Even a slight delay can be enough for potential customers to click away in search of a better alternative. With this in mind, it’s vital that your WooCommerce store is fast, responsive, and fully optimized for easy navigation.

In this article, we’re going to explore how to optimize your WooCommerce store. These help to maximize your chances of conversion and turbocharge your store for quick and reliable performance.

These easy-to-implement tips range from choosing the right theme to streamlining your plugins and cleaning up your WooCommerce database.

How Does Website Speed Affect Conversions? 

But first, let’s look a little deeper into why speed matters when it comes to your WooCommerce store. We’ll learn how to measure your site’s current performance as every second is important for keeping visitors’ attention at your WooCommerce store.

Slow loading times increase your bounce rate, with each additional second bumping your bounce rate percentage up. Bounce rates are important because they indicate the percentage of visits in which users viewed only a single page before clicking away.

If bounce rates are high, search engines will lower your rankings. They are a strong indication that your website performance is poor or your content is not useful.

This matters because a low search engine ranking means that fewer visitors will find their way to your store in the future.

Ideally, you want to keep your WooCommerce store loading times no longer than around the two-second mark—that’s where bounce rates begin to increase exponentially. Research has found that one out of every four visitors abandons a website that takes more than four seconds to load.

What’s worse is that if potential customers have a disappointing experience with your store, they are unlikely to ever return again. 

Website speed becomes even more important on important eCommerce holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With competition at its highest and a whole range of tempting offers to choose from, customers are even less likely to stick around on clunky and inefficient websites in this crucial period.

Always make sure that your WooCommerce store is fully optimized before the holidays to maximize your conversions and gain an edge over the competition.

How to Measure the Performance of Your WooCommerce Store

So how to check the performance of your WooCommerce store? And how to measure if your adjustments are having the desired effects?

The next step is measuring the performance of your WooCommerce store. When you’re trying to check the performance or measure if any adjustments made are working out, you can turn to website speed tests. An example of such a site is Pingdom.

This free performance testing tool is one of the most popular among WooCommerce store owners. It’s often given praise for its ease of use and simple, graded results.

Pingdom also gives actionable insights on the areas that can be improved for faster speeds, making it easy for you to identify your problem points.

To test things like WordPress Plugins, themes, and other functions, use Query Monitor.

Query Monitor helps to quickly identify problematic plugins, as well as any themes or functions that are not compatible with each other.

It also enables:

• Debugging of database queries
• PHP errors, hooks, and actions
• Block editor blocks
• Enqueued scripts and stylesheets
• HTTP API calls
• And more

Query Monitor is free and saves time that you’d otherwise spend manually uninstalling and updating plugins while trying to search for the culprit.

The kind of technical information that Pingdom and Query Monitor provide is useful as it provides clear and actionable data on how to improve to boost site performance.

However, be careful not to rely on numbers alone—the actual user experience is far more important than your performance score. Always test the usability of your site by visiting it frequently yourself and don’t be afraid to ask for the opinion of other visitors too.

How to Optimize Your WooCommerce Store

We’ve gained some insights on how to measure your store’s performance—now we need to address improving it.

Naturally, there are quick and simple methods you can utilize to improve your conversions. For example, implementing cart abandonment measures that reach out to customers leaving your site early.

While this optimizes your customer’s journey and experience, there are other ways you can optimize your store in general. Let’s check out a few easy and effective tips that you can implement immediately.

Check Your WooCommerce Settings

The most obvious place to start is by ensuring that your WooCommerce settings are properly adjusted to the needs of your store.

A few effective changes you can implement here include:

• Disable pingbacks: Pingbacks are unique, automated comments that are created when you link to another blog post. While linking to other sites can be somewhat beneficial to your SEO, pingbacks are often abused by spammers and only serve to clutter your site with low-quality links and unnecessary queries that slow down your site.
  
  
• Limit the blog post’s number on your feed: Keep the blog posts on your feed down to a reasonable number. For example, 10—just like this article. While it might seem a small detail, fewer blogs to load leads to faster loading times. These kinds of small tweaks can add up to the better overall performance.
  
  
• Change login page URL: WordPress provides a site login URL by default, which is domain.com/wp-admin/. Bots, spammers, and other shady characters know this, so it’s a good idea to change it to avoid attacks.

Explore your WooCommerce settings and set limits for any unnecessary features that might slow down your loading times. As well as blog posts and pingbacks, you can also consider implementing limitations on your site. For example, how many reviews and images do you choose to display on your pages? 

Don’t Go Overboard With Plugins

There are thousands of WordPress plugins to choose from. Many of these are useful, which is why many WooCommerce merchants load up on plugins as the answer to all their store’s problems.

However, not all plugins are created with the same quality and compatibility. Some can cause problems and affect your store’s performance.

The more plugins you install, the more likely you’ll see conflicts arise. More plugins make it difficult to keep an eye on their functionality and whether they need any updates.

Think carefully when choosing plugins for a clear and specific purpose. Research plugins thoroughly beforehand and ensure that the benefits outweigh any potential negatives.

One way to lessen compatibility issues is by utilizing WooCommerce Extensions. These are tailor-made for your eCommerce store and are much more likely to work seamlessly together.

There are many different extensions for virtually every need. This includes:

• Marketing automation
• Shipping
• Inventory
• Analytics

These allow you the freedom to select the areas of added functionality that best fit the needs of your business.

Compress Your Images

High-quality images are vital for any ecommerce site that you should not compromise on. However, images are also your site’s largest element in terms of data. This means they drastically affect your performance if they aren’t properly optimized.

Start by choosing your images carefully, including only those that serve a clear purpose. When you’ve done this, reduce the file size of your chosen images using a tool such as Imagify, Optimole, or Shortpixel. These handy plugins compress your images without sacrificing too much in terms of quality.

WP Rocket is another handy option, especially if your site requires a lot of images. It allows you to introduce lazy loading, meaning that an image will only load when the user scrolls down to it, rather than downloading them all at once upon opening. This will make your initial loading time much shorter, as your site only needs to load the images at the top of the page.

A quick checklist for image optimization includes:

• Choose your images in the correct format (JPEG, PNG, etc)
• Compress your images using suggested plugins
• Make sure your images are responsive to fit mobile devices
• Use lazy loading on images that require scrolling to reach

Choose the Right WooCommerce Theme

There are thousands of different themes to choose from. It’s tough to settle on the one that best represents your personal taste and the character of your store.

Looks can also be deceiving—your chosen theme might look great, but it may come with several negatives. For example, it might come packaged with unnecessary functions and features that dramatically affect the speed and performance of your site.

The key is to choose a theme that looks great and fulfills your particular business needs, yet is lean and fast enough to keep your loading times down.

To help you make your choice, check out the 10 fastest WooCommerce WordPress themes in 2021 as tested by WP Rocket. Start by listing all of the features that you need for your store (multiple languages, one-click checkout, quick view functionality, etc.) and choose a fast theme that best meets your requirements.

These fast themes are flexible in terms of design, so you should have no problem customizing them to an aesthetic of your choosing.

If you can settle on a fast, reliable, and suitable theme from the very beginning of your eCommerce journey, you’ll avoid many of the most common website performance issues and will drastically cut down on the number of plugins you’ll need to install in the future.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

We’ve looked at some pretty useful ways to directly optimize your store so far, but none of these things solve the problem of distance. If you’re based in the UK and someone is opening your page in Australia, there’s always going to be some performance lag.

This issue can be solved by delivering from a server that’s closer to the user’s location. That’s why it’s useful to invest in a WordPress CDN.

WordPress CDN is a global network of servers that can cache and deliver resources wherever your customers are located. This includes images and JavaScript for faster loading times.

A CDN automatically determines the closest server to the user’s location and delivers your site’s content from there. This results in decreased loading times of up to 50%.

It’s generally better to choose a CDN with a wide variety of server locations spread evenly across the world, especially if your store caters to an international audience. StackPath is a fast and popular CDN that has servers across the world, including:

• The United States and Canada
• Australia
• Spain
• France
• England
• Germany
• Poland
• Belgium
• Sweden
• Italy
• The Netherlands
• Singapore
• Hong Kong
• Japan
• South Korea
• The Philippines
• Brazil

Investing in a CDN is essential for global eCommerce businesses. It helps deliver a fast, consistent experience for their customers—no matter where in the world they are located. However, if you have a very localized audience, your optimization efforts would be better directed elsewhere.

Cache Your WooCommerce Store’s Resources

You can temporarily store pages on your site that look the same to all users on the server or user’s device for quicker loading on the next visit. For example, with similar-looking product pages.

This is known as ‘caching’ and is one of the easiest and most effective ways to speed up your WooCommerce store.

Caching essentially reduces the amount of work that WordPress has to do every time someone browses certain static pages on your site. In fact, frequently visited pages with no dynamic content can be loaded almost instantaneously when they have been effectively cached, drastically improving the browsing experience for the user. 

You should try to use caching as much as possible on your WooCommerce store. It helps with load speeds and reduces the strain on your web server. Some hosting providers and CDNs provide caching capabilities, which automatically implement bytecode cache, object cache, and page cache at the server level.

However, if your hosting provider doesn’t handle caching, you’ll need to find third-party solutions in the form of plugins. Cache Enabler is an excellent free option for those on a budget, providing reliable and fast caching for a full range of image formats and with easy-to-use settings. For more advanced options, WP Rocket is again a premium service, but it does come with a price.  

