Fortunately, digital products offer a great way to earn revenue without any hassle. If you’re looking to monetize your WordPress site, you can start selling downloadable content in a few simple steps.

In this post, we’ll talk about the benefits of selling virtual goods online. Then, we’ll show you how to get started in three easy steps. Let’s dive right in!

The Benefits of Selling Digital Products

There are a lot of benefits to selling downloadable and digital products. For starters, there is much less overhead when dealing with non-physical goods. You don’t have to worry about shipping, handling, or storing them like you would physical items.

Once you have created your digital products, you’ll just need to embed them on your website and set up a payment method. Then, customers can pay for them and download them without delay.

There are many different digital products that you could sell. For example, you might offer online courses through videos. If you have a travel site, you could sell downloadable guides and itineraries:

Meanwhile, graphic designers and photographers can sell their creative work online. If you’re a software developer, you could enable users to purchase your apps or plugins from your site.

No matter your niche and area of expertise, there’s probably a digital product that you can create and sell on your site. Additionally, the process is very simple!

How to Sell Digital Products in WordPress (In 3 Easy Steps)

Fortunately, WordPress makes it very easy to sell products online. Whether you already have a site or want to create one for your digital items, you can get started in three simple steps.

Step 1: Set up WordPress and eCommerce Hosting

First, you’ll need to download WordPress and set up a hosting account. Since you plan on selling digital products, you might want to look for a powerful eCommerce plan.

WP Engine’s managed WooCommerce hosting is easy to set up and comes with tools to help speed up your site:

If you already have an online store, WP Engine will even help you migrate your site to your new hosting account for free. It also offers an Instant Store Search feature to help you make more sales.

If you only plan on selling a few digital products, then a basic WordPress plan may suffice. However, WP Engine’s scalable eCommerce plans are worth considering if you plan to expand your site in the future.

Step 2: Upload Your Digital Products

The Easy Digital Downloads plugin has everything you need to sell digital products on your WordPress site, including payment via Stripe. Just install the plugin from the directory to get started:

Once the plugin is installed, you will notice a new Downloads tab on the left-hand side of your dashboard. Hover over it and select Downloads. Then, click on the Add New button to create your first digital product:

The process is pretty straightforward. Just enter a name for the downloadable item, set your price, and upload your files.

There are some additional settings such as refund terms and download limits that you can adjust. You can also add images. Once you have it all set up, you can publish your product and embed it anywhere on your site using shortcodes.

You’ll also need to set up your payment methods. Go to Downloads > Settings > Payments, and select your preferred payment gateways and methods:

If you navigate to the PayPal and Stripe sections, you can connect your site to those accounts. You can also configure settings for refunds and recurring payments.

Step 3: Add Your Digital Products to Your Pages

Now that you’ve created your digital products, you just need to decide where to put them on your website. When you upload a product with Easy Digital Downloads, the plugin automatically creates a page for it.

You can view your products in Downloads:

To see what your digital product looks like on the front end, hover over it and select View:

You can also add the purchase button to any page on your site, using its shortcode. You can find the code in the settings panel of your digital product page:

Copy the shortcode and paste it anywhere you want on your site. This will create a purchase button for that product:

For instance, you might add it to your homepage or a relevant blog post. All customers have to do is click on the button to add the product to their carts.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to sell downloadable products in WordPress, you can easily monetize your website. Whether you want to create an eCommerce store or make money from your blog, you can save yourself a lot of hassle by choosing digital items over physical ones.

To recap, here’s how to sell virtual goods in WordPress:

1. Set up WordPress and eCommerce hosting.
2. Upload digital products to your site, using the Easy Digital Downloads plugin.
3. Add your products to your pages.

Do you have any questions about selling digital products in WordPress? Let us know in the comments section below!

The post How to Sell Digital Products in WordPress (In 3 Easy Steps) appeared first on Torque.

WordPress has become a popular e-commerce platform, and it offers a number of key benefits for online store owners. We’ll talk about these in more detail later on. In a nutshell, however, the platform is scalable, secure, and flexible enough that it can handle practically any type of e-commerce site.

In this post, we’ll explain each of WordPress’ core benefits for online shops. We’ll also touch on some recent developments within WordPress that make it an even more attractive option. Let’s get started!

