creating a search engine

I'm wondering with all the experts out there,if soemone could help me with a search engine inquiry
I have a website https://kosherorganics2you.com/.I was using a serch engine from amazon canada for kosher,organics.Amazon has closed my account.
Would there be a general search engine for Canada for kosher,organics ?How would I create it?Would I be able to monetize this search engine with different affiliate connections, and all on the fly?

Tried and Tested Tips on How to Negotiate a $3K-$5K Client Into a $20K-$30K One

Want to turn a $3K-$5K client into a $20K-$30K one? Luckily, as a WordPress developer, you can do so relatively easily. It’s about your approach, communication, and what to offer. This article covers some tips on negotiating a higher price for your services.

We’ll cover how to ensure you get paid what you are worth when negotiating a price or pursuing a potential project.

And by the end of this article, you’ll be able to see how to negotiate a low-paying project or client into – cha-ching! – $20K-$30K!

I can’t even imagine quoting $5-8k on a job. Those kinds of numbers really flares up the imposter syndrome in me something fierce.

Lawrence – WPMU DEV Member

Hopefully, this quick article will help any WordPress developer realize it IS possible to earn more (and eliminate any imposter syndrome). All the tips are tried and tested – based on common industry practices you can implement.

We’ll be going over:

So, let’s begin!

Demonstrating Your Value From the Start

When you start working on a project with a new client, one way to eventually get to a much bigger payday is to actually offer a discount from the beginning.

You can make it clear that the rate you’re charging is discounted or an introductory rate. This ensures that they’ll know what they’re paying from the start is cheaper than usual, and you can raise the fees accordingly.

Show your value and what a deal they’re getting off the start. Also, make it clear that it WILL go up.

An example of this might be a simple web design for $3K with maintenance for three months. When they want to improve upon the design and want continued maintenance, charge accordingly (e.g. $10K and up) for design and maintenance.

Over time, with continued maintenance, this can easily exceed over $30K (and much more) instead of just a one-off simple web design.

Additionally, when you invoice, be sure to indicate what the normal fee is. That way, when the introductory period is over, there’s no sticker shock.

This offers the basis for negotiation on new work and flips the dynamic. Plus, since you started working with the client, there’s now a relationship. They’ll be less hesitant to pay more to someone they trust and work they like, and most importantly, understand the higher costs.

Thinking Long-Term

As just noted above, in demonstrating your value, you need to think long-term with your clients. Small, simple, and low-cost projects can eventually become major ones. Try not to look at a client as a one-off situation.

You can offer monthly maintenance packages after creating their WordPress site. Or, make suggestions to their current website that adds value for them (and ultimately for you, too).

Add-ons and additions to what they initially contacted for you is the point. Luckily, in WordPress, there are tons of opportunities. There aren’t many other jobs out there that have the road map to include more add-ons than web development.

Be sure to read our article about boosting your web development business with add-on services to get detailed information on including these in your workflow.

Making Sure They Know Your Worth

One way to get a client that originally wanted to pay $3K for a web design to pay $30K is to let them know your worth. Premium design deserves premium rates. Show them why you’re entitled to the costs.

It’s up to you to be clear on how these rates help the client compared to a cheap developer they’ll find on Fiverr for a fraction of the price.

Maybe it’s your experience – or your amazing web design skills. Whatever the case, demonstrate why your asking price is justified and even if it’s a stretch of the budget, serious clients will pay what you are worth.

A few ways to demonstrate value are with a good portfolio, reviews, or testimonials. Also, you can mention what the market is like, and the hours it will take to complete. Be sure to make it clear why you’re worth $150 an hour – or whatever premium rate you have set.

Giving Your Price First

Research shows that the final price is typically closer to the original price than the second. So, though you might want the project and feel like setting lower costs might get a client to work with you, often it’s not going to benefit you in the long run.

They can always come back with a counter offer, but ensure you don’t dip too low beyond what is acceptable on your terms.