Optimize For Mobile Users

With more than half of all internet traffic now shopping from mobile devices, it’s surprising to find (and annoying for consumers) that many eCommerce retailers have still not optimized their websites for mobile users. 

Check that your store is mobile-friendly by entering your URL into Google’s mobile-friendly test tool. This enables you to see your site as a mobile user would and will list any inconsistencies or issues that you might have. This is the ideal place to start when optimizing your store for mobile devices, in addition to exploring your store with your own mobile device.

A few tips to streamline your store for mobile users include:

• Choosing the right theme: Not only should your theme be fast, lean, and look great, but it should be responsive for mobile devices too. Take this into consideration when choosing your theme.
  
  
• Keep pages simple: Endless scrolling to find a product isn’t fun, so keep your pages as simple as possible. You can include an easy search function to help customers quickly find what they need.
  
  
• Make checkout an easy process: Checkout on mobile devices can be difficult if there are too many fields to enter, so eliminate steps where possible. Consider adding WooCommerce extensions such as WooCommerce Social Login and One Page Checkout to simplify the process.

Regularly Update Your Store and Plugins

Both WooCommerce and WordPress receive regular updates that improve speed and security, as well as all kinds of useful features. Keep an eye out for these updates and make sure that you install them when they become available. This is an easy and effective way to improve the performance of your site.

Your theme, extensions, and plugins will also receive updates from time to time, so keep on top of these too. If you find that one of these third-party additions to your store has become obsolete and is no longer supported by its developers, make sure you properly uninstall it and find a suitable replacement.

That being said, we’ve all had experiences with updates that were buggy, slow, or less useful than what came before. With this in mind, it’s useful to check out some reviews on WordPress forums first. This is especially true if you rely heavily on third-party plugins—it only takes one malfunctioning or incompatible element to disrupt your entire site.

Remember to keep a recent backup close at hand—just in case something goes wrong with your updates.

Keep Your Database Clean

Your WooCommerce database is growing all the time. It includes things like order history, user account data, product information, and much more. If you leave your database unchecked, all of this information can quickly begin to affect the performance of your site.

Manually removing certain aspects of your database is time-consuming and risky—you could quite easily delete vital information and cause all kinds of problems for your store. Fortunately, there are some handy database optimization plugins that can do the job for you, keeping your database lean and efficient by safely removing unnecessary clutter.

Check out WP Sweep and WP Optimize for database optimization, these are both great options that deliver results quickly and easily.

WP Sweep is the simpler of the two. It’s a smaller plugin that is focused only on cleaning your database. WP Sweep focuses on old revisions, expired transients, and database tables, as well as disabling non-essential features that can slow down your store’s performance.

WP-Optimize also offers these cleaning services as well as a few other optimization features. These include regular scheduling and more granular control of which items you’d like to remove. 

Invest in Quality Hosting

You can optimize everything from your side, but things can still run slowly. With so much of your site’s performance depending on the quality of your server, it’s time to check your hosting provider to make sure that it’s up to scratch.

Shared hosting arrangements, which divide a server’s resources between a number of users, are popular and cost-effective, particularly for eCommerce retailers who are just beginning their journey. This is a reasonable solution if you have relatively low traffic to your growing store and are hosted by a well-known and reliable provider.

However, as your business grows, you’ll need to upgrade your hosting to manage the higher number of visitors to your store. A common step up from shared hosting is via an optimized eCommerce hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS), which allocates server resources to each individual user according to their needs, rather than sharing a common pool. This gives you more control and customization of your settings and allows you to pay for better plans with faster speeds if needed.

Taking it a step further, dedicated hosting enables you to have exclusive access to your own server. This is a much more expensive option but gives you the best flexibility in terms of choosing your own configuration and enjoying the best possible performance.

High-traffic stores that experience considerable spikes over busy periods should consider dedicated hosting, but most other businesses should manage well with a high-quality VPS arrangement. Whichever you choose, make sure you do your research and choose a reputable provider—good hosting is one of the best investments you can make for your WooCommerce store.

Wrap Up

With website conversion rates dropping by an average of 4.42% with each additional second of load time, time is literally money when it comes to the speed of your WooCommerce store.

By taking the time to test, adjust, and optimize your website, you’ll maximize your chances of conversions. Ideally, it should load within two seconds. This way, you’ll make sure that users are getting the shopping experience that they expect.

Not only that, but search engines are much more likely to give you a high ranking if your site is quick, responsive, and has relatively lower bounce rates. 

Run through the tips provided in this article to find areas of your store’s performance that you might be able to improve. Remember, good technical scores and percentages aren’t the only goals here—test your results on real-life users as well as the testing tools suggested.

Ultimately, there are all kinds of different things to consider when running a successful eCommerce business. However, by getting the basics right and offering a fast, reliable WooCommerce store, you can move forward with confidence—safe in the knowledge that you are building on firm foundations.

Are you looking for the perfect WordPress BackUp plugin? With many options available out there with different use complexity, we have selected a list of well-tested WordPress Backup plugins that we have used personally over the years on our WordPress centric projects.

So, without further ado, here are the top backup plugins you can try out for your new or existing WordPress projects.

Top Backup WordPress Plugins for 2022

●     UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin

●     Duplicator Backup Plugin

●     BlogVault – Backup & Staging

●     BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin

●     Backup Guard – WordPress Backup and Migrate Plugin

●     All-in-One WP Plugin

UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

When it comes to free backup plugins, none of the other options mentioned in this article come close to what UpdraftPlus has to offer.

Image Source: WordPress.org

With over 3 million active installs and a 5-star rating, you don’t have any reason not to use this plugin for your backup needs.

UpdraftPlus is a WordPress Backup plugin that makes backing up and restoring websites as easy as pie.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It integrates with top cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, UpdraftVault (Their personalised cloud storage), Rackspace Cloud and much more to allow Website to Cloud Storage Direct Backups.

Image Source: WordPress.org

UpdraftPlus even supports direct backups via FTP which makes it one of the most extensible Backup plugins available for free on the WordPress Repo.

Another extra feature which you would expect to pay for is Scheduling Backups. With UpdraftPlus, you can automate backups daily to any selected storage location for absolutely no cost.

UpdraftPlus also has a premium version (with pricing starting at $70 for two site licenses) which extends its functionality, even more, features like Incremental backups, a powerful add-on for smooth migration (Migrator), an option to backup non-WP files, database encryption and

More storage destinations.

You can download UpdraftPlus from here.

Duplicator Backup Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

Duplicator is a WordPress Backup/Migration plugin that enables WordPress owners to Backup their site for absolutely free.

With more than 20 million total downloads since release and 1 million active installs, this is amongst the most popular WordPress Backup you can consider.

Image Source: WordPress.org

Duplicator works by creating a package that contains parts of your website you want to backup; you have the option to backup your database, site plugins, files or your entire installation.

The free version of the plugin allows you to backup and download your site to your local machine as frequently and much as you want.

Image Source: WordPress.org

You can restore a backup using their wizard (Quite complicated for beginners) or install on a new server if you want (migration).

To Backup your site to cloud storages like google drive & dropbox, you would need to upgrade to the Pro version which pricing starts from $59 & comes with some extra advanced backup features as well.

With the Pro version of Duplicator, you can schedule backups daily, weekly or even monthly and Duplicator will automatically store each snapshot to a selected cloud storage location.

This feature gives complete peace of mind as you always know your site is secure with several backup snapshots arranged by date.

All for a one-time fee of $59 (license for three websites)

Even without the Paid version, it is still considered one of the best plugins to backup your website with

BlogVault – Backup & Staging

Image Source: WordPress.org

If you are a total non-tech-savvy WordPress user, then you might most likely run into problems trying to use the other BackUp plugins on this list. Well, not except BlogVault.

Image Source: WordPress.org

Blog Vault is a backup plugin that takes out all the complexity in backing up your WordPress website and restoring them.

Image Source: WordPress.org

We included this plugin because it does not require any technical skills to use; you simply install it and follow the setup wizard and voila; it does all the work for you.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It comes with many premium features (provided for free) like incremental backups, free offsite storage, one-click backup restore, migration, etc.

Blogvault is not just a Backup plugin, but more of a Backup service just like hosting backup tool notably “CodeGuard” that is used by Bluehost among its package addons, Blogvault is actually used by some of the largest web hosting companies out there.

From WPEngine, Pantheon, FlyWheel to many more and aids their free migration services.

It comes with several other features like migration and staging, with Backups being the main focus.

The premium version of the plugin (starting at $89 a year) provides backups in real-time as well as being completely compatible with WooCommerce with a Backups Archive period of 90 days.

If you just want an easy way to backup your WordPress website, you can try out Blogvault, but I would advise you combine this plugin with another as your backup data is stored on an external server that can go offline anytime any day.

You can try BlogVault out by downloading from the WordPress Repo.

BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

One good alternative to UpdraftPlus you could consider if run into issues with it is BackWPup.

Image Source: WordPress.org

This plugin shares many similar features with UpdraftPlus and allows you to backup your WordPress Website for free.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It also allows Cloud storage locations with a few services like Google Drive being limited to Premium users only.

Image Source: WordPress.org

You can back up just individual parts of your websites like the Mysql database or your WordPress installation with ease.

With a 4.5 star rating and regular plugin updates every month, this could be the best option for your backup needs.