Deciding Whether to Jump Aboard the E-Commerce Bandwagon

It’s no secret that e-commerce is big business. Based on current projections, around one-quarter of the globe shops online, which is a very significant customer base. What’s more, those two billion people account for nearly 14% of global retail sales figures. In other words, there’s a lot of business conducted online, which is probably why you’re reading this post in the first place.

However, because there’s so much activity, there are also a lot of businesses vying for attention. E-commerce is a classic case of over-saturation, and it takes a well-planned strategy to cut through the noise and stand out enough to attract customers.

Therefore, if you’re deciding whether to open an e-commerce store, you’ll want to first consider the following:

• You’ll need to be able to invest a significant amount of time and energy in the process. E-commerce is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
• If you deal in ‘impulse’ products, selling online can be especially viable given the rise in mobile browsing.
• Appealing to every one of the two billion people we mentioned earlier isn’t necessary. Instead, targeting a very specific niche is almost always a more effective approach.
• Your customer’s security should be a primary concern, as it’s almost inevitable that your site will be attacked at some point.

If you do decide to take the leap, you’ll want to choose a platform that’s secure and well-optimized on mobile devices (at a minimum). Ideally, you’ll also want a solution that can keep up with a rise in traffic you’ll get once your marketing wheels begin turning. Fortunately, WordPress can do all of that and more.

4 Reasons You Should Choose WordPress for Your E-Commerce Site

While it’s not strictly a dedicated e-commerce platform, WordPress has all of the hallmarks of a suitable solution. Below, we’ll discuss four of the main reasons it’s a smart pick!

1. WordPress Is Highly Scalable and Stable

When we talk about ‘scalability’, we’re referring to how well WordPress adapts to your site’s growth over time. As a full Content Management System (CMS), the platform is robust enough to either stay small or expand to whatever size and scale you need.

Of course, it’s worth noting that your web host has as big a role to play in your site’s scalability as its platform. For example, if you sign up to a small shared hosting plan in order to run a simple blog, it should run smoothly as long as your traffic numbers stay low. However, if your blog receives the dreaded ‘Reddit Hug of Death‘, those guarantees are thrown out the window.

Therefore, what you’ll want to do is combine a high-quality host with a platform that will fit whatever use you put it to. If you take a look at the WordPress Website Showcase, you’ll see that it’s packed with a number of very high-profile sites, such as The Village Voice and TechCrunch. This means that the platform has your back, whatever your goals happen to be.

2. The Platform Offers Rock-Solid Security

Security is vital for any online store, and not just for your own sake. It’s also vital to protect your customers at all costs. Since WordPress houses just about all of the data you’ll need under one roof, malicious users who break their way in can cause a lot of damage.

To illustrate the point, consider the kinds of information the platform will hold once you begin running an e-commerce store. Your database will include customer login credentials, payment information, and other sensitive details. Letting any of that data be compromised would be a disaster for your store and its users. That means your site will need plenty of protection.

Thankfully, WordPress is built from the ground up to be inherently secure. The platform protects you deep down within its core code, and it’s easy to enhance your site’s security even further. For example, you can quickly set up a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate with your host. You can also install security-focused plugins, which we’ll talk more about in the next section.

3. You Can Sidestep the ‘Cookie-Cutter’ Look of Other Platforms

WordPress has definitely had a hand in evolving the design of the internet as a whole. The ‘WordPress look’ was once obvious, and usually meant a big header with navigation, a sidebar full of ‘widgetized content‘, and a blog template focused on readability.

However, the platform has outgrown these early stylistic staples, and can now be thoroughly customized in terms of appearance and layout. This is made simple thanks to the vast number of themes and plugins that are available – many of them completely free. In short, a theme controls the look of your site, while plugins enable additional functionality.

It’s the latter that will serve you particularly well when creating an e-commerce site. For example, WooCommerce is the number one e-commerce plugin, offering immense power and control through a user-friendly interface. There are also a number of security plugins available, such as Wordfence, to help you protect your site even further.

What’s more, the code WordPress is built on is very developer-friendly. This means you can create or commission a custom design to meet your exact requirements. Plus, there are a multitude of ‘page builder’ plugins – drag-and-drop tools that let you slot the elements you need onto the page, and create your site without the need to know anything about code.