All of this can come after an initial lower offer to get started (like we touched on earlier). In general, this puts the ball in your court and lets your client know whether they can work with your budget.

In a nutshell, it’s your move first to name the price – before the potential client. This leads to your asking price becoming more attainable at the end of the day.

Why Experience Matters

When it comes to reviews, testimonials, etc, obviously you’ll need some experience first before those roll in. It may take a while to build some credibility, but it has a snowball effect once you do. You can charge more and more for your services and justify every single penny.

And as you become more experienced, be sure to promote this. Let the client know of the benefits of your years of experience and how it works in their favor.

After all, experienced professionals get paid more – whether that be employment or on their own. Experience typically leads to a bigger paycheck.

Letting a client know about your experience is another way to get them to pay more and gives you leverage on why you charge what you do.

Defending Your Price with Facts to Back Them Up

Clients want to know what they’re paying for and why it costs what it does, so back all costs up with facts.

You can include competitive rates from top-notch agencies, market rates, other negotiations with other clients, ROI based on your web design, testimonials (like we just mentioned) – anything that you can show as proof your services are worth what they are.

This will help justify paying more for any project and help put any client at ease knowing their money is going to good use.

Factors to Keep in Mind When Negotiating a Price

Now that we have some essentials to negotiating a higher rate, here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind.

  • Show them the estimate with an hourly rate when you give them the price.
  • If they push back, say the estimate is right.
  • Explain the reason for your rate (e.g. $150 an hour is the standard rate for a developer with this experience level).
  • Budget check: Do they have $75K-$100K for major web development? Check this earlier than later to ensure they have the budget.
  • Understand what is negotiable and what is not.
  • Remember that it’s not all about negotiation. It’s about finding a win-win for both parties.
  • Be sure to include payment terms. A good example is 40% up front, then 20% as time goes on.

With ways to make money in the WordPress industry, negotiating a substantial rate is easier than you think when you keep these factors in mind.

The Easy Way to $30K

money images.
It’s not as hard as it seems to get to $30K quickly and easily.

As you can see, just a few approaches with your messaging, services, and negotiations can turn a $3K client into a $30K one. Even with little experience, you can get there relatively quickly by collecting testimonials, building your portfolio, and showing proof that you’re worth the costs.

For more, read our How To Offer Website Care & Maintenance Services To Your Web Development Clients article to build your web development business and increase your earnings.

With all of this in mind, getting paid $30K is just steps away.

Microservices Discovery With Eureka

Gaining complexity in a microservices system certainly isn't for the faint of heart (though neither is complexity in monoliths!). When there are many services that need to communicate with one another, we might need to coordinate multiple services communicating with multiple other services. We also might code for varying environments such as local, development server, or the cloud.

How do services know where to find one another? How can we avoid problems when a service is unavailable? How do we handle requests when we scale up or down certain parts of our system?

How to Create a Real-Time Scalable Streaming App Using Apache NiFi, Apache Pulsar, and Apache Flink SQL

Building streaming applications can be a difficult task — often, just figuring out how to get started can be overwhelming. In this article, we'll cover how and when to use NiFi with Pulsar and Flink and how to get started. Apache NiFi, Apache Pulsar, and Apache Flink are robust, powerful open-source platforms that enable running any size application at any scale. This enables us to take our quickly developed prototype and deploy it as an unbreakable clustered application ready for internet-scale production workloads of any size.

Using a drag-and-drop tool can help reduce that difficulty and allow us to get the data flowing. By utilizing Apache NiFi, we can quickly go from ideation to data streaming as live events in our Pulsar topics. Once we have a stream, building applications via SQL becomes a much more straightforward premise. The ability to rapidly prototype, iterate, test, and repeat are critical in modern cloud applications.

How to Create an Etsy-Like Store with WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to build an Etsy-like store with WordPress?

Etsy is an online marketplace for creative folks who want to sell handmade goods, artwork, and other unique items. However, Etsy can be a bit limited in terms of what you can do with your store.