You can download the BackWPup plugin from your WordPress plugin repo.

Backup Guard – WordPress Backup and Migrate Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

Backup Guard is a Backup/Migration plugin that provides you with an easy way to backup, restore, and migrate WordPress Website.

What we like about this plugin is its simple and easy to use User interface, especially the dashboard.

Image Source: WordPress.org

Backups are sorted by date of creation and you the option to either download them to your local machine or Dropbox for free.

Image Source: WordPress.org

To add more Cloud Storage services, you would need to purchase the premium version of the plugin, but by default, the free version allows you to move your backups to dropbox.

It also has BackUp scheduling, Notifications, and migration features just like the other plugins on this list but only for Premium users.

Image Source: WordPress.org

The only thing free about this plugin is creating unlimited backups and restoring them.

You can download the Backup Guard plugin from your WordPress plugin repo.

All-in-One WP Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

All in One WP plugin is actually a migration plugin that can be used for backing up your WordPress website.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It provides functionality to backup (in an export file) your entire WordPress website, including the database, media files, plugins, and themes without any technical knowledge.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It is also quite extensible and does support cloud storage locations like Dropbox, FTP, Google Drive, Amazon S3, OneDrive Box, MegaNZ, DigitalOcean, Microsoft Azure Storage, etc. on purchase of the extension.

With each extension having a starting price of $50 50 $99, this is considered pricy compared to the other plugins on this list.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It provides an easy Drag & Drop backup restoration wizard which makes this ideal for backing up small sites with minimal content if you consider going for the free version.

You can download the All in One Plugin from your WordPress plugin repo or the WordPress.org plugin page here.

Our Personal Favourite (Recommendation)

UpdraftPlus no doubt, has the best to offer when it comes to backing up WordPress website.

Not only is it a powerful plugin, but it’s also free with several premium features you would otherwise pay for to use on other backup plugins.

Image Source: WordPress.org

Duplicator is also a good option but only when you have plans of migrating your backup to another server at a later date as it’s straightforward to do that with the duplicator.

Finally, a tip that’s worth mentioning, if you prefer to minimize the plugins installed on your site, then in that case, then you should know that there are some hosting companies out there that offer Automatic Backups feature. So you might want to keep that in mind

Conclusion

Each Backup plugin has there advantages and disadvantages, it up to you to test them and find the one that works best for what you’re trying to achieve.

You might need to upgrade to a premium version to get what you want but at the end of the day, you should have a well functioning Backup Plugin working smoothly.

Also, make sure you have more than one backup location, never put all your eggs in one basket, i.e. storing backup files in the same server as your website.

Anything can happen, and at any time, so you have to be ready.

That’s all for this article. We hope you found it useful, If you have a question about any of the plugins on this list, please do not hesitate to add a comment below and we would respond as soon as possible

If you want to make your products visible online, you should put extra effort into SEO optimization. You need to master the art of SEO writing and learn other techniques to further improve WooCommerce product descriptions.

We’ve created a guide that will help you to get started. Keep on reading and learn new SEO tips you can use for your WooCommerce store.

Target audience

Before you start writing, you should define your target audience. You need to get a clear understanding of who will visit your website and read your product descriptions. 

Why it’s so important? It will allow you to understand what you should write in your product description and, most importantly, what keywords you should use.

Know your customers

You should analyze the demographics and psychographics of your target audience. You should define not only how old your customers are and what their income level is, but also what lifestyles they lead and what attitudes and beliefs they have.

Imagine that you sell jewelry for women. You may target two types of customers:

• Target group #1

Women, 30+ years old, married, have kids; middle-income level. This group of customers buys jewelry to wear for special occasions like birthday parties and weddings. They search for earrings and necklaces that will match any outfit.

• Target group #2

Men, 30+ years old, not married; high income level. This group of customers buys jewelry as gifts for girlfriends to make an impression. 

This group of customers looks for sophisticated jewelry that stands out.

If you want to sell earrings to these two target groups, you should adjust the descriptions of your product accordingly. Here is an example of a product description you can use to grab the attention of the first group, the women.

Screenshot source: https://www.nykaafashion.com/priyaasi-rose-gold-plated-ad-studded-dual-toned-earrings/p/359834

If you create a product description for the second target group, you should use words like “breathtaking” and “glittering”. That’s exactly what wealthy men are looking for when shopping for fancy gifts.

Screenshot source: https://www.angara.com/p/ruby-and-diamond-halo-teardrop-earrings-se1764rd

The better you understand your target audience and its buying intent, the more compelling the product description you will create. Therefore, we highly suggest you focus on target audience research before moving to the next steps.

Keywords usage

The proper use of keywords is crucial for SEO success. For this very reason, you should research keywords thoroughly before jumping to product description writing. You should analyze the search queries of your target audience and choose the keywords that will more likely bring you more traffic and sales.

Let’s get back to our example where you sell earrings. You need to find keywords for this product.

Screenshot source: https://www.angara.com/p/classic-ruby-six-petal-flower-earrings-se1085rd

What focus keywords will you use? Will you opt for a very specific, long-tail keyword “ruby flower stud earrings”, or will you choose the less specific keyword “buy ruby earrings”? 

Use keyword research tools

To make the right choice, you need to analyze these keywords using Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, or similar tools. You should find out which of these keywords are associated with the lowest competition level and the highest traffic.

According to information provided by Ubersuggest, the keyword “buy ruby earrings” has a high SEO difficulty level. So you should opt for another keyword, for instance, “buy ruby stud earrings”. This keyword will bring you less traffic, yet the traffic itself will be of higher quality.

Screenshot source: https://app.neilpatel.com/en/ubersuggest/

Using keyword research tools, you can also find relevant secondary keywords. Here is an example of such keywords:

• Ruby earrings
• Flower earrings 
• Diamond stud earrings
• Stud earrings 14k gold
• Buy ruby earrings online
• Best ruby earrings to buy

Choose target-audience-specific keywords

Naturally, you need to choose the keywords with your target audience in mind. For example, if your buyers are the men who shop for gifts, you should be aware that they will not use search queries like “ruby flower stud earrings”. Instead, they will Google phrases like “best earring gift” or “fancy earrings”.

Think wider 

Note that different people name the same product differently. For instance, people who consider buying ruby earrings may use the word “red gems” instead of “ruby”. 

Try to think like a customer. How would you name your product? What features of the product would be the most important for you? Research the keywords that come to your mind and add them to your keyword list.

Incorporate keywords naturally

Search engines do not tolerate keyword stuffing. So don’t include keywords in each and every sentence. To get the best results, you maintain the natural keyword distribution. Use keywords only in those sentences where it makes sense. 

Quality of product copy

You have already analyzed your target audience and researched keywords. What’s the next step?

Now you can start writing your WooCommerce product description. 

Make it useful and relevant 

WooCommerce product description should include information about the key features and benefits of the product. Also, it should describe how it feels like to hold/use/wear your product. Since shoppers see your products only in pictures, you should help them to imagine how your products look in real life.

Tap into customers’ feelings

What will people get if they buy your product? They will get something more than just a physical item, don’t they? 

You should understand one important thing. People are not really interested in your products. They are interested in the feelings they can get from buying and using your product.

For instance, if you sell dresses, you should understand that women don’t buy your products just because they need something to wear. They buy your dresses because they want to feel beautiful and stylish.

If you sell home décor items, you should be aware that most of your customers buy blankets and candles not for a practical purpose. They purchase these items to make their home feel cozy.

When you write a description, think of the things your customers really want to get and try to find the right words that will resonate with them. Here is an example of a well-written WooCommerce description. The seller of the blanket states that his product can help customers “transform their

sleep space to a relaxing oasis”. That’s a great phrase that grabs the target audience’s attention.

Screenshot source: https://www.decorist.com/finds/237659/ugg-charger-plaid-wool-throw-blanket-in-sesame/

Provide explanation

When you make a statement that your product is comfortable, compact, easy-to-use, etc., make sure to provide some proves or explanation.

Take a look at the following product description. It not only states that earrings are “comfortable”, but also explains why it’s comfy to wear them while sleeping.

Screenshot source: https://comfyearrings.com/shop/modern-amethyst/

Keep it short

Modern people are busy people. On top of that, they have a short attention span. Thus, you can’t expect them to enjoy reading long WooCommerce product descriptions.

If you want to grab and retain the attention of modern customers, you should keep your product descriptions short and concise. You should provide shoppers with the information that influence their buying decision and don’t overload your product description with unessential details.

Well, there is no such a thing as a “perfect length of WooCommerce product description”. It all depends on the product you sell. If your product has lots of features and benefits, for instance, kitchen appliances, you will likely need to write a longer description. But if you sell lingerie and linens, your product description ought to be short.

Present the most important information upfront

The vast majority of website visitors read only the first sentence of the product description. So when you write a detailed description, make sure to put the most important information first. 

If you need help with polishing your WooCommerce product description, hire a writer. There are many writing experts out there who work on students’ requests “write my research paper for me” and company’s requests “edit my SEO copy for me”. Many of them offer affordable prices, so their assistance will not cost you an arm and a leg. 

Create unique product copies

Whether you offer 20 or 200 products, you should create unique copies for each of them. If you write one product description and try to rewrite it a couple of times, it will not work. 

Even though some of your products may have similar characteristics, they need to have different unique descriptions. That’s the only way to improve SEO ranking.