In fact, WordPress has just recently introduced its own native Block Editor, which offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to your content’s layout and features. Some plugins, such as the aforementioned WooCommerce, also offer ‘blocks’ for this editor, meaning that you can create highly-customized product pages with ease.

4. WordPress Is an Affordable Point of Entry

When you’re starting a new e-commerce store, you’re likely working with a minimal (or non-existent) budget. Fortunately, this platform is a very cost-effective solution. While running a shop based on WordPress isn’t completely free, you’ll need to spend a lot less than you would with many competing platforms.

Let’s check out the bare minimum requirements for setting up a website:

• A domain: Around $10–12 per year.
• Web hosting: This can vary, but around $30/month.
• WordPress: The platform itself won’t cost you a cent, as it’s free to download and use.

That’s all you need to get your e-commerce website off the ground. Of course, there are other options you can spend some money on. If you want to bolster your security with further protection, for example, that may bump up the cost. You might also want to look into some premium e-commerce plugins, and consider picking up a dedicated e-commerce theme.

If you’d like to outsource the development of your site, that’s likely to push the cost up quite a bit. Unless you’re looking to do something particularly ambitious, however, chances are you can handle everything you need without outside help.

Conclusion

When it comes to e-commerce, WordPress is king. While there are plenty of dedicated platforms for selling your products, few can offer the same level of power, protection, and personalization. What’s more, with the free WooCommerce plugin you’ll have no excuses for creating a store that’s anything less than stellar.

To recap, the four primary benefits of WordPress as an e-commerce platform are:

1. WordPress offers almost unlimited scalability and stability, and powers some of the largest sites on the web.
2. Security is at the forefront of the platform and can be enhanced further with the right tools.
3. There are thousands of themes and plugins that offer a unique look and custom functionality based on your requirements.
4. The platform is a cost-effective solution, and you can get your store off the ground for a very minimal investment.

Do you have any questions about how to get started building your WordPress e-commerce site? Let us know in the comments section below!

Image credit: Foundry.

The post 4 Reasons You Should Choose WordPress for Your E-Commerce Site appeared first on Torque.

REST APIs enable developers to interact with data in a number of meaningful ways, without being restricted to a front-end interface. By getting to know WooCommerce’s REST API, you’ll also have a complete ecommerce platform to work from in any external application you may build. It can be a bit overwhelming at first but is well worth the payoff for your future projects.

In this article, we will introduce you to REST APIs and discuss why they are so important. Then, we will walk you through three steps to help you become familiar with WooCommerce’s specific REST API and potential. Let’s get started!

What REST APIs Are (And Why They Matter)

REST APIs provide interoperability between completely different online solutions. In other words, you can have a lot of data stored in a program such as WordPress, and interact with that same data in a totally separate application (such as native mobile or desktop).

You previously had to spend thousands of dollars developing custom APIs for edge-case scenarios. Now, a REST API is included in every up-to-date installation of WordPress, and developers can freely experiment with new applications of it every single day. Not only is this great news for the creative developer, but readily available REST APIs are a powerful asset for businesses too. Integrated niche-specific software, compatibility with legacy solutions, and even connectivity to wearables are no longer out of reach!

Here are a few simple and practical examples of how to integrate REST API solutions into existing platforms:

1. Decouple your data from its WordPress interface and build native apps with React Native.
2. Syndicate content from multiple sites. This is particularly effective if your businesses manage a big network.
3. Use the REST API to speed up production times by automating data synchronization, as Wired did when they launched their new site.
4. Build apps that enable users to manage their profiles and content, much like Calypso does for WordPress users.

Now you’ve gotten a taste of what is possible for your average, run of the mill WordPress site, imagine what is possible for your full-fledged e-commerce store. WooCommerce adds extensive custom additions to the WordPress API, giving you access to all of your e-commerce data on top of regular posts and pages.

How to Get Started With the WooCommerce REST API (In 3 Steps)

In the next few steps, you’ll learn how to authenticate and access the REST API from the command line interface. The final language you use to interact with the REST API will (of course) depend on the application you’re building.

Step 1: Prepare Your WooCommerce Installation for the REST API

To access WooCommerce’s data, you first need to prove to WooCommerce that you have permission. This is called ‘authentication,’ and it uses specially generated API keys to authorize the user. They work in two steps:

1. WooCommerce creates two secret random strings of characters, called the Consumer Key and Secret Key.
2. You use them in your REST API calls, proving your identity.

