce offers several built-in options for ecommerce inventory management under Settings > Products > Inventory. You can assign SKUs, set up triggers for fast-moving items, and do much more with the platform’s inventory management options.

Want to get started with WooCommerce? Check out Hostdedi’ Fully Managed WooCommerce hosting packages today.

You’ll face plenty of errors with your WordPress website, but none as common as the 502 error. Surprisingly, even big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter sometimes face it.

A 502 Bad Gateway Error can take webpages on your site offline for extended periods. This confusing problem could hurt your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and negatively impact your rankings.

With that in mind, how do you resolve a 502 error on your WordPress website?

Although it’s easy to identify a 502 error, troubleshooting it is not that simple unless you understand what caused it. Read more to discover:

What Is Error 502?

A 502 HTTP status code is a response code that shows your server received an invalid response from an upstream server. Your native Microsoft and Mac browsers, including different browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, will display this error in several ways.

Here are five common examples:

• “502 Bad Gateway”
• “502 service temporarily overloaded”
• “HTTP Error 502 – Bad Gateway”
• “502 Proxy Error”
• “502 bad gateway Cloudflare”

Sometimes, this error may also appear as a blank white screen without an error code displayed. However, the essential thing to look out for is the error code itself, not the text variations around it.

The error code helps you identify and troubleshoot any problems with your website.

Causes of Error 502

Here are some causes for an Error 502 on your WordPress website:

Unresponsive Servers

Sometimes, web servers fail, leading to downtime. It can affect single or multiple websites within one server.

These are often unplanned, and your hosting provider may be unaware of them. Other times, you may have a bad modem, router, or networking equipment. That means your commands won’t reach the server.

Massive Traffic

If your website receives massive traffic, this can overload your server and cause it to throw a 502 bad gateway error. That often happens to websites on shared servers.

Migrations

If you migrate your website from one host to another, propagating your domains to a new host may take time. Before your domain resolves to your new DNS servers, your website may display a 502 error.

Firewalls

Your firewall configuration could cause your website to throw a 502 error. Although not common, that may happen if you configure your firewall improperly. That also happens if your third-party content delivery network (CDN) goes offline.

Corrupted Files and Code

If your active themes and plugins contain corrupt PHP scripts, they can cause your site to break. Also, nulled themes and plugins with malicious code can cause your website to throw an HTTP error 502.

Database Errors

If your database has errors, your website may have problems accessing essential data. Any requests you make for information may return an invalid response error in this case.

How To Fix the 502 Bad Gateway Error on Your WordPress Website

Because of the ambiguous nature of a 502 bad gateway error, you may not have a solution right away. Still, here are some potential actions you can take to resolve this problem:

Check for Server Connection Issues

One major cause of the 502 bad gateway error is server downtime or connection issues. These tend to stem from:

Maintenance and Upgrades

Your hosting provider may take your server down as part of a systemwide upgrade. Whenever this happens, it affects many users at once.

If you’re facing downtime because of server-side maintenance, wait until your host completes that process.

Most hosting providers expedite the process to reduce your risk of loss. They also notify you of upcoming service interruptions by email. Stay up to date with your emails and messages to prepare for downtime beforehand.

System Overloads

Another reason your server may have an internal server error is a server overload. This problem is quite common with shared hosting. If you’re on a shared plan, an uncontrolled process or plugin may use up all your server resources.

If the overload is temporary, the problem usually resolves itself. But if the overload persists, your hosting provider may suspend the problematic user account. Doing so restores the server’s health and prevents other websites from experiencing downtime.

Should your host suspend your account, customer support will contact you with instructions to resolve issues on your website backend. Once you resolve these client-side issues, your host will restore your account.

Check Your Themes and Plugins

Third-party themes and plugins can cause your site to throw a temporary error. Errors are commonly triggered by:

Updates

If you’re using third-party plugins to enhance the functionality of your WordPress site, make sure they stay up to date. Also, ensure that any dependent themes and the WordPress core are up-to-date.

Most times, updates patch vulnerabilities in your core, themes, and plugins. They also enhance and improve all the current features and functionality you enjoy. Failing to update your WordPress assets can cause downtime for your website.

However, complex update issues can also arise after updating plugins.

Developers often enhance their plugins and themes with new features and functionality, meaning updates can also break your site.

To verify if a plugin is causing problems, deactivate it. Here’s how:

1. Access your WordPress backend.

2. From the Dashboard Menu, select Plugins.

3. From the Bulk Actions dropdown menu, select Deactivate.

If the deactivated plugin was responsible for the 502 bad gateway error, following the above steps should restore access to your webpage or site. If not, you can continue to search for the problematic plugin by process of elimination.

To do that, activate one plugin at a time while refreshing your website after each reactivation. If you reactivate a plugin and receive a 502 bad gateway error, it means you found the culprit. From here, keep that plugin deactivated and contact its developers for a solution.