Write for people

Once more time we want to emphasize that if you want to make your product description SEO-friendly, you should make it “people-friendly” in the first place. 

What does it mean? It means you should make your texts engaging and interesting to read. You should create product descriptions for real people and then optimize them for search engines, not vice versa. 

If you write texts for the sake of SEO only, it will not work in your favor. You will not be able to attract real customers and make sales.

On-page SEO

Have you just finalized your WooCommerce product description? We have a few more tasks for you. Here are two important things you should do to boost your on-page SEO.

Optimize your product page titles

Every product page has its title tag. The title is the first thing that search engine crawlers read and the first thing that customers see when they discover your product page.

Screenshot source: Google search page

If you want to promote your products effectively, you should write product page titles with these SEO tips in mind:

• Include SEO keyword
• Use descriptive adjectives
• Make each product title unique
• Put your domain name at the end of the title
• Keep your title under 50-60 characters
• Consider adding call to action words like shop, buy, get a discount

Write meta description

Another important element of on-page SEO is a meta description. 

Web crawlers and users use the meta description to check whether your product page is relevant to the given search query. If you write a winning meta description, you will drive more traffic to your website, and consequently, more prospective customers will read your product description.

Screenshot source: Google search page

Here are a few tips that will help you create an effective product meta description:

• Make it informative and descriptive
• Include SEO keywords
• Keep it short – under 160 characters
• Try not to use the stop words like ‘an’, ‘the’, ’and’ etc
• Include the product name and key features and characteristics

Competitors

If you want your eCommerce business to succeed, you should watch your competitors like a hawk. You should analyze their SEO strategies and learn from their best practices.

If you notice that one of the competitive websites has recently gotten to the top of the search results page, analyze the changes that have been incorporated. Check product descriptions, page titles, and meta descriptions for updates. 

If a new SEO strategy has worked for your rival, the chances are it will also work for you. For instance, if you find out that your competitors effectively use affiliate marketing, the same tactic will likely benefit your eCommerce store too.

SEO trends

SEO is not a constant thing. Search engines update their search algorithms on a regular basis, and it’s pretty difficult to keep up with all new trends. 

However, if you want to keep your WooCommerce store afloat, you should be aware of at least the most important updates. Subscribe to SEO blogs, follow SEO bloggers on social media, or find another way to join the SEO community.

Wrapping up

SEO writing is a true art, and it may take you some time to master it. If your current product descriptions do not work effectively for your WooCommerce store, don’t hesitate to rewrite them. The more you will practice in product description writing, the better the results you will eventually get.

Keep improving your writing skills and enhancing your product copies –  and you will achieve outstanding success. Use tips from this article to take your first step toward the improvements.

Adding WooCommerce to WordPress is a limited privilege available to WordPress sites only. Therefore, if you have a site that’s not WordPress, these features do not apply to you. 

WooCommerce is software that has been coded to work only on WordPress websites. So to enjoy the great benefits of the WooCommerce tips, be sure to have created a site on WordPress or have an existing site on it. 

For easy guidance, a table of content has been created for your convenience. At the end of this guide, you would have so much to tell on WooCommerce and how you can effortlessly apply it to your website.

TABLE OF CONTENT

• What does WooCommerce do?
• How does it work?
• How to successfully add WooCommerce to your WordPress site.
• Various ways to increase sales using WooCommerce tips. 

What does WooCommerce do?

As earlier stated, WooCommerce offers various productive tips and tools that are used to greatly improve your website, increase sales, and additionally give it that professional look and touch.

You should remember that this is a plugin. Therefore, you can easily add it to your WordPress site and enjoy the improved performance of your site with just a few settings changes.

The productivity of WooCommerce will go a long way in positively changing your site’s performance and getting the sales or frequent customers you seek on your site. In other phrases, WooCommerce improves the site with some effective marketing tactics.

This is exceedingly advantageous to users. And with over twenty-seven million downloads with millions of active installations as well, WooCommerce is everyone’s choice and its productivity is glaring from the number of people that use and download it.

How does the WooCommerce tips work?

WooCommerce tips offer amazing features to its users. It is more amazing knowing that it is free to download. However, it is not free to effectively use and manage it. Here, I mean the cost that comes with marketing, domain fee, advertising, hosting fee, and customization. This is of course to be paid according to your discretion. You should know how much rebranding you would like for your site.

In this guide, we are going to show you how to easily download and connect WooCommerce to your WordPress account.

How to successfully connect WooCommerce to your WordPress website.

Step 1:First thing first, download WooCommerce from the WordPress store or directly from the WordPress dashboard.

Either way, download and connect it to your WordPress website.

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If you are installing it from your dashboard, activate it after installing the plugin.

Step 2: Moving forward, the Setup Wizard consists of some essential questions about your store; this helps WooCommerce understand your store, the marketing tactics you want to employ, and so on.

The front page of the Setup Wizard should look like this:

The Setup Wizard is user-friendly and although optional but advisable. So for the front page, it asks you questions like where your store is based, currency type, and a host of others.

You don’t have to worry, the settings selected can still be changed in the future, if need be.

Step 3: For the next step, choose your preferred payment option. For online payment, there’s Paypal and Stripe.

As indicated, an additional payment can be installed too if you do not prefer any of the options. And offline payment is also made available for users to use conveniently.

Step 4:The next is the shipping page.

Here, you would choose your preferred shipping rate and may choose different shipping rates for your customers based on their location/zone. You can also make it cost-free as well.

Step 5: At this point, you’ve completed and answered the questions needed to set up your store. The next step is the recommendation page.

These are recommended features, though not compulsory to use them all. This would enhance your store website and give it that final touch to perfection. The Storefront Themes is highly recommended too.

Step 6: The next step is the Jetpack installment.

It is not compulsory, so it’s purely discretionary in its use. Although, it offers a lot of analytical features plus security, and others.

Step 7: Your WooCommerce is connected and ready to drive up sales for your store website!

At this point, you’ve successfully connected WooCommerce to your website and can now enjoy the thrilling benefit that comes with it.

Step 8: After successfully connecting it, you can now set up your online store. In your WordPress dashboard, two new outlines came up because you connected WooCommerce to it.

However, to add new products for your store, go through Products > Add New. It would bring you to this page;

Add a title and a short yet catchy description for the product. Then you should have something like this at the end of it all.

Note: This is just a preview, yours might differ in other ranges. You just have to make sure that all details inputted are done correctly and appropriately. You do not want to defer your customers from buying the product or from visiting your website because of a perpetual mistake.

Various ways to increase sales using WooCommerce Tips.

As earlier discussed, WooCommerce is very beneficial to users who run a store website. It gives you numerous features that can be used to increase sales to your website, and turn your one-time customers into a more regular one.

So, whether you just opened up your store website or have been running it for a considerable amount of time, you might want to take a step back and evaluate your e-commerce store and observe deeply the marketing tactics applied.

This is where the WooCommerce tips helps the user. This is a WordPress plugin that widely helps users to add effective e-commerce tips and tools that can heighten the websites’ views and commercialization.

Easy-to-follow tips have been created. They are simply explanatory, so you follow these tips accordingly and apply them to your store website.

Choose the right theme for your store website

As much as we hate to admit it, we all judge a book by its cover. Having an eye-catching, attractive theme that is professional and speaks about your store can go a really long way in attracting customers and increasing sales. 

The theme of your site should be attractive, easy, and speaks about your product or store. You do not want a clustered theme that does not give an easy interface to your site. It would definitely drive the customer into frustration and we know how that ends.

In addition, your theme should speak more of your product or your store. It has to fit in. For example, you are managing a store website and marketing “baby dolls”. You should consider having a light theme that can depict a friendly attraction. Having a dark theme might not fit so well with your product.  

So, your theme should fit your store website or product.

Next is considering the type of theme you would like to apply to your site. Predominantly, WordPress themes can be categorized as;

• Free Themes,
• Paid Themes; and
• Customized Themes

Although you have to go along with your budget and strength, it is more advisable to go for the paid themes. They have better features, attractive schemes, and all others to help your customers enjoy the beauty of your store website. 

At Sparkle Themes, they offer elegant and versatile themes that would suit your taste and budget. Highly recommendable. And in addition, you have wide varieties of choices to pick from. Themes can go a long way in increasing sales on your store website.

Let’s begin by differentiating these themes.

On Sparkle Themes, themes created especially for e-commerce are made available. This means that the theme has been coded to match your store website. 

There are; 

Appzend Commerce – WordPress WooCommerce Themes

This category has stunning themes and even lets you customize. There are over ninety demos in this category and are termed to be perfect for modern online stores, and other features that make this theme excellent and compatible for a wide range of products. 

You can learn more info and description from the website.

Online eStore – WooCommerce WordPress Theme

This creates a functional and effective theme that can match users’ experiences. Also, this has been categorized to be a great choice for modern digital agencies, bloggers, e-commerce shops, construction companies, etc. Additionally perfect for WooCommerce. It has a whole lot of other valuable features on it. You can get more details on the site.

CrazyStore – Best eCommerce Theme on WordPress

The e-Commerce theme is easy to use and install. With over twenty demo templates ready to serve you, and it is also compatible with most plugins to give you the best experience and further promote sales on your store website through the eye-catching theme.

SparkleStore Pro – Best Premium eCommerce Theme on WordPress

Sparkle Store Pro is simple and easy to install. Also, offers compatible and functional themes for users. With over twenty-five templates available, you have varieties of choices to pick from.