Before getting started, you’ll need to get one of those key sets. First, navigate to your WordPress dashboard and enable the REST API options under WooCommerce > Settings > API. Make sure the Enable the REST API checkbox is selected, and save your changes:

Next, select Keys/Apps so you can generate a unique API key that will serve as the secret password when connecting to the REST API. Click the Create an API Key button, and follow the prompts to give yourself access to your data:

Click Generate API Key to complete the process. Save the resulting keys somewhere safe! You’ll need them to follow the rest of the steps.

Step 2: Use the WooCommerce REST API Documentation to Learn About Its Inner Workings

Every application using the REST API is unique and requires different calls. Rather than learning every single REST API endpoint, you can use the dedicated documentation to find what you need in any given situation. This will also help you keep up as the API receives updates.

It’s important to read through the introduction to become familiar with the standards. Here are a few highlights to note:

1. Check the Requirements section to make sure you have the correct versions of WooCommerce and WordPress.
2. Get familiar with JSON and JSONP, the primary method of data transfer.
3. Learn the error codes to debug issues faster.
4. Use the provided tools and resources for even easier integration.

Using the documentation, you can see how easy it is to get different information from your installation. Let’s try looking at all of our products using the API. Enter the following into the command line interface to get a JSON formatted list of products:

curl https://example.com/wp-json/wc/v2/products/ -u your_consumer_key:your_consumer_secret

To create a new product, you’ll add the POST command with a few extra parameters about your new product:

curl -X POST https://example.com/wp-json/wc/v2/products \
    -u your_consumer_key:your_consumer_secret \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{
  "name": "My New Product",
  "type": "simple",
  "regular_price": "99.99",
  "description": "Example long description.",
  "short_description": "Short description.",
  "categories": [
    {
      "id": 22
    },
    {
      "id": 18
    }
  ],
  "images": [
    {
      "src": "http://example.com/woocommerce/wp-content/uploads/sites/56/2017/06/rest-api-product.jpg",
      "position": 0
    },
    {
      "src": "http://example.com/woocommerce/wp-content/uploads/sites/56/2017/06/rest-api-product-2.jpg",
      "position": 1
    }
  ]
}'

Try setting up a demo WooCommerce site to practice with, and use the terminal to interact with it until you’re comfortable with the various commands. Try viewing, creating, and modifying your store’s products, orders, and customers.

Once you understand how to pull and create data using the REST API with authentication, you can use the native programming language of your new application to do the same. To help you along, the documentation provides code examples for Node.js and PHP.

Step 3: Integrate the REST API Within Other Applications

The REST API also enables you to interact using platforms otherwise unrelated to WordPress and WooCommerce, which is a key part of its power and appeal. The exact steps you need to take will depend on the platform you’re building and the features you’d like to integrate. To give you some ideas, let’s tweak some of the examples we covered earlier and imagine they were made for WooCommerce instead of a regular WordPress site:

1. Build a native mobile shopping app using React Native, customized to meet your users’ shopping habits.
2. Syndicate products from multiple WooCommerce sites in one convenient catalog.
3. Test a beta version of your shopping site while keeping the data synced, so you don’t lose sales information.
4. Build web and desktop applications where users can easily manage their accounts and past orders.

These examples should be more than enough to help you brainstorm new creative solutions, and by now, you should have a clear idea of just what is possible with the REST API. Once you’ve chosen a new project idea or found a useful place to integrate WooCommerce into an existing external application, all that’s left is to plan the project and begin building.

Conclusion

WooCommerce is a popular solution for ecommerce, in part because it offers a complete REST API to help you develop powerful solutions. Learning how to use it will help you build more robust and full-featured external apps for your clients.

In this article, we’ve introduced you to the power of the WooCommerce REST API, and helped familiarize you with three important things:

1. Preparing a WooCommerce installation for REST API authorization.
2. Reading and learning from the developer documentation.
3. Integrating the REST API into external applications.

What questions do you have about developing with the WooCommerce REST API? Ask your questions in the comments section below!

Image Credit: Clark Young.

The post The Beginner’s Guide to the WooCommerce REST API appeared first on Torque.

