Just like the lion’s share of websites, yours is powered by WordPress, isn’t it? I don’t blame you. After all, WordPress is a robust website management platform that even the most seasoned web developers see as reliable and exceptional.
The caveat, however, is when it comes to ecommerce and all its encompassing functionalities and requirements, WordPress alone would be lacking.
Out of the box, WordPress is a blogging platform and is perfect for publishing articles and other forms of content. By itself, it lacks the functionalities that are necessary to run an ecommerce business – for example, functionalities for shipping, checkout, product listings, customer relationship management, coupons, etc.
If you use a leading ecommerce plugin like Ninja Shop, WP EasyCart, BigCommerce, Cart66, Ecwid, WooCommerce or WP eCommerce, then you should have pretty much all of these baseline functionalities covered. But what about the rest? Meaning, what are the best ways to manage your site’s SEO, security, conversion optimization, audience retargeting and beyond?
The good news is, with the plethora of plugins that you can install in WordPress, you can easily transform your out-of-the-box WordPress website, into a mindblowing ecommerce website.
If you want to take your WordPress website to the next level by adding advanced ecommerce capabilities to it, then we will share with you several ecommerce plugins for WordPress that you should absolutely install.
Let’s get to it.
Despite the straightforward function that the Simple Giveaways plugin offers, it can do wonders for your ecommerce business.
According to the principle of reciprocity, as humans, we feel obligated to pay back others for what they do for us. If someone does you a favor, you’ll want to do him or her a favor, too. When we offer giveaways, we build the right kind of connection with our audience — a positive one — a favor.
And since they will want to do the same for you, they’ll be more likely to buy your products as an act of paying you back. The best part is, you don’t always need to spend for your giveaways. You can give people a digital product like an ebook, and as long as if they see value in it, your audience will be happy with it.
The Simple Giveaways plugin has several functionalities that can help you host and manage your giveaways better:
1. You can set up how you want prize winners to be selected.
2. You can choose the winner announcement date and time.
3. You can have more than one giveaway type.
With this plugin, it’ll be easier for you to engage your would-be customers and build relationships with them. This, in turn, can lead you to more sales.
2. Carts Guru
Retargeting is the name of the game when you use plugins like Carts Guru.
While there are several ways you can use Carts Guru, their primary function or goal as a company is to convert more abandoned carts into sales through retargeting.
Carts Guru is an all-in-one retargeting solution that ecommerce entrepreneurs can use to target their abandoned carts through email, text messages, Facebook Messenger chat or Facebook ads.
The platform also offers smart product recommendations, relevant and timely pop-ups, and automatic discount management. You can even track the results of your retargeting campaigns in real time.
With the help of plugins like Carts Guru, multi-channel retargeting becomes insanely easy for ecommerce store owners.
Regardless of the type of WordPress site that you’re running, you are bound to have broken links. It can happen in a lot of ways, especially in ecommerce.
You could have missed a single letter when you copied the page URL. You could have deleted the page you created, for whatever reason, despite having already built bajillions of links to it. Or your assistant could have mistakenly created a duplicate page which you then deleted. And the list goes on.
If you aren’t careful with these broken links, not only will you miss out on the immediate sale you otherwise would have closed had you routed your audience to an actual product page, but broken links can also hurt your website rankings in the SERPs.
Installing the Broken Link Checker WordPress plugin makes it dead easy for you to uncover, manage, and address your broken links.
You can set up the plugin to send you an email immediately every time it discovers newly broken links. The platform can also suggest alternatives to broken links. Perhaps most importantly, it can help you generate sales by pointing your customers to relevant pages instead of your 404s.
4. Proof
If you want to increase your ecommerce sales, then you need to add the element of social proof into your WordPress store. Social proof works because it puts your audience members’ minds at ease, so they can do business with you without hesitating.
Proof shows a popup on your site visitors’ screens showing that a recent purchase has been made by a person. This tells your audience that they’re on the right track by wanting to buy your product.
The purchase that the other person made validates your would-be customers’ decision that buying your product is the right way to go.
Brute force attacks, SEO spam, malware… These are just some of the many cyber attacks that ecommerce entrepreneurs are at risk of facing. And because running an ecommerce store deals with money and payments, cybercriminals have an added motivation to target them over basic blog sites.
It’s precisely because of this danger that WordPress ecommerce store owners should install plugins that can protect them against cybercriminals.
Wordfence is one such plugin. It helps ecommerce store owners with protecting their websites through:
1. Integrated malware scanner blocks
2. Tracking and alerts regarding important security events
3. Real-time IP blacklist blocks
4. Protection from brute force attacks
5. Ensuring your IP or domain hasn’t been blacklisted for malicious activity
Wordfence offers a comprehensive layer of security for WordPress website owners. While no one can claim that they categorically prevent websites from falling prey to cyber attacks, Wordfence does it well.
What’s Next?
Nothing easy is worth conquering. The same can be said for ecommerce. To run a successful WordPress ecommerce store, there are a lot of challenges and hiccups that you need to face.
The good news is, there are plugins that you can use to make your website more suitable for ecommerce. With the help of these plugins, you’ll be able to manage your ecommerce business more smoothly.