SparkleStore – Best Free eCommerce Theme On WordPress

This theme helps users get classy themes compatible with most major plugins at zero cost. Another thrilling thing about this theme is that it requires low maintenance. So best pick your choice.

Buzzstore Pro – Best Premium eStore Theme On WordPress

Another Premium theme for eCommerce stores. It has somes premium features and can be easily used by users. More information can be gotten from Sparkle Theme website. 

BuzzStore – Free eCommerce WordPress Theme For Online Store

Buzzstore offers simple to install, pre-installed homepage layouts, and a host of others. More information can be gotten from the site. You should know that the features offered here are 100% free.

All these Sparkle themes are available on the store website. Short details are provided here but you can attain more details from the website. And although all these themes are distinct and peculiar in their way, it’s your job, however, to figure out which theme is compatible with your store website and the product you market. You can also employ the advice of a professional if need be.

This WooCommerce tip has proved to be very helpful and resourceful to users.

2. Start out a strategic discount coupon 

Everyone loves coupons. After dealing with activating or connecting WooCommerce to your site, and after generating a considerable amount of customers, you can start by creating a strategic discount coupon that you know the customers would not be able to resist that easily. This can really help you increase sales on your store website.

This coupon, if done accordingly and appropriately, should be able to drive new customers to your store market and make old passive customers more active. 

Since you’re in charge of giving out the coupon, you could be more strategic and give out the coupon in a way that’s more beneficial to your market, like targeting a specific category. All you have to do is pick out the right distribution channel and also pick the best campaign website that works for you.

In addition to picking out who gets the coupon, you are also in control of the sustainability of the coupon, the limit of the coupon, its impact, and so on. This can also be strategically tuned to drive sales to your store website. 

You can even use the discount and coupon together. For example, use COUPON 456 to get 10% off any product. And running a discount sale periodically can drive more customers to your store website to take advantage of the opportunity.

All you have to do is set up the coupon/discount and create awareness of it. Give it an attractive look and description that would make it difficult for anyone to turn a blind eye to it. Therefore, it has to be distinctively attractive and eye-catching.  This is also a great WooCommerce tip to users that utilise it properly.

3. Provide a user-friendly experience

The truth is your website visitors are not going to find your site great if it is hard for them to navigate through the site or the site is clustered or understandable. That is so wrong. Create a website that can be easily navigated, clear, and responsive. 

There is lots of competition and you have only a few seconds to prove to your visitors that your store website is the best they can find and you have just the thing to fill their taste buds, and this also aids you in increasing sales to your website.

Now, a tool you can use to create an easy-to-navigate site is WooCommerce Breadcrumbs.

This aids navigation for your visitors. All you have to do is change the default settings and enable a way whereby your visitor can go back to their previously browsed categories without leaving your page. This keeps them on your site for a prolonged period. Moreover, this also aids search engines in cataloging our page search rank. So you can kill two birds with a stone here; aid navigation for your customers and earn better search ranking with an easy-to-navigate site. 

In addition, WooCommerce SEO is better experienced with Breadcrumbs. Here, you have an SEO extension that can help optimize your content as well as other pages in your website such as the sitemaps, product pages, and so on. Although this does not automatically give you a better ranking, it’s an ongoing process; and it rather aids it.   

A product table can also be set up for your visitors’ convenience.

As seen, this organizes your content or product into a list and keeps them there whenever the customers use your site by searching or filtering. However, this aids your customer’s navigation and further creates a user-friendly experience because they would find your website more convenient and comfortable.

There are WooCommerce tools that can help in setting this up. We have ‘Product Table for WooCommerce by Nick McReynold’.

4.  Start a contest 

Contests are the biggest thing for marketers because if done correctly, it ends up winding up lots of sales and interest from visitors far and near. 

Therefore, you set up a contest where the winner(s) takes a valuable prize. Although I do not advise you to do this out of your budget, ensure that this is something you can lose conveniently. 

And, short-lived contests do not actually bring out the result we seek. Instead, you can divide it consistently and make it into an ongoing edition. Therefore, there’s going to be more coming up. This is why some marketers hold an annual contest or monthly, purely discretionary. 

So, organize a contest and set out the terms of the contest, and decide on the prize to be won. This has to define your store and should be strategic enough to keep them on your store website. For example, a talent hunt. However it is, let it speak of your brand.

5. Selling vouchers/gift cards

This is another strategic way in which you can harness the tool provided by WooCommerce. This entails selling gift cards or vouchers on your store website and making them redeemable by the purchaser or the recipient if gifted. 

Gift Cards are a great way to heighten your customer’s loyalty, improve performance, and drive more sales or revenue. Using gift cards is very convenient and people appreciate it the most. So, try and create gift cards or vouchers for your customers, and this is sure to increase sales to your store website. 

6. Flash Sales

Flash sales are an excellent and popular way of driving sales to your product. You would be surprised at how much people pay or look forward to events like this. 

Flash sales are discounted prices on products that most online stores employ to drive up sales. In this type of thing, the product in question is limited and there’s also a ticking time set, therefore stating how long the flash sale would last. Flash sales are not for long; most times they are done just for a day. This is to balance the owner’s market and also give the visitors the taste of ‘impulse buying’.

And flash sales are most times propagated with the use of social media. Make sure you create a lot of awareness. It is a very resourceful WooCommerce tip.

7. Provide points on some selected activities.

This is another great strategy. You can provide points for purchases, referrals, and other activities done on your store website. These points earned on your site would be able to make your customers continue that act and come back for more points. The redeemability of these points is up to you, you can make the point redeemable for every product on your store website or just some selected ones.

At Starbucks, for example, their customers earn stars for every purchase.

A Lot of online stores make use of newsletters but very little pay close attention to the customization. You can utilize the use of a newsletter to engage your customers and update them on a new event going on your website.

It’s a great revenue strategy that you can also employ.

8. Use of Customized Newsletters

A Lot of online stores make use of newsletters but very little pay close attention to the customization. You can utilize the use of a newsletter to engage your customers and update them on new events ongoing in your website.

However, when using this, you should try to individualize it. For example, by writing out their names in the newsletter. This would make them feel more ‘talked to’, instead of the usual broadcast message that is normally used.

9. Provide an easy-to-share button

Another great tip is creating an easy-to-share button for your customers to engage their social media friends and thereby creating a shopping community.

This is especially effective when you have a referral contest or you enable the referral button on your website. Customers can utilize this and share your store website nor product on their social accounts. This would further aid your awareness scheme. You can make use of Envite for this tip.

10. Emails on deserted carts

Another great tip is sending out emails on a customer cart that is occupied but deserted. Here, you have to send the email out in a positive and impactful manner; even much better if it is accompanied by a discount or coupon offer or any other beneficial event ongoing on your site. 

This way the customer can keep up with the cart and if forgotten, your email can do the wonder of reminding him or her. This could try up sales and even increase the conversion rate.

Conclusion

These tips have been carefully crafted for your understanding. And if followed promptly and accordingly, they would constantly increase sales and also heighten the awareness of your online store. And in a while, your stores are already booming with satisfied customers who leave great reviews on your site that would entice other customers to your online store. These WooCommerce tips can give you what you seek in your store accordingly.

Therefore, whether you are a beginner or an experienced WordPress owner, you have to consistently ensure that your site’s speed is fast and not in any way slow. 

With sufficient knowledge and experience in WordPress websites, comprehensive and detailed content has been created for your learning and understanding. Contents ranging from the importance of speeding up your site, to the different types of sites we have, and numerous ways we can speed up WordPress sites. 

We advise that you read through this content carefully and understand the in-depth need to speed up your site performance. This guide is detailed and has been simplified for your understanding.

Also, a table of content has been created for your convenience. 

The need to speed up your WordPress site

It is of utmost importance for you as a beginner or a long-term owner, to ensure that your site speed is highly optimized. Apart from checking on the site’s content, all of which would come to a notch if your visitors do not have access to your site quickly. 

It’s innate as humans to skip or move out of a site because it is slow to respond or does not load its web page faster.

So there are three basic reasons why it’s important to speed up your site. This has been put in a listed form to aid your understanding. 

1. A better site’s speed helps keep your visitors. One thing is to attract them, and the other is to make them stay on your site for at least an average time range. According to a study perpetuated by Unbounce, it revealed that users would prefer a site with faster speed than having videos or animation on the site. 
2. Having a speedy site is a plus because it also optimizes your conversion and bounce rate alongside. The faster the speed, the more impressive visitors who are in turn happy to use your website.
3. A site with a better speed performance is now a ranking factor on Google. So, if you are looking at optimizing your page and getting a better search rank, a slow site would do you no good.

The different forms of WordPress sites

The truth is there are different forms in which a WordPress site can take on, and the basic ways of optimizing the speed performance are also quite distinct. 

WordPress is an avenue for numerous individuals to own a website online. It’s quite easy to create a website on WordPress because it requires little to no coding. And websites created on WordPress can be used for blogging, business, e-commerce, non-profit websites, personal websites, and a host of others. 

A site on WordPress can be;

1.  Slow to data changes. Therefore, these sites have little to average visitors daily and the data of such sites is not liable to a major change. Examples of sites like this are personal blogs, photography sites, etc.
2. Prone to major data changes constantly. This involves some major sites that receive visitors heavily every day and these visitors can spend up to hours on that site e.g an online class. 