As with WordPress, there are two ways to build your own solutions for WooCommerce. You can build custom store themes, or extend its ecommerce capabilities with plugins – and WooCommerce provides in-depth documentation to help you along the way. To keep up with the growing platform while producing custom solutions, you’ll need to stay attentive to coding standards and updates.

In this article, we’ll introduce you to four best practices for developing high-caliber WooCommerce solutions. By the end, you should feel ready to take your first steps towards becoming a superstar WooCommerce developer. Let’s get started!

1. Use WooCommerce Hooks Wherever Possible

WordPress hooks enable you to manipulate or override code written elsewhere in the platform. This functionality comes in handy for themes and plugins, as it enables you to create custom output without needing to hack into the core code. Hooks are divided into actions and filters: actions can essentially help you to carry out any custom functionality, while filters simply modify existing content.

WooCommerce extends this concept by making generous use of custom hooks to simplify the customization process. These hooks are made available so you can consistently modify WooCommerce’s output when using themes and plugins across multiple unique installations.

Simply put, actions and filters are one of the secret ingredients that make WordPress so extensible! By also letting you manipulate registered hooks later on in the process, WooCommerce is nearly as customizable and flexible as its parent platform, WordPress.

For example, if you wanted to add a Font Awesome shopping icon in front of every WooCommerce-related page title, you could use the woocommerce_page_title filter:

function my_project_woocommerce_title_icon( $page_title ) {
    return '<i class="fa fa-shopping-cart"></i> ' . $page_title;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_page_title', 'my_project_woocommerce_title_icon' );

Naturally, the most useful hooks will depend on the nature of your project and what content needs to be manipulated. When working on a WooCommerce project, always check the full WooCommerce actions and filters list before attempting to code an entire custom solution from scratch. The modification you want to make may be easier than you think!

2. Base Custom Themes on Provided Templates

WooCommerce themes work much like other niche solutions, only with additional templates. Before developing or customizing a WooCommerce-specific theme, you should feel confident about how the overall process works. If you’re not sure, it’s a good idea to start with the regular WordPress theme documentation.

Each theme relies on a template hierarchy, and it’s a fairly straightforward process. In short, each type of page in WordPress looks for the most specific version of itself available. For example, you might have a default page.php, alongside a more targeted page-contact.php. The page with the contact slug will automatically load the latter, while all other pages will fall back on the default.

WooCommerce introduces its own custom templates and structure, readily available for referencing. Once you find the template you want, you have two options for editing:

1. Copy and paste the provided template into your own theme for modification. Each template shows you where you need to place the file in your theme, with a message such as “This template can be overridden by copying it to yourtheme/woocommerce/single-product.php.”
2. You can reference the provided hooks on the template to modify the output without creating additional theme files. This takes us back to our first recommendation: use the hooks!

These templates save you a lot of guesswork when coding custom WooCommerce themes. As you can see in the screenshot, once you’ve found the template, simply hook the appropriate action or filter, and customize the page to your needs. If a page needs more complex customization, you can create a new template for it in your theme.

Finally, if you’ve never tried WooCommerce theming before, try out a WooCommerce theming tutorial or two before attempting to do it on your own.

3. Become Familiar With the REST API

WordPress offers a built-in REST API, which WooCommerce extends with custom endpoints to offer access to products, orders, and more. In other words, you have full remote access to your WooCommerce data through JSON objects. Any WordPress project built using the REST API can have e-commerce functionality added with WooCommerce’s expanded version of the REST API.

There are a number of useful ways to benefit from the REST API within existing projects, including:

1. Decoupling content from its interface, allowing for any number of separate apps and websites.
2. Syndicating content and data from multiple sources.
3. Synchronizing data between multiple sites.
4. Offering site interaction, such as purchases, through mobile applications.

If you’re brand new to these concepts, we recommend becoming familiar with them by following a simple tutorial. You can try building a custom admin settings page using only the REST API. Once you are comfortable working with the REST API, you can begin digging into WooCommerce’s specific features.

To give you a real-world example of how useful the REST API can be, check out the Ionic WooCommerce API. This project builds a native iOS and Android mobile app for your store, and it works by connecting the Ionic Framework to your WooCommerce shopping cart through the REST API.