In this article, we will show you how to create an Etsy-like store with WordPress, and how to properly move an existing Etsy store to WordPress.

Making an Etsy like store with WordPress

Etsy vs WordPress – Which one is better?

Etsy is an online marketplace for creative folks. Usually, people use Etsy to sell handicrafts, custom designs, jewelry, clothing, and more. It has become a niche marketplace for such unique items.

Etsy website

However, as an eCommerce platform, Etsy is quite limited in terms of functionality. Plus, it also takes a significant portion of your earnings which reduces the profitability and long-term growth of your business.

On the other hand, WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder. It allows you to create almost any kind of website imaginable, including full-fledged eCommerce stores.

Using WooCommerce on your WordPress website you can sell anything online including handicrafts and other unique handmade items.

You can sell physical goods (that need shipping), as well as digital downloads (spreadsheets, software, music, worksheets, online courses, and memberships).

More importantly, WordPress doesn’t charge you a listing fee or a transaction fee on each item you sell.

Note that there are two different types of WordPress platforms.

WordPress.com which is a hosted platform and WordPress.org which is also called self-hosted WordPress. See the difference in our WordPress.com vs WordPress.org comparison.

Throughout this article, when we say WordPress, we are talking about the more popular, self-hosted WordPress.org platform. We recommend using WordPress.org because it gives you access to all WordPress features out of the box.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily create an Etsy-like store in WordPress. Here is a quick overview of the topics we’ll cover in this article.

Etsy and WordPress both enable you to sell products online but which one you should choose? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of both platforms.

Pros and Cons of Setting up an Etsy Shop

Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of using Etsy to sell your products online.

Pros of Using Etsy

  • Ease of Use – Setting up an Etsy store is very easy and does not require any technical skills. Simply upload your product listings, add your payment information, and you are good to go.
  • Targeted Audience – Etsy has a large customer base of users interested in unique handmade products, gift items, artistic and creative products, and more. Opening up a shop on Etsy gives you access to a marketplace with interested buyers.
  • Security and Trust – Etsy takes care of payments and ensures product delivery. This has helped them build trust among both buyers and sellers.

Cons of Using Etsy

  • Higher Fees – Etsy charges $0.20 per listing (renews every four months) and a 6.5% transaction fee on the sale price (not including shipping costs). If you are using PayPal, then there is also a payment processing fee.
  • Lack of Control – You have no control over the platform, and how your products are featured. Etsy can remove a seller if they feel that the seller’s products don’t meet their policies or the seller fails to satisfy a customer.
  • Limited Growth Options – As your business grows, you will be paying a lot more to Etsy with limited options to grow your own brand and business.

Pros and Cons of Using WordPress

WordPress is the best platform to build any kind of website. However, it has its own pros and cons that you would want to consider.

Pros of Using WordPress

  • Complete Control – You have complete ownership and full control of your website.
  • Unlimited Features – You can add any feature to your website by installing extensions. There are more than 55,000 free WordPress plugins that you can install.
  • Unlimited Listings – You can add as many items to your shop as you want. There are no listing fees because you own and manage the platform yourself.
  • Low Costs – There is no commission and no transaction fee on each sale. You will only pay a small fee to your payment gateway.

Cons of Using WordPress

  • Website Management – You are responsible for managing updates and making backups. There are plugins that help you automate those tasks.
  • Learning Curve – WordPress is fairly easy to use. However, from time to time you may need some help. There are plenty of WordPress resources to help you out.

To learn more about WordPress, see our complete WordPress review with detailed pros and cons of the platform.

That being said let’s take a look at how to create an Etsy-like store with WordPress.

Requirements for Creating an Etsy-like Store with WordPress?

You’ll need the following things to build your own Etsy-like store with WordPress.