Although the level of work you put in and experience determines the form of your site, following the preceding discussions. And this also defines the level of work you have to put in optimizing your site’s speed performance. For a site low to data changes, it can be assumed that the site would not require that much rigor compared to one that occupies so many visitors at the same time and is liable to major data changes on the site. 

So first, figure out where your site lies, that is (i) or (ii). This would make it easier for you. And if you’re unsure of where your site lies, make every option on how to speed up your WordPress site plausible. 

Also, these two forms determine your hosting plans which we are going to revisit and discuss later in this guide.

Various practices that can affect your site’s speed?

A Lot of us are negligent and ignorant of the various practices or things we do or run on our site that make it vulnerable to slowness in speed.

In this guide, we would revisit these old practices, some of which you are well accustomed to doing on your site but had no idea that it slows down your site’s performance.

We have;

Non- optimized or Large-sized image.

Uploading a large-sized image or one that is non-optimized can greatly deteriorate the speed of your site. First, there’s a difference between GIF/PNG/ and JPEG. when uploading, use JPEG more often because the other takes up a lot of bandwidth. The same applies to high-resolution images. 

Normally, your web page would load faster with a better image type and minimal image resolution. This ensures the size and quality of the image and subsequently increases the site’s load time.

Web Host

Sometimes, your web host also affects your site’s speed. If the host is properly operated, it can affect the speed of your site. 

Too many HTTPS requests

Another major point is having so many requests from your site such as images, javascript, CSS, and so on because they require another form of processing such requests which can adversely affect the site’s speed. 

Site’s Plugins

Using a bad plugin can also affect your site’s performance, so before using any plugin on your site, evaluate it, ensure it’s from a trusted site or store, and you could also make some research about it on the net before installing it.

Caching

Caching greatly helps in optimizing a site’s performance. So if your site is not configured to cache, then you’re putting more burden on your site which can, in turn, affect the site’s speed. Caching stores data in its “memory” and when a request which has been stored in the cache memory comes up again, it makes it easier. Avoiding the caching technique may lead to an overload of the server. 

A way to check your WordPress site’s speed.

Checking your site’s speed performance constantly is highly advisable. And it might not be accurate checking it from a browser you have used before to check your site. This is because the site already saved the page and other things to aid your experience. But this might not apply the same way for a new visitor just using your site.

So, we recommend the use of IsItWP for your site speed test. It’s reliable, free, and accurate. 

According to Google recommended page load time, it should be under two seconds. Therefore, ensure your site speed is under two seconds for better performance and a great user experience. 

Several ways in which your site’s speed can be optimized

With numerous requests and processes, you might notice your site’s speed going slow. However, you can optimize or watch your site with the use of some plugins. Above all, there are strategic ways that you can put into practice to help speed up your WordPress site.

In this guide, we are discussing and harnessing the different ways you can put into practice to greatly improve the speed of your site. However, you should understand that as long as your site is running, whether old or new, you need to regularly check on your site’s speed and optimize it when necessary.

The ways stated in this guide are practical ones, some don’t even require coding or technical settings, you should be able to apply it on your site subsequently.

The Caching Technique

One thing you can do is enable the use of the caching technique and greatly optimize it with the use of a plugin. You can utilize the use of WP Super Cache for this.

The use of the caching technique can greatly up the speed level of your site, more than you might imagine. This is because it reduces the level of burden in reloading past or same page results for different individuals, especially when the site occupies multiple users giving responses to the site every second but at different points.

The Caching technique further optimizes the site and gives it a speedy performance. It does this in an act of collating the data accessed on the site, and when the same data is requested by a different user or at a different time, it just brings out the same stored result. This reduces the load time that would have been used to bring forth the result and just processes the stored result.

As an alternative, you can as well use Bluehost or SiteGround for your site, and it also provides topmost security and other advantageous benefits.

Enhance images before uploading on the website

The images you upload on your site have an adverse result on your site’s performance. This is to the extent that the type, size, and security of the picture have an important role to play in furthering the speed of your site.

Images have been said to attract individuals, especially new visitors to a new site. However, an un-optimized image can do more harm than good to your site’s speed performance.

We recommend users limit the type of image uploaded on one’s site to PNG and JPEG. PNG should be used when necessary. The difference between the two is that the former is uncompressed with improved image quality compared to JPEG’s. But JPEG should be used quite often for your site, that is for, colored images because it has the compressing feature. And PNG can rather be used for simpler and more transparent images. However, keep this up and ensure that the images uploaded are not above 1MB.

Also, the size of the picture you upload on your site matters a lot. Large sized-images do not work well for your site. This is because they take a longer time to load and therefore deteriorate the page load time, and thereafter slows the speed of the site.

And before uploading, ensure the image is secured before uploading it on your site. You can employ the use of some waterfall tests to check the image before uploading and you can as well use some photoshop to further enhance the image.

 Choose the right host plan for your site 

As a beginner or long-term user, you have to understand the basic implementation of your WordPress hosting and this should enable you to choose the one with high performance and can suit the form of your site. 

A WordPress host simply helps users to store their website data; this data may include videos, images, and other content. The host stores this data in its server and then redistributes the information when needed to the site’s visitors. So it’s for this reason, it would be advantageous to pick the right host for your site and not one with low performance or a bad server. 

For WordPress web hosting, there’s a minimum requirement for any web host chosen. The web host of your WordPress site is very essential and goes to the foundation of your site. If a wrong host is chosen, it can significantly make a mockery of your site’s significance because the data shown to the visitors come from this host. You have to effectively manage your hosting plan, choose the one that suits your site and budget alongside. 

At WordPress.org, three web hosts were recommended as the top choice of numerous site owners. These web hosts are Bluehost, DreamHost, and SiteGround. These types of hosts are utilized by big and large industries or companies. And they’re the most popular and widely sought-after compared to all other host plans on the web. They are very efficient and a better option for sites that experience major data changes constantly. However, this host tends to over-crowd their server which could lead to slowness in performance; this is as a result of the varying numbers of other sites making use of that server.

Other alternatives to this hosting plan are using the Managed WordPress hosting or the DIY VPS WordPress hosting.

4. Employ the use of CDN

Content Delivery Network is a web server that stores ‘static’ files and displays them for individuals who request such data without much dependence on the location of that person. Static files such as images, javascript, and so on. 

In other words, CDN helps fasten the loading time for users on a website regardless of the location of that person.

The truth is the location of your visitor also affects the site’s loading time. For instance, if your web hosting company is based in the United Kingdom, users around that area would find it easy to load pages because of the location of the hosting company and the limited number of servers around the world. 

This can however be disadvantageous to another person in Nepal. Therefore, you can employ the use of CDN; it consists of servers from around the whole world.

Therefore, CDN helps fasten users’ page load time regardless of their location by serving them these static files from a server close to them. This is also a great improvement and it additionally lessens the workload of the hosting company. 

5. Make your Homepage unclustered

Another key tip to help you attain a faster WordPress site is ensuring your homepage is clean, smooth, upstanding, and free from redundancies. 

It’s a fact that your homepage should be attractive and engaging enough to make the user proceed further in exploring your site. However, this is no reason for your homepage to be clustered with all sorts of things that can slow down the site’s performance.

Instead, you can show minimal details that would grab your visitor’s attention and make them go for more, and you can also employ the use of excerpts for the contents on your homepage.

6. The latest version of PHP 

PHP is a programming language that is majorly used for web development. And WordPress is written in the PHP programming language.

PHP consists of the theme of your site, plugins, and others. For you to explore the great and improved benefit of PHP to your WordPress, it is suitable to employ the use of the newest version of PHP. 

Currently, the newest version is that of 7.4. It offers immense benefit to the user and you must constantly update your PHP for its generally improved versions and to prevent lagging. The latest PHP 7 version offers great features and it has been proven to offer 3x more than its predecessor. 

If your PHP is below 7.0, request an update from your host company. You can check the version of the PHP of your site by installing and activating it from Version Info.

7. Regularly update your WordPress Site when needed

Apart from running your site on the latest PHP version, you need to ensure that your site is updated and backdated correctly. 

As a site owner, it’s your burden to carry and you need to ensure this to avoid lagging, and it even runs this update on security and bugging issues, as well as, the latest version of themes in your site and the plugin currently used on your site.

This is all to ensure a smooth site’s performance.

8. Choose a host that uses Nginx or Apache

Among the requirements on choosing a WordPress, web host includes those that employ the use of Nginx or Apache. These requirements should be met but also utilized. Unperceivably, these web servers are employed by WordPress hosts to power the site in question.

However, Ngnix or Apache are common and great options for users. They are widely used across the web, some popular companies that utilize them are Apple, Google, Twitter, IBM, and so on.

9. Curtail the HTTP requests you get from external sources

There are times when your WordPress themes or plugins load resources from external sources such as images, style sheets, and the rest, and some store them in your website while others are utilized to load quickly. 

This might prove to be great and helpful sometimes, but when your site handles soo much of this external HTTP, it can significantly deteriorate the speed of your site.

Therefore, do away with some of these requests and you can also disable it.

10. Avoid uploading files directly to your WordPress site

Another important thing to note is that uploading files such as audio and videos from the site directly to your WordPress is wrong and would cost you a lot of bandwidth. And you should also consider the fee from your hosting company. 