You can use existing solutions such as the Ionic WooCommerce API for clients, or build your own custom apps for external use, all thanks to the WooCommerce REST API. Having access to the WooCommerce infrastructure in an API frees you from the limitations of the WordPress front end and admin interface. You can learn more about the WooCommerce REST API by reading the full documentation.

4. Follow the WooCommerce Core Development Team

WooCommerce is an open-source plugin backed by Automattic. As such, a large amount of well-organized content is published about both its direction and recent updates. To truly supercharge your WooCommerce development, you’ll want to have your finger on the pulse of the project.

By following conversations around core development, you’ll be aware of major changes in each version. What’s more, you’ll gain insight into how others work with the WooCommerce platform. Since the code is open-source, you have the opportunity to benefit from the code review process and also learn good coding habits through observation.

Becoming a part of the community is easy: you can simply join the WooCommerce Slack team to hop in on relevant conversations. Try to join any regularly scheduled meetings, and even try to research and answer other beginners’ questions. You can learn a lot by attempting to teach others!

Additionally, be sure to keep up with the WooCommerce development blog. There, you’ll find detailed updates on changes within the project. Keep an eye out for updated functions, completely reworked approaches, and deprecated features. To stay ahead of the curve, look for beta release announcements, which will give you the chance to test your themes and plugins against new versions of WooCommerce before they are publicly released.

Conclusion

WooCommerce is a popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress, with a bright future given its owners. As it continues its ascent skyward, staying up-to-date with the plugin’s development will enable you to develop quality solutions, and better serve your clients’ e-commerce needs.

In this article, we’ve shown you four best practices for supercharging your WooCommerce development:

1. Use WooCommerce hooks wherever possible in your plugins and themes.
2. Base custom themes on provided WooCommerce templates.
3. Become familiar with the REST API for use in future projects.
4. Follow the WooCommerce core development team for important updates.

What questions do you have about WooCommerce development? Ask away in the comments section below!

Image credit: Dan.

The post 4 Best Practices to Supercharge Your WooCommerce Development appeared first on Torque.

Rather than simple chance, there’s likely some definite reasons why your products aren’t selling – perhaps it’s because your initial marketing strategies are off, or your website’s design lacks accessibility. Whatever the reason may be, the fact of the matter is that nobody’s buying from your new WooCommerce site, and it needs to be sorted – pronto!

In this post, we’ll cover four key reasons your products aren’t selling, and suggest the actions you can take to fix them. By the time you’re done, you’ll be in a better position to boost conversion rates and see your new WooCommerce site generate revenue.

Let’s get started!

1. You’re Targeting the Wrong Market

Your fledgling store’s sales are going to suffer if the right people aren’t seeing your products. It may be because your copy, marketing techniques, promotions, or all three aren’t resonating with the visitors who have begun to land on your site. Simply put, you can’t launch an online store, tack on some products, and expect to make sales right off the bat.

Also, remember that you can’t sell to everyone. Identifying and understanding your target market, therefore, is vital – although this really should have been done before the launch. To rectify it, you’ll want to rework your marketing strategies and develop a plan your target market will respond to and relate with. Online marketers who don’t have a targeted marketing campaign generally end up with a generic sales pitch that doesn’t convert.

To get started on your own site, you need to ask yourself two simple questions:

1. What are you selling?
2. Who is going to buy your product?

Once you’ve answered the preliminary questions, look to find some people who fit into your target market, and have them evaluate your site’s design and user experience. You might be surprised to find yourself having to make some early design modifications, and reworking your initial sales copy.

2. You’re Not Marketing Your Products Correctly

It’s a complete fallacy that a good product markets itself. No matter how good your product is or how large of a social media following you have, you’re going to need to put in some marketing efforts to sell it. As a new store owner, you’re also going to have to tackle elements such as designing catchy marketing campaigns and sales pitches to build brand awareness.

The first way to go about this is easier said than done: convince your target market that your product is amazing. To put this into practice, create some example user personas that relate with your potential customers, and figure out why they should buy your product. Begin to ask questions about their personalities – for example:

1. How will it improve their lifestyle?
2. How can this product or service make them happy?
3. What do they need from you in order to purchase it?

This will also require you to form a sales pitch that’s personalized for your target market. Look to understand the sales language your customers respond to, and try out different campaign messages to see which one converts the most. A/B testing your sales copy, utilizing strong calls to action, and implementing landing pages are all great ways to take a first step in the right direction.