Plugin Conflicts

If two plugins perform the same function, they may clash and cause 502 bad gateway errors. One plugin may attempt to override others, causing other plugins to break. Also, it may cause your custom theme or WordPress core to malfunction.

Here are several ways to resolve this problem:

• To resolve plugin conflicts, you can use the elimination process above to identify and disable them.
• Also, check for error messages on your plugin page or WordPress dashboard. If one core plugin deactivates another, a warning banner appears at the top of your dashboard with recommended fixes.
• Avoid installing over one plugin with similar functionality. Since these plugins compete, they may use up resources or break your website altogether.
• Update a plugin at a time to identify potentially problematic plugins ahead of time.
• Uninstall all unnecessary themes and plugins from your WordPress website.

Nulled Themes and Plugins

Nulled themes and plugins are premium WordPress assets changed or hacked to work without license key activation. Some usually contain malicious code that may harm your website or collect data without your permission.

Most nulled plugins are free or sold at much lower prices and won’t come directly from the developer.

Because of the security threats posed by some nulled WordPress themes and plugins, your website may break and display a 502 bad gateway error. Most nulled assets don’t support updates. Updates override any hacked or modified code and reset the plugin.

If you’re using any nulled themes or plugins, deactivate them. Doing this resolves any server connection issues your website may be facing. If you prefer to continue using these assets, please buy them from their rightful owners.

That gives you access to support services and automatic updates.

Check Your Website Error Logs

You can take advantage of the WordPress debugging system to discover and resolve error messages. Once you access these logs, you can find out what caused your website to fail and throw a 502 bad gateway error.

To access your error logs:

• Use an FTP file manager. You can also use the file manager option inside your Web hosting control panel.
• Navigate to the /wp-content/ folder.
• Select and download the debug.log file.

Once downloaded, open it and read through it for any recent error messages that may explain the 502 bad gateway error. Once you find a specific error, note down its details. The information can help you find a solution across WordPress forums and communities.

DNS Changes

If your domain name cannot resolve to the correct IP address, your DNS server will not respond. That throws a 502 bad gateway error. You’ll often face this challenge if you’ve migrated to a new hosting service. If that’s the case, your domain may not have fully propagated to your new host.

Full propagation usually takes between an hour and 24 hours, so you’ll have to be patient.

If that doesn’t work, you can also temporarily change your DNS servers. Although your internet Service Provider (ISP) automatically allocates DNS servers, you can still use a public DNS server. Google public DNS servers are a great example, and some users prefer them long-term.

You can also clear your server error by clearing out your DNS cache. Cleaning your browser cache also helps.

Firewall Configuration

Your WordPress firewall is your first line of defense from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, malware, and hacks. If your firewall is configured incorrectly, it may interpret traffic from your content delivery network (CDN) as an attack and block it. Such a block can cause your website to throw a 502 bad gateway error.

To troubleshoot this issue:

• You can disable your firewall temporarily.
• If you’re using a third-party CDN, contact them for further help.

Contact Your Host

If all else fails, or you’d rather leave it to an expert, you can give your hosting provider a call. A customer service agent will log your issues, and an expert will address them.

Sometimes, a 502 bad gateway error stems from issues with your hosting partner. If so, they’ll resolve the issue promptly. If the issue is unique to your website, the customer support agent will walk you through a solution.

How To Prevent Future 502 Bad Gateway Errors on your Website

Here are some actions you can take to reduce the risk of future 502 bad gateway errors on your website:

Ensure Your WordPress Core, Themes, and Plugins are Up to Date

Always keep your themes, plugins, and WordPress core up to date. Doing so ensures you keep your website healthy and helps patch vulnerabilities. If your digital assets stay updated, you won’t experience avoidable website breakdowns or error codes.

Always Check Your Site’s Health

Whenever you access your WordPress backend, make sure you check for the health status of your website. This feature gives you information about the configuration of your website and recommends actions you should take to keep your site secure.

By following the recommendations made by the Site Health feature, you’ll keep your site running seamlessly, free of errors.

Never Directly Edit Theme or Plugin Files

Unless you’re an experienced developer or have a clear idea of what you’re doing, never directly edit your theme or plugin files. Adding untested code to your website’s PHP files can break your website entirely, and you may lose access to your backend in certain cases.

Let an Expert Manage Your Website

You can avoid the hassle of fixing errors and other website problems by letting WordPress experts manage your website. Some experts even offer hosting plans to give you a reliable way to avoid hosting-side issues.

Final Thoughts: The 502 Bad Gateway Error and How To Resolve It

Solving a 502 bad gateway error on your website is essential. The longer you stay offline, the more it costs you and your business. If you face this challenge, ensure you solve it fast to minimize the impact.

You can use any of these solutions above to resolve your WordPress website issues. If you still feel stuck, contact your website host and request assistance.

If you would rather have someone else handle the technical aspects of your website as you focus on growing your business, check out Hostdedi’s Fully Managed WordPress Hosting plans today and choose a plan that fits your needs.

This blog was originally published in November 2020. It has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.