  1. A domain name (This will be your shop’s address on the internet i.e wpbeginner.com)
  2. A website hosting account (This will be the shop’s home and where all your files will be stored)
  3. SSL Certificate (You need this to accept payments)
  4. Your undivided attention for 30 minutes.

Ready? let’s get started.

Getting Started with Your Etsy-Like Shop in WordPress

Normally, a domain name will cost you $14.99 per year, website hosting $7.99 per month, and an SSL certificate around $69.99 per year.

This is a lot of money if you are just getting started.

Thankfully, the folks at Bluehost have agreed to offer WPBeginner users a free domain name + free SSL certificate, and a 60% discount on hosting.

They are also an officially recommended WordPress and WooCommerce hosting provider, and one of the largest hosting companies in the world.

Basically, you can get started for $2.75 / month.

Let’s go ahead and purchase your domain + hosting + SSL.

First, you need to visit the Bluehost website and click on the green ‘Get Started Now’ button.

Getting started with personal website on Bluehost

On the next screen, select the plan that you need (basic and plus plans are the most popular among WPBeginner users).

After that, you will be asked to enter the domain name for your website.

choose domain name

Need help choosing a domain name? See our beginner’s guide on how to choose the perfect domain name for your website.

Lastly, you will need to add account information and finalize the package info to complete the process.

On this screen, you will see optional extras that you can purchase.

We don’t recommend purchasing these items because they will increase your hosting bill. You can always add them later if you think these are needed.

Finalize package

You can now go ahead and enter your payment information to complete the purchase.

After that, you will receive an email with instructions to log into your hosting control panel.

Bluehost will automatically install WordPress for you, and you will be able to log in to your WordPress site directly from the hosting dashboard.

Bluehost hosting dashboard

Once logged in, you will see the WordPress admin area. This is where you will manage your online shop, change settings, and add new items.

Installing WooCommerce on Your Website

Now that you have purchased hosting and installed WordPress, the next step is to turn your website into an online store like Etsy.

To do this, you need to install and activate the WooCommerce plugin on your website. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, click on ‘Run the setup wizard’ button to quickly set up your WooCommerce store.

WooComerce setup wizard

The setup wizard will guide you through the basic setup.

During step 4, you need to switch to the ‘Free features’ tab and uncheck ‘Add recommended business features to my site’ feature.

Exclude free features

This option installs additional plugins. You can always install these plugins later if needed.

Click on the continue button to select a theme and then finish the setup. Don’t worry, we’ll talk more about theme and store design options later in this article.

Adding Items to Sell in WooCommerce

After setting up WooCommerce, let’s add a few items to sell on your online store.

Simply go to Products » Add New page to add your first item.

Add new product

First, provide a title for your product and then a detailed description.

On the right-hand column, you can add product categories, tags, and images.

Product options

Below the description area, you will see the ‘Product Data’ box.

From here you can set product price, inventory, shipping, and other attributes.

Product data

Once you are satisfied with all the product information you have added, you can click on the ‘Publish’ button to make it live on your website.

Repeat the process to add more products as needed.

Importing an existing Etsy Store to WordPress

Do you already have an Etsy store that you want to move to WordPress? In this section, we will show you how to easily import your Etsy shop to WordPress.

First, you need to do is install and activate the Easy Esty Importer plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘Etsy Importer’ to your WordPress admin sidebar. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s settings page.

Etsy importer

You will be asked to provide your license key. You can find this information under your account on the plugin’s website.

After activation, the settings page will ask you to provide the following information.

  • Etsy API Key
  • Etsy Secret Key
  • Your Etsy Shop Name
Etsy API Key

To get these API keys, you need to visit the Etsy Developers ‘Apps You’ve Made‘ website.

Once there, click on the ‘Create a new app’ link.

Create Etsy app

This will bring you to a new page where you will be asked to provide a name for your app.

You need to select that you are creating the app for yourself, and it will not be used for commercial purposes.

App details

After that, click on ‘Read terms and create app’ button.

You will now see your app information page. From here you need to copy the ‘Keystring’ and ‘Shared Secret’ keys.