Apart from that, these files are in large sizes and this can be disadvantageous to your site performance as well.

Therefore, instead of uploading it directly to your site, you can as well copy and paste the file’s URL to your site. WordPress would automatically embed the video or audio file which is more preferable to uploading it to your site.

11. Optimize your Site’s theme

In the market today, there are a host of brilliant and attractive themes waiting on you. However before deciding on the theme to pick, ensure that you also consider that the content, widget, tools, etc can cause the site hosting server to respond slowly.

There you need to search for a suitable theme for your site, optimize, and regularly update it for newer versions. And if you’re experiencing problems with the theme of your site, do away with it, and get a better-suited one. 

WordPress is the preferred content management system, powering and owning 34% and 60.8% of internet sites on the web wholly. As a significant user, there are lots of opportunities at your dispersal, so you have to make good use of this opportunity.

Sadly, most step-by-step guides are too technical and not simply graspable for beginners. In this guide, however, there are lined and systematic steps which will facilitate and improve your WordPress SEO and drive constant traffic to your website. 

This guide covers tons of grounds, thus to avoid clustered reading and aid understanding, it’s desirable if you assimilate the content bit-by-bit and apply it afterwards on your WordPress account.

By the end of this guide, you ought to understand the nature of WordPress and how it is SEO-friendly. And also, you’ll be able to expertly utilize the thrilling options of WordPress to your website.

Introduction

Starting a WordPress site may be scary at first especially for a new user who knows little to nothing about owning a site on WordPress.

However, this guide can be termed to be sufficient to equip you with the basic knowledge to get started and lead through.

Get the knowledge you need here and apply them simultaneously on your website.

What is SEO?

SEO is an associated word form for “Search Engine Optimization”. Essentially, it’s the technique of enhancing your website in an order that its visibility is heightened whilst Google, Bing, and other engines are linked to your business. You are much more likely to entice new and existing customers for your commercial enterprise if your pages appear better in search results.

This is an approach used by several customers to attract site visitors to their websites. Once you understand how SEO works, you should be capable of effectively using distinctive processes to increase your web page’s visibility or rating in the search end result.

SEO, in other phrases, is about creating an internet site with optimized code and safely formatting it, so it’s a lot easier to discover on the web. And while people look for your content on the web, it generates greater visibility and earns you more clicks.

Why is SEO important?

Search engines are taken into consideration to be the largest source of site visitors for most websites.

Statistically, it’s far established that customers are most likely to focus at the pinnacle of the search engine result pages. Therefore, you have only some seconds to electrify your audience and effectively optimize the rank of your website amongst all other websites.

These search engines like Google and Yahoo use superior algorithms to rank pages accurately within the search result. But, this isn’t always rocket science. You must continue to optimize your content to offer it a certain part in its optimization within the search result.

In sum, SEO is the bedrock for an integrated advertising and marketing atmosphere. Knowing your users’ preference permits you to use that knowledge in your internet site, campaigns (paid and natural), social media sites, and extra.

The Core Structure of WordPress Search Engine Optimization

Knowing the core structure for optimization of your content material on WordPress can also do wonders. Contrary to public opinion, you ain’t have to be a tech geek to effectively optimize a site on WordPress.

Mastering the fundamentals structure of this guide can provide you with important increase on your site visitors.

So stick ’round and observe the guide and apply appropriately on your site.

Take a look at your website’s health.

Site health is a feature on WordPress that permits customers to know how their website is doing. It consists of two elements; the Status page and the Info page. Here, to get into your page site health, you can navigate via Tools > Site Health in your WordPress backend. Plugin builders also can connect to the Site’s health page in addition to WordPress’s test.

You need to log into your account as an admin to attain access to this.

Status Page

This operates a performance and security analysis and gives you feedback as a notification on the health status of your website, and recommendations as well. These notifications are collapsible if disturbing or not required.

The circle that is a little bit coloured at the top of the page gives you an idea of how healthy your site is. If it’s red however, then there’s an issue.

Info Page

This section gives small but detailed information about the site’s performance. You can easily use this info to figure out what is wrong with the site whenever it is giving a sign or not functional, or you could easily copy and paste it to a web developer.

Review the site’s settings

Going over all sections within the website’s setting is completely worthwhile as a result of a number of these options will influence the SEO of your WordPress site.

WordPress offers users the choice to cover their websites from search engines. This offers you time to travel over your decision and properly publish this website after you, later on, decide to.

However, make sure that the website is visible to the general public once published. Sometimes, this selection could also be accidentally checked which removes your website from search engines.

Now what you have got to try to do is, log into the admin space of your account on WordPress, and visit the Settings > Reading page.

To make your website visible, you’ve got to confirm that the box “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is turned off or unchecked. 

Click on “Save Changes” to store your modification before exiting the page. 

You should additionally check your Writing > Reading choices and certify they’re set properly, as they verify your default choice and what seems on your homepage. 

Do not forget to supply a compelling tagline for your website in Settings > General.

Choose the proper permalink structures

The structure of your permalink incorporates a direct result on the SEO of your website. It dictates however your page would be formatted and also the URL would take further.

Some permalinks are termed Seo-friendly whereas others don’t seem to be.

Examples of SEO-friendly permalinks URLs are;

These URLs clearly outline itself. And it provides your website a lot of skilled and discoursed look.

Examples of SEO-friendly permalinks URLs are;

example.com/?p=123

http: //example.com/archives/123

These permalinks are okay but not exactly perfect and might negatively have an effect on users’ view of the quality and essentiality of your page.

Therefore, choosing the proper permalink structure is very important, deciding to alter it presently might cause some problems. This can be as a result of, on a well-known website, you risk losing all social media shares and SEO ratings by removal of the permalink structure.

You can visit the Settings page > Permalinks to decide on or amend your permalinks.

So, between plain, month and name, day and name, numeric, and customized structure, post name is more desirable. However, if you’re using other alternative choices for a substantial quantity of your time and have already gained a sufficient quantity of audience with that universal resource locator (URL), go along with it rather than changing it. 

If required, then you ought to interact with a  skilled personnel to change your permalink structure for lesser risks. Though you are still going to lose your social sharing counts on the pages.

Choosing between computer network vs non-WWW in URLs

As a brand new user, you’ve got to choose between inserting or excluding ‘www’ in your page universal resource locator. For instance, selecting between computer networks (http://www.wordpress.com) or non-www (http://wordpress.com) in your site’s universal resource locator.

To result in this selection, visit the Settings > General page. Your universal resource locator (URL) ought to be included in the ‘WordPress Address and Site Address’ fields.

From an SEO and technical perspective, there is very little distinction between using WWW or non-www. there’s no definite advantage of one over the opposite. Thus this is often left to the discretion of the user.

The Best WordPress SEO Plugin 

However, this part of the guide makes provision for comparison between many WordPress SEO Plugins that may work best for your website. 

A lot of articles online would offer various recommendations on SEO plugin tools or ‘the Best WordPress SEO plugin’. This could be quite overwhelming for brand new beginners or those who don’t seem to be tech-geeks.

Choosing the most effective WordPress SEO Plugins

When it involves selecting the most effective WordPress Plugin for your website, you’d most likely narrow it right down to the foremost popular; Yoast SEO or All in One SEO (AIOSEO).

However, in this guide, the main target would be through Yoast SEO, and also the following screenshots would be by it.

Yoast SEO could be the right WordPress Plugin with wonderful options to assist beginners or long-term users in optimizing their website’s rankings, keywords, and site’s content.

WordPress XML sitemap

Search engine improvement (SEO) is also improved by the usage of an XML sitemap. Although internal linking might not be good, it permits Google to grasp your website structure and acquire key pages of the internet site quickly.

XML Sitemaps are formatted data that list each page on your website in sequence. As a result, search engines are most likely to locate your material.

As you add or delete material, the sitemap index and individual sitemaps are straight off updated to replicate the changes. Additionally, they specify the post types that you need the search engines to add to their indexing algorithms. Sitemaps don’t recognize post types labeled as “no-index”.

Google Search Console – Add to your website

Google’s Search Console tool provides website owners with a wealth of data on their site’s performance, and it’s fully free.

Apart from showing how your website functions on the inside, it conjointly shows how searchers view it in the search results.

Learn how your cellular website operates inside the engines like Google and which key phrases and inquiries are optimizing traffic. And in addition, discover if Google does have access to the content on your page.

We are advancing to battle a handful of guides relating to joining the site and connecting it to Google’s Search console, but first, you should own an account first. Join now or log in to begin.

1. Input your details and log into the account

2. Then, click on ‘Add Property’ seen at the downward part of the page

You can even upload up to 1000 properties.

3. Input your website URL address to the appropriate field as seen. However, note that you have to input the correct address, exactly accurate. If unsure of your address, seeking the expertise of a host provider is more advisable in such instances.

Then ‘continue’.

4. Next, you would see an arrow beside the ‘html tag’, click on it. There are various ways to affirm ownership. Although in Yoast, the authentication code is just needed for verification, then it is affixed on Yoast search engine optimization.

5.The meta-information provided, make sure you copy it.

Point-out the tag code and copy it.

6. Next, you sign into your WordPress account, then Dashboard.

7.Then Menu > SEO> General > Webmaster Tools

8. The tag code which you copied should be pasted as a verification code in the highlighted box and store modification.

9. Finally, move to Google Search Console and ‘verify’.

Then Done. You have successfully associate your WordPress site to Google Search Console and can also submit sitemaps.