3. Your Sales Copy Is Too Direct

Sales copy that’s too direct from the get-go arguably isn’t the best way to market your product to potential customers. Instead, the brighter path is to make sure it delivers value to your customers. Giving your target market a reason to buy your product through a more diversified approach will definitely help boost your sales.

That said, there are times when a more direct approach is not only advised, but necessary. For instance, if you’re retargeting customers who’ve bounced off your website, a pushy sales pitch will be more effective in bringing them back to your site for two reasons – it’s both concise and direct.

One way to get the ball rolling is to develop a content plan for your online store. Instead of filling up your site’s web pages with promotional offers and catchy sales pitches, write up blog posts relevant to your industry that deliver value to the reader. Then, when it’s time to roll out a new product, you can look to divert back to your standard direct marketing approach.

4. Your Products Aren’t Accessible

Sometimes the biggest problem your new WooCommerce store faces is not a marketing issue at all, but a technical one. It may be because your website has a poor design that compromises the customer’s user experience, or lacks responsiveness. This is especially pertinent if you’ve got out of the blocks quickly to take advantage of the market.

One major indicator of this problem is a high bounce rate. This figure is trying to tell you that you’ve managed to get people to your site, but for one reason or another they’re hitting the back button. In short, if your products are hidden away and inaccessible, you’re not going to make a lot of sales. To rectify this, you’ll need to think again about undertaking a complete redesign of your website – this time ensuring your products are at the forefront.

This is where heat maps can be a godsend. They enable online store owners to observe user behavior on their site, and identify what causes them to bounce off without making a purchase. Furthermore, you can also split test your site’s navigation and layout, and look into user flow mapping in order to start revamping your site’s design. Above all, keep in mind that you’re designing for conversions first and foremost.

Conclusion

If your new WooCommerce store is lacking in sales, the fault might not be in your products but in the way you’re presenting them. Ultimately, the way you market your products to potential customers is absolutely vital, and if your site isn’t converting as you’d like out of the gate, it’s time to get to work.

Let’s quickly recap what you need in order to make sure your WooCommerce site starts pushing products off of its virtual shelves:

1. Target the right market.
2. Market your products correctly.
3. Publish content that delivers value.
4. Make sure your products are accessible.

Have you faced problems in increasing your new WooCommerce store’s sales? Get in touch via the comments section below and let us know!

Image credit: JuralMin.

The post 4 Reasons Nobody’s Buying On Your New WooCommerce Site appeared first on Torque.

Doc Pop’s News Drop

Google announced their plans to lower search rankings for websites that use intrusive (aka “pop-up”) ads.

Love WordPress news, but hate reading? This is Doc Pop’s News Drop.

Oh hey, look we’ve got a pop-up now. That’s cool. It’s for our Torque newsletter, y’all should sign up, but I’m going to close that now.

Speaking of ads, Google announced they’ll start punishing sites that feature intrusive pop-ups by displaying them lower in search results. Considering Google.com is the major web portal that most folks use for discovery, this is basically just Google way of using their massive influence to enforce their idea of what a website should look like.

Meanwhile, Google Adwords is launching new features such as showing pop-up ads to mobile users. Pop-ups are a great way to small sites get readers to transition to newsletters and if a site wants to [giant pop-up appears again] oh, look there’s another pop-up. It’s says to watch the show, but y’all are already watching the show, so… that’s weird. I can’t find the x button here.. how do I even close this thing? Ugh. I’m going to install an ad-blocker.

In other news,WPKrampus is looking for a host for 2017. I’m not sure why anyone would want to host a Krampus. He seems like a pretty intense guy/devil/goat thing from German from folklore. (Campus) What? (It’s WPCampus, like a college campus.) Wait a minute… (Goes off screen)

Turns out WPCampus, the successful university based WordPress conference is looking for a 2017 location, and I have to say I’m relieved. The team is looking for a campus or educational institution. Deadline is midnight PST on October 28th.

That’s it for this week’s News Drop, be sure to visit torquemag.io where you can sign up for our weekly newslwetter

[pop-up appears again]

Okay, you know what, I literally just told them that.

The post Doc Pop’s WordPress News Drop: Google puts a stop to pop-ups appeared first on Torque.