Copy Etsy API keys

Now, switch back to the Easy Etsy Importer plugin’s settings page. After entering your API keys, click on the ‘Save & Verify’ button to continue.

This will take you to the Etsy website where you will be asked to allow access to the app. Click on the ‘Allow’ button to continue.

Allow connection

The plugin will now try to connect to your Etsy shop.

Once connected, it will show a success message.

Next, you need to switch to the settings tab.

The default settings will work for most websites, but you can still review and change them as needed.

Importer settings

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

Now you can move to the ‘Import’ tab. The plugin provides you options to selectively import items or import all listings.

The default settings will work for most websites, so you can just go ahead and click on the ‘Import’ button.

Start import

The plugin will now start importing your Etsy listings to WooCommerce. Once finished, you will see a success message, and you will be able to see the imported products under Products » All Products page.

Next, you can switch to the reviews tab to import your Etsy reviews to WooCommerce.

Import reviews

Congratulations, you have successfully imported your Etsy store listings to your WooCommerce website.

Choosing an Etsy-like WordPress Theme for Your Store

WordPress gives you access to thousands of free and paid website designs that you can use. These designs are called WordPress themes.

WordPress themes

Each WordPress theme contains various template files to give your website a beautiful design.

You don’t need any coding or programming skills to use a theme, and each of them comes with different options that you can use to customize the design to your liking.

Due to such a large variety of WordPress themes available, often users feel overwhelmed by the choices. To make it easier, we have hand-picked the best WooCommerce WordPress themes that you can use on your website.

The list contains both free and paid WordPress themes and all of them are mobile-ready.

You may not find a theme that looks exactly like the Etsy website. However you can find a theme with the same design qualities and then use the theme’s settings to make it look more similar.

Need more help? See our beginner’s guide on how to choose the perfect WordPress theme for your website.

If you want to create a custom WordPress theme with drag & drop builder, then we recommend using the SeedProd plugin. We also have a detailed tutorial on how to create a custom WordPress theme with no code.

Extending Your Store with WordPress Plugins

Unlike Etsy, you have full control of your WordPress store. You can modify it in any way you want with the help of thousands of WordPress plugins.

Plugins are like apps for your WordPress website. You can install them to add new features to your website like contact forms, Google Analytics, and more.

With more than 55,000 plugins, you can easily find a plugin for almost anything.

Here are some of the plugins that we use on all our websites.

There are also tons of plugins made specifically for WooCommerce. See our list of the best free WooCommerce plugins. You can also use drag & drop page builder plugins to further customize your website’s look and feel.

Mastering WordPress Skills

Now that you have a WordPress powered online store, you may want to expand your website by adding new features and growing your business.

WPBeginner is the largest free WordPress resource site in the world. We have tons of articles, videos, and step by step tutorials to help you take your website to the next level.

Here are some of the handy resources you will find on WPBeginner, all of them are completely free.

  • WPBeginner Blog – This is where we publish our WordPress tutorials, how-tos, and step by step guides.
  • WPBeginner Videos – These step-by-step videos will help you learn WordPress FAST.
  • WPBeginner on YouTube – Need more video instructions? Subscribe to our YouTube channel with more than 283,000 subscribers and 40 Million+ views.
  • WPBeginner Engage – Our Facebook community with more than 90,000 users. Helps you quickly ask questions and get help from users like yourself.
  • WPBeginner Glossary – The best place for beginners to start and familiarize themselves with the WordPress terms and lingo.
  • WPBeginner Deals – Exclusive discounts on WordPress products and services for WPBeginner users.

You can also use Google to find tutorials on WPBeginner. Simply add ‘wpbeginner’ next to your search term, and you will find answers to all your WordPress questions.

We hope this article helped you move away from Etsy and create an Etsy-like store with WordPress. You may also want to checkout our list of the must have WordPress plugins for business websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create an Etsy-Like Store with WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.