Optimize your blog posts for search engine optimization (SEO)

Don’t get mistaken. SEO is an ongoing process. Some individuals are of the thought that having a good SEO Plugin is all it takes. However, on the contrary, users ought to make the most of the options that come with blog posts for SEO. 

Majorly, most SEO Plugins go together with these options- SEO Title, Description, Targeted Keywords, Meta Description, Meta Keyword, Key phrases, and so on. 

All these listed may slightly differ based on the Plugin you’re operating. However, confirm, you are taking advantage of all of those options regardless.

A preview is additionally created for you to ascertain how your content would appear to a reader. 

We suggest that you just pay sufficient attention to the Title, Description, and Targeted/ Focus Keyword.

Keyword research is even recommended. This is very important. Your initiative as a new beginner is deciding what your users would search on and in what format.

For example, you’re sharing a post on connected health problems or optimizing a post per se and you use ‘Healthy Living’. This keyword is okay but general and would have a lot of competition. Due to this, you could rather use, ‘Drinking Problem’, ‘Sugar level’, ‘ Lice’, and so on. You’ve got to be specific here.

This is essential as a result of your want for individuals to use your website and want to attain a much better ranking on the net. You can even make use of long-tailed keywords though they’re less often searched and have less competition compared to shorter words. Therefore, you’ve got to work out an acceptable keyword for your content. 

There are numerous keyword analysis tools that will assist you to discover appropriate keywords and may even tell the keywords your competitors are running. We tend to suggest SEMrush; trustworthy and popularly utilized by users adept in SEO.

Practices for WordPress Users

These are some practices that you can use alongside the other alternative practices discussed. it would go a long way if controlled properly.

Consequently, it’s simple to grasp and apply.

Properly harness the effect of Categories and tags in WordPress   On WordPress, there are two ways in which contents are structured; categories and tags. Categories have a way of finding a niche for your content and exercises this in a hierarchical manner. For instance, an internet site regarding baking, ‘Dessert’, ‘Home-Cooked’, ‘Recipes’ may be used as categories.

Whereas, Tags are non-hierarchical and might be used to describe your content in additional detail. For instance, your tags may be ‘Low-calories’, ‘Wedding Theme Cake’, ‘Pie’, ‘Bread’.

Visit the admin page, and from Dashboard, then Post, and down to Categories or Tags.

Categories and Tags can be said to be useful tools for users because it creates an easier avenue for them. It conjointly aids search engines within the long haul.

Constantly interlink your content

As a beginner, you must cultivate the habit of linking your content with other varieties of posts on WordPress. Doing this would further drive traffic to your website,  increase users’ time on the page, and increase page view in the long term.

Google and other search engines award a score to every page on your website (page authority). Although, one can not accurately confirm the calculation of this score as a result of its unbroken secret. Consequently, people cannot manipulate the outcomes in any manner.

Nevertheless, links are by far the foremost signal givers.

Optimize WordPress Comments

The comments on your site are just like the defensive structure of your page. As a beginner, you would like to seek out some way to urge comments and additionally optimize them.

Akismet comes with each WordPress website. This assists in fighting or preventing spammed comments. you should make sure that the comments are spam-free as a result of the drawback of getting such in your comment field is that it repels your users and will additionally ruin your search ratings.

Improve the quality of your content 

The content you offer on your website gives your site an extended approach in driving traffic and improving SEO on your site. People look for engaging, straightforward, and content that will offer answers to their queries or problems. 

It all begins along with your distinctive thoughts or perspective on a particular issue while producing high-quality content for your WordPress web blog. 

In addition, it involves presenting these ideas in an approach that’s well-organized and simply intelligible. As a result of these efforts, you’ll be ready to attract the audience you seek and keep them interested.

Thereafter, you’ll improve the standard of your content on your website by;

• Making helpful analysis when necessary 
• Providing your users with outstanding content
• Individual posts and pages ought to be extremely optimized
• Assert internal control over the content
• Avoid accidental duplication of material or keyword pattern (similar or identical content or a similar keyword).
• Engage international audiences

These points are unambiguously created to assist beginners to assert enough management over the content expressed. And bear in mind your content must talk to the reader instead of being talked at. In addition, your content must be clear, applicable, problem-solving, and accessible furthermore. 

Keeping these facts in mind, you’d be assuredly distinct in your content.

Speed and Security for WordPress SEO

After taking you through the core structure, best plugins, and best practices, all of which might mean nothing if the protection of your website is poor, or the speed is slow, or your website gets hacked.

These tips would, sure enough, guide you as a beginner in securing your website. 

Accelerate and improve the overall performance of your website

Search engines rank a faster website performance. And apart from that, a slow website would do very little to nothing when attempting to attract or interact with your users. 

You can manually improve the general performance of your website by optimizing your image (oversized pictures could cause slowness of the site), update plugins, shut down databases, modify GZIP Compression, decrease CSS, hypertext markup language & JS files, modify caching, and a bunch of others. 

You can conjointly reach a far better and quicker website with the utilization of SiteGround or Bluehost.

Security and safety for WordPress SEO 

After making your website on WordPress, as a beginner, you must note that it’s necessary for you to secure your website against malware and hackers. Google blacklists about 20,000 sites a day for malware problems and about 50,000 for phishing. 

The security and safety of your {site|website|web website} are terribly important! All effort on your site would be null if it’s blacklisted or hacked at the end. 

For starters, you’ll attempt installing an SSL(Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate on your website. This changes the http: to https, where ‘S’ stands for secure. A padlock image seems within the browser’s address bar to suggest that an internet site is SSL-secured.

If it doesn’t work out, go online to the admin page >  General Settings, and alter the site and home address from http: to https: 

Or, you can get a plugin that may help secure your website safely.

Follow these steps to upgrade to unlimited website license:

1. Login to your account on the website with the username and password used during purchase and registration.
2. Once you are logged in, click on your profile to go to the”My Account” page.
3. Now Click on View Licenses as shown in the image below

4. Click on View Upgrades 

5. Click on Upgrade License

6. Now you will be redirected to make a payment.

7. Your theme is now upgraded to unlimited site license. Cheers!

WPBakery Page Builder for WordPress, formerly Visual Composer, is an easy-to-use drag-and-drop page builder that will help you create any layout you desire quickly and easily.

 Yellow Pencil

Yellow Pencil is a WordPress editor plugin in a WordPress CSS style which lets you customize any theme in a quick way by using its real-time editor feature

 Scraper

Ever dreamed of having a robot that could blog for you at any time of the day or night? Well, Scraper has heard your prayers. The plugin automatically copies content from any area of the web you choose straight to your WordPress website, in effect creating a system of auto-blogging for you.

WPreset

WordPress Development Tool for Non-Devs

Speed up plugin & theme testing, debugging & coding by controlling, resetting & restoring the WordPress environment in one click.

WPreset is a tool that will help the developers to save their time. You can use this tool to develop, debug and maintain a number of WordPress themes and plugins

Important features of this tool:

• instantly Boost Meaningful Traffic
• Post-Reset Setup
• WP-CLI Compatible
• Database Snapshots
• Database Diff Viewer
• Selective Reset Tools

Coming soon and maintenance mode

Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode Pages for WordPress – done in under a minute!

Forget about complicated plugins that’ll waste hours of your time. We know you’re busy & need fast results! Coming Soon is extremely easy to use, has only the features you need and comes with themes that fit your business.

Under Construction Page

Build Better Under Construction Pages in Minutes. Not Hours!

Create pixel-perfect coming soon, under construction, sales or landing pages with zero effort & maximum results.

Hide My WP

This is a plugin that will let you hide the truth that you are using WordPressCMS. This will help a lot to prevent hackers and other attacks that usually target WordPress sites.

WP 301 Redirects

Instantly Fix 2 Most Overlooked SEO Issues: Redirections & 404 Errors

Old content, old links, bad links & typos in URLs lead to huge loss of traffic, users & conversions. WP 301 Redirects will solve all those problems for you.

Interactive World Maps

The interactive world map is a plugin that helps you to integrate your content with the location.  Interactive World Maps allows you to select the map of your desired location like a city, country, or of the entire world. You can embed this map on the post, page, or on the sidebar.

 Maintenance PRO

Maintenance PRO  is the advanced and upgraded version of the free and popular free maintenance plugin

 Super Store Finder for WordPress

Super Store Finder for WordPress is an awesome plugin for the business that helps website visitors and potential customer find the stores easily and quickly

Reactive search PRO

Reactive Search Pro is an Advanced WordPress Search Filter Map & Grid. It is an advanced search, filter, and gird plugin that will make searching easy for your customers.

Advanced iframe Pro

Advanced iframe Pro helps you include content in an iframe the way like. You can directly embed the content or show only a part of an iframe.

Blog Designer PRO for WordPress

Blog designer pro is a WordPress plugin makes it easier to beautify your blog pages on your website. This plugin helps you to attract more visitors, more leads and more customers.

Cornerstone

Cornerstone is a front-page WordPress page builder that allows you to see the changes you make to your site in real-time as you build it. This plugin has a huge library of readymade and customizable elements. It is compatible with any WordPress theme.

Awesome Header

This plugin will help you create sticky navigation by replacing your default WordPress header entirely. With this plugin, you can have different layers of navigation and unlimited color choice.