Doc Pop’s News Drop

This week Doc talks about NASA’s recent post explaining all the reasons they love WordPress and use it for their own site.

Love WordPress news, but hate reading? This is Doc Pop’s News Drop.

The US government is one of the largest purchasers of code in the world, so it’s great to see more and more federal agencies like NASA and the White House adopting open source platforms.

Last week, NASA published a piece about why they choose to use WordPress to power NASA.gov If you Saturn your attention to the screen behind me, you can see they included automatic RSS feeds, SEO optimization, low cost, and low maintenance. Not to mention, the existing support through Plugins and themes is out of this world. If your Curiosity is piqued, you should explore their stellar “about” page for more info.

Kudos to the NASA team. Their post is a breath of fresh air. You don’t need a telescope to see that WordPress is really taking off. They don’t write many open source posts, but when they do, they really Rocket. I bet they have some strong opinions about JetPack though…

In the future we may even see a WordCamp Mars, but I’m worried it just might not have the same atmosphere. The developers for NASA could keynote it though, they’d be treated like stars.

While we wanted to actually visit NASA headquarters and ask them about this in person, the cost was astronomical. We could easily rant more about that, but this probably isn’t the right space.

If you loved this week’s space puns, be sure to leave a comet below.

For the latest in WordPress news you can Laika us on Facebook, or Rover on over to our Twitter page. Be sure to Neptune in next week for more WordPress news.

The post Doc Pop’s WordPress News Drop: NASA’s WordPress Site Is Out Of This World appeared first on Torque.

Doc Pop’s News Drop

This week Doc talks about the new notifications feature on WordPress.com WordPress release leads in 2017 and WordSesh.

Love WordPress news, but hate reading? This is Doc Pop’s News Drop.

Are you one of those folks whose phone is constantly vibrating from nonstop Facebook and Instagram notifications? Then you’ll love WordPress.com’s newest feature. Last week WordPress.com launched instant notifications for new comments and likes, even when you aren’t using WordPress.com. You already could receive notifications via email, but if you are using Chrome or Firefox, you can get these notifications anytime. Even if you are trying to get work done. You know what, I’m going to turn this off.

This Saturday is the fourth annual WordSesh! This will be a free and live streamed 24 hour WordPress conference. Speakers include Pippin Williamson, and friend of the show, JJJ.

In fact, he stopped by to talk about it. “WordSesh is awesome! You should do it.”

To attend, all you’ll need is a computer and an okay Internet connection. I participated in a roundtable WordPress news discussion with Brad Williams and Brian Krosgard at WordSesh 2014 and it was a blast. Humblebrag.

For the latest in WordPress news you can follow @thetorquemag on Twitter. We’ll see you next week.

The post Doc Pop’s WordPress News Drop: WordPress Notifications appeared first on Torque.

Doc Pop’s News Drop

This week Doc talks about the hunt for new WordPress release leads in 2017 and recaps our short interview with Joost de Valk from Yoast SEO.

WordPress.org on the hunt for release leads for 2017. With 4.6 shipping in just a week and Helen Hou-Sandi leading the release for 4.7 in December, the WordPress foundation is looking for some fresh blood to come and lead the next few releases. Although I imagine it couldn’t hurt, it’s worth noting that leads are not required to be developers.

If your district would like to submit a volunteer as tribute, you reach out to Aaron Jorbin or Helen via the WordPress slack.

Yoast de Valk, from Yoast SEO, lives in the Netherlands, but is vacationing in California this month with his family. We were lucky enough to catch him at a WordPress SF meetup last week and shot a quick interview with him about current trends and best practices for Copywriting and SEO. Here’s my favorite clip. Head over to Torque mag to see the rest of the interview and hear Yoast’s tips for writing copy to accompany videos like this one.

That’s it for this week’s News Drop. We’ll be at WordCamp Nashville on September 17th and hope to see you there. For the latest in WordPress news you can follow @thetorquemag on Twitter. We’ll see you next week.

The post Doc Pop’s WordPress News Drop: Looking for WordPress Release Leads appeared first on Torque.

Doc Pop’s News Drop

This week Doc talks about the new Square Payments integration for WooCommerce and how it can help small businesses.

The post Doc Pop’s WordPress News Drop: WooCommerce adds Square Payments appeared first on Torque.